Sorry I have been absent

Yes I know I have been absent for a long time. My apologies. I will try and rectify this soon.

I hope everyone is getting excited about Christmas, coming soon! Yesterday we went for a visit to York to see the St Nicholas Fair. It was a long day, the trains we were booked on were cancelled due to the weather and it was COLD. 

We did a lot of walking and there were lots of people round the stalls. The best event was inside the Guildhall and it was free. Some of the other inside events charged entry. 

DH took a lot of photos of the flooded river at night with all the lights. I haven't seen them all yet. He spends ages playing around with them. It was quite spectacular but not fun for those businesses effected.

Bye for now.

Off on my Rambles

This Wednesday I am off on my rambles again. This time it is to Egypt with Colouricious. I will be doing a block printing course with Jamie and Marilyn. DH is coming as well so he can do some scuba diving. We have been told that the Red Sea is the best place for scuba diving and that the fish there are fantastic. So we will both be happy.


I hope to be able to let you see what I've done when I get back.

February

Hello everyone, February is here and I am now a year older. Thank you to all my friends who sent me greetings or cards and threads. It is lovely to have so many lovely stitching friends. yesterday I went out for a meal with DH. I had seen my sister last Wednesday when she had a preview evening of her beautiful art work in Spennymoore Leisure Centre.


Here she is with her friend Catherine Howard If you would like to see more of Lindsey's work go to Lindseysatrbornart

Catherine can be found at Catherinejhoward and she is a very talented textile artist. Well done girls on a fantastic show.

I must take a photo of my Ruby Wedding Sampler which is now complete but it will have to wait until daylight. Today we have snow and I had to go out in it as I went to a friends 60th birthday party. A good time was had by all. I have also made a patchwork bag but again don't have the photos. Next time I promise a better run down of my work.

January

Well we are half way through January and I still haven't said Happy New Year to you all. So belatedly Happy New Year.
Having arrived back home on January 1st I have started an online workshop run by Strathmore Artists Studios.
Here is the first paper I made.

I then started taking small portions of the paper so I have nice close ups

Because I am an embroiderer I then did some tissue samples using similar techniques to the papers. These are serviettes I collected while away on holiday. The first one has been sprayed, stamped, then doodled. When everything was dry I then attached the papers with Bondaweb (Wonder-under) onto a wadding and stitched the piece by machine and hand. It's lovely and will be the front of a sketch book.

The second one is not finished yet

My next photo shows the progress of my Anniversary Sampler

Sampler progress

Today I completed row 5 of my 11 row Ruby Anniversary sampler. 

I'm pleased because I only started this as we set off on our holiday on the 4th December. So I'm doing quite well because I had to finish Dragonscape Hanging while I was away. It is for DS for his birthday and I wanted to give it to him on Boxing Day as I won't see him on his birthday later this month.

 I can also show you Purple Rain felted Hanging number 3 which I gave to DD and her partner for Christmas. Purple Rain 2 is mine - I posted a photo of that before and number 4 is very similar and went to DSis and her husband for Christmas.

I feel as if I've completed quite a lot over the last few months and am very happy with the results.

Happy New Year to you all, enjoy the last of the holiday and raise a glass with me at 12 midnight on the 31st.

Christmas puddings

Thanks to Chittle Chattle for her post which reminded me I hadn't written down the dessert I concocted for Christmas Day.
A few mornings before I had seen Gordon Ramsey make a dessert and we decided that we didn't want a heavy Christmas pudding. I found the ingredients on the web but no instructions and on Christmas Day I couldn't see the programme - I can watch it again now The One Show 21st December - it will probably disappear soon so I must get it down now before I forget.
I don't like cream so decided to substitute marscapone instead of whipping cream and fromage fraise instead of single cream. So here is what I made on Christmas Day. (My substitutions are in brackets)

Sheila's adaptation of a Gordon Ramsey Dessert

Christmas ice cream and fruit sundae

• Ice Cream (any flavour G R recommends ginger or honeycomb) I used vanilla

• 200ml double cream
 (marscapone cheese)
• 100g honeycomb
 (2 frozen crunchies)
• Caramel sauce
 200ml
• single cream 
(fromage fraise)
• 100g mixed berries (raspberries, blackberries, strawberries etc)

• 10g sugar
(less - it doesn't really need any!)
• 2 peeled clementines
 (I forgot to put these in)
• Chocolate shavings
 - melt chocolate on baking parchment and curl up when not quite hard - do this in a cool atmosphere as the chocolate melts very easily)
• Crushed roasted hazelnuts

1. crush nuts
2. spread caramel sauce into iced glass
3. put in berries, honeycomb (or crunchies, frozen to make it easy to crumble), clementines
4. mix caramel sauce, mascapone and fromage fraise
5. spoon into glass
6. make an ice cream ball and place on top
7. more caramel sauce poured on top
8. spread crushed nuts on top
9. put chocolate shavings on top
10. serve
    
    
    Sorry I don't have a picture as we ate them all it was agreed that they were much better than Christmas pudding.

40 Years and Counting

Well our big day is now over. Yesterday was our Ruby Anniversary. It was a beautiful day in the sun. We took a trip out to what could have been a tropical island - Pigeon Island - not an island now as they have build a causeway to get there. It is a nature reserve and permanent museum to colonial rule in St Lucia. The first British garrison left their mark in the form of ruins where they lived and the look-out point where they placed their guns is well worth a look-see. 


I spent most of the time at the beach because we had explored the rest of the island on our first visit there The waves were quite strong but not as bad as at our resort beach which has been dangerous the last three days. I tried the snorkel but there was't much to see, the sea was too murky. DH managed to see one fish when he swam quite close to the rocks. I also realised today that I had left the snorkel and mask behind - boo - waste of money!


Lunch was at the island's only restaurant It was lovely sitting and watching the boats in the bay. We could have been there on our own, it was very small and shaded by the trees. Beautiful. Do a Google search on Pigeon Island and see the reviews. 


We went to a restaurant called Buzz in the evening which is just over the road from the hotel and this is my before dinner drink, fantastic glass!

 and here we are trying not to look too drunk!

The day ended with a final drink talking to some people we had met in the sister hotel next door.

Today is our last full day and I have to pack tonight. Shame the trip is nearly over but then we go back to the UK and straight into Christmas. Great. Hope I packed enough warm clothes!


DH has gone out to take some last sunset shots and I've had a shower and must go now and start packing. See you all on Wednesday.