My Autumn Promises

Autumn Promises.

1.     Not to buy any more charts.. I am already into the ‘SABLE’ class. (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy!)

2.    Make up 2 blocks of my ‘ BOM’ block of the month buy, which cost a bomb!!

3.    Lose at least 12 pounds before December.. should be possible..... erummmm!!

4.    No new stitching starts till I finish one WIPs.. well unless I feel down and then I could just pick one of my charts all ready kitted up??

5.     Work in the garden and get veg plot ready for next year, well perhaps if DH helps.

6.    Do NOT buy any more books, I already have 16 here to read, plus 2 library books and the 2 Reading Group books! This also includes getting free books from the free book shop in Basildon!!

7.    Stitch 4 christmas ornies, these don’t count as new starts!

8.    Make birthday present for my friend Yvonne (B/D December 3^rd)

9.    Make Christmas cake, I usually make 4!

10. Work on ripple crochet blanket, could I finish this by Christmas??

11.  Plant daffodil and tulip bulbs, possibly before the end of September when the ground is not too hard.

12. Lift and pot up pelargoniums ready for the winter.

The photo is the crab apple in my garden; it is always pretty, beautiful blossom in the spring and these crab apples in the Autumn.

Out of my basket came.........

These WIPs.......

Last week, because I have ordered  BBD,  'Anniversaries if the Heart' which is all of charts, the floss for the first three and a yard of linen I felt to  had to justify my expenditure by stitching  some of my WIPs and my UFO!!

So here they are... the first one is a BBD, 'Willow House.'  I couldn't  get the recommended colour of linen, tobacco, so bought a one called brandy and that was a  bright rust colour and I hated it.. so I used this instead.. because I wasn't fussy on the colour it got pushed to the bottom of my basket. But here it is,, ta-da... finished!

Then I stitched another motif on my Rose Manor, 'Spring Quaker,' so that is moving along.(it's the bottom one on the left as you look at it.

'Summer' Celtic Lady had been  pushed this into my UFO basket because I had made a mistake and couldn't find it. But I sat one evening and frogged all of the pale blue section of her skirt and re-did it all, plus a bit more over two evenings. The gold was made easier by using thread heaven, why had I never heard of it for metallic threads before?? It made it so much easier and I happily stitched until I had finished all the blue section and all that's left now of her skirt,  are the greens and some more gold.

And this Bothy Thread called 'Buzzy Days,' is my real UFO because having finished all the stitching, I had the back stitching to do... ugh!But in two hours I have managed to do the leaves and dandelions to the left of the little mouse. I re-did the outline of the mouse, as I had outlined it in black and it was supposed to be a thread colour called stone.

So I am feeling very virtuous as it was really hard to leave my 'Poppies' and also my Chatelaine 'Convent's  Herbal Garden.' to do these other WIPs.

I intend to rotate all my WIPs for two evenings and try to finish one every other month.

I hope I can, as I am dangerously close to be stitching well into my hundreds!!!LOL

I hope you too can catch up on your WIPs...

Happy Stitching

An Anniversary present

On monday evening we got dressed up and went to London to see.....











The singing was amazing and we had super seats, right in the middle of the third row in the circle.
It was our 5th wedding anniversary present to ourselves, booked some time ago by DH.. I even had my hair done and bought a new outfit too..

Had a bit of a hiccup before we went.. we were standing on the platform in Billericay and Mike suddenly said oh sh--. I’ve left the tickets in the car!!!! So off he went arrived back breathless to see the 5:17 train leave!! But we had chosen to go a bit earlier than we needed to take our time in London. So we caught the 5:37 and arrived in plenty of time.. just on 7:00pm  at the theatre. The trains at that time are all fasts so it is only a 30min journey into London.

What is he like????

Any way we had a wonderful evening, fabulous seats so a great view.

A super present  to ourselves although pretty pricy and the fruit trees we bought  ourselves as well were   naughty an extra!! LOL I think we are on a spending diet for the next month or two!! LOL
If you haven't see the show it is well worth a visit. We also would like to see 'Over the Rainbow' as we followed the competition to find the perfect Dorothy each week on the TV..
And we want to go to a Christmas Carol concert and and and  ........ the list could go on and on LOL

Happy Days

Hugs

My first love......

..... well after my DH and Nell and even stitching.. is gardening!!
Here, where the garden has been sadly neglected in the four years when the house was leased, it is begining to take shape... but in spite of starting late in the summer I have been able to plant a small veg patch.

The beans are making good progress and we are looking forward to eating them with our own potatoes which we have grown in potato bags.. I have never done this before so it will be interesting to see how many we get. If you ever watched Alys Fowler  in the Edible Garden, when she tipped out the pot of potatoes she had grown and there were only a few... you'll remember her saying' I am a bit disappointed' We hope that won't be us!

The tomatoes are wow! I just grew some old seeds, in my propagator. I didn't even look to see what they were. So when we were travelling back and fro from Coventry to here, the seedlings came with us, so it's amazing they survived.

I decided to plant them outside, because we had already booked weeks away and I knew they wouldn't survive in the green house.. I grew pounds and pounds on the allotment in Coventry  so I was  confident they would survive here. (Well I hoped!!)

Courgettes are growing so are the squash. I shall leave a few to grow big to have stuffed marrow, one of our favourite meals.

My herbs are doing well too, just look at my parsley. I also have corriander, mint, chives and today I bought thyme and sage...I still have to plant those.

And behind the beans you can just see my carrtots in pots, the one is in my chimney. Up 60cms off the ground as carrot flies can't fly that high!!

Still lots to do but I am very proud of this small patch as it wasn't planted till the middle of June, because we were so busy trying to get 'box free' in the house. Still loads to do, but we are enjoying living here, in fact I can honestly say we are extremely happy here. It is a lovely home.

We have damsons galore from my little tree bought six years ago from 'Woolies'...and with the rain in June they have grown bigger and are so sweet to eat. For our 5th Wedding anniversary 29th July, we bought ourselves a victoria plum and a bramley cooking apple tree. So we are looking forward to pies next year!

Hope you too are as blessed as us with a garden to brighten your days.

Hugs

PS....

This weighs 13.4 ozs!! Nearly a pound, just a few marks but smells wonderful, we are having it tonight for our sunday tea with ham salad!

 

Summer Exchange

Clare on Needlework Haven forum had the idea for a summer exchange. The idea was that you sent a free chart with the all materials to your partner. The design had to be stitched while you were on holiday or perhaps stitched in your garden at home.

This what arrived for me from my secret partner.

Opened up, this is what was inside that pretty little bag.

Strawberries design and to be made into a biscornu.

The conditions of the exchange was that you had to provide a pic of you stitching it on holiday.

So this is me squinting into the camera on our one very sunny afternnoon in Skipton.

And here it is finished. I sewed it up at home as I stitched it all in Skipton, well else do you do when it rains??

A great idea Clare...Hope you all have some happy stitching days on your holiday and in the sunshine!

An award

Elisa,   (Old Ragged Threads) gave me this award a few weeks ago, thank you Elisa... but what with holidays away and things around here with family I nearly forgot!!
So now I have to tell you 7 things about me.
And offer the award to 15 peeps! How could I just choose 15 from all those of you that leave me such wonderful comments?  So.....
.....I am offering it to anyone follows my blog and leave comments.

7 things about me??

1. I am quite a serious person and listen to Radio 4 rather than music programmes.
2. I love and follow 'The Archers' on the radio and have done for 40 years!! Yes I am that old!
3 Talking of age, a present to myself on my 60th birthday was a small butterfly tattoo on my left breast, just out of sight!LOL
4.I play the piano. just got back onto playing regularly.
5.I am very good at keeping secrets.
6. Girl friends are very important to me and I have a very close one, that I have known since we were 7 years old.
7. Although Billericay in Essex is my home now and I love it here, home was Porthcawl, South Wales and I have thought about moving back there, to be by the sea.

Do take the award and I let me know so I can see what your 7 things might be.

Happy Days.

Hugs    

A UFO, something easy and something really difficult!!

I have been busy getting on with my stitching. This UFO has all the stitching complete, just got to do the top stitching, which I hate! I think just an hour a week will do for me!

And this has been an easy stitch. Its called Poppies by Bothy Threads and a delight to relax with each evening.

                              And this is my Chatelaine Convent's Herbal Garden.

I have had this to stitch for over three years and have been slightly afraid to get started on it.. but  I have some stitching friends who also have Chatelaines which have never been started.

The chart and all the silk floss was really costly and I kept thinking I should make a start,,

The Fabric I bought from Polstitches and when it arrived I was terribly disapointed because it was just too too a bright blue. So I soaked it in hot water, then in cold with a few drops of bleach and this is how it turned out. It looks really nice.

The middle picture of the flower (unfinished at this time ) was 1 over 1 and  I was glad of my magnifying glass.

I have stitched around the middle picture and stitched some of the Algerian eyelets.

I think its going to be a lovely year long project.

Happy stitching everyone.

I am gradually visiting all the blogs of my loyal followers, so watch out it may be you next!

Thank you for all those of you who visit and leave and comment and if you visit and don't leave a comment, I would love to hear what you have to say.

Hugs

A watery week in Yorkshire!

We have just had a week away in Skipton. Our accommodation in this cottage was superb, albeit some of the furniture was old fashioned. The bed had both wooden head board and foot board and the mattress although cosy was inclined to dip in the middle, so just as well DH and I get on!

This was the front but there was also a communal garden just outside this front area.

One late afternoon we sat here and had a bread, a selection of cheeses and pickles bought from the market with red wine, picnic and very enjoyable it was too!

We would have liked more sunshine but in spite of the fact that the sun was hidden behind grey clouds for most of the week, we did enjoy ourselves.

We had a trip on the canal one afternoon and then stopped in the nearby cafe for coffee and cakes!

All very delicious. We ate out most evenings and the Woolly Sheep pub had very delicious meals. So now of course we are back on the food plan and I intend to be back to the weight I was by Wednesday's weigh in, before we went!

And as well as lots of cakes we had to have .....

......Because how could you not have fish and chips when on holiday! LOL

It was a pretty little town and quite busy especially on market days.

We went so that we could go to my step daughter's degree ceremony in Bradford,and that all went well.

We're back home and it is wonderful. Today we have got up to sun and blue skies and everything in the garden looks great!

My RR is home and finished

I set out the pics I wanted for this RR like Blue Ribbon designs with each little pic in a box. There were just four of us in this RR Clare, Dusty, Jaclyn and my self.
Clare did the bowl of strawberries, Jaclyn the tea cups and Dusty the cake.. All members of Needlescraft Haven.
I am very happy with the finished piece. This the second RR I join in with these very able stitchers,
Very exciting when it arrives home!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have these little cuties to do along side my two wips (Celtic Summer and Spring Quaker)  plus I am going to start  Lesley Teare design.. one of the Country Lass designs 'Poppies'

Lots to do!

Crochet bag and some stitching.

I have been busy with my hook! I wanted a bag for my knitting and started to match up fabric for a patch work tote bag,  but I had seen a crochet bag in one of my books. And here it is.. I love the bright colours.  I love crocheting,  I find it so relaxing. June's Country Homes & Interiors magazine has a crochet blanket, plus a quilt.

I am  a magazinaholic!! Friends say what do you do once you have read them, but I read them all over again! I do give them away eventually, usually when they are a year old...here is the quilt. Just simple squares and then ribble free stitched.

And I love these open shelves in kitchens, except I paid a fortune to have my fitted kitchen, so no open shelves!

And I have stitched another motif on my Rosewood Manor Spring Quaker since we came back from our holiday.

So making progress albeit slow... it has been so hot today I struggled to get the cleaning done that was really needed to be done.

Hope your weather where ever you are,  has been good.

Happy days