Weekly Update

I never seem to have time these days to keep up with the blogging, mainly I suppose because that since my office/craft room has been moved upstairs I don't spend as much time at the laptop. I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. LOL. I do however have a finish to show you, almost two finishes in fact. This first one is the LK Flipits from 2007. I started them a couple of weeks ago and finished them on Wednesday night. I have already started the ones from 2008. Dream is finished apart from sewing on the charm and I'm halfway through Love. The second photo is a close-up of July.

Here we have a piece of patchwork I've been doing for an exchange on A Crafty Natter. It's going to be a wall hanging - probably - once I've sandwiched it all together, done the binding and quilted it. The photo below shows a close-up of one of the blocks. This is the Log Cabin design. It's not perfect, but for my first proper attempt at this since I learnt how to do it at college ages ago it's not too bad.

Keely is rolling around all over the place now. She thinks it's great because she can get virtually all the way around the sitting room just by rolling over and over. We definitely need to get a fire guard very soon and start to move things out of her reach that she shouldn't have.

Ainsley has started coming round a couple of times a week to see us. I don't know if she's doing it off her own bat, or if the social worker has talked her into it. We'll see how things go. She's adamant she doesn't want to move back in, which is just as well because a) she can't get into her bedroom anyway at the moment due to the contents of the loft being in there until the council come and insulate the loft, and b) I have huge plans for that room!!!

We could be having a trip to Spain later on this year. My Mam is doing our family tree, and is doing Craig's at the same time. Someone got in touch with her through Genes Reunited (I think) and it turns out she's Craig's cousin. She lives and works in Spain and has invited us out there. He hasn't seen her for about 40 years. I don't think he's seen much of his family in years although he did see a couple at his dad's funeral back in 2001. They don't seem to be a really close family.

Only a couple of weeks to go till the meet-up in Nuneaton. I can't wait. I've already written my list of what I need to take with me, although it's possible I'll lose that in a few days. LOL. I can't wait to see everyone again, especially Kathy. She and I are staying at the Premier Inn, sharing a room, and Keely is coming too. I'm going down on Friday 13th and coming back on Sunday 15th March. I'm going to try and get some more thread sacks made up and I want Kate to make some more fobs, so I can hopefully sell them.

Now...where's that list?

Busy Day Today

We've had a busy day today. This morning we went to Knowsley Safari Park which is over by Liverpool. We went round a couple of times to make sure we saw the animals we missed the first time round. There was a lot of empty space, and in my opinion it's not as good as West Midlands Safari Park, but it was a day out and we enjoyed it, although the weather wasn't crash hot.

After leaving the safari park we made our way over to Voirrey Embroidery. They had lots of nice stuff, but a lot of it was kits and I don't like buying kits. I'd rather buy the chart and use my own stash. I did buy something for Kathy's birthday though, and some pieces of patchwork material, and I'm sure I bought something else but I can't remember what. Can't look in the bag either cos it's in the back of the car. LOL.

This afternoon, after having something to eat at the craft centre where Voirrey is, we came back to Chester and went to the cinema to see Slumdog Millionaire. Good film, definitely be getting it on DVD when it comes out. By the time we came out of there we were hungry so we parked the car up outside the B&B and went to the Oaklands over the road, just for a change. We're creatures of habit, Craig and I. Now we're back in our room watching TV and finishing off the gin. Breakfast is early tomorrow and once we've had that we'll be loading the car up and heading for home.

It's All Lynn's Fault!

It was Lynn who told me all about the Nimble Thimble, so it stands to reason it's her fault that I am now skint! LOL. Love ya really Lynn, what a great shop. Will definitely have to come back down here so I can have another visit.

OUCH! THAT HURT!

I fell off the stash wagon today and it bloody hurt. I didn't realise it was so high. LOL. More about that later.

We've had a great day today. I was greeted with a dozen red roses when we went downstairs for breakfast this morning. It was a lovely surprise, but it means that Craig is sneakier than I thought he was. He arranged all this last week over the phone. But hey, I MADE IT TO SEVEN YEARS! WOOHOO! This is my third marriage and I've never made it this long before, although the first two did get to over six years. So definitely something to celebrate.

Yesterday when we were out and about we spotted these cute tshirts, so we had to buy them for Keely. She can wear the Grandma one now cos it's the right size, but she'll have to wait a bit for the Grandad one as it's a bit bigger. Kate is gonna love 'em. LOL.

After breakfast today we got in the car and headed off to The Nimble Thimble near Oswestry in Shropshire, where I fell off the stash wagon with a huge thud. Kathy will kill me. But I don't care. I'm always lecturing her about buying stash but I can't now. Ah well...

Here's what I bought myself -

And Craig bought me this Drawn Thread chart for my anniversary present. There are another 9 parts to this and he says he'll buy me the other parts as and when I need them. This first part contains most of the threads and some linen, but I'll probably change the linen to evenweave as I don't like linen. It has loads of different stitches in it and I'm quite looking forward to starting it. But I probably won't just yet, I'd rather get some other stuff done first.

Anyway, after the needlework shop, we headed over to Stockport to visit Karen. Her blog is Little Cat Blogs in the list on the right. Poor little Riley wasn't well, bless him, but he showed us all his toys anyway before going for a nap.

We're now back in the B&B watching the rugby before we go out for dinner in about an hour. The pub we ate in the other night is doing a special Valentine menu and we haven't eaten since breakfast so we're both looking forward to it.

Hope everyone else is having a great day.

Visit to Lynn

After a delicious breakfast in the B&B this morning we tootled into Chester to have a look round the shops. I bought Craig a new watch, it's not copper but it's something he needed and what he asked for, so that's what he got. He hasn't bought me anything yet. We then went to find Evans as Craig was going to buy me a couple of new pairs of trousers. We eventually found the shop but they didn't have any trousers in my size. I asked if they had anything in my size and although they reckoned it was one of the most popular sizes, they didn't have a single item. If it's so popular why don't they stock it??? I told them it was crap and walked out.

After that we went to a pub for a drink as we were both dying of thirst before driving over to see Lynn in Whitchurch. We caught up on all the family gossip and had a good laugh. We had Chinese takeaway for dinner tonight - Craig's was so big he had to have it in serving dish rather than on a plate. Lynn just couldn't resist taking a photo. We stayed about another hour and a half before returning to the B&B. Now we're sitting relaxing in our room with a drink, me with the laptop, Craig with my DS. LOL.

Snow Piccie

This was taken about halfway down the M62 at some service station we stopped at to get water cos the windscreen was manky. Didn't have batteries for the camera till we got to here and there wasn't much snow about by this time. Wish I'd had batteries earlier, snow was much worse further north. Ah well....

Chester Weekend

I've never mentioned this lately - at one point when Ainsley was being a pain I was refusing to come away at all! - but this weekend is our wedding anniversary. We were married 7 years ago on Valentine's Day in Nottingham Register Office. Seven years is something of an achievement for me as I've never actually made it to seven before. So we decided to do something special, and have come to Chester for a long weekend to celebrate. We travelled down from blizzards in Northumberland this morning and arrived here about an hour ago where there's no snow at all - thankfully, I hate snow.

I hadn't realised how close Chester is to Whitchurch, so tomorrow afternoon we're off to visit my friend Lynn and catch up with all the news. And hopefully on Saturday or Sunday we're going to go and visit another friend Karen in Stockport. Tomorrow afternoon we're going into Chester city centre to 'do' the shops. Seven years anniversary is Copper...what the heck am I supposed to buy him that's copper? Other than one of those copper bracelet things for arthritis! Which is a bit pointless when he hasn't got that. Sigh! LOL. I'll think of something.

I think we're eating out tonight, there's a place just along the road from our B&B called The Oakland which looks promising, and it's within walking distance so we'll both be able to have a drink. Might look it up on the net actually and see if we need to book or anything.

Will do more updates later. Have a good weekend everyone.

Busy Weekend

Hi folks!

No photos I'm afraid for today's post, unless you go to www.smokingneedles.co.uk and have a look at all the new thread sacks that I made over the weekend. There are also some new needlecases on there.

So yes, you guessed right, I was busy making thread sacks at the weekend. Last night I also started a patchwork project that I'm doing for an exchange on A Crafty Natter. I'm doing the log cabin design, but I have no idea what I'm going to be making the blocks up into yet, I'm just making it up as I go along. LOL.

We no longer have Ainsley living with us. There's been lots of problems with her since C'mas, and last weekend, after two nights of not coming home from school, she decided she didn't want to live here anymore. I'm not going to bore you with all the police and social worker visits, but when she was brought back on Sunday morning, as soon as she had the chance she was off again. The police brought her back later on that day, but she refused to come in the house. She is now staying with a friend of hers from school, in the same street as Kate, but we haven't seen her since everything kicked off. Of course, she's going round telling everyone that we kicked her out, but that is so untrue. If we'd kicked her out we wouldn't have phoned the police three days on the trot because we didn't know where she was. She's a silly bitch...subject closed.

Craig and I will be celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary this weekend, on Valentine's Day. We're going away on Thursday - till Monday - to Chester, which is where we went on our honeymoon. This is my third marriage and I've never actually made it to seven years before so this will be something of a special occasion. The B&B Craig has booked is about 20 miles out of Chester itself, whereas on our honeymoon we were right on the side of the river in the centre of Chester. We had a huge four-poster bed in the old Records Office, and although we were only there for a couple of days we had a great time. I'm hoping the weather is going to be nice for us this time round. Craig hasn't made any specific plans for our stay this time, it's going to depend a lot on whether it's snowing - I hate going out in snow and/or ice. No doubt we'll be out for dinner on Saturday...somewhere special.

Keely was weighed today. She's now 14lbs 1oz, put on 7ozs this time, instead of just a couple. I think they were pleased with her at the clinic. Kate says she was smiling and laughing at everyone there. She's such a happy baby and always wakes up from her naps with a huge grin on her face. LOL.

After our weekend in Chester I'll be really looking forward to a weekend in Nuneaton for a stitchy get-together. Kathy and I are going to be sharing a hotel room, and Keely too seeing as I'm taking her with me. Should be a good weekend, and I can't wait to see Kathy, some old faces and also some new faces, people I chat to on the message boards but who I've never met yet.