Final finish for the weekend

I managed to take a photo of the finished needleroll that I stitched for Karen at The Stitching Post as a model for display – here it is all finished up as an actual needleroll, before I drove it over to Karen on Saturday.

“Shepherd’s Roll” by Shepherd’s Bush (kit)

I had a good time visiting with my best friend yesterday … although I have to admit those kids are enough to make you want to get your tubes tied!  If I was living with that day in/day out, I’d need to be admitted to a lunatic asylum after a week!!  To say they’re a handful is a true understatement … even my Mum, who has the patience of a saint where kids are concerned, would be ready to throttle Orion by the end of the night!  Brenda and Nigel are already at breaking point after Athena managed to slam the sliding door shut while in ‘locked’ mode and broke the lock, meaning they now have to replace the entire door and doorframe, as it’s an older model and the new locks don’t fit.  Can everyone say “not happy, Jan!!!”? – that’s a much politer version of what actually was being said and thought last night haha. 

Anyway, even with the stresses of the night, it was still nice to see them again, especially wee Jayden the youngest fella, he stole my heart with his big cheesy grin every time he saw me -then he came running up to me at full speed and flung his arms around my legs for a cuddle before heading off to bed.  He’s a real sweetie!  I must admit, though, it was nice to have some ‘adult time’ after 8pm as we settled down to relax in front of a DVD … which means I managed to get a reasonable amount of stitching done too!  I also gave Vicki her stitched gift (you may remember the Calico Crossroads quilted wallhanging I finished before Christmas), and she really liked it a lot.  I also got a belated birthday gift of some scrummy Nelson ice wine and local Extra Virgin olive oil from Nelson as well … all I need now is some Dukkah and I’m set! 😉

Here’s a very poor photo of the whole family as we were settling down to a yummy pork roast dinner – I couldn’t get a decent photo of everyone in the twilight, so I gave up and this was the best of a bad bunch!

As for the stitching, in the end I opted to take a project already started instead of starting yet another new one – I took Lanarte’s Seahorse Collage with me, and got quite a bit done.  Then I sat in front of the goggle box again this morning while watching Series 3 of Black Adder followed by Dante’s Peak, and managed to put the final stitches into this piece.

“Seahorse Collage” by Lanarte (from Sea Life booklet)
Stitched on 32ct white Belfast linen
with DMC threads

That might be the last finish for the month, although yesterday I also managed to finish the hemstitching on my Snow Fall needleroll, so there will be a photo of that showing very very soon – just need to whizz up the seam and stuff it! 🙂

Before I forget … I have to say I saw the largest spider I’ve ever seen in my entire life when I got home at midnight last night!  No word of a lie, the leg span would have gone from the tips of my middle finger down the entire length to the base of my palm … I nearly died on the spot!!  As I parked my car I started walking over the grass to the path, and it was sitting on the grass in all its ugly glory – it had a big sac body as well, and its legs could have been half the width of my little finger.  I opted to turn around and move my car quick smart!  But it was so big, I was too scared to get up close to spray it … instead I ran for the safety of my little flat very quickly!!!  I just hope I don’t run into it again any time soon … either that or I hope like hell it’s a fake rubber one that the obnoxious kids downstairs left outside, and it’s not real at all – they’re always leaving bikes etc in the driveway where we’re supposed to be parking our cars 😦

Rightio, on that note, time to toddle off again and go food shopping ready for the upcoming week … time to get back into normal eating habits again! 🙂