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With the month of March signifying the arrival of St. Patrick's Day and because we can all use a little luck, I decided to stitch up something with that theme for this month's Smalls SAL. I found just what I was looking for with this sweet little design by Nan Lewis of Threadwork Primitives.
As soon as I saw this I knew I had just the right fabric to complement the design. I added a couple of old buttons and some matching trim from the dollar store to finish it off. I'm pretty happy with the results.
I'm now home recuperating from a knee replacement. I had a bit of a bad day yesterday but when I opened up yesterday's mail it brought a huge smile to my face.
This sweet little ditty was designed and made especially for me by my dear friend Nan who has been thinking of me during my recuperation. Isn't it gorgeous?! The fabrics are really lovely.She knows how much I love deer so she made sure there was one in the stitching and adding my initials was also special. It now sits on the table by my stitching chair, holding my scissors and spare floss.
Thank you so much Nan! I love it!!
I've had some new purchases arrive from my order following the Nashville needle market. I loved so many of the new designs and I will be starting on one of these in the very near future. You'll just have to wait to see which one!
I'm just starting to feel well enough to get back into my stitching since my surgery. I was uncomfortable at first and found it hard to settle down. Now I have several ideas of spring pieces that I want to get started at. I hope to have pictures of some new starts on my next post. Until then, Happy Spring!
It's been absolutely lovely here recently. We've had a couple of milder days with lots of sun and our snow is melting, bit by bit. I know spring is on its way but I always dislike this time of year. The snowbanks are a dirty gray from all the road spray and there are potholes and puddles everywhere. Besides the potholes on the roads, the roads themselves start to heave and dip due to the freeze-thaw cycle. It's impossible to drive certain routes at this time unless you want to do some serious damage to your vehicle.
On the up side, the days are longer and now the time change has occurred so are the evenings.
Today is a dull, cloudy day but despite that we've had a few visitors to our feeder.
First came the purple finch and exactly why do they call it purple when it's obviously red?
He was followed by a common redpoll. We don't see as many of these. They are sub-arctic birds and only venture south occasionally. He looks a bit chilly, doesn't he?
We've heard robins singing but haven't actually seen one yet.
I've had some quality stitching and finishing time this week and have a few finishes to show you.
This is Threadwork Primitives Wintertime. As I finished stitching the border I realized a small error. I counted wrong on my deer to the right which resulted in the placement of the upper snowflake being too high by one row. Consequently the border touches it. At this point though I was not about to frog the whole deer and snowflake. It's my own unique version! Interesting though because this type of mistake would have driven me crazy in the past. Am I mellowing? Who knows, lol?
Then I finished up this sweet little pillow for a very dear friend. As soon as I laid eyes on this pattern I knew exactly who it was going to. The last pic is of the fabric I used for the backing. This design is by Annie Beez Folkart.
I also finished up a cute St. Patrick's Day finish for this months Smalls SAL commitment but you will have to wait until the 25th of the month to see this one.
I've been working on Briar Rabbit over the past two days and I'm making progress. Just a couple of leaves, a couple of letters and the bunny himself and then this will be done.
The lighting here today is just the pits and I can't get a decent photo of my stitching. The fabric I'm stitching on is actually much darker than it appears.
A new start I have on the go is Threadwork Primitives My Work.
This one will also be going to a friend as a housewarming gift.
I've picked out a couple more small starts for Easter stitching including He Is Risen by Country Rustic Primitives.
I also have a couple of ideas for some larger designs but they will have to wait until I get home from the hospital, during my recuperation. Perhaps one of the new market releases?
I probably won't be posting again until the end of the month after I'm home. I'll see how well I'm progressing with my physio, etc.
See you soon!
March's full moon is here and with it comes this weekend's time change, more daylight and birdsong. Yaaay! Spring is drawing ever closer.
As one season draws to a close and another nears its beginning, I'm working on finishing two designs, one representing each season.
I started Threadwork Primitives Wintertime at the start of the new year. I should have been finished this by now but it kept being pushed to the side to work on other designs. I have just one deer and the border to finish on this one.
The second design is a cute bunny sampler from La D Da called Briar Rabbit. I only have one of the bunny's ears stitched so far. I still have parts of the border to finish but I needed a change so I moved on to the letters for a day or so.
I also had two other finishes recently which can be seen here on my previous post.
Today I'm pulling out some ideas for my March Smalls SAL. I haven't decided if I want to stitch something for St. Patrick's Day or if I want to move right on by to spring and Easter. Probably the latter.
The Nashville Needlework Market has just finished and there are a bevy of lovely new patterns out there for the taking! I've limited myself to just four when there were probably about a dozen that I would have liked to order. Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle & Thread has 11 new designs alone! I ordered Brenda's In Season and Plum Street Samplers Chocolate Harts plus I've asked a friend who is attending a post market release launch at a needlework shop to pick up PSS Black Cherry Tart and Blackbird Designs new book In Friendship's Way.
I'm looking forward to starting one of these new designs in the near future!
The sun is out and it's a lovely day here today which has brought out many feathered friends to our yard. Here are just a few.
My knee replacement surgery is scheduled for Mar. 16 so you may or may not see me on here for a bit depending on how well I recover. I'm hoping to get in some quality stitching once I'm home. I'm really looking forward to this coming summer when with a new hip and knee I'll be in far better shape than I have for some time. I'm planning lots of walks and some boating too.
This weekend is the time change to daylight savings time so don't forget to put your clock ahead before bed on Saturday night! Looking forward to some longer daylight in the evenings.
Look who's having a spring giveaway!
Did you guess correctly? That's right, it's Nancy over at The Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe. Just follow the link over to her shop for a visit and to check out her wonderful selection of trims and floss. Then add your name to the comments for a chance at her giveaway. Don't forget to mention that I sent you!
Good luck!
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....
Those winter doldrums have hit and I'm afraid I don't have much stitching progress to show. I've been housebound too long what with all the snow and cold and I can't seem to settle. Just too antsy as I move from one project to the other. I've had three new starts during the past month but very little done on any of them really. Here's where I am at this point.
I continue to plug away at Threadwork Primitives Wintertime. I'm looking at this and the lighting is really terrible. You can't see one colour difference from another. Sorry about that!
My first new start is La D Da Briar Rabbit. As you can see, there's no sign of the bunny yet.
This was followed by My Dear which is from Blackbird Designs The Gift is Small leaflet. Not much to show but this is going to be a lovely stitch!
The third new start is the one piece on which I've made the most progress. This is called Such Friendship and is designed by Annie Beez FolkArt. I may be stitching this design more than once since I have a couple people in mind which I'd like to gift this with. There are a couple of new stitches in this one which I'm learning as I go along. One is a Leviathon variation stitch and the other is the Rhodes Heart which I haven't tackled yet.
Besides my cross stitching I've been busy putting together a couple of photo books. One is of all the deer photos which I've taken over the years and the second one is a compilation of all the snowy owl pics I took during their visit to our area in 2014. I had a coupon for the photo books that was expiring at the end of February so I spent a lot of time on these so as not to have the coupon expire before I could use it. I'm happy to say that I managed to get them both done and ordered with one day to spare!
Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny but bitterly cold day. Despite the cold, Bob and I decided to take a drive out towards the bird sanctuary and see if we could spot any wild life or feathered friends. We had a bit of success on both counts. About halfway to our destination I spotted from a distance what looked like a log resting on a tree branch. You can see it in this pic to the left of the centre.
Here's what was revealed as we got closer.
Mr. Turkey was settling down for a nap.
There were lots of deer on the road which hightailed it (sorry, I couldn't resist the pun!) back into the woods as the car approached.
We had been told to watch out though for this particular fellow as we continued on our route. Can you see what it is?
A little closer now:
Yes, it's a snowy owl!
This is our first sighting in 2015. I spotted one lone owl at the end of October just up the road from our place. I was excited that they were back in the region but I hadn't seen another one since. Although there are not the numbers around as we had last year, I'm still glad to see one or two of them in the region. They're such beautiful birds and fascinating to watch.
Following this we finally arrived at our destination. The bird sanctuary does have a number of winter birds in residence but we visit mostly to see these lovely creatures.
We've seen as many as 30 deer in this area but on this visit there were 2 moms and their yearlings. They were picking at some corn that someone had left for them and at times they moved out to the road to lick at the road salt.
As we left to head home we ran into this little fellow who was not shy and was quite proud to show off his fluffy white tail.
We stopped one last time at the area town dock to snap a pic of the frozen St. Lawrence river. The trees in the distance are on the American side of the river and are part of a park where I camped frequently with my boys when they were young.
All in all it was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. We stopped and grabbed a Timmie's coffee on our way home and we discussed the fact that perhaps next year we can return to the area and make use of the trails available for snowshoeing. This year is out of the question as my knee replacement surgery is going ahead on Mar. 16.
I hope you are all finding ways to keep warm during this bitter winter and for those of you down under, enjoy your warmth while you can. Wish I could visit!
The snow is lightly falling on this February WIPocalypse and as you can see, I have some feathered friends visiting today.
I have a finish to show you on this snowy morning. The final stitches were put in on Heaven & Nature Sing last Saturday on a day that was so cold you didn't dare stick your nose out the door. It was a perfect day for stitching by the fire and here are the final results.
This design speaks to me of quiet, peaceful snowy nights just like the one on which it was completed. Soft and quiet!
Since the previous finish I've spent a lot of time sorting through stash rather than stitching it. I had a specific piece in mind for my next start and discovered that I didn't have as much of the required floss as I thought I had. So this new start has been put on the back burner until my order arrives. What to do, what to do? Everything that called to me was a large start and I didn't want to have 2 larger pieces on the go at the same time. So until I made up my mind I pulled out my Threadwork Primitives Winter Time and put a few stitches in.
I also put in a bit of time with a stitch I started in the fall of 2013, This is the Day. No pictures yet though, hopefully by next post.
Yesterday was the night on which my Ottawa stitching group meets. I've haven't joined them for awhile mostly because I haven't felt like doing the hour drive in the cold winter weather. I made the decision to go in last night and I kitted up this little stitch to take in with me. It's by Stacy Nash and is called To My Sweet Pinkeep.
This pic tells you just how much talking took place last night and how little stitching because this is the result after 3 hours of stitching! The lighting here today is just awful so I apologize for the quality of the photos.
One last pic I have to show you is of the Christmas gift my hubby gave me. This year Bob gave me a gift certificate to my framer. I have so many finishes still waiting for frames but this was the choice I made. I finished Weeds Make Haste in July 2013 and really wanted it up on display because I have so few summer designs. This one is designed by Shakespeare's Peddler and I absolutely love this frame.
Thank honey for an awesome gift!
Clarisse is busy at her post, keeping watch over all the various feathered visitors. They woke her from her morning nap when one of the birds tried flying through our front window. The bird survived but Clarisse looks a bit stunned!
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