I am still stitching!!!

This is Lynn's Round Robin for Stitch & Stash, it is ready to post off at the end of the week, and I should be getting Jaclyn's from Dusty in US... who will be the last in  this RR.. Quite exciting when I  remember this started back in the new year.

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And  I have stitched quite a bit now on my Golden Gate Houses, still lots to do all the back stitching and the trees which I keep leaving so I must have a good 'tree' session or this will be left!

But I am still enjoying this and love to stitch it, all the houses different colours make it look so pretty to me. 

And this is a freebee from gazette94

Lots of lovely free designs on her blog so well worth a look.

I am using 32C Belfast linen so a bit creased at the moment with just two colours. I love the way it is already looking good! 

I saw this on Gayle's blog who is such a busy lady wiith knitting, dressmaking, stitching, crochet and recipes... I felt a failure just reading all she did.
This is easy to stitch and so I am alternating it with my other stitching.
Hope everyone is enjoying the sunny weather like us although we have had some welcome rain for the garden in the last week, which was really needed.
Happy stitching all

It is my two year blogaversary today,,, I can't believe  I have been blogging all that time!

Who am I ??

I have been asked to complete 15 random things about me so here goes!


1. After being over weight for over 20 years I am now seriously trying to lose it. I have no allusions about becoming a sylph like in under a year, just not over weight!

2. I really love my husband and wish it had been he I married the first time.

3. Our wedding anniversary is 29th July and this year we will have been married four years, our song was Elton John’s 'Your Song ' which my step daughters sang at our wedding which made me very emotional.

4. I have a degree in Education achieved in 1983 as a mature student which I loved doing, I never realised till then quite how ‘brainy’ (for want of a better word,) I was. Although I left school with 11 ‘O’ Levels.

5. I could have had an affair while I was in college but didn’t and don’t regret it, at that moment in time I was madly in love with my first husband

6. I have four children all grown and flown and three grand children.

7. I have travelled nearly around the world, just need to do the bit between Australia and America. I have been to all five continents, but now think my need to travel is over, although I want to go to Australia again and we plan to go next year.

8. The happiest days in my life were when my children were small and before they started school and when they said Mummy for the first time.

9. If I was to be asked what I regretted most in my life is not having a Mother, she died when I was two and my father remarried so I didn’t have a father either. Yes, I saw him but I lived with my Victorian grandmother and two maiden aunts. I really miss not having memories of a normal family. I always feel jealous of large families.

10. Becoming a teacher was just because I was at home with nothing to do, and I actually liked it very much. I was a nurse when I left school and still meet up with the other ‘girls’ who like me are now in their sixties and live all over the world.

11. I cry easily, sad books, sad films, or when I am happy, and then especially when they show the soldiers being brought back from Afghanistan and the cortege goes through Wotten Bassett, so sad.

12. I keep a journal and this now plays a part in my efforts to get published I write stories all the time and find it quite easy to think of something to write about. I send them off to Magazines so one day one might get published and of course I have a novel started!

13. I read all the time and never stop I always have loads of books stacked on my shelf ready to read

14. I cross stitch constantly, at every moment truth be told so I never really watch TV because I am always stitching

15. I seriously regret not keeping up with my piano playing and wonder if I still can.


And that’s me!

A show to see!!

On Tuesday evening we set off in heavy rain for the Birmingham Hippodrome to see Connie Fisher in The ‘Sound of Music’.

It was absolutely delightful.. right from the opening scene which were the nuns singing to the very last ‘Goodnight’ song sung by the Von Trapp family before they left to escape the Nazis. It was so beautiful and the singing so wonderful I felt quite emotional.  The children were fantastic and sang with real enthusiasm.

And Connie Fisher was wow!

Of course now we would like to see another live show.... it is so different to seeing films or TV.. we are booked for 'Chicago' in November, but that seems ages away. As we will be in Essex for a few days in August we are looking to see what else we could book in London. The Proms are on so perhaps an evening in the Albert Hall, a live symphony can be amazing or even an opera at the ENO.  My grand daughter has never seen Phantom of the Opera so I would like to try and book this and take her.. with my house in Essex available for us we can stay there and travel to London to see it. I said she must see it as her second name is Christine!!

A wonderful day in Cambridge

Last Thursday I had a super day, when I went to visit my two eldest grand children, Saskia and Christian , wish I could have more like it .. We went into the city and had lunch in a pizza restaurant up stairs in their roof restaurant outside, it was lovely, both the lunch and the view all around us.
In the photo of them, you can just see other roofs behind...... then after we had eaten (I had a courgette and mushroom pizza with lots of mozzrella cheese and drizzled in oil, it was amazing!!) Christian wanted to go to this toy shop so we walked and walked and walked, he went in the toy shop Saskia went in the music shop next door and I sat under an umbrella one of the many outside little cafes and had a coffee. I needed the sit down! Cambridge has so many little alley ways with cafes and stalls, such a lovely city. We had also been in HMV, which was huge and I asked didn't they have any grandma seats??? LOL

But it was a wonderful day, when we got back to their house, we had some of the chocolate cake I had made. My daughter arrived home with Theo later and I had a cup of tea with her and left about 6, it took me nearly 2 hours to come home as I drive tucked in behind a lorry when I am tired and they only go 58mph!! The one I was following took a sharp left when we left the M11 on to the A14 and I suddenly found myself in a Service area so had to go round a round about and back onto the road!! I wondered if the driver had seen me and wondered what I was at, I wondered myself!!  LOL

But it was such a lovely day! Wish we did live nearer...ah well, we'll be nearer in Billericay. Only 4 weeks to go till we are there and although we won't be fully living there, we will be able to stay there when ever we want!
It was a super day and I so enjoyed myself but it was a lot of walking and it was hot so Friday I had to have an afternoon kip!! Well I am a grandma!

Our Haven!

We were given quite a few Garden Vouchers when we married (nearly four years ago now) this was one of the roses we bought.Its called 'Wedding Day' and has spread along our fence. The scent from it is heavenly and it is lovely to sit in the garden with this around us reminding us of our lovely day.               Here is the garden struggling in the heat although DH waters each evening it could do with a big rain fall ( sorry all you sun lovers but we want rain!!)

And here is my basket with the serafina now flowering, it is beautiful and lots of people stop and look at it.

And our first carrots this year. Each year I plant the seeds in pots stood on bricks up above 60cms as the carrot fly can't fly that high!! I never get round to thinning them out enough to get  a good size so this time I patiently planted the seeds one by one in a smaller pot and these are the first we have pulled. We ate them sunday with our beef dinner and they were sweet and delicious!

Our garden is our haven and all the hard work is worth it to get it looking beautiful.

Hope everyone has a place they can call their Haven too!

A night the Ballet

We had a wonderful evening at the ballet seeing Swan Lake; Birmingham Royal Ballet is amazing.. we had booked this months ago so it was lovely that DH reminded me  that the date had arrived.

The second half opened with the curtain rising with the stage two foot deep in a white mist and then the swan dancers rose out of it.. spectacular!

How can they dance like that on their points so graceful and well worth seeing. The music alone is lovely too, this will stay in my mind for a long, long  time.

Busy, busy, busy!

I have wanted to make a quilt for quite a while and having made patchwork and quilted tote bags I decided to try some thing bigger.

I have read books, I have books and belong to a forum all explaining how to, but I thought I can read for ever and listen to others on how to, but I really need to just have a go!

I bought a super Husquava machine four years ago, which can do all manner of things and have hardly used it... anyway here are my efforts. My triangle points don't quite meet but  I have tried!

I am delighted with my results albeit the fabric is very bright, but I love it and it is for our conservatory which is our sunny room and where we sit for our morning coffee and I sit and cross stitch some days, as the light is so bright! I should have sewn some darker fabric in the blocks of the quilt but I so loved the fabric I didn't really think, but the dark green sashing shows it off so I am happy with it.

I think I will make a wintery throw next and cushions to match, which will be more suited in the winter months.

Perhaps some christmassy fabric.. I don't think I could sew and bigger quilt at this stage of learning how to as I found the quilting daunting but did it, along the seams which is called 'in the ditch'. I loved seeing it grow so I think you could say I have the bug!

And I have some cross stitch to show as well.

The little Blackbird design is a pin cushion design, but I am framing it as it will go with a whole lot of smalls in my house in Essex. I needed something quick and easy after the angst of the Margaret Perry design!!

 I have also stitched one of my WIPs, my  'Summer'Celtic Lady and have stitched the next Stitch and Stash, RR which was Lynn's Butterflies, much easier than the Margaret Perry design.

I am going to do just a bit more on this and then back to my Golden Gate Bridge 'Houses.' Of course as well as all this stitching and sewing I have planted my summer pots and garden and written several short stories... And DH and I have decorated our hall, stairs and landing in a week. I must admit that we have both had some aches and pains after we had finished and were so glad to sit and relax last friday evening knowing we didn't have to pick up another paint brush the next day!!  LOL....how did I have time to go to work??

Happy stitching, gardening and whatever else you like to do.

PS. Like other bloggers I am suspicious of comments in Chinese but having translated them they are all harmless Chinese sayings, so I leave them...

Round Robin; My Pride and Joy!

This is Tina's piece for the S&S Round Robin.

I stitched June and that's partly why I haven't written anything here because I have been busy stitching and frogging this!! Margaret Sherry designs have odd little half stitches and some in the middle of a whole bank of stitching so needless to say I won't be buying any for me!!  LOL

This will be lovely when it is finished, Clare stitched February and Dusty stitched May.

And the other reason is my garden. I have been busy planting up my patio pots and this is my hanging basket.

All the plants were bought as plugs and grown on in the green house. I am very proud of this as it is in my eyes magnificent!!

Lots more to do in the garden as with the snow I was late planting my seeds and the plants are only now big enough to plant out.

Happy days everyone.

A day in my garden

I 've had a day in the garden today and it was a struggle, don’t know why but my knee hurts like mad. So I have just gone slowly and managed to dig out all the new daffs I put in last Autumn and weed and pull out all the self seeded forget –me -nots, they do look very pretty but they spread every where so now it all looks tidy and neat. Mike has dug up some comfrey that had taken over an area and we have planted it outside our gate. It grows like nobody’s business and we have it all over the place. In its place he planted my cosmos that I have grown in the green house, so a bit of planting got done! As well as that my nicotiana and some bizzie-lizzies were tucked in under our little tree, so the garden is beginning to look rather nice.

I still have petunias, rudeckia and geraniums to go in, all grown from seed. And each year I grow dahlias in pots in the green house and then when they are ready to flower I pop them into a shady spot behind some growth
My lupins are amazing and have grown even bigger this year, these were grown from seed three years ago so now are great big bushy plants.

 We had a glass of wine sitting outside and now I am ready for dinner, I had forgotten we had bought steak for tonight so that will be very nice with our own lettuce and some bought salad bits.
The bamboo cane is there so I can show it to Nell when she is on the plants, it works I don't have to use it!! You can see our poor grass where it is yellowed from her wee... but we are working on it!! We are now giving her tomato joice every day as well as dog rocks in her drinking water!
We need more rain!
Weather has been over cast but warm, so quite pleasant to work in. Hope everyone has enjoyed your day too

Stitching 'n Sewing

I have been stitching my lovely 'Golden Gate Houses.' I have started a second house although there is all the back stitching still to do on the completed one, I love the fence and all of it! I so love stitching this I have problems doing anything else, but  I have had to put it to one side as I have my next Round Robin to do for Stitch and Stash . Six of us taking part in this and this is my third one. I can say this about this one, as the person it is for doesn't blog, because I am not enjoying it at all.

It is a very loose even weave with funny little half stitches,  a Margaret Sherry Design, so if anyone has stitched one of these designs you'll know what  I mean

It never occured to me that I may not like what it is I had to stitch, as I love cross stitch and all sorts of designs. So I am stitching it every evening to get it completed and I can get it ready to post on to the next person.

I had also ordered a whole lots of turquiose and blues threads to start the Grand Marquoir as Julie's in all different colours looks gorgeous.

As well as this I have actually got myself organised to start a patchwork quilt. I have found a super quilting forum with lots of hints and tips and one was how to stitch HST  ( Half square triangles)in the easiest of ways, so I have had a practice and am very pleased with the results. I have  a quilt pattern I want to do and have washed and ironed my fabric, so on the rainy days in this coming week I shall be sewing!

And here is my fabric all washed and ironed and ready to go!

I have been promising myself for ages to get started and as I am over loaded with gardening, some writing projects, the decorating of our hall stairs and landing, I decided this was the time to sew!! We have a big dining room table so there is room to leave my machine and fabric on it and room for us to eat, although when the weather is nice we eat outside in the garden.

I like to keep busy!!!

Happy Stitching everyone and hope you have the opportunity to sit and stitch in your garden too.