February's Smalls SAL

Good morning! It's another cooooold morning in my little corner of the world and snow is lightly falling. I'm supposed to join my local craft group for some stitching this afternoon. I need to get out but I'm so tempted to just sit and stitch by the fire with a cup of pumpkin tea beside me. I think perhaps this is my favourite tea!
However I do have to get in this month's Smalls SAL post first.

I have two small finishes this month. One is a Valentine finish by Stacy Nash designs and the other is for a dear friend and is designed by Annie Beez Folk Art.

The one for my friend will be made into a pillow but I'm thinking that the first design will be made into a finish resembling an envelope. It will take me a bit of time to work at this though since I'm really not into sewing and I tend to procrastinate. My friend Nan suggested this finish though and I think it was a brilliant idea for it!

Yesterday I received two of my finishes which I'd taken in for stretching. I know I could learn to do this by myself but it's very tedious and I don't think I have the patience for it. My framer John has offered to stretch the pieces for our Tuesday night stitching group and that way the cost of framing is broken up somewhat. Now I can at least display these on an easel until I have the funds saved for the final framing. Anyone who follows my blog regularly will have seen these before.... Heartstring Samplery The Strawberry Bower Sampler and Plum Street Samplers Promised Lamb.

 I had an order of fabric arrive this week from a new shop which I think I will be dealing with quite often in the future. I stumbled across it by accident while searching for a particular colour of linen and although it is in the UK, the currency exchange works out better for me than ordering from the US. As many of you may know, the Canadian dollar's value is very low at this time and between that and the cost of shipping from the US it's killing me to order anything. The exchange rate between the British currency and the Canadian dollar worked more to my advantage plus the shipping costs were a flat rate & cheaper and the package arrived a week earlier than if I'd ordered from the states.  I'm not sure why that is but it's not the first time I've noticed this.

 Each one of these Lakeside linen fabrics has an upcoming project kitted up and ready to begin. I just have to finish working on my current stitches first.

I found another treat waiting for me at the post office today. 

My dear friend Jodi had this made specially for me! You may recall that Jodi is one of the ladies I met at the From Our Hands show in Ohio this past November. Jodi and I had never met before and we shared a room during this trip. What a great time we had and I'm very fortunate to have met her. Thank you so much Jodi! I love this and it's already in use.

One last pic for you. I had heard there were a few more snowy owl sightings in our area recently so I took a drive on Saturday afternoon and to my great pleasure I found one!

 
 The snow really started to come down as I was searching and I almost missed him. He just blended into the landscape.
Stay warm and above all stay safe during this nasty, frigid winter. A local man lost his life out here yesterday in a head on crash on icy roads. So sad....