Who said Romance was Dead??

After a successful Valentine's meal, I decided that it would be good to start doing this more regularly. It is very hard for us to get any time together as dh works very odd hours and I can go days without spending any time with him and when he is around, we are usually both too tired to do anything except sit and slob and watch tv or go on the internet or basically do our own thing. This is great in itself but not so great for our relationship. So I thought, having a nice sit down meal with no distractions - phones off, tv and laptops off - with a bit of focussed time, would do us good. It did!

Nothing too special - effortless meal is key - so I got the £10 meal deal offer on at Tescos which includes a nice bottle of fizzy stuff. It was chicken in a marscapone sauce with red onion and proscuitto. Those nice sliced potatoes in a lovely sauce - forget the name. Veg mix. Candles.

Then I added:



and this:



which made these:



and you know I love these...

So there you go. A good evening. Short post but there to remember the good times.

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Weekend....

After having a rather horrid day on Saturday, Sunday turned out to be quite nice. To console myself I bought some of these:



note to self: really must move my recycling box!

And made some of these:





Recipe from the lovely Lucy at Attic24. Chocolate chip cookies and Oat cookies.

The beautiful plate was a part of a giveaway win from Rachael at Clever Cheshire Cats. Look at these gorgeous goodies:



Last night, I stumbled across this beautiful SAL and spent the remainder of the day drooling.



I really REALLY want this. Is anyone else planning to do it? You can buy the chart here and the SAL can be found here. The chart is in three parts but the third part is not yet out until March.

I also managed to order the much needed threads to start Shores of Hawk Run Hollow and also some posh threads to finish up Winter Whites. Hopefully I'll have a finish soon to show you.

The lovely Suz has also invited me to her CAL of making a bedspread with those flowers on my last post so I have been thinking a lot about this and colours etc. I am yet to finish the scarf first though. Soooo much to do... so little time.

Have a great week everyone.

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Busy Little Fingers...

I have been a busy little bee lately and have been very neglectful of posting about it all.

In my last post I mentioned the Crochet a Rainbow charity that Sarah London had set up. My sister had made 20 squares to add to mine and I have now sent them all off. Here are my sister's squares:



I have also been working on two boys' blankets for my dear friend Kathy who placed an order with me a couple of months ago. She wanted rectangle grannies and one in shades of blue and one in shades of green. I do hope you like these blankets Kathy and that your boys do too. I made them with two strands of dk and an 8mm hook. I did the edging very simply which I found on Bunny Mummy's blog.

Blue blanket







Green blanket







It was really hard not to be pretty and frilly and I had to remember that these were BOYS' blankets. That said, they are super snuggly and my DD says she wants the blue one!! I think I got it right.

Oooh edited to add that I got the pattern for the rectangular granny from here and it is a really great pattern!!! Very easy. I just made a little alteration and made 2 DC in the corners instead of the 1 DC that she suggests!

I have also been busy crocheting these Japanese flowers which Lucy from Attic24 started a trend for. You can find all the info on her blog including the link to the pattern. Lucy has made her flowers slightly different to the original ones. I have seen a great many of these popping up all over the place. So My intention is to make a long scarf rather than a shawl or wrap but you never know how things will end up. This is where I am up to with it at the moment:







Don't you think they are just so pretty??? I love them.

Lastly, a bit of stitching!!! This is my part of Julie's RR. I really enjoyed this as it was so simple to stitch. I even looked forward to doing the backstitch. Good choice Julie.



Well, with that I will love you and leave you. I have much stitching to do and catch up on so don't be alarmed if I am quiet for the next couple of weeks.

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A Most Noble Pursuit

Finally, I have completed the first block on A Most Noble Pursuit. This has been a project I was sooo excited about and initially made a good start only to put it in the bag and promptly forget about it for over a year!! I have no idea why as it is a dream to stitch. It is worked on 36 count Vintage Light Exempler by Lakeside Linen and uses NPI silks 1 x 2 which are also heavenly to work with.





So it is a little TaDa moment. One down only nine more to go!

I have been very good and sticking to the Wednesday SAL for The Sampler Girl SAL over on NH forum and here is my progress on Pride and Prejudice sampler so far. I apologise for the bad lighting - the weather has been particularly awful here over the last few days with plenty of flood warnings.



Oooooh and finally my LL fabric arrived for me to make a start on Shores of Hawk Run Hollow. I luuuurve this fabric so much and hope it is as much fun to stitch on. It is the called for 40ct Vintage Autumn Gold.



And just for a bit of fun, here's my ds with a huge lollipop! It's good to put a bit of colour in your life.

Crochet a Rainbow

If you don't already know, Sarah London has started a charity for the victims of the recent horriffic floods in Australia. She has asked for granny squares, 5 rounds each, nothing fancy, in a variety of bright colours with which she will turn them into blankets for the victims. There have been many people signing up from all over the world and if you can crochet a square or two then why not pop over and sign up too.

Here are some simple squares I have made which will be sent soon. My sister has said she will do a few and I will wait on her squares then send them altogether.







Today I got the cutest gift through the post. My lovely friend Amanda from Manda's Challenges had a giveaway and I was one of the lucky winners. She sent this cute pencil case - just right for holding my hooks in and three lovely balls of yarn. Woot!! Oh there is also some special wash stuff as well just for wools. Fab prize Amanda. Thank you so much.

That's about all from me today! Nearly finished the first block on A Most Noble Pursuit. Long time coming. Keep warm fellow Brits and neighbours around the world. x

The kindness of a stranger..

I got a very unexpected email the other night by a lady offering me some of her fabric as she had seen I had requested some on my wishlist. This lady - Debbie - has no blog so I was taken quite aback! I have no knowledge of her from blogs or from forums or anywhere as far as I know but this dear lady knew me and sought to bless me. The kindness of strangers, especially stitchers, amazes me. I emailed her back and said I would love to rehome some of her fabric and today the most amazing parcel came for me.



There are various cuts, some being quite small which I will use for smalls and ornaments but some pieces are really quite big. I was astounded that a stranger would be kind enough to send me all of this! She said she no longer used 32 count and wanted it to go to a good home. By the looks of this lot, Debbie, you really do know me rather well. I absolutely love it all. And the bolder colours I can see some white thread going on there for christmas ornies. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. I have not stopped drooling at it all day.

So, Needlecraft Haven are starting yet another SAL tonight. The Sampler Girl SAL. I have chosen Pride and Prejudice as I have had the chart and threads for a while but I didn't have any fabric. Until now...



I am using this lovely mottled green piece that Debbie sent me. I love The Sampler Girl designs and I think this will look gorgeous on this piece. It's 32 ct but not sure of the shade. I'm away now to start another new project! Bye people. Have a good stitchy week and stay warm. xx

January

I can't believe where this month has gone! I am so sorry I haven't blogged and now, because I have left it so long, I am going to have an extremely long post! Lots of bits of things - this and that. Hopefully it will brighten your day. Feel free to just skim through the pics.

So what have I been up to this month? Well I have been a busy bee, celebrating my ds's 3rd birthday (can you believe he is 3 already???), stitching and crocheting my little heart out as well as trying to keep on top of blog reading. Do you know I am following that many blogs that when I try to add to my list it tells me it is too full to add any more!! So I have been more than inspired by all your lovely blog posts. I love them!

I noticed that quite a few of you had been doing the Crazy 15 challenge. That has been something to see. I have been adding more and more charts to my wishlist after seeing all the lovely ones you lot have been starting. No no no no.. I haven't even been tempted to do that challenge. My life has enough CRAZY in it without adding to it!

I did have a new start though. I decided to break my HAED rule once more and start the freebie SAL they are doing this year. I chose Fragile Heart and here is my start.



I really love this. Big blocks of black filled in with the most gorgeous pinks. Love it. If you haven't seen the picture of Fragile Heart and don't know what it looks like then I am going to surprise you as I progress through it. Watch this space!

And here is my progress on last years HAED SAL Rose SK:



Woohoo a full page completed! This is really coming along and I love stitching on it but I have promised to wait for Tina (no Blog) to catch up before we move on to p2. So that is 3 HAED wips I have on the go now. Shall I make it an even 4???

There were a couple of Christmas gifts I received which I didn't mention in my last post that really deserve a mention.



I got this from my best bud Michelle (no Blog). She bought it for me when we had our trip out to The Nimble Thimble last year. Complete with threads too. I think I am going to stitch this on the green fabric that Tracy bought me.

I also got given this which was a complete surprise from Karan:



One of the charts from off my wishlist. This was such a thoughtful thing to do and I love it. Thank you Karan.

This is my first finish of 2011!




Buttoned up for Christmas Victoria Sampler

32 count Summer Khaki linen Mixture of threads
It was the Buttoned Up chart from our Stitch and Pass it on exchange! I made this for CindyMae who will then stitch it up for Tracy. It was a fun stitch although I agonised over the colours for ages as it didn't give DMC alternatives.

Now, I think that is the stitching part over with and I will turn my attention to my crochet endeavours.

I finally finished a lap blanket which I had been working on for a while. Sooo... here's the reveal:











It measures 36' by 36' and uses the lovely Stylecraft acrylic. It is snuggly and warm and makes an ideal lapblanket. I was thinking of selling it so if you're interested in buying it then please send me an email and I can let you know what I am asking for it. Email in my profile!

The border around the edge of the blanket I found from this lovely book which I bought along with the two other flower ones. I have not tried the flowers yet but the books are sooo lovely.



I can't recommend these books enough. Oh and here's another one I bought myself for Christmas and I let my dd wrap it up for me:



This funky crocheter makes food scarves! T-bone steak, fried eggs, cupcakes, spaghetti bolognese lol. You get the idea. There is a lot of fun to be had with this book and again I can't recommend it enough.

My friend Kathy has asked me to crochet her two boys some blankets and she wanted a rectangular granny - one in blues and one in greens. It was really hard to not go for frilly colours and styles lol. I had to remember, these were for boys! I am using a size 8mm hook and double strands of DK to give it a chunky look. Here's is where I am up to with it so far:



So, dear Kathy, I hope you like what you see so far! The pattern is a really good one and can be found here:

Rectangular Granny

And that's not all the crochet I got up to. Nooooo!! You see this came for me just before Christmas and I had been waiting and waiting for this yarn.



Yay! It's the Lucy pack of Rico Creative Cotton. So I began a bag! But you know I discovered that I need to learn a little bit about colour so although I have made this so far.....



.....I am in fact going to be unravelling it and ordering the colours a little better! Good practice though.

Well I think that's about all from me folks. Sorry again for it being such a long post. I will try to update more regularly and not put it all in one post!

Love and hugs xxxxxxxxx