Belle Epoque










Today is our wedding anniversary - two years ago a friend gave us a rose bush for our Golden Wedding Anniversary.
It hasn't had many blooms so far but each one is gorgeous.
I need a few notecards so I'll make them from this photo.

Blackberries .....
About 50 years ago we bought a 'Himalayan Giant' blackberry plant and planted it 'out of the way' at the end of the garden.
What we didn't realise was that, OK, we have had lovely big blackberries for cooking each year - but - we have also had blackberry briars growing everywhere in the garden and they take a lot of digging out!
I guess most of our neighbours have plenty too!
Well we have enjoyed pie, crumble, bbs with custard, bbs with meringues, bbs with apples, bbs with pears, and bbs in the freezer for later, over & over & over.
50 years on and I've decided we deserve something more original. So I Googled and found new ideas .......several I'll try, though I'm not too sure about Blackberry & Apple Yorkshire Puddings!
There are lots - one link to 42 recipes is below - sorry I can never get a click link here, but copy and paste works if you are interested.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/search.do?keywords=Blackberry&searchType=recipes

Oh! I nearly forgot - mashed up, the berries make a lovely fabric and fibre dye!

"Fresh as a Daisy"

I have taken photos, drawn, and stitched daisies for years and have a daisy "gallery" of cards and pictures.


The fabric picture has old & new lace, (old from a charity shop table cloth in bad condition),
braid, beads, buttons, & stitching and it will be
framed for the "gallery".
It has been looking at me, just started, for about two weeks so I finished it today.





The small watercolour pencil pictures are old.

PC-"This & That"


Some years ago I started a "This & That" collection in a large plastic box.
Odds and ends, bits and pieces ..... this and that, have been added and it's now full.
I'm not sure whether it's a treasure chest or a box of rubbish!
I recently looked through and took out fabric and lace scraps, small cameo, friendly plastic motif, small drawing, buttons and fine ric-rac braid.
So, another fabric, or multi media postcard - still lots left in the box though!

Days have come and gone since I was last here .....
I have been very unsettled, waiting for results of an MRI scan and impatient to have some relief from back problems and hopefully being able to stand longer and walk more.
When I feel this way I can only stitch from patterns so I have been sitting for days doing small cross stitch and blackwork pieces.
The cross stitch flowers are stitched on Rustic Aida from a pattern in an old magazine,"Quick & Easy Stitch & Craft", for a birthday card.




The blue jugs are from an old magazine,
"New Stitches" - a set of ten.
The frames are from picnik, for display here.
I hope I'm not so bored that I do all ten - the stitching needs concentration and it relaxes me but what would I do with them? lol
I'll try to shake myself up next week and do something a bit more original.