The Treehouse

Finishes and New Arrivals

  The postman has been pretty busy delivering to the Treehouse over the last week. As well as the kit for Lynette Anderson's Scandinavian Christmas (I forgot to photograph this), he also brought the next My Garden pattern/button and Electric Quilt 7. I am stitching along on Scandinavian Christmas with Simone  and we are just waiting for her first delivery to arrive so that we can set a date for completing the first block - they are quite large blocks but I'm looking forward to stitching them. 

As for the Electric Quilt - I am itching to start playing with that - I've not owned a copy other than the Dear Jane software before so I'm sure that there will be a learning curve involved...I'm just waiting for the 'technical department' to fix me up with an appropriate version of Windows so that I can get going - I only have an old version on my Mac which I use for Inklingo cds and cross stitch software and it won't do for EQ!

I've been in a finishing off mood this last week or so and have finally finished stitching Geranium House by CCN. It's such a pretty design and I'm pleased with how it turned out...just wish that the fabric had been a little lighter. Its destiny is to become a cushion. I also finished off the little scissor fob from the LHN Needle and Thread pattern - that is super cute, I really like it - I'm not sure that I will bother to make many more scissor fobs although it does look very sweet dangling from the halloween scissors

   

I've made a start on my list for the Everything Austen II challenge in fact, I keep on finding things that I want to add to the list. I've ordered up a 'few' more books from the library and I had a little party over at Amazon and The Book Depository last night. I can see that this is going to be an Austentatious summer! It is certainly the weather for staying indoors and reading and sewing - we have had steady downpours of rain, thunder and lightening and some flooding for just over a week now. Most bizarre weather indeed. 

I'm hoping and hoping that it's going to brighten up and at least remain dry for a while as this has been a very soggy beginning to the school summer holidays. We had planned to get in some bowling practice today which I certainly need as my defeat last night was almost total - I blame it on the wet conditions! I did manage to score 2 points before the end of the match so I wasn't completely embarrassed. Also, we've now booked a week's holiday. We were going to go to France with the tent again but given the precarious situation of my back we thought that would be unwise. We're now going to the Isle of Wight and have booked a lovely little thatched cottage to stay in...I'm really excited about that, I think we're taking the bicycles along as well so plenty of exercise to balance out the time sat reading and sewing :)

I know I've not posted about my Flower Garden for a few weeks - I have fallen behind with it somewhat but I do intend to make some flowers before the end of the month and post about them at the same time I post about my clamshell progress. A new Inklingo collection of 1/2 clamshells and edges has just been released and I will certainly be adding this to my Inklingo library very soon along with the 1" diamond collection which I need for my Flower Garden.

Hoping to have the stitching completed on a couple more Christmas story blocks this week...just a few more roses and leaves to go :)

 
 

The Count of Monte Cristo Challenge

 I love talking books with Carole - sometimes it's expensive; she introduces me to somebody new I introduce Carole to somebody new; we share books; we join in bookrings, bookrays, bookspirals and goodness knows what else! It's wondeful to talk with somebody else who enjoys such a wide diversity of reading material though. Last week I think it was, Carole mentioned that she was reading The Count of Monte Cristo. Well, I LOVE that story. I watched Richard Chamberlain as the Count when I was young - my Mum had a soft spot for Richard and in recent years I've watched Jim Caviezel in a new film version of the story. Both great films and Catherine loves the film too. Now, I have quite a large TBR pile and I happened to mention to Carole that The Count had been lingering on this pile since before Catherine was born :o Carole responded with a challenge to read the Count. I think she was teasing - maybe. I started feeling a bit sorry for The Count though as I then realised that he'd been sitting on the shelf in excess of 13 years - I think I bought him after I read Les Miserables and I know for a fact that I read that in my lunch hours at work so...more than 14 years on the shelf :o

It's time for the Count to come down off the shelf and be properly read so in addition to the Everything Austen Challenge II, bookrings/rays/spirals, a gazillion sewing projects, library books, summer holidays and whatever else - I am going to read The Count of Monte Cristo before school starts back in September. I can report that so far he is down off the shelf and dusted off and the first few pages have been consumed :D