So that was January

Is it too late to say Happy New Year?  Perhaps it is, but I hope you had a good January and the year ahead will continue to be kind to you.

The weather has been pretty miserable here, a little bit like my mood actually, which is probably why I've not been around much.
I've got away pretty light with the dreaded menopausal symptoms but lately I don't know, I can get so down about the silliest thing, and I have days when I'm so grumpy and crotchety that It's just not worth talking to me.  I'm best left alone when I'm like that, I come out of it in my own good time, but it does come across that I'm a right funny old cuss, (as my ex MIL would say).

Still, I suppose all will come good, eventually, It's the people that around me that are suffering really but at least they know that it's not them personally I'm having a go at,  it's my hormones ranting!

Anyway, with that little moan out of the way lets have a little look back to the end of December and my last couple of finishes

Another little corner to corner baby blanket, I love these garter stitch blankets, they are so lovely and squishy, and the bunting I made for Bonnie.

This was my first attempt at making bunting, it's not perfect but it came out ok, (better than the dreadful photo, sorry)

Over the Christmas period I joined in with the SAL that Priscilla and Chelsea were running for LHN Forest Snowfall. 

The SAL started on December 28th with the idea that it was a quick (ish) stitch, and somewhere in my fantasy mind I thought I would have it done in a week and it could be on display for the rest of January.

Yeah right, like that worked!

I managed to finish stitching and the framing on January 20th , so it took 24 days, I didn't stitch on it every one of those 24 days though, so I suppose that's not too bad, for me.

The fabric is a mystery piece of 32 count linen which Sharon at my LNS kindly gave me because I couldn't make my mind up over fabric, the threads are as recommended except for the writing which I changed from the listed Deep Fennel to  Blue Corn, as many other have done too, although, I seem to have got a skein that didn't have much variegation.

The frame is just a photo frame I picked up at the Range, I took the glass out and glued some fabric to the backing board and mounted the stitching onto another piece of board added some ric rac then attached it to the fabric covered board with some velcro, that way If I want to I can use the frame and  backing for another finish later.  The little snowflakes are some I saved from a garland that I no longer used and they are only attached with a dab of hot glue so would easily come off.

Tina (no blog) told me about the Priscilla and Chelsea podcast last October, i'm so glad she did, it's such fun to watch, they are mother and daughter, Priscilla blogs here  and she does the most amazing things to her finishes, even if you are not a stitcher I think you would enjoy looking at her blog.

This is the only stitching podcast I regularly watch, generally I find stitching podcast just a little bit boring, (sorry, just being honest!) but I do look forward to watching Priscilla and Chelsea on Saturdays, they are entertaining and funny and the viewing length is just right, typically less than 30 minutes.

This next piece of stitching I started at the Beginning of December and I just love it so much!

The chart was a birthday present in 2016, it's En retard by Madame Chantilly 

There are so many lovely chart in her etsy shop, I've got my eye on a few more that I'd like to stitch.

I'm using the recommended DMC threads except for the rooves, (roofs??) for which i'm using Threadworkx 1089

I really do like working on this one and hoping for a finish before too long.
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On January 1st I set my Goodreads challenge for 2018, I just managed to complete my 40 book challenge last year and have set my goal as 50 books this year just because I think that now I've started listening to audio books in addition to actually reading I might get through more, we will see.

I've started the year off with some good books in January

You can find them all on Amazon or Goodreads if you would like to find out more.

My favourite book this month has to be Time and Time Again, this one has been sitting in the bookcase waiting for quite a while, I don't know why I didn't pick it up sooner!

The book I enjoyed the least was The Perfect Summer.  It started off well enough but I sort of lost interest about half way thorough with all the high society goings on.

There seems to have been a theme running through January's books, all of them set in the past with three of them having wars as the main topic.  I didn't consciously do that, it just happened that way, but it got me thinking that I might quite like to have a monthly theme to my reading so I've been looking at ideas for February and have come up with a list of 4 books, more of which I will post about at the end of February.

This year I do want to make more of an effort to read the books that I have so I've cancelled my Kindle Unlimited membership for now, (you can cancel and rejoin whenever you please) as there are quite a few physical books on my to read list at the moment, although I am still keeping my Audible subscription because I quite like settling down with my stitching and an audio book.

I hope you don't mind indulging me in Just another quick look back at Christmas before I go

with a couple of photos of Oliver and Bonnie at Christmas.

Oliver looks so grown up!  He wasn't aware of half the presents he had, just ripped off the paper, passed what was inside to mum and was onto the next one, lol

Bonnie, bless her, she is such a pleasant little girl, and she absolutely loves her jumperoo, she has just started sitting up on her own this week, she's growing up so fast!

And I just have to show you want the girls bought me for Christmas. (Again please excuse the terrible photos)

I have wanted a record player for a long time, and they got me a perfect one :-)

I just love it!! and have been enjoying listening to some Beatles records that Mark got me for Christmas and also a Whitesnake album I got for my birthday.  I'm looking forward to adding to my record collection when we visit some vintage markets :-)

If you made it to the end of my mega post, thank you :-)  I've been trying to catch up on blog reading, but If I normally leave you a comment and I haven't for a while, I'm sorry, hopefully I can catch up and normal service will resume soon, I do love to see and read about what you have all been doing.

That's it, I'm done :-)

Take care, have a good February and I'll see you soon!

-X-

A round up of 2017 crafty makes

It's that time when we look back and see what crafty things we have made throughout the year.

I may not have done a lot of stitching this past year but I have certainly done a variety of things

Halloween exchange ornament my first attempt at making a nappy cake and the only Christmas ornament I managed to stitch for my own tree this year!

 V stitch blanket made for mum and two pieces made for a Valentine exchange

The largest stitched piece I managed this year

and I'm happy to say that Joanne was very pleased with it :-)

My attempts with the sewing machine

There are 3 a items missing which i didn't get to photograph before they were whisked away, the scarf for Oliver, another blanket for Bonnie and some bunting, also for Bonnie.

And here I was thinking that I hadn't really done a lot this year, put all together like this I'm pretty happy with my makings for 2017 :-)

Thank you to all that have taken the time to leave comments on my blog this year, I really do appreciate it.  

I know blogging has fallen out of favour with a lot of people at the moment and at times I have thought about stopping myself, it does take time and a certain amount of commitment to write regular posts so it's nice when people do take the time to say 'Hello'.  

I like to keep a record of what I've done throughout the year too, and I think blogging is a good way to do that so, I will be here again in January to start off a new year.  

I'm not going to make any New Year resolutions or set any goals for next year, I seem to sabotage myself if I do that, but i'm stealing Emma's idea, (from the Potter & Bloom podcast) and I've chosen a word for next year..I will let you know what my 'word' is when I post in January. :-)

So, I will See you in 2018

I wish you all a

Happy New Year

-X-

Some stitching finishes

The snow has now disappeared, only to be replaced by miserable damp rain, ugh, I hate rain, give me snow any day over rain.  While the snow is here at least you know the days are going to be bright and the sun will shine, even if only a little.

Anyway, I'm catching up on some more finishes today, I have 2 stitching finishes and 1 crochet finish :-)

I must first apologise for the terrible photos, by mid afternoon when I get home from work the light has all but gone and these were taken on my phone which doesn't have the best of cameras and If I wait to get some decent photos i'll never get another post in before Christmas!

Bonnie's 1st Christmas ornament

This is the second time I've stitched this chart, I did the same for Oliver's first Christmas, and will more than likely stitch it again next year for the new grand-baby's 1st Christmas :-)

Bonnie's birth sampler.  

The frame is grey, although it's coming out greenish on the photos, the colours are also much better than showing here, (tut)

And again, this is the second time I've stitched this one, I also stitched it for Oliver for his 1st Christmas in 2012.  I do love this design, it's not too childish, something I hope they will still want hanging in their rooms as teenagers.

This blanket I started (and finished) a while ago but i'd forgotten about it.
It's one for the new grand-baby.

Just a simple granny square with a nice crab stitch boarder to finish it off.

The colours are actually turquoise and cream, see what I mean about terrible photos!!

Nothing else to report at the moment, I break up from work on Thursday and am looking forward to spending some time doing not-a-lot, lol  - Hopefully I can get one more post in before Christmas takes over completely.

See you soon
-X-

If only the snow had waited another 2 weeks we could have had a white Christmas!

We've had a lovely weekend visiting Lincoln Christmas market. 

On Friday morning we woke up to quite a bit of snow and we thought it would take us longer than the estimated 2 hours to get there but when we reached the other side of Birmingham there was no snow to be seen, so we made good time and got to the hotel just after 2pm.  We dropped our bags and drove into town and managed to park the car on the retail park a short walk from the centre.

The hotel was further from the city centre than Booking.com had said (!) so on Saturday morning we caught the bus there and got a taxi back in the evening as we thought it would be busier than the day before.  We browsed the shops in the day and after a late lunch we made our way up to the Christmas market again.  The market is mainly centred around the area of the Cathedral and you make your way up via lovely pretty cobbled streets, very steep streets, in fact one of the streets is called Steep Hill.

I wish I had taken my camera on the Friday as on Saturday there were so many people it was impossible to get any decent photos at all, and also very hard to look at any of the stalls.  If you ever think you might like to visit Lincoln's Christmas Market take my advice and go on the Friday, it's much less stressful.

The wonderful Cathedral

This morning we woke to snow in Lincoln too, so we set off for home as soon as we could, again expecting delays.  The traffic was quite light so we got home safe and sound by just after lunchtime.

The conditions got worse the closer we go to home

I couldn't resist taking some photos as we were near home, everything looked so pretty!

Turning into our estate

And then our road

Then seeing our garden turned into a lovely white wonderland :-)

Looking over the garden fence

 (Below) Two doors away, part of their garden transformed into a magical scene

One of the first things I did once we had got the bags in was make sure the birds had some food.

My little Robin was soon back once he knew there was something :-)

Along with our other regular visitors

Sorry, I do seems to have posted a lot of photos again!

I have tomorrow off work so I'm going try and make the most of it and have a rest after all that walking.

See you soon

-X-

Who doesn't love a pompom or a snowman

All the decorations are up, Alexa was playing Christmas songs for me while I was doing it so i'm officially in the Christmas spirit, how about you, is your tree up? or do you wait a little longer?

Ours will stay up for a month, on New Years Eve I will get up early and all the decorations will be got down, packed away and I will give everywhere a good clean again ready for a fresh start on New Years day.  It makes me feel good to start the new year off with a clean house free of Christmas clutter.

Oliver took his new ornament home last week ready to hang on his tree, he got a snowman this year, Mark says he has scary eyes, what do you think?

I suppose he does, sort of, Oliver thought he was cute anyway.

I've been making Bonnie's ornament up tonight so can't show you that yet, it's currently sitting under a pile of books so that the glue will stick properly to the back and front pieces, I will put the cording on tomorrow.  These ornaments take as long to put together as they do to stitch!

I did finally finished my pompom wreath though,  and i'm just so chuffed with it!

It's big, and I LOVE it!

I have no idea how many pompoms I made in the end, I've been making them on and off for months but I still had to make more when I finally came to attach them.

I used the extra large Clover pompom maker and tried to keep them a bit fluffy so they looked more like snowflakes.

I didn't want to hang it on the front door, I wanted to put it where I can look at it, so it's got centre stage on the TV sitting room fireplace.

You can see better on this photo how big it is.

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Birthday Celebrations

Saturday was Joanne's 30th birthday.  She is a bit of a sweet fiend so I made her this cake

I think she liked it :-)

We also went for afternoon tea on Sunday, my treat to Joanne and Jenny, (who also has a birthday later in the month)

We came away quite stuffed!

Before I go I wanted to show you something I made earlier in the year, It's a chalkboard made out of an old painting I bought at a charity shop.  I thought of hanging it in the kitchen but it was just left in the garage until I came across it when we were clearing it out in preparation for converting part of the garage into a shower room, (more about that another time, it's almost finished now)

Anyway, I was never very good at drawing but I thought I'd give it a go, this is my second seasonal attempt , and it appears that although my art work wouldn't stand up to close inspection, I can search google and copy a passable image, and it really doesn't matter if it's not perfect, it's supposed to be quirky and fun :-)

So here's my snowman for December

Looking at it now I think maybe I need to add a couple of little houses on those hills.

Below was a joint first attempt by me and Stevie, I did the lettering, leaves and roots, she did the pumpkin.

We are going away on Friday to  visit Lincoln for their Christmas Market.  We are making a weekend of it, the hotel is a couple of miles form Lincoln itself  so close enough to walk if the weather's not bad, if it is we will get a taxi to save hunting for a parking space.  Hopefully I can share lots of Christmassy photos from there in another post.

Until next time

-X-

Working on the WIP's, and cake, there always has to be cake!

Hello! it's been a few weeks hasn't it.

I wanted to make an effort to finish the WIP's that were starting to multiply and make me feel overwhelmed, and I really don't want to start the new year with a lot of old projects.

So, here are a few things that I managed to get off the needles for Bonnie.

I also finished Oliver's scarf but he took it home before i could get a photo of it.

The WIP basket still has a blanket for the new Grand-baby and the baby nest I was knitting for Bonnie,  I still want to finish this but it's such a lot of moss stitch, I have to be in the mood.

I've also been busy getting ready for Christmas, I've done the majority of my Christmas shopping :-)  I know! how organised am I, lol  Nothing has been wrapped yet but I do want to make a start on that this week, I don't enjoy the wrapping part so I will do a few each evening perhaps while watching a Christmas film :-)

And I opened one of my saving jars at the weekend.  I was a bit reluctant to break it really because it's a pretty jar, but there is no option if you want to get to what is inside, and I was excited to see how much I'd got :-)

Ever since the start of the year I have only shopped for food with cash, not debit card, It really does make you shop better, and cheaper too.  I put £60 in my purse each week on a Friday and whatever was left in there on the following Thursday went into this jar. 

Wow, a nice haul!

Doesn't look quite so impressive in little piles

But, there was £412.50.....I'm very happy with that!

I will take some out to give Jenny and Joanne as they both have birthdays coming up and being close to Christmas they now have money so they can treat themselves.  I haven't really got any plans for the rest as yet.

I'm definitely going to get another jar and do this again next year :-)

Last night was the last meeting of the year for our stitching group and I made a Baileys and malteser  cheesecake and some Christmas spiced cupcakes.

(please excuse the blob of chocolate in the middle, it did not affect the taste!)

Unfortunately the stitching ladies didn't seem to like Baileys or Christmas spiced cupcakes too much :-(
I've taken what was left into the office and the lads are currently trying to decide what is an appropriate time to dig in, lol

Being December 1st tomorrow our Christmas decorations will come down from the loft so I will have a busy (but nice) afternoon.  Saturday I have some stitching finishing to do, and it is also Joanne's 30th birthday.  Sunday I'm going for afternoon tea with the girls, my treat to celebrate both their birthdays, (Jenny's is on December 22nd), so a busy weekend with a busy week to follow too as I have a few more things going on.

I do want to try and pop back before next weekend and share some Christmas stitching I've been doing, but for now I hope you are all having a lovely time and getting into the Christmas spirit :-)

-X-