Ali's Stitching.

Our eldest daughter Ali has almost completed a beautiful piece of cross stitch featuring a Georgian ballroom scene. She started stitching it early last year, she has only had time to stitch during the holidays as she is at University reading English Literature. I took a photo last Saturday when we went for a visit. We are so proud of her and all she is achieving with her studies (and stitching!) and we are looking forward to seeing her beautiful picture finished and framed.
Meanwhile at school Emily made a very tasty dairy free pizza, which she topped with tomato, chorizo, pineapple and olives. This week I have mostly been working on a baby blanket for another colleague who's expecting a baby in about six weeks time. It will be another star blanket in a different colours. Last week Little Cotton Rabbits posted about a little girl, Ellie, who is "bravely fighting a rare and aggressive cancerous brain tumour. She's already had two operations and radiation therapy earlier this year and is currently undergoing chemotherapy". Ellie's mum, Colleen, has had a lovely idea to help raise Ellie's spirits whilst she's in hospital. Something that you and I can help with. Please would you send a card or a picture to Ellie if you have time. Details of the campaign are here and there's a journal about her treatment here. So, I stitched a Mickey Mouse picture for Ellie and wrote a short letter with a photo so she could see who had sent it to her.
I have done a little more work on my poppy picture and this time the colours look much better in my photo.

Finally I will leave you with another picture of Ali's beautiful stitching. Jane x

A Busy Week

It has been a busy week and I hadn't realised that my previous post was last Tuesday. The first of my friends at school, who is expecting her baby this week, finished last Friday. So, we had a get together at lunchtime for a gift giving. I slipped in the star blanket I had made earlier in the year. It was a hit and well recieved which was a huge relief. Emily lost a tooth and had a visit from the Tooth Fairy. Each time the Tooth Fairy visits, Em always leaves her a little letter and this time was no exception. The Tooth Fairy duly collected the tooth and left a £1 together with a reply to Em's note. Now, all the fairies that have visited so far have had pets. In the last few years we've had: Sarah & her cat Toffee; Gabriella & her puppy Ralph; Lady Lucy and her pet sheep Lucy Lamb and, this visit Serena and her pet puppy Charlie, a cocker spaniel. All was fine until she let slip that not all fairies have pets some have teddybears to keep them company on their night time journeys. Em turned to me and said I think this is a Mummy fairy (oops, I'm a big fan of TB's). I smiled and said me? A fairy? I'm too big! I wouldn't fit the costume. It made her giggle!

On Tuesday we returned to the hospital to see the consultant following on from the biopsy at the end of June. Although the results haven't returned from the hospital in London - have they lost them? We have established during the holidays that it was dairy produce making Em so ill, as soon as we stopped dairy foods the problem stopped immediately. So, Em has been discharged, hoorah!
Being dairy free may seem easy but it is fraught with problems. She can't eat butter, milk, yoghurt, cream or creme fraiche from cow, sheep or goat due to the lactose content. But then there's all the hidden dairy in sauces, cooked meats (why?) cakes, biscuits, pastry etc.
We have found soya: milk, desserts, yoghurts, Parmesan cheese substitute, free from dairy cakes and biscuits in the supermarkets. But the most difficult thing has been cheese Soya cheesly has not been a success because Em doesn't like the texture. So if you know of a different cheese which is dairy free, we'd love to know please.
Finally some stitching, I have made another Biscornu. This time its slightly larger than a 50p coin and is my own design using the DMC variegated threads. Happy crafting Jane x

Sewing and Cross Stitch

Towards the end of the summer holidays during a visit to my local library I found some lovely books, one of which was 21 Sensational Patchwork Bags. I was only the fourth person to borrow it, so it was lovely and new.

Emily fell in love with the saddle bag so I willingly said I would make her one. She chose her favourite fabrics from my small stash and I started work. I soon realised that although I am quite experienced at clothes, I was struggling with the bag. I found it difficult to follow the instructions as there were very few diagrams or pictures of work in progress. Finally I abandoned the book and made my own bag, it could do with being a little bigger but Em loves it. The stripped fabric came from Ikea, the butterfly fabric I purchased to make a dress but never got around to it. The cat squares we found last year in a wonderful fabric shop in Sturminster Newton.

I have also been cross stitching a picture of Audrey Hepburn for Ali, which I gave her last weekend to take to her new lodgings at Uni. She loved the picture as Audrey is her favourite actress. My latest project is a beautiful poppy which was featured in the October edition of Cross Stitcher

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And the Winner is ..........

The winner of the pincushion giveaway is raining sheep for the hand needlecase and pincushion.



















Then I decided to put another cushion into the giveaway so the winner of the double flower cushion is sunnie_fairy.
Congratulations ladies, please email me your addresses so I can post them to you. orac1(at)tiscali(dot)co(dot)uk