A week goes by...

..and I didn't get much stitching time! For the last week my good friend Annia was staying - we are co-editing an archaeology book on late Anglo-Saxon cemeteries - so we were busy busy busy! We had great fun, survived on the great combination of tea, chocolate and curry, and actually did a lot of work! Because I barely picked up a needle all week, I don't have any stitchy photos to share, so instead here's some photos of a field trip we did to Undercliffe cemetery in Bradford with some of our students (Annia also gave a lecture on post-medieval funerary archaeology while she was here):


Don't blink!





Quaker graves in the foreground



Don't let the stunning blue sky fool you - it was perishing, we narrowly missed a few hail storms...

Tomorrow I fly to Chicago for an anthropology conference, next Saturday I pop down to see Phil, Amanda and Jack in St Peters Missouri, and I get back on Tuesday. I've packed pretty much everything, I just need to select a travelling project... see you all later!

Stitching progress...

Except not on what I was planning on focusing on for March! I am absolutely loving Mira's Waiting for Ships, I don't seem to be able to put it down. This is where I'm up to:



I'd have lots more done, but I don't have that Kreinik yet, so there are lots of gaps! I had planned to 'stitch a little' on this in March - oh well, progress is progress!

I have dome a little on Fantasy Triptych:



I am sure you can all see the difference the bs has made to the centre panel??? Hmm, it's more obvious IRL. I've also started the border. Given there is more border at the top that the bottom,with all of the wood tracery, I think this is probably about 1/4 of the way done. I'm hoping to make more progress with this over the weekend.

I have been going to Louise's to make lace on Thursdays, and that is progressing well (sorry, no photo, but it's just a turquoise blob at present), but I won't be able to make another Thursday this month. I've not touched any other goals yet... Hmmm, they are made to be broken aren't they???

Busy weekend!

wow, this weekend has flown by! Friday night I travelled down to Nottingham and stayed in the flat with Ed. On Saturday he had to work, so I popped over to see my folks - mum is doing amazingly after her knee op. I can tell she's going to be up and about and up to trouble in no time!! I'm also pretty impressed that she's sticking to doctor's orders re: resting and physio exercises. She was busy watching one of my DVDs when I arrived - the latest Jane Eyre by the BBC. I really enjoyed watching the not-quite-a-wedding scene with her!

Later that afternoon I drove back to Nottingham, picked Ed up and we went down to Birmingham to see his folks. Sadly his Dad is getting worse, it's really heartbreaking. There's so little we can do to help. But we had an enjoyable evening watching TV as a family and just chatting - although with Paul it's mostly nonsense. He gets really annoyed if we can't understand him, and recently we've learnt that nodding and saying yes when he's muddled is often the easiest, and nicest way of dealing with the dementia.

We went back to Nottingham Sunday lunchtime, then I came back up to Leeds, and immediately hit the gym. It was a good workout but I wasn't feeling as motivated as on Thursday. I'm hoping to get to the gym 4 times this week - we'll see how that goes!

Anyway, I did a little stitching on Waiting for Ships over the weekend. It looks so odd without the BF, but I'm determined to wait a month and get it while I'm in the States - it will be so much cheaper!



I also took a photo of Fantasy Triptych this morning. I've not stitched on it so far this month, but hopefully I'll pick it up tonight for TW Monday. I'm hosting a stitch and bitch here tonight, so it'll depend on how mad the house feels.. the BSing I have to do looks a little tricky!



I picked Birth Band up from the framers this weekend too - I had to pop by twice as there was some fluff behind the glass, but they sorted it quickly. I was really happy with the combination of mount and frame - they suited the colours perfectly. Irritatingly it was a little dark when I took the photo which didn't do the colours full justice:



Happy stitching everyone

Spring?

Last week it was really lovely and warm, spring was clearly in the air... And now it's freezing. Come on mother nature, get a wiggle on! I want sunshine, not snow and sleet and cold!! Anyway, I thought I'd share these seasonal photos from my garden:


snowdrops


sunset

I'm sticking with going to the gym, but not making it as often as I'd like. Today I did my weekly weigh in (I just use the scales in the gym on a Thursday, nothing formal!) and was delighted to see it was moving in the right direction. I can't remember exactly how much I weighed when I started, mostly because of the blip where I put on weight to begin with, but I'm at least 1.5 kilos lighter. I'm really pleased and it spurred me on to have an extra hard workout today! Anyway, many thanks for the kind words of support - this will be a long journey for me!