Friday's Fave Five - 24/4/26

Friday's Fave Five is hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story.  Each week she reminds us to look back and find the things we were grateful for during the week.  It's good to be grateful.  Why not join us?

1)  Well firstly I am grateful for my Hubby.  He had a birthday last Saturday and we celebrated by attending a fund raising evening organised by a friend of his doing what he loves best - singing and playing his guitar.  He was one of several acts that performed at a nearby church and although I don't usually go to watch him play I couldn't miss out on his birthday.  We'll have been married for 42 years in June.  Definitely a keeper.

2)  The quiz night I mentioned last week raised £3967 for the Foodbank which is amazing!  

3)  Spring weather.  It's been sunny all week and although not that hot yet I was still able to get all my washing done and a lot of it dry on the line outside. (I still tumble dry things like underwear and t shirts to cut down on the ironing.) 

4)  Postal votes.  We have elections for councillors next month but our postal votes came yesterday.  I'm grateful not to have to get to the polling station on the day.  Usually it's fine but one less hassle to deal with.

5)  A good meet up for the evening book club on Wednesday.  There were only 5 of us but we had a good discussion about the book and lots of other things too.  We all agreed that we didn't like the book:

Hopefully the next one will be better:

And the jumper is nearly done.  I just need to do a few more rows and then the decorative bottom.  Oh and all the tedious sewing in of ends and seams to do.  Don't hold your breath for a picture of me modelling it!

Have a good weekend all.

Friday's Fave Five - 30/5/25

Woohoo it's Friday and I'm here on time with my Fave Five post.  Susanne keeps us on track, reminding us each week to look for the blessings we've had, post them on our blogs and then link up here.

Thank you Susanne.

1.  Extended family.  Last Saturday we were at the wedding of our niece Megan.  She is the daughter of Hubby's brother.  It was such a lovely day and the feeling of love throughout the day was wonderful.  All Hubby's siblings, partners, their kids and partners were there with just a couple of exceptions - our son and his wife in the US for obvious reasons.  I blogged about it in more detail here but here's a picture of the happy couple - and they definitely are a happy couple.

2.  Sunshine after the rain.  We had much needed rain earlier in the week but now the sun has returned and it's warming up.  Summer is coming.

3.  Flowers on my tomato plants - that means tomatoes right?  I only have a couple of plants that my neighbour gave me but I'm keeping them watered and they get plenty of sun.

4. My online purchases arrived:

Now I can prepare my yarn for my next projects.

A dressy strap for my Fitbit for evening/event wear.

Thankfully the watch strap also came with a tool to remove links from the strap - I had to take out five to get it to fit my wrist and it's still far from tight.

5) Despite getting the yarn winder above today I've already started another project with some cotton yarn I already had:

Regular visitors will remember Maisoe, made for my granddaughter:

I thought it would be nice for Maisie to have a change of clothes so I'm making her a skirt and jumper.  I started it at the Knit and Natter session this week.  

Whether she will keep them on not is another matter.  My daughter informed me earlier that Maisie is currently naked lol.

Have a good weekend all.

WIPs 9/8/15

Two works in progress here.  The first one is the start of a scrap book project.  The envelopes all contain a memory that were done for my husband's 60th birthday last April.  Friends and family were asked to provide memories of Nick.  My daughter then collated them into 60 envelopes that were presented to Nick at his party.

I've decided to put them all into a scrap book so that it's easier to see them and a nice memento to keep.  I want to have it finished by the end of next week so that I can take it to our family gathering.

Many of them were handwritten so I just need to display them but some were on two sides so I've had to scan them to be able to display the whole thing on one side.  Many were sent by e-mail so I need to re-format them and make them look pretty.

My daughter also married up photos with some of them and I might try and find more photos where appropriate.

I've done the scanning.  Now I need to reformat the typed text before starting on putting the scrapbook together.  I have already got the book and photo corners but will need some glue and I've also decided to get a paper cutter so guess who's going shopping tomorrow?

 

This is my other work in progress.  Yesterday I managed to visit some blogs on the A-Z Road Trip and one person that I visited commented back saying she would like to see the blanket I'm trying to make.

I thought it would be good to photograph it and it has actually done me a big favour as now I've worked out how many squares I still need to make and in which colours etc. So a big thank you to Cait at Click's Clan for pushing me to do this.  It's going to take a serious amount of blocking to get the squares matching up but one day it will be finished.  I have a lot of other things I'd like to be making and I'd also like to be doing some crochet but I'm terrible at starting things and not finishing them so I've set myself the target of finishing this before I start on something new.  I don't mind if I have say a knit, a crochet and maybe even a cross stitch on the go but I have in the past had more than one of each started and then they never get finished.

This is only going to get one more row which would be five squares but because of the colour distribution and patterns needed I worked out I need 7 squares plus the one in progress finished.

Watch this space for updates!

Tuesday toddle 19/5/15

Well we had a Monday meander so now it's a Tuesday toddle.  I'm still not up to more than walking (although I did do an interval walking session yesterday) but I have been increasing my daily steps.  I'm not counting them accurately as I'm only using the basic app on my i-phone and I don't always have it to hand.  It tells me I'm not yet up to 10000 a day but I'm doing much better than when I started taking notice!

I've managed to get up earlier both days so far this week so now having done all the morning chores it's time for a tea break and a blog.  It was a horrible wet day yesterday and although the sun keeps coming out at the moment more rain is forecast.  It's doing the garden good but the grass is doing too well.  Hmm sounds like there's no pleasing me.  Actually I'm very easy to please.  I'd just like the grass to stay dry long enough to get cut.

I actually finished a knitting project yesterday.

My son and his partner brought some magazines for me when I was first home from work and one was a knitting magazine which had free wool with it.  There were also instructions for a variety of things you could make with the wool, many of which were Easter themes (it was that time of year) but I thought the tea cosy looked quite sweet and at least it will get used.

I'm quite bad at starting things and not finishing them so I was determined this week to get it done.  (I'd done the main knitting part but just needed to put it together, stitch in all the ends and do the flowers.)  I'm trying to get back into knitting when I'm watching TV.  It doesn't feel quite like I'm just wasting time then.  Of course relaxing and watching TV is not a waste of time but I prefer to be a bit more productive.

Someone asked me about using a tea cosy.  Although we use tea bags a lot, especially if it's just for me or we're in a hurry, we do really like to have a proper pot of tea.  My husband is very exact about how tea should be made.  The pot has to be warmed, the water must be boiling and the tea must be stirred and then allowed to stand for a certain amount of time.  (4-5 minutes)  It sounds like hard work but he does make the best cup of tea!  (As long as he doesn't put too much milk in - he can be a bit heavy handed with the milk sometimes.)  We like PG tips best.  We're not fans of flavoured teas.

Well my tea (and the biscuits I found that I'd forgotten I had) is finished so I need to press on.  Literally - I have some ironing that needs to be done.  I'll be back later to work on the Wednesday Hodgepodge - some tricky questions in there this week.  That will keep the grey matter working!