It's My First Bloggaversary!

I can't believe it... an entire year of blogging has passed by already! During this year I have met the most incredible ladies and made many new friends. Blogging has resulted in an increase in my stitching projects and encouraged me to keep up with my stitching. I would never have tackled a piece such as Cirques des Cercles on my own. It was your encouragement that motivated me to try. Visiting your blogs has opened up my eyes to the world of finishing techniques and greatly increased my stash, lol! To thank all of you I would like to have a draw for something stitched by me especially for you. Anyone who comments on this posting will have their name put into the draw. I'll accept names until Thursday, June 19th and will announce the winner on my post on Friday. Please keep in mind that I'm not that quick a stitcher but will do my best to finish the piece in record time.

Last evening my DH and I were invited to the home of friends for dinner. They live in the most marvelous Victorian home in a small town on the St. Lawrence River called Morrisburg. There were a number of us invited and shortly after our arrival our hosts gave us a tour of their home. During this tour I found some very old stitching. Two were done on firescreens in their living room and date from about 1800. The colours in them are still very vibrant. I think that these are needlepoint. The other piece found on their mantel is The Lord's Prayer (done in French) and is dated 1742. This piece is definitely cross stitch. Our hostess Jill is from the Gaspe region of Quebec and this prayer had been stitched by one of her ancestors. I was amazed at how well preserved it was. What a treat it was to see these works.

I've had another finish this past week. My Merry Tree by Helga Mandl stitched up very quickly. (Thanks for crossing your fingers Vonna, I had just enough floss!) I've really enjoyed working on this one. I personalized it by using overdyed floss, some Treasure Braid and beads. I love how this one turned out and I'm anxious to try another. Last year I ordered some of the personalized name trees from M Designs. They sent me an invoice, I sent my Paypal payment and then nothing. I kind of forgot about them if you can believe it until I started doing these other ornamental trees. I emailed them to let them know I'd not received the charts but got no reply. Finally on Tuesday I called and got Mary herself. She was very apologetic and said they had had some trouble in the past with receiving notification of the payments. Consequently she took my order again and has promised to mail them out this coming week. I can hardly wait to get started on some of them! Let's just hope I don't forget them again this time.

It's been another busy week here. I finally managed to squeeze in some time for dinner with my son Chris who just celebrated his 20th birthday. Our schedules have done nothing but conflict and we couldn't seem to find a day to celebrate. Tuesday evening we were both free and so dinner it was! We ate at a pub in Little Italy in Ottawa. Our table was on the patio and the skys were threatening all through our meal but we managed to escape the downpour. It started to rain just after we left! Chris is finishing up two classes over the summer and then he will have his diploma in Small and Medium Business Management. Some day he hopes to start up his own business.

Naturally since I finished my Merry Tree I've made a fresh start. No pictures yet though so I'll share it with you next post. In the meantime, keep on stitchin'!