Good News, great stash and other news!

I'm going to start with our day out yesterday.  We went to a National Trust place called Sudbury Hall and Museum of Childhood which was fab.  We parked up and had our picnic on a grass bank near the car park to save having to carry it round the Hall.  The kids wanted to do the museum first but unfortunately you couldn't use flash photography so there are no photos of it.  The exhibits were brilliant.  There was a room where you could pretend to be a chimney sweep with 2 fireplaces that you crawled up one, along and down the other one.  Rachael has reached that awful preteen age where something like that is 'so not cool' and wouldn't do it.  Luke didn't want to go on his own so didn't try it either.

Then we went to the Victorian Schoolroom for a 'proper' Victorian lesson.  Rachael waited outside as that wasn't cool either!  We had to sit down and clean our slates.  The teacher (Miss Savage) then came and inspected our hands/nails - I got told off for wearing jewellery.  We had to write the date in neat script, then had to do a 'reading' exercise followed 'spelling'.  Colin was picked out as a good speller of today's words and had to go to the front to say them for the rest of the class.  Miss Savage then asked him to do yesterday's spellings which of course he didn't know.  He was then given the dunce's cap and told to stand in the corner.  It was so hilarious....I so wish I had the camera to hand.  Priceless!!!

In another gallery there were 3 bedrooms on the ceiling all done up to look like authentic periods.  I think it was Victorian, 1970's and around 2000.  The room guide asked Rachael if she could come back on Tuesday to help change the sheets.  Bizarrely Rachael later asked me if she was joking.

The back of Sudbury Hall

A VERY, VERY rare photo of me

There was this amazingly huge chair in the grounds.
Just so you can get some idea of the size, I'm 5' 7" (tall not round!)

I ordered some fabric earlier in the week from Pelenna Patchworks ready for finishing a couple of items.  Unsurprisingly, the Christmas pudding one is for the Plum Pudding design that I finished stitching last week. I can't decide how to finish it though.  If you read this far, I have put a poll up for ideas on how to finish it so please help me decide.  The one on the right is for my Tree of Stitches (which you can see an update on further down the page.)

Pelenna Patchwork fabric

A really lovely surprise this week was from Colin.  I told him the log in for my wishlist at Sew and So just to allow him plenty of time to organise himself for Christmas.  He had taken a look and ordered me some things for a treat.  Bless his cotton socks!!

Colin's treat to me!  The fabic is a large piece of white jobelan which
is my favourite fabric and a colour I had run short of.

Each week, WOCS has a Friday freebie on their facebook page - or did until facebook decided that it was no longer allowed. All you had to do was to 'like' the freebie post - so I did - and out of 1430 people, I won!! I got a laplight.  I am so chuffed! (chuffed means pleased if you're not local!)

My prize win.  A laplight!

With everything that has been going on all week with getting ready for me and the children going back to school, stitching has had to take something of a back seat.  There has been a few stitches put in my Tree of Stitches which I really want to get finished now I have the backing fabric for it.  I love this design but I'm having such trouble with the cushion stitch, I don't know why but it is just really hard going.  One of the silks I am using is really springy which is part of the problem I think, but it really shouldn't be the most difficult stitch.....grrrrrrrr.

Tree of Stitches - Abi Gurden
This was a SAL on The Stitch Specialists Yahoo Group

Close up of the stitches.  I have unpicked the cushion stitches at the top as I wasn't
happy with the coverage with one strand.  They are being restitched with 2.

It might be possible to see a little progress on my Cut Thru Garden Shed.  I really love this one and will be sad when I finish it.  Oh well I have several more Cut Thru's in my stash!  Congratulations if you made it all the way to the bottom of the post.

Bothy Threads - Cut Thru Garden Shed

Manchester Museum

Today I took the children to the Manchester Museum. Rachael had been on a schooltrip there recently as they are studying Ancient Egypt. She was really taken with it and I promised we could go in the holidays. It was another great day out.

We started off looking at all the bows and arrows things that we thought Luke would be most interested in and then went off to the Egyptian gallery where Rachael gave us a guided tour and explained what they used to do to mummify the bodies. I think her favourite bit is probably when they pulled the brains out of the nose. What a lovely daughter I have!

We also had a look at all the stuffed birds, animals etc. Some of them looked a bit ferocious still - especially when you are greeted by a pouncing tiger! Others were a bit of an eyeopener when you have only seen them in books or on TV. You don't realise just how big they are. The emperor penguin for example or a golden eagle.

All the staff were really friendly and helpful which made a pleasant change. I think it was probably a bit overwhelming for Luke as I think he thought it would be like Eureka where he could touch everything rather than it all being behind glass.

Eureka!

On Monday we had a trip to Eureka - me, the kids and their dad. For those of you who haven't heard of the place, it is in Halifax (UK) and is a museum aimed at children. It's fantastic!

The walk from the carpark to the museum - all of 2 minutes - is littered with things for the children to do. There are balance beams, climbing steps, rails, gutterpipes to make music and more. For once it wasn't raining so the children could spend as long as they liked on the things.

When you enter the museum on the right hand side is Archimedes who regularly dunks down in his bath. There is so much to do and see for children and my 2 (aged 6 and nearly 9) love it.

One of the favourite things and the one we always head straight for is the M&S, post office, garage and bank. We had great fun seeing who could get over the beams in the bank without setting the alarm off. The only person to crack the safe was Colin, the rest of us failed. The M&S has undergone a bit of a revamp since we were there last and is more pleasant now and more spacious.

Upstairs in the body bit we tested all the stretching, reaching and stepping things so we could compare last years with now. Unfortunately - I can't find last year's! Luke had plenty of practice with the crutches so at least we won't worry now if he falls and breaks a leg as we know he will be able to cope with them.

We arrived about 10 and left around 3 as Rachael and Luke both had swimming lessons. Luke was moving up to the level 5-6 class so we didn't want him to miss his first lesson in that. Rachael should hopefully move up to level 9-10 in the next few weeks.