Monday, 9 December 2013

Harrogate , stash , stitching and gifts :)

Hi every one :) .... sorry for being so quiet for a wee while but life got in the way as it does on occasions and I just didn't have the time or the energy to write :(
but hopefully now I will make up for it hehehehe.... so be warned ... grab a buttie , a brew and a few biscuits as you  pull up your chair and join me ....
ok are you sitting comfortably then I shall begin.....
At the back end of November it was the annual Knitting and Stitching Show at Harrogate and as you know I don't miss it if I can help it ... how else is a mouse to get her fix of sumptuous goodies ....
This year we decided to hire a house for the length of the show (Thursday to Sunday) and what a gorgeous one it was .... we had a really gorgeous bathroom with blue lights in the flooring surrounding the bath not to mention the changing lights in the shower ... the kitchen was fully equipped and everything was just sooooo nice :)
It was really nice to be able to come and go and have friends over for tea and also for Kate to bob over for a few hours to chill after a busy day at the show :) it made every thing  so much more pleasant we thought :)
On the Thursday we went into the show, Ally Frances and I  and while I wandering round I saw a familiar face .... Stuart from the Great British Sewing Bee  and he kindly had his photo took with me and admired my travelling stitcher quilted bag I made  OHHHH the Fame hahahahah ... *gives a wee wave just in case he reads my blog .... ;)
I pootled round the show Friday and Saturday looking at all the stalls over again in case I missed something ... sometimes you couldn't get near due to all the excited visitors to it .... and came away with lots of eye candy ... DD commented that I hadn't bought as much as I had before.. Whoops ...lol  but what I did get I was happy with ...and came away with lots of ideas to do stuff ... hopefully I can remember when I get round to doing ...lol
Sunday came round all to quick and this year we decided we would actually wander around Harrogate and visit the Pump Rooms as the costumes from Downton Abbey were on show ... unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos inside ... it was a lovely wee museum and it was nice to see them close up ... and boy were those peeps small and petite ...  we also watched a video of days go by and had a good giggle at the clothes and they way things were going I remember this and that ... DD enjoyed wandering round too ... after there we popped into the big park and had a gorgeous pootle round looking at the roses that were still in bloom and spotting the robin (thanks DD) before heading back to get something to eat before we set off back home ....
Ally went back home on the Monday which I took off to recover ... next year remind me to take off longer ...lol 
While I was away DJ sent me a wee parcel and I was allowed to open one of the goodies inside as it was an ornament for my tree and wow it is gorgeous .... this is what she wrote on her blog ....Last, but not least, I can show you this ornament I sent to my dear friend Mouse.  She has told me she has received her package and I told her she could open her ornament to hang on the tree.  This was stitched on 45 count over two threads.  Yes, I've been told I was crazy in the past, and I can honestly say, though I loved the result, the stitching was difficult on such compact count.  Treasure it Mouse, as I dare say I won't be stitching on such a high count again. 
DJ don't panic I will ...lol I love it :)
I managed to get the Travelling Pattern off to Cath  and I know its been received .. she is going to have to send it back as I didn't have time to fill in my bits in the book ... and I haven't quite finished my second piece ... almost there :)
I have also sorted my craft room out and packed away my scrap booking stuff and my card making things ... the room looks loads better ... a wee bit more fuller than it was ....lol but I still have things to sort out and reorganize that and I have been busy stitching and sewing but I can't at the moment show any of this ... but all will be revealed very soon after all Christmas is coming wayyyyy  tooo quick for my liking ....   you would think that as we know its on the same date every year that we would be sorted and organised and everything but No not a scooby do chance this year ... sooo Christmas could be a wee bit delayed until the New Year folks ...lol  in fact scrap that it WILL be delayed .... there isn't a mouse chance that my goodies will get to folks before then as the Post Office in there wisdom decided to go on strike at one of the busiest times of the year .... soooo to be on the safe side ( I have things that haven't turned up ) I am not posting out until after the big day ... think it makes more fun that way as it extends the holiday festivities ....  that's my excuse and I am sticking to it ...lol 
ok I think I have waffled on a wee bit soooo I shall go and pop the kettle on again and  upload the photos for you to drool over :)
Gorgeous ornament from DJ 


December  TUSAL

second of the Travelling Pattern pieces
done a wee bit more to this but not photographed

first one finished and sort of framed ..lol

see looking much better ..lol honest 

Ally's and mine room 

just look at that bathroom 

Stuart (Great British Sewing Bee )and I 

One of my favorite stalls eh Kate ...lol 

another drool at that bath ..lol

dusk 

in wee park land opposite the show 


nearest we got to Betty's 

Dragon ... Astrid :)

The Pump Rooms with the costumes inside

smelt beautiful

Squibbble

more roses

gorgeous copper colour

Robin

ermmm not quite sure ...lol

outside the pump rooms 

stash

more stash

closer look at the stash

oooo and some more 

Coughs* did she really say I hadn't got as much ..lol 

Sparklies Grab Bag picked specially for me :)


and finally another gorgeous rose :)

 and there you have it .... I will be popping round to see you all as soon as I can :) I almost forgot that it was Tusal time the other day ... I took the photo on time Daffy but didn't get round to posting it till now ..  but hey better late than never eh ??? ..lol ;) Thanks for all popping round and welcome to my new followers ... :) hope you enjoyed your visit to the mouse house .. please pop by again :)
take care and happy stitching one and all :) love mouse xxxxx



Saturday, 7 December 2013

Advent calender blog hop

Hi every one :) its that time of the year ... yes you guessed it Advent Calender Blog Hop hosted and organised by the wonderful Jo at http://serendipitousstitching.blogspot.co.uk/........ 
This year we have to write a wee bit about food ... OHHHHH dear  ..lol I bet you can't guess which is my favourite food at Christmas ?????
Yup its the good old Christmas Cake with lots of fruit and icing and not to mention the touch of sherry in the recipe ..... part of one of my five a day you know eheheheheh ....... Since I have been married ( 25 years as of yesterday) my wonderful MIL (the birthday girl from the other month) has made us a round cake and a loaf of Christmas Cake every year .... I provide the fruit and she does the baking ;0 a good combination ...lol and then I get to play with the icing and make it look pretty :)

Ornament stitched for Frances
back in Christmas in July exchange on Friendly Stitchers


Hope you like my Christmas stitching will be back soon with the tales of Harrogate :)
Take care one and all and Happy Stitching love mouse xxxxxx

Sunday, 3 November 2013

A wee trip to London :)

Hi every one :) its gonna be a loooonnngggg post ...lol so grab your cuppa's and your dunkers and settle down for some excitement ;0)
Last Sunday DD and I went down to London via Globe Tours, they are building their website at the moment ... we had the front seats and a good view all the way down and the weather wasn't too bad , just a tad windy .... we stopped about half way down at Northampton service station I think  and we decided to have a Mississippi mud pie Mc Furry as a treat .... I went to order it and the young man behind the counter said " do you want hash browns with those ?"  well after I doubled checked as to what he said I gracefully declined the offer ....lol ...
we arrived in London with a few hours spare before our hotel room was ready at the Tower Hotel .... so we pottered around the tower grounds and found the tube station and got some maps and an idea of the prices of tickets etc ..... we then went to the nearest Weatherspoons and had a delightful Sunday lunch/tea  before meandering back to the hotel and checked in .... we were on the 8th floor and thank goodness for lifts ...lol ....
Our room was lovely and the view well it was fantastic .... we looked over onto Saint Katherine's Docks and beyond and looked down on to the Queens Jubilee Gondola ... in fact we didn't shut the curtains all week as no one could see in and the view was just amazing at night as well as the day time .....
Sunday night saw the start of the storm that hit the UK and apart from some minor damage we got off lightly where we were .....and luckily we had booked the coach trip to see the  Harry Potter Studios as the trains the next day were not running ....
The tour round the studio was fantastic and we even tried "Butterbeer" which is definitely an experience ....lol and I want to do it all again ... and again ....
that evening we went to see "Wicked " at the Apollo Theater and the peeps we saw were just amazing singers .... DD wasn't as impressed as they had changed a lot from the book which she had read ...but me... I thoroughly enjoyed it  :)
Tuesday ermmm what happened Tuesday ... ohhhh yeah we got up early and went to Covent Gardens and found .... they weren't open until 10.00am sheesh  sooo we hummed and ahhhd and decided to nip back onto the tube and go to Harrods ... only some one forgot to mention that the stairs down to the tube were equivalent to 15 stories high = 193 steps !!!!!  Any hoooo we got to Harrods in one piece and had a nice browse around without collapsing at the prices of stuff ...lol  and then we decided to go to Hyde Park for a wander while the weather was nice and some how we ermmmm managed to end up towards South Kensington and off my wee map ....lol sooo we did what all good explorers do..... find the nearest tube and get on it back to Covent Garden ... which by this time was open ...lol and we got to go in the Moomin Store :)
Needless to say by Tuesday early evening the intrepid explorers were snoozing ... I only managed to put a few stitches into Miss Peepers!!!
Wednesday we awoke bright and breezy and still foot sore ...lol and decided to stay near the hotel and potter around the shops and have a late lunch before we got back on the coach home and instead .... we walked over the Tower Bridge and down the water front to over the London Bridge and back again !!! then we had lunch ...lol 
All in all it was a wonderful few days away but I was glad I was still off to recover .... and do a wee bit more stitching on things I can't show as yet *sigh on the plus side a new patchwork shop has opened near to the mouse house and I have bought some dies that go in my big shot that cut the fabric into triangles with the 1/4 in seam in and some other shapes too ... sooo I have been playing :) oooo almost forgot to say I got my exchange piece from Jan (photo below) 
Well by now you will be needing another cuppa sooo I shall go and fill the kettle and load up a few of the photos I took ... don't think you want to sit through 792 of them do you ????
oooo and it is also TUSAL sooo I will show that too *waves to Daffy :)
November Tusal

My  Autumn exchange piece from Jan 

The journey begins

The Shard 

oooo there's me ...lol

aptly named "girl with Dolphin"

The Tower 

watch out below

these beefeaters are getting smaller 

seafarers monument in the fore ground  

ooo another beefeater

view from room window

we know all the best peeps you know ... the Queens Gondola 

getting dusk

says it all on the bus ....

compact and beju  Harry's room

The Great Hall

original costumes 

Diagon Alley
(death eaters there as it was Halloween and halfterm)

stupendous model of Hogwarts simply stunning :)

Back of Prince Albert's memorial 

Squibbelllll

Tower Bridge at night 

Cooo look a new start ... Miss Peepers by LHN 

she had just said she was engaged to Thomas Becket
hence the pulled face ..lol

And there you have it in a nutshell ....hope you have enjoyed your wee tour .... its back to work for me tomorrow and hopefully next time you call, there shall be some more stitching to show you ....
take care one and all and have a wonderful stitchy week :) love mouse xxxxxx