January's Calendar Girl

A very Happy New Year to you all, a new decade, I wonder what changes we will see in the next ten years?  The years go by so quickly, I said to Jenny the other day that the next time we are at the beginning of a new decade Oliver will be 17, that's scary, but I will be 68 and that's terrifying, lol

Anyway, lets not dwell on that rather large number, we have lots to fit into this decade first, we need to make the most of our time don't we.

I got around to fully finishing my January girl on New Years Eve, I had everything ready, it was just a case of setting the time aside to do it.

Instead of using glue, which I seem to get everywhere, I laced the stitched piece onto the backing board and then used a small amount of glue to attach the fabric to the back of the second backing board.  I whip stitched all around the edge of both pieces before attaching the cord.

It was a bit more time consuming doing it this way but I think I managed to get the edges neater than I do when I just use glue.

I did fiddle about with that bow and attaching the button for far longer than It should have taken!

This is the way that Vonna finished them while model stitching and finishing them for LHN, and I think it's perfect for them, so why change it :-)

 Oliver stayed over on Wednesday night so we had a day out on Thursday to two local National Trust places.

We have been to Packwood House a couple of times, once with Oliver when he was small, he can't remember, but we went in the summer and had a picnic in the lovely grounds, you can see more photos of the inside of the house in my post from 2016  The upstairs was closed to visitors due to refurbishment works and it was not picnic weather but we still had a lovely walk around the less muddy parts of the grounds.

They still had the Christmas decorations up and it was nice to see how they used things from the garden and handmade things to decorate the trees.

 Baddesley Clinton is a moated Manor House dating from the 13th century and is just a five minute drive down the road form Packwood House.  It has a very interesting history, It has three Priest holes and was raided in the Civil War where solders spent four hours searching the place, I would have liked to read more about it but Oliver had other ideas.

This was my first visit to Baddesley and I would love to go again in the summer, I loved the kitchen garden and the grounds.  Again they still had the Christmas decorations up.

The Inner court yard

 The kitchen garden, even in Winter looks lovely and neat!

It was nice to get out in the fresh air, even though it was cold, I've been cooped up too much over Christmas, It helped to clear my head of this cold, and yesterday I felt so much better for it.

It's back to work on Monday, I really don't feel as though I've had a break, I had so many plans for stitching and knitting and I've hardly done any!
I will be glad to get some routine back into my days though, I do function better with routine, when I'm off work there is no structure to my day and I feel like I waste time.  

Give me a week or two back at work and I'll be wishing for a holiday again though, lol

Hope your year got off to a good start

See you soon

-X-