A belated update ...

Been a while since I updated this blog - so lets see what has been happening ....
On the gardening front I have had success with the tomatoes this year again but had to chuck the cucumbers out   :(    ...  they were the spikey variety and I was waiting for the spikes to slowly disappear before harvesting them - started to grow really big - some at least 18" long, but going yellow .... asked advice from my brother John who said they were no good now and to chuck them out ... next year I will know better ...
Got quite a few apples on the little tree this year but think some have been attacked by wasps - however they are still delicious  :)
The garden itself is more like a jungle - flowers growing lovely and dense but gave up on the lawn as we were getting fed up with cats using it - the woman two doors down feeds all the strays and of course leave her garden alone and use ours !! They don't seem to like our overgrown lawn so it is staying like this until we find something to scare the cats away .... failing that I am going to phone the health inspector at the local council as now the strays have kittens with them .... far too many roaming the streets here and we have seen up to 12 in her back garden !
Schoolholidays are under way and Joseph is  now into the fourth week and getting bored as they do !
He went fishing on Sunday with his dad and grandad and with their help he managed to catch a lovely plaice !! Of course he is still not big enough to handle a proper rod so they held it with him - but he was so excited and when I cooked it he ate it all up !
Hope to take him to Eden Camp in Yorkshire soon as he loves anything to do with soldiers and armies  :) ...
http://www.edencamp.co.uk/

I am still busy making jewellery of course and now have plenty for either sale or for friends and family birthdays etc ... I buy most of my gemstones from Jewellery Maker (TV shopping channel) and every week they have a random draw - anyone who wants to can send in a picture of their design and all entries get a number, and on Wednesdays they draw two out of the hat - first prize is £100 to spend and runner up gets £50 to spend on gems - I was lucky this week and won the runner up .... so bought some lovely gems at the weekend and they will arrive tomorrow  :)
Jewellery for sale is here:   http://www.folksy.com/shops/LadybugJewellery

Also been busy stitching .... my friend has a birthday in September and I have made her some nice jewellery - so also made her a cross stitched jewellery box to put it in ....  this chart is by Loopyloudesigns from Lynda Bodkin .... chart can be found here :
http://www.loopyloudesigns.co.uk/beginners.shtml

I have also adapted part of Lynda's design to make some smaller jewellery boxes for family and non stitchy friends - here is the first one ;

This little box is only 3" square ....   and all will be used to put some jewellery in

Well that is about it from me for now - hope everyone reading this is well and happy ....

Stitching update

I have a friend's birthday coming up in September and have been making her some nice jewellery .... so decided to also stitch and make her a nice box to put it in ... got this chart from loopyloudesigns ... it is stitched on 28 count evenweave and I have used Carons waterlilies silks in  'Antique Rose'  which is not quite the colour I thought it would be  :(
A bit too dark and with greys in .... never mind it will be OK when fin ished, but it does mean I will now have to go out and buy some different cotton fabric to make the actual box up in as the pieces I had are not going to go well with this shadde of thread ..... but here it is so far ....

I have also been keeping an eye on my little garden .... I had three bags of potatoes growing nicely, but came downstairs one morning to find that big fat black slugs had stripped the leaves off all of them and were still munching away !!  Took care of them with the secateurs !!  But thought that with no leaves left the potatoes would be no good and stop growing.... luckily it was almost time to dig them up anyway, so tipped out one bag to see if I had any and found loads !!  same with other bags ...

Lovely beads

I had some of the moonstone beads left over from DD's bracelet, and also some of the abalone - so decided to use them all up ....  made a necklace for myself, plus an abalone bracelet , bracelet for DD and three pairs of ear-rings - all from two strands of beads !!  Don't think I will sell any of these - perhaps keep them for myself as they are really lovely gems ....

Lucky few days !!

Well the past few days have been very lucky for me ... not only did I win a stitching freebie from Cross Stitch Collection yesterday, but today - Saturday - I won another from same magazine !!!! First one was a collection of Zweigart fat quarters and two Zweigart books .... gave some to my sister ..... and today I received a large heavy parcel and on opening found two more Zweigart Hardanger books and lots of fabric !! Lovely white  pure linen band measuring 8" x 46"  and a huge piece of Laguna in a light milky coffee colour measuring 54" x 58"  ..... very handy for allsorts ....

Have also finished off the sampler for my best friends birthday ( in September)  and will pop a pic in later as I am going to take out one line of the verse and more it over slightly ... well here is a  'before'  pic before I move thesecond line !

and now the corrected version !

 

Have also made some more jewellery and put some on my  'folksy'  shop for sale:
 http://folksy.com/shops/LadybugJewellery  -

but have also made a nice bracelet and ear-rings for my daughter using some beautiful abalone beads and some moonstones ....

Start of sampler

My best friend is 60 this September and I wanted to stitch something special for her .... she is not a stitcher, but does appreciate the work ...  so I decided to stitch a sampler for her using words which she once put in a birthday card to me :


We all make friendships in this life
Though many fade with time ......
But once in a while its special
Like our friendship
Yours and mine ........


I love that - so will be stitching those words ... at the moment I have stitched the hardanger top of the sampler .... this design has been taken from one of Emie Bishop's lovely designs ...
Hope you all like it .....