Coming to you from a different location today

Saturday was our stitching meet up at the Nimble Thimble.

A group of us meet up twice a year, April and October, for a day of stitching, stashing and eating.

For the last few years I've made a weekend of it and stayed over, I stayed at Everglades once before, It's run by a lovely couple who extended their bungalow to have separate accommodation for visitors, they also have a chalet in the garden, and this is where I stayed this time.

I'm going back home in the morning, it's been lovely to get away and enjoy some uninterrupted stitching and knitting time.

I made a new stitching start while we were there yesterday, Suzannah by Carriage House Samplings, this was the chart I mentioned in a previous post that I was waiting for fabric to start.

This is how much I got done yesterday, It doesn't really look a lot does it?  Funny how when you look at a chart you can underestimate how much actual time it will take to stitch, lol

I have done a little more this afternoon and made a start on her hair.

I didn't venture into the shop until after lunch and I was very careful about what I bought.

Having had a clear out recently I'm determined to get through some of the charts I've had for a while and not add to my stash buying charts that will sit there for years.

My bargain buy was this complete set of all 12 months of the Calendar Girls series.

I paid £28 for the set, which works out to just over £2.30 per chart!

They are something that I've been wanting to stitch so I was very happy with that :-)

Two other charts, Robin's Song is so pretty, Ursh was stitching this at the meet up and I think I managed to nab the last chart!

Two sleds.

There were only 4 sleds on sale and Tina bought the other 2

  

The Morning Star Santa (chart above) will go on one sled, Tina bought the Snowman chart and we are going to do a chart swap

I also bought 2 small pieces of fabric (which are not photographing very well so I gave up).

I was watching an episode of Crafternoon Treats podcast the other week and she was showing her April Sock Club yarn.  The club had already been posted and received by those who signed up so it was not a spoiler but when I saw the colourway and she said there was some left in her etsy shop I had to stop watching and go over and order some!

The inspiration behind the dying was those little Cadbury mini eggs.

(image from Google)

She did a great job I think :-)

I wanted to have another attempt at socks and thought that If I chose a yarn that I really really loved I would be more inclined to want to see it to the end, lol

 Is't the yarn pretty knit up? I love it! and it's so nice to knit with, not at all like the commercial sock yarns I've tried with in the past. 

Ok, that's it for now, i'm off to enjoy a bit more stitching time while the light is still on my side, later I will do a few more rounds on my sock.

I hope you have all had a good weekend and hope you have a great week :-)

See you next week 

(when I will again be in a different location!)

-X-

A new stitching start at the meet up

We had a great time at the Nimble Thimble meet up on Saturday, it was nice to catch up with everyone and I managed a fair bit of stitching .too.

I stitched Oliver and Bonnie a birth sampler for their first Christmas and Arthur will be getting the same too.  I'm a bit late starting this one but I know that it's a straight forward one to stitch so I'm confident It will be all stitched and framed well before Christmas.

I put the first stitches in on the Friday night sitting while sitting in my little hotel room.

I'm really happy with my progress, I haven't really had a lot of stitching time recently so it was nice to get stuck into a project without and interruptions.

As I mentioned last time, I stayed at Ye Olde Boot in Whittington, which is just a few miles outside Oswestry town.  Friday was a horrible wet miserable day but I did stop off in Oswestry and have a wonder round  and the rain kept off until I got back to the car, which was good.

While I was there I picked up a few things to decorate for Christmas which I will show you once they come out again when I decorate.  I also bought  quite a few charts from Chris at the Nimble Thimble, again, I will show you another time as I haven't had time today to sort them out and take photos.

I have finished a few of the twelve (!!!) things I had on the go, I showed you two on the last post so this is the third of those.

When we went to Yarndale in September I also made Bonnie this little poncho.  This wasn't a WIP counted in those twelve, this is a bonus finish, lol

My aim is to start 2019 with fewer things stuck in bags so I will have to try and keep focused now.

I do have another couple finished up and I will sneak those into future posts.

For now I'll finish with a few photos of Whittington Castle which sits on the opposite side of the road to the hotel where I stayed at the weekend.  On Saturday morning it was only 3deg but the sun was lovely, a perfect Winter morning :-)

That white building you see is where I was staying

See you soon

-X--

Nimble Thimble stitching meet-up

It's that time of year again when a few of us get together at the Nimble Thimble for a day of stitching, chatting and to enjoy the lovely food that Chris puts on for us, in fact I think it's fair to say that we all look forward to the buffet just as much as the day's stitching and stashing.

Although the Nimble Thimble is only about an hour away I decided to make a weekend of it this time and booked into a lovely little B&B 20 minutes away in Oswestry on the Friday afternoon.

This place looked good on line, but it was such a treat I've already decided that if I stay over again this is where I will stay.

My room for the weekend

And once I'd got my bags in I was bought a lovely cuppa and a home made ginger biscuit.

The fridge had complementary treats

And breakfast was bought to my room by way of a hamper.

This was such a lovely treat! I was even bought a pot of tea as well.  Just look at all the goodies,

the granola was homemade and was delicious.

So after my lovely breakfast I set off for the Nimble Thimble, the scenery in this part of the country is lovely and I have to make frequent stops just to enjoy it, even in the rain it is stunning, and although the day started and ended rather wet, in between we did have some lovely sunshine.

Here we are in the studio above the shop, looking very intent on stitching

There is Hazel (of the blog Quietly Stitching)  sitting at the back sitting on the left concentrating on her work

And Michelle, AKA Mouse, (tales of a stitching mouse blog), on the right, showing us her birthday quilt which some bloggers kindly stitched her some pieces for.

Pat (no blog) is on the left, she was trying to hide behind the quilt, I think they are laughing because I said something like "Pat come out from behind the quilt!"

As I said, Chris, (the shop owner) always puts on some lovely food for us, and this time was just as good.

We finish the afternoon off with more cake which we are usually too full to eat so we take it home to enjoy later.

In between stitching, chatting and eating we all visited the shop downstairs to put by our purchases to pay for later, I was very good and only bought 3 charts :-)  

To be honest I didn't intend to buy any because I haven't stitched the ones I bought on our last trip in November, but when you are in the shop it is very hard not to give in to temptation!  

After a lovely day that went by far too quickly we all set off on our various journeys home, or in my case to my little B&B, because my weekend treat wasn't over just yet.

When I got back Jo, (the B&B owner) had been in and left me a little cupcake, how sweet and such a surprise :-)

The little mat under the plate is what I made up on the Friday night.

I've wanted to make a Mandala for a while and I saw this little booklet on Amazon last week

I used Rico cotton and chose one of the easier patterns and I'm really pleased with how it came out for a first attempt.

Next time I'll show you what new charts I bought and what I did on my Sunday travels.

Until then

-X-