Giveaway Time!

Thanks to all of you for your recent comments and welcome to all my new followers. Yippee, I made 200! I'm amazed that so many find my posts worth reading and I'm so fortunate to have made so many blogging friends through your comments. Before I post about my giveaway I'll show a few pics so you can see what I've been up to. 




May and June have been extremely busy months for us. This is the time of year when my hubby's choirs wind down and there are lots of year end potlucks and parties. The bell choir that Bob directs played during the village garage sale in the neighbouring village of Winchester. This is the last time that Bob performed with them because he has now resigned to pursue other endeavours next year.
I'll miss hearing them and they're always so fun to watch.

Winchester United Church Senior Handbell Ringers

Bob, doing what he does best!

Then came the proms. Yes, that's plural. I only have one niece but she managed to get invitations to three different proms! I considered myself lucky enough to get just one invite. My sister sent me these pics of my niece in the two different dresses that she wore.

My niece Dana and her Mom, my sis, Lana

Back view of the dress

This next one is from her own prom.

Don't they make a cute couple?

Following the prom came graduation. Dana's brother and my nephew graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. Congratulations Andrew! One more year and he'll have his Nursing degree!

Andrew and family

My Mom was also able to make the graduation. This is amazing because just a few short months ago she was unable to walk because of her back. 

Andrew and Grandma Joy

Mom will turn 82 in August. She sure doesn't look it, does she?

Life has been hectic and there hasn't been a heck of a lot of room for stitching. Finally things are slowing down and I'm able to pick up needle and thread once more. My friend Pam came over last Friday evening and we stitched for a couple hours. I was also able to put in several hours waiting during some of Bob's rehearsals.

Magic Garden Sampler is getting close to a finish now. Only the side border remains.

I pulled out my Canada Day stitch for last year since our July 1st celebrations are almost here. I haven't got it framed yet but I found an easel to put it on to show it off. This one is an adaptation of LHN America.

I've also started stitching another small for Canada Day. Hopefully it will be finished by tomorrow. I'm proudly using my patriotic O Canada scissors from Dinky Dyes. The fob was made by one of our Tuesday night stitchers. It's hard to make out but in the second picture you can see that the charms are little beavers which is our national symbol.

So that's what has kept me tied up for several weeks now so that my blogging has suffered. I did promise you a giveaway in honour of my 5th blogging anniversary. I will also add one for my 200 followers and my 300th post. First prize will be a stitched item made by moi. The second and third prizes I haven't fully sorted out yet but they will be made up of some finishing fabric, scissors, and floss. I know many of you may be away celebrating the upcoming Canada Day and 4th of July so I will wait until Monday, July 9th to draw the winners. You need only comment on this post but, to make it interesting, let me know what your favourite summer pastime is. 
Mine is cottaging in the Muskoka's. I was introduced to this lovely area by my husband on our honeymoon and we've returned there each summer since. We spend most of our time on the water, boating in and around the various islands. This shot was taken from the back of the boat as we made our way through the lake.

Good luck to everyone entering!!

A new TUSAL jar

I've added a new jar to my TUSAL collection. In the summer I do a lot of my stitching in the gazebo. Nine times out of ten I forget to take out one of my little ort jars with me. So what happens is that over time a small pile of orts grows on the table. Quite often, before I have a chance to add them to my jars indoor, my hubby picks them up and horror of horrors!..... he throws them out!! That was the case early on in the month until I found this little jar at a local craft shop. It's actually meant to hold a tealight candle but I thought it was just perfect for my orts! It's made out of glass which is very similar to the pink depression glass and it has a little handle to carry it around. It's been the perfect addition to my outdoor stitching.
The next picture shows my collection of orts for the last several weeks.

As you can see, there are quite a few greens from my Magic Garden Sampler.


That's about the only thing I've been stitching on recently and there hasn't been much of anything added as you can see from the next pic.

Here's a closeup of the area I've been working on.

Not much else to report at this time. I've been really busy with appointments and functions to attend. When I have been home I haven't felt like doing much of anything other than reading. The pain level in my joints has been pretty high lately, probably because I've been running around so much.
I know I promised my giveaway on this post but I'm afraid it will have to wait until later in the week when I have more time to get things organized and have had a bit more rest.
I see that I'm only 4 people away from having 200 followers! Yippee!! Let's see if we can hit that magic 200 before my giveaway post. Enjoy your week!

New blogger!

Please help me in welcoming my dear friend Lianne to the blogging world. Lianne is a member of my Tuesday night stitching group (also known as The Tangled Skeins) as well as being a member of The Travelling Stitcherhood which is a group of stitchers in the eastern Ontario region.
She has been talking about starting her own blog and I'm so glad that she's finally taken the plunge.
If you get a chance, please follow the link on her name and stop by to say hi. I know she's going to love meeting all of you wonderful ladies!

Stitching anniversaries

When I sat down to write this I realized that I had a number of  stitiching related anniversaries to celebrate this month. Today marks my 300th blog post and Thursday will mark 5 years of blogging! I'm so very close to 200 followers which I consider amazing since I don't find myself all that interesting, lol! Finally this Saturday marked the third time I've hosted my Tuesday night stitchers for an all day SAL. I reside in a small village located about an hour's drive from Ottawa so it's a bit of a trek for them to join me. The first year I only had a small number make the drive but this year there were 17 ladies who joined me over the course of the day!! All these anniversaries suggest a giveaway to celebrate, don't you agree? Details of the giveaway will be on my next post so keep an eye out for that in the coming week.
In the meantime, here's a sampling of all the fun we had this Saturday. The first few shots are of the Gazebo Gang. 

Barb, Diane and Sally

Sue

Jeannine, winding floss

Dani and Tracey

Pam trying out Lianne's stitching frame as Lianne and Karen look on

Mary

Karen with her Blueberry Homecoming
stitched over one!

Mary's Growth Chart

More of the Growth Chart

Lianne's BBD finish

BBD Honeysuckle Manor
personalized by Lianne

Clarisse also joined us for the day but I neglected to take any pictures of her. She spent a great deal of her time trying to climb into everyone's stitching bags!
As for my stitching, well it's pretty sad. As the hostess, I was too busy checking on everybody and chatting it up so there was very little progress. I worked on only Magic Garden Sampler. Here's where I am at this point.

 As for what was actually stitched on Saturday, it's only the worm, as seen in the pic below. Pathetic, eh?!!

During the course of the weekend I also pulled out Maisonnette aux Fraises and frogged all of the white flowers, replacing them with soft yellow ones instead.

The stitching group is always so generous and we had an abundance of food. There was enough for two meals on Saturday and Bob and I are still going through the leftovers! Quite a few brought gifts with them. Check out these salt and pepper shakers Jeannine brought for me! 

I hope these are the only frogs I encounter as I stitch!


Lianne also brought a surprise gift for myself and Dani. Lianne is a proliferative stitcher who does beautiful work however for some time she was not aware of any other stitchers in her area. Then she stumbled across my blog and Dani's blog at the same time. She was very shy. I say was because she's not shy now and is a delight to spend time with. However at that time she was shy and lurked in the shadows, reading our blogs for 8 months before she got up the nerve to contact us through email. We both encouraged her to join our group and the rest, as they say, is history! Lianne is a regular member of our Tuesday night group and has participated in stitching get togethers with us throughout eastern Ontario. Here's a pic of the three of us.

To celebrate the third anniversary of her contact with us, she brought each of us a small gift - a project bag, containing some felt for finishes, a tape measure, Carrie's creation overdyed floss and an antique scissor frog!

Look at this lovely frog a little closer!

I find the bottom is just as pretty as the top of this one. 
It was such a sweet thing to do Lianne. I'm very touched and I thank you soooo much!!


So that's the end to this spring's SAL. There might be another come fall if I can get things together. 
Many thanks go out, not just to my Tuesday group, but to all my blogging friends who have enriched my stitching journey over the past five years. I have the most amazing group of friends and the fact that I haven't even met some of you doesn't matter in the least. You've proven that you're the best! I do hope that I get a chance to meet more of you in the future and hope that at some point you might make a visit to our little spot here in Canada and join us for our SAL. Wouldn't that be fun?!


Stay tuned for my giveaway offer. There may be more than one!!

WIPocalypse catch-up

Between WIPocalypse and TUSAL posts the month just seems to fly by! If you check my WIPocalypse page you'll see that I've added items that strike my fancy as I go along. I never really seem to stick with a plan, lol! Two of these stitches are fairly new starts and I'm enjoying both of them a lot.

The first is Shakespeare's Peddler Magic Garden Sampler.

I'm lovin' this one so far and hated to put it down but I really needed to put some time in on the other start.
This one is called Maisonnette aux Fraises  and it too is plain fun to stitch.

I'm thinking of frogging out the white flowers on the right since they don't seem to show up all that well on the fabric. If I do, I'm going to replace it with the same soft yellow colour used in the windows. What do you think?


Since last month I've also completed Midsummer Night Designs Peace Inside. Loved the colours in this stitch!

That about sums up the past month. Along with the nicer weather comes lots of other activities to take up my stitching time. Rainy days are often welcome for that very reason.
This coming Saturday though is strictly a stitchy day since I'm hosting the Tuesday afternoon stitchers at my home for the day. Friends, food and stitching.... should be lots of fun!

Of Gardens, Giveaways and Samplers

On the return from my recent visit to Windsor I stopped off to visit my cousin Sheryl. She is also an avid cross stitcher and had been telling me of a family sampler on her mum's side of the family dating back to the 1800s. This sampler now resides with Sheryl's older sister and she promised to email me some pics of the sampler. This week I received the pictures and what a beauty it is!

Very little is known about the sampler other than it is a direct relative who stitched it and the first of a long line of females named Jane. The sampler appears to be in fairly good shape although it looks like some of the stitches are deteriorating on the second basket and around some of the flowers. The reds are still pretty vibrant  and I just love the border!  The verse is interesting too. I'm not sure what's responsible for the silhouettes or outlines around the lettering. It's almost as if the dark floss was carried over between letters. At some point in time the sampler was framed beneath glass. I could be wrong but I don't think that was done originally.
Did you notice my cousin's kitty Cleo admiring the sampler too?
Once again I'm struck by what lovely stitching was done by these young girls. The sampler was stitched by a relative on my cousin's maternal side and I'm related on the paternal side so this young stitcher is in no way related to me.


The mailman also brought the last of my giveaway wins. I know, I know. It takes forever for anything to get to us here in Canada! Canada Post is not known for its speed!
You will recall that a couple of weeks ago I received BBD For My Friend from Melissa. 

This was followed on Tuesday by the arrival of my DVD win from Edgar.

I can hardly wait until I get some time to myself and can sit for a spell to watch these. Besides the DVDs, Edgar threw in a package of sweets which are one of my absolute favourites -  SweetTart chews. I have always loved the original SweetTarts but have not seen this version yet here in Canada. How did you ever know Edgar that I'm hooked on these candies? Thank you so much for the wonderful giveaway. What a great idea it was!


Finally, today's mail brought the arrival of 2 new designs from By The Bay Needleart which I won from Donna upon their release.

I adore both of these new designs and don't know which one I want to stitch first! The Funky Bird is the first in a new series of Donna's and I just know I'm going to want more of them!


A big thank you to all of you for these fabulous givings!! I know I'll pass many pleasant hours as a result of all of them.


My Magic Garden Sampler continues to progress although my stitching time has been somewhat limited. I forgot just how many appointments I had scheduled this week!

I don't know if you can tell from the picture or not but I've already had a small visit from the frogs. I stitched the interior of the butterfly on the left in the wrong colour. Don't know what I was thinking! In any case, the frogging is complete and I can continue on my merry way now. I'm having a lot of fun with this stitch and haven't picked up anything else this week.


Speaking of gardens, here are some pics from mine. Due to my difficulties in gardening lately, I'm putting in more and more perennials. 
I love columbine and this one is a favourite.

My irises were a gift from a co-worker who was thinning out her own garden.

My latest addition is called Jethro Tull Tickseed, so named because of its fluted petals. I thought it only fitting since I'm a flute player myself.

I've added lots of hanging baskets to the yard to make up for my lack of annuals in the yard this year. Here is one of my favourites of the bunch. It's made up of double million bells in a gorgeous shade of red complimented with white bacopa. I love the blooms on this one!

On a final note, Happy Birthday wishes go out to my youngest son Chris who turns 24 today! We are heading to Toronto on Friday morning to move him back to Ottawa. It will be so great to have him back in the area again. Hope you had a great day Chris!