Santa at Last

Prairie Schooler Santa 2005
Stitched on 20 ct New Khaki Lugana

I'm a couple of days late posting this but I finished my Santa! I started this during the January weekend of the Christmas Ornament SAL but I only got him about 1/2 done. So he had to wait for this past weekend's SAL to get finished. And I managed to put those last few stitches in on Monday night. Ta-da!

At this rate, I won't be getting too many ornaments finished for this year but I'm still ahead of last year, when I didn't make any!

New Stash

Where did the weekend go? On Sunday Marj and I drove to Ann's little shop Knowledge and Needles to check out all the charts she brought back from Nashville. And of course to enhance our own stash .... a couple of things managed to find their way into my nice little pile! It helped that I had been stashing away a few dollars here and there so I could spend freely to my heart's delight. What made for an even better day, was enjoying lunch along with Anita and her daughter (who is also a stitcher - who knew?) and then having a mini-stitching get-together when the shop got too crowded during the Open House.
Here's a few that managed to make their way home with me: Carriage House Samplings Mary Margaret and Elizabeth. I loved all 4 of the new girl designs and had such a hard time deciding which ones to get...for now! I also picked up La-D-Da's Love is Patient. This is one of Carrie's favourite sayings so I have a good idea what to do with this chart. Underneath those are 2 JBW Designs French Country Apple and Celebration of Love.

I found 3 Prairie Schooler charts to add to my growing collection: Holiday Homestead, Forget-Me-Nots, and Christmas Trees II. And then the 2 charts I specifically asked Ann to pick up in Nashville for me ~ Papillon Creations Ring O' Roses, and With My Needle Ackworth Friendship Book.

Whew, what a haul! Of course I'm dying to start something new, and Mary Margaret looks like a good one to get moving on. As does that sweet pillow Celebration of Love. Too many choices.

Luckily in spite of the snowstorm that was predicted, the highway was dry and the sky was clear so it was a perfect day for a drive.

But here is a picture outside my front window from the other day when a sudden storm kicked up out of nowhere. And from the looks of things outside now, it is looking like yesterday's snowstorm is headed here today.

Guild present

It is my needlework guild's 10th anniversary this month. Although I missed the actual party date, due to the nasty cold a couple weeks ago, look at the cool gift baggie of goodies I got ~ some John James needles, GAST thread, beads, charms, a small piece of evenweave, and best of all ~ a gorgeous pair of scissors!

Last night we started hemstitching for a needlebook. And I have to say most of us were definitely 'all thumbs'. Trying to turn 1/4" hem twice seemed almost impossible. I didn't get too much accomplished before I packed up to come home. But I am determined with this little project, I am not going to set it aside and then forget entirely what I'm supposed to do with it. I love the look of hemstitching and I want to get this one finished!

And speaking of procrastinating, I started to make a list of all the things I need to set up appointments for ~ doctor, dentist, optometrist, naturopath, massage therapist...... and it almost seems overwhelming. And then I really needed to give myself a good shake. With our extended health care plan, all these things are covered! I don't need to pay a single dime for any of these visits for any of us. So what on earth am I complaining about? So I'm determined this morning to start making those calls and start getting these things arranged, even one a week, its certainly doable. Funny, I have to pay the hairdresser and yet I don't avoid those appointments? So look out Nick, I'm going to keep you and I busy for a while. Hubby can take care of his own appointments since he usually cancels anything I arrange for him. Harumph!

And even more houses....

I finished and I'm happy dancing! Here is my quilt called Row Houses. I didn't get a picture of the entire quilt top and I just realized I didn't get any pictures of the border either but ..... its done and whew I am so relieved. I started this quilt on January 1st, 2006, and it was put away for a good portion of last year. As much as I enjoyed it, the entire thing is made up of log cabin blocks, 1" strips of fabric, and they start to get very very tedious after the first few. Each house is made up of 8 log cabin blocks, there are 20 full houses and 8 1/2 houses, which means....192 blocks! The border looks more like a sidewalk with colour chips surrounded by a border, and it took 92 of those to go around the edge.

I do have the backing fabric but I think I'm going to sit back for a while before I get around to quilting this one.

And this house theme I have going these days ....Sampler Gameboard, Houses of Hawk Run Hollow, and two neighbourhood round robins....I wonder what that means?

And more houses...

Aren't these beautiful! Its so nice to see some colour at this time of year, especially when outside everything is so white. Not that I'm complaining, in spite of the freezing cold and blowing snow, it was wonderful to be outside yesterday and enjoy that fresh crisp air with crunchy snow beneath your feet. And of course the dogs loved it.

Last night I worked on my Houses of Hawk Run Hollow. It takes a little getting used to, this magnifier, but its coming.

And to the lady who asked me about the magnifier I use, I checked all over it and couldn't find a brand name anywhere on it. I bought it used from a garage sale a couple of years ago. It was lying on the ground at the side of a driveway and I recognized it from ads in the stitching magazines. And from CSI! This one attached to my table and has a lot of knobs that allow you to find the correct position to hold it in. And it has the true daylight bulb which I love. I think I paid a whole $7 for it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

...and we have lots of snow but to Nick's disappointment, no Snow Day has been called for the schools. We have about 15 cm and another 10 cm is called for during the day. But from all the weather forecasts, it looks like we got off pretty good. And if this is the worst winter storm we get, its great! Of course I say that because I don't have to get out this morning and try to get into work!!

I scanned the Valentine's card that Carrie made for me and left on my desk this morning. Isn't she so sweet? And hubby left a card for me also. Presents to come later.... :-D
And here is an update on my Sampler Gameboard. This one is going along great, its fun and easy to pick up and throw in a few stitches here and there. Those little houses can get done so quickly. I'm doing this on Willow Green 32 ct linen, something I've had in my stash for a while and I liked how the floss colours popped off the fabric when I tried them.


Meanwhile, I've been sewing on my Row Houses quilt and I'm so happy to say my houses are finished. I've been sewing them together, into rows, and next I need to tackle the border.

I hope to get outside for a bit of shovelling. I don't do a lot, the driveway is too big for me, but I love getting out after a fresh snowfall....before the doggies have been out there and the salt trucks have been through!

Garden of Life Update

What a great weekend with my sisters - lots of scrapbooking, a little shopping, great food and a lot of laughs! The time just went by far too quickly. And I was off to bed early Sunday night to catch up on some sleep. I'll have to get some pictures up of the lay-outs I finished.

To start the weekend off just right, Marj and I went to the Stytchen Tyme sale and I treated myself to a little stash. Stytchen Tyme is our local LNS, but not exactly a bricks and mortar store. Kim sells all cross stitch related items from her home (dining room actually) so while she has a great selection of fabrics, beads and fibres, its more of an order and pick-up type of business. So you really can't get down and dirty in rooting about through bins of charts and mess about with fabrics, the way I would really like. However once or twice a year, she has an Open House, and everything is spread about so I can root through to my pleasure. I bought some great Homespun Elegance charts which were 3/$10, a Blackbird Design called Willow House, and some small pieces of fabric which were different colours, some hand-dyed, just for playing with. I don't have a lot of stitching to show from the past few days but Blackbird Design's Garden of Life is coming along. I should be finishing up my house just in time for the next section to start!

Thank you so much for all the comments and all your good wishes for my nasty cold. I'm finally seeing the other side of it and its on its way out....3 boxes of Kleenex later.

Chatelaine Mystery X

Here is an update on Mystery X. Sorry it looks rather 'holey' but the beads and crystals are not going to be added until the end, since I use a small hoop when stitching and I would hate to crush anything.

Not too much going on the stitching front this week, this head cold has gotten a good hold and I've just felt miserable. Combined with sleeping terrible! Even hubby took his pillow and left for another room a couple nights ago. Usually I would delight in having a king size bed all to myself, but the only joy I'm finding right now is having my Kleenex box near me and who cares where they fall?

I have my sisters coming this weekend for a scrapbook session so I'm sure that will perk me up! And I've kicked the men out of the house (they're off to the cottage for a snowy weekend) so it will just be the girls here.

Oh, almost forgot! I finished my first pair of socks!! I would take a picture but they are already gone and taking up residence on Carrie's feet! They turned out so nice, I love that self patterning yarn. May be I can start on a new set today.

Sampler Gameboard

I have my first house! I started on February 1st for the SAL and of course after the usual frogging episode (the border of all things), I did manage to stitch my first house. What a fun piece this is to work on and I really really hated to put it down. But I also had my next section for Chatelaine's Mystery X come in so I wanted to make a dent in that because this section is HUGE. So if I want to get it finished this month, I'll be working on this quite a bit.

Busy weekend - Friday night I went for dinner with 2 stitching friends and had a wonderful time catching up. Saturday we went to a dear friend's 40th birthday party - wonderful food, including a chocolate fountain (yummm!) and music and billiards. Sunday though I was assigned myself some couch potato time as I had a scratchy throat and stuffed up nose - Nick decided it was time to share his cold with me.

Becky very sweetly invited me to join the SBEBB and I am so eager to start some exchanges. Unfortunately several of the recent ones have just closed sign-ups so I'll have to bid my time and wait for some new ones to open up . I haven' t had a chance yet to post on the board so I'll have to do that. These ladies make the most amazing things and their finishing is superb, I hope I can live up to the fantastic exchanges that they participate in.

Brrr, it is so cold out today even though we are getting snow, the wind chill has us at -30 degrees C. Days like this, I am sure glad that I work at home!

Framed!

Finally! Long long (and boring) story but I finally got my framed pieces back! I'm sure you could all hear me breathing with a huge sigh of relief. Hubby even hung them for me already! The first one is Carrie's Attitude piece which was her university graduation gift. We hung it in the living room since really its the safest place to keep it for now until she and JF have their own place again. Although it doesn't show in the picture, we used a dark green suede mat for this, oooh, I love suede mats!

Then is the Bent Creek Snapper series:

And finally my Blackbird piece called When This You See:
Sorry for the slightly crooked pictures (hubby took them!).

Today starts a new SAL over here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sampler_Gameboard/

Monique mentioned this in her blog and I was enticed to join in. I was thinking of buying the Drawn Thread Sampler Gameboard after seeing tidbits of it posted here and there on several blogs, and when I pulled out some charts last week, imagine what I found! I hate to admit it but I forgot that I already had it!! I even had floss already bought to go with it.

Well I guess forgetting that I had this chart, along with my current use of the magnifier, is definitely telling me something! Yes, yes, it must be the long winter months, not enough daylight hours or sunshine, the need for Vitamin D. It really has nothing at all whatsoever to do with my age, right?