After an absence

 I'm back!   After the DBEM's birthday party she caught a bad head cold and then generously passed it on to me.   It has taken me longer to shake off than I anticipated and even now I'm not at 100%.   Not helping is the fact that since coming to live in The New City, the proximity of farms and forests has given me allergies and I wake sneezing and snorting (yes and generally bad tempered for a short time !)   My doctor says unsympathetically "You're closer to farmland here than in Auckland.   What do you expect?"   Well certainly not this - and a little more sympathy wouldn't have gone amiss either:-)

Spring has sprung here and with it the usual fickle variable weather.   If you look at the bottom row of my temperature chart you will see the colour changes in one week.   It doesn't seem that long ago I was bemoaning the fact that it was all blue -  well we had an orange day yesterday and have had several greens too.   

On the stitching front I've not really got a project that is grabbing my interest.   The hardanger piece is complete and I now need to visit the Quilt Fabric shop to get something suitable so I can complete it.  There's no rush as this is for a gift and not required for some months yet so it can wait a while.

In my stash I found this piece of lovely raspberry linen and am making it into a needle book - decorated front and back with pulled thread work.   However the fine linen (32 count) and the matching floss (perle 12) is proving quite a challenge for my eyesight so progress is slow.   

While I am persevering at this one I am thinking that I need to get my piece for the Embroiderers Guild annual challenge completed.   To be honest I'd like to be a non-participant in that one but with a small Guild every entry counts so I need to persist.   I can see the end in sight but I'm not enjoying the fact that this is a free style embroidered piece, mixed techniques and self designed so no right or wrong which I find disconcerting.   I much prefer to follow instructions and know that I have done what is required.   I will post a picture when the whole object is complete. 

Meanwhile, we have dropped back to Covid Level 1 and life is near new-normal once again.   I need to push the reset button and start activities once again.   The events of this year have not been helpful for getting to know people and make friends in The New City but onwards and upwards:-)

Progress Report as promised

 Angels Song is all but finished.   I left one of the larger bands of Ukranian Stitch incomplete and ploughed on to the end of the chart.   Now I need to go back and complete that band and then stitch on the zillions of beads and buttons.   The end is in sight!   I have no idea what to do with this but it has been fun to stitch and I have thoroughly enjoyed all the specialty stitches.

And the Temperature chart -  you can certainly see that Palmerston North has cool (cold) winters.  There is so much more blue in this year's chart.   Today we were back at the favourite 14 degrees Celsius but are promised 17 tomorrow.    

And with that I need to conclude today's activities and get myself ready for bed.  

The Birds are fully finished and framed

Today I collected the framed Birds and found a home for them on my wall.   Considering that it was the DBEM who purchased this kit 25 or more years ago it seems fitting that they should go in her room but we can still both enjoy them,

Thank you to all who sent greetings for the DBEM's big birthday.   We had a super time celebrating her big nine oh and she seemed to enjoy herself (while getting thoroughly exhausted).   This snapshot is of her watching the photo show which my clever Little Brother and Brother-In-Law put together and showed on the big screen.   It was fun for all the generations to look at photos spanning nine decades and we all out-talked each other commenting and reliving shared memories.   It was a fun afternoon.   And as the DBEM said, this birthday has been truly international thanks to all my blogging friends.

Hopefully tomorrow I will have a progress shot of Angels Song which is coming along well.   I am relieved that the piece of fabric is well long enough.   Today at stitching group,  a friend told me of a method to mount pieces onto artist canvas which is what I plan to do with this since it will only be displayed once a year and thus doesn't require expensive framing.

The Temperature Chart is plodding along -  yesterday was a Green Day (over 18 degrees) and today was .... Light Blue (only 10 degrees) so you can see that the weather is still fickle.   I promise a progress shot soon.