NOT MUCH STITCHING HAPPENING

Since my last post I haven't really done much stitching although I did complete a block and have started some more crochet. Inspired by  Lucy's Summer Harmony blanket at Attic 24 where she used all her left over yarns , I decided to use up my left over yarns from the blanket I had crocheted. I am doing a much smaller version of this blanket, more like a knee rug. It is made up of lovely granny squares. Did you know there are many different granny square designs? I didn't ! So, I have been crocheting the first rounds in different colours and have added the 2nd round to some. I am limited with colours so I am making quite a few repeat first rounds and alternating the rest. Does that make sense?

 


I have finished stitching Jenny's free July BOM but I have not done it justice. Unfortunately, I had to trace the design with a Micron black pen as I ran out of my brown ones and I can't seem to find the brown ones anywhere. The problem is that I chose pale colours for this design and it was really difficult to cover the black lines. I have also had trouble with my eyes when using pale coloured threads so the stitches are varied in size. I did unpick some a few times but gave up in the end. In hindsight I should have used 3 strands of thread instead of 2. I am looking forward to the next block in August.

 

 

So, with little else to show you right now I shall continue with my travel exploits.  On the 17th June 2015  it was a 6-00am start as we were departing Edinburgh heading for Cardiff, Wales. After pre booking our taxi and paying the hotel bill the night before we hopped in a taxi to the airport. We had to check in our own luggage using an automated system but we required the assistance of a very helpful staff member . After having a toasted sandwich and coffee, ( breakfast) ,at the airport café we went to the boarding gate. Walking through security I was stopped because the machine beeped and I had to go through a body scanner. Oh my! That must have scared some poor staff member!

 

We arrived at Cardiff 10 minutes early and then had to order a taxi to take us to our hotel. What a disappointment! The floating floor boards were sticky under foot and dust was all over the furniture. Thank goodness we were only staying for 1 night. After settling in we ventured out to explore Cardiff on a very cold day, colder than the Scottish Highlands were.  We ended up at the Dr Who exhibition but I sat it out while my daughter went in as I was extremely tired and my muscles were aching. I don't know how I walked all the way back. My daughter was an avid " Torchwood" fan so we found the site where the "Torchwood staff" stood on the paving stone and descended down into their place of work. She was happy! Since then I have watched all the seasons of Torchwood on Netflix and I loved it.

 

 

 

 

The main reason we stopped in Cardiff was to hire a car to drive to Chippenham, Wiltshire and then on to Penzance in Cornwall. The next morning we had breakfast after trying to calm down a very distressed waitress who was having a break down due to lack of staff. We hopped in another taxi (the taxi services in Europe certainly got a lot of work from us! ), headed for the Hertz Car Hire place where it had been arranged for me to pick up the car. Now, I have to tell you that I never drive very far and hyperventilate at the thought of city traffic and having to negotiate any more than 2 lanes of traffic let alone trying to navigate my way around a different country!  As they drive on the same side of the road and I mainly had to drive on a motorway I was brave enough to try. After all, I would have a map or a GPS right? WRONG!!!! No such thing as a paper map anymore . No GPS either. So, the Hertz guy printed me up a basic map to Chippenham and I do mean "basic". We got lost as soon as we turned out of that street. The indicators were on the left side and the wipers were on the right side- the complete opposite to my car. So, picture me flicking the wipers on every time I went to indicate. I reckon I got used to it on the last day of the car hire . And you guessed it, I was back to front when I got home in my own car. Eventually we managed to find our way to the motorway .

 

 I shall continue this journey next time when we finally arrive in Chippenham, my grandfather's birthplace where he lived until he came over here to live and work,  alone at the age of 20. Brave fella!

 

Thanks for sharing my journey with me.

 

Angel Blessings. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YEY! MORE FINISHES.

I am so pleased to have finished some more projects this past week and have also started new ones. I can't resist new projects even though I still have plenty of others to complete. However, I do feel that I am getting somewhere especially when I have started something and completed it before picking up another one.  A while ago I made several little mini quilts from one of Jenny's Stitchery Club's 2016 designs called " A Year In the Garden". These designs were for a quilt but I decided to make little minis so I could display one each month of the year. I found October's stitchery in my UFO drawer with the borders already sewn on but still waiting for the binding and sleeve. Now I have minis  to display all year. ( Yeah, I know. It needs to be ironed.)

 

I have started Jenny's latest free BOM.

 

 

 

 

I have finished my hand quilted table runner which is Gail's "Bountiful Bees" pattern. 

 

 

 

And 3 crocheted pot holders grew into 6.

 

 

 

I had to perform major surgery on my sewing machine when it decided to chew up some fabric and left big holes in it.

 

 

 

I shall now continue my travelogue ( as my mum calls it).  After a big day walking around Edinburgh and visiting lots of tourist sites on 14th June 2015, we decided to just take it easy the following day and find the Post Office to send some things back home as we had accumulated a lot of books and souvenirs which would add extra weight to our luggage. We spent a lot of time sitting on the post office floor dividing things up between us to reduce the cost of postage. We must have looked quite funny but there was no bench big enough to sort everything out on.

 

We were up early the next morning heading off to meet our tour bus to visit the Highlands, Loch Ness and Glencoe. We tried to catch a regular bus to get to the meeting point but the bus driver didn't take cash and couldn't be bothered telling us how to buy a ticket so we hailed a taxi to get there. There were 15 of us on the coach, one other Aussie who just happened to be a patchworker! My daughter just rolled her eyes. Our first stop was at Callandar for coffee. It was a lovely small village with breath taking views of the Highlands with the classic effect of mist on the mountains which still had some snow on them in summer.

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After that we stopped at Loch Lubhair which had a mirror like image of the trees reflecting in the loch.

 

 

 

We arrived at Loch Ness for lunch but the boat tour was soon to be boarding so we bought some food on the boat. It was a rather drizzly day on the Loch so we stayed inside the boat and listened to the tour guide. Alas, no sign of Nessie. 

 

 

Back on board our coach we drove through the Highlands and passed the "Monarch of the Glen" house in the distance which looks quite a bit larger than depicted on TV. We went through Fort William which is the largest town in the Highlands as Inverness is actually a city.

 

I have always loved this breed of sheep and was so excited to actually see them in the long driveway of a cottage. I love this cottage but it was literally in the middle of nowhere and it must get very cold in the winter time.

 

 

 

 

 

We passed this interesting house. 

 

 

 Thus endeth our last visit of interesting Scottish sites.

 

Next stop is a very brief stop in Wales. Any "Torchwood" fans????

 

Thankyou so much for visiting my blog.

Many Angel Blessings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

ENJOYING THE ART OF FINISHING

 I am amazed at how many projects I seem to almost finish and then put aside. Thus a drawer full of UFOs.  There are various reasons for this. Sometimes I run out of fabric I thought would be suitable for binding, sometimes I can't find the right fabric for sashings or bindings and there are times when I stuff a project up and can't be bothered fixing it when I have so many other projects I want to do. So, I am feeling quite satisfied now that I have finished one of Jenny's Christmas projects that I had started a couple of years ago but ran out of fabric for the binding. ( Please note that the bird block is not in her pattern. I improvised using one of Jenny's birds and adding some Christmassy bits.)

 

 

The past week I have been busy crocheting these pot holders each evening. The pattern was kindly shared by Hanne's blog. These are going in my gift box and I am still crocheting more of them with various coloured balls of cotton yarn.

 

 

 

I  finished hand quilting this table runner last night and plan to bind it this afternoon.

 

 

 

 

Now, back to Scotland.

 

On the 14th June 2015 we paid money to be terrorised at the Edinburgh Dungeons. It was so much fun as we learned about the not so nice side of their history. I don't think my daughter was very happy with me that morning. Hehehe.

 

 

 

When we arrived we were held in a "holding cell" before being let into a court room by "the judge" where he called upon certain people, thankfully not us, and sentenced them for particular crimes they were supposed to have committed. It was done in a very humorous way. We then got into a boat in total darkness and sailed along past all sorts of scenes of Edinburgh's seedy history. After that we were taken to different areas where we learned historical facts and shown torture implements,and how they used them , told about the body snatchers  and stood in staged sets of the plague era, crammed dark living conditions and homelessness. It was all quite eerie but very well done.

 

  

After that we went to lunch at Frankenstein's Bar where we feasted on nachos, salad and vegie samosas with cocktails.

I decided to hold Frankenstein's hand. ( Must have had too many cocktails).Feeling energised after our yummy lunch we decided to visit Edinburgh Castle. We were quite lucky not having to queue up and arriving just as a tour was commencing. It is quite a vast place with a very interesting history although it is not as old as the places we visited in Carcassonne. 

 

 

 

 

Different parts ,different dates.

 

 

 

The banquet hall.

 

 

One of the beautiful ceilings.

 

 

One of the many cannons.

 

 

 One of the various buildings inside the castle walls.

 

 

The view.

 

You may have noticed that I have a fascination for castles. I love medieval history. I was in awe when I stepped into the room where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to King James 1st and her living quarters, Alas, can't find the photos on the computer. ( I can hear your sigh of relief).

 

Next post we shall be starting here. Can you guess where it is?

 

 

Thankyou for stopping by.

 

Angel Blessings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WOOHOOO! i MADE IT!

 I am doing the happy dance now that I have managed to complete a few projects during the month of June. No travelogue today but I do have the latest pic of my 4 month old munchkin.

 

I knitted a jacket and beanie for him.

 

 

I love Jenny's beautiful stitcheries and I decided to make 2 of the one design to make into a table runner. ( Oops, needs ironing).

 

 

 

Another sweet little stitchery from Jenny's BOM was so quick and easy to stitch and I made it into a hanging heart.

 

 

 

And now for the grand finale.........drum roll please. I finished the last border on my single bed crocheted blanket last night. This was a huge project but I really enjoyed making it. The pattern is from Attic 24. With the help of emails and phone calls to Barb over the years and the step by step tutorials on Attic 24 I have mastered the basic stitches of crochet.

 

 

 

 

So, this month I have a total of  5 projects completed.  I am off to crochet a scarf now.

 

Angel Blessings.