Catching Up & Finishing

My week off was over all too soon and 7am Tuesday morning rolled around too quickly for my liking, it's sods law that the week i had off the weather was pretty rotten the whole, and this week we have glorious sunshine! We had our day in Bath as planned non the less and apart from a couple of quite heavy (but short) downpours the day turned out not too bad. As none of us had been before we did all the touristy things, the Jane Austin Centre, the Roman Baths, Pulteny Bridge, Royal Crescent (the setting for Jane Austins Persuasion if i my mind serves me right) and Sally Lunns tea shop, where i sampled a Bath Bun (the girls opted for cake). We had gone there for their Cornish Cream Tea but there were no scones left!! can you believe that?? our faces must have been a picture because we had been anticipating this cream tea all day! Apart from that we had a fantastic time, it's a great place and we will defiantly go again perhaps to do a tour of all the wonderful shops.
All the links above should be clickable, do go and have a nosey around there are some

great web sites.

Here's a little collage of our visit.

See Joanne top right? that's her, large as life and twice as loud, lol. They both tried the hats on in the Jane Austin Centre, somehow i don't think they fit the image of Lady's who lunch, lol.
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I managed to get quite a bit of stitching done while i was at home, i started and finished the design of Primitive Bettys.

Olde Pewter Letters

Stitched on 28ct with DMC 169 & 535

Not to sure if i should frame it or finish it some other way, any suggestions?

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I found a forgotten piece and have been working on getting this finished, this is where it was at when i abandoned it.

Now almost another 2 blocks completed, so hopefully a finish soon, and it's a fitting piece to hang in my 100 year old house :-)

LHN Yesteryear

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Finally, i collected Rubie from the framers last week, here she is all dressed up!

She now has pride of place on my sampler wall, which is a work in progress but i am working hard to get it filled ;-)

Phew! I've waffled on again haven't i! you'll be Glad to know that all for now, thank you for visiting my little space today, i really appreciate all you visits and comments. Till next time - have a great weekend. x

Almost There

A few more nights and Rubie should be finished. I really wanted her to have a face to show you tonight but as the weather was nice yesterday afternoon when i came from work i spent 3 hours in the garden, weeding, hoeing, pruning and generally giving it a tidy up, by the time I'd had something to eat and a shower i was so knacker i headed up to bed at 9.30. It's true what they say, the older you get the longer it takes, lol, I woke up this morning and had to lie there a few minutes and decide what part of me ached the least, lol.

No such silly antics going on today, I've got a stitchy / TV night planned

Wrinkly Rubie!

I really appreciate all your lovely comments and encouragements on this piece, especially when i had a mass invasion of frogs and could have cheerfully thrown it in bin, but all your kind words and lovely thoughts made me carry on, and I'm glad i did!

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Because of my imminent finish there will be a give away as promised.

The give away is- Plum Street Samplers charts -

Rubie Owl & Stories To Live By Eve

(Sorry, but blogger won't let me upload a photo of th charts!!)
Now, did you notice my header photos? how is your geography? because in order to win the charts I'm going to ask you to name as many of the places/buildings (or river in one case) as you can, the person who gets the most correct wins, simple as that!
If there is no outright winner then the names will be thrown into a hat and my daughter will draw a name.

Please do not leave your answers on the comments page, e-mail me at

hydenseek61@yahoo.co.uk

mention 'Rubie' in the subject line
And i will post the winner on August 23rd, so you have plenty of time!

This is open to everyone, regardless of where you live.
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I'm off to put bum to sofa and get some stitching done,

hope you all have a great week :-)

A Long Overdue Post (And a Future Give Away)

I didn't intend to leave it so long between posts but sometimes there are not enough hours in the day, or any progress to show ;-) But I'm back with finishes and progress and a bit of catching up.

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We had a lovely time in Halkidiki, the tan has faded and it is all but a distant memory now (even the sunshine as we have none of that here at the moment!) but, it was very relaxing and i managed to do nothing much but sit by the pool and read, getting up for the occasional dip in the pool to cool off - just what holidays are made for really :-)
Everything felt a bit 'flat' when we came back, even though we were only gone for a week, getting back into some sort of routine was hard, it took a while for me to pick my stitching up again at night and at work i was finding myself resenting being there. Anyway, all that's passed, my mood has lifted and I'm stitching again and, i have proof!

LHN The Merry Skater

Isn't she cute? I had done the stitching on this before we went away but finished it off into a little hanging ornie when we came home.

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Next up is something that had been thrown into a corner to await reverse stitching after my inability to follow a chart.

Rubie Owl

The offending part (on the left) re-stitched, and I've finished stitching all those leaves on the tree, even though i think they have left me with a permanent twitch and the paranoia that i may have left one out or miss counted and they are all off. Please, please do me a favour and keep me in ignorant bliss if you spy a mistake, because i ain't ripping anymore out!, lol.

Here's the whole wrinkled thing so far

I'm now at the mindless filling in stage, but after all the mishaps with this chart i care not a jot and shall happily, mindlessly fill in! (note, i did not say mindlessly stitch, as that's what got me in trouble last time, that and concentrating on Without a Trace instead of what i should have been doing!)

Right, that's me just about caught up, but just before i go the last bit of my title -The Give Away will be the Rubie Owl chart when I've finished with it, so stay tuned and hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll post it up.

Thanks for visiting me and have a fantastic week whatever you are up to :-) x

I Should Pay More Attention!

Not a lot to show this time, I've hardly sat down to stitch at all this week, Marks at home and i find that by the time dinner is over and cleared away it's too late to get anything out. Having him at home these past few weeks has upset my routine, lol. Having said that i pulled out Rubie Owl last Sunday intending to devote all afternoon

to her only to find i had made a mistake, a HUGE mistake, in fact 2 Huge mistakes!! first off, as soon as i put her in the hoop i noticed this -

See the Rubies section? can you see any Rubies? no, because i happily went on filling in that section!! i also carried on with a full border at the bottom which should not have looked like this! Mistake #2 came to light as i was looking at my thread colours, I've been using Buttercup when the chart called for Butterscotch DOH!! Where was my mind! clearly not on my stitching!! OK, so the colour doesn't matter too much and I'm not going to change it, but i will have to take out the section and stitch the 'rubies' because that will bug the hell out of me! If I'm in the mood i may start to rip it out tonight, or i may just carry on with the leaves and do it when I'm in a better frame of mind, i has put me off a tad i can tell you, not looking forward to ripping out stitches.

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On a happier note, i did have a finish the week before last but neglected to show it so here you go.

Christmas Tree 'freebie' from Claire stitched on a scrap of 28 count using Threadworx 1089

I added beads to the edging and i think it turned out pretty cute :-)

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If i can motivate myself i could get loads of stitching in over the next few weeks, the World Cup has kicked off this weekend, with England's first match tonight against the US. There again i might be sitting shouting at the TV like the rest of the country, lol

Thank you for your continued visits and comments, they make my day:-) Have a great weekend whatever you may be up to!

Rubie Owl

Tomorrow morning is back to work, I've had four lovely days off and since Bank Holiday weather is notoriously bad here in the UK i had nothing more energetic planned than sitting and stitching and catching on TV programmes I'd recorded. (I've become addicted to Anthea Turner's Perfect Housewife). It's on the 'Home' Channel between 1am-3am, which only goes to show how sad i am as the programme doesn't even warrant prime time viewing!! What can i say, the woman has some great cleaning and storage tips!!

I've also been playing about with my blog colours, again! i can't seem to find something to stick with, these will do for now though. My header is a photo i took of the daffodils in my garden, me and my daughter planted over 200 of them last year and i am thrilled so many made it to flowering :-) They bring a lovey splash of colour to the garden even when it's raining.

Anyway, here's the progress i made on Rubie Owl.

I really love the way these colours jump out at you, but does anyone else have a problem with Belle Soie silks knotting? I usually work with about a yard of floss but have had to reduce this to less because of knotting.

The fabric is more of a sandy colour, which is refusing to show up true in the photos.

the weekend was spent stitching mostly leaves, and after a while I lost the ability to count! i must have frogged as many as I've stitched!! I need to order a couple of colours to finish off the tree, and because of the Bank Holiday they will be a few more days yet.

I'm putting Rubie back in the bag this week and working on the LHN monthly ornament, He's A Flake, it feels like ages since i had a finish and this looks like it will be a quickie. Until next time, have a great week.

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Rubies, Diamonds & Golden Pears

For the past few weeks I've been suffering with very tender 'boobs' more than usual even taking the time of the month in consideration, the doctor could feel nothing but could tell how tender i was, i went to see the consultant today who believes it's just a thickening of the breast tissue and is nothing nasty to worry about. She suggested a scan & mammogram just to have a look see, so I'm taking advantage of the health insurance we have at work and have an appointment at a local private hospital on Monday morning. At least my mind is a little easier now, you know how it is worrying about these things, I've just plodded through the week to be honest. So, now I'm more 'myself' I'm ready to share some updates :-) First i finished stitching the LHN ornament Pear Tree this afternoon, in my mind when i started this SAL was going to finish them all as hanging ornaments, but this one is HUGE!! too big to be a hanging ornament (me thinks) and i don't know how to finish it..any and all suggestions will be gratefully received!

I Stitched it on a scrap of 28 count and it measures 4" x 5" it turned out much bigger than i imagined but i do like it, i still have the beads to put on and I'm sure i had some somewhere, but at the moment can't lay my hands on them.

My first new start i thought would be quicker to stitch, ha, ha, famous last words! i didn't take a very good look at the chart, there are lots of colour changes!! so this is going to be a while in the making. Welcome Quaker Diamonds for the first of what may be many outings ;-)

I may need motivation with this one so if anyone knows of a SAL or would like to get one going, do let me know.

And just because i needed something that would be a little faster i started Rubie Owl, i had to wait for my LNS to get the threads in for this one, so again not too much to show. I splashed out on different fabric for this one (more expensive) I'm not going to name it because i know that lots of people love this particular linen and I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that i cannot say that i love it, it's OK, but no way does it justify the price i paid. Just my opinion ;-)

Meet Rubie Owl,

I've been reading more than stitching this week and have finished up another Philippa Gregory book, i started the next one, The Virgins Lover last night. Only one more to read and then I've finished the Tudor Court series but i did read on line somewhere that her next series will be on the Plantagenet's, if they are as good as the Tudor's i can't wait! When i was leaving the hospital on Friday there was a book sale in reception, i took a few minutes to browse and came across these for 50 pence each!

I already read The Lovely Bones a few years ago but it belonged to my daughter and i would like to read it again. I couldn't believe i found The Concubines Secret for 50p! i already have the Red Scarf (bought from Amazon) and The Russian Concubine (bought from the charity shop for

45 pence!!) so this completes the set which i plan on reading when I've finished the Tudor series, has anyone read these? The other two i read the blurb in WH Smith some time ago and wasn't too sure about so couldn't justify spending the money on them, but at a give-away price like i got

them at i don't mind if i don't want to keep them afterwards!

Phew, i think I've about made up for my none blogging, and if you're still with me, thank you!! and if your not that's OK too ;-) I'm off to plonk my bum on the sofa and get some stitching done, have a great weekend whatever your up too :-) see ya soon xx