Fair and Square Exchange

My Fair and Square Exchange package arrived from Barbara, and all the way from Malaysia. Look at the wonderful square she stitched for me! Barbara noted my love of Prairie Schooler designs and alphabets and managed to combine both for me in this wonderful square!! I haven't decided yet how to finish these - into a pinkeep, needlebook, or save them up and make them into a small wallhanging. I have finished off my squares for Barbara and will have to get them into the post office so she gets them soon.

Sign-ups for Round #2 are still being accepted if anyone wants to take part. The squares are small - no bigger than 50x50 so not a huge amount of time to do and they do not need to be finished as that will be left up to the receiver. Here is the blog site: Fair and Square if anyone is interested if joining us! There are great pictures of some of the blocks received so far.

I'm still tossing around ideas for a new start and I have been going through my stash looking at what has been languishing ~ so far I have Celtic Banner or Paradigm Lost or an HAED pattern that I bought 2 years ago and got all ready to start on my summer holidays (I can't believe that was really 2 years ago already!). Or may be I should just start all 3 LOL!

Wednesday is finally here and that means Kelly and Chris are on their way here for a 10 day visit! Hubby has booked the next week off work and I have only Thursday and Friday to work and all of next week off! So we will be cottage-bound for 5 days over our Canada Day weekend. I'll won't be around much for the next week or so but I hope to have lots of pictures to show next week! Have a great week all!!

Where do you buy your wool?

From an alpaca farm of course! This is where Marg and I ventured out to on Saturday morning after we had visited the local weaver's studio where they were having an amazing wool sale. I resisted the idea of buying a loom, as much as the thought entices me of one day trying my hand at weaving. Although table top looms were also for sale, I couldn't resist coming away with a huge bag full of wool that was priced by the pound!

I bought some wonderful worsted weight wool for a comfy sweater for myself, a bag of 10 skeins of mohair, and a cone of merino wool, a lace weight, that will work for the Mystery Stole that we have signed up for. With almost 3000 members signed up on the Yahoo group, new members are still being accepted for the group if any knitters out there are interested. The first clues are due on this coming Friday. This is a mystery lace knitting project designed by Melanie of Pink Lemon Twist.

I bought all this for a whopping $20!



Poor Nancy had to work and didn't make it to our little outing. And look what she missed ~ Marg can't wear wool as she is too allergic, so she wanted to get alpaca for her mystery stole. So off we went to the nearby alpaca farm/store where we met the owner, Lori, and spent the next 2 hours visiting her shop and farm. What an adventure! She showed us her products from beginning to end and it was fascinating and we had a great time. And we met all her beautiful alpacas, including a 10 day old baby, as well as her wonderful Leonburger dogs which she also breeds. We will definitely have to get Nancy there the next time and who knows, she may just have to come home with an Alpaca.


Here is a picture of Margarette and Prince William after recent their hair cuts!


Kristy's move on Friday went great and between her case worker, her and me, we had all her clothes unpacked and hung in the closet and her dresser in no time. Monte was a little perturbed with the move and took to hiding under his towel once his aquarium tank was placed in. He's not nearly as big (or scary) as I had thought he was going to be. His food (mice) have been tucked away in the freezer and as long as I don't have to deal with that, we'll get along quite nicely I'm sure.

Thank you everyone for all your well wishes!!!

My Round Robin returns!

We had our final Guild meeting for the year on Wednesday night and it was the return of the Round Robins! We started exchanging these in September so in all there were 10 exchanges, once per month. The lay-out was Christmas trees, but always being one to be different, I didn't go with a traditional theme and chose Celtic knots, to follow in my Irish/Scottish heritage. And because I love the meaning of what Celtic knotwork represents, that of neverending life.

I sent along a variety of gold and green threads and fibres along with my fabric and stitched the top element of the tree. And look at the gorgeous tree that I got in return. Its breathtaking!!! Several of the ladies stitched over-1 for their sections and there was a lot of Petite Treasure braid used, I only wished all the sparkly showed up better in the picture. What a wonderful keepsake I have!

Today is official moving day for Kristy! This afternoon we have borrowed a friend's truck to move her boxes, bed and dresser. And our first official day as a foster home now that we have our official approval, signed, sealed and delivered. Tomorrow is a family get-together with my clan, poor girl, we throwing her right into the frying pan!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Finally... we had a Tour

Carrie started her new job as a Radiation Therapist at the Durham Cancer Centre in early May when the centre officially opened, but the public tour was only held this past Thursday and of course hubby and I were very anxious to attend! And wow - very snazzy place and very state of the art. It was definitely well worth the years and years of waiting that the people of this area have had to go through. They have only been open 5 weeks and are already expanding!


So far in the Radiation Centre, only 3 machines are available and Carrie is posing with here with one. It was pretty cool to see everything in person after having her describe everything to us. How impressive to have our own tour guide!

We had a wonderful weekend at the cottage - the weather is spoiling us!

Not too much to show on the stitching front, I worked on Houses of Hawk Run Hollow, House #5. I felt like I spent a lot of time on it, but not too much to show for it!



I'm working on getting my birthday present together for the Bloggers Birthday Club, I'm almost ready to get my parcel into the mail. And then I'm ready to start my first squares for the Fair and Square exchange for Barbara.

But I have to confess, I can feel a case of startitis coming on, especially since I have officially finished off my Prairie Schooler blocks. I have so many things waiting for me to start. I think I need to start making a list.....decisions, decisions!

Two Finishes

I'm behind getting updates posted on my blog. I actually worked on these this past weekend while at the cottage. Should I mention how wonderful it is to sit by the water's edge and stitch? Silly me, part of me was in the sun and I had a not so nice sunburn to show for it, but how nice it was to get some work done on my 40 ct fabric for a change. I stitched 'F is for Farm' on my Carriage House Samplings Alphabet.

Kelly and Chris are coming for a 10 day visit and are arriving June 27th. So to take advantage of the cheaper shipping costs, I ordered myself a Dazor task lamp with a magnifier and had it sent to Kelly's address. She has already received it - wow US postal service is amazing - 4 days - and she'll bring it with her when she comes since they are driving here. No more complaining from me about not being able to stitch on 40 ct fabrics. And I dare not, with all these Neighbourhood RR's arriving at my door on 36 and 40 ct linens!

And my piece de resistance ~ my finished Z is for Zinnias!

That makes 26......yes, you read correctly, 26 finished Prairie Schooler alphabet blocks! I started these in June 2004 and finished in June 2007! I hate to say it, but I'm actually kind of sad to be finished these.....but I still have to make them into a quilt. Its going to be one enormous quilt!

And yet another meeting yesterday with the Children's Aid. We are now a probationary foster care home and read over our 14 page long report and signed it off. Whew! Work is progressing on Kristy's bedroom. Rick and Jean-Francois have painted - 4 coats of white, to cover what once was blue, and have taped it off for pink stripes to go on next. Yes, she is definitely a pink girl! I'm not too sure how Monte (the snake) feels about stripes though.

PIF from Su

Look at the sweet surprise that graced my mailbox yesterday. Su (Contemplating My Needle and Thread) sent me a PIF ~ a lovely pinkeep, a design from Shepherd's Bush called My Garden. Its done on a very tiny count of fabric, she didn't specify, but it looks like a 36 or 40 ct. Her stitching is immaculate and her finishing of this tiny wee thing is just superb! What a treasure!!!

Thank you so much for this wonderful gift, Su! I love it and can't wait to put it in my basket of lovelies from my stitching friends!

Garden Exchange from Chris

I opened up my mail box to get a huge bulging package from Chris .

She was my partner for the Garden theme exchange for the SBEBB and she stitched Just Nan's Charm garden and made it into this lovely little pillow. For some reason the camera has decided to turn the linen pinkish, its really a lovely natural linen, and she used the cutest charms that look like garden tools.
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And look at the lovely goodies she included with the beautiful pillow she made! I neglected to include the beautiful box of note cards that were also included in her package. I felt thoroughly spoiled by her generosity!!!

We're off to the cottage this afternoon, once Nick is home from school, and provided I get through my work.

We have been given an official move-in date for Kristy - June 22! That's the last day of school for the kids and only 2 weeks away. Hubby has been packing up his 'office' in earnest now to clean up the bedroom that we will be giving to Kris. We have to take her out next week to pick out a paint colour. She will be bringing a bed and dresser from her old home and we have a computer and desk for her here. Everything else I guess we'll see what she needs once she has moved in.

Did I mention she has a snake? A 4 foot long python, named Monte. I didn't realize that fostering a snake was part of the deal?!?! Hmmm, as long as he stays in his cage and doesn't take to snacking on small dogs.

A quilt start

Thank you all for your Anniversary well wishes! All your comments were so wonderful and heartwarming to read. Thank you to each and every one of you to take the time to leave such lovely words for us!!!

Before I forget, here is a picture of the flowers hubby brought me for our anniversary. Beautiful aren't they! I only wish cut roses lasted longer, sadly they don't look as spectacular now a few short days later.

Hubby had a guys weekend at the cottage and I stayed home and decided to have a quilting weekend. It was hot, hot, hot on Saturday, much nicer to stay inside with the A/C going, although I did venture out with Carrie to go apartment hunting. She and J-F have decided they need a little more space and its time for them to move on to their own place.



I bought these fabrics at a local fabric shop 1-2 months ago during a 50% off sale. I couldn't resist, the fabric line was called Sunporch and they are so pretty and so soft. And with the sale price, they were $5/metre each. Its time for a quilt for the cottage, so I was busy Saturday and Sunday and got these made up:

So far this is only one type of block, there is one more style that will be interspersed with these ones. I got quite a few made up so far, kind of an assembly line process, with getting most of the cutting done in the beginning and them laying out all your pieces and zipping them through the machine.

This afternoon we have a meeting with Kristy's case worker and her current foster mother and the kinship worker. Don't these people ever get tired of meetings? I know I am......they should all be over with soon!