Busman’s holiday

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Lovely daughter Ellie has been here for a few days so we have done lots of nice things. It has snowed here this week (not much) but enough to make the roads and pavements very icy when we went for a walk and to give the reservoirs this lovely winter scenery.

Dec walk with Ellie 1

Dec walk with Ellie 2

We went shopping while she was here and have I stocked us both up with new winter boots, fleecy pjs and fleecy throws to snuggle under when it is cold. The village is a few degrees colder than living near town, have cast on for a new snug fitting winter hat which should be finished soon to protect my ears from the cold wind!

This weekend we went on a little busman’s holiday trip to a local stately home Harewood House  where we did a re-enactment event earlier in the summer.

Ellie was particularly interested in the way that they had displayed their kitchens as she has been working on the ones at Powis Castle and was very envious of their display of copperware and their model pies.You can read about what she has been doing in this post  from her blog.

No pics allowed of the inside but we got some brilliant ones of the gardens. It was nearing sunset and there were beautiful clouds and setting sun from the terrace.

Harewood Dec 1

Harewood Dec 2

Harewood Dec 3

Harewood Dec 4

Harewood Dec 5

Harewood Dec 6

We followed that up with a visit to the Huddersfield Festival of Light  celebration – we have been going to this  for a number of years but this was the best yet.

Normally they have one big show focused around the theme of light but this year they had so many wonderful smaller events of lights, music and street theatre, it was really good.

They also had an excellent selection of food and drink stalls so we had mulled wine and cider and curry to keep us warm!

Below are some pictures of the wonderful light installation in the Parish Church Gardens which was beautiful and reminded me so much of campfires and fire jugglers at re-enactments and a snow globe which was part of a film projection set up.

FOL 3

FOL 2

FOL 1

I am still collecting vintage embroidery – here is my latest acquisition – the detail is amazing.

Vintage embroidery 6

Vintage embroidery 5

Have been busy crafting this week, along with the hat knitting I have finished the cushion covers to match the quilted Xmas sofa throw and finished a batch or Christmas ornaments to take up to the craft centre next weekend.

It will all slow down this week though as I have lots of Christmas events to got to – poor me!

Don’t forget to comment on my previous giveaway post by next Fri 14th.

Have a lovely week ahead and thanks for visiting.

A beautiful day and a blogaversary

stitchesoftime10 Comments

Hello everyone

I hope you are all well and happy. I have had a really lovely day, it has been perfect winter weather, frosty with blue skies and sunshine.

I made my beetroot soup with some of the contents of this week’s veg box then went for a wonderful frosty walk along the valley up from the Tunnel End Canal Centre following the stream.

These are some pictures of the frozen canal and the frosty stream, lots of lovely patterns of frost on the leaves at my feet, it was all very crunchy!

Dec-winter walk 2

Dec-winter walk

Dec-winter walk 3

This afternoon I made some more Christmas ornaments for my upcoming debut at The Loft Craft Centre at Standedge. What a perfect day!

It is also my blogaversary. I have now had this little old blog for 5 years.It has been an interesting 5 years (for blogging and my real life) and I now am using blogs more and more at work (and running sessions on blogs for my students) and still really enjoying reading the blogs of those people who I first met.

I have also added many new blogs to my list to reflect my changing craft interests, looking more and more at textile and pattern designers and those who use vintage fabric, which has had a huge influence of my latest collection of vintage embroidery.

One of the main themes of craft work at The Loft is to reuse and recycle so I am planning lots of wonderful things with all the new vintage stash I have.

I think it is particularly significant that my vintage stuff comes from local charity shops as I would like to think I will be repurposing the handiwork of local women.Here are my latest finds bought yesterday before the Christmas lights switch on – four embroidered tray cloths and a linen tablecloth with lace inserts.

Vintage embroidery - Dec 3

Vintage embroidery - Dec 2

It also gives me a chance to track the progress of work, I started this a long time ago on a Quilt Group workshop and have finally finished the Christmas sofa throw using the Stained Glass Quilt design. When I get some more backing fabric the matching cushions will appear! I have added little brass charms to each panel.

Dec- xmas throw 1

Dec- xmas throw 2

The blog has also been a lovely record for me of all the wonderful things me and my family have done, it was very poignant just recently to post about Ellie’s graduation and to look back at that first post of her arriving at halls for her very first year of University.

I have just posted about Jake leaving home and will look forward to four years time when he graduates. So blogging is a lovely way of me saving my memories.I have been able to share more detail with family and friends of all the lovely holidays we have had. So blogging is fab!

To celebrate I am going to do my traditional giveaway for a selection of my Christmas ornaments. This year I have made a range of simpler more Scandinavian style ones as well as my usual traditional ones so when you post please tell me which sort you would like.

To enter the giveaway please put a comment on this post. I will leave the giveaway open until Friday 14th Dec to give me time to post things out to the winner.

As usual thank you all for visiting – without you it would just be my random musings into the ether and I really appreciate all of the likes, comments and subscriptions from my readers.

Have a happy week ahead!

Village life

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One of the things I love about living here is all the services and all of the stuff that is going on. I chose to move here partly because of the great location next to the moors but also as we have brilliant local shops and services. As I now live 8 miles from the town centre and do not drive these things are important and I have been shopping locally as much as I can.

I am now having a fruit and veg box delivered weekly from the brilliant deli in the village Radish – it is really nice to have a random selection of things to cook with. Years ago I used to love to watch a TV programme called Ready, Steady, Cook  where a participant would arrive with a bag of ingredients and the chefs would make something out of that and my box is a bit like that.So tomorrow it will be beetroot soup for lunch!

Here are a couple of pictures of the shop which always looks so colourful and inviting. I love all of their stock,  as well as fruit and veg and wonderful cheese they have all sorts of pasta, spices, relishes etc. Foodie heaven!

Radish 1

Radish 2

I have also signed up for the monthly cheese and wine club ( purely to support local businesses and nothing to do with my love for red wine and cheese of course!) and had a delivery of very special things that I am saving for Christmas.

A couple of days ago I went and did some shopping and visited the newly opened florist’s shop Lily Blossom where I bought some things to make a wreath for the kitchen. I have been putting up the Xmas decs this weekend but having a new house means I have had to rethink things and Roxanne who runs the florist had a brilliant section where you could buy a plain wreath and lots of lovely things to put on it and make your own. I chose a lime and chilli theme to fit in with my kitchen decor and had a lovely time making a wreath to hang on my cupboard door.

Lily Blossom wreath

We also have some fabulous charity shops and I have been raiding all the vintage embroidery for my stash. I have got some brilliant things – these are the selection I bought this week – for 50p each!

Vintage embroidery - Dec

Tonight was the switch on of the Christmas lights in the village with associated craft stalls, christmas tree display, mulled wine stand (well it was raising funds for the village for I really had to just to be charitable)  as well as the local Morris Dance group who also fire juggle.I had a lovely couple of hours, met up with some of my friends here and thoroughly enjoyed myself.Here are the lights on the Marsden Mechanics Insitute at the centre of the villlage. I love living here!

Marsden Xmas lights

Have put up the tree today and finished decorating the rest of the house so all is ready. It is all looking so pretty, I do love this time of year.

It is my blogaversay tomorrow so I will be posting with the traditional giveaway.

Thanks for visiting.

Seasonal Ornaments

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Tis the season to be stitching!

Hope you are all having a lovely Autumn week. I have had a very nice relaxing few days and have spent lots of time this weekend working on my latest batch of ornaments ready for my craft fairs coming up at the end of December.

I have also been on more wonderful walks as the weather has been very good so am feeling very mellow and happy 😉 Here is a pic of the autumn colours at one of my local reservoirs.

Butterley - autumn colours

It has been wonderful to have a craft room with everything in one place so that I can just get out all my buttons, fabric and ribbons and have spent a lot of time this week just playing around with different combinations of things to develop some new designs.

Here is one of my new ones – the tree motif is from a ribbon I bought some years ago and is printed onto the organza. I cut them out and stitched them onto the gold silk.Each ornie has a different xmas fabric for the backing as well. In real life the tree is much more gold as the pale organza does not show as much.

Gold tree ornie 2012

I have also made another set of the little patchwork hearts that I made last year as those sold very well and are great for using up scraps from other ornament making.

Small xmas hearts 2012

I have lots of other things in production that are more Scandinavian in design, I love the traditional red, green and gold but know a lot of people like the simpler designs so will be working on those this week.

I can also finally show you my Autumn exchanges from this round of the Seasonal Exchange blog.

I got this lovely ornament from Sarah in the USA a week ago, isn’t it beautiful, just my taste with its Elizabethan motif and the most delicate beading all around the edges. The colour goes so well with my new kitchen where my bowl of Autumn exchanges are displayed. Thank you Sarah it is lovely!

Autumn exchange 2012 2

Autumn exchange 2012 1

I sent off my exchange before I went to China but couldn’t find the pics I took of it till now! I stitched this piece from my Blackbird Designs book ‘A Stitcher’s Journey’ for Jayne also in the USA. It is finished as a pincushion and backed with some purple velvet.

Autumn exchange 2012 my piece

I really enjoyed this stitching and have been doing another Blackbird Designs piece as an xmas gift.

I managed to resist going to the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Fair this year due to having bought lots of fabric in Worcester and wanting to use the time to make something from my stash but have treated myself to some online retail therapy and ordered some charms and buttons for ornament making which I will share when the arrive!

Hope that you have had a fun and productive week, thanks for visiting.

Simple pleasures

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Hello everyone, I hope that you are all well and happy and enjoying Autumn.

I very much enjoyed my time away but it is lovely to be home in my village enjoying the everyday stuff of my lovely new life here. The weather here has been really good this week and as I have been working at home a couple of days this week I have had the chance to have some lunchtime walks. It has been lovely crunching through the leaves and looking at the autumn colours.

I also had a lovely walk today on my way to the Standedge Tunnel Centre to book my table for the upcoming Christmas Craft Fair at The Loft Space. I came home and spent a very nice 4 hours in my new craft room designing some new Xmas ornies for the upcoming season, pics to follow.

Below are some pictures from my walks. I love being so near the moors, the river and canal and am planning to do some biking later in the week as well.

Nov walk 1

Nov walk 2

Nov walk 3

Nov walk 4

Nov walk 5

Nov walk 6

Nov walk 7

Nov walk 8

I have been playing with some of my new Xmas fabric that I bought last week in Worcester and here are some pictures of the new stash, the sweetie fabric is for a new ornie range I am planning for Spring and the elephant fabric will be a play quilt.

Quilt fabric 1

Quilt fabric 2

Quilt fabric 3

We have some very good charity shops in the village and I picked up these two embroidered pieces this week. I am very inspired by what people like Hen House  do with vintage embroidery so have added these to my stash.

Vintage embroidery 2

Vintage embroidery 3

Vintage embroidery 4

Am looking forward to a few nice quiet weeks of playing with fabric , hope that you are enjoying your creative time as well.

Thanks for visiting.

I am a very proud Mum!

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Hello everyone

I arrived back from China last Tuesday and on Thursday we went to Worcester for Ellie’s graduation so I thought I would share a few photos of that with you.

My Mum came over from Spain for the week and so she was able to be here for the ceremony and Jake came down from Middlesbrough so we had a lovely few days with the family.

We stayed with my sister who lives in Worcester where Ellie was at University so had chance to catch up with her as well and after the graduation Mum and I went to Powis Castle with Ellie for an overnight stay. A very lovely weekend of family fun!

Here she is with her friends throwing their hats and with her very best friend at University, Becky.

Ellie - graduation 2

Ellie - graduation 1

Also I couldn’t resist the chance to get a photo of Ellie with this lovely door – the ceremony was held in Worcester Cathedral which was one of the reasons she chose to study there as not only is it a wonderful venue but also King John (who she studied at A level for her Medieval History) is buried there.

Ellie - graduation 3

I am very, very proud of her, not only for her hard work at University but also for her dedication to her new job.She is doing lots of exciting things to help Powis Castle  get ready for Christmas and is very busy with that and interpreting the kitchens and other areas of the castle to make them appeal to younger visitors. Their Christmas theme is ‘Once Upon a Time’ which is based on fairy tales so if you are in the area please go and visit.

She is also now working on their social media sites so do take a look at their Facebook page  for more inspiring pics.

These are a couple of pics I took in the gardens yesterday, it was a beautiful day and the autumn colours were brilliant.

Powis Nov 1

Powis - Nov 2

While I was in Worcester I took the opportunity to visit a couple of quilt fabric shops and have added a bit to my stash, mainly Christmas fabric but also a few other bits that I couldn’t resist 🙂 Will take some photos when we get some daylight!

Have so many pics from China to sort so will be doing that over the next couple of weeks to put up a new page about this trip.

Hope you have a very nice week ahead and thank you for visiting.

Bright lights, big city!

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Hello again, long time no blog. The reason for my absence is of course that I have been lucky enough to be teaching again in China.

I have been here for nearly a month and most of that time I have been in Guangzhou again but I have had a short holiday this time after my work and have been spending a few days in arguably the brightest and probably the biggest city in the world, Hong Kong!

I thought that Guangzhou was amazing in terms of the tallness of the buildings and of their Pearl River light show but of course Hong Kong is the mother of all skyscraper neon wonder and I have been having a lovely time here.

I also had a visit to Disneyland – it is one of my ambitions to visit every Disneyland, so far I have done 3 with Tokyo, California and Shanghai (due for completion in 2016) to go.

As well as the bright lights I spent a day on Hong Kong’s Lantau Island yesterday which is a beautiful mountain country park. I went on a cable car ride to see the world’s biggest outdoor sitting Buddha and visit the monastery, on a speedboat ride round the bay and to see some traditional fishermens’ stilt houses, finishing off with dinner on the terrace of a very nice restaurant overlooking  Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong.It was like being in a Bond film and was definitely one of the most amazing days of my life.

I will post more of those pics later once I have sorted them out (and found my camera cable which has disappeared somewhere in the packing process!) Here are a few from my trip so far. I am so lucky to be able to do this – I have spent the whole month pinching myself thinking am I really here again. I still really, really love China and hopefully will be back again with work in the Spring.

The first two photos are of the city of Guangzhou at night.

Guangzhou skyscrapers 1

Guangzhou skyscrapers 2

And here is the beautiful Canton Tower in Guangzhou which changes colour every few minutes during the evening light show.

Guangzhou tower 1

Guangzhou tower 2

Guangzhou is China’s third biggest city and is packed full of people, I have been staying in a very nice hotel in one of the busiest parts of town, this is what the evening rush hour looks like here.

Guangzhou traffic

And here is my gorgeous hotel room – aren’t I lucky! I know some people complain about business travel and living out of hotels all the time but I am still a novice at this and I am like a kid at Christmas with excitement. I am going back here tonight for two more days before flying home.

Milu hotel

And a couple of photos of Hong Kong, I have much better ones of the city lights as I was raining heavily the day I took these but until I find the camera lead can’t get to them!

Hong Kong at night

Hong Kong skyscrapers 4

There has been a little bit of shopping (only a bit, more window shopping looking at all the designer shops in malls like this one).

Hong Kong mall

And lots of culture as well, here is a picture of one of the beautiful painted panels in the ancestral hall of a museum I went to.

Hong Kong - museum painting

And lastly a little look at Mickey and Minnie in their Halloween finery.

Disney Minnie and Micky 1

Will update again sometime next week when I am back in the UK. Am looking forward to getting home to my beautiful village which will be such a contrast to all this but not looking forward to the weather. It has been around 35 degrees here and I have been wandering round in summer clothes.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Happy, happy, happy!

stitchesoftime3 Comments

Hello and I hope that you are all well and happy.I am so, so happy, I really can’t explain what a lovely time I am having here in my new house!

I have had such a such a wonderful weekend, my lovely friend Kerry came to stay to help me sort out some of the fabric in my craft room and to enjoy some of the delights of Marsden.I also persuaded her to take away some of my fabric as it has been languishing with no use made of it so hopefully she can make pretty things out of this.

fabric for Kerry

It has been such a beautifully sunny weekend and we had a very nice walk in the Peak District, walking past 3 of our local reservoirs, Butterley, Blakely and Wessenden. The sun was shining on the water and all was right with the world. I am so lucky to be a few minutes walk from all this beauty.

Reservoir walk 2

Reservoir walk 3

Reservoir walk 4

Kerry and I sat on a bench overlooking this view on the way back thinking that life does not get much better than this!

Reservoir walk 5

However today things got even better. We went for another walk to the other side of the village and called into the Standedge Tunnel Visitor Centre, this is a local heritage centre which has displays about the history of the canal here.

I had been told that there was a craft centre there but had not realised what it actually was.It is called the Loft Space – Creative Hub and it turned out that they not only have designers working there but also they are selling fabric, wool etc and running workshops and also renting craft space to other people.Have a look at their Facebook page as well.

I have signed up to become a member which means that I can go and work in the centre and am very, very excited about doing more things there. It is a beautiful space and they have so many lovely things to buy.They also rent out overlockers and embellishers by the hour.

I knew I was so right to move here!

Here is some of the very cute ribbon I bought from one of the designers there, Janet,  from Green Fusions.

Ribbon from Standedge

There is also a wonderful wool shop, Juey,  that I need to go and visit again when I have more time and my camera!

I am going to have a very exciting 3 weeks as well as on Weds I am off to China again to teach. I am spending two weeks in Guangzhou teaching and am then staying on for another week where I get to so some sightseeing in the city.

I am going to Hong Kong for 4 days, including a trip to Disneyland for Halloween! I am so excited and so lucky, I have been wanting to go back to China ever since I went in March and am really looking forward to getting to know the city better.

I will not be in touch for a few weeks so stay happy whatever you are doing.

Thanks for visiting.

Planning

stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello there I do hope that you are all well and have not been too rained on this week.

I have been very busy with planning just lately. As a teacher I do a lot of planning, autumn is always the time for a good review and sorting out what I will be doing for the rest of the academic year. I have just met my other new group of students and they are very lovely so am looking forward to a good year.

I am very keen on planning but in recent years have had to train myself to be a bit more relaxed when my carefully arranged ‘what I think I will be doing for the rest of my life’ stuff has been interrupted by real life. As a result I am very much more mellow and actually enjoy not having my future all planned out.Who knows what lovely things will happen to surprise me?

However I have been having a very nice weekend doing planning of another sort, meeting up today with friends from my medieval group Swords of Mercia to plan our events for next season over a lovely pub lunch and planning my craft room!

This second bit is going to take a while as I appear to have quite a lot of fabric (ahem) and keep running out of storage boxes and having to go and buy more.

At least I have unearthed all the stash now and have marvelled at all the lovely things that I had totally forgotten I had. Some of this stuff  has not seen the light of day for about 6 years! I am determined to use more of it though and will have the sewing machine busy during the off-season making kit for the boys in the group.

Here are some shots of my work in progress, it looks a bit bare but I have a dedicated work table for my machine which is great.

Craft room 1

I still have  a way to go in filling up my quilting fabric shelves (especially since most of this is Ellie’s fabric) but the rest of it is looking ok.

Craft room 2

Craft room 4

These boxes hold my Xmas fabric and ribbons which will all soon be having an outing as I can feel an ornie session coming on.

Craft room 3

And to finish a little shot from the bus on my way out of the valley today for those people who have commented on the views – Yorkshire is still very lovely even in the rain!

Marsden view Sept

I do hope you have a good week ahead, this is my last full week before I go to China for a month which I am getting very excited about!

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Home alone – no pumpkins yet!

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Some years ago in 2009 I did a post entitled ‘Home alone ……. with a pumpkin’  as both the kids were away and I was making pumpkin soup. In that post I wrote about how Jake would be leaving home so I was practising then for the time when I would be home alone for good.

Well this is it and Jake has left for University. We took him and all his belongings (and there were a lot of them when piled into my sister-in-law Amanda’s car!) all the way up north to Teesside University where he is happily settling in to his student hall.

Here is the outside of the halls of residence , not the most glamorous of buildings but Jake chose it as it has very large student rooms and good communal facilities and is very near campus.

Jake Uni 1

Here he is – with top hat of course – moving into his room.He says he has space for a grand piano but don’t think he will be able to afford that on a student budget! It looks a good room for parties though as it is twice as big as the space shown in this pic.

Jake Uni 2

It doesn’t seem two minutes since we dropping Ellie off at her halls of residence – you can see her at her first day at her halls in this post .

Hope Jake has a fab time, we are very proud of him

And of course now I get to start sorting out the new craft room, did a little bit last night but I have a lot of stuff to move – am hoping to be able to show you pics at the end of the week.

Still have not really decided on a decorating theme, was going to do a vintage/Cath Kidston look but most of my fabric is either Xams stuff or medieval so don’t know what would look best. Maybe I should just go for a Santa’s grotto theme and then I could have all my ornies out year round, that would be pretty 😉

Am going to my new knitting group in the village tomorrow, Wool and W(h)ine, held at one of the local pubs (what a good idea) so am taking a simple pattern as don’t think I will be able to concentrate on anything much.

I was out partying this weekend and met a couple of the knitting group who are very lovely. One of them is an ex   re – enactor who has just set up an online fabric store which I will get the details of and post here! How exciting, I knew I was so right to move here.

I have had a wonderful week, on Monday I went to see the Mikron Theatre Company’s  latest production at one of our local pubs – a wonderfully funny play called ‘Losing the Plot’ about an allotment. The info for the company is at the link above – do go and see them if you get a chance, brilliant unique theatre.

Since I now have no one to look after or feed I thought I would do my bit for the local wildlife so have bought a lovely new bird feeding station for my front garden. I was ignored for the first 24 hours but then got some lovely visitors, starlings, crows, two finches and two robins. Was difficult to get good pics but this one is lovely.

Bird feeder

And as for the pumpkin it is nearly time to buy one for my favourite soup – Delia Smith’s Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Melting Cheese  – yum yum!

A busy week ahead but hopefully will have some crafting time. Thanks for visiting.