Monday

 Morning, everyone.  The sun is shining again but, brrrrr, there's quite a hard frost right now.  Beeb says it will warm up quickly and could get to around 15C this afternoon (and higher tomorrow and Wednesday) so that's great
Yesterday wasn't so warm - the sun was intermittent and I didn't sit out at all.  I got some clothes nice and dry on the line though so no complaints!

First of all, the biggie.  If you saw my edit yesterday, you will know that I had my first negative LFT.  I have just done another one this morning and it's another negative so it's freedom day after nearly a fortnight!    This is no longer a house of plague and I can take the red cross off the door!!

However, I'm still pretty tired - I guess that will take a little bit longer to sort out.  After fighting and losing yesterday evening, I went to bed at eight and didn't wake until about half six this morning.  That's over ten hours of sleep - most unusual for me.

Here's the photo of the cross stitch, with a close up of the bit that still has to be done.  You can see how important it is so I've decided to pop to Hobbycraft (now I can) after circuits and get some more of the necessary.
I'm really pleased with it.  It needs a 'squeeze though in warm, soapy water' as there's a bit of grubbiness, but once that's all done, I will be happy to have it framed and, maybe, it will look nice in the garden room.

And here's the heart that I was using to practise  the needle turn edging.  You get a more two dimensional effect from it plus you don't need any fancy stitching to edge it as you do with raw edge applique.  I did the outline afterwards because I like the effect.

Don't get me wrong, I'm really pleased with how it came out, but the whole point of practising like this is to see faults and improve so, wearing my positive criticism hat, I can see that where I have fastened off (on the right), I caught the top layer just a little bit and it shows.  Also, I think I need to stiffen the shape with some single sided iron on interfacing type stuff, just to give it a little bit more substance.

It needs a bit of decoration - perhaps a bow fastened on with a button or even a flower?  If the latter, it should have gone on first - planning is essential. 
Any suggestions?
I'm happy with it though.

Now I am blanket stitching a little raw edge elephant onto white fabric.  I realise doing it just on white is not that effective, especially considering the fabric I chose (doh) and if I was any good at fabric painting, I'd have a go to create backgrounds.  I'm not, so I need to trawl through my fabric stash which, really annoyingly, I sorted out a while ago, getting rid of scraps - just the sort of scraps that would be really useful now.  

Oh, well . . . 

Do you think if I chose the background fabric the same as the ear, that would look good?  I think I need to ponder on that.  And, maybe, the elephant could hold a flower in his trunk? Or is that just feeble?
(I wish I had the creative mind that my daughter has!)

Anyway, enough of that.

I had a lovely Zoom chat with Beth yesterday afternoon.  She is now on a week's holiday and so, so looking forward to it.  We have a few plans - apart from the spa tomorrow, we hope to have dinner at Zizzi on Friday and then, on Sunday, I'm going to hers for lunch.  Lovely!

Today is less busy than I thought it would be.  I won't be doing tuition today because we decided that, as there are health issues, it would be best to leave it for this week.  I'm good with that and totally understand.
So I am waiting for a delivery and am off out to circuits today.  As circuits is on the way to Hobbycraft, it will be a great opportunity to get that thread I need and, dare I say it, have a nosey through the fabrics?  

The other thing I need to do is go online to the spa and just check what Beth and I need to take with us tomorrow.  

I'm sure there's other stuff but there's no washing in the basket and only a titchy bit of ironing so, assuming and mice, warm afternoon, I may end up stitching outside.  Nice!

Have a great day, whatever you have on your To Do list.  Stay well.  xx