Etsy, Folksy, More Stitching, Visiting Felbrigg Hall and finally I will be able to stitch outside

I have a shopping problem, and I don't mean me spending money for once.  After doing a couple of pop up shops I have decided to bite the bullet and open an online shop either on Etsy or Folksy but am deliberating on whether I should do one, the other or both. I have been trawling the net looking at various forums looking at what other people recommended.  My main quandary is, should I open a shop on both sites or just concentrate on one?   Any suggestions or comments will be appreciated.

At the minute I have been busy cross stitching an order for a teacher cushion and have stitched 'Think Big, Dream Bigger' ready to turn into a cushion for sale with loads more planned.  I am also continuing on Heavy Going Grizzly in between to fill the space on the wall at the top of the stairs.  This week will also see our table and chairs arrive for our garden which is looking a lot better and I have some really lovely material to use to make place-mats, so this week the sewing machine is also going to be busy.

All ready to be transformed into a cushion.

Heavy Going Grizzly

Butterfly material which will become our place-mats.

During the long weekend, we went to Felbrigg Hall here in the East of England and had a great day out.  I loved the tapestries they had on show there.  The work put into them and especially the age of them it was surprising how close I was allowed to go.

The front of Felbrigg Hall built around 1620.

Considering the age, the colours are still vibrant.

Close up of the bottom left hand corner of the dog.

Not able to go too close to this one

Or this one, but it has aged well.

Also amazing was the wallpaper in the Chinese room, hand painted and shipped from China in 1771.  There were 4 panels which were repeated however I was only able to take photos of 3 panels as the other panels were covered with various pieces of furniture.

All the photos were taken on my mobile phone as I had forgotten my camera so I was really pleased with how they came out.

This coming weekend will see us finally getting the table and chairs for the garden and I am looking forward to that as when its sunny stitching outside will be my main objective instead of indoors.  I am really pleased with how it turned out, thanks to Steve's hard work and our planters have arrived and are filled with plants and we have butterfly solar lights on the back fence.  

One Planter sorted out

BBQ Area almost done.  Just need to paint the wall. 

Planter 2 

And the grass is coming really well now.

We can pretty soon all sit outside with the music on and enjoy the fruits of our  Steve's labour.  However, looking back over this blog post, like the plants we now have in our garden cross stitch and tapestry are the fruits of our labour.   We spent time nurturing a stitching passion onto a plain piece of aida or linen and by putting the work into it we gain something well worthwhile at the end.