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

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.

Stitchy updates, and a Valentines Freebie

Hello my faithful followers, and a warm welcome to my new followers, I'm sorry that I have deserted you for so long, but life, and illness have got in the way, but now I am back into the swing of things. I have a freebie which I have designed for you all to stitch which is on a Valentines theme, and I hope I am not too late for you all to have a go at stitching it. It is not very large and can be found further on down the blog.



The picture above is of a beautiful little freebie cross stitch pattern which I found some time ago on a blog belonging to Sablaise,thank you Sablaise; and which I stitched sometime before Christmas. I thought it most apt now that Valentines Day is on this coming Sunday. However, I love hearts, and I think they are great anytime of the year. I haven't made the piece up into anything yet, but I thought I may make it into a Pinkeep, as the one that I use now, is a little bit worse for wear. The link for this pattern can be found here

The following pics are of some more stitcheries which I have stitched that are to be included in the quilt which I am going to make for my bed.

The pic below is of the Winter birds, part of the seasons set from My Aunts Attic which I have now finished. I do intend at a later date to do all the seasons.

My Gift to you for Valentines Day.

please click on the Pattern Pic to enlarge and then print

Valentine Rose