20 Feet of Dog

"20 Feet of Dog!" This is what my husband answered to a neighbour when he asked how the 'dog' situation was going in our house. Yes, there are 20 doggie feet, because there are currently 5 dogs in our house. 'Course I always tell people, all put together probably make up one large dog! We have 2 shih tzu's, one toy poodle, one baby shih-poo, and one schnoodle.


Kelly brought her new puppy Maisie home for a visit and she is really keeping the others on their doggie toes, especially when she decides that a tail makes a better pull/chew toy. It was hilarious to see her actually dragging poor Stu across the living room floor. He wasn't too impressed and has taken to staying in his bed where she forgets about him and decides to play with another tail instead.

Graduation Night

It was Nick's big Grade 8 graduation last night. What great weather we had - a little humid but overall a lovely evening. Big sister Kelly took him out to get a hair cut in the afternoon. And luckily he was able to borrow a suit from JF, which amazingly fit quite well. He looked quite dapper and very grown up! After the ceremony, I had the first dance with Nick, as all the moms danced with their sons and fathers danced with their daughters. The girls all looked incredible with their long gowns and beautiful hairstyles.

After the dance, the grads all met up at a local restaurant and now back to the real world for them...although most are not attending school today. Nick has to get ready for his grad trip to Quebec City next week.

Here is Nick with his 2 sisters.

Noahs Ark Update

A few more animals have joined in! And the new baby has arrived - Scarlett joined her family on June 6, 2006, a very unusual date for a birthday but one that will always be easy to remember! We will get to meet her this Saturday when we have a family get-together at my sister's house. Unfortunately Noah's Ark is not close to being ready, but I have thought about taking it along to show my progress so far. I'm sure Scarlett won't mind waiting a few more weeks for it to be finished.

Its been a busy week in spite of my not having much work this past couple of weeks. Carrie and JF have decided to move back home for a while in order to save some money. Carrie won't be working in September/October as she is studying for her big final exam to become licensed as a radiation therapist. Hopefully she will find work fairly soon after that and be able to put her school days behind her. And they also hope to buy a house in the not too distant future, so this is a great way for them to start working on a downpayment. So we are doing a very needed cleaning out of several year's worth of clutter. Our neighbourhood is having a garage sale this weekend so its good timing ~whatever is worthwhile that we are getting rid of will spend the day in the garage/driveway and then whatever is left will get hauled off or donated.

And my other daughter Kelly and her boyfriend Chris are on their way here now from their home in North Carolina! She will be here for her baby brother's Grade 8 graduation on Thursday evening. Its a long drive - at least 12 hours - and I can't wait to see her! And of course the new puppy Maisie!

So I haven't had a lot of stitching time, which doesn't mean of course that I can't find time for online shopping. Has anyone seen the humongous 40 designer freebie set that was given out at the needlearts show last week? I have been scouring the web trying to find the best place to get my greedy hands on these freebies and I finally settled on Stitching Bits & Bobs. For $2.50, they will send you a CD with all the freebies on them. It looks like it would be a fun project, all the designers have various buildings and houses they have designed. I don't believe they have been shown stitched together yet, so it will be cool to see how different people decide how to work these all into one design.

Village of Hawk Run Hollow

Carriage House Samplings has released a picture of their newest design: Village of Hawk Run Hollow! I absolutely love it. Now I'm going to have to make a mad scramble to get some more work done on my Village of Hawk Run Hollow before the urge to start this one takes over. Luckily I don't think its being released until August, so that gives me a little more time!

I'm doing this one on 40 ct Pearled Barley linen from Lakeside Linens. Its a wonderful colour and this picture really doesn't do it justice.

On Saturday, Carrie and I found some amazing garage sales at the local high schools. The students were fundraising for a trip to France in 2007, so their families were helping out with garage sales. We found some amazing deals - Carrie bought ALL of the Diana Gabaldon books (which she hadn't read yet but was tired of hearing me rave about them), a kit to make garden stones, which I'm hoping to use to mark my various herbs (yes, I actually have planted a small garden this year), a matching set of twin comforters and shams for one of the cottage bedrooms, plus some baked goodies, and my great deal - 40 various Quilting magazines and patterns for 25 cents each!

Here's a pic of a few of them....I love garage sales :-P

Robin's Nest Round Robin

My section is almost finished - just have to add my name and country at the bottom, oh and a couple of stitches left in the border where I ran out of floss. I chose Prairie Schooler Country Seasons for this RR, which works out great since there are 4 of us in the group. And I stitched
'Autumn' which is my favourite season.

I'm playing with the idea of stitching names over one, using a freebie alphabet that I found, so I'm hoping that's okay with my RR buddies. Then it will just be a matter of getting a shipping envelope and packaging up what I want to send along. I think I'll be ready for our July 1st mailing date. Course it will have to be a little earlier here, since that's Canada Day!

Nick's Birthday

It was my youngest's 14th birthday on May 26 - I can't believe it has taken me long to get up any pictures of him from then (not all my fault as hubby had the camera last week and had not downloaded the pics). I measured him that day as I could swear he had grown yet again and I was right - Nick is right on 6'1" - and still growing?!?

For his birthday present to himself, he managed to break his baby finger in 2 places (OUCH!) and is sporting a nice cast. Of course all the girls managed to give him lots of attention over this, so its really not that bad, except he found out that a broken finger also means ~ no bike riding, no skateboarding and no swimming until the beginning of July.

Having grown another 2 inches since last fall also means the suit we bought him for my niece's wedding won't fit, so its another shopping trip so he will look nice for his Grade 8 graduation at the end of June.

Here's a pic with Nick and his friend Shannon.

Noahs Ark Update

Noah's Ark is afloat ~ with 4 animals so far, an elephant, 2 penguins and a giraffe. I got the backstitching on the ark done, mostly that around the windows, and it really added some nice detail.

We're off to the cottage tomorrow and I think I'll be taking my latest PS block to work on ~ F is for Friend.

Have a great weekend!

SBQ

Stitching Blogger's Question, as suggested by Carol:

Do you collect charts by one particular designer, yet have never stitched anything by that designer? If so, which designer and why do you collect the charts but have not yet stitched any of them?

I really collect far too many charts - but isn't that half the fun? And my taste keeps changing to include more and more designers, especially as I see WIP's and finishes posted on message boards and blogs.

I do have several Drawn Thread charts and have yet to stitch one, but of course I have great intentions to. I love the delicate patterns and intricate work on her designs.

I am also in possession of several of the smaller Shepherd's Bush designs, and have never started one of those either. Luckily for my wallet, I have managed to stay away from their kits.

And I am the proud owner of a Chatelaine kit, which is still waiting of me to start - once I get some of my must-do stitching out of the way. Its looking like summer may be a good time to start this one.

The main designer I have collected would be Teresa Wentzler's, and I think I actually have all of the ones I want, since I also have her 3 Best-Of books. I have completed I think 8 of her designs and there are so many more that I want to do ~ 12 Days of Christmas, Byzantine ornaments, Day and Night, 4 Season Faeries.....I could go on for a while!

Teresa Wentzler

I haven't had much stitching accomplished in the past few days so I thought I would post a couple of older finishes.


This is my TW Round Robin that my TW stitching pals worked on for me. The top section is what I stitched, which is the top arch from TW's Birth Sampler. The 7 bands below are from different TW borders, each one just as stunning as the other. I received it finished last fall and I have yet to get back to it to finish the sides bars and the small bottom section, which will be the bottom arch from Birth Sampler.






This one is Egyptian Sampler which I think I finished 3 year ago and has been sitting languishing in my stitching bag ever since. It was a fun one to work on with all the different motifs.















And this is my latest TW finish - Woodland Faerie. I spent a good part of last year working on her and finished in September. I decided against the outermost border, I preferred leaving her with the leafy border instead as I thought the final border would look too heavy, especially since most of the design is solid stitching.

I have several more TW's in my stash, luckily for me she has stopped designing for a while, as there is no way I could keep up with her gorgeous designs. And this is the first time in a long while I haven't had a TW on the go.

I can't believe how hot it is already this morning - the temp in the house was 27 C at 7:30 am, so I had to break down and turn on the a/c. The forecast for today is for 35 C, with a humidex of 42 C. And its only May still!

Mail stash!

My package arrived from Needlecraft Corner yesterday! This was my present from hubby for no stash buying for the month of April.

I had already bought the Designing Ladies Finishing Book, and silly me I really assumed there would be one of the patterns in the book for these wonderful needlebooks. So I was about to order the Attic Collection by Judy O'Dell, when I found the kit packaged together by Drema. It comes with the most gorgeous piece of hand-dyed 32 ct linen, called Vintage Autumn Fields, 7 skeins of Needle Necessities and a pack of copper coloured beads.

I' ve had a look through the charts and it looks pretty well laid out, showing exactly where to stitch each of the patterns on the fabric, so that you have enough left over for the finishing.

This is really not the best scan, this fabric is really to die for!

I can't believe this is Thursday already, its 4 Saisons stitching night, and I don't think I've touched it this month at all! I hope to get some decent stitching done and I'll scan it tomorrow morning. I'm into Winter just as our weather here is finally warming up!

Its an Ark!

Yes, its an ark, although it is hard to tell...I got tired of endless brown stitching and I was eager to get more of the ark shape done, so I jumped ahead and started in on the body. This part is getting to be rather tedious stitching, I never have been a fan of stitching with the same colour in a long continuous line. I'm anxious to start in on the animals as they are so cute.

So much for a holiday weekend - we had the coldest, rainiest, dullest Victoria Day Weekend that I can remember. It was fine at the cottage inside as my hubby had roaring fires going which were really too hot, we could have cooked off them. Losing power for several hours Sunday afternoon made for a very interesting dinner! Luckily to counter all the miserable weather, Carrie, JF and I had a great time at Saturday's auction. No purchases for me, although I am really frustrated that I didn't bid on several numbered reprints from the Group of Seven. There were several that would have looked wonderful in my living room, and they each sold for $100-130 - amazing! Sunday, we visited a couple of small towns not too far a drive away and had a fun time shopping, and even found 3 scrapbook stores!

And of course that also left lots of time for stitching! And at least its a short work week too!!

And very sad news from Kelly ~ she and Chris were off for a holiday weekend in Georgia. They had just dropped off puppy Molly at a friend's and 2 hours later had a phone call that Molly had escaped from their fenced back yard and was hit by a car and killed. Poor little thing! Kelly is naturally very upset. It was especially hard when they got back home and saw her bed and all her toys lying about. Hard to know why these things happen...

Happy Dancing!

I'm finished...I'm finished!!! Attitudes by Stoney Creek that I have stitched for my daughter Carrie is now officially finished. It looks lovely, if I do say so myself, and I'm very pleased to have done this in record speed for me ~ I started it on February 26th and finished on May 17th. But I also really worked on very little else meanwhile.

This is Carrie's graduation present after 5 very long years at university. She is graduating in radiation therapy this fall. And when I showed her the finished 'Attitudes', she told us she is now considering another 2 years to complete her master's degree. Now I'm wondering what on earth could I possibly stitch her for that?


Last night I put some stitches in my Bent Creek Snappers series - I had sadly fallen behind in that and I'm finally catching up with the May square. But I forgot about my 4 Saisons Thursday night! I owe 3 Thurdays now to this one.


Its a holiday weekend with Victoria Day on Monday - that means cottage time - and we're cottage-bound on Saturday to Monday. Its been unseasonably cool the past few days so I'm really hoping at least the sun stays out and lets us enjoy being outside by the water.

Have a great weekend!

Noah's Ark is on the boards...

Nothing is more thrilling than starting a new project. Well, except may be finishing one! My niece is about 3 weeks away from having a new baby so its not like I didn't have any warning to get something stitched, but other things kept getting in the way. And possibilities for birth samplers are endless these days, the more I searched on-line, the more things I found that I liked. What finally narrowed down my search was my love of anything-Prairie Schooler, and knowing that my niece likes Noah's Ark pieces.

On my last visit to Knowledge & Needles, I found 2 PS charts called Two by Two and Two by Two II and while not looking like a birth sampler, I absolutely loved the ark and all the charted animals. Ann suggested a band sampler style for a birth sampler and I was sold! Then it was a matter of how on earth do I chart out such a thing.


I found an on line source for graph paper and scanned all the charts of the ark and animals. I cut them out and started placing them in different positions on my graph paper. The charts are all slightly different sizes, so it really was a matter of trying to figure out which ones worked together best and flowed fairly smoothly. Carrie helped out using Excel to chart out the blocks, so I could make sure that I have a general idea of where each animal will be stitched in relation to the others. And with hubby making a final copy of all my various bits and pieces, finally I have my PS Noah's Ark Birth Sampler ready to go.

And amazingly enough, I found a piece of 28 count cream quaker cloth in my stash - perfect size - 14" x 55". I think this was an odds & ends piece from Silkweaver that I bought ages ago.

Now .... to just make my first few stitches! Hmmm, don't think this will be ready in time for the baby though!

INXS & Mother's Day

I was very spoiled on Mother's Day. I got a Rachael Ray cookbook from Carrie and JF and then she had me pick out a recipe which she then made for my dinner Saturday night - it was delicious!
From Nick I got earrings - gold and silver intertwined. And from Kelly, a really pretty case for my IPOD and cool looking post-it notes (she knows I am fascinated by post-its).

After a Chinese food dinner Sunday night, hubby and I headed to the Air Canada Centre in downtown TO to see INXS! Stabilo opened for them, which I was happy about as I like their music also. But once INXS came out, they were incredible. JD is such a showman, he never stops on stage, just constantly in motion. They played a lot of older INXS music plus several new ones from their latest CD. 2 solid hours of music - it was amazing.

What a great way to top off Mother's Day! Now back to the real world and back to work for me after a week off the past week.

This week's SBQ

From the Stitching SBQ:
When you stitch from a kit and use the supplied floss do you have leftovers? If so, how much and what do you do with them? If not, do you usually have just enough or do you have to dig into your stash to finish?

I usually do have leftover floss because I'm pretty careful when using it. I only toss away leftover pieces shorter than my finger.

I never know what to do with leftovers, especially if from one of the kits, where the floss isn't DMC-numbered. So the leftovers usually just sit in a very pretty lump and get pushed in with the kit leftovers - pattern and picture - in case, just one day, somebody else might want to do this pattern.

So yes, somewhere in a box, packed neatly away, are all my 'left-overs' waiting for their chance to come out and be played with again. I know there's an island for misfit toys - may be there is an island for leftover kits too?

Almost human again!

Its been a while since I've put anything on this blog - I spent several days in the hospital and my first few days back home were not so good either. Yesterday I started to feel more like myself again...finally! I even picked up my stitching for the first time with any enthusiasm, although first off I had to frog what I had tried to do the day before and failed at miserably.

On the plus side, my sisters have been by to visit which is always nice. And hubby has been working hard and coming home to prepare dinner and tidy the house. I still have a couple more days to enjoy being a couch potato before back to work on Monday. I think I actually may enjoy the next couple of days of being pampered and waited on!

Creative Festival stash

Spring is finally here, and to stay! What great weather we had all weekend long, and not a rain drop in sight.

The Creative Needlework festival was wonderful - and far too easy to spend all my money. It wasn't overly crowded which made visiting all the booths much much easier. Although there wasn't too much to be seen, stitching-wise, the quilting and scrapbooking areas far made up for it.

Here is a pic of the newest must-have series that I spotted. Its called Coffee Classic Inspirations, by McKenna Ryan. I have done a couple of her patterns and they are a lot of fun, lots of tracing of little tiny pieces and cutting out, but so easy to put together with heat-n-bond. Then its just top stitching ! The store that had these patterns kitted up, unfortunately was out of them, so I'll just have to make a point of getting into their shop next month. This will look great on my newly painted kitchen wall.

I did hit Len's Mill and found a really cute house panel and a couple of fabrics that will coordinate to make a table runner. I also picked up a bag pattern and then found some ultra-suede to make it and a very pretty batik to use as lining.



And the knitting bug has truly gotten me, for some crazy reason, could be all the knitting I've been reading about on other blogs, and seeing Nancy's gorgeous knitted afghan at our last get-together. I found a lovely sweater pattern kit at Mary Maxim's and that ended up in my bag to take home also. And I even managed to get it started last night, even after the kids had dragged me down to the lake for a 5 km bike ride. They were rollerblading, far more difficult than what I was doing, but hey, they're a lot younger than me!

Happy Dance

I finished off my latest Prairie Schooler Alphabet block. This one I don't even remember when I started, definitely in the winter but it became my guild project, stitching get-together project and something that I could easily work on whenever I needed a break from one of the bigger projects. This is block #18, only 8 left to go to finish off the alphabet.

Tomorrow is my Saturday morning Sampler Club in Uxbridge, then out to the International Centre near the airport for the Canadian Sewing & Needlework Festival. I'm not officially 'off' the wagon yet, still 2 days left to go, but it has been 4 weeks, so .... look out! I hope to have a nice little stash haul to show off after the weekend.

Have a great weekend!

What Kind of Soul are You?

You Are a Visionary Soul

You are a curious person, always in a state of awareness. Connected to all things spiritual, you are very connected to your soul. You are wise and bright: able to reason and be reasonable. Occasionally, you get quite depressed and have dark feelings. You have great vision and can be very insightful. In fact, you are often profound in a way that surprises yourself. Visionary souls like you can be the best type of friend. You are intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, and a good healer. Souls you are most compatible with: Old Soul and Peacemaker Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

Be sure to click on the above link to try this for yourself!

So scary.....

My 13 year old, 6'1" son was robbed Friday evening!

My husband had just dropped him off in the next town to visit with his best buddy who had moved there. The boys were on their way to the local McDonald's, and happened to be separated by traffic. The McDonald's is in a large shopping centre, with a Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and numerous box stores. Nick got ahead of his pal, and waited in a lane way beside a store for him to catch up. An SUV stopped and two men robbed him, one stayed in the car with a supposed gun, and the other demanded his money. Nick immediately handed over his cash, an entire $10, and his cell phone. Well that wasn't good enough, and this disgusting piece of filth then proceeded to put his own hands in all of Nick's pockets to check for more money, and then laughed in his face when he saw how scared this poor kid was! Just incredible!! Of course everything happened very fast so by the time his friend caught up, the SUV was speeding away. Luckily Nick was unharmed. Its just so infuriating to me but scary also, and I can't even think about how worse things might have been.

I can only hope that may be this will raise Nick's awareness about being in more open areas, not being alone, and that he's not invincible, bad things can and will happen to anybody anywhere.

Luckily being only 13, he is very resilient and seems to have gotten over it far better than my husband and me. But it can be a big scary world out there.