up to date with blog books

My new blog books, year 2 & 3, arrived this week from "blog2print". I never got around to ordering year 2 after the first one, and by the time I got around to it, year 3 was waiting ... So now I have my blog in print from the start to the end of December'12.

I like my blog books. Lets be honest, how many of us have the time to look back through our post or anybody else's for that matter, life is too short. I barely have time to keep up with current posts.
Browsing through my books I can remind myself ... oh yes, that was the time....oh, I forgot we went there.....

year one

year two

year three

Of course, to have your blog transformed into a print is not free.

The cost is determined by the number of pages you will have in your book; before you decide to buy, you get the chance to edit your book, choose the cover (soft cover is cheaper), you can also decide on posts you don't want to include in the final version of your blog book. In fact, you can go and have a play, without buying, or save it for later.

Internet has give us blogging, which of course is wonderful. But my blog is somewhere out there in the cyberspace, things can happen to it. I have spent a lot of time taking my photographs and writing my posts.

 And I am old fashioned when it comes to books, I like to hold them and browse....They are my journals.

After the end of December my blog will be ready for another blog book. I hope to keep up this time!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2013

return to Stourhead

You have been with me to Stourhead many times before, but I never tire of taking pictures here and autumn must be the best time to come.
It is a longer drive for us since our move, but still worth the trip.
After a long spell of rain and windy weather it is no surprise that there are so many visitors here today.

Have a good week!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2013

Mrs Claus' Cookie Shop

We had a first light frost last night and I finished another embroidery in the Santa's Village series,

Mrs Claus' Cookie Shop,

This is the 4th one, 

as you can see, at this speed I am aiming to finish the whole series by Christmas -

2014! LOL

Have a great weekend!

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk  2013

is is really November ?

That means that we have been in our new house just over 3 months, hard to believe!
There has been quite a bit of progress, new windows, new doors, cavity wall insulation... Thankfully all the workmen have gone and DH can do his bit, painting and painting.....

Upstairs is now finished and it looks clean and bright, we are only waiting for the arrival of some furnishing; new blinds for all 3 upstairs rooms,

and a small sofa for the second bedroom (which is no longer a bedroom). This is where I make my visits to your lovely blogs, and where all our (non-craft and non-cookery) books are.

New storage unit for my room has arrived from Storage4crafts, to house most of my fabric stash. 

I really like this one, I can see at a glance what is in the draws.

DH has now started working on the stairs. When we lifted the old horrid carpet, we found that the stairs are

not in such a bad state and we decided to keep them "carpet free". Lots of sanding, oiling and painting and it is still very much "work in progress", but I think that they will look nice when done.

The work in the garden has come to a halt, mainly due to the weather, and at the first glance it looks like nothing has happened here. Thinking that is a mistake, DH has worked hard to take down all those little brick walls and raised beds, in fact to date he has removed more then 500 bricks from the garden and there is more to go. The previous owner loved brick walls, in fact some of the bricks have gone to him, to start building again!

.

A new rowan tree has been planted at the bottom of the garden and a plum tree is waiting to go in.
I would not say that the garden is taking shape yet, but I think we slowly getting some idea what to do with it.
I am trying to get back to stitching, it has been hard to find motivation, but I am working on Santa's Village and should be able to show you another part of it soon.

Some new additions to my book shelves.

As you can see I am trying to get into the Christmas spirit, and just hope that the living room will look respectable enough by then to put up some decorations.

And what is on my bedside table?

Although a fiction, the story is based on a real room in a real house, Villa Tugendhat in Brno, in Czech Republic, "one of the great buildings of European modernism", designed in 1928.
Some of our Czech friends, at least those living in Brno, will recognize the building.
If you click on the link above, you can read the real story of "the house".

Simon Mawer tells a fascinating story of the family who built the house, and the story of the house itself, during the second world war and after, and people who lived or worked there.
The house is now a museum, opened to public. You can also read more about it here .

A picture of the Glass Room in Villa Tugendhat from Wikipedia,

and you can see a picture of the whole building here .

A lovely book, I have really enjoyed reading it.

©pleasureinstitching.blogspot.co.uk 2013