I've made it again...

I have been going to post again all week and just not got around to it. Here was me thinking that when I retired I would have more time on my hands and 18 months down the line I find that I have even less time than when I was working. Busy, busy, busy but I sometimes do not know what I am busy at as the stitching time gets less and the card making sessions are few but I guess I have lots of friends and either I am visiting them, they are visiting me or I am with my Mum and having friends and family surely cannot be a bad thing.

Well despite what I just said I have managed some more on Water Tiger and I am pleased with the progress I have make on this one so far.

Also a little more on EMS Rose Sampler though my progress on this is not what I had hoped for.

I am sorry that my photographic skillare are not very good but at least you can tell its growing lol.

On the card front I made this one for my darling hubby who celebrated his birthday on Wednesday. The family all came round in the evening and it was lovely to be able to sit out and share his cake and laugh and chat together.
What else have I been up to - well with the beautiful weather comes time in the garden and we have spend a lot of time out there, Earlier in the year I shared some pictures of my spring garden so I hope you will be indulgent and allow me to show some of my summer garden now.

These last two pictures were taken of the yard at the side this morning and I have been intending to sit out there and stitch - you might be able to see my stitching ready on the table - unfortunately 15 minutes later we had a small thunderstorm and it is still raining heavily so guess I will either have to stitch inside or find something else to do - lol like catching up with my blog. Catching up with the blogs I follow seems almost impossible, my blog reader is telling me I have 172 blogs with new postings and as fast as i seem to read one another two pop up, so please forgive me I am doing my best - even if my best aint good enough.

Thank you to all who visit my little world, and to those who leave comments - you all make this little journey through life so much more interesting with the things you say, encouragement you give me and tips you share.

Just one last thing before I go - one or two of you have asked how my food diary is going - well typically and without trying to tempt fate - since I have started it I have not had one tummy upset so at the moment I cannot tell if it will shed any light on the problem or if it has cured the problem lol - I will keep you updated if any developments occur.

Hugs for all those who need them,

May your frogs stay in their ponds.

Cards, Cakes and Good News. (lots of pics)

First I just have to show you some pictures of my beautiful boy who celebrated his 7th birthday on Sunday. I can hardly believe that he is seven already.

..... and pictures of the cake I made for him too.

and to end his birthday theme I will share the card I made too

Have you seen my new ticker bar at the top - I am thrilled to say that my darling hubby has decided to have an early retirement and will be finishing work on the 28th August. Also on the 6th September we will have achieved 40 years together - just think we could have murdered two or three people and served less of a sentance lol. He says when he bought the wedding licence he thought he had the option to renew each year like we do for the tv, its a good job I didnt tell him beforehand that it was a one off job. We have been talking about having a holiday to celebrate both events and on Friday night he asked me to look through a travel itenary and let him know what I thought, my eyes were popping as I read and I said oh that would be fantastic if we could do it. His reply was "Good because Ive booked it today and we fly out on our Anniversary", oh I knew I married him for some good reason. We are going to New Zealand the one place in the world I have always dreamed of going. We are going to Singapore and Australia too and also either Hong Kong or Bankgog for a stop over on our return but its NZ I am so excited about.

Oh Helen come back down to earth and get on with things lol. Right another card I made was for a friend who was getting married (for the 4th time)

I also made a very pretty one for my friend Ann but silly me forgot to take a picture of that one.

And on the stitching front just a little bit more on EMS Rose Sampler to show you.

We unfortunately had another death to deal with last week as my neighbour and friend for 40 years passed away on Thursday evening after a long fought battle with cancer. May you rest in peace Anita, your family will find life hard without you and you will be missed by many.

Well thank you all for once again bearing with my ramblings and visiting my little blog, and for the lovely comments you continue to leave.

Hugs to all

May your frogs stay in their ponds.

Hello Again

Goodness me its been almost a month since I last wrote in my blog. Firstly my computer was dying on me - the internet was cutting out every couple of minutes making it very difficult to do anything at all - the cd/dvd drive had caved in and would not play anything - and then to top it all the poor wee thing got a bug and when the internet did connect I had adverts for porn sites popping up every other second. Now with a seven year old who stays a lot and likes to play on my computer that really became the last straw. My hubby teased me something wicked about what I might have been downloading whilst he was out but I hadnt honest. We could laugh but the risk of our darling grandson seeing and asking questions was, as I said before, the last straw and not a risk we were willing to take so it had to be sorted. As you can imagine with no cd drive to download the things I wanted to save this was a long task with my dearest doing just two or three files at a time onto his USB and transferring the things on to his computer. This finally completed he cleared the whole main drive thingy and reloaded all the correct software. In doing so he decided it was time to upgrade me to Vista which was a pain from the point of view that some of my programs were old and would not load into Vista. My photo editing program being on of the things. Oh eccles cakes, I had to go searching for something else but actually found there is some pretty good free stuff out there for editing so I have downloaded one of them and seem to be getting on reasonably well with it.

Unfortunately it was not only the computer that kept me away from blogging but lifes little dramas too. Mum was ill, then my dear aunt became very ill and I was taking Mum to the hospital everyday to see her. Sadly she lost her battle for life which has left us all feeling very empty.

On a far more cheerful note, with the computer out of action what little time I did have was spent stitching. Not a lot done for a months work, but progress I can see none-the-less.

So firstly an update on Water Tiger which has had the most of my limited attention

I am now almost half was down the 4th page and I have also done some more on page 5 as I have been working across to join up with the central bit, which was where I started this project.

I also have made quite good progress on EMS Rose Sampler despite the pesky frogs who seemed to delight in visiting every time I got this out recently.
Next week I am hoping to finish the dividing line across the left side and make a start on the next alphabet - the first half of which goes between the two dividing lines. Once that is done pages 7, 8 and 9 will be complete and I will only have three more pages to do. Joining the Crafty Natter UFO night has really helped with this project.

I also have one more card to show you. This is the one I have done for my sister-in-law but as she does not read my blog it is quite safe to show it to you.

I have been trying to keep up with blogs but with little success as I have only been able to read them at odd times in the day. I will keep trying to catch up but you are all so busy and have so much I want to see and read that it is a hard task lol.

I notice during the last few posts that I have had some new readers who have been kind enough to leave comments. However a few of you do not appear to have blogs so I have been unable to come visit you and thank you in person so I want to take this opportunity to both thank you and welcome you to my little world. I just love to get your comments and I really do appreciate them but I also appreciate all those people who just want to read. I know from my tracker how many people do just come for a quick read and I appreciate all your visits too. I just love looking at all the places round the world where my visitors come from. One day when I have the time I will write you a list of the many many countries that my visitors come from. Oooh wouldnt life be perfect if I could come visit you all.

Well its almost 1.30 am and my eyes are beginning to droop. Also my darling grandson is having a stopover this weekend so we will be expected to be up and about by 8am at the very latest so I am going to say goodnight and leave you for the comfort of my bed.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Hugs

May your frogs stay in their ponds.

A Little More Progress.

Wednesday should have been UFO night, and I should have been going on a visit to my friend Colly but unfortunately the dreaded tummy upset was back. I have come to the conclusion that something I eat disagrees with my but I cannot work out what as I never seem to have had the same thing twice. However a friend suggested that I keep a food diary of everything I eat and that way I may begin to see a pattern so I think that is what I am going to have to do, boring as the prospect is. I will try anything if it gets to solve the mystery of what upsets me.

Anyway I did my UFO on Thursday instead and made a little more progress.

I have also managed to finish page three on water tiger so that warrented a little cheer one six more pages to go lol. Unfortunately there is a lot more work on them than on the first three and I only have 6 months to go ......... ahhhhhhhh and I thought stitching was to keep me sane.

On the card front here is the card I made for Rachael's birthday.

And here is what I stitched for her. I designed it myself though it is loosely based on the SB "Be Attitudes".

I finished it as a pinkeep style picture and was really pleased with it but silly me forgot to take a picture.

I am now off to try and get some more of Water Tiger done before my bed calls me. Hope you all have a lovely weekend - especially those in the UK who have an extra day on Monday for the Spring Bank Holiday.

may your frogs stay in their ponds.

Progression

I am going to start with a picture of the card I sent to Wendy for her birthday last Sunday

As all the cards I am making at the moment are for up and coming birthdays I cannot show you each one until the person has received them, especially as most of those who will be recieving them read my blog sometimes.

Next is Water Tiger, not a lot of progression but his second ear is beginning to take shape, if I stopped gadding about I might get more done on him but then I wouldnt be having so much fun lol.

Yesterday I went to visit with my friend Colly, lovely as I can take my stitching with me when I go there, though we do too much laughing to get a great deal done. Anyway WT is definitely not the thing to be taking when my concentration is not going to be full on so a quick scout in my WIP box and I came out with the EMS 2008 Rose Sampler. This is such a lovely one to stitch and does not need too much in the way of concentration so it was ideal. I had not touched it since November last year but I really enjoyed working on it and decided that I would join the UFO group at Crafty Natter and try to finish it. As the groups UFO day is Wednesday and I usually go to Collys on a Wednesday it also means I have a nice easy piece to take with me and I am fulfilling my UFO obligations too. Anyway this was how it was when I left it last night. I got R, S, T, U, V, W and X done so I was really pleased with my progress. Now if only the Tiger would grow so quick.

Today I took Mum up the the garden centre and we both bought some more plants for the garden. We enjoyed looking round but I had to get a wheelchair for Mum as her foot is giving her a lot of pain at the moment. This was a great concession on her part as she is a very independent lady who lives by the rule of "Use it or lose it" and she hates giving in to the pain she suffers. Unfortunately there is nothing the doctor can do apart from give her strong pain killers and she doesnt like taking them unless she really has to.

The weather has been really quite dull here and cold too but I am hoping that it will cheer up for the weekend as we have Ozzie and we were hoping to take him to Biddolph Grange. Its not somewhere he has been before, though we love the gardens there so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Thank you for all the lovely comments I am sure you know just how much they are appreciated. I am trying to keep reading blogs but unfortunately I have so many I love to follow and as fast as I read a few a few more pop up on the list so its slow going lol.

So bye until next time dear readers and friends

may your frogs stay in their ponds

Not A Lot Of Stitching - But Lots Of Pictures

As this blog is supposed to be about stitching I will start off with what stitching I have to show you, but it's not a lot. What time I have had to stitch has been mainly in the evening so its been on I still do. I frogged the orchid that I mentioned in my last post and restitched that, got some more letters done and have made a start on the first of the two big motifs - boy is that slow going. Anyway here it is.

My other hobby is card making, something I have been doing for family for a while but only recently started doing on a larger scale so that I can send them to friends too. My daughter said that I should take pictures of the cards I make so here are a few I have made recently.

This was for some friends who were celebrating an anniversary

The next one is for their grandson Harry whose birthday will be next month..

This one is just to keep in stock for an emergency

Next I have to thank everyone for the lovely comments they left on my garden pictures, so I thought I would be a little indulgent and show you some more. Many of you said that it would be a lovely place to sit and stitch but when the sun is out it is on the back garden for most of the day so I usually sit round the side of the house in my yard to stitch, and here is my stitching seat.

This is also the working area of the garden where I potter about repotting etc and though it may look clean and tidy from that angle if I show you the view from the chair you will see my pile of clutter heaped in the corner near the compost bin.
Here is a picture of the corner - the trellis here hides what we loosly call the potting shed but which is in fact the place that holds all the junk we seem to have aquired over the years - we really do need to find time to clean this out and get it back to its original usage.

The next view maybe shows it clearer
and now for some fun ones.... this is the cricket team - my mum bought these for my DH for Christmas, hes a huge cricket fan. Although its hard to imagine from this picture the rocks you see on the left hand side are my waterfall which has a really good flow of water coming down it. It comes from across the top of the rockery approximately in the middle of this picture then down the waterfall and across a little stream - which is just the other side of the cricketers and into the pond (another feature you never seem to see on garden pictures lol, but it is near the greenhouse and comes just under the lilac tree.

Lastly I thought I would show you Mrs Blackbird having her morning bath...

This is a ritual which she enjoys doing and I love to watch, it never tires me and I have been watching her have her bath for years during the summer months. I am not sure how long blackbirds live so maybe it isnt the same bird every year but its always the female and the ritual that is followed is always the same.

I am as you may have guessed well behind on the blog reading again but I do keep trying to read some and leave comments as often as I can, so please do not think I have forgotton you all. Thank you once again for reading and leaving so many lovely comments. The comments so often make me smile and I find myself leaving the house with a big grin on my face many a time from something one of you has said.

Bless you all and Hugs

may your frogs stay in their ponds.

A Garden Full of Flowers And A House Full of Frogs

What a long title but it just about sums up this post.



First of all the garden where the bluebells and whitebells are the best they have been for a few years now. The lavender and wisteria are just coming into flower, and the forget-me-nots are as always running riot through everything. When Keith is at work I like to use his computer as it looks over my little garden. Yesterday despite it being a grey rainy morning everything looked so pretty and fresh so I could not resist taking a couple of pictures to share with you.














And now for the frogs. Oh my gosh where is my head this week. Although I have had very little time for stitching I was pleased that my secret project was going well. I was trying to make a covered tape for my daughter - just a little extra for her birthday which was on Sunday. Friday night I put the last stitch in, most of which was 1 over 1 on 32 count (I know that is big for some of you but with my eyes I can assure you that is really hard work). I started to whip stitch the top to the side and by the time I was half way round I knew I had a problem. Either the top was too small or the side too long as it was quite obvious that I was going to have side to spare by the time I got round the top. I got the tape out to check against it and OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH the top was far too tiny to fit it (which meant the bottom was too). How did that happen I hear you ask - well doing things in a rush is the short reply. I have done these tapes several times now and because I like to play and design for the person to receive it I have a template for the border and for the top/bottom section on my computer in fact i have two sets one for 28 and one for 32 count and yes you guessed, in my haste I had run the template for top and bottom off at the 28 count size. Not all is lost as I still have the border but the top and bottom are binned and I will have to do them again - but not for a week or two I can assure you. Just to add to the fun I have worked two lots together as I was making one for a friends birthday too, so that means I actually have two lots of tops and bottoms to do again.



Saturday I had a wonderful day at the Crafty Natter meet-up in Derby, but when I finally sat down at night to do an hours stitching before bedtime I fell asleep in the chair, and as there was more talking and laughing done during the day than actual stitching I think I had about a total of 12 stitches for the day lol.


Sunday evening and the house free of children and dogs and all back to normal I wanted to get back to some sort of routine, therefore pulling out "I Still Do" was a real pleasure. I stitched the G and the little heart motif close to it and then went to start on the H - wait a minute something is wrong the H is not going to go where it should. Back to the map and I eventually realised that the orchid motif had been placed two low - thank goodness it was that one which I think is not too much work to restitch, but the rest of the evening was taken with the frog hopping up and down on the arm of my chair whilst I reverse stitched the orchid. One think that I was really worried about was with the thread being a dark red there would be some bleeding of the dye into the fabric and it would leave a mark but luckily this did not happen and after using sticky tape to clear the area of all the fluffy bits its hard to tell there was ever anything stitched there so tonight the orchid will be redone and I will carry on. Just crossing the fingers that the frogs are back in the pond.

It is now 8.30 so I must rush off and get dressed as its Mums shopping day and I have a good bit to do before I go out.

Hope everyone is well, I am doing my best to keep up with blogs but sadly I am again well behind so please forgive me, I will eventually catch up with myself and get my hectic life back on track.

Thank you to all who visit and leave comments. I have had a few new visitors recently but as they do not appear to have blogs of their own I would like to say a special welcome and thank you for the lovely comments to each of you.


Hugs


may your frogs stay in their ponds