Confused Seasons

We are having a very prolonged Autumn in England (especially in the South). There has been one single solitary frost to date (that actually involved having to scrape the  car windscreen in the morning) and the rest of the time has been mild, wet and windy, most unseasonal. It has really confused the garden and the Spring time plants are appearing already. We have Primroses, Daffodils, Celandines and blossom all flowering alongside the bright colours of the winter berries.

The sun briefly came out at the weekend which prompted everyone to rush outside to quickly soak up some Vitamin D before it went away again, which it soon did to make way for the downpour that was following.

Usually at this time of year the garden would be brown and dull, but there is still so much greenery around, we even still have some late flowering roses that are sneaking in.

Inside is looking even more festive and we hosted our first Christmas party at the weekend, prompting the arrival of my table runner to the table, along with The Mother's new red, sparkly tablecloth. I also bought a festive bouquet of flowers, complete with a glittery golden pine cone accessory!

I also finally (thank goodness!) finished the present for my Grandmother. I quite like the messy look of the back as well as the slightly neater front.

There are so many tiny stitches in this piece!!

I had bought a frame online which I thought would fit my embroidery- it had an inner size of A3 which I thought would be perfect, however I hadn't taken into account that although the original image had been printed on A3, the embroidery size was slightly smaller, and after the above photos were taken I had to go around the edges again and make them a big bigger so that it would fit into the frame properly. Good thing I checked before stretching and framing!!! Eventually on Sunday evening I slotted all of the pieces together in the frame and tentatively turned it over to reveal...

...my framed embroidery of August Cottage!!! I am literally so thrilled with this. It has taken so many hours to do and a lot of umming and ahhing over certain stitch types. I really really hope that my Grandmother likes this piece!