Some lovely gifts..

I got a couple of lovely gifts through this week from blogging buddies. First up was a beautifully wrapped parcel from Maaike which enclosed a couple of lovely magazines. I think they are written in Dutch as Maaike is from Amsterdam so I don't understand very much but the pictures in them are lovely. The parcel was wrapped in the most gorgeous ribbon and string and crocheted flowers!



The second parcel I got this week was the Stitch and Pass on from Barb. I was not expecting this so soon as my "turn" is not till January! Anyway, the idea is to stitch the chart then pass the stitched item and the chart onto the next person in the round and so on. It's a lot of fun. If you're interested then take a look at the Stitch and Pass on blog. I love what Barb made me and can't wait to hang them on my stitching tree at Christmas. Barb also sent me a couple of additional gifts - not part of the Stitch and Pass on. She sent me some cute wooden buttons and a crochet magazine which has some fantastic patterns in them. Thanks Barb.







Tina emailed and asked if I would like to start Shores of Hawk Run Hollow next year as part of an SAL and I have said .....YES! Ooohhhh it's getting to that time of year again where I can start planning new starts yippeee!. Anyone want to join us??

Speaking of new starts.. I broke my pledge and have done some Christmas ornament stitching. Well, I am in a couple of exchanges so thought I'd better make a start. No pics though as they are for exchanges.

Yesterday I had a turn about another local park in our area. Here are a few of my favourite pics:













It truely is Autumn! Bye bye my lovelies. See you soon. xx

Quickie trip to London

Had a bit of a spurr of the moment trip to London this weekend. Now, after my last trip to London - a complete and utter nightmare with someone who shall remain nameless and who I will not be in contact with again!!! - I vowed I would never return. However, husband had some business to do down there and thought, seeing as it was the half term holidays, that we could all tag along too. Ooohhhh okay then!

I knew time would be short so I planned a couple of shops to visit and I knew it meant a nice meal out as well. However.. about an hour from London, husband's phone died! So we spent most of the time yesterday in o2 and the Apple shop wherein he got an upgrade and an even better phone than he had - bonus!

So with what little time we had left and freezing my butt off....

We ate in Maxwells who brought the little darlings puddings rather late so they knocked some off the bill - another bonus!


Me and sweet girl enjoying our meal.

Beautiful food there actually. I had BBQ Chicken Chop salad which was lurvely. Oh and I had a cocktail too! How exciting is that!! That was last night.

We breakfasted in a little cafe this morning with was lovely and I was very tempted to get one of the gorgeous cakes but I didn't.

We visited Liberty





Love this building. It is the oldest shop in London apparently. Prices are shocking. This cushion was £175 I think.



This bar of Lavender Chocolate was £5.25. But I bought it anyway ;-)



The Christmas dept was simply gorgeous! I could have stayed there all day. Ooooooh I do love Christmas. I do, I do! So many twinkling lights.



I love the collection of fabrics. Autumn is definitely my thing at the moment!



and this gorgeous hoop display... oh now there's an idea..



We visited Hamley's. I was too excited by all the daft gadgets and toys to take many pictures in here and time was running very short..



We visited All the Fun o' the Fair in Carnaby St but it was shut!!!!! Dangnabbit. Maybe we got there too early?? Anyway, here's a misty window shot.



After a long, freezing morning we had to check out of the hotel and go to Cockfosters and get the car and drive home again. I am happy to be home even though my feet are still as blue as they look! I really need some fuzzy slippers to keep them warm.



Oh and do you want to see how my throw is coming along???

Are you sure???

Well, I'm not there yet but I did promise a sneak peak.....

Sooooo....

Here you go...





I love it! It has such warming, autumnal colours in it. Really need to get going with this before all the leaves fall off the trees!

On Friday I will be visiting The Nimble Thimble nr Oswestry in Shropshire. I have wanted to go for such a long time. I don't have much cash this month but hope to gather enough to have a little spend. For those who don't know.. this is a beautiful stitching shop which tends to stock in lots of American style folksy type of charts and things. I am going with my lovely friend who has just learnt to crochet so it should be a great day out. I promise to take lots of pics!

Thanks for visiting me. I am trying to catch up on everyone's news. I'll be round your way shortly. xxxxxxx

Stitching Retreat, Ripple TaDa and some stitchy progress!

Hi peeps. Brrrrrr.. It's really cold here in the UK. A real cold snap. Have some homemade soup to warm your toes. It has been nearly a week since I went to the Stitch and Stash stitching retreat in Nuneaton and I haven't blogged it! Well, it went super duperly. Tracy came to mine on Friday and we both went together in my car. We go on Friday so we can have an extra night. We went to our usual eating spot - that of Frankie and Benny's and enjoyed some delicious tea. Back to the hotel for some serious stitching before the Saturday meet up.

Saturday meet up was great! Usual peeps there and a couple of peeps I haven't met before so that was lovely. It was great to see Julie's crochet especially her Lucy bag - super cool. I have ordered my pack of Rico for that and am waiting - very patiently - for it. I baked those yummy chocolate thingys from that magazine a few posts down for the meet up and they went down surprising well! I substituted the chopped choc chunks for sultanas and they worked a treat. Oooops I forgot to take a picture of them though so I guess that means I'll be making them again - doh! I don't know how it happened but I managed to get myself roped into a Round Robin!?! TINA!!!! Anyway, Julie and I have never done one before so thought it would be a good safe place to start so Julie, Tina, Clare and I are going to do a small one starting in January. Hmmmmm.... I am struggling with designs to choose - such a hard life!

Watch the concentration going on here:





Rachel and Julie deep in discussion:



Vicki's (India Grace Designs) stuff:



Kathy's Stuff?



Julie's work:



Lesley's beautiful work:



Thanks Kathy for organising this. Can't wait till next year. The Stitch and Stash bb is having a bit of a revamp thanks to Clare and it is looking wonderful. New pages up and plenty to chat about. Please feel free to join us. It is a lovely group.

Whilst I was there I decided to pull out an old wip "A Most Noble Pursuit". I am so glad I did. It has been an absolute joy working on this so I think I will keep at it. The Needlepoint silks are a joy to work with although I have noticed I have to be careful of the colours bleeding - not on my fabric as yet but on my fingers so far!! It has been over a year since I worked on her I fear.





I have a TaDa as well. I finished the ripple for my girl. Ooooh I love it. It looks so great on her bed and she loves just lazing around on it. I am glad all my hard efforts are so appreciated! I decided not to do a border on this. Join me in my happy dance :-) xxxx







Awwwwww and sweet dd has a little finish of her own too:



Now she wants to go onto something bigger :-S I am reluctant knowing how long it has taken her to finish this although she has been a lot quicker on this one than her others so maybe she is ready. Ho hum... perhaps something for Christmas??

Quick news on my autumn throw: today I began joining the squares together and it is looking superb but I want to do a bit more joining before I show it. I can see its potential at the moment but I fear others would not. Believe me though... it is going to be fab!

Sorry if there has been a lot of pics on this post. Just needed to get everything down and stay up to date. Thank you for visiting me. I love love love getting visits. Have a great week lovely people. xx

Stitching and a new throw

Tuesday Through the Window at Swedish House

Hello folks. What a lovely day it is today. This is just a quickie post just to keep on top of things otherwise I tend to let things slip and end up not blogging stuff I really should. I am very tired after having very little sleep last night due to little one waking up after having nightmares. Yawn yawn. I really should be in bed but I have FIL coming over to fix our loo. Well I hope he does anyway. We have a nasty water hammer and have tried everything to get rid of it but to no avail.

Okay. You know how hard I have struggled with my CDC? I have hated every stitch of this sucker and each page seemed to take forever. I can now announce..... no not a finish... but very close... I have almost completed page 5!!!!!! I just seemed to get on a roll with this one and put all my efforts into getting it done. It WILL be finished by the end of the year. Oh yes it will. So here are some pictures. You know how hard this sucker is to photograph.







It's actually starting to grow on me but you know, I'll never, NEVER, stitch on mulberry coloured linen ever, EVER again!!

And next up is a few circles in squares that I have been making up using the Rowan pure wool dk for my autumn throw:





I am going to be putting another round of colour on each one and using Join-as-you-go method to attach them all. But can you imagine it?? Can you see how autumnal and cosy this throw will be?? I can. I really can and I wasn't sure about the circles in squares at first but I am really loving this now. I also wasn't sure whether to do one colour to join them all in or do them all different colours so I am going with all different colours. I am quite excited by this one. I Luuuuuurrrvveeee doing squares.

A couple of days ago I recieved this gorgeous giveaway win from Staphani from Harvest Moon Hollow blog:







The truest colour is the second picture. How adorable is this?? and it really goes well in my red/autumnal/leafy new sitting room. (Still not quite finished so no pics yet - soon I promise) Thank you so much Stephani. I really love it.

I'm away this weekend for a kid free stitching retreat with the gang from Stitch and Stash. Can't wait! Have a good week everyone. x