A very busy month!! Lots to show!

Progress all round!!

My 'Cat's Sampler' is growing slowly! If I wasn't in Gaynor's Stitchalong I don't suppose I'd stitch this regularly. I have a stash that needs to be reduced so I will carry on with this so I can do one of those??? I dared buy any more I am running out of places to store them!


Finished this, LHN 'Home of a Needleworker too,' but not framed but I have one ready so when I have a spare evening, if I do, then this is what I'll do.Its stitched on 32C Cream Belfast linen with DMC threads. I have 'My Needle's Work,' ready to start the SAL tomorrow, Don't you just love LHN designs!




The Challenge this month was a needle roll.. The is a freebie Dragonfly Stitchers design stitched on 28c Antique Belfast Even Weave with Vicky Clayton hand dyed silk, Grape Vine... I loved stitching this and am thinking of using it again, its so delicate.I actually made this up before Church this morning!!


And for X-stitch monthly exchange a sun glasses case for Fleur, with it I sent a small book and a packet of sweets, well sun glasses mean holidays to me and on holidays I read eating sweets!!


And my poor Beatrice has just had a little stitching done this month... still as it is going to be an heirloom, I have a while to finish it!!! I do like stitching it but other things over take me... the garden, our new little Nell who is such a sweetie

And here she is... You can see she has grown and when she has worn us and herself out she crashes in my shady border!!

A present for me and a present from me!!

My fob from Exchange Heaven
Isn't this the most delicate and pretty fob and she made it into a little winnie needle case. It is so beautifully stitched and made up..just look at the little loop and stitch button and in the most beautiful colours.. thank you Amanda.. I love it.If you click on the pic it will show the detail.


And my exchange for the year long Prairie Schooler exchange has arrived so I can post a picture of it now. And if I say I liked it enough to keep it for me, Gaynor will know just what I mean!! Lynn, who received it liked it too.

Stitching done and stitching to do!

The fob I did for Lindsay in Exchange Heaven has arrived so I can now post pics..
I saw on her blog that she loved sunflowers so a sunflower it was!


And on the back a couple of bees!



And I have been busy with one of my WIPs that I am doing for Gaynors SAL I am pleased to say that I completed all the back stitching on the green cat and on the one I did last week.. so I am moving along slowly.Its not that I don't like this but since I bought it close on three years ago my tastes have changed and it hasn't had the same appeal, however I am enjoying stitching it as doing it in a SAL makes it a must although today thursday is the day I usually stitch this and I am desperate to get an exchange finished for the year round Prairie Schooler exchange so I might just get that done and finished this evening. But if I do that I will be behind with my Beatrice SAL.... arghhhh there aren't enough hours in my days!!!



And this is what I would really like to get started on I have said two months in a row that I will and as yet I haven't.. I think I need to buy some 28c linen for it, so off to surf!

My other LOVE! Well 2 other loves!!

Nell is beginning to get quite daring in the garden and has to our horror trampled on the veg patch where we proudly can say our parsnips have germinated and also has pulled up the odd flower!!
Here she is having found and chewed a peat pot! What a girl but at 9 weeks and 4 days old she asks to go out and will sit on command for her food! There have been accidents at night but that might be because we don't hear her right away and by then it is too late.... but it is getting better day by day and after all we have only had her for a week and 4 days!

But after her I love my garden and although small I pack it full. This is taken this evening in the late sun. The lupins are budding and wow when they flower they are like castle turrets!

And a small corner of my patio which by high summer will be a scented paradise, with all my pots of scented pelagoniums and petunias..


We eat lunch outside at every opportunity and take pleasure in looking at our garden... of course the veg patch is just a small part of our veg growing as our allotment is huge and keeps us active and happy... a day in the allotment is like a little holiday for us, well the bit where we sit in our old plastic chairs drinking coffee and eating our sandwhiches, some days the rest is hard work. We have had it now for 2 years and still haven't cleared it all.But we have had so much veg from it. This year I am planting flowers there as well.
There has never been a day when we haven't come away thinking what a great time we have had even when we have come home soaking wet and couldn't get in the hot shower fast enough. But now that the sun is here we love it!

Exhausted with this new baby!

On monday we picked up our little Nell and wow do we know we've got her! She is a bundle of energy and full of fun. And training her is hard work, we are constantly watching her and taking her outside except she hasn't learnt keep off the garden and has chewed some flowers and pulled up others! Yesterday she laid in the middle of a clump of primroses and before we could stop her had eaten a few!


She does sleep thank goodness! However, she races around nipping here there and every where and then crashes for a power nap and then before we have recovered she is racing around again. She gambols down the garden and loves to play and is where ever we are..


She has been to visit the Vet for her first jabs and cried pitifully when she had it, we were so sorry for her, but the Vet gave her a biscuit and she wolfed it down and then wee-ed on the table, ooops!

She loves to snuggle up and smells just like a puppy should! We love her but who wouldn't?

Exchange received

My exchange has arrived in US so I can now post a pic, I think I am making too much of these exchanges and the stitching took ages so I have decided to stop and just stitch for my friends and me!

This is the stitched hanger or pinkeep

Spring in my garden, my water feature and seedlings galore!

Spring has arrived in our garden, it doesn't show all here but we have daffodils, tulips, pansies, wallflowers and as you can see forget-me-nots every where!!

This is my little water feature not working at the moment. It is called Gladys and I bought it several years ago at the Gardener's World Show at the NEC with money that my Aunty Gladys left me in her will.. The water comes out of the flower on the bonnet and trickles round the brim and then down. We are looking out for a solar operated pump for it as it is a bit far down the garden for a power cable. I love it although various people have said she is ugly I think she is beautiful!

My seedlings...all growing well in the conservatory

And some more...I have petunias, bizzie-lizzies, antirhiums, sunflowers, lupins, rudbeckia, cosmos and others... come the summer we shall have a borders full of flowers and the extras will go up the allotment, and of course all the veggies

Sunflowers

These are the beautiful sunflowers I received from Rosalie's daughters after I accompanied Rosalie when she went for her angiogram. The angiogram showed that there was nothing wrong with her coronary arteries; all that worry and it was fine, thank God!

Smoking needles or got my mojo back!!

A scissor fob for Challenge for a finish turned into a pressie for Gaynor, hence the back and a cabbage and carrots!




And some of my WIPs all moving along...this is my 'Cats' sampler which I am doing with Gaynor's group.. Stitchalong.... when I am stitching it I love it, but it is so difficult to get it out of my WIP basket!



And my Beatrice Potter sal which I have started again.. I am using 32c Antique white with Vicky Clayton HD silk, colour Dried Roses and this is my third start; I do like this very much but as I said some thing this size is going to be an heirloom so it has to be good!


And not a very good photograph but this is my LHN 'Home of a Needleworker,' which is for ME!



I also have completed a woodland themed design for 'Hooked on Exchanging too' but as this hasn't been received yet, I'll have to wait to post a pic for it....and I forgot I also did a scissor fob for Maxine as she lost her scissors, but didn't take a pic..
So I feel I have done really well this last two weeks considering we were away the weekend before Easter in Wales, then the Easter Weekend was busy and this last weekend I went 'home' to Billericay... today I have spent some time in the garden and it is looking pretty wonderful even if I say so myself. I shall post some pics when I am finished tomorrow!
By the way our new little pup is a tri-coloured cockapoo (cross cocker spaniel and poodle) and it looks like her name is going to be Little Nel. Monday seems a long time away to pick her up, I love her already!
Anyone looking at what I have stitched this year and compare it to the numbers of books I have read will see I read more than I stitch!

Our new pup

We picked out this little beauty from a litter of four, she is so cute, can't wait to get her in two weeks time!