Take That

A postcard from June 2026

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Take That Circus at the Etihad Stadium

Hello there, I hope this finds you doing ok. I’m a bit earlier with this monthly review than I managed last month, but not by much!
I had a lovely month in June – although it didn’t produce many exciting pictures to share (other than a very impressive evening I spent at the Etihad Stadium in the company of Gary, Howard & Mark!).

The main reason for being so late to the game with this update is because of the Carry on Crafting Festival which happened just over a week ago – it was utterly amazing and I look forward to sharing more of it with you next month. In the meantime, you can catch the latest episode of Making Stitches Podcast to hear a flavour of Carry on Crafting (which was an absolute delight to edit last week!).
Anyway, back to June..

Crochet Corner

My Carry on Crafting Squares so far…

I had a bit of a dabble with designing again in June. I am working on another little amigurumi character, but I want to wait to share her with you once she is finished – she is currently sitting on my sideboard without a head (poor love!). Away from amigurumi, I had the chance to give away a pair of tickets to Carry on Crafting festival on my social media channels, and that inspired me to make a few CoC inspired squares. I am hoping to make a complete Carry on Crafting blanket over the course of the summer, so will share more squares with you as they develop!


Also, a good friend of mine at work celebrated a big birthday last month and I simply had to knock up a mini-me for her. I was bought the Crochet Iconic Women book by Carla Mitrani by Eldest a few years ago and along with creating quite a few of those wonderful ladies (including HM Queen Elizabeth & Emmeline Pankhurst) I have used the pattern to create so many little people as gifts when they have hit milestones like big birthdays and other events. I can honestly say this is the most used crochet book I have! As a matter of fact, I am using it right now to create some more little characters – more on them next month!

A mini me gift for a lovely colleague

Take That!

Now to the biggest thing which happened to me in June…


Back in the 1990s, I met Take That very briefly when they visited the place I was working at (conveniently during my lunch hour) I got Gary and Mark’s autograph on my spiral bound notebook! I had never seen them play live in their original incarnation, but amazingly during our last summer living in Gibraltar (in the days before Covid) they came and did a few songs at the Gibraltar Music Festival which was literally a 10 minute walk from our home! It was at the very end of their big world tour. It was not a Take That concert in the conventional sense, but it was a thrill to see them at last as they sung about half a dozen songs between Rick Astley and a Mel C DJ set!


A couple of years ago, I was offered a last minute ticket to see Take That appearing in Manchester at the AO Arena – and when I say last minute – I mean literally hours before. It was an unexpected and very pleasant surprise. It was a truly amazing show – I’d heard they put on a good show but it blew my mind. When I heard that they were coming back to Manchester this summer, I joined the online queue for tickets when they went on sale and was amazed to be successful in getting a couple of tickets.

Take That in Gibraltar 2019
Take That in Manchester 2024

My Mum said when I went the last time, that she wouldn’t mind seeing Take That and that she’d never actually been to a ‘gig’ before so I offered her the other ticket. She didn’t hesitate in saying yes! So, I took my Mum with me which was lovely.

Belinda Carlisle
The Script

The support acts were Belinda Carlisle (I was amazed how many songs she had and how many of them I remembered from my teens) and the Script (who we also saw at the Gibraltar Music Festival in years gone by). They both put on a great show with the crowd singing along.

Then the show began – wow! It truly was a show. It went on for hours, had a cast of hundreds of performers, acrobats, dancers, a tightrope walker, trapeze and the most amazing mechanical elephant which had a woman dangling upside down at the back to give the impression of a tail! I felt privileged to be able to witness it – it defies description.

I’m so glad I got to share it with Mum too. It was a perfect evening – apart from the journey home which including queuing in the world’s longest queue for a tram home which didn’t help Mum’s legs.

The longest tram queue in the world – this was less than half of it!!

Podcast News

In June, I released a couple of episodes of Making Stitches Podcast:

Episode 107 Connection, Confidence & Community with Melissa Santiago-Val – I really enjoyed my chat with Melissa who set up the charity helping people through sewing after a lockdown Covid mask making initiative grew into something lasting and very impactful.

Episode 108 Reconnecting with your imagination with textile artist, Murron Fraser – Murron is a textile artist based in my hometown of Manchester. She uses her work to encourage others to reconnect with their whimsical, childhood imaginations and is inspired by nature, folklore and storytelling.

Anyone for a Craft Challenge?

Back in the summer of 2016, as I approached the 10-week-long school summer holiday in Gibraltar with apprehension, wondering how I was going to manage the juggle of entertaining 3 young men for all that time and keep my sanity.

I decided to set myself a challenge. The plan was to do something creative every day during the long, hot school summer holiday. It worked – and the #SummerCraftChallenge was born. The simple act of giving myself permission to do something for me (even for a short while) really helped.

Every year, since then, (except for during 2020 when we relocated back the UK that summer holiday) I have kept up the challenge.
This year, I am going to do the same.

My youngest is the only one still in school – GCSEs loom next year – but even as they got older and I found myself back in work rather being stuck at home, I kept the challenge going. His school breaks up for the summer today, so as of tomorrow, the #SummerCraftChallenge2026 will begin.

If you’d like to join in, please do! All you have to do is share a picture of what you have done that day (which can involve any sort of creativity) and use the hashtag #SummerCraftChallenge2026 – at the end of each week, I will share a blog post with a round-up of peoples’ summer creativity.
There is no pressure to do something every day (I don’t always manage it myself to be honest), it’s just a gentle reminder to do something that makes you happy and takes you away from the stresses of the everyday grind.

It would be lovely if you could join me!

That’s all for this time, thanks for stopping by!
Lindsay x

A Postcard from May 2024

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Beautiful Rhododendrons in my back garden in May

Hello there! True to form, here’s my look back at May coming to you in the middle of June! One day I may be organised enough to get one of these to you at the start of the month…

Goodbye Diamond

Diamond

Unfortunately, last month, we said goodbye to our lovely little fluff ball, Diamond. Diamond was our house bunny, he came to live with us in Gibraltar, where it was too hot for him to live outside and there was danger from the local residents too (Barbary macaques).

He was the third of our bunnies, first of all there was Bunny Postcard aka Russelina (caramel & white fluff ball), then came Snowflake (who we rescued after seeing her being abandoned in the Alameda Gardens in Gibraltar).

Russelina (left & bottom) and Snowflake (top right)

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us when we rescued Snowflake, she had a virus which infected Russelina, which ultimately led to the demise of both bunnies.

Diamond came into our lives shortly afterwards and he stayed with us until last month, he even traveled by road from Gibraltar to Manchester with a special pet courier when we moved house!

We’ll miss our fluff ball.

Amigurumay

It was the annual Amigurumay celebration over on Instagram last month run by Ilaria Caliri. It was a fun excuse to take a look back in the Making Stitches/Postcard from Gibraltar archives for suitable photos to include. It was nice to see this pair again – Rocksy & Gib, my Gibraltar apes.

A new garden project

At the start of the month I set to work on a project I’ve been wanting to do since we first moved into our home. The front garden is totally filled with pebbles and is effectively a car park. Since we arrived I had planted the privet hedge you can see, but I wanted more greenery.

Monty Don inspired me in an episode of Gardeners World when he mentioned about steel edging for lawns. I thought, that’ll do for my new flower bed. I found some online and ordered it. With a lot of help from my lovely Dad, we made a flower bed….

Then, once it was filled with peat free compost, came the fun part – filling it with plants!

Ta-dah! The photo below was actually taken one week into June (so I’m cheating here in May’s postcard) but here it is now. I’m thrilled with it, it’s got a white theme. There’s a magnolia, hydrangea, astilbe & jasmine along with white Japanese Anemones, geranium Alba & a couple of white bedding plants. I hope to add more white flowering plants in time, but for now that’s it and I’m really happy with it!

Take That!!

Well I didn’t expect to be telling you about this, but I got the chance to see Take That in concert in May too! It was a last minute thing- some of the Mums from Youngest’s football team were going, but one was ill and asked if I’d like to go in her place (this was 24 hours before the show!). I didn’t need asking twice – they were amazing.

I’d seen them once before, many moons ago when they came to the Gibraltar Music Festival and did a half hour set, but this was something else! A fantastic night of dancing and memories!

On my hook

Mini Dan

I have been working on some top secret crochet commissions lately which I can’t share sadly, but I also made this little chap. This is mini Dan. Big Dan was in my year at school and he turned 50 last month. He plays bass guitar in a fab band which does covers of songs from our youth and this is the kind of outfit he wears when he performs. (I believe Dan’s daughters loved mini Dan!).

Dan had a fab birthday party, the band played and folk got up to sing – it was a brilliant and sober night for me as I had a big run the next day – see 👇 below:

The Great Manchester 10K Run

On 26th May, it was the day of reckoning. After months of training I put my trainers on and headed into Manchester for the Great Manchester Run 10K. It was an amazing experince – so many hundreds and hundreds of runners set off in staggered stages.

This was my vantage point in the ‘pink’ stage. The atmosphere was terrific. There was a light rain to start which was fine, but as we set off, the rain stopped and the sun came out and it got really quite hot.

The heat made the run a lot harder than I expected, but I did what I set out to achieve, which was to run without stopping at all. I did it in 1 hour 11 minutes. I have no idea if that’s a good time or not but I’ll take it as a win!

I have a medal to prove I did it! Not sure I’ll run that far again but I can now say I’ve done a 10K at the age of 50!

Thank you to everyone who sponsored me, together we raised £440 for the Jo Cox Foundation which I’m really chuffed with – thank you x

Making Stitches Podcast is back for a new series!

I was thrilled to be able to bring Making Stitches Podcast back for its eight series last month – I kicked off the new series with an episode delving into the podcast’s archives from the past 4 years it has been going. The topic was being creative for mental health and featured excerpts from chats I’d had with Lisa & Lynda-Rose from the Crochet Santuary, Emma Jones from the Vintage Sewing Box, textile artist Matthew Downham, former BBC Europe correspondent and now maker extraordinaire Mary Jane Baxter, Peace Campaigner and knitter, Figen Murray and Clinical Psychologist, Dr Mia Hobbs. You can listen through the player below or by searching for Making Stitches on your favourite podcast app.

For details on all my guests, you can find their links here.

And that, I think is it for this time. Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope June is being kind to you. See you next month!

Take care!

Lindsay x

Sunday Sevens #201 15.9.19

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Ahh that feels better, back in the Sunday Sevens saddle! I hope you’re all well and have had a good week! This week for me has felt more like 2 to be honest with the Gibraltar Calling Music Festival last weekend and National Day on Tuesday. I have to admit that I’m rather looking forward to a ‘normal’ week with a ‘normal’ routine next week! Here goes…

Sunday at Gibraltar Calling

Last Sunday was day 2 of the Gibraltar Calling Music Festival. We got there early in time to see the day kicked off by King Calaway. Those of you away from Gibraltar may not have heard of them so I’ll explain who they are….

They’re a relatively new band based in the USA and are comprised of individuals from across the states as well as Europe, including the gentleman below. He’s called Simon Dumas and is from Gibraltar. Simon’s pretty well known here for being in a couple of local bands with his brothers Guy & Philip as well as being a radio presenter here whilst he was away studying music in Manchester.

Since he graduated he joined this band, King Calaway and they’re having quite a bit of success in the States. They are a bit ‘country’ and have performed with big stars like Garth Brooks and played at the Grand Ol’ Opry. This was their first performance in Gibraltar and it went down a storm!

They even performed one of the old Frontier’s songs (his last band before leaving here) along with his brothers.

I hope they don’t leave it too long to return!

Next up was Tom Walker …

Then I nipped over to the classic stage for a bit of David Essex’s set.

And then back in time for Rick Astley! Never gonna give you up….

The run away highlight of the day had to be Take That. Yes, that’s right – TAKE THAT!!!!!

Oh my word, they were terrific.

The fun didn’t stop there, Mel C from the Spice Girls came on to DJ. I’ve never heard a Spice Girls track (Who do you think you are) mixed with Nirvana‘s Smells like Teen Spirit before but I loved it!!

After that, a Queen tribute act came on but we headed home soon after they came on stage. Well it was after 1am and it was school the next day… 😳

National Day 2019

Two days later was Tuesday 10th September, Gibraltar National Day. The day when everyone wears red & white and has fun basically. We had aerobatic displays to watch…

Some people created the biggest tented city I’ve ever seen on Catalan Bay beach!

And in the evening we had a the obligatory National Day fireworks display.

Town centre Oasis

After all the excitement of the previous few days it was nice to take a moment to enjoy a bit of quiet in town while ferrying Little Postcards to after school activities!

Moody skies

Friday night saw moody skies brewing. Not far up the coast near Malaga there were terrible floods and some people lost their lives in the heavy downpours. We were extremely fortunate to escape that.

Gibraltar day still in evidence!

Even yesterday the place was still looking festive. Some shop keepers really go to town with their window displays – they look lovely.

And so here we are at the end of a rather long Sunday Sevens. I can pretty much guarantee that next week’s won’t be as exciting – but you never know what’s around the corner do you? Have a great week!

Sunday Sevens was first created by Natalie from Threads and Bobbins.