October makes and celebrations

October was a busy month and seemed to pass by really quickly.  We had two family birthdays, Oliver turned 12 on the 17th and It was Marks birthday on the 21st.  Mark never likes a fuss and is really hard to buy for so we just went out for a meal on the Monday night, just the two of us, not something we do very often so it was nice, and being a Monday night it was quiet too.

Oliver requested that nanny make his birthday cake, a lemon one with sweets was the brief, I think he was happy with what I came up with 😀

It's been a busy month for stitching too with the Quarry Bank Stitchers day retreat on Sunday 13th and on the following Tuesday six of us met up at the Nimble Thimble for a stitching and shopping day then last Saturday was our monthly meet up at the Exchange cafe in Birmingham.  The retreat day is always a good day, this time there were a couple of new ladies at our table, ( hi Esther if you are reading this, it was lovely to meet you and your friend).  Esther emailed me after reading about the previous meet-up on my blog, so that was lovely to be able to share information about our meet-up, and happily they were able to secure a place.  

Our monthly meet-up in Birmingham is as I said in a cafe, the only requirement is that we purchase something to eat and drink whilst we are there. In the past they have reserved an area for us all to sit together but have now decided that they are no longer going to reserve tables, hopefully that's just because with Christmas coming they will be expecting more trade from shoppers and the Christmas market.  It would be a shame if we had to cancel that meet-up because it's a lovely atmosphere.

Mary Margaret has had quite a few outings this month and this is how she is looking at the moment.

I'd say she is over half way done and If I can get a few evenings stitching during the coming weeks I should be able to get her finished before the end of the year.

I only made a couple of purchases at our Nimble Thimble visit, a couple of charts and  I took some charts from stash with me to get fabric for, which prompted my next start. 

Black Bird Designs Red Bird Sampler

I can't tell you how many years this has been waiting to be stitched!  Once I started it was all I wanted to stitch and was done in no time.

Although I took it with me to buy fabric for I ended up finding something to suit in stash along with the threads.  Not sure If I'll take this to be framed or look for a frame and do it myself, depends if I can find something that suits and I like.

The end of October is the time to share our Stick6 finishes, this time mine is a Prairie Schooler Santa.

Only one more to stitch for this year, I do love taking part in this SAL, It keeps me motivated to stitch with no pressure. 

My final finish for the month are my socks.  I thought the colours were perfect for Halloween month.

The yarn is Opal, from their Beauty Collection, colour no. 11300

Back in the Summer my five year old laptop died and was beyond repair, reluctant to buy another one at the time I've been using my fifteen year old laptop, which works fine except for the fact that I have to keep it plugged into the mains because the battery is no good and I just keep putting off buying a new one.  Then a couple of weeks ago some of the keys weren't responding, rebooting solved the problem a few times but then that didn't work so I was left with no a,s or d and no return key either!  I was still reluctant to get a new laptop as there may be some black Friday deals soon or offers over Christmas, plus I hate shopping for new appliances of any sort.  It took me a good few days to realise that I could buy a separate keyboard quite cheaply which would enable me to still use my old laptop😂  So that's what I'm doing at the moment and I have to say that typing on a proper keyboard is way better than typing on a laptop keyboard.  That is rather a long winded way of saying that I am way behind on commenting on blogs at the moment, but I will try and catch up soon.

I was going to share some charity shop stitching finds with you but I've rambled on far too much already so I'll save those for another time.

Hope you are all well and have a fantastic November, It'll be Christmas before we know it!

-X-

Easter Parade Finished

I did get my Blackbird Designs Easter Parade stitched piece back from the framers in time for Easter.   I have a fantastic local stitching and framing shop locally, Sharon and Mark are really lovely, they have had to close the shop during this pandemic but drove round to bring my framed piece back to me.  How good is that.

Once again Mark did a great job with the framing, I just told him I didn't want glass and wanted a shadow box and left the color choice up to him, I knew his choices would be good.

I had planned an Easter egg hunt for the grand-kids today, but of course, that could not happen, instead they have each got an Easter goody bag.  Such a difference to our Easter last year

I'm sure they didn't mind too much though, the Easter Bunny still left chocolate at Nanny's.

The kids came round to collect their Easter bags, at a safe distance of course.

Bonnie and Jacob came this morning

Arty and Oliver came this afternoon

They have all made Easter Bonnets, although Bonnie forgot to bring hers to show me and Arty won't stand still long enough for me to get a photo

I hope you all managed to have a good day too.

See you soon
Stay safe
-X-

Finished stitching.....

I finished February's Calendar Girl a few day's before the 1st of the month :-)

And I also finished Easter Parade by Blackbird Designs :-)

I have an idea of how I want to finish this one but I don't know if it will work out ok yet, if not it will just be framed.  I've got a few weeks to thing about it yet.

I managed to avoid all temptation of starting another stitching project until both of these were done, quite impressed with myself for doing that :-)

Next ones on the list are the Calendar Girl for March, which I'm making a start on this afternoon and Autumn Dream by Cottage Garden Samplings

 Here's my tiny start on this one from yesterday

We have some lovely indoor blooms to brighten these dull days, when is it going to stop raining!!

My Amaryllises is very small this year, the smallest ones I've grown!
It does have two flower buds though, these are the flowers from the first, the second one has yet to flower.  At first I was disappointed that it was so small, but now I quite like it :-)

That's it for me today, I'm off to make a cuppa and do some stitching, it's wet and wild outside so inside is the best place to be today :-)

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

See you soon
-X-

Three things

Last year I got a bit bogged down with the stitching and knitting I had on the go, It seemed to take me ages to get anything finished.  This year I didn't want this to happen so I resolved to try and have only two pieces of stitching and one knitting, or crochet on the go at time.

It seems to be a trend, especially with stitching, to start lots of things and work on them in rotation, I admire you if you can do that, but if I had multiple projects sitting in bags with just a few stitches in them, it would drive me insane, besides, I haven't got the space to store them all.

I hope that by keeping it to three things it will keep me motivated and I will see more finishes.

Easter Parade by Blackbird Designs

February Calendar Girl by LHN 

I stitched on this one on Sunday so i'm now further along than this photo shows

My knitting is the Betwixmas Shawl

The free pattern can be found on Ravelry and was offered up by Black Sheep Wools in December, you may remember that I posted about buying the yarn in December.

Obviously I didn't get it finished in the timescale but I did have a few problems and had to rip it back a couple of times before I found my rhythm.  

Not much left to do now so perhaps I might get it finished this week.

I do have a finish of sorts, I made another project envelope to keep my second stitching piece in.  This one is a little bit taller than the one I made for my Calendar  Girl stitching so it will accommodate the larger clip frame.  

As before, the fabric is from stash and something I've had for a while.

I had some lovely post this month.

Andrea (who's blog is The Craft Room) had offered up a giveaway on her blog of nine Farmhouse Christmas charts by LHN.  I put my name forward and won!  I never win anything, not even on the tombola, lol so I was very happy when my name got drawn from all the entries :-)

I'm looking forward to stitching these and will do my best to fit them into this years stitching.

Thank you so much Andrea :-)

Once I've stitched them all I will be paying the kindness forward and offering them up here on my blog in a giveaway.

I think that's me all caught up for now, I've been trying to find time to post for the last two weeks but life keeps getting in the way.  I've been sorting some care out for my mum, she's 91 and doesn't get around very well anymore, she wanted help in the mornings but the emergency care package they put her on was four visits a day, she didn't like all the comings and goings so we have cut it down to twice a day now, mornings and lunch time.  She is still finding it hard to adjusting to having help, it's a case of her needing help but not wanting to give up doing anything, It's hard work. 
Up till now she has been sorting her own tablets out every day but it's getting to the stage that she can't see what they are unless she holds the packet right in front of her eyes (she has macular degeneration) and has a hard time even opening some of the packaging, now the chemist will supply all her medication in a blister pack that will be set up for morning, afternoon and evening for the week.  The first pack will be delivered tomorrow so after work I will go up and make sure she knows what she's doing.  Something else for her to get used to and she won't like it but it is the safest option I think.

There is always something to do and someone to worry about isn't there?  Fingers crossed she will settle into this new routine and get used to the people going to help. 
Mum does have a lot of help from us besides this care, there are four of us and we all help her in one way or another, my cousin also visits and does a few jobs for her once a week, she is very lucky really compared to a lot of elderly people.  Anyway, I'm sure we will all get back to some routine soon.

-X-

February's ornament

My February ornament is all stitched, as with my January one I will make it up at a later date.

(Please excuse the dreadful photos!!)

Crowning the Tree by Blackbird Designs

Started February 3rd

Finished February 17th

Stitched with the called for threads on a piece of mystery fabric from my stash.

I came across this chart all kitted up with the threads when I was having a sort out in my little crafty space at the beginning of the year, I think this year is going to be the year that you see lots of things that I had previously forgotten about, lol.

The weather has been brilliant this past week, still cold, but the days have been mostly bright and sunny, it really feels like Spring is just around the corner with lots of promise of colour to come in the garden and my pots too.

On Thursday I spent an hour raking some more leaves up (they are never ending in our garden because of the oak tree) and I decided to open up my little blue house and give it a sweep and clean ready for warmer days.  I don't think I ever posted any photos of my little house after it was all painted last year.  It's stretching the imagination a bit to call it a Summer House, It's really just a space to sit when the weather is nice, it sits half way up the garden between the two lawns.

The chairs are what the previous owner left in the conservatory, Mark wanted to throw them out when we moved in but I stood my ground, for the last four years they were stored first in our garage, and then after Mark converted half the garage they were stored in my daughter's garage.  

Every so often he would say they should to go to the tip!

When I finally got my little house towards the end of last summer I bought some new cushions off ebay and now I'm so glad I stood my ground, lol.  One day I would like to paint them white, but for now I'm happy with them as they are.

I bought these postcards last year when I went to Llandudno and put them in a frame I bought from The Range, they look right at home in my little blue house.

And  I crocheted a large mandala rug for the floor and chalk painted an old table.

The cushions I think I showed last year.

I have wanted a little space like this in the garden for such a long time and now I have one :-) and I can't wait to spend time sitting in here this summer.

I wish you all a wonderful week

See you soon

-X-