New Beginnings

The first week of March did not go exactly as I had planned. My beloved little car suddenly and unexpectedly blew a gasket. Only 2 days earlier she had passed the MOT and the day before I had paid for a year’s tax. I thought that we would be together for at least another year but the cost of repair was non-viable so reluctantly I have had to let her go.

We are a 4 car family and I am not entirely comfortable with that. I have wondered if I could do without my car. The problem is we all work full time, but at disparate locations and we live in a village with no public transport. Just one week without my car has shown me how much I rely upon it and I am definitely not ready to give it up. The weekend before I went to Bournemouth was spent frantically searching the county’s car dealers for a replacement vehicle. The search was proving fruitless and we were on the verge of giving up but at our last port of call we found a cute little Corsa. It was sad to wave good bye to my old companion but it was going to happen one day. I’m just getting to know my new car and am looking forward to the adventures we will have together.

In addition, our cat severely beat up (by another cat not by me) and I had to take her to the vet a couple of times. She has made a full recovery now but needed a little TLC for a few days. Things that I had hoped to do before Bournemouth fell by the wayside. I didn’t have a lot of stitching time but I need to do some just to stay sane. When we do the stitching shows, we take a selection of our work. Sometime ago Denise brought with her a small design called ‘Geisha in the Snow’. It totally captivated me and was the perfect design for my frame cover. Denise very generously shared her design but I had not got around to stitching it, until now.


I traced the design onto tissue paper and stitched straight through the paper into the fabric. The Geisha, her umbrella and the bamboo are all worked in stem stitch. The snow is worked in seed stitch. The whole project took just two evenings to complete.


Unusually, I have come to a point where I am beginning lots of new things. Loving Couple was finished a while ago and I have been ready and waiting to start Phase VII of my Japanese embroidery. Poppy Pouch has been nearing completion and would have been done if events had not taken their own course. Phase IV Japanese bead embroidery is waiting in the wings. I have a small project screaming for my attention and I have also enrolled in another on-line course that starts on 1st April.

Everything feels very new and exciting at the moment.

Happy Stitching