Pretty peacocks

Is anyone else enjoying the Indian summer? It was 28 degrees C in Leeds today. It does feel a little odd wearing a sundress and sandals at the end of September, but I'm not complaining - in fact I'm hoping I can manage a similar outfit tomorrow and over the weekend. Although my legs are back to being milky white again, after a pretty cool August!

This week I picked up A New Beginning again. I've finished stitching the peacock and bird motif, and have also done the orangy diamond in the middle, and the small olive green motif just under it. Last night I started the square blue motif in the middle - and it's now official, I've finished pages 3 and 4!!! I'm really enjoying this as a change.


Sorry, it's a bad photo, and very crumpled...

This weekend I'm off to Nottingham. Tomorrow night we're going to the wonderful Memsaab for dinner with some of Eddy's colleagues, and on Saturday we're off to Lincoln. I'm taking a couple of projects to get framed, and I hope to pick up some lovely tea and coffee at Imperial Teas. I can't shop too much though, as it's the last weekend of spending before my credit card bill is issued, and I'm all spent up - just enough left to get a deposit down on those frames!

Whatever your plans this weekend, I hope you have a lovely one - and that you get some stitching in too!

Birth sampler happy dance!

Well it's all washed and pressed now:



I really enjoyed stitching this kit (I did switch from aida to linen), and I can't wait to get it framed and give it to Helene and Guy.

This weekend I've done a little more knitting of the pink and orange scarf, and have picked up A New Beginning again. I hope everyone else is having a lovely, relaxing weekend.

Happy stitching

Now autumn is here...

I don't know about you all, but it's getting a bit nippy around here. So I'm even more addicted to knitting! I really do feel the need for lots of warm cuddly scarves... not to wear JUST yet, but I know it won't be long! Over the weekend I finally finished the chenille cable scarf I knitted over the summer - all I needed to do was sew in the loose ends! But this is now finished and ready to wear - I *almost* can't wait!!



I've also got a progress photo of the scarf I knitting my friend Annia as a late birthday present - the colours are fabulously autumnal. I wouldn't wear anything this bright, but the colours are exactly what Annia loves. I really hope she likes this once I've finished it.



I've just taken the last 2 days of work - a lovely four-day weekend, spent pottering around the house and garden - with lots of crafting of course. I knitted a fair length of Annia's scarf while watching Wallander on Sky+, have a cross stitch HD to share once it is dry and pressed, and we dug up the potatoes, ate chard, courgettes and tomatoes from the garden and planted up several pots of winter violas. It's my last chance for time off before Christmas - our term starts on Monday. Although I do wonder if once I've settled into my term-time routine I'll have a little more time for stitching.

Where does the time go?

First I should apologise to my regular readers - I've become very bad at writing posts. No particular reason, just life being extremely hectic (but then, it always is). I've not been stitching as much as I would like recently - I seem to have less time and energy than usual. Hopefully when term starts and I get REALLY busy at work things will settle down and I'll get back into my usual routine - and the lovely extended evenings developing a stitching ass...

So what I have I been working on? Well I've got the knitting bug again. I've started a lovely new cardigan (I bought the wool back in the winter last year) - given the state of the weather I should knit it quickly, it would be useful to have another snuggly cardy in my wardrobe! I've done the back, but that's all so far:



Last Thursday we had another stitch and bitch, this time at Sonia's. I really loved the crochet scarf that Heidi made back in June. She kindly gave me the a link to the pattern, and I tried it out - with Chrissie and Louise, my crocheting buddies, there for support in case I couldn't figure it out (they didn't need to help me out as much as I thought they might have to!). Chrissie lent me a lovely ergonomic hook (NEEEEED some of those) and some yarn, and I quickly made the flower. I then improvised and made a smaller flower and over the weekend I made it into a corsage, which I wore to work yesterday. I love the pretty button I found for it in John Lewis. I also bought some rather fabulous Debbie Bliss Alapaca in John Lewis, which I hope to use to make a scarf similar to Heidi's...



At the weekend I visited a new-to-me knitting shop, Saltaire Yarns (recommended by Chrissie). I left the very happy owner of a basic crochet book (I can never remember which stitch is which, so I can't read patterns), a book called 'luxury yarn one-skein wonders' and two of the aforementioned single skeins of luxury yarn. My credit card is in shock... two yarn shops in two days. Ouch!

Anyway I'm so far behind in the blogging stakes I totally forgot about the 29 August TUSAL. This is my current ORT jar status - most of the new ORTS are from Peacock Firescreen. The jar is sat on my new knitting project, a scarf for a friend using one of those luxury yarns, pattern out of my new book :)



I hope everyone had a lovely summer, and that you are all getting in some lovely stitching time now the weather is on the turn! Happy stitching x