Sunday 5 February 2012

And The Winner of And They Sinned Chart is


Kaye of Kitten Stitching. Congratulations I hope that you enjoy stitching ATS as much as I did. I will put some threads in as a start to kitting her up. Please can you email me your address.

I want to warmly welcome the flurry of new followers I have had, some of you don't appear to have blogs but if you do and I haven't become a follower please let me know as I wish to follow and share your posts.

Poppy - Can you see her ball that she is guarding ?

It has been a funny week, I don't seem to have achieved much at all, I have put this down to some strong antibiotics I have been taking and they have been knocking me out.

My nephew Alessandro who has lived with us for the last eighteen months moved into his own home this weekend. It will be strange not having him around although I won't miss doing his washing and ironing !! Young men between shirts for work, going to the gym, playing football (American !!) and socialising produce tons of laundry.

Our son Chris, who has his own home (a farm) runs his business from offices at Trewoon so we see him every working day. Later in the year his business will be moving to purpose built offices at his farm which are currently under construction. We will really be my ourselves then.

Chris gets married in April and we are having the reception in a marquee at the farm. I am very worried as the building work will not be complete in time. We have been held up by protected bats in the old farm buildings and what started as a refurbishment of existing buildings has ended up as a rebuild. (If your going to to something you might as well do it properly).

We have made the decision to concentrate the work force on finishing the outside work and after the wedding we will complete the interiors, it will still be a very close thing.

Hundreds of yards of trenches have been dug criss crossing along the farm and house driveways, courtyards and fields for various services and drainage and it is a mud bath at the moment. Maybe I should look around for some wellies to go with my wedding outfit ! I could always use my craft skills to customise some. LOL.




Poppy, Blue and my darling Millie in 2007 (camera phone)


I have been asked how I stitch so quickly. I don't think that I sew a stitch any quicker than anyone else. I use q-snaps held in my Lowery stand and use both hands to pass my needle back and forth. I rarely watch TV and spend most evenings from about 6 to 11 or twelve sewing listening to a play on the radio or an audiobook. I occasionally get a few hours sewing time in the afternoons. It all adds up throughout the week.

When the better weather comes Ray and I will resume playing golf and that will cut down my sewing time and I will spend more time in my garden.

I have noticed that since Ray has retired I have spent less time in my sewing room and no quilting has been done at all. I used to do this when he was in the office. Now he is at home it is a shame to be in different rooms.



Hey Ho and all my men

For those who have asked the Hey Ho is Ray's boat. Here is a photograph of me with all my men, Chris, Blue and Ray on the pontoon at Fowey. Daphne du Maurier had a holiday home at Fowey and it is one of our favourite places to go on the Hey Ho. It is about a two hour boat trip along the coast, we moor up the Hey Ho on a pontoon and take our small boat further up the river exploring as we go, stopping for lunch along the way.

I not sure where Poppy is I think that she was with Kate (my future DIL) who took the photo.

Poppy and Millie


The dogs are quite at home on the boat and enjoy watching the world go by. It always surprises us how many people with boats have their dogs with them.

Blue (asleep, the dogs always fall asleep when we cruise along in calm weather )and Nicola

When we go out to sea they wear their life jackets which are special doggie ones. I am not sure how well they would support them but it would give us something to grab hold of if they went overboard. When the dogs were small we had special netting put around the sides of the boat in case they slipped through the rails.

Blue


Everyone who comes aboard knows that if we have to abandon ship the dogs must be put into the life raft first !!

I am off to moisturise my hands(which are suffering in this cold weather) before I hopefully get some stitching in this afternoon.

Warm Wishes from Stitching By A Cornish Sea Shore Nicola xxx