A week of wonderment!

Last week we had a wonderful week in Yorkshire. The weather however wasn't, well it wasn't too bad, raining almost non stop on Monday and Tuesday, but after that we did have some sunshine and it was fairly warm.
The scenery and surroundings were absolutely wonderful, but it would be in any weather.

It was my very first visit to Whitby and wow, it was everything I thought it would be, and much more. There's so much to see, we didn't know where to begin. We parked at West Cliff and we walked down to the town, the sun shining down on us. We took loads of pictures. To see the abbey in all its glory was magnificent, it's such a beautiful place.


Lunch time we went to the famous Magpie restaurant for fish (or should I say whale!) and chips. It was the most tasty fish I have ever tasted, but then when it's freshly caught it's bound to I suppose. Anyway, next time we go, we'll be trying out one of the other restaurants.
We were only able to spend a day there, but we'll certainly be going back and hopefully staying longer.
Another day we went to Goathland, Pickering and Levisham. It was great to see the steam trains and take even more photos. It reminded me so much of when I was a child as steam trains were still running, only just!

Now last week seems ages ago, and we only came back on Sunday. So now it's back to reality for a while.
Anyone who knows me, will know that I'm not one for watching the telly much. If I do, then it's mainly factual and practical programmes which I watch. So on Tuesday evening I was flicking through the channels to see if there was anything worth watching (whilst I was knitting) and I came across one of the lifestyle programmes. I think it was "How not to Decorate" or something. Well they seem to spend most of the time telling people how to do things correctly, or the "proper way" or maybe they meant "their way".
After switching it off, it got me thinking about how many times we are told about the correct way to do things. I remember when I was at school, I was in my first year of grammar school and it was in a needlework class. We had all performed a task on the sewing machine and we then had to draw a diagram and explain what we had just done with our fabric.
My friend and I sat at our desks and neatly drew what we had done, labelled, coloured and put a key into our page. We were quite proud of our work and I must say we had done a neat job.
Once the needlework teacher looked at my book she drew a red line across it and yelled " I wanted a diagram not a colour illustration, do it again!" As far as I was concerned I'd done exactly as she had told me to do, and so had my friend.What had we done "wrong" exactly?
On the same day, in the afternoon we had a cookery lesson, we were making stuffed tomatoes, and one of the girls had a good telling off from the cookery teacher because she had fried her onions to go in the tomatoes last and not first.The girl was in tears.
As I grew older I decided for myself that there is no right or wrong way in doing anything creative, just guidelines, and as long as you follow these guidelines you can't go wrong. After all, everything is open to interpretation,

and wasn't it Leonardo Da Vinci who said "Imagination is more important than knowledge?"
Well, I'm with him on that one!
Bye for now, Linda

The good life!

Well, Easter has come and gone and now we look forward to the summer months which I'm sure we all hope are going to be warm and sunny.
I'm still knitting, with my seventh piece just about to be sewn up and I have another stash of yarn ready for the next item to be made. They haven't all been pink, I'm now on white and have some gorgeous cream to knit with. I don't think that my knitting adventures will be finishing for a while yet, as I have promised to knit for a friend whose daughter is having a baby in October. As we don't know if it's a boy or girl I shall be knitting in various colours I'm sure.

I've also been catching up with my card making....



...the whole idea this year was to have them at hand when I needed them, but this hasn't happened, so I'm playing catch up with the ones I need to make for the next few weeks.

I was lucky enough to get this for my birthday a few weeks ago........



I haven't yet had a lot of time to play with it, but I hope to take some time tomorrow once all the housework is done, oh and the ironing!
I don't want to spend all my days off work doing the "must dos", I need the time for the "want tos", so I'll see how it goes and I know they'll be no stopping me once I get going with this wonderful machine!
I always have more than one project on the go at once. I'm sure I'm not alone in doing this. At the moment I have knitting projects, a cross stitch piece, and a tapestry piece,and some sewing all being done. In between I do my paper crafting and scrapbooking.
The paper project is working with kaleidoscopes. Using the programme on my computer I can make such lovely and varied kaleidoscopes which I then try to use in different ways. Here a just a few.....

Some will end up on cards and some will end up in another project which I currently have placed on the back burner, as I can't fit anything else in!

Hubby and I managed to spend a whole day in the back garden over the Easter break.

We have decided to change the layout and so far it's looking good.But it will be a work in progress for a while yet. A few trips to the local nursery and the garden centre are inevitable, and we are compiling a list of wants and needs to fill the spaces. But we still have some beautiful plants in the garden, and they're all growing so fast.

It must be all this glorious weather we've had just lately.
I've been baking this evening, and have made a chocolate orange cake and a madeira cake, the whole house still smells wonderful. I resisted making butterfly cupcakes this time,


but when I do another batch bake I'll probably end up making about three dozen or so. It's much easier for me to make them like this, it saves so much time for the days I'm out at work.
Now it's back to my knitting.
Bye for now, Linda.

Sunshine, shopping and sightseeing!

We've been lucky enough to have had last weekend away, to leave work and other "everyday elements" behind for three days. It's been nice to catch up with family,and also get out into the sunshine and not be thinking about anything else, not even work!
On Saturday we went shopping , something which isn't on my list of things to do, usually, but on this occasion it was different as we were shopping with our daughter and her husband. They are expecting their first baby in June and our third grandchild, so it was lovely to go into relevant shops and see what was on offer.
We managed to pick out a few things and also a couple of gifts for our other two grandchildren.
Shopping over we could then concentrate on other things. I'm still learning with my new camera, and over the weekend I took loads of shots in the hope that I could produce at least a couple of real crackers.

Landscapes are something I'm not very good at, but this picture captured the loveliness of the weather and the beauty of Broadway. It's a place we love to visit.
We also went to Hidcote, one of the most beautiful National Trust gardens in the area.

To see everything bursting into bloom was a spectacular sight, and one of the most stunning sights was this beautiful magnolia tree.

I have posted quite a few pictures on Flickr, so if you'd like to take a look please click on my Flickr badge and it'll take you there.
I always have a "project" with me when we're away. For the times when we're just sitting I still have to do something, I find it relaxing. This time it was some baby knitting, (of course!) and I'm working on a roses tapestry cushion, one of a pair. Hopefully they'll get finished soon!
But now we have returned home, I have to catch up on the housework and other things before I'm back to work on Thursday. But I'll have to make a few notes as I've come back home with a few ideas for some new craft projects. But first, it's the housework I suppose!
Bye for now, Linda

The time thief strikes again!

I never have enough time, and I'm sure there are many of you out there who feel the same. It makes it worse when this weekend the clocks go forward to British Summer Time and we lose an hour. Just when you think you're catching up the time thief strikes again.
So what have I been doing to take up all my time, as well as going to work that is,well I've been doing this

and this

along with some other cards.
I've also been taking more photographs with my new camera

and trying to get used to all the settings

and thinking to myself whilst taking these pictures, what jobs need doing in the garden.

But I couldn't resist making this mosaic of all the gorgeous roses I've had.


Now, if only I could plant a tree in the garden which would magically give us all, all the time we need?
Don't forget to put your clocks forward......
Enjoy your weekend, Linda

Spring is in the air!

At last, we can all look forward to spring. It's wonderful to think it's just around the corner.
I was looking in the garden this morning, seeing all the bulbs showing their enthusiasm to reach for the sun, all the trees and shrubs bursting into bud, it truly is a wonderful time.
It also helps when we have more blue sky above us, we do seem to have had a few dull and dreary days just lately.

We have primulas, muscari, primroses, daffodils and tulips popping up all over the place, and that's just for starters.

Even the herb garden is going a bit wild.
But, there's also much work to be done, especially in our back garden. We have a few things which need replacing and some areas which need completely changing. But there's only so many hours in the day, and when there's work to go as well, there's never enough hours in the day, but we'll get there I'm sure.


Whist we were shopping today, hubby bought me a bunch of golden yellow roses, so beautiful. It'll be a while before the ones in our garden are in bloom, so these are a nice treat, and better than chocolate!


The weather forecast for tomorrow is dry and warm, so I'll make the most of it and try to get some outdoor jobs done. The trouble is, it'll be so tempting to just take my camera and walk the five minute walk to the marina and walk along the canalside and take some pictures. Im still on L plates with my new camera! But I'll just have to see how I get on with the housework.
Enjoy yourselves, whatever you do.... Linda

Creative Pleasures

Well my baby makes are well under way. I seem to be getting on really well just lately, with everything. I had that awful virus a few weeks ago, and it seems to have taken me until the beginning of this week to find my "vim and vigour" again.
Now, hopefully I shall be tackling a lot of the household things which have been on the back burner too, now that my energy levels are returning.
I'm one of those people who just can't sit and do nothing, unless I'm ill of course.
I'm not an avid watcher of the TV, if you ask me what's happening in any of the soaps I haven't got a clue. It must be twenty years since I even watched one of them!
I watch films occasionally, but they have to be interesting in the first five minutes or else I'm not bothered. I feel the same way about books, if they're worth reading they must grab me from the first couple of pages.

For me, leisure time has to be creative in one form or another. I have many hobbies and interests and I keep at least three projects on the go at one time. A knitting project, which at the moment is baby orientated and mainly pink. I have a patchwork quilt on the go, this is taking a while as it's a hand stitched one, and that is in pinks and creams. I also have two scrapbooks on the go. These again are works in progress.
In between these I'm always making cards. I haven't had cards from a shop for years.

I have stitched, knitted, sewn, painted and modelled many gifts over the years, and it's these ones which have been the most loved. I can't imagine myself never wanting to make things, even if they don't always turn out according to plan.
So tonight I'm knitting in baby pink, and tomorrow I have an anniversary card to make. That's once I've done some housework, but I won't want to spend all my days off work doing the basics.

Besides, now that spring is almost here, we have the garden to think about too.

Enjoy whatever you do.... bye for now.
Linda

Retail therapy.

Shopping has never been very high on my lists of things to do. Maybe it's because my working life has been spent in either retail or banking.

I never shop in my lunch hour when I'm at work, nor do I do any shopping on my way home, if I'm on an early shift. I'd much rather get home and be doing something else.

We grocery shop fortnightly, apart from the fresh stuff which is needed every two or three days, any other shopping is left until necessary.

But there are occasions when shopping can be a real treat, like last weekend for instance. We had a weekend away in the caravan, at Rowntree Park in York.

I love York, it's such a wonderful place. There's so much to see and do.

This time we visited the Jorvik museum, we'd been meaning to visit for the last couple of years. it was so interesting and not just for kids!

We also went to the Railway museum, that in itself is a half day visit.

There are always plenty of opportunities to take some wonderful photographs, no matter what the weather, and I did take some with my new camera which I had for Christmas, but this visit I really did do some shopping.

I've been looking for ages for some pink baby yarn, real pink, not the bland grey pinks which are everywhere. I hadn't been very successful when looking last year, as I was desperate to find some to knit for our forthcoming granddaughter (who is now eight months old).

Well I came across a simply wonderful wool shop in The Shambles, Sheepish Wools. They have such a wonderful array of yarns, none of which I've seen here in Derby. I could have spent a fortune, but I bought only what I needed as I have several projects on the go for our expected granddaughter, and only three months to make them all in. I'm sure I'll be paying another visit later on in the year looking for other lovely yarns, as I'm already scouring my patterns for sizes beyond three months!

I also bought some scrap booking supplies from the craft shop. I have two scrapbooks on the go at the minute, and the items bought will make some lovely pages. I shall post pictures on here once they've been finished.

My mind is always rattling around with ideas, sometimes I wish I could spend all day "playing".

I'm very often up until the early hours on my days off, stamping, painting, cutting, stitching and knitting. It's a good job hubby is on nights! The housework has to follow of course next day, sometimes flying through it in a blur to get back to the exciting things.

Even though there's only the two of us at home now, I still batch bake with cakes and pastries, hoping that this saves time and maybe money.

If we spent all our time doing the things we had to do, we wouldn't get to do the things we want to do, and I'm just trying to do it all I suppose, but then I'm not on my own am I?

See you soon.