Well, it's been almost a month since my last post and again, I can only apologise for my tardiness. It has been a busy month though. My nephew, Theo, celebrated his first birthday and he had a joint Christening/Birthday party to celebrate -- it was fun!
My mum moved into her new bungalow last weekend. It was very emotional, as she had been living at her last address for 32 years. I have been helping her sort through her stuff. It's amazing how much clutter you can accumulate over the years, and getting her to part with it was hard work! She also reached the milestone of 70 last week, so we had a bit of a get together too :)
My cat, Hardy, has moved with her. She's very stressed at the moment and has taken to hiding under the bed...bless!
My cat has reached another milestone herself in that she reached the grand old age of 19 last month!!! She's still quite active and spritely, but her health is not so good :( At the back end of last year, her brother and sister (Bonnie and Clyde) both passed away within the space of 5 weeks - they were both 17. I took Hardy to the vet to see how she was doing as Bonnie had had kidney disease and Clyde had been poorly, but died before my mum could take him to the vets. They did lots of tests and she had to be admitted for a drip treatment as she was dehydrated. She also has kidney disease, but from what I could gather from the vet, it was not as advanced as her sister's illness, and a new treatment has come out which is supposed to be quite effective. She also has to have a prescription diet which is low protein, giving the kidney's less work to do.
If she can make it to 20, then I shall very happy indeed, but I know that every extra month she gets is a blessing, so fingers crossed :)
Work is also going well. I got through my three month review and am now permanent staff. I have also been offered extra hours, which is great now that I am going to be spending a fortune on medicine and prescription food for my cat!
Anyway, enough on my social life, what about the stitching?
I have to confess that it has been very stop/start over the last month or so. I have been working on a crochet project that will be a surprise present, which I can't say too much about at this time. I had hoped to have had it finished last month, but I got a bit bored with it (shameful) and so I had to put it down. I'm going to try and finish it if I get chance at the weekend, but I might now give it as an Easter gift!
Last week I finally finished the first project I started stitching this year!
It is the "bird signal" from Gatchaman!
It is worked on 14-hpi vintage-cream aida and uses a mixture of Anchor stranded cotton and DMC light effects. I have also used Mill Hill seed beads, which I think gives an interesting effect.
At the moment, I have no plans to post the pattern for this, but you can find the cross-stitch alternative via the "Pattern Archive" tab.
So I think I've rambled on long enough tonight. Now I need to go sort my lunch out for work tomorrow and maybe do a bit more stitching before bed ;)
Till next time ... keep Kalm and cross-stitch! xx
