Welcome fall!

It's been an absolutely gorgeous fall day here and fortunately for me I'm not working today. Even better, I've done nothing other than stitch and shop! I spent my morning stitching on my Nantucket Summer Sampler. Sorry it looks a little lopsided in this pic. I'm really enjoying my time spent stitching on this one. The colours are so pretty and I love watching the scene unfold. While I was stitching it I realized that I'm always stitching a season behind. Here I am doing a summer scene when it's now fall. When summer was here I was stitching my Spring Lace. It seems that it takes me the entire season to decide on a piece, kit it up and get started. I'm sure I'll decide on a Christmas piece once the holidays are over and I'll be into a Halloween piece over Christmas! It's like I'm trying to hang on the season in my own way. Oh well, at least they get done.

My Cricket Halloween freebie is coming along nicely. I'm sure to have this one completed in time for the season. I'm getting the itch to start something else but I'm not sure what yet. Big or small, ornament or not?.....who knows. I was going through my stash when my latest purchase arrived. It's Blue Ribbon Designs Black Cats and Flying Bats. I loved the idea that you could do a number of ornaments from this or one BAP. Yup, I can see me starting this one in November! The upcoming Winter White Woodland is also along the same lines. Follow the previous link to also see a sneak peek of their Autumn/Thanksgiving sampler. I love it!! In fact I love all of their latest releases. Think there's enough time in my schedule to fit them all in? Not, lol!

Life has been a little less stressful lately so I've had a bit more energy. This in turn has led to my making it to the past 3 Tuesday night SALs. I'm really enjoying my time spent stitching with these ladies. I relax as soon as I walk in and the evening passes so quickly with lots of fun, laughter and stitching. Mind you, some of us have found that the frogs follow us home afterwards since we're spending far too much time socializing and not enough time counting! Such was the case for me this week but it was a small area concerned and I sent those pesky green fellows packing shortly afterwards.

The weather has been cooperating during my travels to stitch and I'll go as long as I can 'cause I know that once the winter slush and snow arrives I won't be making too many appearances. One of these times I'll remember to bring my camera and snap a few pictures of the gang.

Fast forward a day and remember those famous last words I dared mention about life being less stressful? Yeah, right! I'd planned a lovely outing with some friends to the village of Merrickville for a girls' day of pampering but such was not the case. A family emergency took me back into Cornwall for the day along with a pitstop at work where a small problem had cropped up. Fortunately, things were not as bad as they seemed originally and I did end up spending a lovely afternoon with my son and made it home in time to stitch outside in the sun for an hour or so.

Upon arriving in our village, I stopped by the local used bookstore to drop off some books I'd finished reading. The store operates on credit. You drop off books for which you are credited a sum and then you can take more out. Quite often I don't manage to find anything that day and so I run up a tally until my next visit. Today however was a different story. I hit the jackpot! Within minutes I managed to find all these lovelies: The Book of Negroes, 3 Philippa Gregory novels - The other Boleyn girl, The Virgin's Lover, and The Queen's Fool and a Lisa Jackson book, Malice. And all for the whopping price of $15 which is what I'd just received for the books I'd left behind! The books are in excellent condition... like new. Mind you I don't promise to finish them as fast as I found them. My leisure time is limited and if I'm stitching I'm not reading and vice versa. But they'll be waiting for me on some rainy afternoon.

I'm anxiously awaiting the arrivals online of the newest purchases at the St. Charles Market. There are so many talented designers out there and I love checking out all the new additions. Carriage House Samplings' Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow is one of my favourites.

Renovation update: The kitchen cupboards were to have arrived this past Monday but the truck which was carrying them broke down in Quebec and is awaiting a part replacement. Jeez, you'd think they had more than one truck! Kitchen flooring is now in as well as the hardwood flooring and we've got our quote from the painters. Think I might be changing my mind on colour though. Those paint chips never match what ends up on the wall. We bought a trial size and today Bob put some up on the wall which is coming down. Ugh! What looked like a nice dusty rose on the chip has translated into a much darker rose with a heck of a lot of lavender tint to it. Maybe it's just me. I shy away from darker shades and usually pick a pastel. This time I thought I'd be brave. Who knows, maybe it will grow on me!

Now it's back to the grind for another 7 day stretch. I'll check in with another stitching update after that. Happy Fall!