WIPocalypse Year's End with some Smalls

Wow, 2016 is almost here! Another full year of stitching is complete too. I've spent what little time I've had the past month stitching on all my small projects. I completed 4 new smalls but only managed to do the final finished on one of the four.  Here they are!

 Notforgotten Farm Sleigh Bells

Threadwork Primitives Let It Snow

Stacy Nash Snowed In

Sub Rosa Designs Christmas Blessings

 The Stacy Nash piece was a Christmas gift for a friend who hinted very strongly that she would love to have one of my small tin finishes, lol! She got her wish!

There has been no stitching put into my two larger pieces recently but I will return to them once the holidays are over.

I did receive two lovely gifts from some stitching friends. Pat sent me the prettiest floss keep along with 2 Christmas colours of floss. The floss keep says Stitch Every Day. She is so thoughtful and I loved it.

Theresa made me the sweetest little stitched stocking. It looks right at home on my twig tree.

As you can see from the first pic, she also sent me 2 skeins of Valdani floss, a pair of scissors and some lovely antique buttons. I am so very blessed to have such great friends!

Earlier in the month I took one of previously stitched Little House Needlework ornaments and finished it off for one of my husband's choir members. Dan is an avid admirer of needlework and has a couple of antique pieces in his home. He told me how much he admired my work and that some day he hoped he could have a small momento of my needles at work. Here is what I gave him. I'm so glad that he liked it and I promised another next year.

 Little House Needleworks Bringing Home The Tree

Another of my previous finishes finally met up with the framer and came home in time to grace my wall for Christmas. This is Plum Street Samplers Mary's Sampler, a mystery sampler from a couple of years ago.

That pretty well wraps things up here.  My family are all arriving here tomorrow to celebrate our belated Christmas. I have spent all day preparing food for the meal despite being knocked out with another cold. I certainly hope that this year brings me much better health than last year. I wish you all a very Happy New Year and nothing but the best for 2016!! 

June Smalls

Summer is here and already June is nearing its end. I can't believe how quickly time passes!
July 1 is Canada Day and I'm sadly lacking in small finishes to celebrate this occasion. So with that in mind I stitched a new small and completed the final finishing on two previously stitched pieces. My new piece is a freebie that was offered by Nan Lewis of Threadwork Primitives on the Prim Stitchers Society Facebook group. 

The remaining smalls were all stitched in the last year with the exception of one which was done back in 2012. I finally dug them out of my finished pile and set to work to complete the final finishing. Here are the results:

 Where Liberty Dwells by e-SubRosa

Threadwork Primitives My Work

 Lizzie Kate Land That I Love

Not Forgotten Farms June freebie

and 

Primitive Acorns Flower Pinkeep

These have kept me busy enough this month but I'm happy to see that my pile of finishes is dwindling. 

We've had some lovely repeat visitors to our yard this June. The Cedar Waxwings have returned and have kept us entertained daily as they clean the berries from the neighbour's tree.

 

Unfortunately, one of these beautiful birds tried to fly through our front picture window and didn't make it. I looked out the window when I heard the thud and sadly saw the mate sitting beside the body, keening. It was so sad to see. It was quite some time before he/she left.

It's a lovely summer day here and I'm off for a boat ride shortly. I hope that you enjoy your day wherever you may be!

October WIPocalypse - missed the Lunar Eclipse

Looks like my post title will tell you what I was not doing last night. I did not wake early in order to see the eclipse. The need for sleep won out and I slept right through the alarm which intended to wake me for the big event. However I do have a lot of stitching to show for this month's full moon WIPocalypse.

From the looks of my original list I am in fact stitching a number of pieces but not necessarily the ones on my list. I tend to change my mind a lot so this really doesn't surprise me. My latest finish though was one of the original choices from my list. Carriage House Samplings Pumpkin Farm was stitched as a thank you gift for my quilting buddy Thea who has finished off two of my cross stitch pieces as quilted wall hangings and is about to start work on a third. 

Being as this is an older chart, I checked online for any corrections and did in fact find one on the CHS webpage. I was halfway through the sideways house though when I found a second mistake which had not been caught. The house is charted to be stitched entirely in the darker creamy yellow with no separate colour around the door or the eaves. I got thinking that I didn't remember the house as being that yellow and sure enough when I pulled out the coloured cover I noticed the difference. It meant frogging out every thing that I had stitched on the filling in so that I could add that differentiation around the door and eaves as well as stitch the front of the house in the correct colour. I will definitely be contacting them to correct this mistake.
Thea has asked me to pick out the frame for the piece and she may accompany me when the time comes. She was sooo happy when she saw it which made me happy too. Even the wacky pumpkin guys approve of this one!

After finishing this larger piece I allowed myself two new small starts. The first is a freebie from The Primitive Hare called Witch's Kitchen.

The second is from Lori Brechlin's Autumn at Notforgotten Farm book. It's called Turkey Trot pillow.

I'm also back to stitching again on Pineberry Lane Fancey Blackett's Brooms.

Lots of autumn/Halloween stitching going on around here so I figured it was about time I dug out some of my decor to match. I have most of my fall stuff out upstairs but the rec room was lacking much of anything so I filled it with some of my favourite Halloween pieces.

I'm still in the process of unpacking my Jim Shore Halloween tree but I should have it up shortly (if I can find where I stored it last year, lol!). Thanks for dropping by. Hope all my Canadian friends are getting ready for their Thanksgiving feasts this weekend!

June Smalls SAL

As promised, here's a pic of my smalls finish for this month. It is a freebie from Lori Brechlin of NotForgotten Farm and is just perfect to ring in summer.

I'm not able to use my sewing machine yet since my surgery but I originally thought I would finish this as a pincushion. However I have since had a second thought that might work out and would not require any sewing. If I go ahead with this idea I'll post a picture of the finish.

Speaking of summer, my favourite winged visitors have returned to our neighbourhood. That's right, the Cedar Waxwings are back and are busy removing all of the berries from my neighbour's tree. We have a perfect vantage point for taking pictures from our yard and I love watching the little thieves (they do look like that, don't they?) as they clean off the branches.

What is your problem? Are you watching me?

It's promising to be a beautiful summer week's end here and I hope that you all get in a little time with the needle soon!

June WIPocalypse.....Short, but Sweet

As many of you know, there hasn't been much attention paid to my stitching over the past month until just recently. May was a busy month what with birthday celebrations and Mother's Day followed by an appointment with my surgeon for a total hip replacement.
I'm happy to report that all went well and I am well into the recovery phase now. I am slowly progressing from walker to cane, the staples are out and physio should begin next week. Now that I'm feeling much better and off my pain meds stitching therapy can begin in earnest!

Since I returned home I've worked on two designs, a WIP and a new start. First up, the WIP, Primitive Betty's Live, Laugh, Love.
This one should be completed by the end of the weekend or early next week although I'm not quite up to any happy dancing yet!

As you can see, I'm left with just the border to complete on this one. I've enjoyed this immensely and I'm starting to hunt for a new start to replace it.

Second up is a quick stitch freebie from Notforgotten Farm called June.

I love the flowers in this one. They remind me of sweet little faces. Only the basket/planter remains to be stitched. Until I'm able to use my sewing machine once more most of my finishing will have to wait until a later date.

I do have a project I'm stitching for a friend which I should get started on soon. It's Carriage House Samplings Pumpkin Farm. I think I have it pretty well kitted up so it should be on the agenda very soon. Besides that, I have no immediate plans and enjoy the time sifting through my stash for that one project which calls to me.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer (even though it's not officially here!) and I look forward to seeing what stitches are occupying those lazy days!