A Little Luck

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! 
 

Dreary November

November has blown in just as I expected...... overcast, rainy, dreary and depressing. November is not a good month for our family and I'm always looking forward to the end of the month when the season of Advent and Christmas start approaching. Unfortunately I know there will be many families stateside who will always remember the latter part of October and early November, having had their lives turned upside down by Hurricane Sandy. My heart goes out to all those who have lost so much. Please keep them in your prayers.

In an effort to bring a little colour to this month, I've started stitching some of my Christmas ornaments. I finished off Christmas Morning this week and got started on Lizzie Kate Feelin' Festive. The latter is an ornament I've admired on many blogs. When I spotted it on one of my trips to visit family last year, I snapped it up. It's a fun stitch and will be done quickly.

The Stitcherhood Christmas Morning
stitched on 28 ct white evenweave
using DMC floss

I also finished off this little Christmas design into a pillow ornament for a stitching friend for her very special birthday. 

This past Tuesday I also had the pleasure of seeing a dear friend, Kathy of Kathy's Sit and Stitch. Kathy was in town visiting Dani and dropped by our Tuesday evening SAL. It was wonderful to spend some time with her. I've not been able to attend any of the stitching get togethers over the summer and spend time with these ladies so this was a real treat. Kathy recently sent me a little surprise. A few years ago I had loaned her several of my Mirabilia mermaid charts for her upcoming RRs. Having finished with them, she mailed them back to me along with a little thank you treat..... an adorable pair of bunny scissors with a gorgeous fob attached which Kathy made herself.

Isn't that fob gorgeous!! She also sent me the most fitting card for a stitcher.

I love it! Thank you so much Kathy. It brought a smile to my day and I was so pleased to see you on Tuesday. Safe travels south, we'll miss you!

Halloween is over and done with but I'll leave you with a few pics of my pumpkin carvings from this year and some of my son Chris and his girlfriend during Ottawa's zombie walk.  The price of admission is a donation to the Ottawa Food Bank and provides much needed supplies. 
The photography was done by Tooma Productions and they did an awesome job.Enjoy!

Progress and a Pincushion

Slowly but surely this week has brought progress, both within the house and in my stitching. We have been undertaking a giant cleanup of our basement storage area which resulted in the recent garage sale. That was followed by a trip to the local church secondhand store with what remained from the sale. After all, someone might as well profit from what remained! Then a final trip to the dump got rid of what was of no use to anyone. All that remains now is a rearranging of what is left in the storeroom. That completed, we can finally tackle the spare bedroom which is to become my craft room at some point.

Although we were busy, I would often take a stitching break here and there since I still tend to tire since my bronchitis episode. I worked on nothing except BoaF. I'm just about finished with the tree and can now move on to stitch something other than leaves and branches. This weekend I added the birds to the tree. I really love the colours of these two. I even managed the over one on the beak and legs without too much trouble. Amazing!

I think I'll continue to stitch on this until my family arrive for their visit. Once they're gone again I'll get back to finishing up Magic Garden. I've already kitted up Plum Street Samplers Turkey Love as a possible new start. I say possible because I just got my hands on a copy of the JC Halloween special edition. There are several ornaments I'm just itching to stitch as well as several larger pieces. I love Ink CirclesWings and Things but I'm also sold on The Primitive Hare Halloween Town and Praiseworthy Stitches Trick or Treat. Decisions, decisions. What's a girl to do?!

The mail brought a special treat for me this week. Several times I had admired the tatting done by Cathy's mother which she displayed on her blog. Tatting is something which I had never seen until she brought it to my attention. Cathy takes some of her mom's tatting and turns it into the most adorable pincushions. Seeing these, I offered to purchase some of their work. However Cathy had a different idea and chose to gift me with one of their lovely creations. Here's what the mail held for me.

Aren't the colours gorgeous!!?  I couldn't be more thrilled with my gift! Thank you so very much Cathy. I'm off to write a note to your Mom to let her know just how much I admire her lovely work.

Mother Nature has seen fit to with hold the rain so the drought intensifies. I haven't been watering the lawn because of the conditions but we have been advised to water once or twice a week only for a short period of time and to give any trees that we have a short drink once a week. As I write this it's gotten quite overcast however there is only a brief shower forecast which is not nearly enough to help the farmers. I know that many of you in the U.S. are also suffering severe droughts and I pray that rain will arrive in time to save the crops. In the meantime, keep cool and keep stitching.

Stitching anniversaries

When I sat down to write this I realized that I had a number of  stitiching related anniversaries to celebrate this month. Today marks my 300th blog post and Thursday will mark 5 years of blogging! I'm so very close to 200 followers which I consider amazing since I don't find myself all that interesting, lol! Finally this Saturday marked the third time I've hosted my Tuesday night stitchers for an all day SAL. I reside in a small village located about an hour's drive from Ottawa so it's a bit of a trek for them to join me. The first year I only had a small number make the drive but this year there were 17 ladies who joined me over the course of the day!! All these anniversaries suggest a giveaway to celebrate, don't you agree? Details of the giveaway will be on my next post so keep an eye out for that in the coming week.
In the meantime, here's a sampling of all the fun we had this Saturday. The first few shots are of the Gazebo Gang. 

Barb, Diane and Sally

Sue

Jeannine, winding floss

Dani and Tracey

Pam trying out Lianne's stitching frame as Lianne and Karen look on

Mary

Karen with her Blueberry Homecoming
stitched over one!

Mary's Growth Chart

More of the Growth Chart

Lianne's BBD finish

BBD Honeysuckle Manor
personalized by Lianne

Clarisse also joined us for the day but I neglected to take any pictures of her. She spent a great deal of her time trying to climb into everyone's stitching bags!
As for my stitching, well it's pretty sad. As the hostess, I was too busy checking on everybody and chatting it up so there was very little progress. I worked on only Magic Garden Sampler. Here's where I am at this point.

 As for what was actually stitched on Saturday, it's only the worm, as seen in the pic below. Pathetic, eh?!!

During the course of the weekend I also pulled out Maisonnette aux Fraises and frogged all of the white flowers, replacing them with soft yellow ones instead.

The stitching group is always so generous and we had an abundance of food. There was enough for two meals on Saturday and Bob and I are still going through the leftovers! Quite a few brought gifts with them. Check out these salt and pepper shakers Jeannine brought for me! 

I hope these are the only frogs I encounter as I stitch!


Lianne also brought a surprise gift for myself and Dani. Lianne is a proliferative stitcher who does beautiful work however for some time she was not aware of any other stitchers in her area. Then she stumbled across my blog and Dani's blog at the same time. She was very shy. I say was because she's not shy now and is a delight to spend time with. However at that time she was shy and lurked in the shadows, reading our blogs for 8 months before she got up the nerve to contact us through email. We both encouraged her to join our group and the rest, as they say, is history! Lianne is a regular member of our Tuesday night group and has participated in stitching get togethers with us throughout eastern Ontario. Here's a pic of the three of us.

To celebrate the third anniversary of her contact with us, she brought each of us a small gift - a project bag, containing some felt for finishes, a tape measure, Carrie's creation overdyed floss and an antique scissor frog!

Look at this lovely frog a little closer!

I find the bottom is just as pretty as the top of this one. 
It was such a sweet thing to do Lianne. I'm very touched and I thank you soooo much!!


So that's the end to this spring's SAL. There might be another come fall if I can get things together. 
Many thanks go out, not just to my Tuesday group, but to all my blogging friends who have enriched my stitching journey over the past five years. I have the most amazing group of friends and the fact that I haven't even met some of you doesn't matter in the least. You've proven that you're the best! I do hope that I get a chance to meet more of you in the future and hope that at some point you might make a visit to our little spot here in Canada and join us for our SAL. Wouldn't that be fun?!


Stay tuned for my giveaway offer. There may be more than one!!

Stitching progress

Two posts in one day. Wow, I must have time on my hands! Turns out that the weather hasn't exactly been what we'd hoped for today. It's been overcast and cool all day. DH and I have both been rather lazy and spent the afternoon watching the ball game rather than cleaning out the back room. It's a good excuse!

First off I'm going to show you the lovely gift that Bonnie made for me. I hadn't taken any pictures yet so I couldn't post it earlier. The last time I saw Bonnie at a SAL at Dani's house I asked if she could make a beaded fob for me. She does such a lovely job on her fobs and several of the ladies showed theirs off. We don't exactly live close to each other so I had to wait until this past weekend when our paths crossed again. I wanted a black and white fob to go with my new scissors and Bonnie has done a wonderful job. Thank you so much Bonnie!

Isn't it pretty? I love how she's added a charm with my inital. It looks fantastic with my scissors, don't you agree? Thank you so much Bonnie. I love it!

I also promised some more stitchy pictures. Below you will find pictures of the two RR that Kathy has been stitching on. The first is a TW Band Sampler and the second is a Mirabilia of Pixies and Fairies . Kathy stitched the top band in the TW sampler and the pixie on the upper left in the Mirabilia piece.  I believe that it's Ivy. Lovely work Kathy! The others pictured  in the Mira are Poppy, Sweet Pea, Lilac, Amaryllis and Jasmine. It's a beautiful RR and I love the fabric chosen for it.

Finally I have some before and after pictures to show you of my weekend projects.

The first is my LHN Canadian version of America. It was a good piece to work on. Filling in all the white on the house didn't take much concentration and then I could listen to all that was going on around me.







Before



After

When it was a little quieter, usually in the evenings, I would bring out my BBD Sunflower House.
This continues to be a favourite for me and I had many favourable comments on it this weekend.



Before



After



I'm really pleased with the progress I made on both pieces. In addition, I worked on a third project but since this is a gift for someone who reads my blog, I won't be showing any peeks at the moment. Considering how much chatter and laughter was going on it's a wonder I got any stitching completed at all! Oh yeah and how can I forget about all the eating!! Thank you so much Kathy for opening your home to us. It was a delightful weekend that I soon won't forget!

Zombie gift

Right after I finished sending off my previous post, my birthday gift for my youngest son arrived or at least a picture of it. You see, my son is a huge fan of the horror genre - movies, art, etc. Living in Toronto, Ontario he is able to attend the horror film festival each year which is his highlite of the year. In the past he's met Wes Craven and had him autograph his copy of Nightmare on Elm Street.

Anyways I wanted to do something special for Chris this year on his birthday. Because of my retirement, this is the last year that I'm spending large amounts on gifts for my sons. I just won't have the extra cash in the future plus they're all "big boys" now and don't need as many gifts.

So what could I do for Chris? Knowing his love of horror, I remembered one of the boys mentioning a Canadian artist and illustrator who does zombie portraits using ink and watercolours from photos you submit to him.

Rob Sacchetto has done an amazing job with Chris' photo!! Rob emailed this pic to me this morning and the finished portrait is in the mail and on its way to me now. I can hardly wait until Chris sees it!! Fortunately he doesn't read my blog so I can post this picture here. I've included the before and after pictures. Since Chris works in an art supply store, I figure he can arrange for the framing at work.

He WAS a good looking guy!!

To see some more of Rob's work just follow the link to http://www.zombieportraits.com/

I know this is going to be a big hit with Chris but I'll have to wait until the end of the month before I see the reaction.

Then comes the question: What kind of a mother gives her son a Zombie Portrait??!!

Scanty orts

I know I didn't stitch a heck of a lot this past month but wow, is that all there is?! I expect it's because I am very frugal when it comes to the Valdani floss used on SQ. It's pricey and I don't want to have to order more so I'm being very careful with it and leaving very small orts. Lots of reds and greens in that jar from Sweet Little Berries as well. Since these all resulted from spring stitches, I thought it only fitting to photograph them with my little spring chick. Sorry the pic isn't all that great. I've only just returned from work and there is next to nothing in the way of good lighting left. So much for my Tuesday night stitch too. Ladies, if you're checking in at all, I had full intentions on coming but work is getting the best of me right to the bitter end!

I neglected on my last post to mention how much I've appreciated all your sweet comments on Spring Quakers as well as the many visits to my blog. I just haven't had enough time lately to reply to each one of you but that doesn't mean I've forgotten you. I continue to enjoy all of your comments and hope to have the time to check in with you soon as well as catch up on my blogging.

Something else I forgot to mention was the wonderful gift I received from Tatyana this past week. Recently she posted pictures of all the fantastic beaded fobs she'd been creating. She just couldn't seem to stop and wondered what to do with all that she was accumulating. I suggested she sell them and I'd be more than willing to buy one. She took the suggestion but insisted on making one for me as a gift rather than selling me one. You'll never make any money that way Tayana, lol!

Here's what I found waiting for me when I arrived home last Friday. A lovely postcard with some of the beautiful sights in Moscow and this very pretty fob. Lookie what she attached to the end of it! Tatyana remembered my love of cats and personalized it with this pretty scrolled cat.

Isn't it sweet? Thank you very much Tatyana. You've brought me a little closer to your homeland!

Now I'm off to put up my feet and pick up my needle. Got to find a pair of scissors for this pretty fob too!

Happy stitching!