Spring has sprung ,a couple of stitcheries, and a WIP,& men and sheds

Spring I think has eventually sprung in my neck of the woods, down here in South Devon, although we have had a few sharp frosts here in the mornings, we have been having brilliant sunshine to melt it all away very quickly. All the little spring flowers are popping up all over the place. Don't you think that nature is just amazing, all those beautiful delicate flowers which pop up each spring after having to force their way up through hard compacted soil which has been frozen for many months. It's truly miraculous.



I have put a few pics below of the little miracles that have managed to emerge after being out in all weathers in my garden, so too are the snowdrops which are pictured above.

First Polyanthus
Miniature Daffodils

Mahonia

Hellibore

Life has been getting in the way of stitching recently, what with my dear son having to go to hospital after gashing his leg wide open to the bone, whilst out riding in the woods on his bike, falling off, and falling on a broken bottle left by some stupid person. This happened on his half term holiday, he then couldn't go back to school for a week and a half while he still had stitches in.

Then with the job that my DH does he gets up very early in the morning, so having to go to bed early at night in order to get enough sleep to muster up the energy for the next day, I haven't had time really for much stitching between doing the dreaded chores. I have been making the most of the brilliant sunshine, and getting the laundry out on the line rather than wasting expensive electricity drying in the tumble.

What is it too, about men and sheds!! My DH says he has to have a shed in the garden..... well we had 2 up til the weekend before last..... then another arrived..... this time it was not a small one... I was told it was going to be about the same size as previous....... but no. Mind you DH is not the tidiest of men when it comes to sheds....and the other two were bursting at the seams. Oh what a Sunday I had, I head cook and bottle washer that day, with not being able to get out of my back door for mountains of tools and "and things that will come in handy", (junk); and I just supplied streams of coffee and food all day. The new shed was 10 ft square. I suppose it really did need replacing as the floor had gone in one of the old 6ft ones, but now I haven't got a view of the garden when I put the kettle on for a cuppa..... I have a view of the shed, yet to be finished with roofing felt.... it does have some water resistant roofing material on, but is not "Perfect yet".

I have managed to do just a little bit of stitching. I started to do a sort of RR called weatherpoems...... there is no time limit on getting it finished thank goodness, as there are 12 patterns to be stitched. It may turn out to be quite expensive if I don't have all the colour threads I need. I have already substituted a couple of colours in the first one called MAY which I have started. see below

The two pics below are off two more stitcheries which I have embroidered for my quilt.

Happy New Year, A Winter Wonderland, a WIP, and a finish

A Happy New year to all the lovely visitors to my blog, may 2010 bring forth, health and happiness and peace to everyone.

The above picture is of a gift from a lovely stitching friend DJ who lives in the USA. She was working so hard before Christmas putting in all the hours God made where she works, and yet she still found time to make and send me this gorgeous little ornament. Isn't it cute!!

For days the weather forecasters have been saying we were going to have snow.....normally living by the sea we very rarely have snow, but this year is an exception. The rest of the UK have been suffering really badly with snow and freezing conditions. This morning was our turn, and we awoke to a smattering at 5.45am with regular falls later on, so much so that the schools have closed as teachers couldn't get there, and with my husband being told by his boss that he would rather him stay at home with pay than drive and have an accident. Of course neither of them complained. My son was eager to go out into the cold as he has never seen much snow at all. We have more snow forecast for later on today, and freezing temperatures tonight, so it may be everyone home again tomorrow.

After having a cup of coffee we decided that we would all go out in it, so after clearing the path by the drive, and having a snowball fight; we went for a walk. I thought that I would share with you some of the pics that I took whilst out.

DH & Son

DH not looking too happy at having his pic taken

Sub tropical plant in Garden

Teasels in the snow

Wild Dog Rose hips in the snow

Snow Angel

The next pic is of a small stitchery quilt that I did for a present for my DS and his family as part of their Christmas present to hang in their hall of their new house.

The next pic is of a stitchery which I did for myself which was intended to be on the wall for Christmas, but with everything that was happening before Christmas I never got to make it into a small quilt pic. I will finish it into a quilt pic, as soon as everyone has gone back to work, and school.

The stitchery was supposed to be in redwork only,but I thought it would look much prettier in a few colours. I worked the piece in DMC thread with Krienik metallic filament and Spirelli metallic thread.

The pattern is a freebie, and can be found at http://thepaintedquilt.blogspot.com , thank you to Kaaren for this lovely little Stitchery.

My last pic is of the WIP that I am doing, I have been stitching this for the past two evenings whilst watching the TV. I thought that I would do it in white on the Dark Coffee Belfast 32ct that DH bought for me, along with some new gold needles, that he put in my stocking for Christmas. It seems to be more apt colours for this time of the year.

NB :I think that most of my pics I have posted this time will enlarge if you click on them.....if you have found previously that they wouldn't I have now found out that I was reducing the size of them too small, and therefore they wouldn't open up to a large size. Sorry for this previous boo boo.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Info for those US genealogists out there!!!!

If you have European ancestors who migrated from Europe to the US from the middle to late 1800's until 1914. I have recently discovered that if they left Europe from the Port of Hamburg, they will not have sailed directly to the USA, and will have arrived in Hull, England first before travelling by train or carriage the next day to Liverpool,England and then going on to the USA.

In Hull Records Office they do hold lists of passengers, occupations, dates etc of all the passengers who arrived there to be migrating to the USA.

They would have stayed in a lodgings house on or very near the quayside before they continued their passage to the USA.

A Freebie.... the end of a rainbow, and a finish.

We have been having a lot of heavy rain with sunny spells in between lately, and this is a pic of a rainbow that appeared one afternoon...... it seemed that the crock of gold must be down a neighbours chimney!!

I feel that I should be doing more about Christmas as it will soon be upon us, I really should be in the kitchen making Christmas cake, but I seem to have lost my mojo at the moment. I have been stitching for Christmas, but just cannot work up the enthusiasm to think about the shopping, and the food making. I suppose with all the works that have been going on, on the house it has detracted from the Seasonal feelings. I am sure that come the 1st day of December, and I will get the feeling come back to me.

Here is a pic of a beautiful Christmas orni which I was sent by a stitching friend Abi from Yahoo Friendly Stitchers Group which I also belong to.

The pic below is of the Christmas Orni that I did for Mouse in the same ornament swap on Friendly Stitchers Group. The pattern is called "White Christmas",and was a free pattern which can be found at Drawn Thread

This is the back of the Orni

I have been doing a lot of Christmas stitching, but unfortunately I cannot show you what I have done, or it will not be a surprise for the recipients, as they are all bloggers.

I just had to show a pic of my Lipstick Plant. Despite the mistreatment it gets, and the lack of water most of the time, it survives despite everything. This is the third time that it has flowered for me this year. Its home is on my stairs on the windowsill next to my pottery Camels. I don't know the real Latin name for it, its just known as lipstick plant.

A Small Finish, My own Stitcheries for patchwork, and more.........

A touch of Autumn in my garden

Autumn is most definitely here in England. My small Japanese Acer on the left with the pink Ixia's peeping through, and the Mahonia in the pic on the right are just a sample of natures rich colours. Isn't mother nature amazing, only a few weeks ago the Mahonia was a dark rich green, and the Acer was a beautiful burgundy copper colour.

Well my faithful followers I haven't really been doing a lot of stitching the past few weeks, especially the week before last, as I had the builders in my kitchen laying down a new floor surface which needed a latex screed spreading all over before laying the final finish. This had to be done over 2 days, so the kitchen was a no go area. It was awful as I had to have most of the kitchen appliances etc in my lounge Ugh!!

However, I did get to make a little key fob from a pattern that I found some time ago on Corinne Leroy's beautiful blog, the pattern can be found here. I used 18ct white hardanger, and DMC 817. The gold chain edging was a piece of gold coloured thread that had been knitted through one of those knitting dolls that children have where the cord comes out through the bottom of the doll. 

My~~~Happiness Is~~~ Blocks for patchwork

I have designed a series of Stitcheries, which I hope to be able to sell if they seem to be popular.

Below are a couple which I have stitched up to show you.

I would really like your comments about the stitcheries to enable me to judge whether I should carry on with the project, or give up now.

Pinkeep WIP

This is a work in progress of a pinkeep which I have worked on 36ct raw linen. When I found the pattern which is a freebie on Sablaise's blog, I thought how lovely it was, and could also be used for a Christmas ornament, especially done in these colours.Thank you Sablaise.

The pattern can be found here.

The cards below are just some which I came across a couple of weekends ago at a flea market.

The two with the brightly coloured flowers are Dance cards dating back to the 19th Century. The one with Cinderella printed on it is dated 1889.

The other with the white Chrysanthemums on is a Christmas card dated 1888, and says on the back Edies' love to Nellie.

I just couldn't resist them. I bought 13 cards in all, and will post some more another day.

_________________

The Dividers which I have used on my blog are courtesy of the Gutenberg Library which I found whilst downloading some free books, and of course are free to use under UK & US Law as they are now copyright free.