Almost finished.....not!

I don't know what I was thinking when I figured I was almost finished with Nantucket Summer Sampler. I said that I only had to finished up the border but as I was stitching it yesterday I thought something was missing. Sure enough, I was missing the last part of the landscape including the lighthouse. I don't know how I managed to miss this whole section. Sometimes I think I haven't got my head screwed on right! In any case I finished the border minus a few of the flowers and decided to get started on the last bit. As you can see I've got the water done and now I'm working on the last hill where the lighthouse will sit on top.

I've still not started my next LHN ornament. I'm suddenly having a hard time getting started at any Christmas stitching. In any case I did find fabric for it and will probably give it a start this weekend. What I've been concentrating on instead is......

TaDa! Clarisse's Cat Sampler or Colette's Cat Sampler as it's properly known. I finished this up on Monday while I waited at the doctor's office.

I'll be dropping this off at the framer's when I go to pick up my Home of a Needleworker. I'll use some of my birthday money for the framing.

Speaking of birthday, I had a very quiet celebration since my sons are not getting together with me until this weekend. My youngest is taking me out for dinner on Friday night with the family and then to Chapters bookstore to pick out something I like. So on the actual day my dear friend Michelle invited us over for coffee and said she had a gift for me. My DH had picked up a birthday cake for me and not a small one either. It was a vanilla slab cake! I don't know what he was thinking. Maybe he was confused and thought the boys would be here on that weekend. In any case he took this cake with us over to my friend's house where would you believe it? She also had a birthday cake for me! Hers was a little more weight watch friendly since it was an Angel Food with strawberries and kiwi spooned over it. We had cake coming out our ying yang! So we left home later, each having traded some of their cake for the other. We never did get through it all. If I'd been smart I would have frozen some until the boys did land in. But my mind never works that way.

My DH had ordered a lovely birthday gift for me back in mid April but it ended up being on backorder and arrived a couple days late. So last Friday we took a trip into Massena, NY which is just on the border of Cornwall, Ontario. We picked up my gift and it's so lovely!! It's a jewellry armoire. Not that I have tons of jewellry but I don't have a jewellry box big enough for what I do have and consequently my dresser in the bedroom is covered with my earrings, watches, etc. This beautiful piece of furniture will hold it all and then some. The doors open on either side for my necklaces and what I didn't discover until today is that the top also lifts and has a tray for rings inside. This is such a cool gift!

At the mall where my gift had to be picked up is an incredible antique shop. Besides antiques they also carry Folk Art, Americana, etc. While I waited for Bob I wandered through the shop.

Now I've been seeing some lovely scissor frogs on different blogs lately. I've always known about flower frogs but had never even thought to use them this way. So after seeing Sharon's and Von's frogs I went on a hunt. I knew that I had one of these in the house which used to reside in one of my vases. Took me a while but I found it. I also found a lot of others things that were MIA! So while I was wandering through the antique store I discovered a small bone china dish. Hmmm, looks like my frog would fit in that perfectly. I took a chance, bought it and sure enough the scissor frog fit in like it was always meant to belong there. Thanks for the idea ladies!

I'm itching to start a new piece, any piece. I feel like I've been working on my other stitches forever! It's time for a change. So on that note, I'm off to check out my stash.