November Small SAL and WIPocalypse

The full moon (WIPocalypse) and Smalls SAL both fall on the same date this month for reporting so this will be a combined report. I'll start off with the smalls.

It's been a few years since I have stitched any ornaments for my granddaughters so I decided that I should get back to that this year.
They're getting older and are more interested in my stitching now. I decided to do 2 ornaments taken from the Prairie Schooler Evergreen leaflet.

The girls were here this past weekend for a visit so I gave them to them to take home so they could put them on their tree before Christmas rather than wait until they saw me during the Christmas holiday. They loved them and have already picked out which ornies they want me to stitch next year!

My next small finish was a new design by Lori Ripley of Homespun Prims. It's called A White Christmas and I plan on making it into a pin pillow.

In addition to stitching the above designs, I finished off two designs that I had stitched sometime during the past 2 years. I found these sweet little tins in my friend's gift shop. They actually had chalkboards in the center for writing a message but as soon as I saw them I knew they would work for a cross stitch finish.

This is Little Women Christmas by The Sampler Girl. I finished this for a birthday gift for a stitching friend. Unfortunately I don't think these designs are available any longer.

 
 This is So This Is Christmas, designed by Jenny Hoffman of Country Rustic Primitives.

When I saw how easily these finishes came together, I headed back to my friend's shop and bought the remainder of her tins. I plan on doing several more of these.

For WIPocalypse this month I have concentrated on two designs......Plum Street Samplers Autumn Fraktur and Kathy Barrick And Heaven and Nature Sing. Here are some updated progress pics.

 

And Heaven and Nature Sing is part of a SAL which I'm doing with some of the stitchers from the Facebook group Prim Stitchers Society. This piece is done in Needlepoint Silks. I chose to use up some Vikki Clayton silks that I had in my stash. It didn't take me long to figure out that I was going to run out of the dark brown silk. So what I have done is to stitch in one direction with a slightly lighter brown silk and then go back over it with the darker brown. It's working out pretty well so far and I should have just enough silk to finish this off but it will be close! I will be using red beads instead of stitches for some of the area within the wreath around the deer's neck.

That's pretty much it as far as stitching is concerned for this month. As the holiday season creeps nearer and nearer there will be less time for stitching. I will probably just work on some more small finishes until the new year.

We were treated to a rare sight this past week. Our area is on the flight path for the migration of the Snow Goose so we often see them flying over or at a distance in a farmer's field. This year though they decided to settle in a pond at a gravel pit just up the highway from us. They were there several days in a row so I managed to get some great pics.

It was a real treat to get so close to these beautiful birds as they make their way south for the winter. I look forward to seeing them on the return trip again in the spring.

Last weekend my son and granddaughters dropped by so that we could celebrate the youngest's birthday. Summer will be 9 on the 27th. I was supposed to drive to their home (a 3 hr drive) but as some of you may know I have been ill off and on since late September. A cold and sinus infection lowered my immunity and then things progressed into viral pneumonia and bronchitis. I'm slowly recovering but I'm trying to avoid crowds right now so I don't pick up anything else. So Jeff and the girls landed in Saturday night and we had a very short but sweet visit.

 

I will take this time to wish all of my friends and family in the U.S. a very Happy Thanksgiving!! We Canadians celebrated ours in October but I know I always looked forward to watching the Macy's Thanksgiving parade on T.V. I know there were several times when we played sick as kids so that we could stay home from school and watch it!  Enjoy your day my friends!!

Thanksgiving Greetings

A very Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving to all my family and friends from our house to your house!

Here are some shots of the beautiful fall foliage which I'm so very thankful that I get to witness in my small corner of the world. These pics were taken over the past couple of days during my travels throughout the country around our village.

 

I'm not sure what these flowers are, mums perhaps. All I know is that they looked so pretty lining this garden fence.

However you spend it I hope your Thanksgiving is a good one, full of family, friends and food!

Happy Thanksgiving wishes going out to all my U.S. family and friends. I hope it's a very special day!

Thanksgiving Wishes

A very blessed and Happy Thanksgiving to all my family, friends and Canadian stitching bloggers. I hope that your day is a very special one indeed! I am very blessed that my son, his girlfriend and  my grandchildren were able to join us this year. I think it's the first year that the children spend their Thanksgiving with us. How wonderful is that! 
I'll be back in a few days time with some stitching progress for you.

Family, Fall and a Halloween Quaker

Good morning everyone! I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend and for my Canadian bloggers, how was that turkey? Yes, it was Gobble Day here yesterday in Canada and boy were we blessed with an awesome weekend, at least in this part of the country. Let me show you a taste of the bright skies and gorgeous fall colours which we are so fortunate to have in this area.

I didn't realize I had the guy wires captured on film as well in that first photo. Kind of spoils things a bit.

Since our weather has been so gorgeous the past few days, I spent many hours in the gazebo stitching. I decided to concentrate on my Halloween Quaker and I'm happy to say that I'm nearing a finish on this one. I haven't got a clue yet what I'll do with it when it's complete. Most likely it will be framed and I'll hang it in our rec room. I really like the colour of this fabric unfortunately the mottling doesn't show up very well in the pics. At some point in time I'd like to stitch Prairie Moon's Thine is the Trick and the Treat which is waiting in my stash and this fabric would work really well for it as well.

The floss I was waiting on for Paradis Perdu has now arrived and I'm anxious to get going on it so hopefully I can have the HQ finished within the next couple of days.

Our Thanksgiving meal turned out really well. I tried 3 new side dishes and the cauliflower casserole was the unanimous favourite. It seems our family just isn't that fond of sweet potatoes with the exception of my oldest, Jeff. So he went home with the bulk of the remaining dish along with a good portion of the remaining pumpkin pie. I didn't want that sitting around where I could dig into it all the time. Daniel took the other half home with him. The crockpot turkey was amazing. No slicing involved, the turkey just fell off the bones when we went to remove it from the pot. The meat was so moist done this way that I will definitely be using this method again. It's a perfect way to have turkey throughout the year without all the fuss of stuffing the bird. As you can see from the pic below, we all looked pretty pleased as we sipped on coffee following the fixings. My youngest phoned from Toronto and I was happy to hear that his group of friends had all pitched in to have a traditional turkey dinner. Chris and a couple of the others are  vegetarian so there were 4 different veggie dishes for them. I was really surprised at how much food they all prepared especially since most of the group are males.

The weatherman has told us that today will be the last nice day for awhile. Cooler temps and rain are on our doorstep. With that in mind, I'm heading outside now to get my gardens cleaned up and remove some of the dying flowers.

Have a great week!

Thanksgiving

Glorious sun and warmth, fall colours, the love of family, friends - both old and new, music, apple crisp and pumpkin pie,  a bountiful turkey dinner, pumpkin chai tea, good health, retirement, my stitching........ these are some of the many things I have been blessed with on this beautiful Thanksgiving morn. I hope that all of my Canadian friends and family enjoy their Thanksgiving Day and take time to reflect upon how lucky we are to reside in a country as bountiful as Canada.
Thanks be to God!

Turkey Talk

Plum Street Samplers Gobble

As Canadian Thanksgiving approaches this coming weekend my thoughts seem to be centered on turkeys. This little fellow, or Tom as I like to call him, has occupied some of my time this week. I wish that I had time to complete this before our holiday but that's unlikely. I'm just not that quick of a stitcher. So should I tack him up somewhere as is for now and complete him after the holiday or should I just forge ahead and forget about displaying him this year? He's a pretty fine looking fellow if I do say so!

My other thoughts have been centered on whether or not to cook turkey this Thanksgiving. I always have in the past and then repeat the same meal again at Christmas. After all, turkey is a pretty easy meal to cook. It's the side dishes that take so much time. This is the first major holiday where I'm no longer working and have more time to prepare the meal. Should I alter the mix, or leave things as status quo?

 My oldest son is bringing home a young woman with him with whom he has been spending a lot of time lately. For those of you who may not know, he has been separated from his partner for almost a year now. We were not unhappy with the split since the relationship was never a great one from the start and we are thrilled that he has found someone to share things with. As parents we never stop worrying about our children no matter their age!

Jeff told me that she is a good cook so is that why I suddenly want to changes things up? In any case I'm ready for a change. I have found a recipe for cooking turkey breast in the crockpot with wine, apple, carrot, celery and a whole host of herbs. It sounds absolutely divine and works really well for me since we are at church for most of the morning which limits my preparation time. I can prepare most of this the night before and just plug in the pot before I leave the next morning. It's still turkey but not quite the same as our usual roast with stuffing. It also suits my needs since I recently started Weight Watchers and it's a much more healthy alternative to all that gravy and stuffing. As for the pumpkin pie, I'm replacing it with apple crisp and some pumpkin pie squares which are made with oats.

Lately I've spotted an increase in the amount of these wild turkeys showing up in our area fields.

I used to spot the odd one or two and maybe a small group of four but their numbers seem to be increasing . Yesterday I spotted a field with close to twenty of them. I'd watch out fellas if I were you! Has anyone ever tried cooking wild turkey? I'm sure the taste is far different from our store bought versions.

I also want to share with you the lovely exchange gift which I received from Lynn last week. I have long admired Lynn's work. Her finishes are superb and when she announced another giveaway I jumped at the chance to win some of her lovely work. I was thrilled to bits when she posted that I had won her Paris giveaway. Look at the lovelies that I received!!




Paris pillow(with crystal accents), cupcake needlebook, cupcake pin, strawberry fobs

 

Front view of the needlebook



Closure with a Swarovski crystal



Handmade pins



Isn't everything fantastic!! Seen in person, Lynn's finishing skills are even more impressive.  Both the pin and the fobs are accented with beading and the pillow and needlebook with crystals. I can only imagine the amount of time she put into this finishing. Thank you so very much Lynn for sharing some of your talent with me. I love it!!

It seems my dear stitching friend Kathy is also an admirer of Lynn's talents and has been entering her giveaways for some time with no success. She has been teasing me and threatening to spirit away my winnings the next time she visits. I may just have to hide these pretties, lol!

I'll leave you with a recent pic of my granddaughters enjoying one of my favourite fruits of the season,hand-picked! I hope all the recent cool temperatures spur you on to even more stitching.