Its our Anniversary!

Here we are ~ 27 years ago today! Ohmigosh, we look like such babies. Of course I was, although I didn't think so at the time. Isn't it amazing how we think we know so much at the time and on looking back, realize we really don't know much at all. I really think life is much kinder to us in that way. Probably we would never leave the comfort of our Mum & Dad's at all if we knew what was waiting for us out there!

Thank you, dear blogging friends for visiting and reading my blog. And thank you even more for taking the time to leave a kind comment. You will never know how much your comments touch my heart and leave a smile on my face. The blogging world is full of such wonderful kind people, it has really opened up such a rewarding world for me, and even when I'm not posting, I'm eagerly looking for new posts to catch up on what is going on in your worlds.

I know I sound a little pensive, its looking through old photo albums that does that to me. I wanted to find just the right photo to put on my blog, and realized how much I was missing the people who are no longer here, and wanting the ones who are to know how much I love and cherish them....so bear with me!

Z is for Zinnias

I finished up my Hello Neighbour RR piece, I really didn't add too much more, so I didn't re-scan it. Its all ready to be mailed out to Carissa. And I also finished up my Garden themed exchange for the SBEBB which is ready to be mailed out too!

So for my weekend stitching, I started on my very last Prairie Schooler block, Z is for Zinnias:




This is on 28 ct evenweaver, I think its a 28 ct Ivory Lugana, I really needed something nice and easy on the eyes after working last week on the 40 ct linen.

I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself since Friday. I had blood work taken last week and then went in for my physical on Friday morning and it turns out my blood sugars are in the diabetic range. The doctor says this probably explains why I've been having so many funny troubles with my eyes recently. I ended up stitching my RR with my glasses off most of the time! So more blood work is in store - a 2 hour glucose tolerance test anyways. Meanwhile I'm trying to stick to hubby's diet - he is also a diabetic but with amazing willpower - and hopefully these blood sugars will come down enough that I won't need medications.

We are having weekly home assessments with Toronto Children's Aid for our fostering program. Two more interviews are scheduled for this week. How do you spell stressful? I will be so glad when its over! But things are looking good for us.

PIF from Vonna

Look what arrived in my mail yesterday afternoon! A fantastic Pay-it-forward gift from Vonna! She made a beautifullly beaded scissor fob from the loveliest sparkly beads and included these lovely scissors with them, and some very pretty variegated DMC threads, along with the postcard from Indiana.

WOW is all I can say. I'm sure everyone has seen the wonderful works of art Vonna (The Twisted Stitcher) has created on her blog and to be the receiver of one of her lovely pieces has made me feel very special! Vonna puts so much thought and kindness into all that she does, seeing one her packages come into the mail with my name on it, has made me feel like I have won the lottery! Thank you, Vonna, for this very special gift that you made for me! I shall cherish it!!

Some catching up

I was stitching up a frenzy over this Victoria Day Holiday weekend! After realizing I didn't have any suitable 40 ct fabric for my Hello Neighbour Round Robin, I had to scurry about trying to find a place that could ship some to me quickly and Drema from Needlecraft Corner came through for me. Wednesday my fabric came and I quickly started sectioning off my areas. I settled on blocks of 80x80 and after 2 nights of going cross-eyed, finally got all my threads to line up. Its amazing how many times I miscounted by just one fabric thread. So 4 days later, I'm well on my way to getting my block finished. And I realize a bird is just missing his head! I'm still undecided about where to put my initials/country.....

So we were off to the cottage for our first long weekend of the season. Its was wonderfully sunny all weekend, if a little on the chilly side, even though the kids braved the water and went swimming - well quick dips was more like it!



The forest is usually awash with our provincial flower - trilliums - and they were still a few left. Hubby managed to get a picture of this brilliant looking one.

My T-shirt girls!

While my 2 girls were not together on Mother's Day, when they were together last month, they took this picture to give to me for Mother's Day on Sunday. Note the cute T-shirts they were wearing.

Probably the last time they were seen in public wearing the same clothes was when they were 3 and 6 years old!

The Birthday Quilt

I finished the birthday quilt in time! And sewed the last few stitches of the binding in place that afternoon, in amongst the deadlines for work, phew, I hate cutting things that close. I didn't have time to cut all the loose threads from the back, but I don't think Kristy noticed. She was quite thrilled when she opened the quilt up and saw it, and the first thing she did was to wrap herself in it! So although I neglected to get a picture of the entire quilt, I did get this picture of Kristy, looking very warm and cozy with her new quilt.

Here is a picture of the birthday girl with Carrie and her ice cream cake.


And a picture of Kristy and Nick, in her new sweater, pink of course!

I hope everyone who celebrated Mother's Day yesterday had a wonderful day. I was wonderfully spoiled by my kids and Carrie cooked one of my favourite dinners for me, a Rachel Ray recipe, Greek-a-tiki chicken. yum-O! Hubby and I went shopping and we streeeeetched his income tax refund quite a bit and ordered a new living room sofa, brown leather, and two wing back chairs. The couch will actually arrive tomorrow, but the chairs not for several weeks, as we had to special order those. How's that for a Mother's Day gift?!?! I had actually hoped we would be able to repaint the living room first, but when they said they had a couch in stock, I wasn't about to say no.

And a Happy Dance - I finished up my latest Prairie Schooler block ~ Y is for Yarn:

Stitching Bloggers ABC Exchange

A very nice parcel came in the mail for me yesterday! My exchange arrived from Su, for the ABC exchange on the SBEBB. She made me a a lovely pouch, with a design by Indigo Rose, on hand-dyed linen called 'Hot Potato'. Her stitching and finishing are just superb, including the beaded tassels and cording! I love it, Su, thank you so much. What a lovely treat to open up such a parcel and she included some lovely hand dyed fibres from Six Strand Sweets and a lovely piece of Jobelan in a very sweet shade of yellow. Thank you again!!


This is a picture of all my goodies in all their glory!



I checked on the message board and I noted that Helene received my exchange which I sent to her. I stitched Prairie Schooler design called Forget-Me-Nots on 36 ct flax linen and made it into a needlebook. This was my first attempt at making a needlebook and I was quite pleased with the way it turned out. Above is the picture of the front and below the back. I forgot to take a picture inside, or of the goodies I sent along with the needlebook.


And finally, yet another picture, I finished off a pair of socks! I'm eagerly waiting for the mail to arrive with my brand new sets of Addi turbo needles that I ordered from the U.K. Nancy has promised even better socks (and faster maybe, these are turbo needles?) with these babies. She describes them as the 'chocolate truffles' of the knitting world LOL.


And a new blogger to welcome to our blogging world. My dear friend Ann had started her own blog, Knowledge and Needles. If you get a minute, please drop by and pay her a visit! She does the most exquisite needlework, especially of over-1 work, and is also the owner of a lovely needlework shop, which makes visiting very handy!

Thank you!!!

Thank you, dear friends, for your good thoughts and wishes. They were heart warming for me and I'm sure every single one of them helped hubby and me in our meeting this morning.

It went so well, so much better than I had dared to hope and I left the meeting feeling like I was walking on a cloud!

Without going into a long drawn out story, hubby and I have decided to offer our home to Kristy, who is a crown ward of the Toronto Children's Aid. Its been an uphill battle, and this morning was a make or break meeting with a supervisor and Kristy's case worker.

We've finally been given the go-ahead with the supervisor's blessing! The next step for us is to go through the foster parenting process - home assessment, background checks, interviews, training, which they will expedite in order to place Kristy with us before her current foster mother closes her home.

So if all goes well with the next few steps, we will have Kristy as our foster daughter by the end of June! So keep those good thoughts coming our way for us and for Kristy, please!!

Some quilting, and a request

Finally some pictures uploaded! With hubby's help of course. Hey, it wasn't all my fault, for some unknown reason, my USB port decided not to work any longer!

Anyways, here is the start of Kristy's quilt. These are the charm packs I ordered from the Fat Quarter Shop, Nick helped me pick out these particular ones, I think they were called 'Sweethearts' as Kristy's favourite colour is pink. And this quilt is certainly very PINK! I ordered 8 charm packs, with 35 5" squares in each pack. I just went with sewing them together in strips but laying them in a diagonal pattern and filling in the outer edges with a triangle.



Here are my rows and rows and rows.....



And finally....sewing these rows together. I had enough 5" squares to make a good sized top - its about 65" x 85", so definitely a good size for a single bed.


Friday afternoon I roped hubby into helping me sandwich the quilt together - such a tedious job and the one part of quilt making that I really detest even though I cheat and use 505 spray to make everything stick together. Friday night I finally started the machine quilting, and most of Saturday and Sunday morning.....the quilting is about halfway done. I have 4 days left until Kristy's birthday. Do you think I"ll get it done in time?

Sunday afternoon was a stitching get together at Anita's with my wonderful group of stitching friends - the time went by far too quickly, and I didn't get nearly enough stitching done and of course too much eating, and the best part of all, lots of laughing and fun.

Tomorrow hubby and I have a very, very important meeting to attend ~ please send good thoughts our way for this. It means a great deal to us for this to go well ... more info will follow, but superstitious me, I'm afraid of doing anything that may upset the balance.

A little Blackbird enabling

Its been a frustrating day, I can't believe I sent out an entire day's work (Monday) with last year's date on it!?! That means it all had to be corrected and re-printed....ugh! Where is my brain at these days? Today I had 2 morning appointments to get through, scrambled to get caught up on deadlines, wasted far too long searching out a missing invoice, and finally gave up on trying to get to the bank, so have now reconciled myself that my GST payment and income tax are now officially late. Luckily I don't owe very much so if I get any interest charges, they won't amount to much and it will wait until I get to the bank tomorrow.

Instead I was going to update my blog with some pictures I took of the quilt I'm working on, this is for Kristy's 16th birthday next week and I finished piecing the top last night. I also finished up the pair of socks that have been on my knitting needles for far too long and thanks to Nancy's knitting enabling, I'm been knitting up a storm since Saturday's Knitting Frolics.

But I can't get my pictures to upload to the computer! Can I confess how terribly computer-illiterate I really am? It will have to wait until hubby gets in from work......

Meanwhile, until I get those pictures....my scanner still works ;-D





......these pictures are for Deb, in particular, and well, anyone else I can possibly enable into these wonderful Blackbird Designs, with a peak inside the new With Needle & Thread book, which I picked up last week. They give some pretty detailed instructions in the book on finishing pin cushions and treasure boxes, like the two pictured above, and even coffee grounds included in their supply lists. I can't wait to start one of these sweet designs, I just don't know which one to do first?

And I have been doing a little stitching~



Prairie Schooler Y is for Yarn