Thanks Santa!!!!!

It's all over for another year. Was it all worth it? YES of course it was. I spent Christmas Eve Lunch with my older son and his family, where some winter health blues had struck a few days earlier but all were much better. Followed by a visit to my niece, then back to watch my grandchildren in the Nativity Play at their Church. Unfortunately I missed the play, due to a time change that I received too late, but I did get to the rest of the service. I took with me a grand daughter from my other son and she was fascinated as at her church, in a different village, they don't have the service where they turn out all the lights and you walk round the church, passed the Crib, with lit candles. It's very twinkly and a lovely feeling of peace and calm.
After being delivered back to the her family my DH and I went back home to finish sorting out gifts ready for Christmas Day, which we spent with my younger son and his family. we returned to home base on Boxing day where, having forgotten to take out our chosen food from the freezer, we ended up having the good old English favourite 'Fish and Chips'.

Santa was very kind, I have some great stash enhancement and have spent some time since tracking down fabric that I can't find in the UK.


I could not resist this Hob Nobs Button they are fun to do and pretty quick too!!!

I have about another 6 charts but as they are on download and as I have yet to do that they will be popping up in the future. I also had some material and some Northern Lights Silks as gifts. Lucky me.
Here's my Christmas Surprise for you. A little late I know but as just before Christmas I was not too good and had little concentration powers. I went to visit my sister for a lovely weekend and while there I took 'The Three Kings' to the 'Nimble Thimble' to get it framed. While I was out the next day my picture was delivered to my sisters all done. Many Thanks Chris. Here it is .......
I have made a little more progress on my Jim Shore Santa which I started on my sister visit. Not that much though!

Since Christmas I have put some more stitches into 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'. The 9 Ladies Dancing is now coming along quite well.

I haven't done much stitching at all between Christmas and New Year as I had a family lunch on New Year's Eve and on New Year's Day family until the following day. I really enjoyed the houseful of family, it made me feel good inside although vaguely shattered after the mince pie making and all the cooking. I'll only take until the end of January to recover!!!

I'm trying to decide what to do next. I have to catch up on Castles in the Air. which has been put on one side for such a long time I am now back to about three months or so behind... I daren't look in case it's more!! BUT then there's all the new charts and kits to choose from Oh decisions, decisions. I think I'll try and get the Twelve Days finished and then I'll do a much smaller piece to give myself a boost.

Oh Yes I must show you the Place settings that I bought for my daughter-in-laws. Again made by 'Maisie Moonshine'. I think they are great and they went down a treat. Must admit I did give them early for Christmas so that they could be used.



The 'Robin' and the 'Toy Soldier' are the ones that I had made for my DH and myself so they travel with us. Great aren't they???

Well I'm off now to order some threads so that I don't forget and then get annoyed with myself, even though I probably will not be stitching with them for a while. I've also got to try and find some SQUARE frames so that I can get some of my finished pieces sorted.

Until next time thanks for calling in and if you have the time to leave a comment.. much appreciated.. May the New Year have revitalised your stitching hand and given a new shine to your needle....

Oh Boy! What a time

Here we are again. What a couple of weeks. My DH and I returned home from a few days away fractionally tired and hungry. So I set about making us a quick omelet, easy enough I hear you saying, all going well beating up the eggs, pan on the hob, first one made then a bright light followed by darkness. 'Now what've you done?' came the shout from the front room. 'Nothing,' I reply. All the lights are out in the road back and front. Yes, you've guessed 'powercut'. I made the next omelet by candle light, very romantic you may think but I can tell you after 9+ hours with the temperature falling it was not much fun. A few days later the local newspaper informs us -' Power cut affects homes.' Now that's what I call news. I could have told them that sooner than they told me. Ah well all's well that ends well. We got the power back in the middle of the night and discovered later that it had damaged our microwave (4 months old) Oh joy! So now the proud owner of yet another microwave all is well.
Now to a little sewing. I've made a little progress on Window Wreath. It is only single thread and the colours are pretty close but the effect is very good. I've done some of the back-stitching which emphases the holly well. All round each window pane still needs doing and as I only pick it up every now and again it may be a little time before it's finished. Still it's very pretty

Next to the update on my UFO. I have made some reasonable progress with it. I've been doing part of the check coat and his long tie( that's the bit with spots on). Although I'm still trying to get my head around this one at least it's growing slowly. There is quite a lot of counting with it and parts of it have been suffering from the 'frogging' problem that seems to crop up periodically. I always thought frogs vanished over the winter months but alas I was wrong.

Here's something a little lighter. One of my daughter-in-laws dresses their home up for all the 'Holiday'. Bearing this in mind and thinking Easter is coming, when she does Easter egg hunts for the children and a little buffet. I saw these and thought they were just great.

I gave her the surprise gift when they came for dinner yesterday. I can tell you she was absolutely delighted.The web-page for you to have a little look at some of the other goodies is here I can tell you they really are beautifully made having actually held them and the little holders are quite weighty. They also came with small cards to place in the clip at the back. I have already promised myself that I will be getting some more of them, had a thought, they could just be ornamental as well ( now I don't need an excuse).

At last 'Castle in the Air' unrolled, as promised. For those of you here's some info on CiA. There is a choice of straight cross-stitch design or one with specialist stitches and being me couldn't decide on that either. Soooo I do a mix of both depending on how I feel at that moment and whether or not I think the spec. stitch would look too 'clunky' on the 32 count fabric. You have to pick several of the colours yourself. Well at this point( Months ago) I panicked I am not the world's best at colour coordinating, I looked at other peoples ideas on the work that they had posted on the--Website Gallery - to no avail. Some had used pink tones, or yellows etc. etc. Didn't work for me. So I peered out into our garden and made my self a list of what I saw. Wisteria-pale mauve, Aqueba- purple, Forget-me-nots-- blue, Poppies- red, Grannies bonnets-- pink and yellow, Nasturtiums-- orange, Begonias- Wine followed by three varying shades of green. All other colours are stipulated by the Papillon designs. So when this is completed wherever I live in the future I'll always have a reminder of our bright suntrap of a garden. I have actually managed to catch up several downloads. There is just the current one to complete, I have made a start but I must put it aside for a while so that I can do some of my Christmas SAL which up to now has not altered one little bit since my last post. So it's back to 12 Days of Christmas. day two. being the Turtle doves, Here's hoping it goes well.


Just to let you know there really are some crazy folk out there (I live with one). We've had a couple of days of sunshine. Absolutely freezing but sunny and guess what.......my DH has put shorts on!!!!!!! There's just no hope!