Silk!

Hello there and I hope that you are all well and happy. I am in January mode at the minute which means lots and lots of work and marking but thankfully no snow (as yet!) to complicate matters. There is still time however

Work is very, very busy but enjoyable, the students are lovely and I am teaching an extra set of maths at the moment which I love doing! I only teach maths a bit now in between other subjects and general teaching skills but really enjoy it when I do.

I am making slow progress with the Snow Poem, I hope to be finished by the end of next week but have had little time to stitch so my textile related excitement this week  has been the arrival of more silk from the wonderful Silk Mill. I had some money for Christmas so decided to treat myself so this is the fruit (and veg!) of my online shopping endeavours.

Not only are they fab colours but I love the names of each silk. The beetroot one looks especially yummy!

These are for stitching some more Spring and Summer house ornies for me. Below are the other ones I ordered in the last sale round which will also be fab for flower embroidery.

They are all still in their packets as I need another storage box and some little cards to wind them on to. That will be a fun job as not only do they look pretty they are so soft to touch!

I am planning to make myself versions of the ornies below which were exchange pieces from a while ago that I sent to the USA to go in my little ornie displays.These are both freebie designs from The Workbasket site  and I love the fine detail of them.

There is nothing better for keeping out the cold than a nice bit of stitching in a warm house! Have a lovely week ahead and stay toasty!

Thanks for visiting.

Stitching for sanity

Hello there

I hope you have all been having a lovely week. I am back into the swing of things at work and have had a very nice week, weather is pretty dreadful and have a slightly leaky conservatory roof and a very broken garden trellis to deal with but hey ho – such is Winter in Yorkshire!

I often joke to people that stitching and knitting is my therapy, the stuff that keeps me sane and I know that there are lots of others of you out there who feel the same. It doesn’t matter how bad the day has been, or what has been hurtful or difficult to deal with when I light my candles and get out my stitching, sitting on my sofa with a glass of wine I am the happiest bunny in the world. It is lovely as well to create something that also gives pleasure to other people when they receive so it is a double bonus.

Reading my free Metro newspaper on the bus to work today I came across an article about a prisoner of war who had stitched to save his sanity but also within his stitching had used hidden Morse code to include subversive messages. His name was Alexis Casdagli and his work, along with that of his son who he also taught to stitch, has been included in a recent exhibition at the V and A Museum.

There is a really good article about the piece at the following website and here is a pic of the piece from the Metro newspaper site held by his son Tony, there is a clearer view of the Morse code on the web site.

I know there are many other examples of how people have used crafting to while away the hours. I have seen a cross stitch done entirely in human hair from a prison exhibition in Nottingham , a quilt made from uniform jackets by soldiers on campaign and last year at the Birmingham Quilt Show we were shown a wonderful whitework piece done by sailors during their long voyages.I love the fact that I am part of this long history of people who create as therapy – I think it is a wonderful way of calming the soul!

I do not have much to show you this week in the way of stitching progress. I have just completed the stitching on my Winter Exchange piece but cannot show you that yet, however since I had lots of stitching time in Spain I am also part way through a piece for me.

As you know I love snowflakes (but not too much real snow!) and came across this poem a while ago and have finally got around to stitching it so thought I would show you my progress. It is called Snow Poem by Erynne Chard from Red House Crafts. I have just checked on the web site and can’t find it so it must have been an old design.

It is stitched on sparkly Aida (to give my poor old eyes a rest from the small count evenweave I have been using for the exchange piece!) and done with my favourite Silk Mill thread again.

 The Silk Mill  are having another sale giving 30% off so I have treated myself to a set of green silks this time which will arrive soon! The sale is still on so if you fancy stocking up head on over there. I do love a bargain. Wendy who runs the Silk Mill very kindly sent me a little note on my last order saying she liked the blog and I was really touched – thanks Wendy, I really love your silks!

I have a number of different themed seasonal stitched ornies thanks to my exchanges but am very short on Winter ones so am going to spend a couple of months stitching just stuff for me on a Winter theme so that I can have another lovely seasonal display.

I do hope that you have had time for some therapy this week and thank you very much for visiting.Stay warm!

Beautiful Cartagena

I have just got back from another lovely warm week in Spain and while I was there visited one  of my favourite places. Cartagena is New Carthage, the place where Hannibal landed on his way to fight the Romans. He made his way up the coast of Spain and over to Italy, possibly passing where I have my little house which is an exciting thought.

Cartagena is a wonderful place if you like history as it has Roman, Byzantine and medieval buildings and so much beautiful late 19th and early 20th century architecture it is breathtaking. Here are a few of my favourite ones in a little slide show.

Thanks for visiting and see you all again soon!

A digital scrapbook by Smilebox

Photo Scavenger Hunt December

Well as we went to Disneyland for Christmas most of my seasonal A – Z pics were taken there – some I did struggle with so had to be a bit creative! Hope you like them and really looking forward to seeing everyone else’s pics this time. Click on the pic above to go to Kathy’s Scavenger Hunt site.

A is for Angel on the top of my tree

 

B is for Bauble – this one was in the Christmas Market in Paris and I liked the way the Eiffel Tower was reflected in it !

 

C is for Castle, the Disney one all lit up for Xmas

 

D is for decorations,  so many to choose from , this is from one of the beautiful window displays

 

E is for Eiffel Tower which was all lit up and sparkled for a few minutes as well- it was very magical

 

F is for Favourite – this is Sully from Monsters Inc,  my favourite Disney character

 

G is for Goofy dressed as Santa

 

H is for Holly from Tatton Hall

 

I is for Igloo in Paris at the Christmas Market

 

J is for Jake (and Ellen) jingling all the way on a sleigh at Disneyland

 

K is for Kings from this beautiful Xmas card

 

L is for lights, these giant ones were at Disney Studios

 

M is for Market and Mulled wine – here is a pic of the Christmas market at the Eiffel Tower where we had lovely mulled wine

 

N is for Nativity at the Eiffel Tower, they had real animals in the manger as well

 

O is for orange – a tradition for Xmas (along with the less healthy chocolate versions!)

 

P is for Princess from one of the shop windows – Aurora Sleeping Beauty

 

Q is for Queue – we amused ourselves admiring various families’ festive headgear while we were waiting for rides. There was one family all dressed in Santa suits but could not get a pic of them.

 

R is for Reindeer, in this case their stables

 

S is for Snowman, not real but he looks like he would enjoy throwing that snowball!

 

T is for Tree of course from the Disneyland Main Street, I love the little gingerbread decorations

 

U is for unwrapped, the children’s traditional Xmas chocs from the stockings they unwrapped Xmas morning

 

V is for Village , the Disney Village which was looking very festive

 

W is for Winter Wonderland a cute show with Mickey and Minnie and friends

 

X is for Xmas cards , this was one of my faves this year

 

Y is for Yoda Stitch which Ellen bought as a present for herself

 

Z is for Zac Efron from High School Musical who you can just see on the wall of this themed cafe that we ate lunch in (told you I had struggled with some!)

Disneyland Christmas !!!

Hello there

I hope that you are all well and happy and that you have had a very good Christmas. We had an excellent time at Disneyland as we expected to and thoroughly enjoyed our first Disney Christmas.Thanks to my very lovely children I have now have a new camera which they let me open before the trip so was able to take some very good pics.

Here is a little slide show of some of our favourite bits.

This free scrapbook generated with Smilebox

We arrived back safely on Boxing Day evening despite high winds that made for a bit of a bumpy landing and since then have been relaxing (I am on leave for the next two weeks which is wonderful!)

I have finished my latest stitched item, this is a gift for my aunt who lives in Spain. She loves antique style  frames, I can’t remember where I got this one from but I have had it for a while and the blackwork design is from an old copy of New Stitches magazine  issue 106.

I am off to Spain at the weekend where it is nice and sunny and am really looking forward to it. Hope that you all have a very happy New Year wherever you are and see you in 2012!

A very merry Christmas to you!

Well this is my last post before we set off for our little trip to the Magic Kingdom so I just thought I would wish you all a very happy festive season. I hope that your Christmas is everything you want it to be, that you spend lots of time with the people you love the most and that you have joy and peace and happiness in your lives.

Take care and see you all in 2012!

I’m the happiest Christmas tree …..

As you may remember last year I was a bit disappointed with the look of my tree, it had lots of mass-produced shop bought baubles and very little that was unique so I have worked very hard this year and am proud to say that this year every single thing on it is either hand-made or a special ornie bought at places  like Disneyland, visits or craft fairs so all have lovely memories attached to them.Here is the lovely tree with some close up pics of some of my special things.

I have also made some new baubles for the mantelpiece to go with the tree skirt I made last year and moved the other set to the hallway where they co-ordinate with the little trees and hanging from last year.

I had a lovely time last weekend with my very good friend Kerry, we went to the Xmas Fair and special event at Tatton Hall, where we go each June for a re-enactment event. That takes place at the Tudor Old Hall but we had never visited the later manor house so went for a lovely day out. The craft fair was very nice, I bought some ornies (surprise!) and this very cute little Xmas cake shaped like an Xmas pud.It goes very well with my knitted Xmas pud that I bought from the WI craft stall a couple of weeks ago.

The manor house was gorgeous, the theme was a Venetian Christmas and they had the whole house decorated with trees, displays and baubles, it was heaven for an ornie addict like me.No pics were allowed as usual in historic properties so you will just have to imagine the loveliness, there were lots of ornies based round peacock feathers in purples and turquoises.

 We walked around listening to the chamber orchestras they had playing imagining ourselves to be guests at a Downton Abbey style house party and bought some lovely spiced mead and quince chutney for our forthcoming Xmas buffet this week.I also bought a couple more packets of beautiful paper napkins, one Xmas themed (which now makes about 5 sets of Xmas napkins!) As well as the Xmas fabric addiction I have a slight napkin addition – especially Xmas ones, well at least they do get used up!

 I have ordered a gourmet smoked cheese hamper from a friend, Martin,  who has his own business  supplying fine foods so we are looking forward to some very nice food this week. We are having pretend Xmas dinner on Tues and my brother and partner round on Weds for a buffet. Ellie is home for the holidays and today we have been making gingerbread – very festive!

The winner of my blogaversary giveaway was Thimbleanna  - I am posting her ornies tomorrow, they may just make it to the USA in time for Xmas but at least they will keep till next year if not!

I do hope that all your preparation for the festive season is going well.

See you all soon and thank you very much for visiting.

A little pre- Christmas pressie for me!

Hello there

I do hope you are surviving the freezing weather, wind rain and whatever else the heavens are throwing at you – roll on Spring, am bored of cold and wet now!

Way back in the Summer I ordered myself a little gift from my incredibly talented friend Pat Buckle who paints the most wonderful medieval pictures. Pat has recently started painting a new set of pictures depicting medieval trades so I ordered one of me as an embroiderer, in my blue dress. It arrived this week and isn’t it stunning!

It goes really well with the one I already have of me in my nun’s role as it is the same colours, I have them both on my mantlepiece in my bedroom where they look fantastic. I also have a large painting of the Archangel Michael fighting a dragon and a triptych of St Andrew (if we get any good light in the next few months I will try to take pics of these!).

Do go and visit Pat’s website  and marvel at her talent, she is a genius and a very lovely lady as well!

I am off to Tatton Hall on Sunday for their Xmas Fair so will take some pretty pics and will see you later. Don’t forget to post on my blogaversary giveaway before then.

Thanks for visiting.

More festive loveliness

Hello there

I am at the moment lying on my sofa all cuddled up next to the radiator sipping mulled wine while writing this post. I am revelling in being very warm and toasty as I have been out all day in the very, very wet and cold – having a lovely time but in very inclement weather! I really need some new boots as my winter ones seem to have a leak so will be shopping for new waterproof ones later this week.

I have been out for most of the day at Honley, one of our local villages, where our  WI group had a stall to raise funds . Here we are looking a little bit cold (I am in the middle in my superwarm coat!) and here is our lovely stall – you may recognise some of my Xmas stuff on the table there. We did very well despite the weather so thank to everyone who came and bought from us.

After that I went to one of the local Honley churches where they were having a Christmas tree festival. I have never been to one of these before but it is a fab idea, especially for Christmas decoration addicts like me. The idea is that local groups decorate trees in any way they like and there were about 40 different trees in this beautiful church, complete with a Santa’s grotto, cafe and arts and crafts for the kids. It was a wonderful display and a great fundraiser at £1 entrance – well worth it. I only got a few useable pics as the light was poor but it looked amazing.

Then I went on to the Festival of Light in town with lots of wonderful light displays and entertainment and some very welcome mulled cider and wine.Camera had run out of battery by this time so here is one of the Facebook pics.

All in all a very festive day. I am having a very festive lead up to Xmas this year as am visiting two more Christmas fairs over the next two weekends. I do love this time of year, I adore all the decorations everywhere and can’t wait to put all mine up next week.

I am still making lots of stuff – some for selling at work and some in preparation for next year. I would like to do more Craft Fairs next year so thought if I start now I will have enough stock for more and might even get around to selling some on Etsy or Folksy as well.I have also started on the new Scandinavian style ones but have not had chance to take pics yet.

Well I hope that you have a very lovely week ahead and don’t forget to go and comment on my blogaversay post if you want to enter the giveaway for ornies.

Thanks for visiting

Happy Blogaversary to me – a giveaway !

Well today is the 4th birthday for my little old blog and I thought that this pic that I found was very appropriate to celebrate 4 years here – as it contains two of my fave things, red wine and cake.

Sadly my giveaway does not include red wine or cake, both being a little bit difficult to post but as is traditional now for me being Dec and so near Xmas with my blogaversary I would like to offer a small selection of my ornies to the giveaway winner.

To enter please comment on this post by Sun 11th Dec and I will choose a winner at random.

I have had such good fun in the last 4 years of blogging, made lots of new virtual friends, travelled all round the world from the comfort of my sofa, learnt new skills in lots of different areas including cooking and photography as well as my original goals of textile work and thoroughly enjoy my life as a blogger! Thank you for sharing all of this with me.

I would also like to offer a special giveaway to someone who has followed my blog for a very long time and who has posted a lot of comments, she was one of the first people to comment and it was lovely to know someone else was reading my blog. I have just hit the magic 500 comments of which she has made 55 of them so thanks to Jane – please mail me with your snail mail address so I can send you some Xmas ornies as well.

See you all soon and thank you to all of you for visiting – 103,152 times!