Skip to main content

I've been tidying up ...

Usually, if there's something to do other than cleaning & tidying I'll ditch the housework and have fun elsewhere.  But occasionally you have to accept the inevitable and drag the vacuum cleaner around.  My sitting room was looking like a bombsite, overflowing with crafty stuff, while the front bedroom wasn't much better.  That was being used as a dumping ground for the crafty overflow.  I blitzed both rooms, brushing carpets, wiping surfaces, binning what wasn't worth keeping and bagging up unwanted stuff for the charity shop.  I also rearranged my bookshelves.  Bringing together from various places all my craft books and - blimey! - I seem to have acquired rather a lot.  I didn't realise I'd amassed so many.  
Well, I shouldn't run out of inspiration any time soon, should I?  Not with all those reference books to hand.  I also shouldn't buy any more books for a while ...
I bundled lots of paper scraps into this pink storage tub, then played around with an idea I'd seen on Instagram, for making homemade washi tape (of a sort).   
That diverted me for a few minutes.  (I'm easily distracted.)
You can stencil and use ink pads and printing stamps to add interest to your tape.  I would've made more, but I needed to crack on with the cleaning.  
With a tidier house and a virtuous, even slightly smug glow, I settled down to my stitching.  This little fishy piece is nearly done.  The colours are more vivid than in the photo, which has kind of washed them out.  
This is another completed page for the Ann Wood 100 days stitchbook challenge, and below is the page I'm currently working on.  Day 67, would you believe!  I'm so looking forward to making up my fabric book and seeing all the pages displayed together.  
Anyway, there's not much more to tell you, so I'll keep this blog post short and (reasonably) sweet.  Having finished reading 'The Mad Women's Ball', set in France, I've returned to 15th century England and Philippa Gregory 'The Kingmaker's Daughter'.  It's about Anne Neville, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, who grows up to marry the man who'll inherit the throne and become Richard III.  Once I've read that I'll only have a dozen books on my once-towering To-Be-Read pile.  Slowly but surely I'm getting through them.  
Hope you're well and enjoying the Spring weather (assuming it's springtime for you too, that is.)  Bye for now.  






 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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!     
1 comment
Read more

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...
2 comments
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more