What's the word for.....?

'Eggs' by Shepherds Bush, stitched on 32 ct antique white linen, with GAST and DMC

I finished up a quick little Shepherd's Bush piece last night ~ Eggs for Easter. Sometimes its just easy to pick up something and finish is in 2-3 days, I needed that quick finish. And shockingly for me, its actually done well in time for Easter. I am notorious for being on the back end of holidays. I start something before a holiday comes but never get it finished in time. I'll do a fabric dive later and see what I have to finish-finish this.

Speaking of...is there a word for finishing that I can't think of? I call something finished when I'm finished stitching it. But then there's the actual 'finishing' of it, that is making in into a finished piece, that I think I need a proper word for.

May be I could start a contest - whoever can come up with the best word for the actual 'finishing' of a stitched piece into something - needlebook, scissor fob, ornament, whatever. I'll gift a 'finished' object to whoever comes up with the best word.

Marj and I drove to Ann's Knowledge and Needles Open House on Sunday to see all the latest goodies she brought back from Nashville. It was so nice to see her and Dani and Christin and a few other ladies there. I was very very good and kept well within my budget.
Quakers & Quilts by Rosewood Manor, which calls for Valdani threads, which Ann also had but I didn't indulge in. And Celtic Cross by M Designs which I have coveted for a long time now.

And check out this lovely piece of Graziano gingham linen Ann had in stock - its perfect for this new Blackbird Designs piece called A Flock of Birds which is in the newest My Heart is True book. Ann is carrying several different colours of this and I was so happy to get it. Now I can't wait to start this lovely design - its my favourite in the new book.

And speaking of Blackbird Designs, Sue started a new blog for Blackbird lovers. Be sure to visit to see everyone's gorgeous stitching!

New stash and new start

Thank you all so much for your feedback on my Comfort Lady's skirt! I really had some doubts and was thinking about bringing in the frogs on this one. But I guess it does make her unique so the washed out, bleached spattered skirt will remain. The Sisterhood Pattern went in the mail at the post office on Monday and is now adding more miles as she makes her way to Sue's.

And I have added another stitching lady to my collection. New stash came in the mail yesterday:
Little House Needleworks "My Needle's Work" and the 2008 Prairie Schooler Santa kit. This is my first PS Christmas kit, it came with linen and Crescent Colour fibres, I want to start this one NOW!

But I did make a small new start on the weekend:
This is "Sarah's ABC Pincushion" from Blackbird Designs' Thank you Sarah Tobias book. I am using a remnant of something....30 ct R&R linen, in a really cool coffee colour. Its perfect for this yummy Gloriana silk called Autumn Arbor, that Annemarie sent to me. As you can see its attached to her sweet little floss fob that she made! I've been saving this for just the right project :-D

Sorry for the scanned pics...hubby is still away vacationing at the cottage...with the digital camera!

And just another wee treat for your eyes, more stash:
Isn't this beautiful! Its designed after an original 'souvenir' book dated 1895. I'm in love with this but I mean it, I am swearing off big projects....well, for a while anyways.

I'm staying inside in our lovely cool A/C today. The huge thunderstorms that went through yesterday did nothing to break the hot humid weather we are having.
Have a great day!

RR's, F&S's, and stash

I finished my section on Nicole's Round Robin! Another one is ready to put in the mail and send off to Carissa. I'm really happy with the way my section turned out. I used patterns from two different designs from Elizabeth's Garden and I managed to squeeze a couple more sheep in there because I thought they looked so cute! Here is a scan of most of Nicole's RR, not the entire piece, it didn't all fit in my scanner, so the last section with Leslie's house I had to leave off.
And yesterday's mail brought Ulla's squares for me from the Fair and Square exchange, all the way from Sweden. Look how sweet they are, hmm, she doesn't mention but looks like a Prairie Schooler house to me?!?
And here are the squares that I stitched for her (I remembered to take a picture this time around). She commented that she liked redwork and quaker designs so I chose this for her, which is actually part of one of The Workbasket tree freebies. I thought the red and white were a good choice, since they were the colours of the Canadian flag, which is a coincidence, since Ulla stitched the Swedish flag on her block.


And one more picture, bear with me! I got some long awaited stash in the mail yesterday, my birthday stash which only took 6 weeks to get here! Well we can all guess where I ordered from :-D

And for some reason this one particular design has absolutely caught my attention. Its called 'Of Female Arts' by The Primitive Needle. I'm in love with it and its just one of those that I'm dying to start.

Of course there are only like 9 or so Christmas things I really really want to do in the meanwhile....but I just really have to do this too. If only I didn't have to work for a living! And the kids didn't have to eat!! Meanwhile I'm envisioning fabric choices and floss choices....and getting myself started to work.....

Shopping Stash

Here is a picture of some of my stash from the Toronto Needlework show. I didn't get too much cross stitching stash....but I did buy LHN's Home of a Needleworker, which I have coveted for along time! Mostly I bought quilting goodies, lots of fat 1/4's in lovely greens/peaches which were a great price, a pattern for tablerunners to make using charm packs, and of course a charm pack in some pretty fall prints, 2 jelly rolls in lovely dark fall fabrics, and a great kit to make a roly poly Santa. I took a picture of this cute little kit, and somehow lost the picture on my computer somewhere....??

I couldn't resist trying out my new pattern yesterday with the charm pack. The charm pack is a package of 5" squares of fabric which come from one fabric line. I think this one was called Autumn Bounty. All the fabrics of course coordinate beautifully so it makes putting something together so easy. So for dinner last night, we had this lovely tablerunner to grace the table:

We celebrated hubby's birthday Friday night and then on Saturday went to a surprise birthday party for my oldest sister! And Autumn has hit with a vengeance ~ the temperatures dropped to 0 degrees last night! Time to start on a new quilt I think!!

Only a couple of days to go until the Paradigm Lost / Cirque-des-Cercles SAL starts!

Stitching Retreat

What a great day at Ann's annual stitching retreat! We left in the morning, anticipating getting there early and getting a good seat, only to find about 8-9 cars already there! But with Ann's new stitching room, there are lots of great seats and fantastic lighting provided by the sky lights. Lunch of course was amazing as always, as everything always brings such delicious food and its too tempting to try a little bit of everything. The dessert table was so enticing....with so much goodies and cakes, but with diabetes now, I resisted and only ate a small piece of carrot nut bread and fruit only.

It was so great to see and catch up with stitching friends that I hadn't seen for a couple of years and I was looking forwards to finally meeting my new blogging friends. Its so funny to meet people face to face that I feel I know already through their blogs!

I did get a few pictures, although not enough I realize now, as I must have taken them later in the afternoon and I have too many shadows from the skylights. Believe me, the lighting was much better in the room than what shows up in the pictures!


Here is Christin (Christin's Ramblings) and Beatrice (Stitching with a View) showing off their partially completed TW's Castles.



Just outside is a peek at Rebecca (Rebel in Ontario), and inside are Beth on the left and Kathy (Kathy's Sit and Stitch) sitting next to Ann's amazing Prairie Schooler quilt on the wall.



A not very clear picture of Kathy at the end of the table in the stitching room, with several of the ladies in Ann's Thursday afternoon stitching group.



Colleen and Marj mostly kept to the much quieter dining room with Carmen and Paula for most of the day. I didn't get a picture of several of the people who were there, including our lovely hostess, Ann (Knowledge and Needles), or Dani (Dani...Black Belt Stitching Wizard), who was always visiting at different areas of stitching groups, nor did I get a chance to meet everyone! There were over 20 people there - what an amazing group!

Of course I did pay a visit to Ann's shop, Knowledge and Needles, conveniently located next to the house, and with Anita's (ahem) encouragement only managed to fall off my stash diet a little. I did want to pick up some 25 ct fabric so I could try some over-one stitching with my super-fantastic new Dazor magnifier at hand, so I found two fat-quarters in cream and antique white. Ann had some of the new JBW patterns, these are just so sweet and too hard to resist these cute little patterns. I found a Prairie Schooler Christmas Ark pattern, that I thought I could adapt into a birth sampler, as I just found out I am about to become a great-auntie again. And 3 of us, Anita, Marg and I bought the last of Ann's Spring Fever biscornu kits. Not such a bad stash haul and actually it was only $2 over my stash budget that I had saved up, so no guilt on my part! I can climb back up on the wagon again....at least until my birthday :-D

Get Away

Ahhh, internet problems. I finally get a chance to get on to post...and I can’t get in! We seem to be getting more and more server problems these days. What a busy week. We had a great few days in Pittsburgh! Sorry, no pictures from our trip however. We were about an hour’s drive from home when we realized we had forgotten to bring the camera and there was no turning around at that point. What a pair?!? We really did need a few days away! Luckily for us, we picked a very nice hotel, with a fantastic huge jacuzzi tub in our room, so that certainly made for a very nice end to a long day, especially since you could lay back in the whirlpool with a glass of wine in one hand and watch the TV from the comforts of the swirling water! So lots of driving, lots of shopping, eating, and relaxing. It was a wonderful get-away.

I did manage to find one cross stitch shop, a very nice one called Teatime Stitchery and I found a few little things to add to my stash, the new book by Blackbird Designs, and one of the Little House Needleworks/Crescent Colors collaboration, pictures below.
The fabric is called Fossil, its just a small remnant piece but the colour was too cool to pass up!
Unfortunately I didn’t make it to any quilt shops, however Joann’s Fabrics managed to satisfy my fabric shopping.

We were back home late on Friday night and Saturday I spent the day in Toronto at the Knitting Frolic - more shopping and more stash enhancing, this time for my wool stash.

And Sunday was spent working on a quilt for Kristy’s upcoming 16th birthday. Pictures coming for that.....

There were several of you interested in the Spring Sampler which I offered up in my last post, so to be fair, I wrote down all of your names and had hubby draw one, and Sonya was the winner. So Spring Sampler will soon be flying on its way to you, Sonya!

I still need to catch up with blog reading....and see what everyone has been up to!

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.

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.