The craic was 90!

My mum had her 90th birthday on the 19th August. The following day she had her operation for a knee replacement. Trying to get my mum anywhere on time is very stressful but amazingly we did arrive on time and it was some craic with all the form filling that had to be done.

"Do you wear dentures, Cecilia?"  "No, my daughter threw them out."  Not true!

My mum had two cakes, one from her care home and one from the family.

I'm putting in the spider web stitch now.

I keep finding new things in the garden. I saw a toad and the tiniest wee frog. I don't know what this plant is with the mauve flower.

Chilli peppers.

Beetroot.

Alpine strawberries.

Green pepper.

Marrow.

Blueberries.

Blackcurrants.

 Aubergine.

Potatoes.

I'm going to miss this garden when I go home.

Nearly there with the bookmark. 

I turned the calico in all the way round and tacked it down.

 Just have to put the cotton backing on now and make the tassel.

 My bro-in-law has bookmarked my handiwork for his Christmas present!

Green stuff.

From the blue border to the green. 

My squares aren't square and the more chain stitch borders I do the less square they get!

I realized I would normally use an embroidery hoop. I can do better than this methinks.

My bro-in-law is always busy in the garden.

Growing cucumbers.

Tomatoes.

Runner beans.

Figs.

Lemons.

Herbs.

Amazing what you find up the garden path.

Rain didn't stop play...

I'm staying with my sister and It's absolutely poured rain today.

Ha! My mum's operation has been delayed by a week. Now it's scheduled for the day after her 90th birthday.

I'm sitting about with nothing to do now so I did a bit of stitching. I always write my blog on a laptop but I'm trying to get the hang of blogging on my IPad mini today. You just get used to one thing then there seems to be something new to learn. I'm lucky to have a whizz kid of a son who fixes things for me. I can't remember what he shows me, that's the trouble.
Anyway, I brought my bookmark kit with me.

I've chain stitched the red border. 

I made a cake!

I made a fruity jelly!

These runner beans are from my brother- in - laws garden.

My sister made Scotch eggs. 

And I made a start on the blue borders.

I love learning stitches...

I've lost count of how many books I have on embroidery stitches!  A very old Mary Thomas book is the one I treasure the most but I like this one by Marion Nichols, it's the best for explaining the stitches. I found it in a charity shop somewhere, it was a bit wrinkly with water damage and it cost me 50p.
She dedicates her book:    
                                             To every little girl
                                    who has cried over her stitches

There's a large family of chain stitches. Who would have thought?!

 The diagrams are lovely and clear and I like that she shows how the stitch looks on the back of the work. If I'm stitching something like the spider web square,  then I'm very neat both sides but some people.. well they just don't mind if their work is messy on the back!

On another subject, I was watching Countryfile on TV last Sunday (cos I'm a country girl at heart) and there was an item on needle felted birds by an artist, Eve O'Neill. They were gorgeous.

 I've had a go at needle felted leaves, but never a bird! 

This birthday card caught my eye in M&S and it's a little needle felted cat and mouse. I think M&S sell some lovely cards and they're reasonably priced too. 

I finished the chain stitch square,  mine looks a bit wonky.  It's so dark in the house due to the poor summer weather. I can't get any light for a decent photo.

Then it was on to the spokes, I suppose that's the spider.

I'm sure I've done this stitch before. 

I went looking and found this Dorset button, I knew I'd worked a spider web stitch!

Now I've put the spokes in. Ready to weave the web.

The instructions are very clear in this kit, but it took me a couple of tries before I got the rhythm.

The last step was to chain stitch the orange thread round the outside...

...and take a photo of the back!

I don't make sewing kits nowadays but...

 I'll soon be going to over to England for two whole weeks while my mum has her knee operation

 so I thought I'd take a little sewing project with me to while away the time. 

 I bought this kit when I was on a visit to the Waterways Museum, here at Ellesmere Port. It's a bookmark and the 'Spider Web' stitch was traditionally used for making the canal boatman's belt.

I chose to buy the bookmark kit because the kit for the belt looked a bit ambitious to me.

I don't think my husband is going to need a Boatman's belt anytime soon. If he had his dream he'd own a canal boat, if we lived over there, and I would love to take a course with the Waterways Guild and learn some of the traditional crafts to decorate our boat!
I'll just have to make do with stitching this bookmark instead. It's not as creative a project as I would usually undertake but sometimes it's good to have something small to just pick up and do.
In the kit there is a sample square to make before I move on to the serious stuff.

.

Time to thread the needle.

                                  I've marked the 1" square to help me make my chain stitches even.

Hanging up the bunting!

I've been on an extended blogging break. I didn't realise it was quite so long. Looking back at my last post I can see how I was losing interest.
While I was making the owl I was thinking about how I could best display him for our craft group exhibition. I wanted him to be attached to a perch with a leather anklet, how you would sometimes see birds in captive at a game fair.
Somehow things got in the way and I didn't get time to make the perch and display him as I would have liked.
I didn't stitch anything for a long time after that. For most of last year I was back and forth to England to help look after my mum, she was unable to cope at home and we lost count of the numerous falls she had. My sister and brother- in- law, and me, were finding it all too much!
We tried out a 'care at home' company for a while, my mum didn't like that and decided she would prefer a care home. That meant spending time looking for a home that we were all happy with, moving my mum in, then the task of clearing her flat and putting it up for sale.

Over the summer we got the flat cleared and sold.  Gradually my mum's health improved.  The situation wasn't perfect, but it was better than before. Then she fell again and spent Christmas Day in hospital.  My mother can pick her moments. This time, at age 89, she was given a new knee replacement (I think the previous one was about 19 years ago).
This August 19th she will be 90 and she's been given a date for a knee replacement in her other leg - just right for her birthday. The surprise family celebrations we had planned will now have to go on hold and in a couple of weeks we'll all be visiting her in hospital instead. Yes, my mother can pick her moments, but I'm grateful she's having a new knee.

I left my craft group when the new season began last September. Time for a change, I thought.
I was a member for 7 years and loved my time there, but I couldn't see myself continuing on with the same thing year after year. Now I'm looking for something else to do!

So what have I stitched since the owl?  Wedding bunting.

hanging up the bunting

My son's fiancée asked if I could make her some shabby chic bunting for the wedding venue. She wanted the occasion to be more informal and 'home done'.  So for their wedding this June I cut 144 triangles, 288 if you count both sides. Then I stitched and stitched.

I cut most of the triangles using fabric from a sample book and also used some floral patchwork cottons. Pinks, blues and yellows.

I spray starched an old linen damask tablecloth and stitched on strips of hand-me-down lace across the triangles.

Then I bought an inch wide cotton bunting tape from Amazon, pressed it in half, then stitched.  I liked doing that simple stitching and as the triangles were all different patterns and colours it never got boring.

I made five pocket squares for the men, hand sewn rolled hems, fiddly!
When I told my mum what I was up to it reminded her of an old friend from years ago who used to stitch the rolled hems on silk scarves for Jaeger!

The flowers came from a local florist. They were hand tied and in Kilner jars and looked lovely on the tables.

The weather has been really poor this summer and on the actual day.... well, the photographer said the Fermanagh winds were mental!

It didn't stop us from having a good time though. It was a happy, very smiley day.

The bride is smiling under all that hair!!