A Lovely Christmas Lunch (& Jo's Boys)

This was Joanne and Gavin's first time cooking Christmas lunch

 and it wonderful :-)

Neither Jen nor Jo were big on cooking when they lived at home, but since they have had homes of their own they have both turned into kitchen goddesses, lol

We had turkey & beef and everything tasted beautiful!

I thought today that I've never showed you pictures of Jo's 'boys', so i took a few photos of them while we were there today.

This is Tinker

And this is Scruffy

Aren't  they just the cutest little boys!

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The girls loved all their presents, and i had some lovely things too, one of which was a Kindle from Mark - total surprise as we had agreed not to buy each other this year :-)

I hope wherever you are you had a wonderful Christmas day too!

I'm just about done in for today, tomorrow i intend to do nothing except sit and stitch :-)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Just stopping by to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, I hope that you get everything you wish for :-)

I am hoping to get some stitching time in over the holiday, we don't go back to work until 3rd January, so a nice long-ish break from the usual alarm clock going off and the ground hog day routine that is common place on work day mornings!

We are having lunch at daughter #2's tomorrow - looking forward to that and as usual seeing the girls faces when they open their presents!  

Even though they are all grown up and two of them with their own houses now i still keep up the pretence of Santa and they are never allowed to see any presents, wrapped or unwrapped until the day!  that's just the way it is in our house.

I will leave you with a few photos of our trip to Prague, there are more on flickr if you would like to take a look.  It was a wonderful trip and i think everyone thoroughly enjoyed  themselves :-)

Thank all so much for the Anniversary wishes, the flowers are still going strong and gracing the sitting room.

There is another special celebration this week - but i'll tell you about that on Tuesday, because that's the day :-)

Have a good one whatever you are doing this 25th!

A Surprise Delivery

Today is our wedding anniversary!

I know, who gets married this close to Christmas, mad, eh?

But we did and here we are 25 years later!

My hubby is not one of those that buys flowers often, but these arrived for me today with a box of chocolates :-)

 To say i am surprised is an understatement, 

gobsmacked more like, lol

He had arranged to have them delivered to work for me this morning but the delivery got messed up and he had to have them re-directed to home this afternoon - bless him, i think he has earned his brownie points this week :-)

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Wow, 25 years, where on earth does the time go?

Does this mean I'm getting old now? (don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question, lol)

The Prague Tunic Finish!

Just a very quick post tonight as it's getting late, I finished my Prague Tunic from my last post about two weeks ago now, but you know how it is this time of year, busy busy busy!

Anyhow, here is the afore mentioned tunic

I was dreading the sewing together, but I found several great videos on You Tube that were a great help.

And best of all, it actually fits and I wore it shopping yesterday, I was surprised how warm it kept me!

And just to prove it, I've even dared to post a photos of me wearing it, all be it a very grainy one.

I enjoyed knitting this so much that I've got another jumper started, i'll show you the 'weekend jumper' next time.  

I haven't picked up any stitching for a few weeks except for the small amount i did at the stitching club two weeks ago.  By the time i sit down at night knitting is so much easier to pick up and do a few rows rather than getting threads, hoops and magnifier out.  But i have by no means given up the stitching, i have plans for over Christmas when we have a lovely break from work and i can at least get a decent amount of time at something :-)

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Speak more next time, right now i have to get some shut-eye because tomorrow morning we fly to Prague...Whoohooo, can't wait to see this lovely city again!

Hope you all have a great week whatever you might be up to, and thank you so much for you comments and encouragement, it really means so much to me x

Christmas Ornies & The Prague Tunic Part 1

Seeing as we are hurtling towards Christmas i got a move on and finished off two of this years LHN ornaments.

Last year I managed to keep up with all of them, I don't know what happened this year, I just couldn't seem to get going despite buying them as the were issued in the UK.  I chose two that I liked the most for now and will carry on with the rest throughout next year.

Little House Needleworks Gingerbread Village

Stitched on a scrap of mystery 28 count

using DMC threads

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And my personal favourite is this one -

Little House Needleworks Baked Goods

Stitched on a piece of Mystery 28 count fabric with DMC threads

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When i made them up this time i used a piece of iron-on interfacing to back them, it made a real difference to how they look and made it easier to stitch the whole thing together.

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I've put the stitching to one side this week in favour of knitting.  I used to knit years ago when the kids were small but nothing in a long time.  I'm an OK basic knitter, nothing fancy, but when i came across this pattern it quite appealed to me.

This is the back all stitched up.  I was quite impressed that I managed to get this done in 3 evenings.  It's chunky yarn so that helped.  On Friday I started the front and after a couple of false starts, (mainly due to me not being able to count and increase!), I made it up to the arm hole shaping last night.  It's pretty gratifying after not having many stitchy finishes this year to get something near completion in such a short time!

So why the Prague Tunic?  Well on December 12th we are all going to Prague for a week, daughters, boyfriends (or in Stevie's case, friend from College), me and Mark, and I want to get this finished to take with me.  I think it's just about achievable, as long as i don't have any mishaps with the putting it together bit, lol.

Until next time,

take care and thanks for your visits and comments, they really make my day :-)

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It's November..

And It's a horrible damp and rainy night here, a perfect night to be sat indoors stitching:-)

DH has been here for the last 2 weeks since his last contract finished, getting under my feet and general doing..well, nothing really.  Don't get me wrong, he works really hard, but when he gets time off that's exactly what he has, time off...from everything - I swear if I have to sit through another cookery programme I'll cut the TV cable!  I really wouldn't mind but this is a man that never cooks, never, EVER!! So why the fascination with cookery programmes?beats me!  

So, not a lot of stitching, just been taking myself off to bed early with my book and my hot water bottle :-)

Right, now I've got that little moan out of the way i do have photos to show you, photos of a finish no less!

It's Molly

Carriage House Samplings

It's been a while since I started this, and then started again because I didn't like my stitches 

(yes I obsess that much!)

Don't you just love that crazy eyed fat cat!

And the not so little bird perched atop her head 

( i decided it's a she cat :-)

I love the frame

Mark at Betty's did yet another wonderful job.

Here's a close up of it

And finally the whole thing

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Last Wednesday was our second stitch club meeting.  Unfortunately our numbers dwindled a bit and there was only six of us this time around, but it was actually quite a good night, being such a small number we got to know each other a bit better and it made for some good conversation.  

One of the ladies was interested in my snap frame last month and this time she had bought one of her own :-) she said she went straight up to Sharon's shop (Betty's)  the day after and treated herself to one, along with a magnifier.  I happened to mention while we were talking that i railroad all my stitches, she wasn't familiar with it, but when she tried it she was amazed what a difference it made.  I've got a feeling that the next time we meet she will be cursing me for slowing her up and causing extra work, lol.

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Thanks for visiting me today and leaving me a comment, i really appreciate it :-)

October 1st - Really???

My blog posts seem to be few and far between of late, a bit like my stitching.  I've picked up this and that but don't really have anything to show for my efforts.  I have almost finished stitching a couple of Christmas ornaments for dd's #1 & 2, maybe this week I will surprise both you and me by getting them finished finished :-).


The first stitch group meeting went well on Wednesday.  There were 20 people interested, 4 of which couldn't come this time because of other commitments, and a few changed their minds, but in the end there was 9 of us on the night, which wasn't bad because to be honest if all 20 had turned up we would have been pretty pushed for space in that room!  There was a good mix of people and I'm pretty sure all the ones that showed this time will show again - so that's good.

No stitching for me today the weather has been so glorious that it was really a crying shame to stay indoors, so took myself off for a drive to Bourton-on-the- Water, in the Cotswold's.  It's only just over an hours drive from us and such a pretty place.
I'll leave you with some photos of Bourton and people enjoying this very un-seasonal weather.
(It's been like this all week, with temps of 28 and 29 degrees!  I've never had the air-con on in the car in October before :-))

I

Finally, some lovely English contryside 

Thank you for visiting me today and leaving a comment, have a wonderful week. x