Is it really November?

I'm back in blogging land! No real excuses as to where I've been or why - but I guess I found I had overloaded on responsibilities. Something had to give. And then procrastination set in....

I've been around and lurking and commenting here and there and stitching and quilting and knitting and reading to my heart's content! Well almost - work does tend to get in the way somewhat.

Wanna see some pictures? Because after all, that's what we are really about. If we can't do it all, we can at least look at pictures of people who stitch and quilt and knit wonderful things and imagine that we will some day too.

This is what I did on my summer vacation - really. Lo How a Rose - in a Christmas book that I begged, borrowed and pleaded to get because I had seen it so many times in so many places and I knew I had to make this one for myself. Luckily Clare had the book and she lent it to me just in time for my August vacation. It took about 8 days of dedicated stitching to make and Ta-Da - I'm in love with this piece. I used only DMC for it - no fancy threads here - and I dug out a piece of Lakeside Linens 36 ct linen that I had in my stash. I used one thread over 2 because I wanted a lighter, lacy feel for it. Its been relegated to my bag of finished pieces (BFP's) until I can scrounge up enough $$ to get this one framed.


This is Yule Sampler by Primitive Needle. I finished it last week and I am still in shock that I got something done before a holiday took place, instead of my usual finishing of it after the fact. Again, DMC's, not the called for Crescent Colours, because although I have a healthy selection of CC's, I didn't have one bloody skein that was called for. This was done on Lakeside Linens River Willow 32 ct. Its such a cute little piece and I really enjoyed it.

"Greetings" by Blackbird Designs, from their Peppermint& Holly book. I started this last week, using mostly GAST (with a little DMC, because of course I don't have all the ones that are called for). I'm using the rest of the Lakeside Linens piece of 36 ct fabric that I used for Lo How a Rose above, but 2 threads over 2 this time, for better coverage. Don't you just love BBD's!

And I finished up 2 Hallowe'en pieces, that have already been put away and given away....before pictures were taken (Gasp!). One day I'll get a picture of those.

I made this wee quilt to actually hang something on one of the walls for a change! Its only going to be 24" x 36" when finished and its just waiting to be quilted now. I used the Square in a Square technique - classes that I have been taking with Marg since last January! The main quilt that we are making is a ways from being completed, although we only have 2 classes left. I have lots of very pretty blocks made but I was needing to see something finished so I got this one put together with one of my favourite blocks, I think called Ribbons.

The urge for a new start isn't limited to my stitching - it takes over quilting too. This is the start of 'Log Cabin Squared' using two 'chelsea buns' from Sanctuary. Chelsea buns are rolls of fabric that are 1 1/2" strips from one fabric line, this one called Sanctuary. Really could the manufacturers make things any easier? But I wish they would get away from these yummy food titles for these things.

And lastly, a peak at something waiting to be quilted, using 2 charm packs from Blackbird Designs, called Beach house.

Whew, that was exhausting! Bella thinks so too :-D

Stitching Retreat

What a fantastic weekend! Ann (of Knowledge & Needles fame) organized a stitching retreat at Timber House in Brighton, just off the shore of Lake Ontario. And this place is gorgeous, huge windows 3 stories high, with tons of stitching room with beautiful natural light. Of course we all still came armed with assorted Ott lights and magnifiers as you can see from the pictures, that is all 18 of us! The bedrooms were lovely with big comfy beds when we needed to rest up for the next day of stitching. And food - well there was lots of it and it was all delicious. I neglected to take my camera to Ann's house where hubby Dan cooked up a scrumptious feast for us on Saturday afternoon. And of course a quick trip into the shop for some must-haves followed that.

I have lots of pictures of the stitching retreat to share....so here goes!
This is a shot of the great room, that I took from the upstairs dining area~

A shot of the dining area upstairs~One of the lovely bedrooms~

Awesome windows~And in case you are wondering what I did during this fabulous weekend~
This is Flock of Birds by Blackbird Designs. I started it on Friday shortly after we arrived at Timber House and finished it up last night. A quick, very sweet little design :-D

What a great weekend! Thanks Ann for organizing such a fantastic weekend for us all, its no wonder your next 2 retreats are already booked solid!

Blackbirding

I have some finishes to show ... finally!

My latest beauty, hot off the needle, and beautiful she is, even if I do say so myself. This is Sweetheart Sampler, a Loose Feather pattern from Blackbird Designs. Its an oldie but a goodie. I stitched this on the recommended fabric, 30 ct Kansas City Blend by R&R Reproductions, but once I started with the large alphabet, it looked far too chunky for me. So I switched to stitching over-1 thread and I was much much happier with it.
Uh, if you note at the bottom, it says Valentine's Day and I'm only just over a month late for this lovely occasion, or even better really, 11 months early for next year!

Next its pincushion-y time!
This is Buttons & Pins, also by Blackbird, finished on 40 ct remnant and finished into a pincushion. I found the crushed walnut shells recommended for filling these (bird cage litter in real life) and I love the weight and substance this filler gives these.

Small Tokens, one of the Nashville releases for Blackbird Designs. This is finished on 32 ct antique white linen with some very sweet crocheted trim. This one made a wee gift.

This Friday I'm going to a Stitching Retreat with ladies from Knowledge & Needles! This is my first weekend retreat and I am so excited. I just have to figure out what to pack. I think its time for a new start or two! My excuse is that I'm not taking my Dazor magnifier, so I will need some larger-for-my-old-eyes fabrics, and since most of what I have on the go lately is 32-and-up, well that's just as good an excuse for a new start as any I can think of.

I'm still offering up my contest (see last post) for a new phrase for finished-finished. The winner will get a lovely little something that has been finished-finished.

Meanwhile I better get back to working on my PhD (Project-half-Done) - a new phrase I learned last night!

This and That

Where have the past few weeks gone? Work has been deadly recently - owing to the fact that we have gone from 3 full timers down to 2 - so much for a slow ease back into work. I honestly feel that I can't see the end of the tunnel. I have spent so much time on the computer, that once I finish up with work, that's it for me and the computer. Needless to say, I am very behind in my blogreading :-(

But it didn't stop me from taking Friday afternoon off so that Carrie and I could head down to the One-of-a-Kind Show in Toronto. I love this show - its absolutely the best show around and we love the Christmas show. Its so fantastic to see Canadian artisans and handmade items. I had thought to find myself a new coat, but didn't see anything that struck my fancy. I did get some wonderful smelling body butter, smelling of oatmeal and honey, yummm, and honey lip balm, which is so necessary for these cold winter days. Plus some delicious Christmas cranberry pot pourri and herbal tea. But the best was the new tea set that I had a hankering for - hand made stoneware - in a gorgeous shade of blue. I indulged in the teapot, cream and sugar and a small matching bowl. I did run out of money! May be the tea cups can come next year. You'll see some glimpses of my teapot in the pictures......

I received this in the mail last week from sweet Jenn (Sweet Pea) . She has been playing around with dying her own threads and has done a fantastic job with the colours. I was so lucky to have won this skein from her!! This skein is called 'American Girl' but she suggested we change it to 'North American Girl' for me! Thanks Jenn, I'm going to look for a special project to use your thread.
Here's a little finish from last month - Little House Needleworks Wool Needlebook, stitched on a 32 ct remnant (note shiny new teapot!).

And another small finish - Blackbird Designs Buttons & Pins, on a 40 ct remnant.

I started some Christmas ornaments - this is the Shepherd's Bush series that has appeared in the JCS Ornament issues, starting way back in 2000. I got the first 2 stitched already this week. I've been using a mixture of DMC, WDW and GAST threads and instead of using the silver charms, I used Kreinik #4 cord to make the cane and trumpet. Looks pretty good I think! Only 6 more ornaments to go.....do you think I'll have them finished for Christmas?

On looking at these pictures, I really think the finishing fairy is long overdue at my house!

One last shot of my wee Christmas tree. I have a sweet collection of handmade angels that I have found over the years at local craft shows and the smallest of these I have hanging on this little tree, along with a few ornaments that I made about 10 years ago.

We're off house hunting this afternoon - with the newlyweds Carrie and JF!

A stocking ornament

I finished up my first Christmas ornament of the year. I stitched the Blackbird Design stocking from the 2008 JCS Ornament issue. It stitched up so quickly that I went back through some older issues and found the candy cane design that I remembered seeing before, also by Blackbird Designs. The small square of fabric showing is what I used for the backing fabric.

But I'm not too thrilled with my finishing. I ironed the fusible interfacing to the back of each piece and then whipstitched both together but I found a lot of little threads kept slipping out. Any ideas on how to put these together without a smoother finished edge? Did I cut the margins too small? I really need some finishing classes!

Happy Saturday!

And its only one more week until Carrie and J-F's wedding! There are so many last minute things to do in the meantime, on top of work....its going to be crazy. Kelly arrived last Thursday and the two girls were already off bright and early this morning to get started on their day. Later we have to visit the resort where the wedding will take place and a quick visit to the nearby town for the liquor license. I can't wait for the big day to arrive!!

I also had my preop appointment this week in Toronto for my own big day. The Friday after the wedding is my surgery date, when I am finally going to get rid of these huge ovarian cysts that have been causing so many problems and a hysterectomy as well to get rid of the endometriosis. Its funny really to be so looking forwards to surgery but I can't wait to start feeling better.

I've been getting a little stitching done, not too much, but I got this sweet little design finished up: Its called Buttons & Pins by Blackbird Designs. I just need to find some wee buttons to sew along the open space of the border and finish in into a pin cushion. I used a Lakeside Linen piece of 40 ct something, it looks like a pale old yellow, not as yellowish as the scan came out, but a soft pretty colour.
Most people pile up books and reading to do for their convalescence, not me, I have stitching projects lined up! I may not have time to check in again before the wedding, so have a great week everyone!

Sunflower House

A finish...a finish! Yuko beat me to the end of Sunflower House, even though I had started before her! I think I must be a slower stitcher than I thought LOL!


Vickie at Hedgehog Stitchery had kindly asked if I had any stitched pieces I could let her borrow for display at her shop! What an honour!! I took some pieces over last night, only 3 framed pieces and several unframed. How funny that I felt at a loss to find pieces for her to display! I guess I have given a lot of my stitching away (mostly to my kids!) and I have a not so tiny pile of WIP's. Plus quite a few Christmas stockings/ornaments that are packed away at the moment. Still I felt it wasn't much to show for all my years of stitching....kind of strange really. I think I need to take some time and organize my stitching into an online album, for my own sanity really, because its hard for me to realize that a hobby at that I spend usually a couple of hours a day at, I feel like I don't have much to look at.

I also attended Carrie's wedding dress fitting last night and took my own dress in for some alterations. We got to see ourselves together in our dresses and Oh, my but we look gorgeous!!! Only 5 weeks and counting until the wedding!

Sunflower House and a small finish

Thank you all for your wonderful comments on the Love Sampler! Its so heartwarming to read what everyone has said. I was so anxious to put my last few stitches on this - I just don't do well with deadlines. We are off to the framer's later today to pick out a frame and get that organized, as well as few other small pieces that have been waiting to be framed and displayed.

Sunflower House update - but I'm not happy with how the colours look in the pictures! Really they are much nicer than how they look here. Yuko has put me to shame with how quickly she is getting through this one! I think she's going leave me far behind and finish ahead of me.

And another little finish - this is Bine's Neighbourhood RR. I love the set-up she chose, with a long row of houses. And doesn't it look sweet!

Sunflower House

I missed getting a picture of my Sunflower House last week, but now here it is, with a little more to see. I finished up the house and 3 of the sunflowers. This seems to be working up quickly!
Be sure to visit Yuko's blog to see her Sunflower House too! Her pictures are much much prettier to see than mine!

Last chance for the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pattern!

Another peek at the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pattern ~ that's right, the eyes are missing. Isn't there just always one floss colour that you are missing!!!! Once the eyes are done and the nose outlined, my lady will be finished!

So last chance to get your name in on the draw. I'll pick a name from random draw generator on Friday morning and then off she goes on her merry travels.

And since I celebrated July 1st (Canada Day) at the cottage, I picked up Blackbird Designs Sunflower House again, this time around to start a SAL with Yuko. Its a funny looking house at the moment, as I'm just painting it in all the GAST Butternut Squash.
Lucky, lucky hubby is off for 2 weeks vacation and I guess I'm having a mini sort of vacation as I'm on my own....Nick is staying with hubby this week and Kristy is off to camp as a counsellor in training.

Thanks for stopping by!

A fresh start and needing a fresh start

Thank you for all your comments on my LHN finish! I really love working on these sweet designs.I needed to pick something else up to do at the cottage over the weekend...where there is no magnifier...and I decided on Blackbird Designs Sunflower House. I have loved this one for along time but since it was 'retired', I was so thrilled to find it for sale by another stitcher. The pattern came with this gorgeous blue linen. I'm not sure if its the called for fabric which is called Friendship Blue, but it looks wonderful with the floss colours.
I didn't get too much done however, as a book grabbed all my attention. Its not too often that I start a book that I just can't put down. This one was called The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I only started reading it on Thursday night, and finished it Sunday morning. What an amazing story! Luckily I have another one book by the same author ~ A Thousand Splendid Suns ~ waiting for me at home to start.

And on to Love with a Capital L~
I really think I need to put this away for a little while. I have made so many little mistakes with this piece recently, including the large motif on the lower left, well not such a little mistake maybe since the entire thing is about 4 rows too high. And of course I didn't discover this until it was pretty much finished. Counting threads on 40 ct fabric really seems to unravel me, uh no pun intended there. So I haven't decided yet if its time to frog, I started working on the next row of flowers and thought I would better be able to tell if I could fit the wording in without too much trouble, until another mistake became apparent last night. Yup, I definitely think its time to work on something else for a while and look at Love again with fresh eyes.

Thanks for visiting!

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

Blackbird Designs Garden of Life

Its finished, as of last night!

I couldn't resist going ahead with the stitching on this, especially since Marido from the Blackbird SAL so kindly sent along the French translation already charted. Originally it read "Friends ~ flowers in the garden of life" but I much preferred the translation as it sounds so much prettier. I even broke down and gave this fabric an iron before I took a picture. I am really not impressed with the fabric, I think its R&R 30 ct Natural, but its so stiff and creases so easily. Its definitely not one of the nicer ones I have used nor is the colour.


I have a couple more pictures to post of what I did on the weekend, but Blogger is not cooperating at all today. I think I'm lucky to have gotten these 2 pictures up, but its not letting me place them where I want.

We have such a dull, dull day here today, and more snow flurries. Where is spring?

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.