August Smalls

I finished one new small this month but I also managed to get my smalls from last month finished into ornaments for gifts. The first is a name tree which I gifted to my cousin Sheryl and it's designed by M Designs.

The second gift was for my friend Nan who will be moving to Hawaii once her home in the US is sold. This is Aloha Tree by Nouveau Encore Designs.

I'm so happy that they both loved their gifts! It makes me so happy to see their faces when they open them. I'll be making more of these in the future. I've yet to complete one for each of my sisters.

My small finish this month is courtesy of my friend Nan. Nan is the genius behind Threadwork Primitives Designs Recently I got together with several of my close stitching friends at the home of Cathy, in Sudbury. Nan brought each of us a small design she had created for fun. Along with the design she provided a piece of linen and floss so that we could each work on our project while we were all together. 

Here's my finish:

  Nan has already made her finish into a drum and it looks fantastic! I'd love to give this a try but I'll first have to obtain some sawdust for the stuffing. Fine sawdust is very easy to compact and make a firm drum. I have an example of a beautiful drum to share with you. This was given to me as a belated birthday gift during my visit with my stitching friends. This particular drum was created for me by Theresa Meloon who designs under the name Dulaney Woods Treasures.

Isn't it beautiful? Theresa, or Tee as we call her, makes the best drums! She has some very clear directions in her patterns and I hope to be trying a finish soon because she also gifted me with her latest design along with some Victorian Motto floss I had admired when she was stitching with it.

Cathy also gifted me with her latest design release for my birthday. Her chart also contained the fabric and floss neccesary for the final finish.

After all this, each participant received a gift from Tee and one from her sister Jo along with their mom Bev and friend Shelly.

 Tee designed the needleroll from an antique one that she picked up. Each needleroll was made from leftover fabrics and contains a thimble and pin cushion ends in addition to the felt for your needles. Brilliant!! 

Jo, Bev and Shelly combined forces to create the sweetest ort jars. Each jar was wrapped in a piece of needlework with the Canadian and US flags, our inital and a charm. The lid of each holds a magnetic needleminder!! How cool is that!

I am indeed blessed to have such wonderful, generous friends. 

Autumn is knocking on the doorstep and I'm in the mood for some fall stitching. Time to raid the stash again! See you next month.

June WIPocalypse

I spent the better part of June getting immersed into something that I haven't done for awhile....reading a book! Consequently my stitching suffered somewhat but I'd temporarily lost my mojo so I didn't mind. After completing 3 novels I'm now back on track and my stitching has resumed. 

Mary Ann Farmer has progressed a little farther than I expected from last month. Here's my progress up until now.

It's coming along, slowly but surely. I don't feel much like starting or working on anything else at the moment although the Autumn Quaker I started in May is calling to me on occasion. For now I'll continue with this as I search for another small to stitch for July.

Our hardwood floors are almost complete. We had wanted to do all three bedrooms, using our income tax refund. Well Canada Revenue had other ideas and our refund wasn't quite as large as I was expecting. So the decision was made to only do the two largest bedrooms. In the meantime I did a little digging and checked things out only to discover that Canada Revenue had made an error. Turns out that they forgot to include the income tax that my hubby had paid on his self employment income. When that was corrected we were owed a considerable amount. So bedroom number 3 will be done albeit a little later than the others. Here are some pics of the finished rooms. We managed to find the same hardwood as used in the main living areas which had been installed ten years ago!

Here's a pic of the original flooring installed 10 years ago.

 It's all the same flooring. It just appears a different colour at times due to the lighting in the rooms. We are thrilled with the results and look forward to completing the final room.

I wanted to share this little sewing kit that my son Jeff picked up for me at a local flea market.

I thought it was darling! He also gifted me with an oval antique frame with the bubble glass. It currently houses the picture that it came with. Someday I hope it frames a piece of my stitching!

Finally I'll leave you with a picture of my recent framed piece that I picked up. I think I finished the stitching on it about 18 months ago.
This is Stacy Nash Tribute to Summer.

Today is our Canada Day holiday and we're off to a BBQ with some of the neighbours later this afternoon. Should be fun! I've offered holiday greetings in an earlier post to my Canadian friends but I'd like to take the time to offer wishes for a Happy Fourth of July to my American family and friends. Enjoy!

June Smalls SAL and Pressies!

June has been a busy month so far and I only have one finish to show you which was actually completed in May but was for a gift exchange in June so I couldn't show it earlier. As many of you may know, I participated in the Prim Stitchers Society Retreat. One of the fun events and the highlight of the final banquet is a gift exchange. Participation is not mandatory and all that is required is to stitch and finish a small item, wrap it and include a little card introducing yourself. The gifts are all placed on a table and the fun begins! When your gift is chosen by someone it then becomes your turn to go next and choose a gift. As you announce who your gift is from then that person goes next and so on.

I can show you the gift that I finished but I really have no idea who actually received it. I saw her reading my card but the room was so full of people and noisy so I never did get her name.

This is My Sewing Tools, designed by Pheasant Street Samplers. I cheated and used the same finish as my stitch from last year mostly because I was running out of time! I sure hope the recipient liked her gift!

The gift I received was from Linda Hudlow and it's a lovely little storage box on which she placed her stitched finish. It's a design by Lori Brechlin of Notforgotten Farms.

I love my gift Linda and I think you did a wonderful job on it!

In addition to the retreat exchange there was a private birthday gift exchange that took place between a close knit group of friends. Rather than mailing our birthday gifts to one another, we choose to bring our gifts to retreat and do a giant birthday gift exchange. It saves on postage and it's oh so much fun! Just like Christmas morning! Here's a few pics:

Poor Michelle was banished to the doorway of the room when one of the gifts contained something that she was having an allergic reaction to. Jenn had brought each of us an oyster containing a fresh water pearl but they had been preserved with a small amount of formaldehyde to which our friend started to react. Fortunately the reaction was short lived and not severe.

Here is a sampling of what I received: 

 The stitched item on the left is actually a tape measure!

 A lovely velvet needlebook

Inside my needlebook

 Stitching on the reverse of the piece with my initials

Overdyed floss, scissors and fobs, buttons, threadwinder. floss keep,

and those buttons on the right are actually floss waxers!

Two lovely charts which I've had my eye on:

Shakespeare's Peddler Ragamuffin and

Goode Huswife Angel of Tulips

I was overwhelmed by all that loveliness!! I am truly blessed to have such lovely and generous friends!
In addition I received one other unexpected gift. One of the booths at the retreat was Robert LeHay's Shaker Boxes. Rob was unable to attend in person but sent on a selection of his boxes for display. I was asked if I would look after his booth one day at the market and hand out order sheets for anyone interested in placing an online order with Rob. What I wasn't expecting was that after the market was finished I was told that I could pick a box from any of the ones in the display as a thank you from Rob for looking after the booth.
This was my choice:

I decided on a natural finish box rather than one of his painted ones. This particular one is an eight inch box and has an insert on the lid in which you can place a stitched piece. I absolutely love it and was thrilled! Robert's craftmanship is second to none and I highly recommend his boxes. Follow my link above and check out his beautiful website. You'll be glad you did!

Now I'm working on a small for my granddaughter over this Canada Day weekend. To all my Canadian stitching friends I send wishes for a happy Canada Day!!

Edit: I forgot to ask.... Does anyone know if the small SAL is still taking place? I noticed that there have been no postings on the home page now for a few months.

July Smalls

So I'm a little behind on my July Smalls post. It's just been busy, busy, busy! 

I stitched two small finishes this month. One was given as a gift and the other is a cute little bee... a perfect summer stitch.

This is a design by Prairie Schooler from one of their mini-cards. I finished it off and added it to a small bee skep. I think it's a little large for the bee skep but I couldn't find a bigger one so it will have to do.
The next stitch is by Pineberry Lane and I finished it off as a pin pillow for my friend Cathy's birthday. The back is trimmed with a gorgeous primitive velvet.

As I mentioned in my last post, I also received some lovely smalls for my birthday from my stitching friends. My birthday took place in May but since we were all getting together in July that's when we decided to celebrate. Two of us had May birthdays, one in June and another in August.
Here are some of the lovely gifts I received.

I was thrilled with everything. From my friend Nan I received the most gorgeous scissors with a matching tape measure. Theresa gave me the strawberry on the left which can be worn around the neck along with some silk threads and a Plum Street Sampler kit. They all know how much I love anything with deer in it! 
The strawberry in the middle was stitched by my dear friend Pat. It was her first finish of this type and I think she did an awesome job!
The strawberry on the right was made by Cathy and it's gorgeous. Cathy is a bee keeper and she also brought cinnamon honey for all.

These ladies are an amazing and very creative group. I am so blessed to call them my friends. They are my source of inspiration and they help me whenever I run into a problem with my finishing. Thank you all so much. I love you all dearly!

July WIPocalypse

Ahh July! We're right in the middle of all that summer heat and I'm loving it. From what I can see there is a lot more waiting for us. I must admit though that I'm very thankful for a/c on some of the more humid days. 

Before all that humidity hit I managed to stitch up an early birthday gift for my friend Nan. I'm so pleased with how it turned out. This one is designed by Needlework Press and is called May The Hinges of Friendship Never Rust. I stitched it with one strand of Gloriana silk floss in Winter Woods.

Here is the backing fabric and another front view of the piece which shows the lettering a bit better.

As you can see, Nan loved it and I'm so happy.

I also made a belated birthday gift for my friend Theresa. This is a Blackbird Design called Her Majesty from their Honeybee Hill leaflet. What I didn't know was that Theresa loves bees and collects them!

I do love watching their faces when they open their gifts. It was just like Christmas with the kids!

We exchanged all these gifts, both early and late, at a weekend getaway. This is a group of stitching buddies with whom I've become fast friends. We all live at a distance from each other both in the US and Canada. We chose E Syracuse as a location for our weekend which seemed to be a central location for most of us.

One of the reasons we chose this location is because there is a fabulous stitching shop in nearby Fayetteville called A Stitcher's Garden. I think we all laid down some serious cash there, lol!

During the course of the weekend we also had a staining lesson from Theresa and Nan. They each use different methods but the results are virtually the same. We stained both linen and chenille.

Besides stitching there was also lots of shopping and eating during the weekend. These pics are courtesy of my friends Cathy and Theresa.

Even Theresa's son joined in on trying his hand at stitching. He did a fabulous job, with a little help from mom!

I was also the recipient of some wonderful belated birthday gifts during our trip. There were several handmade smalls but I will share those on my Smalls SAL report next week. In the meantime, here's a couple other gifts I was thrilled to receive. Those silks are so pretty and in my favourite colour! The pattern is one I did not yet have. The girls all know that I love anything with deer in it. I'm almost afraid to use those beautiful scissors and tape measure. They're gorgeous!

I am so blessed to have such an amazing group of stitching friends! The weekend passed by far too soon and we all agreed that we should do it again next year. The count down is on!