Unpacking the Box

I was keen to see the items in my Box of Treasure in real life as the on line photos hadn't really been clear due to there being so many bits and bobs.
Were they worth the buying?

There are some cross stitch charts in this book "Cross stitch from The Country Diary" but it needs a photo copier with enlargement feature to be able to see the pattern as the book is only 5 inches by 4 inches so charts are teeny. If anyone wants it give me a shout as I know lots of people collect Edwardian Lady Country Diary stuff.  I've kept the 14 count Aida and the hoop and threads.

A crochet kit - I'll send this off to someone who crochets . The felt penguin kit is sweet and has been kept as have the two cross stitch kits.

Some different coloured wool wound on card but no patterns, so the wool has gone in my wool bag for maybe teaching grandchildren to knit or for making pom-poms etc in the future. There's a peg doll kit also kept for grandchildren.Several skeins of embroidery cotton have been wound onto cards and added to my stash.

A crochet fox kit - another to pass on, a children's cross stitch kit -  to keep for grandchildren. It's very unlikely I'll want to stitch a unicorn so that's gone in the car boot box. Also there is a huge piece of Binca - which will be brilliant for grandchildren to learn to stitch. It's what I learned to cross stitch on at primary school - where I made a lovely lined purse, with a snap closure - wonder what happened to it?

And finally for today - The guinea pig kit had lots of fur fabric missing - shame - so that's been chucked. More cottons and another embroidery hoop. There's a big piece of rug making canvas - which I've put in the box for a future car boot sale along with a knitted book mark kit.

Five more pictures another day.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Strange Times End of Week 12 Saturday Round Up

A funny ol' week in Suffolk. First the weather going from very hot to very chilly and extra windy in just 2 days and then on and off all week I've felt not quite well, sore throat and earache and tired - no cough or fever and I could still taste things so not  THE virus.

Anyway, enough of the moaning................... as the 'whatever it is' is going I'm sure.

So what's been happening here this week while I've been drinking loads of water, popping paracetamol and lazing around reading........................................

On the local  facebook page I read that work has started clearing the site in Stowmarket where they are going to build a new Aldi. I got quite used to Aldi during the year in Ipswich so it will be handy having one in Stow. It's quite ironic really that there actually was an Aldi in Stowmarket years and years ago when nobody really knew what they were. Everyone at that time was so used to shopping at Asda - which is right in the town centre, that the Aldi didn't survive.

It was good to see live  snooker on TV this week, not because I love snooker but because there are so many old repeated programmes on at the moment  it made a change to see something new and live. They've found a way to play safely - no audience and lots of testing and cleaning but it worked OK. Plus news that cricket will be on free TV for the first for over 20 years, wish Col was still around he would have been so pleased.
Sad to see the final programme in Grayson Perry's Art Club series. I really enjoyed seeing him and his wife Phillipa working at home. 
Springwatch programmes have been on for a couple of weeks and they've been interesting, good to see what's happening in the countryside in other parts of the country when all we have here are arable fields.  Although I got quite excited one day this week when I heard a Cuckoo - first time this year and just on the one day and nearly at the end of its visiting time too and I also spotted Swifts, plenty of House Martins around but that was my first sight of Swifts this year - still not seen Swallows.

My experiment of sowing runner beans quite late has begun. I soaked some and then put in trays in the shade on the floor of the greenhouse on 1st June to get them going (must make a note of how long they take to grow and when I plant them out) and plan to do the same again on the 1st July. I hope the first lot will start to produce beans about 4 - 6 weeks after the climbing French beans and the second sowing will carry on producing to the end of October..........that's the theory.
One of my big cucumber plants has keeled over and almost died this week - not the sacrificial cucumber, that's still hanging on, but one of the three in big pots, it's clinging onto life but not growing, not sure why.
A disappointing email from Thompson and Morgan - "sorry we can't supply your melon plant after all" - what a shame - it was going to be a fun extra to try, but they'll refund me and if I remember I'll try again next year.
Two weeks ago I promised to keep a running total of food from the garden, back then it looked like this

•  6 small lettuces (very small - as in about 8 leaves each!)
• 2 cucumbers
• a few asparagus spears
• lots of rhubarb

Now it's

• 9 small lettuces (I now have a gap because the next sowing took ages to get going)
• 3 Cucumbers - and 2 more given away to the neighbours
• a few asparagus spears
• lots of rhubarb
• 4 strawberries. The lack of rain (9 or 10 weeks without?) and not being able to water them means the plants in my main strawberry bed have all died so all I have is 6 new plants in 2 big pots on the patio which are close enough to water.  They were scrumptious.
  

Hope my BiL can supply some for me from his garden so I can make some jam.............. Commercial growers have new plants every year and you can see why as new plants always produce lovely big strawberries, whereas fruit from older plants tends to be smaller and more "seedy".

 Thursday night, one night away from the June full moon - The Rose Moon - and I watched it rise from the living room, too cold and windy to venture outside

This week I'm grateful for
A warm house when the weather turned cold
Lots of hobbies
The first rain for 2 months on Friday

Have a good weekend - the weather forecast is horrible - a stay at home weekend - like all the others in the last 12 weeks!

Back Monday
Sue

A Box of Treasure

Scouring ebay for bundles of games and crafting things for grandchildren I happened upon a huge job lot of mixed Craft kits mainly for grown ups but including some that I could keep for the grandchildren. I was intrigued, it was the sort of thing I used to find at boot sales years ago - boxes of mixed treasures of card making stuff which I would spend happy hours sorting through and organising.

I dithered - after all I cleared out lots of crafting stuff last year, things I didn't want to do again, but the auction was nearly ended, the box had 40 different things, just over 50p each, several items were cross stitch kits and having settled into this new stay-at-home normal I'll have time to try something different.

I waited. I bid. I won.

The box  arrived.................I'll show you what's inside next week and find out if it was worth buying.................or not!

Back Tomorrow
Sue