A Round Robin finish

Here are my duckies - finished off the last of the backstitching last night. I was eager to get this out of the way as I didn't want to take it off on holidays with me - that's right HOLIDAYS!!! Only 2 more days to work and that's it for 2 glorious weeks. We won't be leaving for the cottage until Sunday morning, as we are going to a friend's Surprise 50th birthday party Saturday night, but that's okay, I have tons of stuff to do around the house first. Also have to get out to get a wedding gift for a wedding that we are attending when we get back and there is no way I can leave that to the last minute either.

I have started organizing my stash - trying to figure out which projects might take my fancy while I'm away. And I ran out last night to the local Michael's for some floss (3 skeins for $1- great deal any more) because you know you can never have enough floss. And where our cottage is located, I don't think there is any floss to be found unless you want to drive for an hour. Trust me, I know, its happened!

While scavenging through my stash last night, look at this pattern I found in one of my hordes of magazines: this is called Leaping Stag Silhouette by Kathy Barrick of Carriage House Samplings. What a pretty little piece. I can feel a bad case of startitis coming on!

So far these are the projects I have to take along with me:

~Prairie Schooler alphabet blocks
~Chatelaine's Taj Mahal (still not even started)
~Carriage House Samplings alphabet series (haven't started these either)
~CHS Houses of Hawk Run Hollow
~and a couple of Christmas thingies that I would like to get going on
~and my Blackbird SAL which is officially starting on August 1st.

It looks like my startitis will get a very nice fix very soon.

Hmmm, think that will keep me busy enough for the next 2 weeks?

Blackbird SAL

Okay well at least finally I figured out how to get a picture in without Blogger's help. And on to what I originally wanted to post about....

I added a new sidebar called Blackbird SAL (also causing me endless trouble today trying to republish this blog). All the links should work ... hopefully.... including the SAL Album which Eva has set up for us. Our SAL doesn't officially start until August 1st but meanwhile we are all having fun getting our fabric and fibres organized.

I'm still waiting on a shipment of GAST's which probably won't come until after I leave for holidays, but I can get started anyways since I'm also using some DMC's. And here is a pic of my fabric, I think its a Light Sand 32 ct linen.

Blogger rants

No its really not the caffeine....its stupid Blogger!!! I can't count how many times today I have tried to upload pictures and nothing has been working. This was my last ditch chance to upload, using Photobucket instead.

They're here!

Busy day on Saturday- it was moving day for my daughter Carrie and her DBF Jean-Francois. And the move was into our house!!! They have decided it was a good opportunity for them to save their rent money towards a downpayment on a house and we had the extra bedroom anyways. It was also a good chance for us to get rid of some stuff that had been piling up, taking up space, and not being used anyways. So Carrie and JF transferred all of their living room furniture into our basement rec room and JF's computer into another freed up area. Kitchen stuff has gone into storage in the garage loft, so pretty much everything is in its place!

And they even cooked dinner for us all last night - hmmm, more Rachael Ray recipes, it was delicious. I think I could get used to this!

One more week of work....and we start 2 weeks of vacation at the cottage! I can't wait, the doldrums of work, work, work, have started to get to me. And its a beautiful day after a crazy thunderstorm yesterday afternoon chased away all the humidity that had started to build up again. It was actually cool last night with the windows open so it made for a great night's sleep.

Not much to report on the stitching front....

Anne's Round Robin

I received my first RR piece in the mail the other day - from Anne in Australia. She chose Ducks for her theme and very kindly sent along the patterns to chose from for each of us. Here is a shot of her finished square:

I've made a start on mine but I'm afraid it isn't much to look at so far!

And what a crazy morning - I sent hubby off with Nick for his final appointment with the hand specialist to check on his broken finger - only to realize I had the wrong date for the appointment. All the appointments so far have been on Wednesdays, and I was told this specialist is only in Oshawa on Wednesdays, so I naturally assumed this appointment was also on Wednesdays. So poor hubby and Nick were sitting in an empty clinic for 1/2 hour before they called home, just in case, and when I checked the appointment card, sure enough the appointment is for tomorrow!

I felt awful about making such a mistake but sweet hubby, already being late for work anyways, suggested we go out for breakfast anyways. What a nice treat!

More little animals

Here's my Noah's Ark baby sampler....slowing growing longer and longer with more animals. I started working on the giraffe on Friday and finished off most of him last night until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.

It was a busy weekend with a shopping trip to Kitchener/Waterloo to visit 5 scrapbooking stores plus two fabric shops. I was very good however with my shopping and only bought some textured cardstock and some very sweet snowflake and snowmen stamps in the hopes of making my own Christmas cards this year. Carrie and I also managed to visit my favourite meat market and then we were the sole customers of a fantastic little Chinese restaurant in downtown Kitchener. It was 3:30 in the afternoon and I guess not a time that people usually decide to eat so it was a very late lunch or early supper for us. Hmm, the food there is really to die for. Carrie had her camera but forgot to take pictures as she is currently in her food picture taking mode. I guess we were both too hungry too remember!

Saturday night and Sunday morning Carrie worked on a new scrapbook layout with baby Scarlett - for whom I'm making the birth sampler. Here is a link to Carrie's blog for pictures! She is such a sweet little baby - we visited her last Thursday.

Yesterday we went to Mississauga to visit friends in their new home and another little shopping trip to Costco this time. Luckily everywhere we went had air conditioning but any venturing outside was so draining - the temperature went up to 36 C yesterday and with the humidex was well over 40 C! Going outside really felt like someone had opened a giant oven door and we were walking in for a little roasting. Today its going to feel so good to stay inside with my A/C and a cold glass of water!

A Prairie Schooler find!

This should certainly encourage me to clean out my stash more often! I was digging through some very old stash that was tucked away in a drawer and really just tossing most of it away. But I picked this booklet up again when I spotted a tiny wee red schoolhouse at the bottom and recognized it as the Prairie Schooler symbol. Its an old leaflet that was released by McCall's in 1994 called "Best of the Barn". Of course this was bought in my very early stitching days and long before I even thought about 'designers' who create these wonderful patterns.

The funny part too I had actually stitched the 'sheep' design but stitched it on a tiny piece of aida cloth, that only left less than 1/2" all the way around the edges.

This is certainly going to make me pay more attention to old leaflets and magazines, who's to know what other treasures there might be?

So needless to say, I retrieved this lovely old leaflet out of my donation pile and it now has a nice new home in amongst its fellow PS charts. May be one day I'll even stitch it!

Needleroll start

I started a Sweetheart Tree needleroll pattern on Sunday, which coincidentally fit in with Katrina's stitch-along weekend.

So far, this seems like a pretty fast one to stitch up. I am a little over halfway finished, of course there are still some beads to go in as well. I think the tricky part is going to be the actual finishing of the needleroll, as I have only done one before and I wasn't overly thrilled with the way it turned out. Hopefully this one goes better, as its going to be for my needleroll exchange partner on the Robin's Nest Exchange Board.

Lucky Stars

Time for a little quilting! I've only had this quilt cut and ready to sew together for 3 years now? What on earth was I waiting for? I finally dug it out, well rediscovered it actually, when cleaning up my quilting/craft area. This pattern os called 'Lucky Stars' and is from one of the first quilting classes I took several years ago. It called for buying fat quarters and when I put them all together, I realized I had too many different colours, so I drew out the earthy tones to put them together, which left all the blues and purples to be put aside. So that left pretty much enough to make 2 single size quilts. The earthy tone one was finished ages ago and has been gracing our guest bed ever since. And this poor blue-purple one in pieces has been sitting in a bag getting dusty ever since.

The last 2 weeks I've been sitting at the sewing machine on and off and now its finally all assembled. And isn't it pretty! I absolutely love batiks, they have to be one of my favourite fabrics to sew with. I don't think I have a favourite colour - they are all so gorgeous.

And now for the actual quilting part, I haven't decided how to machine quilt it yet. And as for the leftovers, I think I have enough to make a baby sized quilt. It will certainly be bright and colourful.

A Blackbird Stitch-Along

Here's the newest pattern I got in the mail from my SB&B order! Its called When This You See, by Blackbird Designs. I've joined in an on-line stitch-along with Eva which she has organized. So far our stitchalong group includes 8 members:

Eva (France)
Su (UK)

Siobhan (Ireland "US" or US "Ireland" lol)

Valérie (France)

Yumi (Japan)

Véronique (France)

Valérie (France)
and me!

I don't know yet if any of these ladies have blogs, but it will be a great way to keep in touch and view everyone's progress.

I have ordered GAST chamomile for the grass, and WDW Pebble, Palomino and Dolphin where I think the variegation will most show. Otherwise I think I'll substitute with DMC - just to be a little kinder to my poor worn-out Visa!

I also received in my Village Market Freebies CD and I have to say this was $2.50 very well spent. I sent the CD along to work with my daughter and look at the wonderful book she sent back:

She not only printed out all the charts, but also collated them into a booklet and created an index! What a great girl - she knows very well how crazy her Mum is about all things cross-stitch related. These patterns are fantastic! I can't wait to try to sort out which ones I tihnk I will use and play around with how to stitch them together.

We are off to our cottage tonight - the weather forecast for this weekend is great- temperatures around 30 degrees C, so the lake temperature should be perfect. We have cousins visiting tomorrow so I'm looking forwards to seeing them and playing in the water and boat. Have a great weekend!!!

F is for Friend

Here is my latest PS block, finished off last night while watching the premiere of Rockstar: Supernova. This is block 19 of 26 finished - only 7 left to go! When I wonder what on earth I will do when I have all 26 blocks completed, I only need to look at the other alphabet pattern collections or monthly collections I have been acquiring, to know that I'll find something else to keep me busy.

And what's next on the agenda?



I just got in my latest order from SB&B and received several of the Carriage House Samplings Alphabet series. They are such sweet little patterns. There are several members of the Prairie Schooler message board who are currently working on, or about to start these. I'm will probably work on all on one piece of fabric and use the freebie border that was created for them. But ouch, having to buy each alphabet pattern separately sure has become costly. Luckily, the A and N are also freebies!

A Scrapbook Present

It was my sister and her husband's 25th Wedding Anniversary last week. I decided to make a small scrapbook for them with a few of their wedding photos and pictures of them together over the past 25 years. I used an idea I got from a scrapbook shop Carrie and I had visited recently, where they had used a children's board book to recreate a small book on its own. Each page, including the front cover and back, were covered with cardstock to hide what the original book had been. I found a perfect sized board book in a $1 Store - great price!

Then came the tricky part...trying to decide just which photos to use!

Here is a picture of the original book. Yes it was a very cute 'Dick & Jane' book, except that now it was going to become an 'Elaine & Brent' book.


I decided on a 'purple' theme for the book since that seemed to coordinate well with the group of photos I had decided on. The tricky part was to cut each piece of cardstock just right so it could be glued in the book to lie perfectly flat and look like it had become part of it. Thank goodness for my cute little corner clipper - made perfect rounded edges each time.



Then to mat the photos I had chosen for the book. That was the fun part! I love the picture of Elaine with our parents in our back garden.


Here are a couple of photos of the finished paged in the scrapbook. Doesn't look much like a 'Dick & Jane' book any more!



And the last page in the scrapbook: And the finished book:

I had originally glued in some lovely gauze ribbon in the front and back covers, but this book became very stubborn (and thick) and no matter how hard I tried to coax those ribbons to stay in place, they kept pulling out. So at the end, rather than damage any of the pages, I just decided to tie the entire thing with a nice piece of ribbons. It works!

And Elaine and Brent were very happy with their anniverary gift!