Lyme Park and a finish!

Back in March/April we joined the National Trust for the year but so far we haven't been anywhere!  All that changed at the weekend when we took a ride out to Lyme Park which was only 30 minutes in the car.  It was a pretty hot day so we had a gentle stroll up to The Cage which is an old hunting lodge.  It was all boarded over so there wasn't much to see but the views were amazing!

On the walk up (and back) we could hear grasshoppers and Luke was desperate to find one.  We kept telling him how hard they can be to catch but he wasn't for giving up.  I was watching the path as I was walking as it was a little rough when suddenly one jumped across right in front of me!!

Rear of the Meadow Grasshopper

Front view of the Meadow Grasshopper

Meadow Grasshopper - side on

With Colin being the least squeamish of us all, (I don't mind looking but I'm not holding) he managed to catch hold of it.

The estate was used for Pride and Prejudice where Darcy meets Elizabeth.

On to cross stitch news.  As you may have noticed if you've visited in the last week or so, I have been tweaking my blog.  One thing I have added is a WIP/UFO page.  It was quite an interesting couple of hours sorting through my projects that have been started and taking photos of them all.  Hopefully I have managed to find them all from their hiding places!  Taking the time to do this has actually led to two small finishes.  One has been 'filed' for finishing up later but the other I got the urge to finish up today.  

Waxing Moon's "I love you to the moon and back" has been a WIP/UFO for...... errrrrrmmm.....well let's just say a long time and leave it at that.  As far as I could remember there wasn't a particular reason other than time/life putting a halt to it.....or so I thought!

Actually, once I picked it back up again I remembered that I hated the fabric it was on, hated trying to stitch neatly with 3 strands of thread and wasn't enamoured with the 'unbalanced' feel to the outer design.  I decided to persevere with the first 2 and ploughed on with it.  However, I really couldn't get over the swirls and stars not being symmetrical.  So I changed it!  Down the sides where the pink stars are should be a star at the top and a swirly bit underneath.  I recharted this to make it 2 stars instead.  I also changed over the colours.  The stars in the corners should have been stitched with the yellow but I thought they would match the moon much better if they were nearer that colour.  I was really pleased with how it turned out.

As for finishing it, I decided that I would like to do my first ever cube finish.  So armed with Hannah's finishing tutorial I got cracking!  I have to say I am really thrilled with how it turned out.

front view

I love this little moon button

Side fabric and ribbon

backing fabric

The other finish I had was a santa design that I was going to do for my first ever ornie.  Not sure how many I have made in the meantime but it finally got finished!

Should have been my first ever ornie...but wasn't to be!

That's all for now!  Congratulations if you have managed to read all the way to the bottom!