How lucky am I ???

I may be in my PJ's, but who on earth cares?  Not me.   How many people can say they were dancing with their 93 year old father to let in the New Year?  I love you dad.

I must plan to achieve

Now is the time to start planning as to what I am going to make for gifts for next year.  Clare had given me inspiration with her cross stitching and I loved doing it, so it makes sense to plan what to do next.  The idea of just having one colour thread works really well for me so this is where I start.  I also want to create something for over my fireplace and I have the idea of three framed cross-stitch words, but it is surprising how difficult it is to think of 3 words that mean a lot to Richard and me without being too obvious.  Below are a couple I did as gifts this Christmas.



One version finished



Another version unfinished

What I need to do next time is make sure I stitch them the right size so I can get a frame to fit.  I couldn't get one for either of these and it makes the gifts rather expensive to have them made!!!!  Clare is the planner and I usually "borrow" her patterns, but this time I think I need to do it myself.

I am also going to do a quilting project with my friend in America and I am rather nervous about that because I'm not very proficient, but I am looking forward to the challenge.

We are going back to my parents for a couple of weeks now so I won't be able to access our computer again for a while.  I do have my patterns and graph paper though so I won't be idle.

Take care all of you, talk again soon.

Every picture tells a story

Looks like my dad telling one of his many funny stories

As the heading says, I am posting just one "Christmas" picture because this sums up our Christmas.  It is always a worry as to how things will turn out, but the decision to take my mum and dad to Clare and Kenny's for 6 days was certainly the right one.  You wouldn't believe, looking at this photo, that they are 93 and 91 would you?  The day we went for a walk was Boxing Day and although not raining, it was very, very windy, but my dad absolutely loved it.  They don't get out much any more and are rather worried about walking when on their own because if one goes down, they both go down, so to have the security of their granddaughter's arms was good.  When they go out now, it's my sister who usually takes them in the car either to the sea or to the New Forest, so I'm not saying they don't go out at all, far from it, just the walking part and that was something they loved to do.

We had a really wonderful time when we were in Cornwall with lots of good food and entertainment and we even went to see the Christmas lights at Mousehole on Boxing Day evening.  Beautiful and very festive.  Again, my dad loved it and my mum stayed in that time.

We are now with Vicki and family and thoroughly enjoying catching up with the children.  We went for a New Year's day walk yesterday and it poured with rain and we got drenched, but still managed to have a picnic and stop at a pub on the way back.  There were about 18 of us so a lot of fun and as you can imagine, the children were very excited, all on their bikes and absolutely filthy by the end of it.  So good to see children out in the open air in all weathers, rather than inside watching a TV.  A nice warm bath for them when we got back and the end of a lovely day.

We will be going back to my mum and dad's soon and try and catch up with other family and friends.  We are here in the UK until the end of January so we have a little time yet.

I wish all of you a very Happy and healthy New Year and I look forward to chatting to you all again soon.