The Cottage Smallholder

I didn't think this ffited into any of the other catemagories,so have made a new one.

I doned this…

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is replica of a sampler my mother made at some time in the dim and distant past, and my sister and I used to argue over who would get to keep it when she dies. we were cheerful kids. Anyway, since me mother doesn't plan to relinquish the original any time soon I thought I'd make a copy for my sister to have. And now I quite fancy making one for myself also. It makes me feel christmassy.

my problem is the other way. I can barely see two feet without the milk-bottle-bottom glases.

When that goes too I shall be in real trouble :s

thank ye kindly Danuta. It was twice as much work as it should have been really, there was a problem with my transcription of the design, and i ended up cutting the fabric a bit smaller than perhaps would have been ideal,and then starting in the wrong place, so the top of the triangle nearly stuck over the end. But then I was ill,so I'm not being too hard on myself. it kept me occupied.

I also got the finishing touches to this done over the last few days

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which is for my step sister. That was a right pain, as I drew the charts up from scratch on some tiny graph paper (.5mm squares, it didn't half make my eyes go funny) using a font set from a magazine and the corner bits I found on the interweb somewhere.

I've not seen that "kiss me'' poem in years…I got to act it once in an anthology at school, great fun!

Rae- I too have the bottle bottom glasses-my  really close vision is fantastic still, but the crucial cross stitching distance now requires annoying reading glasses when previously I could do it minus specs grrrrrr…If you stay over when /if we have the 'get together' next year I'll dig out my cross stitch folder and you can photocopy any designs you like- I have a stupidly large quantity of patterns for borders etc ,mostly traditional folk designs from eastern/northern/middle european climes. I also have some 'vintage' ones with, amongst other things, zoo animal patterns,which are rather fun and some very nice Danish ones.

Val- yes, very nice cross stitch/embroidery shop in the Hague, but one of the nicest I've ever been in was in Lubeck- beautiful linen tapes for embroidering onto…..there's another lovely one in Munster and a small but packed with stock one in Munich…oh yes, I google needlework shops for any town I plan to visit! Though such shops are a dying breed, often run by one or two people who are nearing retirement…online just isn't the same as a proper sewing shop…..you never know what delights you might find, especially in the reduced/remnant boxes…