A finish for OPAM and progress...

 My finish this month is a pair of socks for my youngest GS.. he does love Grandma's socks and wears them around the house.. the yarn is Regia sock yarn, a mixture of wool and nylon, so hard wearing for a teenage boy.

This is coming along and I think this might be my OPAM finish next month as there are only 6 more squares to do. I am going to frame and display this with two RR that have been waiting for a similar design. They were squares too, so each square stitched by someone else.

And this is looking good.. I still love it and have tried to complete the left corner.

Colours are lovely, don't you think?

Hope you have something you love to stitch, sew, knit, or crochet in these days while we wait for spring time weather!
Welcome to my new followers, I am slowly working my way around you all.
Thank you for all the encouragement for my slow, slow, slow weight loss! Yesterday my new trainers were kicking up the sand on Southend beach...and a first for me... NO ice cream! 
Happy days to all.....

 

XX

I am still trying!!

 

It will take time.

It will require dedication.

It will require will power.

You will have to make healthy decisions.

It requires sacrifice.

You will need to push you body to its max.

There will be temptation.

But when you reach your goal, it’s

WORTH IT!!

@@@@@ 

I have joined with two women who like me want to lose weight.

We are meeting weekly to check our weight

It's a great way to make friends and achieve our goal.

To all those of you out there in blog land who know what it’s like trying to lose weight, I wish you well for today and know that you can do it

 

XX

 

Walking for Health and Weight

I have bought some trainers!! These were the least 'in your face,' even the black ones had vivid pink, orange, or lime green flashes on them.

These are Nike and a half size bigger than I normally wear. I had looked up trainer firms on line and a lot of the comments suggested getting a half or even a full size bigger for width and comfort.
I have walked in them, this afternoon, just once round the lake in our local park, which is half a mile and they are ok.. I think I will wear them in gently until my feet get used to them.
It seems, to prevent Alzheimer's, strengthen your heart and reduce the risk of cancer, the so called experts say walking for 20 minutes three or four times a week is the best way to do this... and  I want to lose weight. I am losing.... but ever so, ever so slowly!
So I am giving it my best effort!
Keep walking folks.. trouble is I would much rather stay inside and cross stitch! LOL
Anyway happy days all. Hope if you're in US you are not in one of the states with snow 3 or 4 ft high.. poor you if you are. We have spring like days and then wet ones but it is a lot warmer. Thank the Lord.

XX

 

Blue China design and my cleaner!

I am happily stitching this design, and it is growing fast

I did quite a bit last week as I stitched most evenings and on Friday all afternoon too!

Being retired allows you to please yourself.

The daffodils are in a little blue design jug that was my grandmother's so not just pretty but old too; she died 1980 age 94.

 It stands on my dresser on the 'blue china' shelf..Lots of the china on my dresser have memories. When I worked full time I had a weekly cleaner. The first one I had called, Fran was superb and I loved coming home on a Thursday evening to a tidy, clean and bright home. But in the first month, she decided to wash the china on my dresser,(something I myself only did now and then!) So  I was horrified when I saw my little dresser, with the blue china mixed up with the rest of the stuff and before I even had a cuppa I had to re-arrange it all back to how I wanted it. I thanked Fran the following week by note but added there was no need to wash the dresser china, I would do that myself. She was my cleaner for years and I always loved Thursday evenings best of all the week

Here is my daughter's shawl ready to take next week when it is half term.

She works in two Cambridge schools as an Examination Officer, quite a stress job.

It will be nice to see her and my youngest GS, the other two are away in Uni.

The lovely bag is what the yarn came in from Love Knitting...
We are having some early spring like days.. so I have been hap, hap, happy.. goodbye winter, come on spring! Hope you're enjoying the sunshine too!

xx

YOTA and thoughts and prayers

I have kept to my plan of spending a week on each project and managed to fit other things in as well.

This little hanging is for my friend who had a massive stroke last year.

She is trying valiantly to make progress, but it is very slow.

I wanted her to know that I am thinking and praying for her everyday, so made her this, so she could look at it and know how dear she is to me.

This is the design I have chosen for my YOTA.. and hope to make as much progress on it this next month as I have this..

This is where I was last month.....

 

 

 

 

And as you can see I have stitched 5 more squares, which I am very pleased with.

All my other projects have made progress too and I knitted the back of my cardigan, that I have had on the go for a while, so now only need to do the last sleeve. I think I can see that as my March finish.

Hope you are all keeping busy and happy in this brrrrr weather. At least to me it is stitching weather so I don't feel I have to do anything else.

Happy days!!

XX

 

 

 

 

 

Spring is on the way!

Lovely to see clumps of snowdrops in my garden, the herald of spring.. today it was only 2°C when we took our dog Nell to the park. She recognised where we were as soon as we got out of the car. She ran and ran and almost skipped with joy! I was well wrapped up but I need a hat, it was freezing!

 

We stopped and watched the ducks slipping on the frozen part of the lake. It was so funny to see them skidding as they landed.  Can't wait for the weather to warm up, but  it seems we are to have colder weather, although I shouldn't complain as people up north have snow and I just have snowdrops, which are wonderful. When I see these popping through the frozen soil, it makes me want to skip for joy, just like Nell!

(Actually I don't know if I can skip anymore!LOL)

 

Happy days

xx

OPAM.....My JANUARY finish.

How people have different likes!!

This shawl is for my daughter.

Of all the colours she could have chosen, she chose charcoal grey!!

  This is my back to show the stitch.. it was a free Ravelry pattern, South Bay Shawlette..a two row repeating pattern. 

The wool is Berroco which is 50%wool, 20% alpaca and 30%nylon .. it feels quite heavy and is very warm.  The colour is Salt and Pepper and I used a 5mm hook.. it took two 100g hanks, bought from Love Knitting..

Although I enjoy crocheting, I found this difficult to do because of the colour, but it was what she wanted... so I hope she wears it all day and every day and every blinging night too!!!

Happy Days.

xx

 

PS. Having finished this I am enjoying my evening knitting a cardigan for myself while outside the wind is swirling round huge snowflakes!!

 

 

 

 

A Busy Bee making my Tulip Quilt

Making this tulip quilt is taking time.

 Each of the tulip heads has 9 sections to sew together and I have hand sewn these. all

30 !!

 The leaves are made in two parts, each part has 3 sections....

 Then there is the stem sewing the two parts together..

 And then the actual tulip head is sewn onto the leaf section, to make one unit.

There are 30 of these..

And they are not finished.. now they have a cream fabric sewn between the tulips before they are sewn into the patchwork blocks.. whew!! All this has been hand sewn although I intend to sew the tulip head to the leaf section by machine.

I have to have 192 of these.. I have only cut half so far!

But I am sure once it is finished it will be very pretty and will make a lovely warm quilt for a friend of mine.  And I love sewing it all.

Too cold to be out and about so inside sewing is the best way to spend a cold afternoon.

Hope you're in out of the cold and enjoying what ever you like to do too.

 

xx

 

When I retired, I wanted........

The scent from these hyacinths is so strong I have had to put them in our conservatory.. But aren't they magnificent!

A present from my DD for my birthday which was before Christmas. I put them outside until after Christmas, so they have lasted a long time.

Not a wonderful photograph as these orchids are on the landing windowsill which seems to suit them.

When I was asked what I wanted to do when I retired many years ago I said... 'Grow orchids and keep bees.' I  haven't managed the bees but my orchids flower for months on end.

These are several years old. I feed them once a month and only give them a table spoon of water once a week. I love them, they always look so sophisticated and elegant to me.
Of course it never occurred to me that I would do so much craft stuff as well.. do you know 'Retirement' is not bad, in fact it is wonderful!
What did you want to do when you retired and have you been able to fulfil your dreams?  I 'd love to know..

xx

Progress and YOTA

I am very pleased with my progress of my new start and have spent all this last week just stitching this.

It is so pretty and as it grows I love it more and more!

 

 But it is this WIP that I am going to use for YOTA Year of the acronym is a plan to finish off WIPs.

 And the quilt that I am sewing is this tulip design, which  I will sew at my sewing class and for a week of evenings too.

I intend to rotate these three WIPs, I want to work on each one for a week of evenings and see how I go.
Of course things happen and maybe I won't be able to, but my intentions are to stitch and sew each evening.. although I do have my Italian evening class one evening and also that has an afternoon taken up with home work.. yes home work. But the classes are not cheap and I would like to be able to make myself understood when we holiday there, so no point doing the class if I don't make the effort at home.
So what are you doing? I have been reading blogs and I did note not so many stitchers are having a new start for the first 15 days of January.. but lots else going on.
I have so many charts I need to be more focused and try to get them done.
So ...a presto and ciao!

XX