It's All Greek To Me!

I'm back! I had such a wonderful time in Athens. It was a really jam packed four days and we saw so much in such a short period of time. They were very long and tiring days, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
First up we went to the Acropolis to see the Parthenon and other famous historical sights that I can't remember the names of LOL. (I'll try not to show too many pictures, I don't want to make any of you yawn, these are just a taster).
The Parthenon. Such an incredible place, if you ever get the chance to visit, seize that chance with both hands. It's once of those really powerful places where you can actually sense the history around it.



This is a Roman style theatre on the way up to the Acropolis which was so impressive. It's just huge and the seats are so steep. No one is allowed to go on it though, unlike the Dionysus Theatre, because this one hasn't been restored.

Another close of snap of the Parthenon.

This was one of my favourite pieces we saw. It's a Greek sphinx, which is very different from the Egyptian kind. The Greek sphinx has wings and a body based on a lioness rather than a lion. It's very beautiful in real life, and so well preserved.

This is the part which I thought would most interest my fellow stitchers. On the last day, we visited the Athens museum of Folk Art and one of the first exhibits was this, a traditional Greek cross stitch sampler! It made me chuckle that I had flown hundreds of miles and still my hobby had found me. Here it is, sorry about the blurry picture, I struggled taking a nice one because of the glass front.

It uses such rich colours and it was so long; this is just a section because I couldn't fit the whole piece in! I'm hoping to take one of the motifs and make it into my very own cross stitched piece, as a lasting memory from such a wonderful trip. I could've easily stayed in Athens a couple more days, but the atmosphere in the centre was becoming more tense because of the latest riots. Luckily, our group was out of town in Delphi when the main rioting took place. There was petrol bombs and everything though, so it was a little scary when we came back in the evening.

Since I've been in Athens all week, I've had no time for stitching at all. We had early mornings and late nights so there would have been no time for stitching even if I had taken some with me! I've got work tonight and tomorrow, but on Sunday I'm planning to rest up and stitch.

Oh! I haven't told you my biggest news! The day before we were due to set off for Athens, I had a nasty fall and cut my foot open on the side. I had to go to A&E and have five stitches put in. I got a crutch for Athens so getting down the mountains was a bit tricky sometimes, but I coped well enough :) My foot is nearly back to normal, I had my stitches out this morning and the last dressing comes off tomorrow. I'm certainly very clumsy LOL

So yes, I hope to be stitching and sewing on Sunday and hopefully actually finishing my Chilly Paws piece. I hope you've all got a lovely weekend planned, you certainly have been busy when I was away. So many gorgeous projects going on at the moment :)

Happy stitching!

A Chilly Finish

Hello everyone! I hope you've all had a fantastic week and are soon to be enjoying a relaxing weekend. I had my last practical drama exam this week, and it went quite well - I hope! And I got an offer from my top choice University so that's very good for me :)
On the stitching front, I have now finished Chilly Paws . . .



I'm hoping to turn this into a pin pillow soon, when I get some cording sorted. I'm going to use the fabric in the picture for the back of it. I was really impressed when I bought this fabric actually, I got it from eBay at a very reasonable price. That's much easier for me than trying to find the time to go to the haberdashery. I'm getting into the habit of finding stash pieces on eBay at the moment, I think my bank balance will soon start to suffer LOL
In other news, Nature's Beauty is coming along a treat. I don't often have much time for stitching at the moment, only an hour or so each day, but I am really enjoying this piece. I can now see why LHN designs are so popular, I don't think this will be my last one. Here's where I'm up to . . .

It's back to work for me this weekend, as I had last week paid holiday. But then on Sunday, I'm off to Athens! I'll look forward to catching up with everyone when I return on Thursday, and tell you all about my trip of course :)
Have a wonderful weekend,

WOW!!

Well, I could hardly believe it when I logged onto Blogger this morning and my number of followers had doubled! I thought my eyes were deceiving me, or Blogger was having a malfunction. I was so delighted when it turned out to be true! I cannot thank you all enough for becoming new followers, I really hope you like my blog :) I'm still a little confused though, can any one fill me in on how this wonderful thing happened? I had 31 followers before, and then five days later BAM - 61! Hello to all my new followers, please feel free to leave comments and ask questions about anything on my blog, I would love to hear from you. And we must welcome old friends too :)

So, first things first, thank you for all your helpful comments on 123stitch. I didn't actually make my order until I had heard some opinions from the blogging world. Now that I have used the company myself, I can heartily agree with the positive comments. My stash was posted the day after I ordered it and arrived exactly one week after that. It was all packaged up perfectly and I thought the prices were so reasonable, especially because I live in the UK. So any fellow UK stitchers out there, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this site, it's very good indeed.
Here's the stash I got. I know it doesn't look like much, but for me, it's very exciting LOL I got LHN Nature's Beauty and some threads I needed for that, and some other threads too for an upcoming spring project. Stay tuned for that!



One of my New Year's Stitchy Resolutions was to stitch a LHN design, and after seeing Nature's Beauty on Lynn's blog (thanks Lynn!) I knew it had to be that one. I've made a start on it already, although only a very small start. I had to cut the fabric twice because the first one just wasn't big enough. That'll teach me to start a project late at night, but I honestly couldn't resist!

Chilly Paws is in its final stages too, all that's left is the backstitched words to go alongside the cute Britty Kitty. I've got the fabric ready to turn this into a flatfold as soon as it's finished - not too long now I hope.

And this part of the post is entirely for Peggy-Lee, but feel free to read on :) The story goes that I commented on Peggy's post about cookies saying I had never had a homemade cookie before. She was clearly outraged by this (LOL) as she emailed me some lovely recipes for me to try at home. Well, me and my mum looked over these recipes and unfortunately, some of the ingredients weren't available here in the UK. My mum persevered though and found some other recipes on the Internet. So although we didn't get to use your wonderful recipes Peggy, I can now say I've had a homemade cookie. And here's the proof!

We did make a few more than this, but they were still in the oven when I wanted to take a picture. They are so good, I could probably get through a batch by myself :) Thank again Peggy for your kindness and setting me on this naughty path of cookie heaven!
I've got a drama performance coming up at school, but a week after that, I'm going on a school trip to Athens! I'm really looking forward to it as I'm going with my closest friends. I'll be sure to share some pictures after my trip.
I'm going out tonight to see a comedian with my boyfriend, but before that, I've got sometime to make a serious dent in Nature's Beauty.
Thanks again for joining me on my blog, it means so much to me :) I hope you all have a lovely weekend,

A Giveaway Announcement

The lovely Deborah at Cranberry Samplings is having a special giveaway for reaching 300 followers. Well done Deborah! Go and check it out, although I don't mind too much if you don't - more chances for me! :) LOL

A Question . . .

Hello blogging friends, I was wondering if you could help me. I was browsing on http://www.123stitch.com/ website and found some lovely things at a great price, thanks to the conversion rate. I was just wondering if this is a good website to use? Is service good? And to any English bloggers, have you used this website before? Does it takes ages for packages to arrive?

Any advice on using this website would be gratefully appreciated :)

No pictures from me today, but I hope to have a finish in the next couple of days!

Hope you're all having a lovely week,