Return of the Wanderer

Well here I am, finally, blogging again after an enforced break due to my laptop being sick.  Turned out it had a faulty hard-drive which has now been sorted out and I got it back yesterday all set and raring to go.  Just as well I had backed everything up onto a couple of memory sticks or I would have lost everything ....


I suppose my BIG news is I am working!  Well, at the moment still on trial but I am hoping that at the end of the month that status will change to permanent.  I have gone back to teaching English (ESOL) and I am with a small language school in the centre of Glasgow.  Its a fairly new school (they started up about a year ago).  The main thing is I am really enjoying it and I had really forgotten just how much I love teaching.

Winter Wonderland - LHN

Since starting back at work my stitching has very much taken a backseat.  I do the evening classes and the occasional private student also in the evenings so I am rarely home before 7.30 in the evenings.  By the time I've fed Minnie, and me, I am too tired to do much more than vegetate on the sofa for an hour or so before heading off to bed.  However, with the laptop being in the shop for the whole weekend and most of this week coupled with a 5 day weekend thanks to the Diamond Jubilee, I finally found some time to do some stitching and picked up one of my Crazies - Winter Wonderland by LHN.  

Strawberry Language of Flowers Sampler - Sue Hawkins

Prior to starting work I had managed to do a fair bit of stitching and here is one of my progress pics of a Crazy.  I really love working on this one and can't wait to make more progress on it.  I love the four sided stitch which the boxes are created from - so easy to do and so effective!  


I also did a lot of work on Flying High by Diane Graebner and The Book Store by CCN but I need to scan those in so will post of progress shots next time.

Dawn of Spring by Mouse - top part

One thing I have been working on is Dawn of Spring which is the latest SAL on Friendly Stitchers and has been designed by my lovely and very talented friend Mouse.  It took me three attempts to decide on fabric and two attempts to get the thread colours right but I am happy with what I decided on and all I have to do now is catch up with everyone else.  I got a bit held up at the start as I injured my thumb in a silly accident in the kitchen and for the best part of a week I couldn't even hold a pen never mind a needle so there was no stitching for me.  It's not one of my Crazies so I work on it when I can, and it is such a lovely stitch with a few specialty stitches thrown in here and there to spice things up.  There's nothing like too many specialty stitches to put you off a design is there?



Oh - and I made another biscornu using Mouse's Harrogate design again.  This one was for my friend Yvonne for her birthday in February.  She loves it and has got it hanging up in her kitchen apparently where it has been much admired!  Yvonne and I met on a course to tutor in Adult Literacy about 12 or 13 years ago and have been friends ever since.






So there you go - I HAVE been stitching - despite what some people might think!

A couple of years ago I set up a round robin for members of my Friendly Stitchers group to stitch the Weather Poems series by Sue Cook which was in Cross Stitcher magazine in 1997 (yes I still have all the magazines!)  Not all of the girls carried on with it but one of the ones that did (Penny) sent me a little gift when she sent some of the magazines back to me.  Not only did she capture my love of plants but of cats too.  Thank you Penny - it was a completely unexpected gift and I absolutely love the charts and threads!

The coleus is one of the two remaining ones that I planted from seed last year

Ivy in an old teapot

I have been spending lots of time at the gardens and my allotment is full of veggies and potential veggies (ie seeds lol).  Currently in the ground are potatoes, leeks, carrots, parsnips and beetroot together with some oregano.  In the greenhouse I have got tomato plants, plum tomatoes, sweet peppers and aubergines and I also 


have 3 tomato plants here at home on the kitchen windowsill.  I've also got lots of flowers growing too and have brought home Livingston daisies and sweetpeas to go into the baskets and tubs and I've already planted up one of the baskets with pretty little violas.  I've also got petunias and impatiens (bizzie lizzies) in seed trays here at home.  I've got some lovely ivy leaf geraniums to go into planters too so hopefully there will be a blaze of colour in our little backyard beside the river when we get into summer proper ... if we get one of course!  I'll post up photos of those once they are planted up but for now here are some shots of a few of my plants and a few other things in and around Glasgow for your delictation!

Baby heron in the duck pond at Queens Park

One of the frogs in the ponds in the walled garden next to our  allotments in Kings Park

Glasgow Green - Cleopatra's Needle in the distance

Arched entrance to Glasgow Green

Thanks as always for dropping by to read and leave a comment (thanks to those of you who always do!)  I promise I will be back soon with more news.  


Hugs,


Ally xx