Friday Smiles 2023 # Week 43

Well our birthdays may have been almost two weeks ago but we had another little celebration on Monday when we had some 'Happy Birthday' post. I think there was a blip in the Spanish postal system as I knew two of my sisters had posted cards for each of us, well in advance, and they hadn't arrived. But on Monday we had cards from three of my sisters, Jean, Dorothy and Brenda as well as some from our eldest son and his family. (I also had an internal letter from Alicante, Spain but I couldn't read the post mark to see how long that had been travelling for). It was a lovely surprise, and we enjoyed opening them while we had our 'elevenses'. My sister Jean makes beautiful hand-crafted cards which are always a joy to receive, but this year I was particularly inpressed with this beautiful black-work rose sent by my sister Brenda. She will be ninety-three in a few week's time, and I just hope I am still as creative when (if) I ever reach that age.

Now the nights are drawing in I usually find myself settled in front of the TV in the evenings, and as I am no good at just sitting, I am again tackling some crochet projects. I am determined to finish at least two of them by the end of the year. The green cardigan is back on track, and for now I am saving that to do at my sewing group as it is fairly easy to carry with me, and I can work on it and chat at the same time. At home I am trying to complete a shawl that I started before my holiday. There is no urgency as I do not need another shawl, but the pattern intrigues me, and it was a good stash-buster that didn't require me to buy any new wool. Hopefully I will be able to show it off soon.

However, I have, of course, got a new project in mind. Again it is a pattern that caught my eye. Although it is intended as another shawl or coat, I thought I could adapt it to cover the back and seat of my new little chair that is coming next month. I think we will mostly be sitting on the new sofa, so the chair will likely be sat on by one or more cats and I want a throw on it to protect the fabric! The pattern looked complicated so I decided to do the test swatch they provided with the pattern to make sure it was sensible to even attempt it, as I will be buying new yarn for this once the chair arrives and I can match the colours better. So here is my test piece.

The actual throw will be rows of vines of leaves and berries running across it, with the wide border running down both sides. It looks a little misshapen here because I should have changed hook size for the border and I didn't bother for the practice. It also is a pattern where the yarn is cut at the end of every row, hence all those tails. I can hear you say "I couldn't face sewing all those in". Well you don't have to. You work a simple double border as I have on the right side of my piece, encasing the ends between the two sides of it. So I have tried all parts of the pattern and know it is do-able, so watch this space. It will take me at least all winter to do, so the chair will have a different throw to start with, but it will be nice to have one that blends in. These colours are very similar to the acual furniture and the red berries highlight the tiles on the floor. I may even decide to make the red the main colour for the border too.

On Sunday Chris drove me to church and we are now able to use a section of the new motorway that opened this month. It cuts a big corner off our journey and is a faster, better road. I am very impressed by the engineering skills of the Spanish workers. They build excellent roads, and this one involved the construction of two new bridges across the existing motorway, and a complex system of entry and exit roads. Here is the view as we approach the new bridge, (the blue railings). As you can see, at least on a Sunday morning it carries very little traffic, but it is busier when the marble lorries from Macael come down to the harbour.

Sunday was warm enough but the sky was covered by multiple layers of light cloud, that all moved at different speeds so it was constantly changing. Needless to say I could see faces in it everywhere. But in places it was just lovely to see, with the sun's rays trying to break through, then small blue patches appearing, the contrast of sun on the hills with dark clouds behind them, and on the way home, the rain falling on top of the mountains while we remained in semi-sunshine,

So this first collage is just interesting skies, all taken through the window of a moving car so not perfect.

This set are all skies where I could see a face, (and one that looks like an eye with strands of dark cloud as the eye-lashes). Some of the faces are more human and some animal to me. Some of you will see them and some won't, but they fascinated me.

Last week I saw this meme on facebook and thought "That is for me". 

And then last night certainly got me excited. Apologies if you saw this on Facebook yesterday but I had to share it straight away. It is a collage of photos taken over about a quarter of an hour, as the sky started golden and turned a firery red, and then faded to pink and purple.

I am pleased to say that Tango seems to have rallied again this week. He still wanders around looking a bit lost, but that is due to being completely deaf, and having very poor sight. But he is no longer hiding in a corner and sleeping all day, and he is eating well again. Here he is watching the sunset with me. Even if he can't see very well, (I don't even know whether cats can see in colour), I am sure he is aware of the changing light.

Apart from that I have had long chats with some of my boys, written e-mails to folks who are not so keen on using the internet, and read a lot on my Kindle.

I also finished making a set of ten more Christmas cards, to use locally.

So now I will prepare to link this up with Annie's Friday Smiles and publish it tomorrow morning.