Needlecraft Haven Meet-Up

We had another fabulous day yesterday - this time we met at The Abbey in Nuneaton - having full, private use of their lounge all day :-) Being in the centre of town many members travelled by train, a new experience for Julie.

Needlecraft Members who came along were: Julie, Tina, Maggie, Lindsay, Ursh, Lynn, Jane, Rachael, Diane, Gill and myself.

We had a goody bag exchange on the theme of Afternoon Tea and to swap bags I made cupcakes and displayed them on my lovely stand. I put a raffle ticket under each cake and Julie put the corresponding numbers under a goody bag - everyone chose a cake and whatever number was underneath they had the matching numbered goody bag.Of course they ate the cake too :)

Here is the goody bag (well box actually) I put together and Rachael won

Afternoon Tea - won by Rachael

My number was on a blue gift bag - inside were some amazing gifts from Maggie including some homemade cookies that disappeared too quickly to be in this photo.

Goody Bag from Maggie

I don't drink tea but the beautiful ornament Maggie stitched has a perfect home - I have a set of coloured Royal Albert cups, saucers and side plates that were my Grandmother's. I remember them in a glass cabinet when I was a very young girl. They are in our display cabinet now and Maggie's ornament is the perfect addition. (I opened the glass doors to take the photo else all you would see would be my reflection hahaha)

Grandma's cups

We also did a mystery book exchange where we each wrapped a book we wanted to pass on and I put all the books in a bag - lucky dip time resulted in my picking a book I wanted to read. On a visit to Julie's recently she was telling my about this book, I was so intrigued I added it to my wish list. Amazingly I picked Julie's parcel and the book was inside.

For the first time we're doing an exchange for just the 'meet-up' members. We each filled in a little card then picked one anonymously. No-one knows who has whose card - we now need to stitch a personal bookmark for our partner using either the notes they put in the card or things we chatted about yesterday. I knew exactly what to stitch for my partner and have ordered the items already :)

All my other stitching is for gifts so I cannot share just yet, sorry but you  can pop over to my other blog Aimetu's and read about my recent wine adventures. Thanks for calling by - May wishes to everyone x x

Time flies in so many ways

edited with a bit more at the bottom:

April already and yes I have started my Drawn Thread piece. It's a little odd though as it's an Easter theme and for this year Easter was in March. It is a beautiful design and will of course be making an appearance for years to come when April will most likely be our Easter month.


April - The Drawn Thread

The Easter Exchange with Needlecraft Haven was great fun. This year we stitched an egg shaped ornament and an Easter card. My egg was just about egg shaped but I was pleased with how the card turned out. My Easter gifts travelled to Elaine's and my Easter gifts arrived from Christine who stitched a beautiful egg.


My card and egg for Elaine
 

My egg from Christine

My other stitching is still secret as it's more gifts. I'm not sure how many I'm stitching but it will be quite a few by the time I am finished. I seem to keep finding more designs that I think someone will like. I must get them all made up soon too. If you want to see I have shared them on Needlecraft Haven.

We had a lovely break at the caravan, and a little bit of a surprise/bonus with a Tesco wine order - all those details are on my other blog, please pop by.

Nick and me on our walk - yes it was breezy!

I have not done any stitching on my LHN A Place We Call Home on a Wednesday with Barb in The Parlour because of my school stitching but I will be back soon. I have heard that Miss Barb has a VIP visiting the Parlour next week - I wonder who?

That's all from me - hopefully soon I'll have April finished and on the mantle. The theme this month is not quite finished, I need to think about it a bit more but I'll let you all see when it's done :-)

edited:

I have now finished April and the mantle - I didn't want to do a new blog so soon so have added them on here.

April finished

April Mantle

The mantle theme this month is friendship as we have the Needlecraft Haven meet up at the end of the month. I used two mail art pieces from previous years and the fairy is a water gauge but she'll be staying inside. The centre piece is a candle for Dad - a year Thursday - along with the gorgeous pillow Barb stitched me at the time xx