A rainbow at the end of my walk

Today the HD3QBEM is not too well so after breakfast she got put back to bed and I proceeded to attack my list of chores.
First up was a hair cut and then the hated shopping.   After lunch I decided that a "reward-to-self" was in order so walked across to the Showgrounds, as the city exhibition hall is named, and went to the Stitches and Craft show.  
Almost entirely quilting, card making and scrapbooking, I initially wondered if I would find much to interest me.   But I did!

There was a stand of free form knitting.   I'd never heard of this before but on inspection decided that the lack of mathematical precision ruled it out for me.   Very colourful though.

And then one of the quilting artists had a fantastic display where I fell in love with her depiction of The Lion in the Library  from the Animalia book by Graeme Base.

Each one of the little books on the back shelves are tiny precision cut lengths of ribbon painstakingly stitched on.  I would never even attempt this but it was intriguing to look at.
And just to prove that I also did some stitching here's a shot of the T tin in the process of construction.   Can you see the small tin at the base?

And now a photo of the tin with the "weighty tomes" removed. Top.

And  side

Off to cook the dinner now.

Another surprise

Today brought another surprise.   Little Sister sent a package to my work and in it was this cute coffee mug.   Won't this be the envy of the office?!   Thank you so much Little Sister.

And what is even more surprising.   My stitching mojo seems to have returned and I have finally finished the stitching on the Floral T.   Over the weekend I hope to finish in to a top for a tin and should then have a finish to show you.

Next I want to complete the stitching on the cylindrical hussif and if I can manage that then I plan to reward myself by starting a hardanger angel.   Nothing like bribing myself to complete projects:-)

Floral progress

A little more progress on the "T".   This is to be a gift for a 50th birthday but I doubt whether I will be able to include fifty different flowers.

So far there are Violets, Primroses, Dianthus, Solomon's Seal, Hollyhock, Shasta daisy, Forget-Me-Not and Lavender.   The white daisies don't show up too well in this photo.   Just as well they do in real life:-)
I have the next two days off: one day to go down country to a funeral and the other to oversee the Council workers who will come to take away my allocated one cubic metre of inorganic rubbish.   Once a year we can make an appointment for them to do this so I have decided to try the service and see how it goes.   I have no great expectations!

A change from knitting

Tonight I made a start on a birthday gift.  

This has to be completed by July so I really do have plenty of time but I know there will be a lot of reversing in this as I'm not too clever at choosing colour combinations.  Looking at this I know that it needs some pinks and plan on Hollyhock flowers for that.   I will be putting this on the top of a 9cm diameter tin so it is small and hopefully satisfying.