Goodbye to 2010

Here we are on the last day of the year, it seems to be very true that time speeds up as you get older, I can hardly believe another year has passed. Last New Years Eve was magical for me and I ended up taking a moonlit midnight walk through the woods to see in 2010. This year we're out celebrating with friends. What will you be doing at midnight?

I've lived, laughed and cried a whole lot this year and feel like I've learned one heck of a lot.

2010 was the year that taught me that home really is where the heart is and I think my heart has finally found somewhere to rest in contented peace and happiness.

2010 taught me to count life's blessings a little more. I have wonderful family and friends, I am in a happy relationship where I don't have to ask for affection it is given freely and unconditionally. I'm allowed to be my own person, my opinions aren't disregarded and I'm never made to feel stupid, even when I am :) I feel valued as a person and know I am loved. What more could a person ask for.

2010 saw me realise some long ago made dreams and probably the thing I am most proud of this year was getting to the top of Haystacks. OK so it's hardly Everest but for an unfit being like me it may as well have been and it's been something I wanted to do forever.I'm feeling full of hope and happiness, I'm making plans and dreaming big for 2011 but I still have a healthy amount of cautiousness. The last time I felt like this my whole world was ripped apart, I'm wary of opening myself up to that kind of hurt again, but if our hearts aren't open I guess we'll never have the opportunity to experience real joy and that's what I'm dreaming for in 2011.

In 2010 I completed these projects

Baby Mobile - Cross Stitch

Door Sign - Cross Stitch

14 Fabric Postcards

1 Small Embroidery

1 Patchwork pincushion

1 Fabric Brooch

1 Knitted Doll

3 Dottee Dolls

1 Cross stitch bookmark

Hanging Crows - Stitched Ornament

1 Cross stitch biscornu

Canvas work thread keeper

2 cross stitch buttons

13 ATC's

Autumn Queen Cross Stitch

2 Knitted Hats

Budgie Pillow

Noel Banner

1 Double bed size Quilt

1 Patchwork cushion

In 2010 I watched these movies at the cinema

Avatar 2D

Avatar 3D

Daybreakers

The Road

Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll

The Book of Eli

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

The Wolfman

The Lovely Bones

The Crazies

Crazy Heart

Alice in Wonderland

Green Zone

Shutter Island

Hachi

How to Train your Dragon 3D

Cemetary Junction

Ironman 2

Robin Hood

Prince of Persia

Twilight: Eclipse

Inception

Predators

Toy Story 3 3D

The A-Team

The Last Airbender 3D

Piranha 3D

Karate Kid

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Devil

Buried

Despicable Me 3D

Burke and Hare

Saw 3D

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Unstoppable

Megamind 3D

The Tourist

Tron The Legacy

In 2010 I read these books.

The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

It's Only a Movie by Mark Kermode

Burton on Burton by Mark Salisbury

Fallen by Lauren Kate

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

Once Bitten by Stephen Leather

I wonder what 2011's list will look like?

Siberian Gold End of Year Progress

Wow, only a few days now to the new year. I'm feeling really hopeful and hugely positive, with new plans and dreams in my head for 2011. I'm sure I'll tell you more about them later but for now it's time for the last Siberian Gold update of the year. You might remember that my original goal was to have this one done by the end of the year, but I ended up taking a break and working on the Autumn Queen for my sister instead.So as always the above is a reminder of where I was at the end of November. Thanks to a few days of illness where I've done nothing but curl up on the sofa under a pile of blankets and work on this, a great deal of progress was made during December. Tiger 2 now has his chin and a lot more of the background around him has been fleshed out. It's still going to be a good few months before this is finished I think but even though these guys have been with me for so long I still really love the picture and can't wait to see them framed and on my wall.

Recovering

What did you get up to on Christmas Day? However you got to spend it I hope you had the perfect day. We were invited to my sisters this year, and had a great time.There was a ridiculous amount of presents under the tree. I don't think even the kids could quite believe it when they woke up on Christmas morning. We thought we'd be in for an early start with a 10 year old and a 1 year old in the house, but actually it was the biggest kid of them all - my sister - who woke us up with the Christmas music on full blast at 7am.Here is Grandad, helping Kai get to grips with the present opening. Actually it didn't take long for carnage to settle in ..... here is the aftermath.While the kids wrecked the place with all the paper, ribbons and bows us adults enjoyed a celebratory glass of the bubbly stuff.Not everyone was feeling the spirit of Christmas though.Bah Humbug! X

Merry Christmas

Sending you all Warm Wishes and Bright Blessings, this Christmas

Snowville, Wilts

Am starting to feel a little better, and am hopeful that I will be able to shake this lurgy in time for the weekend and a Christmas spent with family. In the meantime I still haven't had the energy to wander far but here are a few snow shots.My snowy street

My feet disappearing in the snow outside the front door

Oscar the snow cat
Even though it's not in focus love the first shot of Oscar's snowy butt :)

Molly with no legs, they're buried in the snow somewhere

Whatever you are up to hope you are managing to stay warm and well.

Yesterday was Sunday

Yesterday was Sunday.

It could have been a magical, wonderful, enjoy the simple things kind of day. Snow has been falling in these parts again and it would have been the perfect day for taking a nice long winter stroll. Instead I've been laid up with the flu. Seems like just about everyone has had these germs and it's just my turn I guess. I barely had the energy to stand up long enough to get myself out of bed, let alone go for a nice long walk. So most of the day was spent on the sofa under blankets watching the countdown continue.

Making Rainbows

I'm full of cold and feeling pretty under the weather at the moment, hopefully I'll get all the germs out of my system this week so that I'm fit and well and ready to celebrate Christmas in style.Meanwhile, now the quilt is done I was wondering what I could pick up to do next. Seeing the rainbow the other day reminded me that I still had my very own hexagon rainbow sitting in the UFO box waiting to be made in to a pillow. Seemed like the perfect pick up and finish without too much thinking project, perfect when your brain doesn't want to function when it's full of cold.I almost decided against going with the original plan when I picked the hexagons out of the box and the light from the window caught them. Looks like stained glass don't you think? Was almost tempted just to leave them hanging in the window.But I went with the original plan, and this little rainbow has now found a new home on one of the arm chairs. I really like how this has turned out, the bright colours are just so me and I love that it was made entirely from tiny scraps that I'd saved from other projects and scrap swaps that I've done over the last few years.One final picture before we leave this one. I just really liked how the pillow was half caught in the fading winter sunshine. It being half in shadow just made me think again of how quickly the beautiful rainbow disappeared from the sky after that rain shower we had the other day.

It feels good to be spending the end of the year finishing up something that had been neglected for a while. I wonder if I'll have time to finish another project or two before the year is done?

Done

Nan's quilt is done. Yes you read that right after almost two years sitting on the UFO pile it's done, finished, complete. How happy am I?

It's always tricky trying to get a picture of something so large, made even more difficult by the lack of day time photographic time, but for the sake of being able to show something I hastily threw it on the bed and took a couple of pretty awful shots but you get the idea.At least it's had the Molly seal of approval...... in fact I couldn't get her off the thing, every one of the pictures I tried to take had a Molly in it, lolGood job my Nan likes cats, she may have some Molly fluff to cuddle up to when she puts this on her bed!And before I go I want to say a huge thank you to Kim who shared her pattern for this quick and easy quilt top, many moons ago which inspired me to make this for my Nan who I'm sure is going to love it.

Beauty is Fleeting

Yesterday I saw a rainbow. I just looked up and there it was staring right back at me through the window.

For lots of reasons that I don't have time to tell you about today, rainbows remind me of my Mum so I'm always happy to see them.

By the time I'd grabbed my camera it was all but gone, but for a few precious moments it's beauty was there for me to enjoy. Rainbows make my soul smile.

Journey to work

The weathermen are promising us more snow, we'll see, they don't always get these things right. But if they are there may be a flurry of new snow pictures to share so before that happens I thought I'd share the last few from this winters first round of snow, so here is a tale of my journey to work.

I step outside and feel the crunch of the newly fallen flakes, which in the dark of night fell silently to cover the world in a beautiful white blanket. Oscar cat has beaten me out of the door. Oscar is as dark as night himself, he could almost disappear in the shadows except those bright shining sea green eyes always give him away!Nothing has escaped the snows cold covering, even the frog keeping watch over the garden has a mohican of snow, but he doesn't seem to mind.Jack Frost has been out this night dancing with the Snow Queen, he's left his frosty daggers all over the tree branches.even the lock on the car door has it's own icicles but I'll leave them to thaw away in their own time, I'm on foot today....... travelling down deserted roads........ and past frozen ponds....A day at work is not in my top ten list of fun ways to spend my time, but when the world is white and you can pretend you're taking a journey through Narnia it makes it a little easier to make the journey in :)

Last minute madness

I think that blogging may slow down a bit for a while. Things are really busy round here at the moment at work and home and it's difficult to find time to think sometimes, let alone blog. Nan's quilt is almost done so hopefully I'll be sharing that soon. Now that project is almost over in a rush of last minute madness, I've decided to dust off my long neglected paper craft supplies and have a bash at making up my Christmas cards this year.
It's been a while since I've done any card making and I'm enjoying putting these together.

Wonderful Weekend

Have had an amazingly busy weekend and although my camera came with me every where I was so busy having fun I actually forgot to use it, lol. I had the office Christmas shindig to enjoy and my beautiful nephew's first birthday to celebrate.

The weekend finished with some live music courtesy of Seth Lakeman. Dave took the pictures that I'm sharing here.It was a brilliant gig, made the more special by a power cut right at the end. Kitty Jay was fabulous in the dark, and the band played an encore in the car park. A fabulous end to a wonderful weekend.

It's a great big white world

Most of the snow has now gone, though I've heard some forecasts which tell us more is on the way, but for now here are a few more snow pictures from last week. You all getting fed up with seeing snow on my blog yet?

A bit of colour in an otherwise white world

Finishing Stretch

After all my panicking the other day about maybe not finishing the quilt, I'm happy to say all the machine work has now been done and I'm down to hand stitching the binding. It's been so cold round here with all the frost and snow, it's been nice to spend a few evenings snuggled under the quilt getting this stitching done. Just one more side of binding to go, a label to make and then I'll be done.

Frolics in a Frosty Graveyard

It's really frustrating being stuck at work when the world outside is looking so beautiful. In an attempt to get out and capture the atmosphere while the snow and frost were still fresh on the ground I headed out with my camera on my lunchbreak Tuesday.

Here are a few of my efforts from a frosty churchyard in Corsham. I took far too many pictures so these are just a few. If you happen to be interested in seeing the lot I've put an album on facebook so friend me if you want :)