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.

A Happy and Not So Happy Christmas!

 First up the Happy bit - I found the Christmas decorations that I thought had been lost in our move from France! Happy dance from me. It was lovely to unwrap all the lovely things I have collected over the years and get them out on display. I am not one for clearing stuff away to make special Christmas displays - I just like to feed Christmassy things in amongst our normal collections. But here are a few little collections of Christmas dotted around the house.

The green Christmas Tree in the first picture lights up and sings, you may - or may not! be able to click on the picture for a video.

The little toboggan girl in the last picture is new for this year, otherwise everything else has been in my collection for a while.

Bought a new Christmas tree online with fingers crossed and am very happy with it's shape - not too wide as we do not have the space for a large tree! but plenty of branches to hang all my decorations from.

Very pleased to have found my tree decorations as most of them have been collected on my travels and some are over 40 years old.

Now for the not so happy - Philip visited our local hospital for a scan to look for gall stones on the Wednesday before Christmas. While there he was rushed to A&E with a very high temperature and kept in until Boxing Day due to an infected bile duct caused by the gall stones. Sepsis was diagnosed and we are thankful that we were at the hospital and dealt with so quickly. So hospital visiting was how I spent my Christmas! However, happy to report he is now recovering slowly although very tired. 

It has all been very quiet around here although family have popped in for visits - but I am still enjoying my decorations!

I like to get out my decorations a week before Christmas and leave them, by tradition, out until 12th night so six more days enjoyment to come. We need all the joy and light we can get at this time of year!

This year I made a proper Christmas cake and had it all ready to ice but in the end that didn't happen. However I have taste tested and it is pretty good!

Fortunately the Christmas presents I had been making were finished in time. Jennifer at https://www.elefantz.com/ posted this a week or so before Christmas which set me off on making these.

There were another two but they missed out on the photo shoot as I used them as soon as they were finished!

All the embroideries are different, to suit the recipients.

I also manged to finish the Starling socks that I had been working on.

They have been worn and washed now and very snuggly they are too!

Hopefully that is me all caught up.

Wishing you all a very Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year.

It was a beautiful sunny day today and so we went to the coast - Watchet Quay looking beautiful in the sunshine.

In the top picture the large building top right is The East Quay. There are two large exhibition galleries and lots of small artisan workshops and shops.

I wanted to see the Grayson Perry Exhibition of two large wall hangings which is currently in the ground floor gallery. And I was not disappointed as they are stunning.

I lifted these pictures from the internet but am sure the colours were much richer! Below is the blurb from the East Quay website.

 Gallery One at East Quay will feature two tapestries by Grayson Perry, on loan from the Crafts Council collection designed and created for Perry's House for Essex project. The tapestries depict key events from the life of a fictional character named Julie Cope, an ordinary Essex woman living in the latter half of the twentieth century. Through the tapestries, Grayson conveys the beauty, vibrancy, and contradictions of a regular individual - telling the stories, in his words, of “the trials, tribulations, celebrations and mistakes of an average life".

The first of the tapestries displayed, titled A Perfect Match, shows Julie’s early years from birth to marriage. Julie’s later years, second marriage, and death are depicted in the second tapestry, In it's Familiarity, Golden. The Ballad of Julie Cope, a written narrative, will be displayed alongside the tapestries for viewers to read. The tapestries were acquired by the Crafts Council with support from the Art Fund (with a contribution from The Wolfson Foundation) and a donation from Maylis and James Grand.

The first picture shows her birth during floods on Canvey Island and her first marriage. The second shows her later life, second marriage and death in a motor bike accident, bottom right.

Hope you enjoy looking at them.

FNWF's for December

 And our last FNWF's for the year. Many thanks to Cheryll for organising us again over the year and I for one look forward to our Fridays next year.

It was a cold grim day here but we had arranged to go out so out we went! Nothing of interest to report except that at lunchtime the trees on the hills were still sporting frost and looking very pretty!

There was not much of the afternoon left by the time we got home so after doodling a few snowflakes in my sketchbook - we missed out on the snow that fell earlier in the week - and cooking dinner I settled down with my knitting for an evening of snooker.

Another pair of socks are under way - this time for me - and the yarn is called starling. I love the colours.

Having had to take back three or four inches due to a dropped stitch, I have now made that up and am at the toe decrease stage. Something for later today I think.

Earlier in the week I had the sewing machine out to finish my Churndashalong quilt - which I did and it is now waiting for some warmer weather so I can wash it. Photo shoot to come!

But I also whipped up one of these Hemmingway pouches and it was very quick and easy to put together!

The link will take you to the pattern on Etsy. It comes in four sizes - mine is the smallest and is perfect for pencils. The larger sizes make book or tablet sized cases. The only thing I would do differently is the binding on the inner seams which is far too bulky on the corner and impossible to poke out properly. I think a neat over sewing with a zigzag would be sufficient. Otherwise I am really pleased with it.

That is all for now, have a happy stitchy weekend and I leave you with a picture of the garden I took about half an hour ago, just after lunch. No sign of it lifting today!