A few random pictures from the garden

A Question and a Giveaway

I'm sure I've mentioned more than once that I am in the process of moving. Trying to merge 2 households in to 1 is no mean feat though and is proving to be a more protracted process than I had hoped, it's just hard to find the time to fit everything in.

Anyway, it's proving to be good in the fact that it's making me have a darn good sort out. In the process of moving my stitch stuff I've been thinking about how I store all my bits and pieces. When I was making a lot of postcards I found it easier to keep everything grouped together by colour, but now I'm wondering about changing it all round so all the buttons are together, all the ribbons, beads etc, but part of me is wondering do I really need to do this or is it just an excuse for me to avoid doing some of the other jobs I'm trying to put off?
So my question is how do you store yours?

This is my 700th post, so if you leave a comment by the end of the week with your suggestions, a way for me to get in touch with you and tell me your favourite colour I'll send you a thank you by way of some bits and pieces from my embellishment boxes.

Something New - Threadkeeper

Way back when, you might remember me telling you all about my trip to Birmingham and my stitchy shopping spree at the NEC. Well I thought it was high time that I started on one of the kits that I treated myself too.

So I've been doing a little canvas work. I've been wanting to make myself a little scissor fob for a while, so when I saw this lovely kit from Sue Hawkins I couldn't resist. It's basically stitching in rounds using two different types of multi-coloured threads, a silk and a rayon. There are an interesting variety of stitches, and apart from not being able to figure out the instructions for marking out the starting place on the canvas (just made an educated guess in the end!) its really easy to follow the design instructions. So much so that I already have one side finished, it is only a small piece after all.

Hopefully the second half will come together just as quickly as this :)

Haystacks

Time for a little something else from my holiday I think. I already mentioned that possibly my favourite place in the Lakes is at Buttermere. Buttermere lake sits right underneath Haystacks, a fell I have wanted to climb ever since I started taking trips to the lakes, and this year I actually did it :)

We had pretty much a perfect walking day weather wise, not too hot and not too windy or rainy, we decided to combine the walk up Haystacks with a walk round Buttermere so it was a good 7 or 8 miles altogether I think, can't remember exactly now. In the picture above you can see the lake with the crinkly top of Haystacks in the background.

My friend, Morris the Marvellous Mountaineering Moose, came everywhere with us on this trip, here he is getting a good luck kiss from me at the very start of the walk.

As with most places in the Lakes, you don't actually have to get up very far to get amazing views. This shot was taken from the start of the climb, doesn't the lake look magnificent against the green of the hills?

If, like me, you enjoy a bit of cloud gazing from time to time, there is no better place than the lakes. The scenery is forever changing as the clouds float by. Some of the cloud was pretty low on this day and our destination kept getting covered in fluffy whiteness as we made our way up. Here is Morris, sitting proudly on the summit cairn, looking pleased as punched and unscathed.

Sadly I couldn't say the same for me. Here is a shot of my plaster covered knee. I managed to cup open one knee on the scramble to the top, and then on the way down I managed to fall over and cut the other one, I'm so clumsy when it comes to being in the great outdoors, lol.

Buttermere, is a pretty small lake compared to some of the others in the area, but it looks positively tiny from the top.

Here are my poor feet taking a well earned rest by Innominate Tarn which is near the top of Haystacks. A truly beautiful spot, I can well see why the famous fell walker Alfred Wainwright chose to have is ashes scattered here.

A brilliant days walking, which I'll remember forever.

Introducing The Autumn Queen

I mentioned the other day that the tigers are going in to hibernation for a while, instead I will be working on one of Mum's other UFO's - The Autumn Queen. She is part of a set of 4, my sister has the three other pieces that Mum completed and wants the fourth so she can hang them up in her house.

This is as far as Mum got with her.

Mum has really already done the bulk of the work, Autumn really isn't too far off being finished. This kit has lots of beads and some strange fluffy white thread that I've not seen before, so should be interesting to work on. There are also some quite large blocks of colour in the patterning so in comparison with all the colour changes in the tigers I'm hoping that she will come together reasonably quickly. To start with I have some unpicking to do. It seems that all of the work on the sleeve is wrong so before I go any further that will all have to come out. It feels quite sad to be unpicking stitches that Mum put in, but it's out by quite a way so I can't just work round it without things looking odd, so there is nothing else for it some unravelling has to be done.

Growing stuff

Still haven't had much time for blogging and down loading photos yet, at this rate I'll be getting ready to go on holiday next year before I get to finishing posting about this year's trip, lol. In the meantime here are a few snapshots of the garden.


In just a few short weeks the little veg patch went from this, To this,

I'm sure we had all the beautiful sunshine, interspersed with a few rain showers to thank for all the growth. There is only room for a few things in the patch and the radishes have been the quickest to grow

Nothing better than adding something homegrown to the salad dish :)

The potato bin has also been in overdrive going from this

to this.

Have never grown pots before so will be interesting to see how they turn out. Actually have never really grown much of anything before really only a few salad bits a couple of years back, but I seem to have black rather than green fingers, lets hope that my luck is changing. Now that I'm a discerning gardener ;-) I had to treat myself to what surely has to be a gardening must have!

How cute? I'm a big kid I know :)

Pay It Forward - Biscornu

My holiday wasn't all about walking and enjoying the sun you know! :) While I was away I was also working hard on my secret project for the Pay It Forward blog challenge I told you about back here. Well I only had one person willing to play, but my gift has been sent and received so I'm safe to share without spoiling any surprises.

I've been seeing Biscornu everywhere recently so I decided to have a go at making one using a beautiful pattern from Barbara Ana designs available here I changed the colouring slightly as I didn't have any fabric in quite as dark a colour as shown on the original pattern so I picked a couple of colours that I thought would stand out a bit more against my cream background fabric.

I love the pattern and I love how the finished piece turned out.

I used a piece of hand dyed muslin on the back and a couple of old buttons that I had hanging around in my embellishment box to finish it off.

I really enjoyed stitching it and for a first attempt the making up of it didn't go too badly, room for improvement though.

I may have been bitten by the biscornu bug, so I'm sure there might be some more in my future. At the very least I think I'll be making one as a present for myself.

I've bought the patterns for a few more designs so now all I have to decide is which one I want to make and keep for me, decisions, decisions.......

Evening Light At Loughrigg Tarn

In spite of best intentions I haven't posted much here since getting back from holiday. Things have been crazy at home and at work I've hardly had time to think, let alone blog. I've been dying to show you some of the lovely scenery that I was lucky enough to see in the Lakes so am giving myself 5 minutes to sit and blog.

As I only have 5 minutes I thought I'd tell you about a lovely evening spent watching the sun go down over Loughrigg Tarn. (When I get more time I'll hopefully have some pictures to share of a walk we did to the top of the fell you can see in the above snap). The tarn was 5 minutes walk away from where we stayed so perfect for an evening wander.

There was a small campsite almost on top of the Tarn but it seemed pretty quiet with only a few tents pitched so we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

It was so tranquil and beautiful.

A wonderful place to sit and watch the changing, fading evening light.
Here I am with a glass of red, relaxing and enjoying the peace and beauty of the outdoors.

Siberian Gold - The last for a while

With being away at the end of June I didn't get round to doing an update on the Tigers. Here is what they looked like at the of May.

And this is where they are at now. I was trying to get stitching done all around the edge of the design to give me a bit of a frame to work within. I didn't quite get there but not that far off.

I know I was going to work on the Tigers until the end, but plans change and this will be their last outing for a while. You might have heard me mention that the tigers are a project that my Mum never got round to finishing before she passed away, well that box of Mum's unfinished projects is huge!

My sister has just moved house and has asked me if I will work on another of the UFOs to complete a set that she wants to hang in her house. I'll tell you more about it in a while. I'll miss the tigers but it will be nice to work on somethingg different for a while.

Holiday Snapshot

So I've finally started going through the hundreds and millions of photos that I took while I was away. I'm sure I'll end up doing several posts about my trip but for now here is a quick post, mainly about where we stayed.

We had a lovely little apartment at Skelwith Bridge not too far out of Ambleside. Aptly named Ramblers Rest, we did so much walking rest was definitely the order of the day by the time each evening rolled around. The shot above is a quick snap of the outside. It was set in lovely grounds on a hill surrounded by woodlands. The next picture is the absolutely gorgeous view we had from the bedroom.

Wonderful isn't it? Even if we hadn't managed to get out and about exploring I would have been quite happy to sit on the patio watching the view in the constantly changing light. This next one is a shot of one of the sunsets we got to watch.

As well as the view there was plenty of wildlife to see from the comfort of the living room sofa, lots of different birds including a couple of different owl species, deer, fox, and squirrels all made an appearance in the time we where there.

But by far the most funny thing was a gang of ducks that lived on a pond at the bottom of the grass slope that Ramblers Rest was sat on. If they didn't get their daily slice of bread (or three) they would come and tap on the patio doors with their beaks demanding attention!

But of course, as tempting as it was, we didn't just park ourselves at the apartment for 2 weeks. We were out and about everyday admiring the beauty of the lakeland countryside. We were accompanied on our adventures by my friend Morris, the marvellous mountaineering moose, who climbed many a lakeland fell with us. Here he is captured drinking a pint of his favourite ale, which was well deserved after the long walk we'd just done.

Of course if Morris hadn't been with us, even in the most out of the way places in the lakes you are never really alone. The Sheep are everywhere! :)