December WIPocalyse and Smalls SAL

December.... a busy month at the best of times and not enough time for me to post twice this month. Consequently you get a combined WIPocalypse and Smalls SAL post. 

 Blackwater Hollow had very little attention paid to it this month. I suddenly realized how little time I had left for Christmas stitching and put this one aside. Sadly I don't expect to have it complete by year's end as I had hoped, not unless I have a stitching marathon which is highly unlikely. Our family have not had their Christmas gift exchange and dinner yet. My sons and families are only arriving on New Year's Day for our celebrations.

I did manage to get three small finishes completed in time for the Christmas season. Only two of them received final finishing as they are gifts for my granddaughters.
First up is A Festive Noel by Tina Woltman of Early Workings.

This is the third small involving a fruit basket which I finished this year. I have since purchased a couple more which I hope to complete in the next month or two. I love this design and can't wait to see it finished up as a small pinkeep.

The next two designs are by Prairie Schooler from their Evergreen leaflet. My granddaughters each picked out the design of their choice. Summer wanted the reindeer and Oceanne picked out the Peace design.

I found the backing fabric for these in my village fabric shop just last week. I love it and thought it was perfect to finish off these small stitches. I know the girls are going to love them!

I also started a larger work on a Christmas theme. I took a fancy to one of the new releases by Plum Street Sampler called Pomegranate Santa. As you can see, I haven't gotten very far on it yet.

Since our family wasn't joining us for Christmas dinner, we were invited to the neighbour's home for dinner with their family. All in all we were 14 and enjoyed a lovely turkey buffet dinner. I just had to show you a pic of the dessert we all enjoyed. It's a chocolate mousse cake! Yup, those are Kit Kat bars all around the outside!

Christmas Eve between church services, Bob and I took a drive up to Parliament Hill in Ottawa to see the Canadian Heritage light show. It was the perfect evening to see this as it was fairly mild. The show had been running since early December and would finish on Christmas Day so we definitely made it a point to get there to see it.

The light show was fantastic and pictured the adventures of a snowman, fox, and grizzly bear. It started with a countdown on a clock and ended with a tribute to Canada's upcoming 150th birthday in 2017. In anticipation of that event there will be a huge fireworks display on the hill on New Year's Eve. I wish I could be there but I don't think I'll make it since I'm picking up my granddaughters that day out of town.

I'll leave you with a pic of sweet Clarisse, enjoying my little twig tree on which I display all my stitched ornaments. She loves hanging out by the tree whether it's this one or the larger one downstairs. Happy New Year everyone and I'll see you then!

Twelve Days of Christmas

Check it out! Nancy of Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe is having a giveaway for each of the first twelve days of December. You don't want to miss this! Nancy has beautiful floss and linens which she hand dyes. Giveaway results will appear from Dec. 13 - 24 so make sure you check back. In addition if you've missed the first few giveaways as I have, you can go back and enter right up until Dec. 12. Just follow my link and come join in the fun!

November Smalls

I thought I had screwed up on the date for this post but then realized my mind is better than I thought, lol! I managed to complete two smalls this month.
As you saw in my earlier WIPocalypse post, I stitched up Threadwork Primitives Christmas Fruit Basket. I had a few small patterns in my stash which contained fruit baskets. I got the bright idea that perhaps I should stitch up a few of them, finish them into pin pillows and display them for the upcoming Christmas season.
Here are the next two fruit basket designs I completed. The first is by Heartstring Samplery and is called The Holly Bears the Crown.

The second finish is by Tina Woltman of Early Workings and is called A Colonial Christmas. I especially love this one!

I have one remaining design, another Early Workings, which I'd like to complete and add to these. I know I'll get it stitched in time but there may not be time for my final finishing now. I've managed to fall behind in some stitching for Christmas gifts. I like to stitch a couple of ornaments for my granddaughters but they like to choose the designs. I only just received their requests last week so now I'm concentrating on getting these two stitched and finished first. I will have pictures of these up for my December Smalls along with the last fruit basket finish. See you then!

November WIPocalypse

Late to the party again but at least I arrived! I switched gears this month and decided I had better get some of my Christmas stitching done. Consequently I never got my Blackwater Hollow piece finished off as I'd hoped to. Here's where I am at this point.

There isn't a lot left to do on this piece but I'm still working on Christmas so it may be some time before I get back to it.

As part of a SAL group on F/B I stitched up this lovely piece by Nan Lewis of Threadwork Primitives. It is called Christmas Fruit Basket and I plan on finishing it off as a pinkeep. 

I have several Christmas pinkeep patterns all of which have a fruit basket of some sort in them. I decided I would stitch up a few of these and display them in my antique dough bowl along with some sprigs of pine and berries. I have finished stitching 2 more with a third yet to follow. I will then finish them all together. You can see pictures of the other two finishes on my Smalls post towards the end of this month. 

As well as the fruit basket designs I am at work stitching up a couple of Prairie Schooler ornaments for my granddaughters. I don't have enough progress to post a pic on these yet.

I also picked up two framed pieces of my stitching this month. The first one is framed in an antique frame with convex (bubble) glass which I found while antique hunting in Muskoka this past summer. This piece was already stretched and it was just slightly small for the frame. My framer said he could work with it and would add a mat. It turned out beautifully! I have already had so many compliments on this one.

 Plum Street Samplers Fruit of the Spirit

The second frame is an early Christmas gift from my husband. Usually I go and pick the frame but don't see the final piece until Christmas day. This time however I wanted this one on the walls to display leading up to the holiday. I stitched this in late 2014 and finished it in early 2015. 

With Thy Needle & Thread Heaven & Nature Sing

Stitching aside now,I made a weekend visit to celebrate my granddaughter Summer's birthday. She is the younger of the two and has now reached double digits! Here are a few pics from the time I spent with them. I miss them both terribly already!

 It was a lovely weekend for the drive up there and I'm so glad that I went when I did. Here is what we woke up to this morning.

 It has snowed all day and there is now more than what appears in these pics. It was a rude awakening but we had been told to expect it. From what I hear it will be a long, snowy winter!

Now back to my Christmas stitching! See you soon.

October WIPocalypse and Smalls SAL

So here we are with another month passed and once again I'm behind on my postings. I cannot believe how busy we've been. I've chosen to post both my Small and WIPocalypse pieces together in one post due to lack of time. Things have to slow down sooner or later, right?

For WIPocalypse I've continued to plug away on my Stacy Nash Blackwater Hollow. I'm getting there but had certainly planned on having this one finished a long time ago. I find I'm doing a lot of stitching and then re-stitching in this one. I wasn't happy with some of the striped effects from the overdyed floss.

Next up are my Smalls finishes. I managed to get two of them finished up this month. The first is by Nan Lewis of Threadwork Primitives and is called Ever So Grateful. I finished this just in time for our Canadian Thanksgiving.

The second small is by Theresa Meloon of Dulaney Woods Treasures and is called Midnight Jack.

The witch on the upper right is a lovely piece of scented, blackened beeswax that came in some Halloween potpourri which I purchased. I just love it! It normally resides in a bowl with a collection of my Halloween smalls.

It has been an extremely busy month! Besides celebrating Thanksgiving we've had a visit from my sister, I've taken a trip to Toronto and my son got engaged.

Here's a group shot of my sister at the head of the table sharing a meal with Bob and myself along with my son Chris and his girlfriend Violet. It was so great to have her here. I don't get to see her often enough.

As soon as Laurie left I was on the road to Toronto to visit up with some stitching friends, Pam and Cathy.

I missed seeing these lovely ladies at the Notforgotten Farm Open House in Virginia this past September. I was supposed to be joining them but ended up singing at a wedding on the same date. They brought back some goodies for me including my framed Tulips piece which Patti Nicolosi had finished framing for me.
Here it is and isn't it lovely?

Patti did an amazing job on this and I am so pleased with how it turned out. As you can see from the closeup this is a lovely mahogany frame which really complements this piece.

After returning from Toronto I met up with my son Chris who discussed his plans with me regarding proposing to his girlfriend Violet. I was so excited and here's a pic of the results.

  
She said yes and we will be celebrating a wedding in the fall of 2017. Yaaaay!!

In between all my running around this month I took some time to take in the beautiful fall colours in our region. They really were outstanding this year as can be seen in the pics following.

  
All good things must come to an end though and the next picture foretold of the strange weather to come.

Last evening we were greeted with several cms of wet snow when we left the church following choir practice. It's all melted at this point but I know it won't be long before it's here to stay for a spell!
 

September Smalls

Autumn..... my favourite time of the year! Pumpkin everything from pies, to lattes and teas, and muffins and breads! This time of year also means stitching up a few pumpkins. 
One of the lovely finishes I had over the past month was by The Scarlett House and is called Penny Pumpkin. I absolutely love this piece! It turned out much prettier than I expected and I'm so happy with it.

It looks even better in real life. I adore the colours and although this one was meant as a pinkeep by the designer, I'm seriously considering having this one framed. I might even keep it up all year long!

I also started two other new small starts for fall. The first is by friend Nan Lewis of Threadwork Primitives and is called Ever So Grateful.
Here's my progress so far. 

I just started this one this morning and I'd like to have it complete by Thanksgiving which for us Canadians takes place on Monday, Oct.10. Wish me luck!
The second new start is by Theresa Meloon of Dulaney Woods Treasures. Theresa is also a friend of mine and I'm so thrilled that she has started to publish her designs. This particular one is called Midnight Jack and can be found in the 2016 fall issue of Punch Needle & Primitive Stitchers magazine.

Sorry this one is in the Q snap a bit crookedly. Since this is a primitive piece I'm stitching it using only one strand of floss. Trust me it will look better once it's completely stitched and finished up as a pinkeep.

Now some of you may recall last year at this time I was stitching another Halloween piece by Stacy Nash called Thistle & Spells Pinkeep. I ran out of floss for that design just one leaf short. I was unable to find anyone locally who had a bit of the required floss that they could give me so I had to order another skein. I finally got around to that this summer and finished up the piece just last week. 

It's finished for Halloween. I just didn't say which year I'd finish, lol!

It's a beautiful, sunny day here today with the perfect fall temperature.....not too hot, just perfect. I went outdoors and snapped a pic of the mums I recently purchased which are opening now into full bloom.

Love the shades in this tricolour! I also planted some pink asters last year in our back garden. They have doubled in size and are also showing their full blooms now.

I can't seem to get a good shot of the colours of this since this garden is often in shade. In any case they are a bit darker pink than pictured and I love to see another splash of colour when other flowers are near spent.

I hope you all are enjoying a day which is as nice as ours is here. I'm off to hunt down a pattern for my next big start. See you soon.

September WIPocalypse

September's Harvest Moon was a beauty for sure and I wish I had had my camera with me as we saw it rise over the horizon on our trip home that night. It lit our path all the way home.

I've really only been stitching on 2 main patterns the past month. One of them is my commitment for my Smalls SAL and you will see a pic of it at the end of the month. The other is the Stacy Nash design which I started at the end of August. Here is my progress on the Blackwater Hollow Sampler.

It's slowly coming along. I'm really enjoying it so far. Hopefully it won't take me too much longer to complete it. I have so many other projects that I want to get started at. 

With September's arrival my two local stitching groups have started to gather once again. Neither of these groups stop during the summer but attendance is down considerably from during the year. I know that I myself dropped out from both groups this summer. The weather was great and there were just too many other things that I wanted to do. 

I'm afraid that I don't have any other stitching to share with you at this time. With any luck that will change by the time next month rolls around. I'll leave you with a picture of my youngest granddaughter, Summer. This was taken by her father, my son Jeff, on one of their many visits to the park to see the ducks. This is one of my favourite photos from this summer.