Nine days away from home

Here in the UK we are coming to the end of the May half-term holiday. The Other Half and me spent all of the holiday away from home, a few days here, a few days there, that sort of thing and very enjoyable it was too. I did manage to get some stitching done. Firstly I finished the Dutch Delft biscornu. The 'charms' are hand painted enamel earrings bought at a craft fair many moons ago.

I also managed to complete the backstitch on one side of my Teepee Teddies UFO and all the cross stitch on the other side.


I also managed to complete all the stitching on the Boo needle book. This now needs finishing off properly along with a whole list of other stuff so my next weekend at home will be a 'finishing weekend' of a different sort.


I will leave you with two holiday photos. On Thursday evening we walked to the source of the River Thames. I have been there a number of times before and have actually seen water bubbling up from the ground, but not this time. The pile of stones in the foreground is where the water usually comes up.


This photo shows what we had to cross to get there and yes, it is a high speed train and yes, the official footpath does cross a double track mainline railway (between Swindon and Gloucester).

Steam and Stitching

As I had hoped I managed a couple of 'finishes' this weekend. I finished the sewing on the Rhodes Butterfly Biscornu, and the pin-cube for Stitch-Creations' SAL all I have to do is put them together, hence the inverted commas. These are the sides of the pin-cube.

As mentioned in the last post we were off to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) for the weekend, not for a bank holiday break but to work! We had volunteered to help out a friend who owns a couple of carriages, one of which contains a small bar and the other a kitchen from which tea, coffee and cake can be served. I ended up manning the bar car which for various reasons, too long to go in to, wasn't very busy. So when not serving or collecting the First Class Supplement payable to travel in the carriage I was able to stitch. Here are two photos showing the interior of the carriage and, I'm sure you'll agree, I spent the weekend stitching in what can only be called splendid surroundings!

The Rydale Bar

The Rydale Bar - Saloon

And this is what I managed to do

Impulse purchase!

So what do we do when we have a weekend way from The Railway? Go and visit another railway and work on their trains! Yes we are mad!

With a longish journey in prospect I decided to sort out my handbag stitching. The pin cube (Stitch-Creations SAL) will probably get finished, the Rhodes Butterfly Biscornu, with a bit of luck will be finished this evening and anyway it's not suitable for doing in the car. So that means I can start my Dutch Delft biscornu, I've been looking forward to doing this for ages as it's a bit different. But horror of horrors on closer inspection it's not symmetrical! Now do biscornu have to be perfectly symmetrical , that is, all four corners the same? So I went searching for something else. Eventually I hit the Kreinik website where I found a couple of freebie charts that have biscornu potential, for example Pearl Drops by Judy Dixon.

Then I came across this, called Midnight Ride,

Well needless to say I liked her straight away. Now I'm not normally one for impulse buys but ten minutes later all the necessary braid and blending filaments, some of which glow in the dark were on order. I'm thinking this will be my project for the Spooky Stitcher's SAL, despite the fact I have other Spooky stuff already in the stash.

The Rhodes Butterfly Biscornu looks like this, some backstitching and the beading to do.

Fingers crossed that I can get some stitching done this weekend. I had play with the chart for the Dutch Delft Biscornu, colour photocopy scissors and glue later and it looks like this.

I am still not happy with certain bits but I can correct them as I go. By the way the original design came from a book called 'Blue and White Cross Stitch' by Helen Turvey, published by Hamlyn.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!