This morning. And yes, I was hanging out of the window at a death defying angle to get the photo!

I’d say that rainbow was wishing me luck for the week, wouldn’t you!

Helen

This weekend it finally struck me what the date was and what that meant and quite what I have to do before THE BIG DAY! I guess that’s the trouble when you like to make at least some of the gifts you give to people! I confess that I had the teeny weeniest of panics. I mean there’s still quite a lot of time left, right?

I think I need to get my skates on a bit – and more to the point, get some things finished and mailed off.

I finished Linda’s November blocks for the Sew Euro-bee-an bee – easy and fun and I loved the fabrics. Linda is planning a picnic blanket with them.

I made lots of progress on my Stitch Tease Secret Santa present – can’t show you everything (yet), but here’s a sneaky peek:

And finally, finally, finally, I finished my Color Affection shawl.

This is a pretty large shawl and the lovely Rowan Cashsoft 4ply yarn made it the softest and most smooshy shawl ever. I still love, love , love the colour scheme and I know this is going to get a lot of wear. And before you ask, no I’m not giving this away for Christmas (this baby’s mine, all mine!). I’m still in two minds over whether I went slightly wrong as far as the pattern is concerned. It’s very slightly lop-sided, but I don’t care because nobody will ever notice. I threw in the towel on counting stitches as I went along because, well if I’m honest, it was physically impossible. You try counting 16 billion stitches all scrunched up on a circular needle!

Now I just have a quilt to finish (cough, splutter), the next (and trickiest) Stitch Tease contribution to make….and all my Christmas shopping to do…..oh and one daughter asked me to knit a hoodie for her for Christmas….the yarn will only arrive in 10 days….(queue hysterical laughter at this point!).

If you happen to see Santa’s elves hanging around anywhere, send them my way won’t you!

Helen

I have a little problem I’d like to put before you.

I don’t want to blow it out of proportion, because at the end of the day, it’s just not that big of a deal, but I’d really like to know what you would do in my situation 🙂

I’m in several bees – and most of them chug along pretty happily. Occasionally life gets in the way and for one reason or another things get delayed. People mail and let you know what’s going on and eventually all the blocks turn up and Bob’s your uncle.

But it doesn’t always work like that and that’s right where I am now.

I’m in a bee – I won’t tell you which one because the last thing I want to do is embarrass anyone…let’s just leave it that I’m in a bee. My month was September and we have 2 months to complete the blocks, so by the end of October my blocks should have arrived. I sent my fabric and instructions out in August and to date I have received three lots of blocks back (out of 11). The flickr page photos show that nobody else has made any blocks and some have already moved on to the month after mine.

Last week I wrote to the Queen Bee, but haven’t heard back from her. I also posted an update post on Flicr, just to ask people how things are standing. I have had replies from 4 and rather worryingly it seemed like some of them had forgotten my project.

That leaves 4 not made, but at least communicating and another 4 with no response at all.

What would you do? I mean it’s kind of embarrassing to keep hassling people, but it would be nice to see this work out. Would you just leave it and see what comes out in the wash? What is the correct etiquette in this situation? I feel like I’ve done a nice, non-pushy reminder and I don’t want to p people off, if you know what I mean.

I’m sure I’m not along in experiencing this – so do let me know what you think!

Have a lovely Sunday,

Helen

A ladies day out has been well overdue here – and Mel and I headed off on Thursday to Baden for a natter and a mooch around. Baden is a sweet little town only 20 minutes from Zürich with the fast train. It’s also the HQ of the worldwide Swiss/Swedish engineering concern ABB.

We first headed to the home of Mr Brown of Uxbridge. Mr Brown was an engineer who came to Switzerland in 1851 to work for the engineering company Sulzer. He was successful and had 5 children, one of whom, Charles Eugene Lancelot went on to be an engineer himself and founded Brown Bovari and Company – a very successful Swiss engineering company which in 1988 fused with a major Swedish company to create the ABB industrial concern.

The original Mr Brown built himself a very nice – but not huge – house in Baden and his children and grandchildren spent the family money on impressionist art. The result is that today you can walk round the Villa Langmatt, admiring the Victorian furnishings, with  Monets, Renoirs, Sisleys and all the rest at every turn. The only concession to security seemed to be that we had to hand in our handbags! Quite extraordinary – it would only happen in Switzerland! There are actually a few villas with amazing art collections in the area and a couple of years ago there was a very spectacular robbery in Zürich, so I suspect that things might actually start to tighten up a bit! It’s nice for now though, so we’ll enjoy it while it lasts!

Nearby Baden was worth a little look around too. This tower is really the highpoint.

But there were lots of narrow little cobbled streets with interesting shops and houses too.

Helen

Sorry, I know I’m boring you to death with this one – but it has been rather taking over my life recently.

I’ll keep quiet about it now…at least until the quilting is done!

Helen

PS I particularly love the two pairs of bare feet at the bottom of the quilt. It was about 5 degrees outside this morning and they could both have worn shoes, slippers, socks….hell anything….but chose to be out in the cold in bare feet. Bonkers if you ask me! (And they are both old enough to know better!)