Finally a productive week...

First of all, I'd like to say thank you so much for the good wishes! I'm feeling much better today, still sniffly & feeling the need to sleep for a week but a big improvement on last week...

In-between bouts of sneezing, I've managed to finish the construction of the second part to the workshop piece, send it down to my photographer (aka my mother!) and tick it off my to-do list for the moment. It'll return to the list once I have both pieces back as then I need to produce the chart packs. As soon as the pieces have made their way to Jane Dickinson (who's organising the workshop) & the brochures are produced, I'll be able to post some pictures - until then it's under wraps!

As my brain still wasn't functioning properly, I decided to concentrate on finishing Greek Steps with the hope that I might get it finished before Christmas. Well, I'm delighted to announce that not only is it finished, but if I can work out how to post a picture, you might be lucky enough to see it! If (as I suspect) all you see is the dreaded red x, glance over to the left-hand side where you'll see the link to my albums, and click...

Greek Steps - John Clayton (Heritage Stitchcraft)
I apologise for the slightly wonky edge - it was a little too long to fit on the scanner in one go, so the images had to be spliced together!

I'm taking it to the framers on Saturday & I think I'm going to go with a silver frame. It's going to go in the hallway at the top of the stairs and as the other two frames on the stairs are silver, it would make sense to have a similar look for this one. The house is a little too small for different frames to look particularly good & luckily I think silver will work with the design.

Last night I started working on the final two panels of the Trinket Box which I was hoping to release before the end of the year. It's definitely not going to be ready by then, but I'm hopeful of a January launch. The last stitched sections should be pretty quick (famous last words...) and with a bit of luck I'll be able to set aside a couple of days at Christmas to construct the box. I'm planning something a little different for this box so I need to make sure I've got enough time to redo it if it all goes horribly wrong, but I'm hoping that I've thought of all the possible pitfalls.

My parents came up to visit at the weekend, delivering lots of mysterious packages on behalf of the Christmas Fairy and her goblin assistant and taking my mind off the nasty germs I was harbouring. As usual, my OH and my father spent the majority of the time rolling their eyes as my mother & I gorged ourselves on "string talk" but I think a good time was had by all! My mother has recently published her second book (cue shamelss plug: "Alphabet Inspirations in Coloured Bobbin Lace" by Sandi Woods, published by Batsford & now available at all good bookshops!) and is working on material for the next so as you can imagine, we always have plenty of "string things" to talk about...

Sadly they could only stay for the one night as they also have a very demanding cat who wouldn't hesitate to make his displeasure known in various ways! Being a Havana Brown, Fidel (full name Fidel Castrato) has the personality of a Siamese and knows himself to be not only human but also the being around whom the world rotates. He's wrong of course. That would be Daisy.

I think that's all for this week - all comments are greatly appreciated!