There's Something About Mary

Mary Glover that is.  

Can you remember when Emmanuel offered up this lovely SAL, way back in 2011?  There were so many stitcher's taking part, it seemed that everywhere you looked you would see Mary. 

 As usual I started with great enthusiasm but, also as usual, fell by the wayside. 

First it was the over one stitching, I hate over one stitching, although it does look fabulous when it's done, so I suppose it's worth all that effort.

Next it was the rice stitch that sent me into a panic, but there was no need for me to get into a flap because it was actually quite easy once I started it, and very enjoyable to do :-)

Finishing the rice stitched panel spurned me on to finish the sampler, that's when it I came a cropper yet again.  

I trotted off to the framers with my newly finished piece, got her all laid out to choose a frame but all the time I was thinking that something wasn't quite right, so I took her home to check.

When I came into the SAL I think others were already on the second part and for some reason, (and I have absolutely no idea why) I started stitching down a way from the top and never went back to finish, so I was 3 lines missing!  Thank goodness I noticed in time otherwise it could have been an expensive mistake!

I promptly banished Mary to the cupboard in disgust where she lay forlorn and forgotten for nearly another 12 months.

A couple of weeks ago whilst having a clear out I once again came upon poor forgotten Mary and decided that I had punished her long enough, she deserved to be finished and put on show.

I left off the two little straight stitched motifs at the bottom because I preferred the look without them I also dabbed a tea bag all over the finished stitching to give a more aged look. 

 Close up of the frame

So, yeah, there is something about Mary, she's beautiful, and I love her, but was also a pain in the ass, lol.

-x-

Catching up

It seems that time has been my demon again, I'm full of good intentions, honestly, I am, I'm just not very good at time management lately.  I have been busy though, with crafty things as well as the normal everyday things that seem to steal all of my time (as I'm sure they do yours too).

One of my Nieces is due to have her second baby in April and has requested a blanket like the one I knit for Jenny when she was expecting Oliver.  

I've been knitting this on and off for a while, far longer than it should have taken really, but at last it's finished!

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A new crochet project is on the go.  I'm choosing the colours more or less at random and so far I think they look ok. 
A few days ago in a quiet moment at work I was browsing the internet and admiring various granny squares and one of the lads came into reception, saw what I was doing and told me that I must stop this, It's not 'cool', (apparently) 
er..... I'm 52, I think I'm old enough to not give a jot if anyone thinks I'm 'cool' or not, lol.
So here is my new un-cool hooky project, which, as it happens, I think is pretty cool :-)

I've only finished about 18 squares so far, so there will be loads more to tell on this blanket before it's finished, and I'm trying not to think of all those ends to weave in yet...eek

I have to say that I am getting immense pleasure from working all these little squares :-)
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Stitching is still sort of taking a back seat, larger projects have been abandoned in favour of smaller ornaments, which is about all I have the attention span for at the moment.
I've stitched up two freebies but only managed to get one made up into an ornament.

Free chart found here

As usual the finishing was a challenge.  I swear I could have stitched it all again in the amount of time it took me to make it

 up, and we won't even go into the mess I made whilst sewing!

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The only other news to tell this time is that we are on the move.  A couple of weeks before Christmas we put our house up for sale, It was something that had been talked about for a few years but never put into action, but now the time seems right and we were both ready to do it.  
We were very fortunate in finding a buyer after only being on the market for about 5 weeks, and a few weeks later we found ourselves a new property.  My initial reaction to selling so quickly was shock, and to be honest I was a little scared, but now that we have found somewhere to go to I'm really excited and looking forward to getting things moving.  I will keep you posted on the progress

I'm a Hooker!!

For the longest time I have oohh'd and aahh'd over the wonderful crochet projects on Lucy's blog.  

I've Googled, You Tubed and borrowed books from the library in order to learn how to crochet, but always found it very confusing.

But then by chance I found out that a class for complete beginners was being held at a local craft shop.  Joanne, DD#2 had wanted to learn too so off we went to sign up!

Joanne picked it up almost right away, I struggled and only managed to come away with a small (very small) granny square.  Not to be defeated, I practised granny squares for the rest of the weekend until I was happy that they looked, if not perfect, then at least ok.  

My youngest daughter, Stevie put her hand up for a blanket, but I was daunted by the thought of sewing all those little squares together, (besides, I haven't done the class that shows how to sew them all together :-)  So, I just kept going...

And going

Until I almost ran out of yarn!

As you can see, It fit's atop my double bed perfectly :-)

More by luck than judgement and measuring though I must say!

So, now I'm a hooker, lol, and I'm so happy with my first hooky 

project, and my first finish of the year :-) and Stevie is happy with her new blanket.

  I'm missing working on it already!!  I guess some more yarn will be purchased very soon :-)

There have been lots of things happening while I've been away from blog land and I will think of them and try to include them in my posts as I go, but I just had to include a photo I took of this little fella today.   

While most of the UK went back to work this morning I had another day because I was looking after this amazing little dude

.

Can you believe that he will be 15 months old this month!

His Momma went back to work part time in October and the days that she works I take off my job to look after him.  

It's working ok at the moment, sometimes I have him in the day time (that's when I have the day off), sometimes I have him after I finish work in the afternoon and sometimes we have him at the weekend, It's not every day so It works out fine and I just love having him :-)

Well, that's about all the news for now, I'm still trying to catch up on blogs and blog reading but I will get around to you all sooner or later.  Thank you for reading my ramblings tonight, you are all so kind to have stayed with me.

Until next time

xxx

Wishing all my blogging friends a Happy & Healthy New Year

May you have all you wish for

xxx

Seasons Greetings

Thank you all for the lovely warm welcome back, I'm glad that so many of you had not given up on me  :-)

Christmas day was very hectic and noisy,  Jenny got a bit emotional but James managed to 

make a call from base so things calmed down a bit after that. 

It's Boxing Day here in the UK so celebrations are still going on, Boxing Day is traditionally a day when the Sales start, so some people have been queuing outside 'Next' since the early hours waiting for the doors to open at 5am , not me though, I really don't like rummaging, lol  I plan on going for a walk later then chilling out in front of the tv all afternoon.

Tomorrow is  another celebration as it is my birthday :-)  

My middle daughter told me yesterday what she had got me for my present because we have to be up and out early - It's a spa day at a local hotel!  I'm having a full body massage and we can use the spa facilities for day too, my other daughters are coming so it will be a lovely girly day :-)  What a great present!, I'm really looking forward to it.

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and I will be back soon hopefully with photos!

PS. Heidi asked who the chart was by in my header photo, it's a free design from here if anyone is interested.

Until next time xxx

Is There Anyone Still Out There?

Wow, it's been quite a while since I've been here.

Occasionally I have scrolled through the pages and glanced at other blogs, but the urge to blog just wasn't there, so i would just go away and forget about it all over again.  But with Christmas just around the corner and another new year about to begin it seemed like a good time to catch up, if there is still anyone out there...

My last post was around June time I think, I was not in a happy place at that time and it seemed that my life might be about to take a different turn, I did write something about it at the time because I had no one I could really talk to, (I later deleted that post).   

I didn't want to involve family members because they take sides and become judgemental, (one in particular would have been on the phone frequently offering words of wisdom and advice on what I should do and how I should do it!) and I just couldn't handle that, I just wanted to talk, get some things out in the open and not be judged for whatever decision I finally made.

Thankfully two fellow bloggers (who shall remain nameless, but they know who they are) gave me support when I needed it, they let me ramble on but didn't judge or criticise me, both of them helped me through those very difficult and confusing months and I shall be forever grateful for their help.

So here I am six months later and that whole business seems a long time ago and it feels sometimes like it didn't happen...other times it seems like it was yesterday and there I am full of questions again, I need to be able to believe in my own judgement, you know, take that leap of faith.  I will in time but I'm not quite there yet. 

But, on the whole things are good, better than I (we) could have hoped for, the weekends are now something we both look forward to.  I suppose it's still all a bit new but I know that we are better, kinder, calmer and more considerate people for it, we have learned a very hard lesson, one that I don't think either of us will forget.

So, Christmas is just around the corner and we are looking forward to it.  All 3 girls will be staying at home this year, Stevie is home from uni at the weekend, Joanne and her boyfriend, Gavin, and Jenny and Oliver will be staying over for a couple of days too, so we will have a house full, it will be noisy and hectic and no doubt very messy, but so good :-)  There will be one person missing out on all the family fun though,, Jenny's boyfriend, Oliver's daddy, James won't be here for Christmas or new year, he will be serving in Afghanistan until April, we will of course be taking loads of photos and videos of Oliver to send to daddy so that he can a least see that his little boy had a great Christmas.

Obviously other things have taken priority over recent months and I haven't been doing much stitching at all.   There were a couple of things that I had started and wanted finished before Christmas, so when the mood took me I worked on those.  

One was Oliver's Christmas Stocking and the other was Baby It's Cold Outside.  I'm so happy to have been able to at least those two  this year.

Shepherds Bush Thomas Stocking re-named for Oliver

I managed to stitch the stocking in secret and surprise Jenny when it was completed at the beginning of December. 
I think It's fair to say that she was over the moon with It.

It will be a while before Oliver appreciates all the love that his Nanna put into making this for him, but hopefully it will one day become a talking piece when It gets its annual outing. 

This is Baby It's Cold, I really enjoyed stitching this one.

Apologies for the blurry photo on this one, it's the only one I could find and it was from my phone.

Not much in the way of stitching to show for my absence is it eh?
Hopefully I will have more in the way of finishes to show for 2014.

I'll try not to leave it too long between visits in future.

Have a great Christmas all!
-x-

A Bit Of R&R

 I've been MIA again, but at least I've got an excuse this time, we took a week's holiday to Tunisia.  I've had a lovely relaxing seven days sunning myself, sleeping, reading, eating and generally doing nothing much at all:-)  We came home late on Sunday night and as it was Bank Holiday on Monday at least I had one more day to recover before going back to work on Tuesday.

We stayed at an all inclusive hotel which was very nice, all the staff were very friendly and polite, although i think we went just as the season was getting started so it didn't really liven up until the last few days, but that was ok.

The pool was still a little cold to go in when we got there, but there was an indoor pool too.

I took this photo on our last day, either the water had warmed up or they are very brave!

Seating and beach bar area

The hotel gardens were very nice, these flowers caught my eye

I just love how this one looks as though the red has been painted on the petals, so pretty.

This is a weird and wonderful specimen, it looks like some exotic bird, shame I didn't see it open fully. 

I did have one mishap while we were there, (there is always one, and it's usually me!!).

  I wear ear plugs at night (the joys of having a husband who snores like a hog!!) and managed to get part of one ear plug lodged in my right ear.  They are the silicon type, similar to wax therefore they get quite soft, more-so when the weather is warmer.  I didn't want to go to a hospital over there, i did see the medic at the hotel but wasn't too impressed so decided to wait until we came home. They doctor at our local A&E couldn't get it out so made an appointment at ENT for me today.  

After just over half an hour of two different doctors picking away at it it was getting very uncomfortable so they have said it would be better for me to be admitted as a day case and have aesthetic so they can remove it.  

I should get a phone call in the next few days and hopefully they will be able to fit me in early next week.  What is left of the ear plug has stuck fast (which is why it was sore when they were trying to get it out) but is not where it will cause any damage, I just can't hear anyone unless they are to my left side, lol.

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I will have some stitching to show next time, my Christmas ornament for May is all made up ready and I made good progress on Baby It's Cold at the Needlecraft Haven meet up before I went away.  I don't know how much more stitching I will fit in though as the next month is going to be a busy one, I'm away on holiday again in just over a week's time and Jenny has booked Oliver's Christening for the beginning of June and has nominated me to make the cake...eek!!! 

until next time x