Lakeside Stitching

My holidays for this summer have sadly come to an end. We returned this week from an absolutely wonderful 11 days spent cottaging in the Muskokas. For Bob and me, this is our most favourite spot on earth. Nowhere else do we feel so relaxed and at peace. 

Before I bore you with more pics from our vacation, I'll show you what stitching I managed to accomplish by the shore.

Following the completion of Magic Garden Sampler, I decided to allow myself a new start. I wanted to stitch something for the upcoming autumn season so I chose Plum Street Samplers Turkey Love.

 

I do love those long legged turkeys! The colours are wonderful and after such a warm summer this is giving me a taste of the cooler autumn to come. Some of the evenings at the cottage also gave us a taste of what's to come.
This is really fun to stitch!

After several days spent with the turkeys I thought it best to start putting in some more stitches on my Birds of a Feather Mystery Sampler. I concentrated on the area with the bird and tree to the left as well as the house and the sheep.

I definitely made some progress with this one and I'm continuing on with it now that I've arrived at home.

The view at the cottage was absolutely heavenly for stitching.

My only complaint was that when we retired indoors for the evening, I couldn't find a comfortable stitching chair. I'm having a lot of difficulties with arthritis pain in my hip and lower back which just makes some chairs too uncomfortable. Consequently I spent most of my evenings reading rather than stitching or by playing a good game of cribbage with my hubby.

I found that I rose quite early each morning at the lake. That's when I would take photos such as the one above.  Most mornings I was up by six, partly due to the haunting calls of the loons. We had a family of three residing around our parts - mom, dad and their adolescent. The adolescent's feathers haven't changed yet and are still grey in colour rather than black.

Most days we saw the mom and her chick while dad swam a short distance away. Here's a shot I managed to get of the dad as we passed by in the boat.

This year we cottaged at a new location on Bala Park Island so our only mode of transportation was by boat. Consequently we didn't venture too far from our spot this year. However there were some activities taking place that we were able to get to by boat. Whenever I'm there, I love checking out the antique shops in Port Carling. I also found another shop not far from the boat landing in Torrance close to where our cottage was located. I came home with two small purchases which I was thrilled to have found. The first will come in very handy for my stitching finishes. It's a box of buttons and the price was right - $5!

My second purchase was a tapestry change purse. Apparently it's quite old but is in fabulous condition. The picture doesn't show it but the tapestry has some lovely gold floss throughout it, similar to a Kreinik thread.

I love the handle and clasp on this too!

During our stay at the cottage we met up with two of Bob's choir members who have a family cottage not far from where we were staying. Peter and Faye took us our for a ride on their Dippy. Dippy is short for Disappearing Propeller. Follow the link to find out more about these boats. Apparently there are only a little more than a hundred left in existence on the lakes.

We dropped Bob off at the shore so he could get a few pics of this lovely boat. BTW, its top speed is 9 km/hr! It definitely wouldn't win any races.

Many of you know that one of my favourite activities on our boat rides is checking out the boathouses on the shores. These boathouses have massive "cottages" that go along with them. Most have at least 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms! I've always said that they can keep the house, all I want is their boathouse. Here's the latest addition to the landscape at the north end of Lake Muskoka in Whiteside Bay. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see a small portion of the cottage in the trees. Remember, this boathouse is only the "guest house"!

This particular point of land is right around the corner from where my husband grew up cottaging at his grandfather's place. The addition of this cottage and boathouse has changed the landscape for all the locals. Here's a pic of the boathouse that used to reside there. Quite the difference!

We are so fortunate that many of Bob's childhood friends and acquaintances still spend their summers at the lake and welcome us into their homes.

All good things must come to an end however and we are home once more, preparing for the upcoming fall season. Bob returns to directing all his choirs following the Labour Day weekend. I look forward to returning to my stitching get togethers. It's been many weeks since I've seen any of the Tuesday group. 
I'm going to give a try to something new this fall. One of my local Wednesday crafters does incredible quilting and applique work. She has offered to start teaching me applique on Friday afternoons at the same location where we gather on Wednesdays. I can hardly wait to get started!

For those of you who have read this far, thank you! I look forward once again to being able to drop by your blogs and leave a comment. First I have to get through all the many posts written in my absence. Be patient with me, I will be back!