E is For Embroidery (Including Tapestry and Cross Stitch)

 I remember the first ever embroidery I attempted - a VERY long time ago. Maybe I would have been about 8. Someone gave me some handkerchiefs that had a printed design on them with embroidery threads and hoop for Christmas. I had no idea what I was doing and the handkerchief ended up a grubby, muddle of stitching. But at primary school at much the same time we crossed stitched on Binca and then lined and folded and added press studs to make something like a large purse or make-up bag or pencil case. I kept it for ages.

I had no interest in any sort of stitching after that and we didn't do much needlework at Grammar School. All I can remember doing there was stitching ties in House colours onto our cookery aprons and making a cotton summer dress. My Mum didn't do much sewing either so I didn't learn "at mothers knee"!

Next attempt was a small long stitch embroidery on a printed canvas that came as a kit with a frame. I was given it to do when recovering from a major operation in about 1984. Then I don't remember doing any more until about  1992 when I bought a set of 3 small 18 count cross stitch kits on offer from a magazine. They came with small round frames and were vases of flowers. Goodness knows why I picked something so difficult for my first attempt at counted cross stitch. The little pictures have long gone.

After that I made several wool tapestries and we had a friend in the Smallholders Society who did picture framing in return for just the material costs and fruit from smallholding that he could use for Jam making.

I haven't kept everything and all that are left are these.................

Counted cross stitch fashions with embroidery threads (Pete - the picture framer didn't cut his own mounts and he said the man at the place he got them from almost had heart failure trying to do 4 ovals in one mount and keep them level)

Wool Long Stitch of a steam train crossing the Ribblehead Viaduct. This was Colin's favourite.

Collies and sheep - half cross stitch wool tapestry

Below is a wool long stitch that was  rescued  from a charity shop, and the colours are probably all wrong as there were lots of skeins of wool and numbers marked on a instruction sheet but  which colour went with which number wasn't always clear.

I think this was the most difficult to do. I had to dye the Aida first and it's 16 count cross stitch so quite fiddly to do with the different shades.

Most recently all I've stitched are small cross stitch pieces for cards and one or two that are mounted in things (coasters, key rings, trinket pots, book marks) for gifts. 

And the little sampler I did during lock down.

If ever I had a fancy to do something new (but I probably won't!)it might be this, which I saw online, although I would miss out the yellow sun, which spoils it in my opinion.

Edited in to say - if you can't see the picture the link is HERE

Back Monday

Sue

D is For Daughters

 It has to be D for Daughters as the youngest one has her birthday today. To remember how old she is I have to think of what year she was born..... 1987 and count forward..........so she must be 35. - My baby!!

After being made redundant  in the summer from her job as Optical Assistant at the Opticians in the town where she lives - after 17 years working there- she has now got a job with a 6 month contract also in the town as a project organiser for something happening at the proposed Sizewell C Power Station. Hopefully if it goes well it may go on for longer. She's had various health issues but is a brilliant Mum to eldest Granddaughter F. She's also moving house, downsizing from 3 to 2 bedrooms - to try and stretch her money. 

One of my favourite photos from 2016, our daughters with the next generation, taken at Son's wedding.

Oldest Daughter is getting on well with her new job as a PA to the boss of a Landscaping and Garden business although youngest Grandson didn't settle with the childminder that his big brother had been with for years, so OD had to find another. 

I'm so lucky to have two daughters (and a son in the middle!).

Thank to everyone for comments on B for Books and C for Colin. I enjoyed Margaret's comment that bargain books are easier to buy than to part with - very true.

Sarah in Sussex asked if squirrels ever ate the apples at the smallholding. Not that I noticed, they took all the walnuts and hazel nuts most years but not apples.

Sue H said would H be for Hardbacks and P for Paperbacks?  I've got an idea for H but if I'm desperate then P for paperbacks might be useful.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

C is for Colin

 I met Col because of Scouting.

In 1972 when I was 17 and my then boyfriend P (who went onto be first husband) got persuaded to help with the Cub Scouts after being a Scout in the Group. A new Travel Agent had opened in Stowmarket and, as a publicity stunt, they paid for a train to take the district Cub Scouts and Brownies for a trip to London.  We both went along on the trip to help with the Cubs and somehow I carried on helping with the Cub Pack at their weekly meetings.

I'm not sure when I got to know Col, I think it would have been a few years later around 1975 when he started helping with the Scouts and P and I took some Cubs along to the Scout Camp for a day visit. By then I was married. Over the next few years I realised what a lovely person Col was as we met up at various Scouting events and when first husband went off in 1978 to live with a fellow bell-ringer who'd just split with her husband  it didn't take long for me and Colin to get together and married a year later.

We spent the next 38 years having our 3 children and working together on all the various house renovations and the happiest 23 of those on the smallholding. We both loved being self sufficient and doing things for ourselves.

He never moaned about being ill after the diagnosis of the Non Hodgkin Lymphoma, we carried on as usual as much as we could.

He is missed by me and our children every single day.

Our wedding day........................So young! (and thin and I still had black hair!) We had our reception in the Scout Hall and honeymooned in a tent borrowed from the Scout Group. We carried on running the Cub Pack until moving away to the smallholding in 1992.

Back Tomorrow

Sue