December WIPocalypse and final post of 2018

So we have come to the final posting for WIPocalypse 2018. I can't believe the year is over! I also can't believe that I haven't got my Pomegranate Santa completed yet! I spent so much time on small finishes this month that there was very little time left for any larger projects. I'm only just now starting to pick it up again and work at it. Here's my progress as of tonight.

As you can see, all that remains is the snow to be stitched at the bottom of the piece where the deer are. I've only got one row in and several more to go. With a busy weekend ahead of me I'm not sure this piece will be completed by year's end. I really had hoped it would be but at least there's not all that much remaining and what's left shouldn't take too much longer. 

My granddaughters received their ornaments (Full Circle Designs) I sent them and have sent me a video as well as the pic to let me know how much they liked them. They are also wearing the sweatshirts that I gifted them with so I was glad to see that they fit!

I received a surprise piece of stitching for Christmas from my hubby. When we were vacationing in Muskoka this summer, we stopped to visit a friend at his antique shop in Port Carling. I spotted several pieces of petit point that I fell in love with. Unknown to me, while I was in the basement of the shop checking out the books, my hubby purchased one, had it wrapped and hid it in the car before I could see! I was thrilled when I opened it Christmas morning!

The frame is similar to a shadow box and is quite old. The back is starting to come off of it so I will take it in to my framer and see if they can reinforce it for me. They have done that in the past with antique frames I've used for my stitching.

I also stopped at my framer the week before Christmas to pick up this beauty.

I'm so happy to finally have this one framed! This is And Heaven and Nature Sing designed by Kathy Barrick. As you can see it's been hanging around for a bit in my finished stitches drawer. This was a gift from me to me and well worth it. A pleasant surprise came when the framer called shortly before I dropped it off and told me that they were giving me a discount on the frame. They said it was priced too high and they didn't feel right with the quote they had given me. Merry Christmas indeed!!

That finishes up my stitching for this month. Now I'll have to start looking at what I want to work on in the coming year. I wish all of you a very Happy New Year and wishes for good health and many blessings! I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from my visit this past week to Alight at Night at Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg, Ontario. Follow the link and you can learn all about it.

August WIPocalypse and Smalls

Once again this posting finds me behind for both the Smalls and WIPocalypse posts. Summer seems to have been far busier than usual but for the life of me I can't remember half of what we did, lol! In any case, here's what I've been up to stitchy wise. We'll start with the smalls.

Last month I finished a new design by my dear friend Nan Lewis of Threadwork Primitives called Land That I Love. As it sounds, it was designed as a patriotic piece. Nan was a real dear and designed an alternate version with a Canadian flag in it for me and we decided on The True North for this piece. Here's my finish.

I love the way this turned out and I just received an order of red wool to finish this off as a pin pillow. It's going to look great!

The other small finish I had this month is a Blackbird Design called Thistle House from their booklet, A Stitcher's Journey. This was meant to be finished off as the top of a sewing box. Instead I'm going to use an old spool which I picked up at an antique shop in Muskoka. It's not finished off yet but you get the idea.

Besides these smalls I've been working on two other projects. One is part of a SAL I joined on Prim Stitcher's Society on Facebook. It's by The Scarlett House and is called Penny Pumpkin.

It's being worked on 36ct with one strand over 2 except for those little star motifs which are worked over one. I did most of those at the cottage where I found the natural light was a much better help to complete them. I'm also excited to say that since I picked up my new glasses last week I can now stitch once more without the use of my magnifiers even over one! We'll just see how many years that lasts.

The other design is one I just started at the tail end of August. It's by Stacy Nash and is called Blackwater Hollow Sampler.

This piece was designed by Stacy after her visit to Notforgotten Farm, the home of designer Lori Brechlin. I was fortunate enough to visit her farm last September for her primitive show. I had every intention of returning again this year but found out in May that I will be involved in a wedding on the date of the show. Since I can't return this year and see all my friends, I thought I'd stitch this piece instead as a little reminder of the farm and all my friends.

During my trip to Muskoka this summer I visited all my favourite antique locations and picked up a few items which I can repurpose with some of my stitching or use to embellish it as in the case of the bone buttons. I have a piece in mind for that lovely frame. The washboard is a child's size and will hold a small piece of stitching nicely.

In addition to my purchases I was given a lovely collection of wood embroidery frames. Our family friend Nora has a cottage in the Parry Sound region of Muskoka and we always make it a point to visit her and her daughter. This year she presented me these lovely frames which belonged to her mother and grandmother and I suspect are hand made. Nora herself is 97 yrs young and so I'm honoured to accept these treasures. In the picture below she is seen doing some hand sewing while relaxing at the cottage. 

I'll be back soon with a non stitching post to show pics of my summer activities. 

February Small and a new start

Although Valentine's Day is over for another year, I chose to stitch another small along that theme to add to my bowl of small finishes next year. 

This is Key To My Heart, designed by Shelly Auen of Primitive Stitichin'.

A sweet little stitch which is just perfect for a pinkeep. I'm looking forward to displaying this next year in my bowl of smalls.

Having just completed a larger finish it was time to sort through my stash and decide on a new start. Yesterday morning we woke to a snowy day which quickly turned into a mess of freezing rain. I was dreaming of spring on such a day and decided to start on a design which would get me thinking of better weather ahead. This design is a beautiful collage of spring tulips and is appropriately called Dreaming of Tulips. The designer is Karen Kluba of Rosewood Manor. I'm stitching this on 32 ct antique white linen.

 I love Karen's designs and I love the way that she always charts smaller vignettes that can be stitched from the main design. There are so many different small finishes which are the perfect gifts.
I should have a few more progress pics in the coming days. I know I'm going to enjoy my time spent with this.

A week or so ago my husband and I travelled to the city of Kingston, Ontario to meet up with my brother-in-law and his wife for dinner. We decided to check out some antique shops in the afternoon prior to our meet up. There were several shops in the area but I found one in particular that had a lot of what I was looking for. It wasn't in the budget for any large purchases but I did come home with a few choice items.

 
 A wooden spool, some antique lace and a small heart baking tin. I love to use these larger wooden spools to display some of my small needlework finishes on the top. I look for ones with a smooth surface as seen in the pic below. You can then wrap some of the antique lace around the spool. I use the lace for decorative purposes and also to add to some of my finishes.

If this tin had been just a little larger I would have used it to display a needlework finish within it. As it is I will use it for display purposes in a bowl with some of my smalls. 
I'm definitely planning a trip back to this shop. There wasn't enough time to check out everything. There were lots of antique sewing items...... lace, buttons, fabric, ets. I'm looking forward to my return visit! 

August WIPocalypse

Summer's end is near. I can feel it. The evenings are getting dark sooner and the days have been a little bit cooler. Already I'm spotting trees that are changing colour. As the season gets ready to change I feel the urge to get into some autumn stitching. I'm browsing my stash to see what I can come up with.

In the meantime I have some progress on This IsThe Day although it is meagre. I'm working on background fill and outside borders.

 Here's a closeup of the background. I had thoughts of not stitching this portion but in the end I pulled out needle and thread and got started on it. It's very time consuming and boring!

The other piece I worked on this month was Heartstring Samplery Stitchers Resolution. If you remember I had started this one at the tail end of July when I realized that I had the fabric going in the wrong direction as I was stitching. I was too annoyed at myself to start frogging and I was anxious to get started on it again so I pulled another piece of the same linen out and restarted. The frogging on the other can wait until a rainy day. I was just lucky that I had more of the same linen in my stash!

I'm about a third of the way through this one now. I'm working on the top half and then I have a border all around the piece to complete. The colours are predominately neutrals but they look good on this fabric and I'm happy with the results so far.

I did a bit of antique shopping on my recent vacation. I'm looking for other ways of displaying my needlework besides framing it.

I purchased some rather interesting pieces including an old bread board with the inscription "Staff of Life" along the top. I have a Blackbird Design piece in mind for this one. The child's slate has slate on both sides so I can display the needlework on one side and still have the slate showing on the other. The large file drawer in the first pic has a felt bottom and I plan on displaying some of my work inside the drawer or using it as I would a dough bowl, displaying some of my small finishes. I'm hoping I can use the frame I purchased for one of my smaller finishes.
I'm really starting to enjoy these antique hunts!

Now I'm off to check out  those autumn themed charts again. See you next month!

Stitching and summer visits

Our household has been very busy this past week and filled with the sounds of laughter and children. Stitching managed to make an appearance here and there and I'll start by showing my latest progress update.

My Birds of a Feather Mystery Sampler continues to move forward, slowly but surely. I finished up the alphabet and have moved on to the lower portion of the graph. One thing I did notice was the lack of a letter I in this alphabet. Does anyone know the significance of this?


My stitching time was limited because of a family visit. Both my sister and her family arrived in town as well as my oldest son with his girlfriend and their children. The house was full! My sister's  family haven't seen Jeff since my wedding to Bob eleven years ago so there was a lot of catching up to do. My second oldest son Daniel was also able to join us during this time. My youngest son Chris now lives in the vicinity and he and his girlfriend were able to join some of us one evening in Ottawa for dinner. The weather cooperated and we had a wonderful two days together. Then my sister and family headed on to Quebec City for a vacation and Jeff and his family continued on their vacation with a visit to a water park near their home. I'm missing them all already!

Eating in Ottawa's Little Italy. Mmmm!

My granddaughters are on the left and in the centre.
The other children belong to Jeff's girlfriend, Pascale.

Daniel, Jeff and Pascale

The kids all got a kick out of this visitor to our bird feeder. 

I know that squirrels are often a nuisance at the feeders but this was a first for us. His antics kept the kids occupied for some time.
Notice our lovely brown grass in our front yard? We are still without any significant rainfall in our area and haven't mowed our lawn now for at least three weeks!


Once everyone had left, we started getting ready for our own holidays. We're planning to visit friends in Sault St. Marie, Ontario and from there head down through Michigan to visit my other sister and then on to Windsor for a family 40th anniversary celebration.
When we've returned home again we only have three days to wash clothes and get ready for our annual trek to Muskoka and the cottage. It's then that I'm likely to have a bit more stitching time.


My friend Pam called me early this week and asked if I was interested in joining her for a visit to The Morrisburg Antique Show in our area this weekend. Having never been, I jumped at the opportunity. The show takes place in a park on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. I had planned on bringing my camera but naturally, I forgot and left it at home. This is a small show but nevertheless, there was much to see. I came home with three small purchases. The first was a small iron which I'm hoping to use to display a piece of needlework on the surface.

Next I found some lovely buttons which will do nicely on some needlework finishes. Do I sense a theme here?

However my favourite purchase was this needlework stickpin.

I have no idea what count fabric this is stitched on but that stitching is really tiny. I didn't get a good look at it until after this picture was taken. I can't wait to use this on one of my finishes!

I apologize for my continued lack of comments on your blogs of late. The summer is just flying by and I don't want to spend it all indoors on my computer. I quite often read the postings in the evenings but I just don't have the time right now to comment on everything. I'm sure I'll get back into the swing of things once the cooler weather is back. After all this extreme heat I'm sure there are more than a few of us who are looking forward to fall!