An award, a finish and flowers!

Firstly, a big thank you to Mel for giving me this award.


Here is the meaning of the award ...

"This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY, nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated."

The rules state that I am to pass this on to 8 other bloggers. I have decided to pass this award on to the members of my UFO blog 'I've Started so I'll finish ...eventually'. Now I know that there are more than eight of them but I think the sentiments of this award fit what we are trying to do.

Now for the finish. Hot off the needle is the 'When Barnabee Met Bella' biscornu from Just Nan. This is the top or lilac side.


This is the bottom or blue side.


And finally... the flowers.

Today was school leaving day for my Y13 students and at the end of their final school assembly they presented me with these.


The Other Half said that I should post a picture of them as the arrangement was 'unusual and arty'. It was also a total surprise!

Precious Ramotswe and me ...

... what do we have in common?

On the face of it very little. I am no lady detective and I don't live in Botswana. But, she seems to spend a lot of time driving around in a white van and sitting on the veranda, watching the world go by and this is what I have done this weekend, well sort of.

White van time meant that I was able to complete part 2 of the pin cube SAL from Stitch-Creations.

Sitting on the veranda on Saturday meant that I was able make good progress on the Baby Shamrocks Biscornu. Whilst stitching outside the wind caught one of my orts and blew it away. I promptly dropped everything and ran after it so that the ort's final resting place would be my flask for the Totally Useless SAL rather than decorating some bush or birds nest, sorry birds but you've had plenty of my orts in the past! An evening on the now none existent sofa and a morning on a very hard chair (sofa hit the local recycling place at 9.00 this morning) and the biscornu was finished. This shows the front and back.

And this is the finished item.

So why is the sofa at the tip? The Other Half has, finally, let his house and we are here sorting out the last bits of stuff. As I write this I am sitting in a room furnished with a few boxes, the aforementioned chair and a TV!

At some stage over the weekend I was also able to finish the lilac side of 'When Barnabee Met Bella'.

This week it's back to the St Nicholas Tree Skirt and the 'Pale Blue Santa'. Only time will tell how much I get done as this weekend is the start of 'Steel, Steam and Stars II' . More about this in a future post, no doubt.

Biscornu, SALs and Stash

Here is the progress so far on 'When Barnabee Met Bella' from Just Nan.

The photo does not do justice to the fantastic colours, for starters the linen is lilac and not a funny grey colour! The top left hand corner is complete with embellishment.

This is the other side.

I have one day left on the rotation for this so hopefully I will get the lilac side finished.

Whilst 'blog hopping' I came across a pin cube SAL from Stitch-Creations. So I went into the Stash Room found some 14 count white Aida, and DMC 115. In the time it took The Other Half to drive from home to my Mum's, 75 miles, the first side was finished.

This week I also indulged in a bit of stash enhancement with the Over The Top and In The Tin (Boo) from Just Nan.

I am hoping to modify the needle book chart to make a biscornu, eventually. Having seen the Peachy Biscornu a couple of times on the Basket of Biscornu SAL blog, I also bought that.

This is designed by Carol Tinson of Heirloom Embroideries.

I'll leave you with some Easter Greetings from just after the First World War, scanned from my Mum's collection.

Happy Easter!

Two finishes and a start

So back to the stitching. Last Wednesday I finished the May calendar, all it needs now is blocking and stretching, tomorrow's job.



As this was finished early I went on to the next project in the rotation, 'Simply Summer' from Waxing Moon Designs and finished that too!

This gives me a 'free week' on the rotation so I have started 'When Barnabee Met Bella' from Just Nan.