Good morning, my friends. Another week has passed, ad my car has now achieved 5 weeks to that same gallon. I haven’t moved it now in about a week and a half – the poor thing, it must be pining for all the miles I did when going around Britain last year! However, we must continue to be patient and stay put – not that I am minding much! I’m just SO enjoying spending all this time at a much slower pace. A cousin said o me the other day that he had heard when this new normal is over we must each decide what our new normal wants to look like. Seems like a plan! The extra time has meant I have even been at my desk this week – yes! – the one on the landing. I have taken note of you all, and followed your examples! I have been making Christmas cards – nothing too extrav agant yet – simply a glorious picture, on a background, on a card base. The rest will come later

I have also finished work on the front porch. I decided that I didn’t want to clutter it up with coats and shoe racks – they must find somewhere else – so would leave it painted and put up pictures on the walls. So, I opened up my lovely looking tin of delicate green colour… only to find it unredeemable! It had most definitely gone off! So, matt white the walls remained.. and… hunting in the cupboards I found more of our own work to add to the robinAnd I have finished decorating the front porch. I decided I didn’t want to fill it up with shoe rack and coats – they must find somewhere else to clutter up! So… I looked around at the pieces of our own work which weren’t hanging anywhere…

The lovely long, light evbenings have been taken up with a jigsaw – which proved harder than it looked – and another bkanket – still stash busting!!

So, there you have it, my friends. Life here in North Wales. A friend from church rang me yesterday and said “When we all finally get together we will need to wear badges to remind ourselves who everyone is”. I think he may well be right..

Take care of yourselves. Stay safe. God bless you richly.

Hello my friends. I do trust this finds you well and coping; and that those among our number who have been ill are in the process of recovering! Once again, my workspace has been in all sorts of areas around the house. The decorating in the front porch is finished apart from the top coats of paint, and I am awaiting a couple of folks to come do some work there before I do that. So what have I been up to this week?

… I have finished the robin! I tried to put the pricked and embossed pattern around the edge, but it just didn’t work, so I matted and layered it as it was. I’m really rather pleased with my efforts!” I know it isn’t perfect, but…

… I have knitted another batch of those little cannula covers for the preemies and weenies. As you will see, the picture shows off the appalling mark I made on my dining table when I knocked over a cafetierre of piping hot coffee!!!

… I have been really industrious with the workspace called the jigsaw board – achieving two completed puzzles this week!

… My workspace on the landing has seen some action with me producing two more worksheets for my friend at church. Both ideas came from my daughters – one has already been sent out to the clients my daughter works with!

… The final workspace this week has been my rather large (and consequently very unruly) garden. It has been lovely working and sitting outside, running the pond pump, so just the sound of bird song and running water!  The yellow flowers are Welsh poppies, and the pink are lady smock. These grow wild in the lawn and I refuse to cut that particular lawn until they have finished flowering and spreading their seed. They are quite a rare wild flower, after all!

So that’s me this week, folks. Endeavouring to keep up with the essentials, do some fun things, and generally get on with lockdown. I confess to actually enjoying this slower pace of life, enjoying the beautiful silence when outside, and thoroughly enjoying the fact that my car has now achieved four weeks to the gallon! Thanks so much for the lovely comments you all left last week. It was so good to go round and visit everyone, discovering how you are managing with this new, and very strange, normal.

Do take care and stay safe. God bless you all.

Margaret  

   

Hello my friends. I do trust this finds you well, and having had a lovely and special Stay-at-home Easter. On Easter Sunday morning I joined many others across the nations outside on my drive and sang two of the most popular Easter songs/hymns. I had decided to invite my immediate neighbours, so wrote them a letter explaining it, made them a card, and put a few mini Easter eggs into a box. Then on Sunday out we all went and sang aloud about the resurrection. It was surreal, but a good time. Then on Monday I received a thank you card for doing it – sent by a neighbour who appreciated the sense of hope. I was very blessed.

The rest of the work has been a mixture of doing at different “desks”…

…The jigsaw board!

…I managed to finish that blanket.

… I finished the colouring on the robin, and it is now upside down on a diagonal grid to do the embossing. This is going to take some time!!

… Having finished the blanket, I had to have something in my hands when I sat with the tv in the evenings. So decided to make some more of the little cannula covers for preemies and teenies.

… Having agreed, along with my daughters, that there is absolutely no point in my house being on the market at this present time, I took it right off the for sale register. Then set to, to do some decorating. Now, what you must understand is that I am possibly one of the world’s worst decorators. I’m too impatient – hence the marks on the glass in the photo. I decided to start small. The front porch. It’s about 5×4 feet – has three doors (only 2, fortunately which need painting). So, I have emptied, rubbed down, hoovered, sanded, and now given the walls two coats of paint, and the doors have had one. It takes SO long to paint a door – especially one which needs painting on both sides and has two panes of glass in it! I’m actually stood on the drive to take this photo! Hopefully tomorrow I can put a little colour on the walls. Still trying to decide if they need another coat of white first. I’ll make my decision tomorrow.

So there you have it, folks. I have even made some bread and cakes this week – keep me going whilst decorating! I played a game of Perudo with my family via Whatsapp – crazy and not exactly a comfortable environment for me, but great fun nevertheless. Fortunately, we had just achieved a winner when our time was up and everyone disappeared!

Take care my friends. Stay safe. God bless you.

Hello my friends. I do trust this finds you well, and staying safe. I managed to visit everyone last week, which was just SO good – but, oh Kathryn – I do wish I could comment on your post. Your work is so very beautiful. My desk this week looks distinctly lacking in energy! I haven’t managed to do any more to the robin from last week because…

…Do you remember playing with these ideas when you were young? A friend from church who works for an organisation supporting people with special needs asked if I could come up with some simple craft ideas for the clients as the organisation were putting together newsletters each week to help with the long hours in the house. So, I have come up with these, provided templates and worksheets. Quite takes me back to when I was teaching and providing worksheets for the pupils! Told my elder daughter… and yes, the charity she works with are doing the same thing – so all the details have winged their way across the border!

My addiction is showing… Yes, I have completed another jigsaw in the early evenings – the light is good until I need to turn on the electric lights – and when that happens…

… I’m busy doing this baby blanket for a couple who come to my church twice a year. They provided the yarn, I simply provided the time and the crochet hook. Two long rows crocheted together and the rest of the squares are there on the arm of the settee waiting to be put together. Then I will simply crochet round and round the outside until I have used up all their yarn. Then I shall need to find something else to do when I turn on the lights in the evening!

So, that’s me this week folks. I have only been out once all week – apart from gardening – because I didn’t need any shopping – so I shall be braving the rigours of the queues on Thursday in preparation for the Easter weekend.

Have a very special Easter. Remember that Jesus came into a world torn apart with strife, conflict, hunger, prejudice – not unlike today, really – and He lived and died, then rose again – for you and me.

Take care. Stay safe. God bless you.

Margaret

Hello my friends. I do trust this finds you well, and coping with all that is happening in this beautiful world. Thank you so much for the lovely comments last eek. You really are a great bunch gifted in encouragement! As is my usual self I have been working in lots of different areas this week. I have even ventured into the garden, cut half of the lawns and already filled up my brand new, shiny garden waste bin. It’s no longer brand new or shiny! It’s full.

However, undaunted, I came indoors and worked at my desk on the landing here in North Wales with my lovely country, sea and mountain view. I made a few more Easter cards ready to send to friends and family…

This is a mix of having fun and making mistakes! The die I used was meant to cut out from the front of the card so I could put something behind it. Uh-oh! Failed – I accidentally put the edge on it so cut it off the card. Rethink necessary… so it’s now behind the front card, stuck into it instead. Then a play with some DI inks and chalk. Oh well, not too bad!

Some of you were kind enough to ask questions about the daffodil die I used for the Easter card I showed last week. It is a Paper Cuts die by Cathie Shuttleworth with Creative Expressions. She has a style which I really like, so admit to having a fair few of her designs. She is well worth a look!

My next work desk has been a large rather tatty piece of hardboard balanced on a footstool in the lounge! Yes, another jigsaw. I think I may be addicted…

So on to the desk on my lovely landing. Completely cleared of card making, and out came the pergamano. I love this, and freely admit to not doing enough of it. The big plastic RUB holds all the tools, I see a fancy pencil sharpener which turns the cutting edge rather than the pencil, the pencils I am working with, a daylight lamp, the project itself and a few bits of the usual detritus! I am working on a coloured piece designed as a workshop by Christine Coleman. It was printed in the Parchment craft magazine in December 2006 – no, I’m not a speedy worker. I treated myself to the correct Polychromos pencils and eventually set to. I did a couple of small pieces under supervision, as it were, by Christine herself when I went on a pergamano course two years ago. Never done it on my own before… so it’s all a bit hit and miss. I decided that the best way for me was to place the parchment actually over the top of the picture in the magazine – that way, whilst it wouldn’t be perfect, at least the perspective would be good!! Sorry and apologies to all you REAL artists out there!

This is where I have got to – I’m taking my time and enjoying each little step

S0, basically, that’s me this week folks. Did any folk in Britain go out last Thursday evening to applaud our beautiful NHS? I thought I would be the only one in our area, but determined to go out whether I looked a bit of a twit or not. Oh my word! There were a good number of my neighbours out, and we could hear the clapping and cheering all around the hillside on which we live. It was such a powerful and emotional moment. These folks are putting their lives on the line for us. What a sacrifice. “Greater love has no man than this: to lay down one’s life or one’s friends.”  So today I leave you with a picture of my favourite place on earth – Snowdon, and have included a verse from the Bible. In these troubled, difficult, strange times He says we are welcome to call on Him – He’s big enough to cope with our screams, our cries for help, our desperation, or our love.

Take care my dear friends. Stay safe. God bless you abundantly.