I can finally blog about the project I worked on through the summer.

Very good friends of ours got married in September, Duncan was best man and as they have both always been supportive of my embroidery I wanted to give them something special.

It’s from an Anchor kit called Cheng Yang. Which by-the-by was bought from sewandso a site I’ve bought from a few times now and have had great service..

I know it has the size on the description, but it didn’t really compute until I opened the pack It was certainly the biggest piece I’ve ever done and it was pretty intense sewing between our wedding in June and Will and Heather’s in September.. but it was great fun to do, with the outline drawn it felt a bit like colouring in – it’s mainly long and short or satin stitch with a bit of stem stitch.

There are other kits available in a similar style, which are quite tempting..

Tomorrow I’ll be starting on a new project. A few months ago I offered to make a batch of cards as an offering in an auction of promises to raise money for the Light Opera group I’m a member of. I took along a few photos of cards already featured on the blog and my lot sold 3 times over.. Two girls wanted cards but the guy I’m meeting tomorrow wanted a piece of artwork, so tomorrow evening we’re meeting to decide what he would like! I’m very nervous as my designs have tended to be quite small but I’ll take a bunch of books along and see what style he likes..

When Duncan and I got back from honeymoon we searched through the 1300 pictures he had taken! I have previously posted some of my favourites. Duncan’s favourite was a picture of a cheetah he had taken on the second day of our trip.

We were driving along the bumpiest road known to man. The route took us from Lake Manyara, up past the Ngorogoro Crater and on to our lodge in the Serengeti National park. About 10 minutes after leaving the check point to pay for entrance to the Serengeti our driver got a call on his radio about two cheetahs that were just sat by the side of a small road we were about to drive past. (How anyone spotted some of the animals we saw I will never know!) We turned off and sure enough there were two brothers relaxing in the sun. The had obviously only just eaten, their bellies were enormous and they still had blood around their mouths. We spent a good 15 minutes just sat in the van admiring them.

Duncan had already found a place that did canvas prints – CanvasRus. We went for a canvas with gallery wrap which looks amazing. The print came within a week and we are both chuffed, I’d definitely recommend you give them a go.

Cheetah canvas print from CanvasRus

The honeymoon was amazing and having this picture around will bring back all the memories. We are going to put it up in our hallway.

Just surfacing from an amazing holiday

I’ve been back for a couple of weeks but laundry and life have gotten in the way of my blogging!

I returned to 800 unread blog posts, around 70 blog submissions for the big list and a huge pile of work at my day job.. So apologies to those waiting to get added to the list – you’re all on the database now, just waiting for me to republish the list.. but that’s not working at the moment, so while you’re being even more patient here are some photos from Tanzania: