Nearly a Year has gone by......

Hi my lovely people that have still come to visit my page, even though I have been remiss and not been here to say hello for so long..... and to those special people I say thank you.

A lot of time has passed since I last posted on my blog I know, but a lot of things have changed in my life also... I have been through a huge learning curve this year.... Yes even at my time in life, one of which was at now the great age of 60 ( last May) you can still learn things about people places and things.

I am afraid that I haven't done any stitching at all except for starting a new square for my embroidered & stitchery quilt I am hoping one day to finish.

I lost my mojo for stitching this year.......

..... and have been flying about all over the country visiting new places, and meeting new people too. This was prompted by having to visit a councellor, because of the effects that life in general over last years happenings had affected me, which if you knew of me on the stitching sites I used to visit would have known about.

STASH

On one of my visits to the hairdressers in Paignton, I noticed that a shop which had been empty for a while had opened as a bead shop. Ever hopeful for more stash, I went inside as I had a few moments spare. There were some wonderful beads for jewellery making, but as I worked around the shop, as everything was laid out in trays, and you could pick and choose; I found some wonderful charms, which although were supposedly for jewellery making but I thought would be wonderful for adding to stitched work when I got my mojo back.... The pic below is of all the stash that I managed to find that day, and from another days stash hunting.

I did say in my last post that I had met someone special.... well he turned out to be a rotten apple, and so here I am still single..... and quite happy in my own company now, although it does get a bit lonely at times...... but I do have some lovely friends both online, and off.

I am afraid I am unable to make patterns at the moment, nor have been able to for a long while now, as my big old PC decided to go wrong back in the spring, and after losing half of its memory, but working was too slow for me.... and now it has decided to let its graphics card go bang...... so when funds allow I shall try and get it up and running again so that I can design little bits again.

The picture that you see above is of some fishermens cottages which have been renovated, and are in a little nook of a fishing town of Brixham which is quite close to where I live...... when I have friends to visit they are always in awe of visiting this little town, and they do wonderful fish'n' chips there, so sometimes we go and taste the local delicasies.

I didn't know until a couple of weeks ago after watch a TV programme that Fish'n'chips is not a truely British dish, even though many "Chippies" have claimed it as British Food......... in fact by all accounts Fish and Chips was brought to the UK by the Jewish people who emigrated to the UK way back in the 1800's.

In the summer I had a trip to London, I hadn't been there for years, A friend had invited me up there for a weekend, and I mentioned that I would love to go to The Portabello Road, as one of my passions is small antiques, and objects d'art. For many many years the Portabello Rd had been well known for all those sort of wonderful objects from a bygone era...... When I got there there were only a handful of antique type shops left... I was so disappointed.... and now in their place were shops that had been taken over by cheap imports and tat....... yet another sign of the times.....

I have put a pic below of a shop that was at the entrance of the start of Portabello Rd though, as I thought it may be of interest to stitching ladies and men alike. The window of the shop was absolutely filled with antique sewing machines, from every conceivable country that ever made them, and all displayed all along the huge windows of the clothes store that sold gents clothes.

Another interesting item that I found, not in London, but in Manchester when I visited the Industrial Museum up there was the most amazing jacket/cardigan made out of Dandelion Clock Seeds. The museum has such an amazing amount of information and exhibits about Textiles and design of materials, especially as Manchester was one of the main centres back in the 1800's for the textile industry. I took many photos there too many to add here in my blog, but no doubt when I post again, I shall put them on here.
The Pic below is of the Dandelion Seed Jacket... so delicate, and beautiful.... it must have taken many many hours to join all the seeds together.

I have put a close up below ( as close as I could get)

Below are a few of the things , places, and just strange I have taken pics of this year... I hope you enjoy....

Sunset Last Week

Misty morning accross the Tamar Valley

Very High tides at Teignmouth

Mist at noon over Babacoombe Beach

Me at home

Sir Christopher Wrens House

London.

The formal Gardens at Hampton Court

Hampton Court,

where Henry VIII lived in

Tudor Times

The Grand Back entrance of Hampton Court.

A Creek at Bere Ferres S. Devon

Valley near Canonteign Falls Devon

Art Week in Teignmouth

Sir Francis Drake's monument

Plymouth

The Only Blue Post Box I have seen in England

The Bridge at Salford Quays

An interesting Moss in the woods

the rocks at the bottom of Becky falls

My youngest son Stu, doing his amazing

Long Jump at school

A View of the Arboretum and fountain at Hampton Court

I loved the funny shaped Yew trees

Pixies at Becky Falls