A brand new month

Happy New Year!   I hope that 2023 has started out well for you and that It will continue to be a good year for everyone.  New Years Eve for us was much the same as any other has been over the Christmas period, we did enjoy the London fireworks, I say every year that I'd like to go next year, perhaps 2023 will be the one, who knows.

I do have a new piece to display for January.  This is January by Waxing Moon Designs

It's not a new finish, I stitched through December 2020 and finished January 2021.  This was one of the three pieces I took to be framed over the Summer, and the last one to come back to me.

Framing was again done by Mark at Betty Stitchkit and as usual he did an excellent job.  I'm really pleased with this one, I love how that little red house pops in amongst all that white, yes there was a lot of white stitching but I'm not one of those people who have a problem stitching white so I found it fine.

Last year I didn't do a lot of stitching, this year I'm quite enthusiastic about stitching all the things and looking forward to more finishes, lets hope that enthusiasm doesn't wain in the coming months, ha ha.

What I'm enjoying today, the weather is very mild and I'm sitting in the conservatory, usually in December it's like stepping into Narnia and you half expect to see Alsan sitting at the table, but not today.  Also, I looked out the window and I saw this.

A flower on my Camellia!  A lovely little pink spot my garden which is mostly a drab brown.

It won't last long if we have another cold snap but it is a reminder that very soon things will be popping through the ground giving more colour.  

Our woodpecker has come for his dinner while I've been sat here too, (sorry for the photo quality, I snapped quickly with my phone)

He (she?) comes most days, I was so excited when he first started coming and It still makes me grin when I see him at the feeder.

I've enjoyed a slice of my Christmas cake while sitting here.  I gave half of it to my sister and brother in law and took some to my elderly neighbour, both said how lovely it was, so that was good and means it didn't get wasted.

I hope you are enjoying whatever you are doing today.

-X-

All Finished

 January always seems to be a good month for me for finishing things.  I think it must be the excitement of a new year and looking forward to all the things I want to make.  

I've finished my Waxing Moon Designs January Sampler

Well, after looking at the photos I realised I missed filling a section of a snowflake in the top border!  You can see what I mean from the first photo.  It has now been filled in but I didn't want to mess with taking more photos.  Good job I noticed, it's not the first time I thought I was all done then notice I wasn't ;-)

This one won't be fully finished until I decide if I want to frame in or make it into a hanging of some sort.  I was going to see if I could find a frame in a charity shop but as they are all closed at the moment that's not an option, I don't want to go to the expense of having it professional framed as it will only be out for four weeks of the year, but as it is now I have almost 12 months to decide as January is at an end.

My next stitching finish is my PS January ornament as part of the 12in21ornamentstitchalong that I mentioned in my last post.

This too will be put away for finishing at a later date as I want to finish them all the same way

I noticed on Instagram a Year of Dishcloths Pattern Club from The Kitchen Sink Shop.  If you sign up to their news letter you will be sent a dish cloth pattern at the beginning of each month, (but you can find the pattern on Ravelry even if you don't sign up, It's just published a little later in the month).

This is the Icicles Dishcloth

 I knitted this out of some left over Hobby Craft cotton.

I just had to share some more snow pictures to end this blog post, we don't get huge amounts of it here in the UK so it's a real novelty when we do.    The snow we had last week lasted until Tuesday and so I'm glad now that when Bonnie came on Monday we took a walk to the park.  It was so pretty everywhere you looked and It was so lovely to see the kids having fun sledding, and just look at that blue sky!

It was a very different picture after Tuesday when the rain came and washed it all away, now it's just wet, miserable and dull grey skies :-(

We were promised some more snow this weekend but it hasn't materialized, yet.

Not many people had tried to get off the estate, the main roads were ok as they had been gritted

I hope January has been a good month for you and wish you all the best for a lovely February 

See you soon

-X-

First post of 2021

 Hello, I'm still around, just gave myself a little break after blogging my way through December.

I hope you are all ok and if you are in the UK managing to keep sane through lockdown #3.  Not that we could venture very far even if we were allowed to at the moment as we are having some lovely seasonal weather just now.  We awoke to snow on Saturday morning, not too much but enough to make it difficult to get out of the estate, especially as it had frozen, once onto the main roads it wasn't too bad though as they had been gritted.  More snow arrived over night so the first thing I did this morning was to put on my wellies and go out to feed the birds.

I was rewarded by lots of visitors, I don't think we have ever had so many on the feeders at once.  I stood at the window for about a hour watching them come and go, it was lovely.  I managed to get a few photos but they are so quick

It was a nice way to waste an hour and put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.  Simple things eh?

My first knitted finish for this year is this little cowl I made for Bonnie.  I didn't follow a pattern but chose a nice stitch from a pattern library and went from there.  

I'm still stitching away on my January sampler.  Not much more to go now, obviously it will be too late to display for this January and in any case there is nowhere open to look for frames.

I'm joining in Carol's ornament SAL (#12in21ornamentstitchalong) on Instagram.  This is the perfect opportunity for me to stitch these PS Santas.  My daughter, Stevie bought me this booklet a couple of years ago and it has been kitted up for a while.  They are quite small so perfectly doable each month.

This is how far I'm along with my first one

I'm stitching them on 32 count Zweigart Murano.  32 count's not my favourite to work on. I find have to take more time to make my stitches neat, but I'm happy with how they look so far.  I won't be fully finishing them until they are all stitched as I want to do them the same.

I haven't made any resolutions for the year except not to start too many things, I would like to finish what I start in a reasonable time and I would like to go into next year with nothing carried over, if I can.  I have three cross stitch WIP's, (not including the ones shown here today), one of them is about seven years old, and I would like to get those finished this year.  I also have the Dandelion cardigan that I started back in the summer, (this one could be finished quite quickly if I put my mind to it) and a pair of socks that are about half done.  I think that's enough to keep me going for a while :-)

As well as not blogging I've not been visiting, reading or commenting on many blogs either this month.  Hopefully I will put that to rights this week.

I hope you all have a lovely week and enjoy the snow, if you have any.  Don't wish the Season's away, time goes by too quickly as it is and Spring will come soon enough :-)

Take care

-X-

The one before the big one

 Another December birthday yesterday, mine :-)

Yes, next year will be a big one, but for the rest of this year and most of the next I will be enjoying the last year of my fifties😂

The children spoilt me yet again, they do put a lot of thought into their gifts and buy things that are perfect for me.

In case you didn't spot it in the photo above, look at one of the things Jenny bought me, The Meadow by Bothy Threads...Eeek! I've looked at this kit for so long.  Sharon at my local needlework shop stitched it a few years ago and has it hanging in the shop and every time I go in I admire it.   I probably won't start it just yet but it will definitely be one to stitch in 2021

Included in the advent swap that I did with my lovely friend Jo were some things for me to open on my birthday.  

Thank you so much Jo, I absolutely love everything 😀

There is one more family birthday today, my brother's.  He is seven years older than me so you could say that I was his birthday present all those years ago, lol.  We were very close when we were younger, I used to follow him everywhere and he would let me tag along with him and his friends.  We don't see each other very often now but he is still the one I can relate to more than either of my sisters.

When I was younger I used to think it was a bit pants having a birthday so close to Christmas, I tended to get presents that were for Christmas and birthday.  Having two of my daughters born in December I made sure that never happened with them, they always had, (and still have) a proper birthday with birthday presents wrapped in birthday paper, (very important to someone with a birthday close to Christmas).  I don't mind that my birthday is so close to Christmas now, when I was at work it meant that I never had to work on my birthday either, ha ha.

I've been stitching away on my Waxing |Moon Designs January sampler over the last couple of days

Do you think I made this happen 😄

I know a lot of people hate it, but It just makes me so happy to see snow 😁☃☃☃

I hope you are still enjoying what's left of the festive season, now made even more festive here by the snow :-)

See you soon

-X-

8th December - A new stitching start

I like to have a new stitchy start in December and while looking through my charts a month or two ago I  came across this Waxing Moon one.  To be honest I had started this one before but didn't like the fabric I choose so It was abandoned.  I had all the threads so just had to choose a different fabric, I'm much happier this time round.

I haven't made great progress and it's doubtful I'll get it finished by the end of the month but hopefully I can get it done sometime in early January.

The verse reads, 

Snow comes softly in the dark of night.  

When we awake the world is white.  

In January when there's snow, we get our sleds and away we go.

I've been watching a new-to-me podcast/floss tube recently, momma loves you GB and she mentioned a site on Esty that she buys from called Sub Rosa.  I had heard of Sub Rosa before but hadn't looked at what they were selling, well, I was very good and only bought two charts but there are quite a few that I would like to purchase another time.

Christmas again, I'm always drawn to Christmas stitching :-)  I love these two though and they were in pdf format, which is great.

I've already kitted a few charts up that I want to stitch next year but I think these will also have to be added.

So here are my lovely goodies from my advents today, Jo popped a lovely hot chocolate in today too, thanks Jo, I'm actually drinking that now :-)

 See you tomorrow, take care.

-X-