Saturday 24 April 2010

Great Meet Up at Nuneaton

Wow what a fabulous day - 13 of my friends joined me in Nuneaton for another Meet Up. We meet at my school in the library which is a brilliant room for stitching, so light and airy, in fact we had natural light all day, I did not put any of the lights on.

Some of my friends are staying locally in hotels, some are travelling home by train and some are driving. It's a great day and so exciting when everyoine travels over - some from quite a long way. After the Meet Up we went to a local pub and had a three course carvery, for £3.50 (yes honestly) and it's always delicious.

Here we all are busy stitching away :) and we are Kathy, Paula, Lynn, Julie, Maggie, Joyce, Hazel, Tracy, Chris, Tina, Lynn, Vicki and Angie.


This is the exchange bag I put together and Lynn won. We played a "right/left" game to swap bags which was very funny and revealed some right left problems LOL


And this is the chart I won in the exchange from Paula - thanks I love it :)


There were so many gorgeous piece sof work displayed around, this is my display which includes Lynn's RR - she was surprised when she spotted it hee hee


and finally this is the Important bookmark kit I put together for the day. It is now release for sale to raise money for my charities on Aimetu's Stitchery. With the raffle and the kits I sold I have been able to add another £40 to the charity pot - thank you everyone :) 


I have had a fabulous day - I'm so looking forward to the next one in the Autumn - thank you :)

Tuesday 20 April 2010

Friends, Decorating and Les Mis :)

This Saturday is the meet up in Nuneaton, it is open to everyone but is mainly friends from Stitch and Stash. If anyone would like to join us you would be very welcome, any questions please email me clare@hearnden98.freeserve.co.uk. Nuneaton is in the Midlands and has a trainlink to Birmingham, Leicester and Coventry (lifts from the station are not a problem). We are also close to the M1, M6 and M69.

I love these days - we all bring finished items to look at; wip's to work on (if we stop chatting long enough); and swaps and sells.This year we are going to do the bookmark I designed as an afternoon SAL. Somepeople do stay for the weekend and after the meetup we go out for a pub meal. I am really looking forward to seeing all my stitching friends again:)

The decorating is finally finished - phew.It was a huge job, much more than I had thought. I did struggle with it, I don't think I have the strength I had before. The painting in the hall,stairs and landing was not hard but there was so much of it. The emptying of the lounge was a huge task. We have four bookcase size units that we had to empty, remove the shelves and glass doors, move into the conservatory, replace the shelves, books and ornaments and the doors. It took ages.

The new carpet does look good, we're really pleased with it - just waiting for the new sofas now. The old lounge carpet looks great on the stairs and it saved quite a bit of money reusing it. My house looks clean and tidy again - I think the ripped mucky stair carpet made everything lookdrab and because I had given up with it I was a bit light with the rest of the cleaning lol. (Ruby wanted to be in both photos, she ran to the stairs when I went to take it lol)


I was amazed to see my stitching in the top 5 in the GOS Challenge 5#. I had stitched this really quickly and the finish was not as good as I had hoped. The stitching in the challenge was amazing, well done everyone.

My own stitching is very hit and  miss - I am finding I am too tired at night and drop asleep mid-stitch sometimes. I used to stitch first thing in the morning but it's not so easy now we have Ruby and I am finding my eye sight is taking a while before it's ok enough to stitch early. I am very very lucky with my MS - I still have a full time job, I am active in my life and I feel ok (not great but ok). However I am noticing how much weaker my body is becoming. The decorating was a bit of an eye opener for me, and everything seems to take me longer. I am also finding that when I've been busy I am affected by the confusion side of MS and some nights after tea I just sit and stare at the tv but I'm not really taking it in.The hardest thing is MS is an inside problem. No-one can see how I feel, how fatigued I am (it's different to being tired), how I  struggle to find the words to make my speech work (quite a challenge some days when teaching - the kids just think Miss pauses a lot to make a point lol), how I look at something a few seconds before it registers. I seem to be affected by the emotional side of the condition more than visable physical problems - so outwardly I look like I am ok and am managing really well lol ---- good job I'm not a seahorse with my insides outside - I'm thinking it would look very messy :)

So carrying the emotional theme .....Les Misreables ..... I was blown away. I love thismusical, I amconvinced I was French in a previous life and all the characters in this touch me in various ways. The music is so stirring, the emotion of the characters, the actual story (Victor Hugo was certainly a great writer) and the fact that people are performing live right in front of me.

We met some of my colleagues at the station and travelled to Birmingham where we met the others (20 of us in total) for a drink before going to the matinee performance. I had put together a theatre pack for everyone - tissues, chocolate and a  lolly.Some people had not seem Les Mis before and asked if it was a weepy hee hee well it is for me, two notes in and tears are rolling. I used 12 tissues in all and I think most of us had a few watery moments (or goosebumps as the chaps wouldn't possible cry now would they, wink, wink). All the performers were brilliant, Gareth Gates was amazing.

Afterwards we went to the Big Wok for a chinese buffet. There was so much food, not good for my Slimming World - which I am going back to tonight although I know I have put quite a few pounds back on. We were all tired but smiling on the train back, and we were very good and did not sing lol

Finally this is my TUSAL jar - I have no idea when it's supposed to be shown as I have not kept up with any of my other blogs - something I must do soon. My jar is growing so I must be doing some stitching lol.


That's about all my news for now, thanks for visiting, I hope everyone is enjoying the sunny weather we are having.

To everyone coming on Saturday - see you soon, I'm so looking forward to it :)

Sunday 11 April 2010

Competition - New Design - Holiday News

Well I have loads toblog about tonight - but first here's a reminder aboutmy competition:
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As you know I don't stitch every night as I am so tired. I have done no stitching, or any other craft, on 27days so far this year so my question is ...

How many non-crafting days will I have by December 31st 2010?

Just add your guess to a reply to this post. All votes must be in by October 31st.

Reveal day will be January 1st 2011 and I will put together a little parcel of goodies for the winner.
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I am going to try to have a panel at the side of my blog showing everyone's entries. Just need some time to sit and play with it. Please let all your friends know - the more entries the merrier, thanks :)

My Happy Dance is very very special - whilst at the caravan I designed my first cross stitch bookmark. It's a saying that is very close to my heart. I willbe offering this as a SAL at the Nuneaton Meet Up on 24th April.

I've called it "Importance" and stitched it on 16ct Aida band using DMC 469, 602, 676 and 936.

I have nearly finished charting it up and will be offering it for sale as a chart or as a kit - released Sunday 25th April. All profits will go to my charities fund at Aimetu's Stitchery I have just given St Cadfan's Church another £25 so many thanks to everyone who has bought my charts and cards :)



Just before we went away I entered the GOS Challenge #5. I had decided Ineeded a recipe scrapbook and had a lovely hard backed book but did not like the centre piece (it just said "All about me"). I stitched the challenge design using;

 Fabric = 28 count Permin(Wichelt) Linen in Prairie Grain
Floss =DMC Rayon in 33608, 30211and 30932
 

I spent a lovely afternoon at the caravan cutting up my cooking magazines and sticking my recipes in :) I have covered it in sticky back plastic to prevent it getting messy in the kitchen.

We had a lovely time in Wales - the weather was a little damp the first few days but soon turned to glorious sunshine. Monday was the huge street market that happens every year so church was open for tea and coffee.I did 2 hours clearing away and drying up and made a chocolate cake too. We do have a good time, lots of nattering and it's good to catch upon Welsh life. I've popped my name down for the next Bank Holiday Monday too.

We did sometravelling around - my favourite trip was to Barmouth. We park at Morfa Mawddach and walk ove rthe Barmouth Bridge - it's about a mile but the views are stunning. This is me and Ruby onthe way back.


We even managed to see the dolphins in the bay on Saturday.Unfortunately I did not get any photos of them but plenty of us watching - hee hee



They are doing a lot of work on the sea defences. It's quite nice to walk down the promenade everyday to watch them. They do make a lot of noise though, a bit like huge dinosaurs and because they work by the tide they were working through the night, bit weird hearing lots of moaning and groaning all night ;)


I made quite few goodies for the caravan - and consequencely have put on a few pounds. I'm back on track now so will soon be losing the extra. I've blogged about the food in my Fantastic Food

I think that's all for now - I'm sure I missed something but it's getting late so I will close and blog another time. Thanks for popping by to read my news :)