We Finally Met!

After years of being blogfriends, and over 2½years of being 'collaborative stitchers', Kirsten and I finally got to meet in person. It was so lovely. Our OHs got on well too, and had much in common - and we sat having lunch in the courtyard at Oxburgh Hall and chatting and chatting...
We also swapped our September stitching, and a few other heavier gifts [which would otherwise have been rather expensive to post]
A while back, I picked up a piece of fabric in a CS printed with labels. When I got home, I found that although some were just outlines, many had a Downton Abbey theme. Furthermore, it proved to be a double sheet, I had two of everything. So I sent half to Kirsten as one of the flat gifts. She used it on her September stitching, in a very clever way.

So here is her patch - the base rectangle is a lovely soft piece of tweed [actually a fabric sample from a chair company!] and then she stitched the label on top. But I was intrigued that it overlapped the edge of the patch. "It's a pocket" she told me - and her charming husband said I had to guess  what was in it, as that was my flat gift. I felt the shape, a long thin rectangle.

"It's too big to be a collar stiffener, and too thin to be a covid test strip" I declared, then realised there was a ridge down the centre and a point at the end. It's a pen!
A very clever flat ballpoint pen - the tube of ink is concealed in a cardboard packet bearing a picture of a lovely fountain pen. K explained she thought the notebook cover would be more useful if a pen could be stored neatly in a pocket on the front. Genius!
Although there is not much contrast visible stitching, I can assure you there are hundreds of tiny buttonhole stitched keeping all those edges in place!

The inspiration for my piece came on the beach on Bank Holiday Monday. Our great family outing to the beach [followed by Bob's catastrophic tumble]
As the littl'uns were doing other things, I grabbed a bucket and started collecting stones, to make a circular pattern. The sort of thing that Kezzie frequently does at the beach.
Unfortunately the grandchildren then decided they were going to build sandcastles and needed mu stones for their edifices. I quickly took a picture before the artwork was too disturbed.
The stones were greys, black, white, cream - and some had a blueish tinge whilst others were golden brown.  Lovely random shapes 

I found some sandy yellow cotton in my stash and did some slow stitching, interpreting the pebbles' shapes and colours. A reminder of a [99%] wonderful day!