From me to thee

Hello one and all..... where does the time go? Since I last posted we have been to Lochcarron in Scotland for our annual holiday. A lovely time was had by all and whilst we were away it was Carol's birthday. Sophie and Matt organised a cocktail party in honour of the day and here are photos of the gift that I stitched for Carol this year. The design is 'From me to thee' by Blackbird Designs.

Thanks for visiting!

A birth sampler

Thanks for all your comments, I have really enjoyed reading them! This is what I have been stitching on since the weekend. It is 'Borage and Bramble' from the Bramble Hearth leaflet by Shepherds Bush.

It will be a birth sampler for my friend's grandson. I stitched the 'Blue Berry Button' sampler from the same leaflet for his older brother, so I am hoping they will like this one too!

Here is my total progress so far; as you can see, I am not stitching it exactly as the pattern. Once again, the colours in the photo are not showing well. This is stitched on a light sand linen (soft buttery/sandy yellow) and the DMC colours are 778,315, 316, 524, 520, 932, 931 and 823. As always, all photos are clickable if you want to see larger versions.

Bloom where you are planted

I can hardly believe that I have another little finish to show! This one is 'bloom where you are planted' by Birds of a Feather. It is stitched on Belfast light-sand linen, although you can't tell that from these photos I have worked out how to get clear photos with this camera, but decent colour really eludes me! I had most of the required variegated threads and subbed just a couple with DMC.........

This is quite a colourful piece but nowhere near as brash as it looks in these photos

Here is the overall finished result.......... This was a straightforward, pleasurable stitch and I can recommend the piece, it is very pretty.

I have had a very pleasurable day so far, in spite of being temporarily extremely deaf. I am already completely deaf in one ear and the hearing in my other ear (the one previously known as my 'good' ear by all who know me) has decreased suddenly this week. My GPs surgery advised me to put ear drops in to clear the ear canal and now I have done that I can barely hear anything....well, maybe it has to get worse before getting better and who knows, I may get a little more stitching done if I am not distracted by the sound of the TV this evening? I have been looking through my Shepherds Bush stash today and have realised how many SB pieces I want to start at once LOL. So many lovely things to stitch and so little time.

Many thanks to all of you that take the time to visit me and especially to those who leave comments. I do love to read them all!

Good old Carol......

Just L@@K what my friend Carol turned up with on Sunday - yum, yum..... fairy cakes!!

They looked so pretty and tasted as good as they looked

.....and, by sheer fluke she had made just the right number to fill up my cup cake holder. Doesn't it look pretty? What a pal and needless to say they have all gone! The family descended when I texted them a copy of the next photo :-)

Thanks so much for my 'cheer up' gift, Carol - you are the best!

Thanks so much to everybody that has commented on my last post, I really do appreciate all your kind words. I did some more stitching last night and so should finishBOAF 'Bloom where you are planted' tonight. I hope to have some photos to show shortly.....

Princess Pamela......

This post is a very sad one for me as I am writing it to mark the loss of my little dog Pamela who died last Saturday..........

We have had her for 10 years as she was already 2 when we got her. We inherited an extremely timid but loveable little dog who blossomed into an affectionate and fun companion. It is certainly true that she believed that she was in fact a princess and not a dog at all and eventually she managed to bring us all around to this idea...... :-)

Here she is with Maisie who is our lab/collie cross

We will miss you Pamela; we will even miss your extraordinarily imperious ways......... :-)

As always, thanks for visiting.....

BBD finish

This piece is finished and I am very pleased with it. I used the suggested DMCs and gingham fabric.

I decided to use the same fabric and threads and make a little pincushion. I have wanted to stitch this up ever since I bought the book. It is almost done.....

Thank you for visiting....... :-)

BBD 'A flock of birds'

This piece is from the booklet 'My heart is true' by Blackbird Designs and Nicoletta Farrauto. I am using the suggested DMC threads and gingham fabric. So far it has been a very easy stitch and is looking good! I might even have it finished before the weekend if I am lucky!

Thanks for visiting.....I hope to see you again soon!

Siren of the sea.....

My on-line stitching group had a summer exchange recently and just l@@k at the lovely gifts which Danya sent to me! Isn't the mermaid just exquisite?

She also sent a beaded bookmark.......it may be difficult to see in the photo but the flamingo has little 3d wings sticking out from his body - too cute!

Here is a close-up of the mermaid for you to enjoy - all photos are clickable if you want to see larger images. Thank you so much, Danya!

Until next time - have a good weekend, thank you for visiting!

In the Forest by La D Da

Hurrah, another long-term UFO bites the dust! I finished this piece last week and have since dropped it off at the framers; I can collect it in a couple of weeks!

I couldn't get the linen which was called for so I substituted the fabric and used the NPI silks suggested on the pattern It is very cute!

Thanks to all who left comments about Marys birthday party. Helen, we had the party at Blackbrook House near Belper.

Marys birthday party

I have had the loveliest day today at Marys birthday party! The venue was delightful, the food delicious and the company extremely enjoyable! What more can you ask for? First up is a photo of me and the birthday girl chatting, which is our natural state..... :-)

Here is the table, all laid and waiting for us all...........

Here is the venue, which is just delightful and with such friendly, helpful staff too!

Such a pretty view inside the front door; the house just welcomes you in......


.......And, because this is a stitching blog, after all .......last, but not least, here is a photo of the pot lid that I stitched for Mary. I used 'Watercolour Heart' from Shepherds Bush.

Framing photos

"Thank you" to everybody that left a comment about Carol's beautiful box. I love to read your comments and it makes me feel less self-conscious about sitting here rambling away to myself! LOL

Here are the promised photos of the pieces that I recently collected from the framers. This week I finished La D Da's 'In the Forest' (hurrah!) and I will try and take some photos of that piece later today. Our weather is grey and overcast at the moment, so I am not sure how well the pictures will turn out. I have a million things to do today, most of them fall into the category of 'chores' but the bright spot of the day will be stitching a little something to fit in a pot-lid for Sophies mother-in law, Mary. Mary has a special birthday soon and has graciously invited us to her birthday celebration tomorrow...... (Sophie is my youngest daughter). I have a few ideas, so watch this space...... As we all know, pot lids are very small, so I shouldn't have a problem in starting and finishing this today .

I hope you enjoy the photos, which are clickable, as always..... Enjoy your weekend everybody, I also hope that you manage to get some stitching time in!

Carols box.....

Here, at last, are the photos of the beautiful box which Carol made for my birthday - I just love it! The design is by Blackbird Designs and is one of my favourites!

I am sure that you will agree that Carol has made a fabulous job of the finishing, as well as the stitching.......

She even lined all the inside of the box too - isn't it pretty? I am very lucky, I know :-)

I hope that you are all having a wonderful Easter weekend. Yesterday we went to Crosby to see the art exhibition on the beach. It is called 'Another place' and is by artist Anthony Gormley. If you are not familiar with this exhibition you can find out about it here . When we arrived the tide was in, which meant that the figures started to appear as the tide turned. It was very interesting!

Today I went to the picture Framers to collect 'My Son', have been taking photographs and doing a little stitching on La D Da's 'In the Forest' which I am determined to finish before starting anything else. Watch this space for more photos shortly.......

Somebody cue Stevie Wonder..... :-)

...... Happy birthday, to me.... hap-py birthday......... :-) It was my birthday on Friday and I have had a lovely birthday weekend with lots of visitors and presents and even special birthday rock cakes with candles made by my dad who also came to stay....... aren't my presents pretty too?

I will be back soon with a photo of the box with a stitched lid that Carol made for me; it is just gorgeous!

Thank you all for visiting and a big thank you to all those that leave me messages, I love to read them all!

Hello one and all, I want to start this post by thanking each and every one of you that left me a comment about 'My Son', I really appreciate it! The general concensus was that I should just go ahead and get it framed and that is exactly what I have done! I will post a photo as soon as it comes back from the framers!

In the meantime, I have made this little book for my dad and he seems very pleased with it. Iused some mottled hand-dyed yellow linen and a Gloriana varigated silk to stitch it. I also used a hand made paper to line the book and the design is from 'For the Birds' by Drawn Thread. Very many thanks to Loreta for her wonderful instructions for making these little notebooks. Her blog is an absolute joy to look at and I recommend it very highly to you if you are not already a regular visitor!

Here are some photos for you to enjoy..... :-)

It has only been seven years in the making.......

........... and I finally thought it was done! I have spent about ten hours working on this today, stitching and unpicking and going boss-eyed with all that backstitch. I was fairly pleased with the result, even though the bottom section is not quite what I originally planned to stitch.... I am not very keen on the look of hardanger and the original chart has a lot of hardanger, stitched in the variegated purple thread, hence we opted for green backstitch at the bottom to echo the top of the piece.

I spoke to my friend and stitching buddy Carol this morning to check what I had graphed out for us both to use back in 2002 when we started this piece (and Carol finished hers - yay Carol! :-) ). It turned out that I had already stitched past the point where we had planned to modify it......

So, nothing daunted (much, anyway!), I re-planned and stitched and ripped and tutted a bit.... Finally, ten hours later I was so very happy with the result until I discovered that I have stitched the bottom backstitch in a different green floss to the backstitch at the top!!!!!!! AAAARGH!

To be honest, I could weep now....... I really don't think I will ever restitch it if I rip it out, so I will wait until tomorrow morning when I can see it in daylight and decide what to do next. At the moment I am telling myself that it is okay for it to be two different greens - after all, both greens are in the pattern, but the perfectionist in me is whispering that it will look ridiculous and everybody will notice. The top green is brighter and the bottom is more of a bottle green. I need to see it in daylight, so only time will tell - I would rather have it finished and framed in all it's two-green lovliness than flung in a cupboard forever because I don't want to restitch it...... Carol would restitch it without a seconds hesitation, but she is much more disciplined than me :-). Oh well, tomorrow is another day I suppose...... I hope you enjoy the pictures! The photos are clickable, as always.

My Son - the photos

Here are the photos of my progress on 'My Son', as promised. I really don't have much more to do now, so I should have a finish to share with you before next weekend, I hope! Here is the last progress picture I posted back in September 2008. This piece should really not have taken as long as it has - if I got it out and actually stitched on it more frequently it would have been finished long ago! Never mind, I have enjoyed stitching on it and the Indigo Rose patterns are just wonderful to work with, they are very clear.

Thank you, once agin, to all those who leave comments for me; I love to read them all! Katrina - yes, the framer cut the mount for Little Witch freehand; I am very pleased with it. Brigitte - I plan to have Ghosties and Ghoulies framed just as soon as I can get around to stringing the piece onto a board.

Tomorrow we are on the early train to London to meet up with my daughter and son in law (who actually live in Manchester). The menfolk love single malt whisky and are going to the 'whisky live' exhibition and we girls plan to do a little light shopping and maybe nip into the British Museum for old times sake. We used to visit all the time when the children were little and we lived near London, but I don't think we have been for fifteen years or more now...... I am really looking forward to it! I hope that you all enjoy your weekend too!