Wednesday 25 April 2012

Tulip finish

Just a quick fly by post to show you a pic of my Dutch Tulip finish. I started this one on Saturday and finished up the stitching on Monday morning. All that remains is to do the final finishing as a small pinkeep or ornament.




I really enjoyed stitching this little freebie and it was a nice break from my other WIP.  I should have an updated progress on Feather Your Nest by the end of the week. I'll try and get it posted before my granddaughters arrive for the weekend. Once they're here, all my time will be spent with them. We'll be celebrating Oceanne's 7th birthday which took place last week. Grandma has a request to bake a chocolate cake!


My floss for Peace Inside was waiting for me in today's mail so I should be able to get back to that one on the weekend.  I had a great time at last night's stitching get together and today's local group. I'm hoping to snap some shots on our next gathering to show you what all the ladies have been up to. 
Happy stitching!

Saturday 21 April 2012

TUSAL and My Robin Has a Head!

I can't believe it's the new moon already! Between TUSAL and WIPocalypse it seems as if time is just flying by each month. Here's a closeup of my little ort jar which is full of lots of reds from Feather Your Nest and Peace Inside. I'm very stingy with my orts so there never seems to be enough for the amount I've stitched.
I dug out my large ort jar and then ceremoniously dumped the contents of this one into it. This larger ort jar also serves as a scissor frog when needed. My Spring chicken is standing watch since these orts belong to my spring designs.




Having put aside Peace Inside earlier in the week, I spent some quality time with FYN . I'm now working on the upper part of the chart which showcases the lovely robin which I'm pleased to say now has a head.





The chart calls for this design to be stitched over one on 28ct fabric but I wanted this fellow to be a bit larger so I'm stitching over two.
I'm having to be really careful when I'm handling the fabric on this because that red floss from the roof continues to bleed. No steam iron for this piece which means the linen will probably look like hell by the time I'm finished. I'm placing another piece of fabric between the linen and the Q snaps to prevent bleeding but I've noticed that even the plastic on the snaps has turned a pale pink in colour!


Today I started a freebie offered by Threadwork Primitives called Dutch Tulip. It's a gift for a friend's birthday which is tomorrow but I won't be seeing her for a couple of days so I should have it finished up by then.


Suppertime calls! My DH just pulled in the drive from work and the timer on the oven went off. I'm trying a new Ravioli Lasagne. It smells delicious!!

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Back to Stitching

Life has been especially busy around our household as of late but this week things seem to be settling down some and once more I'm able to pick up needle and thread. Until yesterday I've worked on nothing except MND Peace Within. It's coming along quite nicely and I'm finding it a fun design to stitch on. I'm working around the areas where I've run out of the required floss for now. Here's where I left it Tuesday afternoon.




I love the different birds in this one, all sitting on their perches. Maybe that's why the cat is hanging around, lol! I'm not totally thrilled with the face on the young girl though. She looks like a bit of a sourpuss! I've yet to get a good picture of the fabric on this piece. It's actually more of a soft creamy yellow colour. In fact it's called Lemon Zest.
Last night I put this one aside to concentrate on Feather Your Nest again. I've finished up the bottom half of the chart and now I'm moving up to start stitching the large robin and tulip on the top half. There are a couple of similar leaves on that tulip and I ended up frogging the one. I was stitching a bottom leaf but was looking at an upper leaf as I stitched it so of course it didn't quite match up where it should in the pattern. That's what I get for trying to stitch while I watched NCIS! Tuesday night is normally my group stitching night but with the exception of one day, I've commuted into Ottawa or Cornwall every day now for the past 10 days. The last thing I felt like doing was getting into a car again so I plunked myself in my stitching chair in front of the TV and settled in.


The mail today brought me an order of charts which I'd forgotten all about. When I placed this order from Anita's Little Stitches, she was away and so the order wasn't mailed right away. It was a pleasant surprise when it showed up and I'm anxious to stitch one of these newbie charts. Take a peek, they're from two of my favourite designers, Shakespeare's Peddler and With Thy Needle & Thread. I'm sure you'll recognize them.




Having had a house guest this past weekend, we did a bit of sight seeing in Ottawa and I finally had a chance to visit The Canadian War Museum. It's amazing how much more interested you become in history the more you age! Although we didn't take any pictures on this visit, I do have one picture of my MIL that Bob took shortly after the museum opened in 2007. My MIL served in the Canadian Women Army Corps during WWII and this pic was taken in front of a display of the uniform worn by these women. My MIL is an amazing woman and was just short of her 90th birthday when this picture was taken. She no longer makes her annual visits to our home but is still in fairly good health. We'll be making a visit back home to check in on her and my mother next month.




I'm so glad I finally had the opportunity to make this visit to the museum too. So many times we live in an area with these wonderful attractions but as locals we don't always take advantage of what's in our own neighbourhoods.


Time to get my butt in gear. It's almost time to meet with my Wednesday afternoon group. I haven't joined them for 3 weeks now so it will be fun to catch up with everyone and see what they're working on now. Enjoy your day!!

Friday 13 April 2012

A Fresh Start


Here's a pic of my new start, Peace Inside. It's designed by Midsummer Night Designs and it's such a fun stitch! Lots of colour which is just what I needed to brighten up my days. I ended up using three strands of floss for the blue in the house and the red in the roof. The coverage was just a little too thin with only the two strands. Consequently I've already run out of the CC Razzleberry . I didn't have a whole lot of this one left in my stash so I've just placed an order for another skein.  Any change in dye lot should be fine since the remainder is being used as an outline for the garden flowers. I think I'll stick with stitching this one on the weekend and then maybe return to Feather Your Nest next week.


Thank you all for your many well wishes. Since my medication has taken effect I'm feeling much better. I can now get a full night's sleep without interruption which has made all the difference in the world! I imagine I'll find out my test results in a week or so and I'll deal with it at that time. 
It's a beautiful spring day here and I've opened up all the windows to let in the fresh air. Love it! So does Clarisse whose been sitting by the window all day, watching the birds and squirrels.




I hope you all enjoy your weekend doing what you love best. Perhaps a little stitching?

Tuesday 10 April 2012

April WIPocalypse progress

The full moon has come and gone and I didn't have a spare minute to post this past weekend. We were a little run off our feet over the past week or so. I was surprised though when I took my progress pic of Feather Your Nest, to see that I had accomplished a lot more than I thought.






That hill is finally out of the way! I was getting a little bored stitching that colour but I persevered and at last it's finished. I'm going to take a little break from this one now and start something new.


Edited: Last night I put in the first stitches on Midsummer Night Designs Peace Inside.  I had very few of the required floss for this one so I've substituted with similar colours so I hope it all goes well. I might even be able to add a progress pic by the end of today.


I want to thank everyone for their recent well wishes and apologize for not stopping by the blogs lately. With all our holiday preps  I got myself run down somewhat. Following my virus I acquired a rash of some sort which spread rather quickly to various areas of my body. It was intensely itchy and I spent most of my nights pacing the floor  scratching. Originally the Dr. tried to tell me it was a winter dermatitis but after a couple of weeks I returned to his office and he was shocked when he saw how it had progressed. Since that time I've had a biopsy and a full blood workup. It's definitely an allergic reaction of some sort and there is the possibility that it's due to a gluten allergy. We'll know more when we receive the biopsy results and in the meantime I've been put on medication. Consequently I've been feeling rather rundown with what little sleep I've had. I haven't had the energy to do much of anything including stitching and blogging.I have been reading some of the blogs and commenting on occasion but I've fallen woefully behind and know that I won't catch up at this stage. So I'll clear the posts and start from scratch.


The one day that I did have some energy I decided to fix up the spring wreath for my front door. 



Many of the eggs in it have cracked so I pulled quite a few off and replaced them. You can see some of the cracked ones in these photos.

 I used a glue gun to attach the new eggs and while I was using it the outside casing of the gun cracked open, spilling the hot glue all over the pointer finger of my left hand. Fortunately I was standing very close to the sink so I immediately ran the finger under cold water but I still managed to sustain a third degree burn. That glue gets incredibly hot!!
That's when I decided that maybe I'd better leave well enough alone and just rest, lol! I still have a few eggs to replace but I think it looks  much better than when I started.


I hope you all enjoyed a very joyous Easter weekend. Since my sons were unable to join us this year, we invited several young people from our church whose families were all out of town so they were alone for the holiday. It was a lot of fun and I'd love to do it again.
This week I return to stitching and should have lots more to post next time. Have a great week!

Saturday 7 April 2012

Easter Greetings

A most Blessed and Happy Easter to all my blogging friends and family!
I'll return in a day or so with an update on my stitching progress of late.

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