Vintage stitchery, a bit of Cath and a helping of kindness!

Hello you lovelies!

How is life treating you all... very well I hope!

I love this time of the year, don't you? All changes.... buds bursting forth and gardens and widlife springing to life. You just can't help but to feel brighter on a spring day pregnant with hope and promise! That is the spring day being pregnant... not me! Now that would be a blooming miracle!!!!

This is one of my cross stitch designs ... my take on spring, and my own verse too I may add. Yes I know, I will never make it as a poet! Ha ha ha!

Even the country is standing at the starting line of new beginnings, changes are afoot, and no matter what our individual views on it all are, it is a very interesting time to come. A little scary perhaps, and unsure, but this last week has been a historical one in politics! I am finding all a little scary I must say! I wait with baited breath to see the future unfold..... People have been getting bees in their bonnets about it all, and we will wait and see now what is to come!

One of my stitchery designs... Think I may have put this one on before, so sorry if I have! Losing track!

I seem to have been drifting away from stitching lately and filling my blog with my drawing. There is good reason for this of course, and that is that all my stitcheries originate from my drawings and paintings, so they are close cousins!  So here are some charity shop finds for all you lovers of vintage stitching! These are not my designs, I found them in my local CS s.

Lovely spring inspiring beauties.....

I love this one, it is a table cloth, but it is badly marked in places, so it may be a job for the scissors maybe!I quite fancy using the pieces in a patchwork quilt for the bed , maybe!

I was rooting about upstairs trying to find something, when I heard some giggling coming from a box in the cupboard. Guess what? It was these two impish little girls and their cat who have been stuffed in a box in a very undignified way since we moved. I had forgotten all about my attempts at making ragdolls!

 

 

 

The top girlie has been embellished with some of my stitchery and my handmade buttons!

While I am still in the sewing theme... I am thinking of making a throw for a very tatty embarassing chair out of these fabrics and some embroidery... what do you think hey?

Ok! I can hear you! "Where is the Cath Kidston bit?".....  Oh ok! Here it is. I spotted this tote on the front of a magazine a week or two ago. My eyes nearly stood out on stalks! I actually let out a little squeal of delight right there in the middle of a crowded supermarket, much to poor George's despair! A free, yes FREE Cath Kidston tote bag! Straight to the till with that!

So cheerful, it brightens up my hallway! Off to the shops I will go! 

Before I go again, I must tell you all about a parcel that landed on my porch floor on wednesday. My lovely friend Jen at Themadhouse sent me these lovely gifts. I sometimes just can not get over the kindness of you wonderful peeps! Jen thank you soooooo much! I really must get my finger out to repay these kindnesses, as I have had a few so far, and I am going to see to it that I give some kindness back! You know who you are! So! Thank you so much Jen, you are a very kind and special person! 

A beautiful pin cushion, such a lovely fabric and a little label which says sewing! A very interesting book, which I just know I will love! Also a lovely thoughtful note, which I have partly covered to hide the address, of course!

Right then folks! Cheery bye for another week. I am off to water my seedlings and veggies now!  

Suzie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx :)

My 6th birthday in my second life! Springing in!

Hello to all of you, my friends!

Spring is here at last. Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! It makes me want to re-decorate the house and air out all the rooms.  Pretty up the surroundings!  Oh how I would love a bit of this!

                                A beautiful Cath Kidston Spring bedroom....yummy girls!

Doesn't it just fill our hearts up with hope and cheer when we see the beautiful bright bobbing heads of daffodils? Every spring I love filling the house with them. They bring a certain life to each room, and sunshine each day.

Now I don't know about you, but It just isn't the start of spring at all until I have held a daffodil up and said into its bewildered bloom...."Calling all cars, calling all cars"  Hee hee! Yes, I do. I do it every year! Poor George!

Well it is now six years since my breast cancer diagnosis!  And the start of my second life! Hey hey, its good to give myself two birthdays!  I had my biopsy on the 9th March and my first operation (a masectomy) on the 31st of March 2004. In fact, I got out of hospital just in time for Easter, and still remember the mix of fear (I hadn't got my pathology report back yet) and pure wonder at the way everything was painted more brightly, scents were keener, the breezes softer.

Many hours were spent while recovering from my op, and then going almost straight onto the chemotherapy (4 weeks after my op) watching the birds going about their busy days and reflecting on life and the importance of being in the moment.  I sat gazing out onto the garden from my armchair, wondering how I had never noticed before... so vividly, so real, so intensely.... just how beautiful this world is! Of course I thought I did  know. But I wasn't really awake! But I woke up fully that Easter! I found the beauty almost unbearable, it was so intense.

I wanted to hold it all in my eyes , my heart, my soul, I never wanted to let it go,  I did not want to leave this earth so young (just turned 46 then). My heart ached at the thought of leaving my loved ones, friends and such beauty, and even all the long term problems that I had had before the diagnosis, somehow now didn't seem all that bad! I just wanted to live!  I ached for life.

This is the blessing, the gift that I was given. Because from that day to this, I have never forgotten how lucky I am to still be here. To be here to enjoy another spring, another Easter.

                                       sourced from the internet!

I had such pain, mentally and physically back then, but such joy too!  So spring and Easter mean so much to me! Spring... a time of renewal, new starts, energy and hope! That is when my second life began!

All these photos of the churchyard were taken by me on Wednesday in Poulton le fylde, On a rainy spring day. Usually the flowering is much more profuse, it is a little sparce this year. People travel here every year to take photos, it is such a gorgeous display (photos not doing justice) and they buy postcards which are for sale in St. Chads church (where my Mum's funeral was, and where I was married to my first husband in 1978!)

I am looking forward to Easter!

                                            sourced from internet

These look like they could be full of good ideas for Easter......

Bright and cheerful, cosy and welcoming, Cath Kidston again..... slurp! Sheer eye candy!

Now a thank you to the very lovely Martha who you can visit here, please do go and see her! She sent me this gorgeous little owl pin and card all the way from America! Thank you so much Martha, you are a star!

Lovely isn't it?

Anyhow, I must dash (to bed!) I have taken to posting my posts after midnight on Friday, but yet it still says that I have posted on Thursday!

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

Lots of love Suzie xxx