Wednesday 15 September 2010

It’s ‘What’s On Your Work Desk Wednesday’….and the wanderer returns!

It’s not been easy but I thought it was about time I tried to get my act back in gear to some extent and get blogging again. And what better day to choose than a Wednesday, the day we all pop over to Julia’s Blog and have a good old nosy at what every one is working on at the moment.

I’ll come to what’s on my desk in a moment but first I wanted to show you the Order of Service I made for dad’s cremation and the Thank You cards that I made to send out to those who sent flowers and very generously gave donations to St Clare Hospice, where dad spent his last days.

Back in June I was feeling very guilty and upset……..the reason, I didn’t have time to make the usual six Birthday and Father’s Day cards that I have to do for Dad every year. I was forced into going out and buying cards for him, which really went against the grain and I just couldn’t get the feeling of guilt out of my mind.
So despite having to make fifty, that was the reason I wanted to make something very special for Dad’s Order of Service for his cremation.



Dad was very proud of his days in the Army, so it seemed right to have a photo of him, age 20, in his uniform on the front.

I didn’t have to make quite so many Thank You cards, but I still wanted them to be personal and special so I knew exactly what stamp I was going to use, my good old Penny Black Iris….you can never go wrong with that!




Now then, what’s on my work desk today?

It’s some of my Cross Stitching!




When Dad started his treatment at the Hospice back in May I found myself thinking about what I could do to give something back to them because the way they cared for dad was second to none.

Partly inspired by a beautiful quilt that my good friend Nicki sent over from Switzerland for dad when he was first diagnosed, I decided it might be nice to cross stitch a quilt for each of the eight rooms and one for the central seating area, with a cushion to go with each one. Not only that, I needed something to do while sitting with dad for several hours a day and this was perfect.
Dad loved the idea too and gave me some money towards the materials, which was a lovely gesture.


This meant a lot of stitching was ahead of me because I would need nine squares for each of the quilts and one for the cushion, so a total of 90 squares!
After some thought, I decided to go with geometric designs on the quilts.
They would be good for either gender but the quilt for the seating area would be different. That one will have Yellow Gerbera’s all over it because that is the hospice logo.

Nicki kindly agreed to do all the quilting for me and drummed up some more help in the form of two ladies in Holland who stitch another for another charity project. They will be stitching the squares for four of the quilts and another good friend Sharon has offered to stitch all the Gerbera’s for the seating area quilt, so we now have a truly international project on the go.

As it is such a personal project for me, I wanted to have a piece of my own stitching on each of the quilts, so the ladies in Holland will receive a pack containing all of the materials they need, including at least one of the squares already stitched by me









and when Nicki receives everything ready for making up there will also be a matching label which says ‘St. Clare’ and have the Yellow Gerbera log on for each quilt.



I've already stitched all ten squares needed for one of the quilts and cushions and these will be winging their way over to Switzerland for Nicki to get started on when she has the time.




Well, it’s been months since I blogged properly and I don’t quite know when the next one will be……… but that doesn’t mean I won’t be keeping an eye out!

Lots of Love
Sue
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