Charity buys and blackberries

It's been a beautifully sunny day, and I've been a busy bunny, though managed a stroll into town and back, stopping by several blackberry bushes on the way to collect another tub of shiny sweet berries.

I swear the freezer's three quarters full of fruit. Earlier in the year I was freezing those homegrown strawberries that escaped being devoured within minutes of picking. After that, it was raspberries from the allotment, and now blackberries. They'll all get added to porridge or overnight oats during the autumn and winter months.

Naturally, being in town meant a quick rummage around the local charity shop, and I managed to get a very nice haul of goodies at a bargain price for £6.00 for the entire lot. A good as new Christy dusty pink handtowel. A stencil to add to my small stash of 'em.

A couple of board books that'll be squirreled away to use as the basis for art journals in the near future. Plus, some very shiny reels of what's labelled as 'Lurex fibre'.

No idea what I'd use them for, but who could resist such metallic prettiness? Finally, some hearts and alphabet dies.

One of the packs is the Sissix brand, and I've got a Sissix machine gathering dust somewhere which I'll dig out. Hopefully the A to Z letters will be compatible with that machine too. If not, I'm sure they'll be useful for creating patterns with the Gelli plate. I'd be tempted to go and find the Sissix machine now and have a play with my new dies, but I'm thoroughly engrossed in the Robert Galbraith thriller 'Career of Evil', which is creepy and downright sinister but an absolute page-turner.

Hope your Monday's been a good start to the week too.

Comments

Taking a blog break ...

Hello! And goodbye, at least for now. The blog's on hold for a little while as I'm easing myself into 2026 gradually. I'm still stitching and reading and enjoying life with Badger the cat. Even though he treats my sofa like a giant scratching post!

Badger!

Here's Badger, looking like the little cutie-pie he is. He's settled in so well, is absurdly affectionate and eats anything and everything I put in his food bowl. The only fault I can find is that he likes to sharpen his claws on the side of my sofa. This is despite having two scratching posts, one of which is part of a cat tower that's taller than I am! I may have to try trimming his claws, but I don't know how Badger will react to that. Anyway, expect to see more photos of him, so sorry in advance for any of you who aren't feline fans. Apart from gazing in admiration at the cat I've continued to experiment with embroidery. I really can't decide whether this mainly pink piece of stitching is something I like or just a dog's dinner of a mess. This is another embroidery I've been stitching. Frankly, at the moment it looks like it should be lobbed straight into the bin. I'd painted with a mix of watercolour pa...

Final post for 2025 (I think. I mean, unless anything amazingly wonderful happens that I can't keep to myself any longer ...)

The days are marching by at record speed, and I've finally - possibly - bought all the presents I need to buy and written all the Christmas cards I need to send. I decided not to put up a full-sized tree this year as I'm convinced Badger the cat would simply view it as a climbing frame, and I'd find it toppled on a daily basis. Instead, there's a small green tree, and a simple white twiggy one that has lots of vintage baubles dangling from it. To be honest, I prefer the twiggy one, so the green tree might be permanently retired from now on. I've not gone crazy with the decorations, but there are various strings of fairy lights that look so pretty when they're lit. I have - between internet shopping and baking mince pies - made a little fishy pin cushion, decorated with seed stitches, French knots, chain stitch and stem stitch. I'm on the look-out for grey tweedy material to make another fish as I think that'd look better than plain ...

rubykittyruby

Search This Blog