God Bless.....

..... each and every one of you and, of course, my Dear Mother and Father.

Your prayers, kind thoughts and good wishes have wrought a miracle.  My Dear Mother, who was taken into Emergency in the early hours of Friday morning after a fall in the shower (just don't ask what she was doing in the shower at 2am!) with a core body temperature of 26 degrees Celsius (normal body temperature is 37 degrees), dehydrated and with kidney failure has confounded, amazed and pleased her doctors and us all completely by staying with us and is slowly recovering.  Her will to live is astounding!

Of course, her health has taken a battering and she is now at a lower level of health than before.  If it is at all possible she has lost even more weight and is positively skeletal! But the nurses and doctors at Monash Medical Centre (who are wonderful) are actually managing to get her to eat!

However, she is going to have to be placed into a nursing home when she is ready to be discharged from hospital.  This is a hard reality for my Dear Dad to face.  At 94 he has been her caregiver for the past several years and they have been married for over 67 years.  But he, too, fell in the shower and hit his head whilst he was trying to help her.  Luckily, he was not too hurt although he has a lump and a cut on his head. He stayed with me over the weekend and I noticed that he is very shaky and unsteady on his feet (more so than ever before) and he complained of feeling dizzy a lot.

So, some difficult, hard decisions ahead of us but at least she is still with us.  God Bless.

So, thank you so much again - your support, prayers and good wishes help me so much.  I am sorry if I do not get the chance to thank each of you personally but please know that I love you all and feel so privileged to call each of you my friend.

hugs, Kaye

Dear Dad and Mum with DS2 in happier times.

More prayers please

Dear lovely, fellow stitchers and bloggers,


Sorry, I won't be in blogland much for a few days.  My Dear Mother has been taken to hospital for the fourth time this year.  She is very ill, my Dear Father is currently staying with me and we are spending long days at the hospital.

Once again, if I could ask for your prayers and good wishes.  My Dear Father is devastated - they have been married 67 years and if she survives this weekend they will still be parted as the doctors have told him that he can no longer care for her and that she will have to go into a high care nursing home.  I do not know how he is going to cope without her whatever happens.

Talk to you all soon,

love Kaye

IHSW wrap up

As usual, I had quite a busy weekend (I did something very special on Sunday with my Dear Friend, Marie but I will tell you all about that in a post later in the week) but I did manage to be productive for IHSW this month as well.

On Saturday I framed "Friends" to give to my friend at work for her birthday today:

.... and now Medusa Lavender Fairy has all of her hair and if you look very closely you can see the start of her wing on the left hand side!

I hope that all of you had a successful IHSW - I look forward to checking out all of your blogs.

hugs,

FNSI update

I stitched some more on my Lavender Fairy for my JE RR for FNSI.

Now, she looks like Medusa rather than a Noh mask or maybe a Noh mask with Medusa hair?  I will be glad when I finish her hair - getting rather tired of all the brown - lol!

Hopefully she will beautiful once she is done!

IHSW this weekend, too  - I am planning to work some more on Lavender Fairy AKA Medusa and FINISH my "Friend" stitch plus some probably some other bits and pieces of stitching  - whatever takes my fancy.    How about your IHSW plans?

hugs,

Tudor Tuesday.....

As you probably all know already,  I am rather obsessed with the Tudors.  So much so that I have acquired many designs based around Henry Viii and his six wives or Elizabeth I.  So, to help facilitate the stitching of these designs I have instituted Tudor Tuesday!  

Would you like to see them all?

This is a DMC kit of Henry Viii and his six wives.

Another DMC kit - Elizabeth I

A HAED design - Holbein's iconic painting of Henry...

Not much progress here, I haven't picked it up for ages!

My stitch for the Nicola's Scarlet Letter Year SAL....The Faerie Queene Sampler

The six wives of Henry Viii by The Primitive Hare

Sorry, I should have ironed before taking the following pics but I was in a hurry.

The End Crowneth the Work by Plum Creek Samplers (not started yet)

Another  FIVE HAEDs - all of Elizabeth I.

Hmmmm!  Do you think that all of these are going to be enough to fill my Tudor Tuesdays?

If anyone wants to join me on a Tuesday night - just let me know and we can SAL together.

FNSI tonight - so have fun everyone!

hugs,

Cut Thru Castle Update...

Well, I am getting there, slowly.... as they say, one stitch at a time.....

Last update:

After an evening of stitching.....

Definitely starting to take shape, I think.

Thanks for visiting,

hugs,

Another Happy Dance.... or TWO!

I have had another Happy Dance - yay! Last week I finished my second round JE RR stitching.

This one is Snowdrop Fairy, I am very pleased with how she turned out.

Here are the other two fairies on the RR piece - Lavender and Lily, can I please stress that these two ARE NOT MY WORK THEY ARE THE GORGEOUS STITCHING OF TWO OTHER TALENTED LADIES (I hope that they don't mind me showing it off).

The RR piece so far:

Also, over the weekend I finished this sweet stitch from Merrily Beams called Trifles (I saw it finished on Carol's blog the other day and I remembered I had the pattern in my stash). I stitched it for my desk buddy at work for her birthday.

Trifles by Merrily Beams

unknown ecru 28 ct evenweave

Threads - my own choice of Cottage Garden Threads

I like this design so much that I plan to stitch it at least once or twice more as gifts for friends, it is a very sweet and easy stitch, especially on the gorgeous evenweave fabric which Linda sent me recently. (Thanks so much again, dear Linda).

hugs,

A couple of progress pics.....

I am progressing nicely with both my JE RR Lavender Fairy and with my train stitching, Bienvenue.

She looks a bit like a Japanese Noh mask at the moment - lol!

I know that I said I was really unsure about my colour choices when I started my train piece but as it is taking shape I am really liking the way it looks.

hugs,

Voyager!!!!

Voyager and the golden record have now reached interstellar space!

Watch out Universe, here we come! (Captain Kirk, eat your heart out! - lol!)

I hope that all is well in your little corner of the universe.

hugs,

Strawberry Fields Forever and ever....

Well, I have now finished Strawberries by LHN twice!

However, despite all my best efforts, I am not perfect and there are slight variations in each version - I do read the pattern carefully but somehow that human error creeps in!


Strawberries - Take Two:

Strawberries - Take One:

Can you see where I have made the mistakes?

Strawberries Take One (left) and Take Two (right) side by side:

Both of these are destined to be gifts, so I hope that the recipients don't mind that I am not entirely perfect!

hugs, 

Cut Thru Castle update

On Mondays, well only some Mondays to be honest, I stitch on my Cut Thru Castle, which I am doing as a SAL with Linda and Debbie.  I finally had the opportunity to pick it up again last night, so I have another progress photo to show you. Yay!

I also wanted to show you some more of my Spring garden. The first pic is me trying to be artistic by contrasting the still fairly wintry tree bough against the blooms.  I am not really a very good photographer but I do try! lol!

Here we go, my banksia roses on the garden arch:

Have a great Tuesday everyone, 

Hugs, Kaye