Three Bottles of Wine

No that's not the amount I drunk last night, it's what I'm giving up in order to pay for the order I placed at Thread Bear on Tuesday, that arrived today. The drop in income that accompanied Husband's loss of job means we don't go out anymore and my one treat a week is whichever bottle of dry white wine is on offer at Sainsburys.

Now it's here it doesn't look much does it and certainly not like three weeks worth of wine. I can't tell you what it's for just yet, but hopefully all will be revealed in the next few weeks.

I have been doing some very secret stitching over the last couple of days, which I will be able to show you in a couple of weeks time. Alongside my secret stitching I have also been working on Love Songs.


If your trying to work out what I've done on it, it is the bit around the piano hinge.

I know it doesn't look like much progress but yesterday was one of those days when there were frogs and knots in abundance. I gave up in the end and had a glass of the bottle of wine that I'd opened for the mustard sauce we had with our pork for dinner last night.

Fitness-wise it looks like I'll be able to get back in the pool very soon. I had a long walk around our neighbourhood yesterday and for the first time since injuring my back had no aches or pain. I had been planning on a pulling on the walking boots and going for a short, flat walk on Curbar Edge today but the forecast sunshine is in fact thick mist and fog, so unless it clears up soon it will be the local streets again. I have to admit two weeks of very little physical activity is starting to drive me nuts, even if it was the correct thing to do.

All That Glitters

As appears to be coming my usual habit I spent much of Sunday and Monday working on Celtic Autumn. I didn't really plan it but on both days I ended up just using the Treasure Braid on the swirls on her dress.

By last night I was absolutely sick of working with it but I have to admit that most of that part of her dress is now finished. I've also realised that it is probably easier to follow the pattern on this part of the piece if you do the gold swirls first. I shall try this when I do the back part of her dress.

A quick calculation last night of how much I have sewn revealed that I have now done just over 30% of her. It sounded a lot until I spread the whole piece of linen out today and realised how much of it is still empty.

A First

For the last few days I have been working on the Jayne's Attic Monthly Challenge, which was to do one of the freebies from the Papillion Creations and to finish it as anything. I opted to do The Duke's Maxim and finished it as a pinkeep. As Karen has already posted the pictures on the forum here's mine, not only finished but also finished on time.

Pappilli0n Creations

The Duke's Maxim

28 count Millennium Blue Cashel Linen

DMC threads

I finished the stitching last night whist listening to Jonathan Ross. As I'm sure you can imagine, I was holding my breath when it came to putting the last few back-stitches in. If I'd gone wrong, the border wouldn't have matched up, which it does. Even better I finished it in time to not only listen to but also to watch the telly whilst he was interviewing Tom Cruise, whom I have to admit I consider rather good-looking. If I was still at the university I'm sure a poster of him would be on my wall. Anyway I digress, so back to the stitching!

This is my first ever attempt at a pinkeep and whilst it's not perfect I have to say I'm feeling quite pleased with myself. I've also learnt a lot so hopefully the next one will be even better.

Progress

First of all thank you to everyone who has wished me and my back well. I can safely say I am really and truly sick of being sat in the chair, but doing nothing, for most of the time, has been exactly the correct thing to do. Each day has seen my mobility improving. Yesterday I was able to potter around and do some housework and baked some chocolate chip muffins and today I'm planning on a very short walk outside. I'm still spending most of each day resting, as I know that is what I need to do, but it's time to start building up the strength in my muscles again, hence the walk later today.

For the last two days I have been working on Celtic Autumn and I have made some quite good progress on her. When I picked her up again I was surprised to find it had been exactly a month since I'd worked on her. Just in case you, like me, had forgot where I'd got to there are two photos, a before and an after photo.

Before

After

I have been concentrating on the swirls on her dress and despite spending a fair bit of time working with the gold braid most of the bits that are missing from the swirls are the gold braid stitches. She is also getting too big to fit inside my biggest hoop and as I don't really want to crush the braid I'm going to have to move her onto my scroll frame. I haven't used the scroll frame since I got my magnifying lamp so I'm not sure how that is going to work, all I can do is give it a go and see.

The Beacon

Another favourite author is Susan Hill. I first read one of her stories as part of an English Literature course I was doing and have since read most of what she has written. The book, The Beacon , which is a new one by her, was one of my Christmas presents and as it is relatively short only lasted two nights.

A great story about a farming family, which switches between the present and the past whilst exploring the relationships between the various family members.

Totally unsure about the ending, in the final sentence of the book. Hill tries to make you question what you have read and what you believe is true. Sorry, but in this case it doesn't work because to believe her suggested ending every character in the book has to have been lying. A case, in my opinion, of one page too many. A real shame because otherwise this is a great book with a storyline that makes you keep on turning the pages.

Far Too Many Half-Stitches

My first sewing finish of the year is done and it is also my first square for SOLAK.

SOLAK is a group which makes quilts and cushions for people with a long-term illness.

I have been sewing the February Hearts Snowman as part of a SAL and it has taken a lot longer than I expected. When I started I expected it to take a week at the most, in fact it has taken a fortnight and it is only done now because I haven't been able to do anything for the last three days accept sew.

Vermillion Stitchery

February Hearts Snowman

16 count white aida with DMC threads

Now that it's finished I'm very pleased with it but oh boy did it have a lot of half-stitches. To start with everyone of the hearts on the hat is made up of 4 half stitches and there are numerous others in the design. As I opted to stitch it on 16 count aida at times it was a struggle to keep all the half-stitches going in the right direction.

Despite all the half-stitches I have quite enjoyed doing it and I've just signed up to do the September Football Snowman as well. Mind I had a good luck at the pattern first and made sure there weren't quite as many colour changes or half-stitches as there were in the Hearts Snowman.

Before I start the next snowman I'm going to spend some time working on some other projects the first of which will be Celtic Autumn.

Thanks to everybody for your kind words about my back, it is getting better very slowly and housework is still something I can't do which as you might imagine doesn't upset me too much.

I Knew Housework Was Bad For You

So there I was getting on with cleaning downstairs, with just the living room to vacuum, when I move in a perfectly normal way, like I've done a thousand times before and all of a sudden I'm in agony and can barely move. Yep, I've gone and aggravated an old back injury. After shouting for Husband I manage to get as far as collapsing on the settee whilst he has to turn the vac off, which I can't manage.

That's it I'm now out of action for the next few days, at the very least. I can sit and sew and move around very, very slowly. Think of a snail, then imagine it in slow motion and that's the speed I'm moving at. Husband is now in charge of the house, cooking, shopping and washing. Thank goodness I'd nearly finished cleaning the house and was up-to-date with the washing. The cooking I'm not bothered about as he enjoys it and does roughly half of it a week anyway.

On the plus side I can sew and read away to my hearts content, well I can sew for as long as I can sit upright.

The really annoying thing, is that, yet again, just as I start to get a little bit fitter something goes. Even Husband commented on it yesterday, I'm cursed. Ever since I broke my leg, nearly seven years ago now, this has kept happening. I've had a trapped nerve, arthritis, wrecked the ligaments in my ankle twice and three or four cases of aggravating my back injury. Now I wouldn't mind if I was doing something stupid to cause the injuries but I don't. I start of gently, listen to my body and build up the level of exercises slowly. In most cases the injuries don't even occur when I'm exercising but doing something normal. The first ligament injury was caused by an uneven paving slab and the second occurred when I was gardening. The arthritis comes and goes, depending upon the weather and the back invariably goes when I'm doing housework.

I wonder if I can give up housework!!!