I've been RAKd

Barb (no blog) let me know a few days ago that she had sent me "a little something". Imagine my surprise when the postman called and "a little something" turned out to be this enormous something!

Not only did she send me this beautiful Karen Buell Autumn Sampler kit, but she also included a fabulous hand beaded fob. You need to take my word for it that this is just so much more sparkly and stunning in real life. Barb said it was meant for my scissors, but I'm planning on converting it into a necklace so everyone can see it.

Quite a few ladies from Stitch and Stash have had RAKs from Barb recently, and I am honoured to be one of them. Thankyou so much Barb!

March Challenge

Its "reveal day" for the March Challenge at the Stitch and Stash forum. This month the choices of design were from The Work Basket, and it seems to have been a popular choice as there are lots of finishes in the album this month. I chose this Quaker Tree design. It is stitched on 28ct "Bay Leaf" jobelan in Gloriana silk "Topiary", which is a fantastic colour like a slightly smoky rainbow, and I finished it as a glasses case.

And in honour of the start of British Summer time, here are some pictures of spring flowers in my garden, and Spike enjoying the sunshine, (and displaying the "bits he hasn't got anymore" to the world)

Christmas in March?

I've joined the Monthly Christmas Ornament SAL at the Stitch and Stash forum, totally missed out on Jan and Feb, but I'm hoping I should still have about a branchful by Christmas!
Here is my ornament for March. This is "Jingle, Sparkle, Joy", a complimentary design from Midsummer Night Designs
It is stitched on raw linen using Weeks Dye Works threads in Juniper, Garnet, Pecan, Chestnut and Onyx, and finished with a little jingle bell and bow, which came off one of last years Lindt chocolate reindeer.
I also finished a little something yesterday that I stitched for Gaynor, who won my blogoversary draw (I hadn't forgotten, I'm just slow!). No pictures of that until Gaynor receives it though.

Edited to add:
Apparently the link above no longer works. The chart can now be found on the Midsummer Night Designs blog here

Poor neglected little bloggie...

...I haven't posted anything for ages.

Things have been busy here, I've not done as much stitching as I'd like lately, and the things I have done I can't show at the moment.

I have been out in the garden a lot though, (David has dug me a lovely new vegetable patch, and I have great plans for it), and today we had one of our cliff path excursions:-

From the top, Port Quin, Port Quin again, ponies and pudding!!!

And the winner is...

I put the numbers 1 to 35 (34 answers on the original post, and one on the reminder post making 35) into a random number generator, which came up with the number 2. You'll have to take my word for it as I can't figure out how to copy the little widget over here. Sorry, but sometimes the 21st century is just something that happened to other people...

Anyway, the 2nd person to post a reply was Gaynor, so congratulations Gaynor. If you could email me with your postal address, and some idea of your favourite colours, likes and dislikes etc. I'll make a start on your giftie.

The other winner is me! Yay me! Karan very kindly gave me this award :-

The award details are: "These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these kind writers. When you pass the award along please include these guidelines. I am to choose eight friends to share this with."

Now I find this choosing business very hard. I hope I don't offend anyone by missing them out because if I comment on your blog then I think you deserve this, equally I hope no-one minds getting this more than once, but trying to sift my list by who has already won this award would make choosing even harder, so my eight, in no particular order as Philip Schofield is fond of saying, are:-

Karan - right back atcha ;D, Julie, Mylene, Helen, Sharon, Elisa, Sally & Dani