Friday 31 December 2010

One more post and one final finish

Just had to post a pic of my final happy dance for 2010. I finished it an hour ago and still have time to work on those ornaments for my granddaughters. The white in the piece shows up better IRL.
Tomorrow it's on to a new start. Stay tuned for pics.

Happy New Year

Thursday 30 December 2010

Final Post of 2010


So it's finally here, the end of 2010. I can't believe it has passed as quickly as it has. I'm assured by my Mom that time will continue to pass this quickly from now on.
You can see from the picture above my latest progress on Jardin Prive's Christmas. There hasn't been much done because there hasn't been any time to stitch with all the festivities. I'm so close to a finish on this one!

I worked at the hospital on Christmas day this year and we had our family celebration on Dec. 27th. Whenever I have to work on the holiday like that, my sons always spend Christmas Day at their father's home instead. Their stockings, along with my granddaughters', were all lined up waiting for them to arrive. When they did, it wasn't long before those stockings were emptied and the floor beneath the tree littered with torn wrapping. Most of the gifts beneath the tree now belong to the little ones and I fill stockings instead for the boys. They've always told me that their stockings were the part they enjoyed the most on Christmas. Things change and those stockings are now filled with toiletries, paperback novels, socks, gloves and gift certificates rather than candies and small toys.
It was great to see my granddaughters having so much fun.



Santa was pretty good to me as well. I knew that he was bringing a Kobo ereader to me but what I didn't know about was this fantastic teapot. My DH knows how much I love anything that's a cat and I also enjoy a good cup of tea. He stumbled across this teapot during our visit to Muskoka at the Blue Willow Tea Shop in Gravenhurst. As I waited for him at the table before our meal, I do remember wondering what the heck was taking him so long to park the car. Unknown to me he had spotted the teapot, waited while they wrapped it, paid for it and hid it in the car while I was perusing the menu. Gotta love him!!

I also received some money with which to purchase some stash from my MIL. She had already discussed this with me before Christmas and I ordered some items in advance to place beneath the tree. Here's what I can't wait to get started at stitching for next year!










In early December I took in one of my previously finished stitches to Michael's ( 60% off framing!) to have it framed. It had already been stretched but I still figured it wouldn't be ready before Christmas which they assured me it would not. So imagine my surprise when they called on the Monday before Christmas to say that it was ready for pickup. I was very thrilled to have BD Blessings Be Thine hung on the wall in our entrance in time to greet Christmas guests and family. I love how it turned out!


I'm hoping the JP Christmas will be my final happy dance for 2010. As for my first start of 2011, well that remains to be seen. I'm still going through my stash and trying to decide on a new start. I know that many of you have joined the Up For a Challenge blog where you pick 15 unfinished stitches and complete them during 2011. I honestly have only a couple of UFO's around, none of which I particularily want to finish. Then there's the Crazy January Challenge where you pick 15 new starts and start one each day beginning with Jan. 1st. Then you take the rest of the year to complete them. I haven't even got the time to pick out 15 new starts let alone start them. That's way too much on my plate as long as I'm working. So my plans for the New Year are to merely find myself a new stitch to get started on and enjoy myself stitching it. I hope to complete more ornaments during the next year but I'm not going to hold myself to it, lol! My upcoming retirement might allow for more stitching time but who knows what the future holds?
I hope that all of you and yours have a healthy, blessed and prosperous New Year. I thank all of you for the many visits to my blog along with taking the time to comment. And I look forward to checking in on all of you in the coming year to see what your new stitching plans involve.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Sunday 19 December 2010

Christmas favourites

So today I headed into Ottawa to attend church for the first time in weeks and where did I end up? The mall! This was after our church service and it's the last place I expected to be on the final weekend for shopping before Christmas. Why did I endure such torture? Because yours truly forgot about an order for a gift. I'd ordered this gift a month ago and it only just arrived. I received the phone call on Saturday and knew that the only time I'd be in that neck of the woods was this weekend. It actually wasn't as bad as I expected it to be but there are still some crazies out there. People get nasty at this time of year!

Friday evening I attended what is quite likely my last Christmas dinner with my coworkers. Less than half of the staff were in attendance which was a bit of a disappointment. In years past we have had a party with music and large numbers of people but the past couple of years have seen a decline in the attendance. Our lab director has always paid for the meals for all the employees attending but as of this December he will be retired and the good old days will be just that. It was a lovely meal but a short evening for sure. We were back home by ten and that's after a 45 minute drive.

I spent Saturday evening stitching on Summer's ornament but ended up frogging out a portion when the mirror images of the tree branches didn't match up. I didn't realize just how difficult it would be to frog out stitches done over one. Or maybe it was just the fabric I was using. In any case I put it aside after that and haven't touched it since. I've decided there is a good chance these won't be complete in time for the big day but I'm not upset. No one is the wiser and I would rather take my time at them and do a good job rather than rush them, cursing all the way. The girls are still young and there's always next year.

I promised a few more pics and so here are some I took of my favourite ornaments on the tree.
The first is one of my Dad's picture which hangs on our tree every year since his death 16 yrs ago. What I love about this is that there is also an ornament of a Coke bottle which hangs beside it. Anyone who knew my Dad knew that he was addicted to Coca Cola. Even when he was hospitalized he had family members sneak some in to him. When he died we made sure he was buried with a can of Coke beside him!
This is followed by our new ornaments... a snowman and a cupcake. I loved this little snowman so much that I purchased two more for each of my sisters. A friend gave me the Jim Shore ornament of Santa and baby Jesus. It's really beautiful and although I received it last year, this is the first time it has hung on our tree. Then there is the little penguin which always reminds me of my oldest son. He's loved penguins from the first time he saw them and would beg us to take him to see them at Montreal's Biodome. Now that my sons are grown, they are in the process of dividing up several of the ornaments which they made as kids to put on their own trees.
























Not long after Bob and I married 9 yrs ago, I was looking through his photo albums and spotted a picture of him with Santa. I then dug out mine to show him. We put them aside to show the kids. In the meantime I found Christmas frames for them and decided to display them along with the pictures of my sons that had been taken with Santa when they were younger. We have had more comments on these pictures then any of our other Christmas decorations. Last year my granddaughters spotted them and were confused when we explained that one of them was their Papa!! Mine is the only black and white photo of the group and was taken with my sister when we visited the Christmas wonderland at J L Hudson department store in Detroit. I'm the one on the right. Don't you just love the outfits?






















Dan & Chris together and my eldest son Jeff in the other.

I'd like to take this time to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May 2011 bring blessings to all of you. I want to thank you for taking the time to drop by my blog and for all of your kind comments. I love hearing from each and every one of you!!

Tuesday 14 December 2010

A little stitching and celebrations

I can't believe that so many days have passed since I last posted. Time is getting away on me and I'm starting to panic as Christmas approaches. There don't seem to be enough hours in the day for me to accomplish everything that needs to be done. Add to that the fact that I'm always sleep deprived and you get the picture. I enlisted my son Daniel's help this week in order to get the house decorated. As you can see, the tree is now done!I also wanted to spend some time with Dan since he is celebrating his 26th birthday tomorrow. My husband Bob also saw a birthday pass on Sunday so we had a joint celebration yesterday. It was the only day that all of us could get together. With Bob being an organist and choir director, this is an extremely busy time for him and we haven't seen much of him lately. I had hoped to try a new dessert for them that I found on Carol's blog but there just hasn't been enough time so I bailed out and bought them a chocolate fudge cake from the local bakery. The neighbours came over and joined us too so there isn't much cake left now, thank goodness. It's just too tempting!!

I've made a small amount of progress on Jardin Prive Christmas. The top line with the word Christmas and the church is the latest stitching on this one. When I stitched the church, it called for the windows to be left so that just the fabric beneath showed but my fabric was so light that you couldn't tell there were windows there. That's when I decided to backstitch the windows to make them more visible. After stitching in the top of the piece I decided to put it aside in favour

of my M design name trees. I ordered these last year (or it might even have been the year before ) to stitch for my two granddaughters, Oceanne and Summer. Oceanne's tree is stitched save for the beading but I hadn't even touched Summer's yet. Time to get my butt in gear if I want these done for this year. I'm still not even sure that will happen! In any case here's a pic of Summer's tree up until now as well as a pic of Oceanne's tree. If you look at Oceanne's tree sideways you'll be able to see her name within the branches.






















Ooops, I've run out of time! I'm heading out with my son for dinner and possibly a movie.
I have lots of other pics to share with you so I'll try and post again within the next day or two.
Enjoy your evening!

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