Keep calm...

And carry on stitching.

This has been one of those weeks.

As far as I can remember, Sunday was O.K.

On Monday afternoon the VHC's daddy got a phone call from his nursery to say he wasn't well - and he wasn't, breathing very unevenly and having crying jags, despite doing his best to be his normal cheeky cheerful self. We looked after Babybel while daddy did emergency doctor and chemist visits, and arranged to take over care the next morning when the VHC would normally be in nursery. Fortunately he recovered very quickly from what seems to have been a throat infection with added tummy upset, and after a good night's sleep, and a morning of quiet play and lots of 'duddles' (cuddles) he was well enough in the afternoon to go out and feed some fish.

(The ducks didn't get much of a look in, as the fish are very determined.)

On the way home, we heard that mummy had had a phone call from school to say that Babybel had fallen off a climbing frame. So we looked after the VHC while mummy and daddy did emergency hospital visits and a broken wrist was X-rayed and strapped up. 

Their other granny and granddad have taken over today, but we're on duty again tomorrow, as Thursday is our usual day. We just hope there are no more dramas.

So today, a little embroidery has been restful and therapeutic - together, at the moment, with a little Allegri. Bliss!

This is the embellished piece, with added Cretan sttich, and turned into another book. Wensleydale has claimed this one for a diary.

And here's one I made earlier - the book, but not the embroidery. I had decided that my summer homework -  ’Repetition', if you need reminding - was going to be moslty sketchbook based. 

But then I came across this little (about 20 by 6cm) book, made ages ago from the offcuts from something else, and those coffee stained pages said 'repetition' and 'stitch' to me. 

And in the small hours of one insomniac night, when I had finished the book cover and desperatey needed some embroidery to do, I found some aida, pinched a  pattern from Gay Eaton's book on Wessex embroidery, and started what in any other circumstance would have turned into a bookmark. Amazing how  therapeutic a bit of simple, repetitive stiching can be.

It doesn't look like the coffee marks, but there are non-coffee pages, and I have a piece of fabric framed up and awaiting some eyelets before it gets added to the white page you can just see. 

I wonder what excitement tomorrow will bring?