I know it's late .......

I know! I've done it again.... so sorry, 'stuff' just gets in the way, and believe me, you non-bloggers, once you get out of the daily habit of checking out the blogs and thinking about your own, the days pass amazingly quickly with nothing written, no photos taken, and people saying 'where is your latest blog post??' Which is very nice in one respect, but then it's a mad dash to put something together if you haven't got something planned. Which I do, sometimes, honest!

So......   right, here are some tiny blooms in the pot next to the back door; and here are some larger ones neath the beech tree .....

NOT my favourite flowers AT ALL, those awful massive great leaves floppin' about all over the place, but Jim likes them so, hey, he does the gardening.

And on the subject of flowers, here are the lovely daffs - I don't know why but I want to call them Jonquils - but then I know nothing about flowers really. They just look beautiful in my Siennese jug, and they come as usual, from Victoria: many thanks Victoria.

Not a great day to be taking photographs but the splash of colour is welcome, isn't it? (Oooops, have just noticed the bedraggled basil plant dying gracefully on the right there .... sorry about that!)

What else have I been doing? Quite a bit of music playing as it happens. I am in a frenzy of learning a new and somewhat difficult tune, so lots of teeth gritting and a few mild expletives when it doesn't sound right, also getting some tunes together to send to Stephen who organises the Burwell Bash each year . HURRAH!!! Have just booked my place and this year I will be in the new MELODEON class so it is bye-bye to the fiddle group and 'HELLO ANDY CUTTING!' Yessssss! There is a smidgeon of mild hysteria going about at the moment on that score but I'm sure we will all settle down soon and start behaving like adults. We need some tunes which melodeon players like to play, so the fiddles and guitars will be ok with them, the flutes and whistles might find some of them a bit awkward. But it is give and take - a lot of whistle tunes will be impossible for the DG melodeons, wrong key.But this is just in the evening sessions, and they are always a bit of a free-for-all. So I am having a bit of a re-cap on tunes I should really already know, but have slipped off the playing agenda of late.

I have been kept up to the mark in the stitching department, as I need to have more completed items for May's Open Studios and time passes quickly. Here is what I've been working on the last couple of weeks.

The wool throw is becoming more appliqué- filled, though it has a long way to go yet.

And this cushion cover is nearly there .....

Apart from pincushions and bangles, I don't enjoy making more than one or two of anything, but this cushion "One Bird Upon a Hill Beneath a Star" is quite popular, I have sold three, and funnily enough I do love stitching it. I make tiny changes each time I make it so actually they are not identical.

I promise to have a one or maybe two posts at the end of the weekend, very textile related, so I hope to get back in your good books!

And speaking of books, how are you getting on with your A Year in Books book? I have read two and need another to get me to the end of the month when I can begin March's book. I must say, it is never a hardship finding time to read. I hope the week is going right for you all and the weather is as kind as we can expect it to be in Winter.

Happy New Stitchy Year!

A very Happy New Year to all of you, and let's hope 2013 is a good one for all of us. And whatever the year throws at us, let's hope we meet the challenges head on, and with the love and support of good friends and loving family members.

The last few days has seen me feverishly stitching away at one thing or another, but mostly I have been stitching felt and/or felted wool. I had a cushion to finish off for Katy, a friend who has left the UK to live in France. She had expressed interest in the 'One Bird...upon a tree...beneath a star' cushion, which was a hot favourite at the craft fair earlier this year.

 I have already made another one for S&B friend Victoria, and thought I would do a slightly different one for Katy. For a start I have run out of the lovely grey wool I used for the background. I did however have a lovely pale blue blanket which I knew would fit the bill. I also decided that the text should be 'en Francais' so worked out the words I knew and put out a facebook call to friends I knew would be able to help with the ones I didn't. And this is the result:

Slightly different but I don't like to do exactly the same thing every time! And here's the text....sorry it was a bit difficult to catch on camera.

It reads "Un oiseau, sur une colline, sous une etoile" (can't do the accent on my keyboard.) If Katy reads this before it arrives , no worries, it should be with her tomorrow!

The other bit of stitchery I've been doing is a cover for my Molly Dancing top hat. I saw a photo on Pinterest which took my breath away...I can't put it on here, but you could google JaffaGirls and find it there. It was a top hat covered with brightly coloured felt shapes, and I just knew I wanted to do something similar. They had glued their shapes on which wasn't an option for me as my hat is on loan. And anyway, I wanted to be able to embroider mine as well. Now I haven't quite finished it, and since taking htese photos there is more stitching done, and there will be even more later today. But you can get an idea how it is going to look.

I didn't have enough black felt for the band, so this is really a prototype, the next one will be entirely on a black background.

And the top:

This is how I stitched the top on; next time I shall use black thread, I deliberately used a heavy, variegated thread which I knew would be visible. Now I think it would have looked better 'unseen'. But hey, that's what a prototype is for.

Ah, when I say variegated I mean green variegated! And next time I will applique and embroider as much as I can to the 'lid' before attaching; the stitching was quite awkward at times, despite felt being a very malleable material! However the shapes which overlap the joins will have to be added when the whole thing is constructed.

And a final view:

I have to say I am thrilled to bits with it, but am desperate to make another on black felt, with the flowers appliqued in a less 'ordered' fashion. And I have ideas for other shapes......moons and stars, leaping hares....birds......creeping vines with leaves and flowers....oooooooohhhh! Mouth-wateringly exciting ideas are filling my mind! Watch this space - I will put up a photo of the finished article with the final embroidery and added 'bits'.

I do hope you will be going into the New Year with a passion and enthusiasm for something you love. Catch up with you again soon!