Week One!

Hello

Well I have survived "Week One" back at work, just about! 

It was far busier than I was hoping: we had two members of staff off sick

 all week and given that we are a small unit this has a huge impact on our workload. 

I have to admit that I woke up on Tuesday morning (just "Day Two" of "Week One") and 

checked with my husband that it was only Tuesday - oh boy, I was convinced/hoping it 

was Thursday - it certainly felt like it. 

But somehow I seemed to pick up as the week progressed and in the end I had quite a

 busy and productive home and social life.

Baking and cooking has occurred aplenty. Mince pies ...

 millionaire short bread (note the small piece top left, this is where I tried

 to be good and cut myself "just half")...

 (I never seem to be able to make 'pretty' millionaire shortbread, my 

pieces always end up different sizes and crumby)

 and son and I preparing fajitas for dinner.

I sent a very belated Christmas present to my friend overseas so decided to make

 it a Happy New Year present instead and trimmed my gift with a crochet flower and ribbon.

On other matters, I am always quite happy to take the Christmas decorations down and restore some sort of order to our house but you may remember I blogged at the beginning of December and January about a couple of little decorations I had made...

in particular the snowman on the right above...

 

and the little sheep in his scarf and hat!

I was reluctant to pack these away and decided they weren't so Christmassy that they 

needed to go away until next Christmas, but thought they probably need another decoration to 

keep them company - two isn't many is it?

So I decided to go with a distinctively winter theme for a third decoration!

I had seen this gorgeous little decoration on the blog of Le Chalet des Pérelles.

Isn't it delightful? But as I wanted a smaller decoration I decided to adapt it a little

 to cross stitch just the white tree and snowman. 

 This was an easy pattern as there were no half stitches or outlining to stitch...

 

so I made good progress during the week. 

And I finished the cross stitching this afternoon. I just need now to get my sewing 

machine out and complete the decoration ... as you can see below, backing fabric, 

ribbon and buttons have been chosen!

I can't wait to complete it!

 

 And on a completely different topic...

 - son's shoes - which as you can see were filthy! 

They needed plenty of elbow grease and shoe cream to restore them to something 

wearable and in order to give me an incentive to continue with the task and to 

help me realise quite what a good job I'd done with them, I concentrated on 

one shoe only to begin with - here's my 'before and after' comparison - looking 

at the photo I reckon I have done a pretty good job so far! 

One down, one to go!

And much of this home activity was undertaken in front of 

our stove.

We had this multifuel stove installed this summer and absolutely LOVE IT! 

It makes the room so warm and cosy and throws out a lovely golden glow. 

It encourages us all to sit together in the lounge while doing our various activities. 

NOTE: we also love the light shed by the fairy lights so decided not to put them 

away after Christmas. 

 Good job I'm not superstitious!

Have a good week

xXx 

P.S. And daughter's football team won their match today 3-2, onwards in the cup competition!

Good to be out-of-doors...

Hello,

Yesterday was one of those days when it felt really good to be out-of-doors, 

enjoying nature at it's best.

Here I am at Bradgate Park, while my daughter is running. 

 The mists just kept rolling up and down and around and at any one time you could

 be stood in the sunshine...

... and within the blink of an eye you would be engulfed in the mist and the

 temperature would plummet as the sun's rays were blocked out.  

 

A good time and place to celebrate the end of the Christmas holidays. 

 

xXx

(Taken on my phone) 

Hello 2015!

Hello,

Happy New year to you all and I hope you all had a cheery, peaceful Christmas.

The boys returned home from University a few days before Christmas and as you can imagine it has been great fun having them home again - despite the 7 loads of washing they brought home with them (this did include bed linen!).

We had a relaxing Christmas, but alas the snow arrived one day too late to make it a white Christmas. The snow fell heavily on Boxing Day evening  - we had tickets to the theatre and when we finally arrived home late in the evening our car struggled the last few hundred yards to our door.

The snow hung around a long time, it didn't melt until New Year's Eve. However, the roads and pavements were very icy, so hardly pleasant conditions for venturing out either by car, cycle or foot.

Oh dear, that means we will just have to sit in front of the fire - what a terrible shame!!

(A grainy photo taken late in the day)

We have had some beautiful clear days with lovely bright sunshine - and this is the view

that greeted me several times when I opened the curtains in the morning.

Please excuse the washing line and football goal that completely ruin the charm of this

 photo - we have a hard working garden and thankfully you can't see the football goal

 and the huge rebound net on the other side of the garden!

(And talking of bright clear days - did you see the International Space Station whizzing by on Christmas Eve? Incredible to think men were flying above us at such speeds!!)

I do find that at this time of year I feel a bit guilty though, because as the Christmas
holiday rolls on, I tend to get lazier and lazier. 

My excuse is that this is the only time of year when I am quite so sofa-bound. This inactivity culminated in me spending much of New Year's Day sat in the armchair cross stitching - this was pure, unadulterated luxury, a whole day spent stitching - how often does that happen?

And you'll never believe what I was making?

Christmas decorations!! Nothing like getting myself prepared for next Christmas!

On New Year's Day I completed this Santa...

... which would partner nicely with the snowman I had completed just before Christmas.

 I find these little kits ideal for making into Christmas cards and are great when you

wish to complete a project quickly or want some small stitching to take on

 holiday with you. The kits come with everything you need but when I'm making little

decorations I substitute the aida for evenweave fabric as it is much softer and more pliable,

making it easier to work with.

I had already purchased some gorgeous backing fabric - a rich blue decorated with white

 snowflakes - and spotty ribbon and buttons.

So this afternoon I hauled out my sewing machine from the bottom of my wardrobe,

set up station on the kitchen table and set to.

 Santa was completed first.   

Then it was time for Snowman. 

I couldn't take a photo of them in situ on our little tree because it was too dark by the time
 I had finished.

Sadly these two will be taken down and packed away tomorrow but at least I've

 finished them in plenty of time for Christmas 2015!!

On to the next project....

Happy New Year!!

xXx 

A geographical miscellany!

Hello

Thank you for the lovely comments you left on my last post - I appreciate you taking the time to leave comments and I do enjoy reading them.

Today I am joining in with Ginny's yarn along. My yarn along this week has a distinctive geographical flavour. 

Firstly, I am re-reading Alexander McCall Smith's '44 Scotland Street', based in Edinburgh. The first time of reading I didn't enjoy this book as much as his The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency but I thought I would give it another go. 

And as for my knitting, well I recently purchased Nordic Knits written by Martin Storey, which has some beautiful projects in it, many using my favourite yarn of the moment, Rowan felted tweed dk. 

And so on my needles I have just started knitting the Snowflake Runner using the colours 

Seasalter (a light denim blue) and Clay. 

It does feel a bit strange to be making another table runner when I have only just finished a Christmas table runner but I think the snowflake is not so 'snow flakey' that it means I can only use it over Chritmas - I think this will be adorning our dining table for a few months of the year!

What have you currently on your needles? Are you desperately trying to finish off Christmas presents? Have a good week!

xXx

My 3 year table runner!

Hello again,

Yes, I was pretty happy yesterday because I finished a Christmas table runner that I 

started 3 years ago! I'm so happy to finish an uncompleted project.

This was a pretty simple runner - I bought a selection of Christmassy fabrics off the market at a very reasonable price and literally cut rectangular/square shapes from the fabric and sewed together in a very rough and ready patchwork fashion. 

My aim was then to quilt it but that went disastrously wrong and I ended up unpicking all the quilting stitches and I finally decided on just using an old flannelette sheet as wadding to give it a bit of body and folded the plain green backing fabric over to the top side to act as an edging. 

 

Please don't look too closely as the edges are not straight!  

It's quite long! 

It's far from perfect but it will brighten up our table and it is FINISHED - YAY!

I also finished four cross stitched Christmas cards - two of which are now winging their way to far corners of the globe! The other two are staying nearer to home.

And my final completed project for now was this little cross stitch kit purchased from Hobbycraft, I think last year, which I made up into a little hanging ornament with a few added embellishments. 

 

 I enjoyed making this so think I may make a detour home from work one evening this week and call in at Hobbycraft to see if they have any other little kits of interest. 

 I am enjoying all the project ideas I see bloggers sharing on line - it gives me so much inspiration.

 I hope your Christmas project making is going well - have a good week

xXx 

Over a month!

Hello,

Yes I have just realized that it is over a month since I last posted!

And those few weeks have gone by in a whoosh!

• new job

• making a start on sort out our house a bit

• visiting 2 sons in Sheffield (yes, still find it hard to believe that both sons are now studying at university in Sheffield)

• a half term train trip to Sweden and Denmark (for me and husband) 

• and a school trip to Morocco for daughter which was a bit of "school trip from hell" with two thirds of the pupils suffering a sickness bug!!

 But anyway, I have managed to squeeze in a bit of reading and a bit of crafting in the last few weeks - especially this weekend when I was particularly lazy and spent several hours crafting. 

Firstly, I have at last finished the notebook cozy for my daughter - I posted about the notebook cozy I knitted for me to use here - I love it while at the same time thinking it is a crazy idea!

And I'm still loving that yarn - so no surprise that I've now added a few more balls to my collection!

I also love making Christmas decorations. I have made quite a few over the years but I give them away either as gifts or to our scout group for them to sell on their craft stall. I have kept a few for myself but realized I had several in various stages of construction so last weekend I finished the half-completed decorations and now have a reasonable selection of stockings, Christmas puddings, mittens and hearts!

And this is the very satisfying view I could see round my feet - ribbons, felt, cottons,

 cross stitch charts, buttons, evenweave fabric -  all waiting for me to be creative

 with them - the possibilities are endless!!

 

 

Right, off to catch up on some blogs!

Hope you are all and happy crafting!

xXx

Double love

I'm in trouble! I am suffering from a case of "double love" just now.

Firstly, I came across this great yarn from Rowan, Felted tweed dk. I think I'm a bit late in discovering this wool as I think it has been a round for a while.

The tweed effect is gentle and mutes the colours somewhat but Rowan offer a reasonable range of colours. The yarn just has such a lovely, light feel to it. I could really imagine wearing a cardigan knitted in this yarn. 

I chose Seasalter and Rage for my project.

 Oo, look at them nestled in the bottom of my shopping bag.

I bought these for a particular project I had planned.

For my second love, I came across this picture on the internet of knitted book covers

And I instantly fell in love with them and with the idea of knitting covers for my notebooks.  

  

Don't these look great!

  

 So I soon had my needles out and, after about 3 false starts trying to gauge exactly how many stitches I needed to cast on for a perfect fit, I was away.   

 I decided to knit a very simple fair isle pattern, just to add a bit of interest.

And fairly soon.....

I had a snuggly warm notebook tucked up inside its very own cozy!! 

And I love it!! And so does daughter so I shall be knitting more of these.

You see, we have a slight, but very well controlled, obsession with stationery, so I have

 notebooks of various shapes and sizes to keep cozy this winter.

I admit that I think knitting cozies for books is a bit bizarre but for some reason

 I just love the idea!

And my mind is buzzing with further project ideas for this yarn.

What is your favourite yarn of the moment?

xXx