Ten Years of Blogging - the second year 2006/7

So glad readers are enjoying this review so far. I'm loving your comments - keep 'em coming! Welcome to Year Two - from 26 June 2006 to 26 June 2007!  The biggest finish of this year has to be the dog thread painting, especially as it took just over three-quarters of the blog-year to complete.  I got him back into commission in mid July 2006 and worked on him in fits and starts - mostly whilst we were on two country cottage holidays.  The first thing was to stitch the eyes (which took two tries) and then I began to build up from there.

This next shot shows how far I'd got by the time we returned from the first trip in November '06.

After that, I worked on it bit by bit until it got to this stage, when I took it on a second holiday in June '07, expecting to get no more done than just filling in the nose area.

However, I was wrong there (THANKfully!)as I just kept on and on going and came back with the finished portrait!

I also stitched this stumpwork piece for Sir's 8th anniversary card.  It wasn't the most romantic of designs, but he's not the type of guy who'd be worried about that.  We were on the trip where I finished the dog for the week including our wedding anniversary, so this piece is very much a contemporary of the bow-wow above.

On 1 January I posted my first stitching review of the year, which I've kept up most, if not every, year since.

As a courting couple we knew seemed pretty close to engagement, I thought it was time to fish out the failed hardanger cushion design and crack back on with it.  This time it went without a hitch, although it did take a while.  It was re-started in September and the engagement happened in the following February.  That gave me an extra push to finish the cover and it was completed and handed over early March.

As well as a few cross stitch and small hardanger pieces, I also had my first go at ribbon embroidery.

And made a little baby quilt.

In 'other news' this year, we got on with lots of decorating and sorting out of the old flat, which got halted over the summer whilst my hubby finished his MA dissertation, but got going again in September '06.  Sir re-painted the kitchen and bathroom and got on with the living room, which was finished just in time for over-night guests in October - the new carpet even having been delivered that very morning.  Poor Sir worked the whole night through wall-papering!

I began to learn to play the viola in the February of 2007 and here's me playing in an adult learner's concert only a couple of months later!!  Note the grown out fringe here!!  I also started my first secondary blog at this point, supposedly to document my progress in learning music, but I soon deleted it.

Martin graduated with his second Master's degree, this time an MA (his first one is an MSc) and I stitched him this cute Margaret Sherry design for his congratulations card.

And I started class teaching at the University where I'd been doing a workshop style class for the previous few years (as well as an absolute quantity of marking).  I found, to my surprise, that I was quite good at it, but I also found that I was losing my strength again.  NOT good.  How did all that pan out?

Find out tomorrow in Year 3...

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2015