Photo Scavenger Hunt – February

February 26, 2012February 26, 2012 stitchesoftime12 Comments

I am posting this early as I will be away in a few days so Jake has strict instructions to upload this post to the link on Kathy’s blog so you can all see it. Most of these pics were taken in Spain again. This completes a year of taking pics for the Scavenger Hunt and I am still really enjoying it, I love taking pics and get very excited when I get something good for one of the words!

Lots of the Spanish houses have beautiful ceramic house number tiles so here is a number 5 from my street.

Music

This is on one of the roads I cycle along in Spain, the local council have recently fenced the road and painted the fence in multicoloured blocks with lots of musical notes along it, no-one seems to know why this feature has been chosen but it looks very pretty.

Train

Not strictly a train but a train track and station. I took a couple of quite boring train pics which I was planning to use then came across this model railway on one of my cycle trips in Spain which was in someone’s front garden! It was a large layout about 10 feet in total with a little model village as well as this train station. I can only imagine the owner has a very understanding wife!

Love

This was really hard as there are so many things that I love, my kids, my family, Spain, camping, travel, embroidery but I decided that I would post about something I have not posted before. The first thing I fell in love with would have to be reading and I still think books are the most marvellous thing. One of the great things about being on holiday is the amount of reading I do and this was the pile of literary love that I treated myself to at the airport – they were wonderful and I read the whole pile in 3 days!

Cupid

This was the only Cupid I saw in the whole month, not a very good pic but from a local shop window.

Food

Sandwiches Spanish style – the lunch that Mum and I shared on our trip to Elche.

Empty

The road down to the beach on one of my cycle rides.

In the sky

Nothing but blue! Taken from my terrace on Feb 13th.

Crowded

A picture of a crowded lemon tree taken on one of my bike rides.

Heritage

How spectacular is this – the front door of the cathedral in Elche.

Black and White

The Spanish love ironwork on gates and balconies and this is from one of the neighbouring houses.

Leap Year

This is quite a boring pic but a very exciting event – on the 29th Feb Leap Year Day I will be flying to China for nearly 3 weeks with work. I am very, very excited as you can imagine and will of course take lots and lots of more exciting pics than this one!

Of cabbages and kings (well robots actually!)

February 23, 2012 stitchesoftime2 Comments

Warning this is a very picture heavy post – look away if you are not into random exploration into photography or go and make a cup of tea if you have a slow internet collection while it all loads!

First of all I would like to say a very, very big thanks to you and you and you, in fact all 5, 476 of you that visited me last month! I was really impressed to find that when I checked my stats yesterday I have leapt from my average visits of around 4,500 per month which I have had for the past year to the stunning figure of nearly 5,500 last month.

I am thrilled (Jake is grudgingly impressed though cannot imagine why people would want to visit a blog about stitching, photos and Spain!) Now I know that lots of people arrive here by accident through a search for something else and maybe don’t stay for long but I am very humbled by the fact that anyone comes here at all and love the fact that so many of you come back and comment and have become my bloggy friends.

I have had another very lovely week in Spain and have been indulging in some photography as well as an accidental fiesta.

It has become commonplace for me to just come across things happening when I go , we will just be visiting somewhere and something fab will be happening and this has become a bit of standing joke that not only do I get great weather for all my visits, ( I always say that God feels sorry for me because I live in Yorkshire whereas my Southern cousins sometimes get rain!), I also get events happening that we knew nothing about.

My last trip to Elche in October coincided with a wonderful medieval market and we visited the town last week only to find that they were preparing for a carnival at the weekend which we went back for on Saturday.

The reason for the carnival was not entirely clear, it was not a religious festival as far as we could work out and the people we spoke to said it was like Halloween, which we realised was more like the US version of Halloween than our UK one in that the point was to wear fancy dress of any sort (unlike our UK Halloween which is mainly witches etc) and have one great big street party involving brass bands and discos and general merriment.

Anyway we had a great evening watching and admiring the many costumes , early on the evening it was mainly children who were dressed up , princess costumes were a very clear winner with Snow White as the most popular but Minnie Mouse was a close second (she was also very popular with the adults later on).

Ellie would have loved it, being as you know a Disney Princess and a huge fancy dress fan, so maybe one day we can all go dressed up.We of course had to drink red wine and eat tapas in the little bars around the central square (just to be sociable you understand) and did not leave till about 11 – the rest of the town were due to carry on partying till 3!

There was a lovely mix of home-made and bought costumes and these pics give a flavour of that – I love the plastic cup hat and the robot got loads of pics taken. The band shot was just a random coming together of a group of people at one point before we left, love that about Spain – totally mad place but totally wonderful!

Elche is a very beautiful place with so much to see and its Palmeral (Palm Park) is a Unesco World Heritage site.

I have also been trying to take lots of lovely arty pics with the new camera that I got for Christmas which is very good (thanks kids!) and has very good definition for close up shots as well as a zoom lens that works (yey!) so have really enjoyed exploring all the different places.

Whenever I read things about painting and photography people often talk about the light being really good in places and I have never really understood what that meant. However after spending a lot of time taking pics in Spain I have realised that the colours and the way that the light reflects off the stone and the sea really changes the way that my little snaps look.

These three pics were taken down at the beach and the salinas (salt lakes) that are a bird reserve where I often go for a bike ride.

I come back with pics that have the most amazing blue sky in them and the contrast between that and the sea or the way the sun hits the stone is wonderful. The pics below are of the Basilica Santa Maria in Elche.

I have also taken a few close up shots of the great vegetation there is – this time not only a cactus from my terrace but beautiful ornamental cabbages surrounding a pool at the park in Elche.

I hope you have enjoyed the pics, I will be back at the weekend with my Scavenger Hunt pics for this month, I will be posting them early as I am off to China with work next week which will be very exciting!

Thanks for visiting and making a little blogger very happy!

More snowflakes

February 12, 2012 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Well we have a few more real ones this week but I am very pleased to say that the Winter Exchange ornie that I stitched has made its way safely to the USA to Dawn.

This was a design that I have had for a few years and have stitched before, this time on my favourite sparkly evenweave with Silk Mill thread over one. This was a surprisingly quick one to stitch – must be getting better at the fine count work!

I have also finished a Spring ornie for me from one of my Quaker designs – no pics as yet as I have been not been in much when it has been light.

I have had a very busy week not only catching up from after our visit from Ofsted but also preparing for my trip to China! I will be leaving for that in 18 days but meanwhile I am off to Spain for a week of sun, sea, sand and biking! Can’t wait.

So have a lovely week and I will see you on my return. Thanks for visiting.

Winter Exchange

February 4, 2012 stitchesoftime3 Comments

Well how are you all and are you lovely people in the UK snowed in yet? We have had small flurries on the hills all week and today the promised snow arrived with us – very timely as this morning I had a lovely parcel all the way from Australia (where of course there will not be any snow!) containing this wonderful ornie from Lisa V.

Lisa must know my tastes very, very well as what she stitched is perfect for me and as you can see looks very good hanging next to the little stocking on the doors with the snowflake stickers.It is Heritage Stitches design and is stitched on hand dyed Silkweaver fabric.

The snow was just starting when I took the above pic put we are nice and white now – good job I am holed up indoors tomorrow!

My exchange piece was sent this week to the USA and as soon as I hear that it has been delivered I will post pics of it.

I decided that I would make a Spring ornie for me this week rather than a Winter one as it had got a bit milder outside (the bulbs are all coming through in the garden) so have finished all the stitching on one of the Quaker Tree ornies that I mentioned last post. Just got to add beads and turn it into a little pillow ornie.

I will leave you with the some recent pics of Ellie on her nights out with friends Hannah and Becky – she did mention that there have been no pics of her for a while so will have to rectify that! The theme for one of the fancy dress nights was ‘bugs’.

Hope you are all keeping warm (or cool!) depending where you are.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

Photo Scavenger Hunt – January

January 29, 2012 stitchesoftime13 Comments

Well here we are again. Kathy has very kindly kept going with the Scavenger Hunt , click on the pic above to go to her blog and see everyone’s pics. I joined last March so this will be nearly a year of taking pics.

Some of these are from my last visit to Spain at New Year topped up with a few extras that I have quickly done today. Lots of scope this month for interpretation so it will be really interesting to see what other people have done.

A pair of beautiful doors in Cartegena.

Blur

It was good to have this as a category this month as most of my New Year’s Eve firework pics came out as a blur and here is one of them.

Company

One day I hope to be able to turn my hobby into a business, got the business cards and the company name, just need more time!

Entrance

Now this could be interpreted differently depending on how you say it – I have chosen it as the opposite of exit so here is the entrance to my house.

In my bathroom

Strictly speaking this is the downstairs cloakroom but here is my collection of postcards from some of the lovely places I have been lucky enough to visit.

In season

No I haven’t gone mad, in Spain ice-cream is always in season, this is the selection Mum and I had on Jan 5th – coconut and mango yum, yum!

In the distance

It has to be my favourite subject of mountains, taken on one of my bike rides in Spain.

Information

Part of the map of Cartagena – you have to love a place with roads called Paseo de las Delicias and Santa Florentina!

Mess

Sadly there are lots of old abandoned farms and smallholdings in this area of Spain and this is one that I passed on one of my bike rides.

Odd

These are sort of like Horse Chestnuts but with a suntan! From one of the verdes in Spain.

Soft

My Mum voluteers at a local dog shelter and takes the dogs walking one afternoon a week so I went with her in Jan. This is little Martha who had such soft ears and such a cute face it was hard not to take her home!

Warning

On the back of the antibiotics for my ear infection.

Medieval Art

January 28, 2012January 28, 2012 stitchesoftimeLeave a comment

Well the very busy week at work did not go as planned as I have had an ear infection, not good for workload but this meant that there has much stitching been done and catching up on missed TV. One of the things I have been watching this week is a BBC series called Illuminations – The Private Lives of Medieval Kings which has had me drooling over the art.

You may remember that a while ago I shared with you my latest purchase from my very talented friend Pat of Buckles Medieval Art and I promised to take some more pics if I could. Today we have had really lovely sunshine (which is very good as there was snow last night!) so I have been able to take some nice pics of my other bits of her art.

My first piece from Pat is a triptych – a three section religious painting, in this case of St Andrew and his fisherman.

I also have this beautiful painting hanging above my bed of Archangel Michael. She has painted one of my favourite castles Castle Coch in South Wales in the background. Castle Coch was rebuilt in the 19th century by the Marquis of Bute (who also at one point owned Cardiff Castle) and both buildings have some wonderful recreations of medieval decoration.Well worth a visit if you are in the area.

I also have a facsimile of a medieval bible from the 15th century which I bought as a real bargain some time ago from the Museum Selection (one of my fave catalogues) , here is a peek at one of the wonderful page decorations.

This is one of my favorite books – again another real bargain from Waterstones one day when I was in Leeds. It is available cheaply on Amazon as well at the moment at only £13 which is really good as it is huge book.

It has copies of illustrations from so many wonderful manuscripts including one of my all time favourites the Bedford Hours which was featured in the second episode of the Illuminations series.

I love looking at medieval art, as well as being great for research on costume and artefacts I just marvel at the wonderful richness of it all. I have so many ideas for embroidery designs based on all my lovely books and museum and church visits. All I need now is a few more hours each day to get them all down on paper!

Below is a pic of the finished Snow Poem piece, all I need now is a nice silver frame for it. It is very appropriate that I am able to post this today as Google informed me when I logged on that it was the 125th anniversary of the world’s largest snowflake today which was 15 inches across!

Now I am trying to decide on my next piece, maybe another snowflake or I might start one of the Spring Quaker ornies that I mentioned in the last post.

Hope you have all had a lovely week and have a nice week ahead of you. We have Ofsted coming to visit us at work, those of you who work in the education system may well know what that means! Suffice to say that there may be lots of need for stitching for sanity in the next few days!

Take care and see you all soon. Thanks for visiting.

Silk!

January 22, 2012January 22, 2012 stitchesoftime8 Comments

Hello there and I hope that you are all well and happy. I am in January mode at the minute which means lots and lots of work and marking but thankfully no snow (as yet!) to complicate matters. There is still time however 🙂

Work is very, very busy but enjoyable, the students are lovely and I am teaching an extra set of maths at the moment which I love doing! I only teach maths a bit now in between other subjects and general teaching skills but really enjoy it when I do.

I am making slow progress with the Snow Poem, I hope to be finished by the end of next week but have had little time to stitch so my textile related excitement this week has been the arrival of more silk from the wonderful Silk Mill. I had some money for Christmas so decided to treat myself so this is the fruit (and veg!) of my online shopping endeavours.

Not only are they fab colours but I love the names of each silk. The beetroot one looks especially yummy!

These are for stitching some more Spring and Summer house ornies for me. Below are the other ones I ordered in the last sale round which will also be fab for flower embroidery.

They are all still in their packets as I need another storage box and some little cards to wind them on to. That will be a fun job as not only do they look pretty they are so soft to touch!

I am planning to make myself versions of the ornies below which were exchange pieces from a while ago that I sent to the USA to go in my little ornie displays.These are both freebie designs from The Workbasket site and I love the fine detail of them.

There is nothing better for keeping out the cold than a nice bit of stitching in a warm house! Have a lovely week ahead and stay toasty!

Thanks for visiting.

Stitching for sanity

January 15, 2012 stitchesoftime4 Comments

Hello there

I hope you have all been having a lovely week. I am back into the swing of things at work and have had a very nice week, weather is pretty dreadful and have a slightly leaky conservatory roof and a very broken garden trellis to deal with but hey ho – such is Winter in Yorkshire!

I often joke to people that stitching and knitting is my therapy, the stuff that keeps me sane and I know that there are lots of others of you out there who feel the same. It doesn’t matter how bad the day has been, or what has been hurtful or difficult to deal with when I light my candles and get out my stitching, sitting on my sofa with a glass of wine I am the happiest bunny in the world. It is lovely as well to create something that also gives pleasure to other people when they receive so it is a double bonus.

Reading my free Metro newspaper on the bus to work today I came across an article about a prisoner of war who had stitched to save his sanity but also within his stitching had used hidden Morse code to include subversive messages. His name was Alexis Casdagli and his work, along with that of his son who he also taught to stitch, has been included in a recent exhibition at the V and A Museum.

There is a really good article about the piece at the following website and here is a pic of the piece from the Metro newspaper site held by his son Tony, there is a clearer view of the Morse code on the web site.

Prisoner of War stitching 2

I know there are many other examples of how people have used crafting to while away the hours. I have seen a cross stitch done entirely in human hair from a prison exhibition in Nottingham , a quilt made from uniform jackets by soldiers on campaign and last year at the Birmingham Quilt Show we were shown a wonderful whitework piece done by sailors during their long voyages.I love the fact that I am part of this long history of people who create as therapy – I think it is a wonderful way of calming the soul!

I do not have much to show you this week in the way of stitching progress. I have just completed the stitching on my Winter Exchange piece but cannot show you that yet, however since I had lots of stitching time in Spain I am also part way through a piece for me.

As you know I love snowflakes (but not too much real snow!) and came across this poem a while ago and have finally got around to stitching it so thought I would show you my progress. It is called Snow Poem by Erynne Chard from Red House Crafts. I have just checked on the web site and can’t find it so it must have been an old design.

It is stitched on sparkly Aida (to give my poor old eyes a rest from the small count evenweave I have been using for the exchange piece!) and done with my favourite Silk Mill thread again.

The Silk Mill are having another sale giving 30% off so I have treated myself to a set of green silks this time which will arrive soon! The sale is still on so if you fancy stocking up head on over there. I do love a bargain. Wendy who runs the Silk Mill very kindly sent me a little note on my last order saying she liked the blog and I was really touched – thanks Wendy, I really love your silks!

I have a number of different themed seasonal stitched ornies thanks to my exchanges but am very short on Winter ones so am going to spend a couple of months stitching just stuff for me on a Winter theme so that I can have another lovely seasonal display.

I do hope that you have had time for some therapy this week and thank you very much for visiting.Stay warm!

Photo Scavenger Hunt December

December 28, 2011 stitchesoftime14 Comments

Well as we went to Disneyland for Christmas most of my seasonal A – Z pics were taken there – some I did struggle with so had to be a bit creative! Hope you like them and really looking forward to seeing everyone else’s pics this time. Click on the pic above to go to Kathy’s Scavenger Hunt site.

A is for Angel on the top of my tree

B is for Bauble – this one was in the Christmas Market in Paris and I liked the way the Eiffel Tower was reflected in it !

C is for Castle, the Disney one all lit up for Xmas

D is for decorations, so many to choose from , this is from one of the beautiful window displays

E is for Eiffel Tower which was all lit up and sparkled for a few minutes as well- it was very magical

F is for Favourite – this is Sully from Monsters Inc, my favourite Disney character

G is for Goofy dressed as Santa

H is for Holly from Tatton Hall

I is for Igloo in Paris at the Christmas Market

J is for Jake (and Ellen) jingling all the way on a sleigh at Disneyland

K is for Kings from this beautiful Xmas card

L is for lights, these giant ones were at Disney Studios

M is for Market and Mulled wine – here is a pic of the Christmas market at the Eiffel Tower where we had lovely mulled wine

N is for Nativity at the Eiffel Tower, they had real animals in the manger as well

O is for orange – a tradition for Xmas (along with the less healthy chocolate versions!)

P is for Princess from one of the shop windows – Aurora Sleeping Beauty

Q is for Queue – we amused ourselves admiring various families’ festive headgear while we were waiting for rides. There was one family all dressed in Santa suits but could not get a pic of them.

R is for Reindeer, in this case their stables

S is for Snowman, not real but he looks like he would enjoy throwing that snowball!

T is for Tree of course from the Disneyland Main Street, I love the little gingerbread decorations

U is for unwrapped, the children’s traditional Xmas chocs from the stockings they unwrapped Xmas morning

V is for Village , the Disney Village which was looking very festive

W is for Winter Wonderland a cute show with Mickey and Minnie and friends

X is for Xmas cards , this was one of my faves this year

Y is for Yoda Stitch which Ellen bought as a present for herself

Z is for Zac Efron from High School Musical who you can just see on the wall of this themed cafe that we ate lunch in (told you I had struggled with some!)

Disneyland Christmas !!!

December 28, 2011February 6, 2022 stitchesoftime1 Comment

Hello there

I hope that you are all well and happy and that you have had a very good Christmas. We had an excellent time at Disneyland as we expected to and thoroughly enjoyed our first Disney Christmas. Thanks to my very lovely children I have now have a new camera which they let me open before the trip so was able to take some very good pics.

We arrived back safely on Boxing Day evening despite high winds that made for a bit of a bumpy landing and since then have been relaxing (I am on leave for the next two weeks which is wonderful!)

I have finished my latest stitched item, this is a gift for my aunt who lives in Spain. She loves antique style frames, I can’t remember where I got this one from but I have had it for a while and the blackwork design is from an old copy of New Stitches magazine issue 106.

I am off to Spain at the weekend where it is nice and sunny and am really looking forward to it. Hope that you all have a very happy New Year wherever you are and see you in 2012!

Stitches of Time

I have created this blog to share my interest in all forms of stitching, quilting, sewing, knitting, medieval re-enactment and costume making – particularly my love of historical embroidery. I also love travelling,especially when it also involves any of my other interests.