Weekend Catchup

 I have been keeping up with my stitch journal. Gave the finished sections a good press before photographing!

Here is a close up of the latest sections.

Today's box is outlined but not filled in yet - random crosses I think will go in there. I have enjoyed using my greens but am now looking forward to February and getting out some red threads.

Friday was a good day. It started out with a brief visit to The Chookshed and a zoom chat with a few lovely ladies. It was early for me - 8am - so I think they had been on there a while. As always good to catch up. But it was such a lovely day here that as soon as I had some washing on the line we headed out to the coast. We went to Dunster beach on the West Somerset coast.

We took a walk first through the holiday chalet park - pretty much deserted at this time of year - and discovered a lake and a nature walk. I love this bridge over the lake.

And the ducks and geese swimming on it.

We walked back to the car along the coast path - the tide was out, just starting to come in. Too hazy for a view of Wales today.

Mr and Mrs Stonechat posed beautifully for me!

I never tire of taking pictures of these groynes.

Spot them in yesterdays journal block....

Earlier in the week I finished quilting the little cot quilt I have been working on . I found the flimsy recently and have no idea when it was made! Some years ago for sure. Anyway I decided it was high time it was finished off especially as I have a friend who can find a good home for it with a charity supporting young mothers. So Friday evening I set to and finished hemming down the binding - just a simple one using backing fabric brought over from the back.

I am hopefully going to run this through the washing machine this week so will do a proper photoshoot then. Nice to have a finish though in January.

Well that is all my news for now, hope you are all enjoying the weekend.

FNSI January

 And many thanks to Wendy for inviting us again, I look forward to joining everyone on the 3rd Friday for our get together.

I was a bit lax I am afraid on the photograph front. My first task was to alter a skirt - not exciting and certainly not worth a pic!

Next up however I started quilting a cot quilt. The top is one that I made back in the mists of time and has been sitting around waiting for attention. I got it layered up last year and thought I would make a start on the quilting while I had the machine out. I have done about half which took me an hour so I know that next time I get the machine out I need to set aside and hour to finish it off. Sadly it got packed away along with the machine before I realised that I ought to have taken a photo!

In the evening I worked first on my stitch journal. Here is an up to date picture. At the moment I am working on blanket stitch variations.

Then a little bit of knitting on my lace socks.

In other news, the crochet blanket is finished. Pleased with how this turned out and hope it will give someone a nice warm hug next winter.

We have had some cold weather over the last week or so with -7 a couple of nights this week. Mild today and more rain on the way!

I will leave you with a few of my favourite frosty pics.

Saturday catchup

 It's been a cold week here, mostly grey but there were a couple of lovely sunny days. At the moment we are promised snow for next week but we shall see.

It has been an up and down week but lovely to meet up with friends today for lunch at a local farm shop cafe. Good company and delicious food too.

However, I have managed to keep up with my daily stitch journal so far and amazed to find that we are almost halfway through the month already. Here is my progress so far.

Also this week I have put the socks aside and have been working on the crochet ripple blanket that I started last year. It has now grown quite nicely and last night, after I had taken this picture, I finished the ripples and started on a narrow border.

So hopefully a finish for my next post.

Have a good week.

January Friday Night with Friends

 Good to be back stitching and sharing on Friday nights for another year. Pop over to visit Cheryll here to see who else was stitching along.

It is the beginning of the month and so it is Rainbow Scrap Challenge time and the start of a new year means a new schedule of colours. First up was green and Angela suggested dark and bright greens.

I have two projects that I am linking up to the RSC this year. The first is a daily stitch journal. I am using 2023 templates for my journal from Karen Turner. I followed Karens progress last year on Instagram and thought that this would be a fun thing to do. However, I am not so keen on her 2024 templates so am sticking with 2023. Yes, I know, an extra day in Feb this year so some adjustment will need to be made! I pulled out a variety of dark and light green threads and have popped them into a small pouch which will also hold my fabric so I can just grab it and my scissors if I need a 'to go' project.

And here is my first page with the first 5 days filled in.

These are all chain stitch variations.

I had a couple of patchwork ideas in mind for the RSC but when Jennifer  published her first block of the month pattern for this year I thought that it would lend itself to RSC. The theme is Joy in the Ordinary which rather struck a chord with me. So here is my version of her block - I have used the sager greens in my stash and will use the dark and lights later in the year.

I then made two more blocks as I plan to make a larger quilt with the colours in rows.

Well, that is the plan at the moment!

Also underway earlier this week is another pair of socks. This time using some yarn that I picked up in a Charity shop from a company called Riverknits which I had never heard of before. It's a 4ply 100% Blue Faced Leicester, colourway Starry Night. And looking at their website I bagged myself a real bargain!

Anyway, it is knitting up beautifully as you can see - I am using Winwick Mum's Easy Lace pattern, which is in her book More Super Socks.

It finally seems to have stopped raining and we are set for a week of dry but cold weather. Which is fine by me as it looks as though it is going to be sunny, so perfect winter weather. Hopefully some nice walks followed by some warming soups and casseroles.

Have a lovely week.