Monday 27 May 2013

A Lovely Weekend

Hello and welcome to everyone, I only hope your weekend has been as lovely as mine.  The sun has shone and its been lovely and warm for the bank holiday weekend.  Also my monthly stitching group met at my house on Saturday, so I had a lovely day with wonderful friends.  To finish off in the evening my hubby and I went for a meal with a couple of the other girls and their hubbys it was a good evening, lots of laughs and excellent company.  Sunday morning we all met for coffee before Jan and Mike had to return to Andover.
Warm sunshine, lots of naughty food and excellent company - now thats what I call a lovely weekend.

My garden has enjoyed the warmer weather too and is beginning to look nice with the Wisteria starting at last to make its way along the house and the Lilac Tree in full bloom and wafting its perfume round the garden.  I have taken a couple of pics for you to see - though as with my stitching pictures I am not a photographer of any skill but I think they turned out ok.



lol I have just realised that my refection was showing in the utility room window as I took that last picture.

Now to the important stuff - stitching.  I worked on my Hardanger house over the last week and though progress is not major, as there is a lot of speciality stitches in this piece which I am slow at, I am pleased with what I achieved.  I love doing speciality stitches and love the effects they create.  As I almost always do I am tweeking this to suit me lol.  Although you have the choice of doing an Everyday House or a Christmas House the only difference the designer makes between the two is on the inside.  On the outside of the house there is supposed to be garlands along the fence and a wreath on the front door and I am missing these out as I feel they look christmassy. I have also realised that I may have to make up my own design for the inside of the house as the inner layer is supposed to be stitched on 36 count and I am not at all sure that my eyes (even with the aid of my magnifiers) would be able to cope with anything that fine. I have a feeling I may have some 36 count in my stash and if so I will give it a go - but wont hold my breath as I cannot see the point in struggling and therefore not enjoying my stitching. Anyway in case you missed it here is a picture from an earlier post when I fished it out my wip box.  And (bad grammer to start a sentance with and but I cannot think of anything else to start with) here is how it looked this morning when it was light enough to take a picture of it.

I tried taking a close up but it just looked a blur.  The little knobs on the top of the fencing are in queen stitch, the steps are in a mixture of long arm crosses and four sided back stitch, and the entrance posts are in twill stitch, the effect is really pretty and I do wish I could show you more clearly.  My hubby is off doing the garden at Mums house as we want it to look nice when prospective buyers turn up, but when he gets home I will see if its possible for him to get a close up for you.


Cards are supposed to now be going on a seperate page and you will notice at the top of the post, there is a tag for home and a tag for cards.  There is only one problem with this, I managed to do the page and put in a couple of photos but I am at the moment completely at a loss as to how to make a new post on that page.  I used to be very good with technology but alas the older I get the worse I get at figuring things like this out lol, or it's maybe just that technology is getting more complicated.   Hubby will help in most cases but when I ask him about this he just replies that he knows nothing about blogs - or probably just doesnt want to know about them lol.

Replies to comments.

Mylene asked if I could take the verification thing off my comments page.  I am really sorry Mylene but I didnt even know there was one on it and I have no idea how to remove it.

Chris asked about the designer or the Fairies.  I have replied to your email regarding this Chris.

Thanks for all the lovely comments though unfortunately no-one knew what to do about the highlighting and I have no idea if it will happen again (as it didn't show until I actually post and though I went back to see what was wrong there is nothing on the original to show any highlighting).  All I can do is apologise if this post is also highlighted - its that technology thing again lol.

Back to fairies tonight so until I see you all again, please take care and if you need a hug then consider it sent.

Love to all



May your frogs stay in their ponds.

Monday 20 May 2013

A New Addition

Good Morning to all my all the dear friends both old and new who are taking the time to visit. 

I have been in a real stitchy mood this week and working hard on The Water Pump so here is a picture to show you how much I have done.

It's quite a dull picture for some reason but I think I am making good progress.

As both Fairies and Water Pump are going really well I thought I would add a new addition to the mix.  Another of my wips has come out (I refuse to call them ufos as that sounds like I have given up on them, which I most certain haven't yet lol).  I fancied a change from normal cross stitch so Hardanger Everyday House is being added to my rota.  It was not the best of starts - Saturday night I did about an hour and Sunday when I looked I realised I had been using the wrong thread so I had to frog (again - my frogs are definitely not staying in their ponds).  That being said, i did not actually take long to get back to where I had been on the previous day and so I am looking forward to having a couple of hours stitching after lunch today.  I went to visit Mum this morning so now I can relax and stitch in peace. 

I have also been busy with card making this week but I cannot show you any of them as they are all for birthdays of friends and family and some of them may peek in here from time to time.  Talking of cards has reminded me that Andrea has put a papercraft tab on her blog, so that those who are not interested in cards do not have to be bothered with them.  I think this is such a sensible idea for although I try not to put too many cards on here, I do get friends who ask to see more and if they had their very own page I could put more up and stop worrying about boring those of you who are not interested.  So I am now off to play and see how to put another tab on my blog.

Sending hugs for all those who need them especially as there are a couple of my readers who I know could use a big hug at the moment.  Thanks once again to those kind people who have taken the time to leave a comment.

Edited to Add - if anyone knows how I managed to highlight half of this post and how to remove it please can you tell me lol.


May your frogs stay in their ponds.

Friday 10 May 2013

Busy, busy, busy ...

It is almost a week since I returned home from a lovely break in Hampshire.  I  had a wonderful stitching weekend and then hubby and I spent the rest of the week visiting National Trust properties and gardens.  The gardens were just beginning to show all their finery and the weather was so kind to us that we could not fail to have a wonderful and relaxing break.  I am now fully recovered from my tummy bug and feeling fine again so many thanks for your good wishes.

I will begin at the start with the latest picture of Fairies, which I didn't have time to download from my camera before I went away.


I bought two new charts recently.  Now I know I promised I would stay on the wagon until I had used at least half the stash I already had and I have managed to stay on it for a couple of years now, but alas getting back to blogging has led to way too much temptation.  I fell hard and I lay the entire blame on Mylene and Andrea .  The first I saw in Mylenes blog and I fell in love with the verse.  It is called "A place we call home" and is by Country Cottage Needlework.  As this is a pretty straight forward and easy stitch I decided to make it my holiday stitching piece.  By the time we got home it was done apart from a few stitches on the last motif and the wording.  It was hardly worth putting it away so in the little time I have had this week I have worked on this and now I am pleased to announce I have a happy dance.  Two so far this year I am doing well lol. 

So here it is
A PLACE WE CALL HOME
Country Cottage Needlework
started on 27th April 2013 and finished on the 8th March 2013
I did not use the charted colours.  I have so many hand dyed threads that I have bought for special charts and sometimes I have only needed them for two or three stitches, so I just chose colours I liked. As its not a very big piece I will make it up myself into a large sort of pinkeep.  I have several in my craft room that I have made up in this way and its so much cheaper that getting them framed.  Framing is so expensive now and a larger piece can cost over a £100 to be framed.  Not sure what others pay but the last one I had done was over £80 and that was Heirloom Christmas by Victoria Sampler.

Now for the other one I bought.  It is from the Drawn Thread, and I love their designs anyway.  This one is called Butterfly Garden and its a beauty.  I first saw it and fell in love with it when I was visiting Andrea in The Craft Room, I tried so hard to be good but everytime I visited and saw a little bit more my resolve melted a little more too.
As with the last one I am just going to use the colours I like though I think I shall stick to silk threads as I feel the design deserves them (the one above was just hand dyed flosses).  I am not going to start it yet but I dont think it will be too long before I have to give in and add a new start to the mix and I know it will either be this one or one I got as a birthday gift a while back which is The Forget-me-not Sampler from Victoria Samplers.  

We took my Mum out on Monday to Berkley Garden Centre near Burton.  She loves it there and to make it even better they have a craft shop too, mainly papercrafting though they do have a few things for stitchers and knitters.  Mum insisted on treating me to a new die - one of the new Make a Scene dies from X-cut.  She loves hot air balloons and I think that is why she wanted to buy it for me.  Here are two cards I have made with it and I think it will get a lot of wear as I love it. 




I am starting to get around to reading blogs again, so if I havent't left you a comment yet then I will get round to you soon and please except my apologies for being so long about it.

Thanks as always to those lovely people who are kind enough to take the time to read my blog and to those of you who take the time to leave a comment then I have to tell you they are much appreciated. 

Hugs to all,


May your frogs stay in their ponds.