Easter Weekend

The weather obliged for Easter Sunday, we had an Easter egg hunt in the garden for the kids and the girls all came round at different times.  Jenny bought the boys round in the morning, Joanne came with Bonnie and Jacob in the afternoon.  We were able to sit outside as the weather was so nice.    

I cooked a roast dinner which we had at tea time when Stevie and Darren came, they ate theirs in the conservatory, me and Mark ate in the house.  What a palaver all this social distancing is!  But we managed and it was all ok.

As it's Bank Holiday Joanne has the day off work so no Bonnie and nanny day today, Mark is at work and I've done all my chores for today so now I'm going to make the most of the quiet time to stitch, I haven't stitched in a couple of weeks so it'll be a nice change from knitting.

Although it's sunny again today it's much colder than yesterday and very windy, good for drying the washing but not for sitting outside stitching, so i'm plonking myself on the sofa and might not move for the rest of the afternoon :-)

I leave you today with a couple of photos from the garden.

Mark planted these pale yellow tulips in the window box, they are lovely but were only suppose to be eight inches tall, they turned out to be at least twelve inches tall instead!

They make for a pretty view out the kitchen window though :-)

I hope you enjoy the rest of your week, whatever you are doing

-X-

Easter Parade Finished

I did get my Blackbird Designs Easter Parade stitched piece back from the framers in time for Easter.   I have a fantastic local stitching and framing shop locally, Sharon and Mark are really lovely, they have had to close the shop during this pandemic but drove round to bring my framed piece back to me.  How good is that.

Once again Mark did a great job with the framing, I just told him I didn't want glass and wanted a shadow box and left the color choice up to him, I knew his choices would be good.

I had planned an Easter egg hunt for the grand-kids today, but of course, that could not happen, instead they have each got an Easter goody bag.  Such a difference to our Easter last year

I'm sure they didn't mind too much though, the Easter Bunny still left chocolate at Nanny's.

The kids came round to collect their Easter bags, at a safe distance of course.

Bonnie and Jacob came this morning

Arty and Oliver came this afternoon

They have all made Easter Bonnets, although Bonnie forgot to bring hers to show me and Arty won't stand still long enough for me to get a photo

I hope you all managed to have a good day too.

See you soon
Stay safe
-X-

Happy Easter, Happy Birthday

 We just couldn't have had more perfect weather for this Bank Holiday weekend, It's been absolutely glorious.  

Easter Sunday also happened to be my youngest daughters birthday this year too, she turned 25 today.  In 1994 the weather was nowhere near as lovely, either for Easter,(which was earlier in the month that year), or the day she was born, in fact i'm sure we had some snow just before she was born.

We decided to make the most of the weather and have afternoon tea outside, I made a Simnal cake yesterday, first time I've made this particular cake, it looks the part, can't comment on the taste because I haven't tried it yet, but i'm sure it's fine, what's not to like, it has two layers of marzipan, lol

 The kids had fun hunting for their eggs and playing in the sunshine

  

I've been enjoying sitting in my little blue house while the weather is nice, although it does get rather hot in there late afternoon.

Someone else has also been enjoying time in there, and doesn't seem mind the heat, lol

We still have lots of colour in the garden, I will be sorry when the Tulips are finished.

We have one more day of relaxation tomorrow, I don't plan on going anywhere, Mark is still working on Stevie's bathroom so I'm just going to enjoy some quiet time at home.   

I hope you all had a lovely Easter too.

Until next time

-X-

New Start & Updates

So what's been keeping me quiet? My laptop, that's what! it was my own fault, i installed a new programme not realising that i should have uninstalled the version i didn't want first, and it caused a few problems but luckily it's been righted by the guy who sorts out our laptops for work and everything is fine now. I'll know to ask before i do anything again!

We had a very pleasant Easter weekend, my family came round for lunch on Sunday, what started out as being 5 of us ended up being 10 of us! It was nice to have everyone together but i can now understand why the air is blue in restaurant kitchens! We had the full turkey dinner with all the trimmings and everyone presented me with a clean plate :-) and no one has got in touch to say they suffered any adverse affects, lol, Dessert was home made Key Lime Pie, (the first time I've tried this and i was surprised at how easy it was!) it went down particularly well so i will defiantly attempt again, my eldest daughter contributed with a lovely Easter cake made with whole cadbury caramel bars which was really yummy, even the weather was unusually kind to us seeing as it was Bank Holiday. I really should have gone for a nice long walk on Monday to try and burn off a few of those calories but my sofa and stitching was calling me and i couldn't ignore them! This is my progress on Alla Turca, the fabric looks lighter on this photo, it's actually more of cream colour.

I've still got part 4 to stitch to be caught up, but think i should manage that this week. I'd been trying so hard not to be wasteful with the NN thread i'm using because my LNS only had 2 skiens, she didn't think there would be a problem getting more and i thought i wouldn't need much more anyway, i should have known my inability to count would have tripped me up, I've had to un-stitch one bit, well, actually rip it out while muttering under my breath how stupid i am would be more accurate. knowing i will need some more thread i go in search the next day only to find that NN is now Threadworx and the name & number have changed, fortunately they are still dying the same as NN so shouldn't be a problem, except the particular one I'm using is not to be found anywhere in the country! i have tried several place in the US too with no luck, one place told me that Threadworxs was having trouble obtaining the thread from Anchor that that is used as the base for this particular colour and it was not expected for another 2-3 weeks. Last week my LNS said that their supplier is due a shipment in 2 weeks and she will let me know as soon as she gets it in. Fingers crossed that i won't have to start all over again with something else, i prefer not to think about that at the moment so we'll say no more for now!

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I made a new start with the Grand Abecedaire SAL on Gazette94 blog, this is how far along i am this week. I am using Anchor threads 1013 & 1014 with 28 count evenweave (again) i seem to get on better with evenweave than linen, it's kinder on my eyes too, lol.

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My evenings have been turned upside down a bit at the moment, my husband, Mark (bless him) who usually works anywhere in the country and who i am used to seeing from Friday night to Sunday night is working closer to home for about the next 2 months! (that's 8 weeks, or 60 days!!!), you get the idea, he is here EVERY evening and i have had to resort to wearing my earplugs every night because of his snoring!, if anyone has found a good remedy to stop snoring please, please, please share it with me i would be eternally grateful!

Tonight I'm having a night out with some girlfriends so off now to get ready, hope your weekend is great whatever you are up to, thank you for taking the time to visit me and leave a comment, i love to read them :-)...till next time, Tara-a-bit xx

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