Two little mice!

Pincushion Mice

Hand embroidered

A garden for 'Blue Lace Cottage'

My little 'Blue Lace cottage' has been away for a week on exhibit with all the other little houses made by the ladies of Fife branch of the Embroiders Guild.
before it went I completed the base

I had no real idea of how I wanted the finished piece to look so I just had fun,

  cut out fabric added and stitched some by hand
some machined as I went along.

Then I got out the fabric paints and just explored

old lace, new life....

little garden.

 the other 'houses' made by the member of Fife branch, I have kept this image large so you can click and zoom in for a closer look.

Rethymnon Door

Finished! my little door photographed in Rethymnon Crete 

you may have seen my posts earlier about the Alison King workshop 'Entrances & Exits' and this is my finished doorway

the view through the window & door wirework is of Santorini,
a picture from a callander I bought in Crete

Update : the finished piece

Jug of Iris Flowers

I've been working my way through some projects, this one was long overdue a return visit. 

Some of you may remember this post > Richard Box Workshop

I was really looking forward to working on this but it had to be at the right time

this is as far as I got with it by the end of the 2nd day of the workshop

  

and the progress

building up the flowers

flowers complete and stitched in place

 lots of colours, snipped and ready to go

building up the background

background drying and ready to be stitched .....

Happy Anniversary

..... to Us :)

7 years already has gone by and we look forward to many more......

we like to have a bit of fun and go with the traditional themes for each year,

this year was Copper or Wool

 Kevin gave me a beautiful cashmere scarf 

and I gave him a copper fish

7 years ago!

Holiday highlights

I'm out of the way of things, been trying to find time to do a post for a few days....
As usual July & August are so busy with holidays and short trips away, there is barely any time to spend on my blog.....
We enjoyed a lovely trip away in our caravan visiting the Yorkshire Coast for 5 days, North Wales for 7 days and Blackpool for 2days. The best part for me was Wales and I could have happily stayed so much longer. There was so much so see and do and the beautiful landscapes and beaches were a delight in the lovely hot and sunny weather.
Some highlights

Portmeirion

 with it's beautiful architecture

she couldn't resist!

down by the water

Concrete boat

A ride on the steam train at Llanberis Lake railway

 slate - a closer look will show you the slate just falling down these ledges.

a step back through time in these charming slate miners cottages
which have been removed brick by brick from another mine and rebuilt in the grounds of this one which is now the museum, well worth a visit.

A fascinating visit to Beaumaris Castle
on island of Anglesey

Time to relax ...... in the giant chair at Hafan y Mor

before heading off to Blackpool for a couple of days

Huge mirror ball Blackpool 

the Tower from the Pier

I love these seats on the pier

and the ice cream parlour yum!
Bubble Gum for C & Mint Choc Chip for me.

 We did have a blow out...

this could have been a lot worse had the caravan wheels not been fitted with Tyron Bands, a safety device that grips the inside of the tyre, that prevents 'snaking'  and buys you more time to get over to the hard shoulder, we were glad to be spotted by the police shortly after it happened.

 the rescue assistance still to show up,

they helped divert the traffic to give us a bit of space for Kevin to fit the spare and get us on the road again within 45 mins,

 it was a scorcher of a day and we were baking in the heat at the side of the road.
I took these with my phone, it's all part of the holiday experience!

It has been so much fun this summer the weather has been great and we have managed to get away on quite a few trips in our caravan this year we look forward to many more.
I've been thinking it might soon be time to turn my attentions again to that little one that sitting at the back of the drive looking a bit neglected.

I've been getting some little bits of sewing done which I hope to post pictures of soon ........

Z is for ............

Zip! of course 

a fitting ending tag for my alphabet of stitch tags

in 'Zig Zag' chain stitch

and that zips it up for me!

 I have had so much going on over the last week that I haven't had any time to decide on how I'm going to display my stitch tags, I did lay them out on a canvas

It's not a good day here for taking photographs, a bit dull and rainy, but this is just to give an idea of how they might look, the background fabric is a pale  mint green. I think I might need a bigger one, I think they look a bit too close together, I may still go for the book idea, my thoughts on this being that I could carry it in my project bag and use it as reference and a reminder of all those other lovely stitches that I should use more often in my projects.
I have really enjoyed working on the A-Z theme with stitches, some more difficult and time consuming than others but it's been fun. I'm really not sure right now if I'm going to continue with Tag Tuesday it's really so difficult to decide, I enjoy joining in but it is a commitment and I don't want to say yes and then find it difficult to keep up with so many other projects on the go. On the other hand I know there is a waiting list and I feel perhaps it's time to let someone else take part.

Y is for ....

Yvonne of course!

meaning 'Yew Wood '

the tree branches are worked in 'Y' stitch then I added little glass beads for berries
****

I had a fun doing a search of the name and the meaning of it.

There has always been differing opinions on the origin of the name 'Yvonne'

My French teacher insisted it was French, my Mother has always said it is an Irish name but on searching the Internet is seems that it is an Old German name the female version of 'Yvon' or 'Ivon'

meaning in German 'Yew wood' or 'Archer' Yew wood was used in England and Wales to make an early weapon called a Longbow.  

X is for .....

X - Stitch

as there are no stitches that begin with the letter X I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to display this little miniature cross stitch that I worked while doing a lot of miniature embroideries.

Worked on 28 count Brittney even weave fabric (14 stitches per inch)

As you have probably read before its not my favourite form of embroidery, 

I can't seem to get my head around how it's worked and I'm not good at following the patterns :/
I really did wing my way through this one.

Still its nice that I get to use it on one of my tags :)
Almost at the end of these now,
just as well as I have a feeling my new project is going to keep my busy !

Yes we are...totally mad!

I know that's what you will be thinking.....

a new project :)

 a bit of a challenge, 

a little lighter in weight than our last little Monza ,

 but the same shape and layout

retro to some but totally not my colours

and in need of a huge bit of TLC

I think it was on the drive a couple of hours and already carpet 

and curtains were out .....well they were awful!

I set to work today removing the matching re-covers and the fitted covers 

from all the seats and back rests.

It's looking brighter and smelling much better in there now :)

Three little sea~side pictures

A little bit of sewing and stitching ....... and a new book

I have had the idea of these little pictures on my to do list for a while, I've got a few of these little wooden hoops and I wanted to make something with them. 

Then just a couple of days ago, inspired by a new book,

I first read about it on Annes blog then when I opened this months issue of Homemaker and read some more about it, I couldnt resist, I popped over to Amazon to see if I could get it there with my birthday gift voucher from David,  it was available. When it arrived, I wasnt dissapointed, it' a beautiful book.
My little hoops were given a quick wash of watercolor paint and hung out to dry on the line before using them to frame my finished pictures.