Before we start, I suggest you grab a beverage of your choice, and had full or two of tasty snacks and find a nice comfy chair, because this is going to be a long one.
Are you ready?
Right, I'll be honest, there’s been lots of boring, mundane stuff this month, like my car insurance, MOT and service needing to be done, hair and podiatrist appointments, all interspersed with doctor’s
appointments and blood tests to monitor
for my diabetes and underactive thyroid……… as I said, boring stuff that had to be done, but there
was still time for good stuff happen too, so read on.
First up, are you
sitting down, because I went back to my youth and became a rock chick for the night again….at
almost 70 years of age, Lol!
I used to go and see
lots of bands back in the day, but haven't been to see a band live for many years, so
when the opportunity arose to go and see the ‘ Illegal Eagles’ on their ‘Hotel California’
50 year anniversary tour, I
jumped at the chance.
If you’re a fan of
Country/Folk Rock music and love Eagles as I do, then this band is a must to see.
In my opinion they are far too good to be considered a ‘tribute’ band, being every bit as good, if not better than the Eagles themselves.
We couldn't have had better seats, being in the first and second rows and we were on our feet with the rest of the audience,
singing along to old favourites like ‘Peaceful Easy
Feeling’, ‘Lyin’ Eyes’, ‘Take it Easy’ and of course ‘Hotel California’ to name
but a few.One of the highlights of the evening was when they brought three of the original founding members from 30 years ago on stage.
Wow.........what an evening!
Another highlight of
the month was the few days I spent in Norfolk visiting friends who live in the
historic market town of Swaffham.
We had arranged the
trip to coincide with the RHS Sandringham Flower Show and while we ladies spent
the day enjoying the flowers, the boy went Clay Pidgeon shooting.
We had a wonderful
time, but as with all of these big flower shows, it was a long day and very
hard on the old feet. The unprecedented heat didn’t
help either, but seeing the show gardens and all the beautiful plants made it all well worth the effort.Here are just a few of
the photos from the day:-
First stop was the
Floral Marquee
I hadn't noticed, but clearly I was drawn towards the blues and purples as usual!
And then it was on to the show
gardens, which included some which were a little quirky.
Ever wondered what to do with that old bathroom you're ripping out?
I wish my garden looked like that!
We didn’t have time to
go into Sandringham House on this occasion, but we did go and take a look at
the church.
St Mary Magdalene, is
where the Royal Family go on Christmas morning and you always see photos of them
standing on the steps and greeting well-wishers.
It dates back to Tudor times and is beautiful
inside, as you can imagine.
.
All in all we had a
wonderful time and we finished the day off with a lovely dinner at Sculthorpe
Mill
.
Now……….I can hear you
saying that you thought this was going to be an update on my stitching ………well it
is, and there was plenty of time for that too. My stats show that I
touched seven projects in all and stitched on
29 of the 31 days,
which wasn’t bad going.
I worked on three
wips, had four new starts and finished five projects, but sadly I didn’t find
the time to FFo anything, so I’ll have to knuckle down during August and get
some of the pieces done and dusted before the pile grows again.
The first wip I picked up was ‘Coffee
Shoppe by Dimensions, and I worked on that for just two days, as my usual 25th
and 26th of the month stitch.
The second wip was ‘Make
Memories’ from Beach Rules by Primrose Cottage, which I finished in two days.
And the third wip was Santa
Claus is Coming to Town by Historische
Stickmuster but this one turned
into a bit of a saga.
I stitched for four
days, until the end of the month, and realised I had lost the skein of Dark
Brown silk I was using for the reindeer.
I really didn’t want to pay around £6(inc postage) just to get one skein of silk and I
didn’t need anything else, unusual, I know,
so in the end I decided to frog the reindeer
I had already stitched and use ‘Dark
Chocolate’ a Roxy Floss Co thread (not silk) that was left over from my 2024 Christmas
Countdown instead.
At that point, I also
decided to change their noses to brown, except for Rudolf at the front.
Then, in all the kerfuffle, I forgot to take a picture of where I
left off, so the ‘after’ photo is a bit
of guess.
You’ll understand the significance of that, when I tell you that I
didn’t want to put it down and carried on stitching into August.
So here’s sort of
where I got to.
Now we come to the
four new starts, which were all finishes, and they were:-
Roll with the Tides,
the final panel of ‘Beach Rules’ by Primrose Cottage.
Seven Swans A-Swimming
- from the Twelve days of Christmas by Bothy Threads
July Garden by Sub
Rosa Designs (for cross stitch camp)
And lastly the 2026
Cross Stitch Camp Badge by The Colorado Cross Stitcher.
So that was what my month of July looked like in a rather
large nut shell!
My plans for August
are as unorganised as usual.
The only certainty is
that I will be stitching ‘8 Maids A-Milking’ from the 12 Days of Christmas and do my 25th & 26th
stitch on ‘The Coffee Shoppe’ by Dimensions, oh, and fit in some ffo’ing, but
apart from that, who knows what will find my hoop next.
So until next time………
Happy Stitching
Sue
x
