Birthday presents

Last week was my birthday and both my son and daughter came to visit for a few days, which is why I've been absent for a while. I thought I'd share pictures of some of my presents ... the sewing related ones at least.

 My daughter bought me these tins to hold my silk lace threads. Aren't they just beautiful?!

My son bought me this kit for a stitch sampler book from Jane Greenoff. I've been regretting not having bought this when I first saw it at the Knit and Stitch show in Harrogate last year but felt I couldn't really afford it. I'm being very strong-willed at the moment and haven't actually started stitching it yet as I'm working on other pieces and trying hard to finish them before starting something new but I'm really not sure how long I'll hold out.

One of the friends who comes round to my house every week to stitch lace with me gave me this book on Casalguidi embroidery. We're hoping to go to a class on this later in the year so the book might give me a head start - or help afterwards to remember what I was taught. The sweetie jars are filled with threads and beads - see below. Aren't they gorgeous? And a brilliant way to present them too. I normally wind my threads onto little cards and then file them away in boxes but the jars look so good on my display shelves that I can't really bear to do that just yet.

There wasn't much in the way of minis going on while my family were here but I've been catching up a little this week so there's a little progress to show on the retreat.

I got the windows and deck rails painted and was able to finally attach the deck to the front wall. Of course, I couldn't resist playing with some of the furniture I'm planning to put out here.

 There's a table and chairs for all those al fresco meals ...

 The wicker chair looks so inviting by the plant table - no plants yet but they'll be coming soon.

Upstairs I've fixed a rail around the top of the stairwell to avoid accidental falls in the night.

and a telephone on the unit at the bottom of the stairs.

I've also been busy stitching my cat picture for the Sumptuous Surfaces embroidery course I'm doing. This has been such fun to do and I really learned a lot about the design process.

Now we begin to work with colour and this week's lesson is all about colour theory, so again lots of new ideas to think about. I'm currently playing with tiny squares cut from magazines to make up colour schemes for my next piece of embroidery, but I'll show you those in a few days time when I've got a little further with it all.