A Serendipitous Summer Postcard Blog Hop

I am the third person in the Summer Postcard Blog Hop that Jo organised.  As you may know, she organises Blog Hops on a regular basis, with her Advent Calendar being my favourite of them all (sign me up Jo!)

For this one, we needed to send Jo a photo of some stitching and a photo of our garden and why we like it, what it means to us etc.

I received my postcard from Michelle who blogs at Michelle's Stitchcraft Place.  She sent me this...

On her postcard, she wrote...
I have attached some photos of my garden and a cross stitch design I am going to treat myself to as it reminds me of when I stitch in South Africa with Ma,  Analene who is our friend and myself.   Analene's garden looks very similar to this design and the place we sit and stitch looks the same!

Here is a link to the previous postcards that have been sent so far.
From Marcy to Gracie
From Krista to JoCondine

Thank you Jo for organising this! xx

Advent Calendar bloghop

You have no idea how honoured I feel to have 24th December as my Advent Calendar date.  I don't know where Jo gets the idea that I am excited from although she said it's something to do with the fact that her computer glows red and bounces up and down when she receives an email from me!!!  Imagine if it was snowing too...

Anyway, this is my offering for Christmas.  I bought the kit at the Harrogate show and have never tried beading before...well other than adding beads to cross stitch designs.  I loved it!  Something happened to it and one bit came undone so I unpicked it and started it again which didn't take too long.

Spellbound Beads - Starry Night kit

We don't have many traditions as such that revolve around food in our house.  Our big (non food) tradition is doing the Christmas decorating.  The first full weekend of December, the tree goes up.  Our tree is huge!  It is 7.5 feet tall and with the angel on top there is about an inch gap between her head and the ceiling.  So the big tree box comes out of the cupboard and the children sort the colour coded branches out.  Then the 'fun' part of making the branches look like a real tree begins.  The children do the donkey work whilst I add them to the tree and titivate them so they look their best.  Once this is done I put the lights on the tree. Aftwerwards, all four of us take it in turns to choose a piece of tinsel for me to put on the tree with the only rule being not to have two of the same colour next to each other.  Then the decorations come out and we take it in turns to choose one and add it in a suitable space.  The only person allowed to hang the lovely Kris Kringle that I received from Shirlee about 10 years or so ago is me and it goes where I can see it from where I sit.  I also tend to hang all the cross stitch ones I have been gifted whereas anyone can add the ones I have made.

The final thing to be added is the angel on top.  This year she was added by Rachael.

For food 'traditions' we have breakfast first of all.  Breakfast is either croissants or pain au chocolats depending on who wants what.  Sadly Rachael is very fussy and ends up with either a bowl of cereal or bog standard toast.  She might go really mad and have some Nutella on it this year!!

Christmas dinner is cooked by Colin who does a better roast dinner than me.  We have turkey and gammon with mash and roast potatoes.  Veg wise it's a mix of sprouts, runner beans (home grown but frozen!), peas, carrots, parsnips, butternut squash, cauliflower and broccoli.  Different people eat different veg so we cook them in the steamer and add bits for each person! There is also yorkshire pudding and stuffing with gravy. After dinner, we leave having dessert for a long time!  This tends to be a gateau of some kind, this year is a Marks and Spencer's strawberry gateau.  

Then that is all the big cooking done for the Christmas period.  Boxing Day is a buffet meal with everything being a bung in the oven or whip out the fridge item.  From then on, we tend to graze on buffet bits for the next few days just cooking up things as we need more to add to it.

Christmas Day and Boxing Day see the children allowed to eat chocolate/sweets whenever they want to without asking.  Not until after Christmas dinner though!  Usually sweets are a treat which are generally only eaten after meals.

On New Year's Day we recreate the Christmas dinner as our first meal of the new year.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and wish you peace and joy (with some stitchy gifts thrown in).

 I got a lovely surprise package from Jo today.  Well actually it wasn't a total surprise as she had kindly offered to send me a piece of light blue aida that was about big enough to use for a table cloth.  What I wasn't expecting were the other lovely things that fell out too.  Some cute little snowflake charts (not shown in case the copyright thieves are out and about!), some more fabric to stitch some of them on and a gorgeous little bag with a rather yummy bar of chocolate in it.  Thorntons turkish delight to be precise...oh no...I've just realised...I forgot to offer my son some...whoops!  As you can see, the photo features an empty wrapper, but I did wait until after my tea to eat it ;)  I also got my first Christmas card of the year.  This one is designed by Jo's 'Small Boy' and is SO cute.  When we had these at school one year, only very special people got them, not just any Tom, Dick or Harry.  I have added a close up of the bag as it is so pretty, the backing fabric is gorgeous.   Thank you Jo for such a lovely gift.  Jo had a giveaway for reaching 400 followers (and Jo sadly you are right, I had forgotten but what a lovely surprise!!!!).

Thank you Jo, for such a lovely surprise (well most of it was) package.  It's all gorgeous!  

I think Penguin Parade will now have to become a January start (because it's not like I have anything else on the go).

Jo's Secret Stitching Sweetheart

I wish I could lay claim to having stitched this gorgeous design, or to such lovely finishing...but I can't!  This is  the photo that Jo sent me for my Secret Stitching Sweetheart.  Please reveal yourself Sweetheart.  If nothing else you need to teach me how to make a bow like that!

If you would like to see the rest of the Secret Stitching Sweetheart blog participants please 'hop' over to Jo's blog at Serendipitious Stitching and see them all.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY 

Jo's Advent Calendar - 5th December

Woohoo - it's my day today!!!

I spent ages looking at all my Christmas designs before settling on this one.  It is only a small Mouseloft kit which I made into an ornie.  There is something about this though that always makes me smile. I don't know if it's the precariously leaning tree or just the funky look about it but it is probably one of my favourite ever finishes.

In our house Father Christmas stuffs the stockings that hang at the end of each child's bed.  The latest he has ever stuffed them is 3.30am but usually he can stuff them around 1am!!!  He also visits the lounge where he can get his mince pie and glass of milk and put the carrot we leave for Rudolph in his pocket for later.  He then leaves Rachael and Luke's main present near the tree for them.  Both children know that Father Christmas only leaves the stockings and the one big present. As we don't have a chimney, we have a special key that we hang on the outside of the front door.  He lets himself in and on the way out, locks up and put the key back through the letter box for us!!!

The stockings can be opened when the children wake up.  This usually wakes us too so they bring them onto our bed to open.  When everyone is dressed they can go down and open their Father Christmas present.  This is all they get then until breakfast is eaten and teeth are done.  We then take it in turns to select a present from under the tree for each person and watch each other unwrap these before moving on to the next person.

Colin always puts a couple of little presents away which he brings out after Christmas dinner.  We don't go to church on Christmas Day we go Christmas Eve - to Midnight Mass at 7pm!!

it is...

...The Turtle Trot SAL over at Bap Attack.  That's what I signed up for!!!!   Doh!!!!  A big thank you to Linda at Stitching with my Furbabies who is now my nominated replacement brain as she knows exactly what I should be doing!!  Thank you Linda!!

The Turtle Trot is for people like me who don't finish anything!  So all you have to do is pick 13 projects as it is 2013 and work on them as and when you want to through the month.  On the 13th of each month post your progress to your blog and of course post a link to it.  If you want to sign up, get yourself over there!!

Tomorrow (5th), is my day to post a piccie for Jo's Advent Calendar so feel free to jump over and have a look at it so far!

I had some good luck the other day.  I was lucky enough to win a prize in Nancy's 25 days of Christmas giveaway.  The chart I chose was Jolly Reindeer which is really cute, I think!

photo from Nancy's blog
victorianmottosamplershoppe.blogspot.co.uk/

Halloween Blog Hop

T          T          T          T

In case you haven't worked it out....T is my letter from Jo for the Halloween Blog Hop.

Jo really does have a lot to answer for because after I had signed up for the Halloween Blog Hop she posted some links to some halloween freebies.  I was being really good and going to post something I had already stitched.  However there were several things that I fell in love with and as I didn't have enough time to stitch them all, I picked this one.  It is so so cute and the colours are great!                               

l

l

V

Best Witches by Barbara Ana
stitched on Pumpkin Patch (Sparklies)

Ok, I will be having a look round everyone's blogs later to see what the mystery phrase is.  It's obviously not 'boo' as I have a T...hehe.

Now off you go to I want to do one more stitch and find out what the next letter is...happy halloween!!

Halloween blog hop and Webshots

Get yourself over to Jo's blog and sign up for the Halloween blog hop...NOW!  Jo's seasonal ideas are great fun but I personally was something a little longer than 'boo' for the blog hop...hehehe.  All you have to do is post a piccie of something Halloweenie (obviously) and Jo will give you a letter which when you complete the blog hop will spell something out.

Quick bit of information which I probably am the last person in the entire world to know about but anyway...

Webshots is closing from 1st December.  They are changing their name to Smiles at Webshots (or something) and will be subscription only.  I believe that if you haven't signed up to the new scheme by 1st December you lose your images.

Jo's giveaway

Jo over at Serendipitous Stitching is hosting a sponsored giveaway.  She has some cross stitch kits from yiota to giveaway.  Hop over and see!

My blog heading

Jo (Serendipitous Stitching) asked me about one of the designs in my blog header.  So rather than just tell her what she wants to know, I thought I would tell everyone!

So vertically down the middle is Papillon's How does your garden grow?
Across the top is a butterfly freebie from yiota which I changed all the colours of.  Under that is a close up of the apples in Cut Thru Garden Shed.
Next to these two is part of Roots and Wings by Waxing Moon.  The top right and bottom left are 2 designs from a series that I sent out for a RR, probably in around 2003/2004 ish.  They were in Cross Stitcher magazine I think and there were pansies, sweet peas and 2 others.
Going to the bottom right is a part of Waxing Moon's 'If I stitch fast', a butterfly from a recent issue of Cross Stitch Crazy and the Welcome is from a Hobb Nobb design but I can't remember which off the top of my head.

(Bet you wish you had never asked now Jo?)

Theme-a-licious roundup for Amazon April

Crikey, I'm getting later and later with these.  I haven't been near my blog or stitched hardly at all in the last week.  I am currently writing the last assignment for my OU module and then mid June is exam time (eek).  Therefore life at the minute is dedicated to study, revise, study, revise, sleep!

Below are pics of what I have done this month.

So first up is Cotswold Village scene.  This is huge but I really enjoyed stitching on it.  Maybe it shouldn't go back in the UFO box.

This is 'Two Little love birds' which is a Love Thy Threads design that I am guinea pigging.  It is a gorgeous design and the colours are so pretty together. 

Above is my progress so far on Around The World in 80 Stitches (ATW80S) for short. It is really pretty but I haven't come across most of the stitches before so it is challenging me a little...ok a lot. It will be done though!

And this is the pathetic progress on 6 Fat Snowmen.  

I got some fantastic post today.  Jo (Serendipitous Stitching) saw this card and thought of me, can't think why...lol.  It is absolutely amazing and I have had a smile on my face all day and keep going to look at it.  Luke went and compared it to the 'real' one and found loads of differences.  He particularly liked the frog in the demi john bottle at the bottom.  Concensus seems to be that I should frame the card and hang below the cross stitch when it's framed.

The other great bit of news is that I have rediscovered an old friend.  Once upon a time, I became friends with a lovely lady in America although actually I can't remember how we met...hmmm....  Anyway as she loved the British cross stitch mags as much as I did, she had a subscription sent to my house and every now and again I would put them in a box and post them off to her.  She made my two kids the most beautiful quilts for their beds which they still use today - despite the fact their feet stick out the bottom of them.  When I wash them it has to be on a day where I can get them washed and dried and back on the bed the same day....or else!  They love those quilts more than anything they own!

Bizarrely I have been following this person for quite a while and it never ever clicked that this was my old friend.  After discovering who she was I re-read all of her blog and basically thought what an idiot I was as it should have been so blatantly obvious.  Short of putting up neon signs telling me who she was....honestly...I really am dumb!

We never fell out as friends it was just a case of relationship troubles on my part and we gradually lost touch over a period of time.  I would guess the last time we corresponded would have been possibly around 2004/2005 ish maybe.  I am so excited to have found her again.  

Oh I suppose you want to know who it is, do you?  It's...

Shirlee