Spring House Exchange

I received a package from Joan with my Spring House exchange. And what a great package it was, filled with goodies, several of which she made. For the spring house theme, Joan stitched a design from Cottage Country Needleworks called Rose Cottage and made this into a lovely pinkeep. Her finishing skills are awesome!

She also made the lovely gift card, a project bag, a wee chicken pin cushion, and thread drop floss holders. And if that wasn't all enough, Joan included a design from LHN called 'ABC 123', fabric, DMC floss, fat 1/4 of finishing fabric, pins, and a tin of York mints. Wow - a truly incredible package! I feel thoroughly spoiled by Joan!!!
Thanks for stopping by!

Family Time

Sorry, no stitching pics to show. It was family time the past few days. My daughter Kelly surprised me by flying into Toronto for a few days. We had a wonderful time, lots of shopping and the weather graced us with gorgeous spring days...actually even a little too hot!

Here are some pictures from Sunday when we enjoyed a wonderful long walk along Lake Ontario. Below are Nick and J-F with Kelsey.

And here is Kelly, me and Nick together. Hubby had gone to the cottage for the morning to start the huge amount of ground work that needs to be done every year. Carrie was off to visit her bridesmaid, who also was in for the weekend from North Carolina. And Kristy was out of town with friends for the weekend.
And Miss Diva, reclining in the car after her long walk.

The time went by too quickly and Kelly is already back home in North Carolina this morning. I'm back to work and today I start at Curves, which as you can see in my picture above, is much much needed! Why doesn't stitching burn more calories?

A prize package

Look at the amazing haul I received from Monique (Inside Number Twenty). She held a blog contest for her 3rd anniversary of My Mark Designs, and I was one of the lucky winners. I opened up a wonderful package from her yesterday, filled with goodies~ 3 of her designs, 2 pieces of linen, finishing forms, and at the back is a cute crafting tote, with lots of zippered compartment to hold all our treasures. Wow ~ Monique, thank you so much for your generosity!

I really do need some lessons in picture taking - this one is so dark :-(

I finished off my second bookmark ~ it really does look so much better with the B/S'ing .... and its right side up this time!

So last night I pulled out my Love Sampler and I was excited to get back to work on it. I am really enjoying working on this. There is something about pulling out a length of silk and working it through to the end. Endless colour changes can be for the birds sometimes!

And I better not forget to add the 'e' to 'Rud'! I left the centre of the motif on the right open (there is a matching one on the left side of the piece that I didn't scan) because the designer mentions you can add the couple's initials in this spot and I'm not sure if Carrie and JF want theirs to be stitched in.

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

One down, one to go

I found some stitching time on Saturday night and finished up my first bookmark. Yesterday I started the second one.....which I just realized as I uploaded the photo, appears to be upside down. Rather an indication of how my morning is going.....

These designs really look awful until the backstitching goes in and then it seems to spring to life! Funny how that works and yet other designs don't need any backstitching at all. I'm kind of thinking I prefer designs that don't require backstitching, its has to be one of my least favourite things about stitching. That and realizing that I am missing just that one particular DMC colour that I need. How is it that I have 3 or 4 bobbins of 501, but none of 502?

Ah yes, Monday morning blues....

Thanks for stopping by!

TGIF

Do you ever have those weeks where you are insanely busy but don't feel like you are getting anything accomplished? It must be spring fever!

I finished up stitching for the SBEBB House & Garden exchange, hopefully this weekend I can get it finished-finished and mailed off. And I received 2 RR pieces in the mail this week, one for the Hello Neighbour RR and Donna's piece for the Quaker Friendship RR.

Meanwhile I made a start on the first of 2 bookmarks that I am making for the teachers in the study group I have been attending since last September. These are from the book Tokens of Affection and there is a series of monthly bookmarks. I decided to rechart the names in place of the month. Here is a scan of my first one....its a design that isn't going to look like much until all the backstitching is in place. Yikes, the dreaded backstitching!
Have a great weekend!

Fair and Square

I received my squares from Paula today! How pretty this sweet little design is!! And I love the blue silk she used for the stitching.

And below is a picture of the squares I sent to her. This was a freebie design that I found online from Windy Willows. The size was perfect for the 50x50 squares and I loved how sweet it was.


I haven't been able to commit to any more F&S exchanges right now, too much on the go, with my Love Sampler having taken a backseat in the last week as I'm working on a SBEBB exchange.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

p.s. Here is a link to the Windy Willows chart:

A wee update

Do you mind seeing yet another picture of my Stitcher's Prayer? Stitching hours have turned into just a few minutes these past days. So I don't feel like I have to show.I did get to meet my new great-niece, Georgia, who was born on Leap Day, February 29th, just missing my Dad's birthday by 46 minutes! I actually saw her for the first time on the Toronto news as my niece and her family were interviewed for having the first Leap Day baby in Toronto, quite an accomplishment. She is such a precious little bundle and slept right through our visit. Big sister Scarlett, who is 20 months old, kept us entertained.

Its another day full of sunshine and warm temps, although rainy weather is predicted for the week ahead. All I can say is I'm glad to see the end those mountains of snow!

Thanks for stopping by!

It finally arrived!

My Valentine's Exchange for the SBEBB that it. Poor Chris had to wait 9 long weeks to receive this parcel. In fact we had come to the conclusion that it was lost so I spent last week stitching another piece to send to her. So of course as things go, I finished it off Sunday morning and received her e-mail yesterday that the real package had finally arrived. I can show a picture finally.
This was a freebie design from Elizabeth's Designs and I finished into my very first tin topper. I was so pleased with how it had come out. I don't know why I hesitated on trying one of these.

And here is picture of some of the goodies that went with it.

Of course Valentine's Day was so long ago now, c'est la vie!

Thanks for stopping by on this rainy spring day!