The Little Things

Hello everyone. I thought I would squeeze in one last blog post before Christmas. I find the extra work and change of routine involved with the festive season puts extra pressure on my already fragile health which, for someone who has always loved Christmas, is rather sad. The greatest pleasure I get at this time of year is from the quiet times when I don't have to deal with people or, in fact, do anything much so I thought I'd share some of the little things that are helping me at the moment.

I love all the decorations that I've collected over the years, many of them made by my children or myself. My daughter spent a day the other week putting them all up for me and I'm really enjoying them. The tree in the picture above is my 'special' tree which is in the latest room to be decorated. When I say the latest, the rugs arrived a day before the tree went up. It's basically a spare bedroom but, as you can see, I've saved a cosy reading corner complete with my Mum's rocking chair.

One of the most exciting things about finishing this room is that we've finally been able to get all my Mum's quilts out of the bin bags they were languishing in and on to the big set of shelves we bought to house them. I'll start showing them to you in the new year but, in the meantime, I've been able to put some of the Christmas ones up on the wall at last. This one, behind the rocking chair, is my favourite.

Opposite the reading corner, in the alcove by the fireplace, is the little stained glass robin quilt Mum made us years ago which I love.

The dolls house on the table below it is one I've had for many years but have never had time to decorate and furnish. I'm hoping to make a start on it next year now that I've got a space to work on it. For now, Father Christmas is trying to work out how to get down the chimney.

We have always had baskets of Christmas picture books out at Christmas. There are two more baskets of them under the piano downstairs but I have got one basket up in this room.

After a bit of a struggle, we managed to hang my Christmas Bunting above the fireplace and then Rose decorated the mantelpiece with pretty things and gingerbread men lights. I'm not sure what the lace knitted fairy thinks she's up to.

Tolly cat isn't a little thing and he's definitely not just for Christmas but he does make me smile. He loves the patchwork coverlet I've put over the bed (to keep cat hairs off the clean bedding underneath). Here he is in a quiet moment in between hunting all those little hexagons. And yes, he really does do that.

As well as the quilts, I have a lovely collection of Christmas stockings that my Mum made me - a new one every year. We hang these on doors around the house. This one is on the front room door this year.

It was one of the first ones Mum made and, as you can see, it's a collage of photos of the children at Christmas when they were small. I also have this beautiful cross stitch stocking which Rose gave me a while ago - this one's on the airing cupboard door.

There's another tree in the front room and more decorations. It was a bit dark to take good photos this morning (it's gloomy most of the day at this time of year) but here are an assortment of knitted things on the piano.

You might recognise some of them as old patterns of mine. The round candle quilt above the piano is another one of Mum's and the little knitted cone snowman was a present from my friend Pat a few years ago.

The front room mantelpiece is pretty too. It's a mixture of old, treasured things, some new and a bit of knitting.

That's my Christmas Wreath hanging between photos of my much-missed Granny as a toddler and on her wedding day.

I've been enjoying my cross stitch this year and there are two new ornaments on this mantelpiece. Here you can see my pyramid shaped Christmas tree; the tree is different on each of the four sides.

I also cross stitched what was called a Christmas pincushion but decided to use it as an ornament stand instead ...

The village scene continues round all four sides and then there's a big snowflake on the top. Again, my apologies for the bad light in these pictures. You get the general idea though. At the other end of the mantelpiece are my cherished tiny crib, a cross stitch gingerbread house and a very pretty old tin. The tiny quilt propped up by the radio is another one of Mum's. She made them into fabric postcards, complete with a terrible poem on the back.

Something else I'm really enjoying this year (as I do every year) is getting out my Christmas china to use. I've collected so many pretty festive mugs that they don't all fit on the shelves. You can see a few of them in this picture.

Choosing which one to use each time I put the kettle on makes a cup of tea a bit special. The teapots on the dresser have their Christmas cosies on too ...

... and I've knitted new ones for the smallest ones this year. Here they are on the tray I use every day which I've lined with one of Mum's Christmas placemats so it's ready for Christmas too.

As a family we really enjoy our advent calendars and, this year, we've each had three different ones. We share pictures of them every day which is nice as we are all in different places. Firstly, we have paper advent calendars. Mine this year was a Brambly Hedge one. Here it is on my bedroom fireplace.

There's a bit of a competition each day as to which of the three of us has the prettiest picture but with festive mice I think I'm winning this year. While we're in this room my little criss-cross shelves are Christmassy too.

My little beaded Christmas village has grown again this year. I think I need to make some stands though so that the houses and things can stand at different heights. New to it this year are (I think) another building, some trees, a post box and a couple of street lights. Next on the list will be a church I think. I'm also very fond of this book which I read again the other day ...

We always have an advent jigsaw each year too. The pieces are divided between 24 envelopes and put together one day at a time. There was much hilarity when Jack's first day consisted almost entirely of white snow pieces! This is how my puzzle is looking after nineteen days.

The third set of advent calendars is the result of my concentration this year on improving my tatting skills. Over many months I tatted three sets of 24 snowflakes, three in each pattern. We have one set each (they're different sizes) and we add one to our snowflake trees each day. I'll write about this project properly next year but here's how my tree is looking today.

So, I may not be able to do very much or celebrate with friends and family as I would have done before the Long Covid but, when I think about it, there are lots of little things around me that make me smile and give me comfort. I hope that wherever you are and whatever your situation you all have a Happy and peaceful Christmas.

Spring Has Sprung

Spring has arrived early in England this year. After a successions of very wet Aprils, this one is turning out to be lovely. This is good news for gardeners like me who never catch up if they can't get to work in the garden until May. My soil here is a heavy clay which means that it's too hard to dig in the Summer and Winter and mostly muddy in between. Despite that the garden is full of colour at the moment.

This is my Japonica which is sometimes known as the poor man's quince. Like the quince it has hard fruit that takes a long time to cook but makes the most beautiful red preserve.  My plum tree is a mass of blossom too so I'm crossing my fingers that the weather lets the fruit set this year; heavy rain has resulted in very few fruit for several years.

I cut that yellow Berberis right back a couple of years ago as it was trying to grow horizontally across to the other side of my narrow garden. Needless to say, it's on its way again.

It's been a good year for primroses too. Mine are all wild ones that found their way into the garden on their own. There are lots of the normal yellow ones ...

... but also quite a few in various shades of pink too.

And I think this one is very nearly red ...

Another favourite at the moment is my ornamental blackcurrant which has the most beautiful delicate pink flowers. 

The flowers have gone now but the little Magnolia Stellata in my tiny front garden was lovely a few weeks ago too. The only photo I have is this one showing its first flowers. 

My daughter and I were competing to see whose magnolia would flower first. Mine just about won but I have to admit that hers is a tiny bit more impressive.

I've been trying to grow Snake's Head Fritillary in the garden but most of them didn't take. I do get a few every year though, at least until Tolly spots them.

He either bats them down with his paw to stop them moving in the breeze or just bites the stalk until the flowers drop off. So far this year, he hasn't spotted these ...

It's only when you catch them before they open out that you can see why they're called 'snake's head'. The division between the petals looks like a mouth and you can even see spots of darker colouring which could be the eyes. Once they open out there's nothing snake like about them.

What with all this Spring colour outdoors I thought it was time to fish out some decorations to mark the new season. After a morning rooting around in boxes (all in the room I'm decorating at the moment of course) I ended up with this.

A mish mash of new and old things that make me smile every time I see them. These shelves are up in my bedroom on the top floor and are perfect for arrangements like this. I'd like to say I'll do a different arrangement for each season but I probably won't manage it.

In the early evening the low sun creates the most perfect shadows of the ornaments on the wall.

That mottled effect on the wall is because of the old glass in the window. It's not as smooth as modern glass so the light makes patterns like this.

The newest thing on the shelves is the little beaded toadstool house near the bottom which I only finished making just in time.

This is another wonderful pattern from ThreadABead. I really enjoy making their designs; at the moment I'm working on the fourth of the little houses from their Christmas Village series.

This is going to be the Gingerbread Bakery. After this I'm going to bead some little trees to stand among the houses.

Other than that, I've been decorating the first half of what used to be my bedroom. I've started with the worst half which involved doing a fair bit of plastering and filling before I could even start painting.

Then my daughter and I spent several hours scraping old paint off the door lock so that I can paint it black. Doesn't it look a mess?

I've just started painting the door so I'll be able to show you an 'after' picture soon. As you can see, the door doesn't line up with the frame; most of my doors are like that, they've warped quite a bit over the last century or so.

I am still working on my patterns. At the moment I'm writing up my Ten Stitch Rectangle which is taking ages. It took me the best part of a week to get the first three or four pages done and I hadn't even got to the casting on. It's going a bit better now though.

I'll leave you with the dwarf hyacinths in the old sink in the garden. These came from my Dad's garden. He could grow absolutely anything and I often think of him when I'm with my plants.

Plodding On

Plodding on seems an apt title for my life at the moment. I'm trying to walk a little each day which adds to my general fatigue and the struggle to balance the little I am able to do without being ill and the things I would like to do. My current fun symptom is feeling sick. I have to do everything in half hour chunks or I start feeling sick and, if I ignore it, it just gets worse. Ah well ...

I find that the knitting I want to do at the moment involves lots of mindless repetition which means that I'm doing a lot of playing around with my basic Ten Stitch technique. 

This round cushion started life as a hat but was too big so it morphed into a cushion. I found a 30 cm diameter cushion pad in a charity shop that turned out to be just the right size. It's nearly but not quite knitted in one piece. The final circle is knitted separately and then sewn in place but the last round or so before that is worked with the pad in place which was rather strange. I ended up turning the cushion rather than the needles at the end of rows.

I thought how much easier it would be to knit a square ten stitch cushion cover so I've started one of those too.

The, of course, I had to have another go at the hat ...

Only time - and a lot of knitting and re-knitting - will tell if this one is going to work. I'm also plodding away at a ten stitch rug which is going to be one of the samples for my upcoming Ten Stitch Rectangle pattern.

I think I'm on the last round now. The idea is to show three different projects, each with different proportions to illustrate the formula for working any size rectangle. I've already knitted a long thin table runner.

Once the rug is finished I'll knit a table mat which will be much nearer a square and I think that'll be enough. Then I've just got to work out how to explain it all.

Once I've got the rectangle pattern done I want to get on with my Ten Stitch Oval. So far, I've only worked out the basic technique (which is fairly complicated) and knitted a sample.

I want to approach this in the same way as the rectangle, working a couple of different projects to illustrate the basic principle.

I've also been writing up a crochet shawl that I made last summer which, again, is a variation on a technique I've used before.

My Lazy Vee Shawl is worked  in a v stitch pattern from the top down using two colours, one plain and one variegated. The colours change every row but you don't need to cut the yarns which is why it's a 'lazy' technique. This is another good use for using King Cole Bramble which is my favourite variegated DK yarn.

My first project with this technique was my Lazy Vee Blanket which I crocheted again last year for a new baby, using Bramble as my coloured yarn.

I've also designed a Lazy Vee Scarf which turned out to be a very good way of toning down a somewhat bright variegated yarn.

I may have exhausted the possibilities of this particular technique now but who knows? The only other thing I've knitted lately is a pair of  Baby Boots for my new Great-Niece, Elsie Louise who was born at the end of January.

Another old pattern that I need to re-write and update.

I have been enjoying working slowly on some small cross stitch projects too. The first finish of the year was this lovely snowstorm beaded decoration kit which was in  my Christmas stocking.

It's one of a series of snowstorm kits by Mill Hill. It's worked on perforated paper; you do the cross stitch first and then add the beads with either half or full cross stitch depending on the size of the beads. I added a beaded chain to hang it by and then backed it with felt to hide all the messy ends.

Then, this week, I finished the first of the ornaments I'm making from this magazine which was also in my stocking at Christmas. Father Christmas did particularly well on the cross stitch front I think.

It took me ages to finish this one. The cross stitch was straightforward but putting it together was a pain. The only other stitching I've done is a little bit of Hardanger for a birthday card; I love Hardanger and plan to do more this year.

Oh yes, and I've started another one of my 3D beaded projects. Can you guess what it's going to be?

Obviously, it's going to be a little toadstool house, another pattern from ThreadABead. For anyone in Wales, ThreadABead are opening an actual, physical shop in Conwy this year. Can you imagine seeing those wonderful designs in real life? Which reminds me, Petite Properties, the designers of beautiful miniature dolls houses, are starting their own digital magazine this year, something I am eagerly awaiting. I wrote about my tiny house project here a few years ago. This year I'm determined to finish furnishing my little house and perhaps start another one.

One of the many things that I miss being able to do now is going to the theatre at Stratford with my son. We were gradually seeing all of Shakepeare's plays at the RSC but then Covid hit and I can no longer drive or cope with watching a long play in person. I can watch the plays on DVD because I can always stop them if I feel sick.

Anyway, I worked out the other week how many of the plays I didn't see and was surprised that, out of nearly 40 plays, I only missed eleven. My plan is to watch those on DVD when the RSC film those productions. I may have to wait a while for Henry VIII though which is rarely performed. My son has started going again on his own and, last week, I gave him a list of old programmes and books that I would like. He came back with four of the programmes I wanted and also got us each a copy of this book.

It's a very heavy book that the RSC published about ten years ago and which I thought was out of print. The RSC shop had a few copies reduced to £25 so we got a bargain. It has ten Elizabethan plays, most of which Shakespeare didn't have a hand in but it gives a good idea of what else was on the stage at the time. There are very good introductions to each play, extra essays and a really interesting section where actors or directors who have been involved in past productions talk about the plays.

Anyway, Jack and I were looking through our books together when we had the idea of reading them together. We're going to take one play a month, starting in March and read the play and all the essays about them and then talk about them together. The first one is Arden of Faversham which was inspired by a real life murder in Kent in 1551. If we stick to this, we should be ready to start reading through all the Shakespeare plays in 2025.

One more thing I've finished which may not look much but is a huge achievement for me is this 1,000 piece puzzle which I started over Christmas. For the past two months I've struggled with this. I've lost pieces (several times) and re-done the edge of the sky more times than I care to count but yesterday I put in the last piece.

It's an Otter House jigsaw; they have some lovely ones and they also come in smaller boxes than most puzzles, making them easier to store. Next I'm going to start on what will become my daughter's advent puzzle next Christmas. Let's hope it doesn't take me the rest of the year to finish it!