Valentines,PIF,A dear friend and some cross stitch.

Hello,

Last Sunday Ian and I celebrated Valentine's Day with a pub lunch at a hotel in the hills. We then had a wander around the local craft centre. There was a wonderful display of paintings,gosh some people are very clever. We then had a cruise around a garden centre,too hot to buy anything though. I often wonder how some of the garden centres get on at this time of the year.We always celebrate major things like Valentines Day Mothers Day and Fathers Day the week before. It is not crowded out in the restaurants ,after waiting for quite a while some years ago it was decided this was the way to go. Plus usually the cost of the meal seems to be a bit dearer on the actual date. My dear blogging friend Bobbie Lynn kindly sent me one of her precious Valentine cards. I did up a little display of some "Heritage" roses that were coming into bud. Thank you so much Bobbie Lynn. Your card arrived just at the right time. I will treasure this and put it in my sewing room to look at.

What a surprise I got when I got back from the shops the other day. A parcel was on the table out the back. A big plus,it was addressed to me. The other week I had a parcel delivered that was supposed to be for someone in Africa!!!! Inside was my Pay It Forward gift from Cathy. I received one of her bags and a wooden Christmas Ornament which Cathy also makes. I was over the moon getting a late Christmas Present. Your painting on the wood is just beautiful Cathy. Now us women are used to picking up patchwork and feeling it,when Ian got home he saw it and was doing the touchy feely thing. Men and wood!!!

A dear friend Nita passed away earlier on this week. I first met Nita over twenty years ago when I was employed by the Local Neighbourhood Centre to be the Coordinator of the Learning Centre. I was to get it up and running again after it had stalled for a year or so. I started a general craft and chat morning. Nita came along and after several weeks she offered to Tutor a class in Crochet. I organised the class and it was a great success. The crochet ladies still meet every Tuesday during school term. Nita shifted away a while ago. I still send her a Christmas Card every year,last year I got a card from Brian her husband to say she wasn't well. Nita always worked in size 40 crochet cotton and a .75 hook. This is the finest you can get. Her work was of such a high standard,her family is very lucky to have received many pieces of her work. One year she made us all the beaded bookmark you can see in the above photo. Nita also dabbled in ceramics many years ago. I have her teapot and use it every day. Nita taught us how to crochet using graphs and symbols. This was all gobbly gook to us when we all started,but it is so easy to read now. Nita also enjoyed reading and we would often compare authors. Happy memories Nita.

I have been dabbling in a bit of cross stitch at night time. I chose this pattern from a book at the local library. I have changed the colours as the original colours were very drab and dull. Plus I am using a Rusticia coloured Aida cloth which makes it a bit difficult for some of the lighter colours to show up. I haven't kept to the original pattern and have used parts of a couple of other patterns as I have gone along. I may as well us up all the cloth.

Happy days.

Bev C