And the winner is..........

Jo of A Stitch in Time

Congratulations, yesterday's post was #100 and as you were the first (and only) person to comment you win :)
I've no idea what you've won yet as I've not had time to sort anything out as a prize, so bear with me and I'll fix that as soon as I can (and I'll email you for your snail mail in the next day or so)

Stitching!

And it's mine for the first time in a couple of weeks:)

The Peacock, Papillon freebie

Towards the end of last week I was feeling very stressed over alot of little things that had built up over the course of a few days and my mood was at rock bottom. Not one of my WIP's appealed to me but I wanted to stitch so I took the advice of a very dear friend who told me to give my heart what it wants. This little guy has been calling to me on and off for a few weeks so I gave in and started him on Saturday morning.

Most of the little things that made me feel so bad have now been fixed or sorted out so I'm much happier although my biggest worry is one that will be around for the next few months at least, my Landlord is selling the house and as things stand right now an offer has been made by someone but I don't know if the sale will go through or if they are a buy to let buyer or someone that wants to live here. All I can do is wait and see what happens for the time being and while I've been talking to the council nothing can really happen until he gives me 2 months notice, given the pace of things so far that could be a while in coming as I'm still waiting for a surveyer to get in touch.

Yummy or Yuck?

I've got nothing more interesting to blog about right now and it's time to do something other than Textile Treasures :)
Last night for the first time in 4-5 years I made a fruit cake, it all came about thanks to my Mum. We were at a Cheshire Committe (I can never spell that right!) meeting and one of entries requires one so Mum opened her mouth and said that I make a nice one.
But I can't for the life of me find my normal recipe so I spent hours yesterday looking one for that was similar to the one I'm used to and this was the result.

It's a bit burnt around the edge but in my defense as I said I've not made one for years and I never use to have a fan oven to cook it in either

At the last meeting the subject of scones came up and everyone looked at me! I've never in my life made them before so this afternoon I've had a go ready for tonight's meeting

Fresh from the oven

I completely forgot to brush the top with milk so they are a little dark, hopefully I won't poison the poor souls that are the guinea pigs later tonight with them!
They look nice and smell really good but I'll have to wait and see how they taste until later I don't want to spoil my tea by having one now.
If I remember I'll come back and edit this post to let you if they survived or not

I remembered :)
Well everyone's was still alive and well when we left the meeting, my cake can't of been that bad because a couple of them were happy to take a chunk home with them
Mum and Ex have both had a chunk as well and there's some in the kitchen for me, poor thing didn't live to be a day old

Textile Treasures Part 3

Today's offering is a wallhanging containing squares from the approx 200 WI's in Cheshire.
I couldn't fit it all in one go so you have to hang on a minute for the other section :)

Most of the Banner

Section one


Section 2

Section 3, the missing bit from the first pic

And of course Hartford's block

In the next instalmet is the quilt you can see a corner of

Textile Treasures of Cheshire WI's part 2

So for today I'll start with the white table cloth that you can see on top of my WI's treasure.
It's from Barnston WI and was made in 1979, it's a cotton cloth with cotton crochet edging and applied motifs *

Close up of the edging

Next up is a book cover from Hadlow Green WI, embroidered with stranded cotton on linen *

And lastly for today a firescreen that normal sits in the meeting room of CFWI Headquartes in Chester, Linen with wool embroidery *

*Info taken from Textile Treasures of the WI published by the National Needlewotk Archive

PS. Don't forget to leave a comment if you want a chance to receive something for commenting on my 100th post, it's not far away now

Textile Treasures of Cheshire WI's part 1

In 2004 a project was started by the National Needlework Archive (NNA) and the National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI) to record the Needlework in the approx. 6800 WI's in 70 county federations across the UK. *

In March 2007 (I think!) items were selected to go on tour around the country at various stitching shows, those items went back to the County Federations at the end of March this yearand Cheshire headqaurters have had the ones from Cheshire on display this month.

Today I went to see them and as the tablecoth made in 1953 by my Institute was one of those items that went on tour I'll start with that.

As you walked in the door

Close up of the name and date

Just one of the birds

And one of the Dragonfly's

I could of filled the camera card up with pics of this alone but I picked out just a couple of things and didn't take any of the flowers which I should of done but I can always do that once it's back home.

I do have more of some of the other items but decided to spread them out over a couple of days otherwise it'd be very picture heavy

Oh and the white tablecloth on top is not our's but it's gorgeous and I have better pics :)

*Info taken from Textile Treasures of the WI, published by the NNA

How to hang a pair of curtains

It's been a beautiful spring day here today so I decided to take down a pair of curtains for a wash and it happened to be the same pair that I wrote about on my old blog and it's still one of my favourite posts ever so I thought I'd repeat here.

1, Have a window in the hall that's needed them for months, you have the hooks and the pole is up you just need the rings
2, Go to Argos for said rings
3, Get chair to stand on, place under window and stand on it
4, Get off chair and go and get a screwdriver
5, Take curtains out of the drawer, put the hooks in, add the rings and place over back of chair
6, Stand on chair, pull pole out and put first curtain on then put second one on
7, Put screw back in, get off chair and look up at curtains
8, Wonder why they aren't hanging right so look at the back of them and discover that you missed 2 rings out on first curtain
9, Get back on chair, undo screw, take second curtain off then take first curtain off back to first missing ring(somehow in this process you break a nail)
10, Put the missing rings on the pole and and repeat 7
11, Repeat 8 but wonder why there's a ring on the floor
12, Find there's now a ring fallen off first curtain, so repeat 9 without breaking nail
13, Put them back on pole, do up screw, fall off chair and hurt arse and spend 5 minutes cursing
14, Discover there's another ring on the floor only this time it's off the second curtain
15, Undo screw, pull out pole and somehow hit yourself on the head with the pole as both curtains slide off.
16, Go and have a brew and text friend to say hanging curtains should be outlawed!
17, Finish brew, go back and put curtains on the pole while the pole is on the bed (should of done that in the first place you stupid woman)
18. Get back on chair, put the pole in, do the screw up and then go and tell everyone how not to hang curtains

Braids and Tassels

Yesterday was Spinning guild and The Mulberry Dyer came along to do a workshop on braids and tassels.
The braid part of the workshop was for me boring as we made a basic braid which is something I already know how to do but we needed the braid to attach the tassel on to so off we went.
First up was the braid and once the practice one had been done you were free to play around in the fibres they had with them to make your proper one

My practice braid & tassel

I chose to have a nosey through the fibres Mum had taken with her and came up with a card of Rainbow Gallery Bravo and a skein of #5 pearl to do my proper one, because these fibres were thinner than the practice ones I needed a weight so I borrowed Mum's scissors with the plan of cutting it off once we got home but it turned out so well that I decided to leave it attached.

The finished braid & tassel

Although it doesn't show up with the pic being dark the Bravo is there and looks like it's running vertically through the braid while the purple #5 spirls round it
All in all it wasn't to bad a day but I really must remember to put some knitting when going to guild so I don't have to do the workshops if they bore me of if I finish quicker than everyone else (which happens quite often!)

A Stitching Meme

1, How do you hold your fabric? Either on a Q Snap or scroll frame
2, Floss licker? Always have and always will
3, How do you thread your needle? I find putting the licked end through the eye works really well :)
4, What needle do you like best? 26 or 28 Piecemaker for pref but they are a little hard to find here so I'll use whatever make I can get as long as it's a 26 or 28
5, Are you a needle loser? I can count the number of needles I've lost in almost 17 years of stitching on one hand
6, What fabric do you prefer to stitch on? One with holes works well :) (you have no idea how tempting it is to leave it like that!) seriously 28 evenweave or 40 linen
7, Bobbins or floss bags? My DMC & Anchor goes on bobbins, silks go in bags while I'm using them
8, Are you a scissors collector? Not in particular although I have aquired a fair few pairs over the years
9, Do you do your own framing, and if so, do you lace or pin? This I leave to the experts
10, Are you a floss floozy? I refuse to annswer that on the grounds I may incriminate myself :)
11, Silk? Yes please
12, Railroader? When I remember
13, Are you a pattern or designer snob? If owning almost every TW makes me one then I guess it would be a yes but I don't think of myself as one
14, Do you get antsy when you give someone a stitched gift? No but I rarely give my stitching as gifts to anyone other than close family
15, Have you reached S.A.B.L.E.? Oh yes and I had a lot of fun getting there
16, Do you wash your projects? If it's stiched in DMC on normal fabric and it needs it then I do, if it's on Hand dyed fabric or use silk/ overdyed floss then no but I do pay more attention to making sure my hands are clean and don't eat/drink near my stitching

Be a Dragon HD

9th one of the year so far, not bad going
Enchanting Liar design on Dying4u Fuchsia Fizz and I subbed NN Calypso for the wording (love that floss!)
The fabric was a gift several years from a friend after a trip to the US and at the time she said something along the lines of I'd have a hard time finding something to stitch on such a bright pink, well it's taken a while but I proved her wrong :)

Fantasy Sampler

It's been a while since I last did an update for this WIP even though I've been working on it most Monday's (although some weeks it did get ignored for a different TW)
Today I'm going to work on the left hand greenery border that you can see partly done while I'm in the mood for confetti stitches on it, that border is (for me at least) the worst part of FS to stitch.

Sometime in the next few weeks I'll be making my 100th post to this blog and when I do I'll send a little something to the first person that makes a comment on that post.
I've actually had this blog since 03 but at first couldn't get on with it so used my MSN space instead but got fed up with and some of things I couldn't do started to annoy me so I revived this one and have used it ever since.
I think that 100 posts is a bit of a milestone for anyone but esp. for me as I'm not one to talk about my life which is why this mostly a stitching blog and that should be celebrated in some way

Home of a Needleworker(too)

For the last couple of days I've been working on this
My first Little House Needleworks design and the first time I've stitched with Crescent Colours, fingers crossed I'll have it finished next month

At last, The Riddle framed

I've actully had this pic for a few weeks now butkept forgetting to post it!
I think Chris did a fantastic job with it and when I do it for myself in the future I'll have it framed the same way

I've been UFOing

I'm taking part in a UFO RR again this year and for round two I've had Polar Lights to work on those that know me well know how much I dislike Chatelaine's so to have to work on one has been hard work for me but I knew when I signed up that I could well end up not liking something, it's part and parcel of the RR.
Here's what it looked like when it arrived
And this is how it leaves me todayI think I've made pretty good progress on it and as I write the postman has brought me the next one to work on, talk about good timing!

Isn't he a little sweetheart

We went down to Heather's yesterday to visit Caleb and of course I came home with lots of pics but this is one of my favourites taken just after he'd been fed and burped so he's a little sleepy

I wish I was able to see more of him than I'm going to but for a whole host of reasons that's not going to happen so I'll just have to treasure what time I do get with him

March Progress & April Goals

A few days later than planned but at least I've remembered them :)

For March I said

Finish the Peacock Chair Yes and I'm really pleased with it
Make progress on the Birth Sampler I managed a little bit, he decided to arrive while I was working on it!
UFORR A little but not as much I'd like
Become a Gran Yes but it was a close call

For April

UFORR
Progress on the Birth Sampler
Stick to the UFO SAL

I stitched for a total of 78 hours 9 mins, had 4 new starts and 3 finishes and just one day with no stitching but I have a beautiful Grandson to show for that day

Crimson Poppies

So before the mad dash down to Northampton for Caleb's arrival I was working on Crimson Poppies.
This time round I filled in some of the leaves at the bottom and worked on the large bloom and before you wonder what the line is across the pic it's the shadow of the other half of the washing line

More pics

I was right when I said a few days ago that DD would go into labour in the early hours of the morning
She rang me a little before 5am and I was out the door within 15 mins!

Fast asleep

Heather & Caleb Auntie Mel & Caleb

And a rare event, me posing for a pic with Auntie Mel and Caleb

There are a few more pics in my Webshots album and I'll get the one's off Mum's camera tomorrow