A Stitch in time.....

So, it has been very quiet from me on here since our holiday - just what have i been up to?

Well, work has been keeping me busy as usual, but i have also been keeping myself busy during the evening and weekends......

Back when i was at secondary school, we used to have to do various arts and crafts once a week. We would have to spend six weeks at a time on each of them before moving onto the next one, the crafts involved being Woodwork, Metalwork, Cookery, Pottery and Needlework.

I hated pottery - i was hopeless at it and didn't like getting covered in wet clay! I liked metalwork to a degree, woodwork i enjoyed a lot, but wasn't really very good at it, and cookery was a waste of time as there was rarely a teacher to take the class. In fact, eventually my mum wrote to the school and asked them to take me out of the cookery classes. I think the school thought they were getting revenge of some kind by putting me instead back into the needlework lessons. Little did they know, this was actually my favourite of the subjects, and the one i was best at!!

When i was growing up, mum was always sewing or knitting something, so i had become accustomed to some of the things anyway, and has always been very interested in her sewing machine, so much so that i had long been making silly little things on it, like drawstring money bags for people to keep their carparking change in in their cars.

I had made a cushion during my previous six week stint in needlework, but this time around, we were taught cross stitch. I took to this like a duck to water, and made a thing with my CB radio callsign on it (Pink Floyd), some other CB radio text and motifs and a border all the way around it. I even took it home to complete it. At the end of the six weeks, the teacher took what she considered to be the best to show the headmaster - mine was one of them - she was particularly impressed with how neatly i had finished the back of it off!

Apart from sewing buttons on, minor repairs and alterations, i haven't done any needlework since i left school, but the idea has often been at the back of my mind. When Sally took up crocheting on holiday, it made me think again about having another go, and so i have......

I have so far done four little projects, have a few more to start and have bought my first big project piece, which will no doubt take me an age to do, but should be worth the effort.

Here's what i have done so far:-

The fourth one, you will have to wait a few days to see - for reasons that will become clear......