Machine embroidery patchwork picture

After a lovely day spent with friends and family, I find myself with a rare quiet moment. J's on his way home on the train, Mum and Roy left earlier and will no doubt be singing away at the folk club with old friends and the children are sound asleep.  So I'm sat here at the kitchen table, with my mug of cocoa and the jar of biscuits.  I switched on the fairy lights on our tree and lit some candles, and it's lovely...

Mum read my blog for the 1st time today and she likes it, it's nice to get some feedback.

I have no Thrifty Thursday post to write as I haven't been into a charity shop - shock horror!  I could cheat a little bit and show you one I bought earlier...this was £4.

and it ended up being...

This was my first attempt at machine embroidery and it is a patchwork picture of our house.  It's from a book given to me for my birthday along with lots of lovely fabric squares.  The book is 'a passion for quilting by Nicki Trench' http://www.amazon.co.uk/Passion-Quilting-Nicki-Trench/dp/190817031X  and my picture is very very similar to Nicki's apart from I have made the house look like ours with the 2 box bushes outside the front door and my birds are ducks instead of chickens...well they're supposed to look like ducks! and obviously the fabrics are different.  I wonder if she would like my effort?

Anyhow, I was really chuffed with it and the shop I got the frame from had another exactly the same, so I went back and bought that one...I plan to do a back garden scene with that frame...and it will be entirely my own design...so watch out for that one in future posts. Nx