TOGA!!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!! I didn't realize until I sat down to start this post that it would be my 200th. Wow, have I really had that much to say over the past few years? Not quite 4 years to be exact. So I would have to say that this calls for a giveaway, wouldn't you? After all, I have a lot to celebrate in the upcoming months. So it's my almost four years blogging anniversary (in June), two hundredth post, not quite 100 Followers, nearly retired giveaway also known as The Almost Give Away or TOGA as I like to call it. I figure it's about time that I give back something in exchange for all the friendship, laughter, stitching tips, gifts and enablement (is that a word?!) that I've received ever since my blogging life began. It's been a wonderful journey and I wouldn't trade it for anything. You have all enriched my life in sooo many ways. So, if you would like to have a chance to win this giveaway, just leave a comment on this post only and you must be a follower to qualify. I will leave the giveaway open until Sunday, March 26 at which time I will draw a name to receive a stitched finish from moi along with some other awesome goodies. A most lucky day to enter a draw, is it not?!

As far as stitching goes here is a pic from Spring Quakers but it's not my most recent one. My DH has left town this past week to visit his mother and took our camera with him. So I'll show you the picture I took just prior to his leaving. As you can see I'm working on the motifs at the upper portion and the upper left. Still loving this one!

In the motif at the bottom right an initial is to be stitched. Up until now I hadn't decided whether to stitch the initial of my first or last name. However I finally decided to go with the initial of my first name. I managed to get a picture of the finished stitching but it was taken with my cell phone and unfortunately it's not all that focused. Sorry about that. I didn't manage to get another pic of Maison No 4 either so that will have to wait until next post. I decided to bring out Cast All Your Cares and spend some quality time with it this week only to end up with some major frogging. So no pic there either.

What I did manage to get a picture of before the camera took off was my recent framed stitch.

Does everyone remember my By The Bay Needleart Halloween Cove? It came back to me in all its glory this week. I love, love, love the frame!! It looks absolutely fantastic with the piece. So much better when you see it in real life. Now I can't wait for Halloween to roll around again so I can hang it. When I picked this one up I dropped off my Jardin Prive Christmas. It should be ready in a couple of weeks.

That's about it for now. Spring is trying so hard to get a foothold around here. The temperatures are starting to climb and the snow to melt. My hubby returns tomorrow and my weekend off promises to be a lovely one. Bring it on!!

Edit: The final date for the giveaway will be Sunday, March 27 not the 26th as stated earlier. I just can't get my dates straight yet!

Slow stitching week

Some things never turn out the way you hope. I just had a couple of days off work after a rather busy 7 day stretch and wanted to do nothing more than kick back with some stitching in hand. However I spent most of the first day off trying to sort out computer related issues and the second day I spent taking my son into Ottawa for some errands. Hence, not much to show I'm afraid.

Here's what I've managed with Spring Quakers. I've completed 3 more of the smaller flower motifs as well as the backstitching of flower names which is seen throughout the piece. The colours on this are so beautiful but there are also frequent colour changes which mean I'm spending a lot of time threading my needle. Somewhere in this house I have one of the systems for threading multiple needles with all the requested floss and having them at the ready. Do you think I can find this? I've wasted so much time looking that I could have stitched the darn motifs three times over! So I've chosen to do things the hard way for now and perhaps what I'm looking for will show up when I least expect it. You think?!

In the meantime I'm enjoying my time spent on this.

The only other stitching I've done recently has been on my Maison No 4. This is a much easier design to take on the road with me and I stitch on this one at work during breaks and lunch. If I could just sit down and spend some quality time with this one I could have it completed in no time. At my current pace though I figure it will take at least another week. I took my pictures in a big hurry this time and they could be better. My DH was heading out and taking the camera with him so I snapped these very quickly and uploaded them before he left.

Weather reports indicate another significant snowfall overnight here which has already started. So I'm off to get ready for bed early. I'll have to give myself extra time during my commute tomorrow.

March New Moon

It's that time again! The new moon is upon us and so is the time for posting my TUSAL pic. My ort jar is slowly starting to fill up and the colours are becoming a lot more varied since starting in on Spring Quakers. Speaking of which I hope to have another update on this one within the next few days. There certainly hasn't been much stitching time this week so I'm hoping to play catch up this weekend. Daffycat's basket of goodies for this SAL is growing by leaps and bounds! This should definitely help keep me on track with the ort collection. I hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend. The poor weather forecast for our area certainly is in favour of stitching and I shall be doing just that. Enjoy!

SAL Saturday

Last weekend I spent most of my time feeling sorry for myself. I was home alone, trying to rest my back and hip and bored out of my mind. Everyone seemed to have something to do except for me. So this weekend I decided to do something about it and organized an impromptu Saturday SAL. I sent the message out to my Tuesday night group, distributed directions and got busy planning. The result was one fun filled day with 9 stitchers, doing what they do best...... stitching, eating, talking and laughing. I know it was the boost that I needed and I think it lifted the spirits of everyone present. One of the highlights was checking out my stash with much ooohing, aaaahing and fondling of fabric. Then there was the food. Although we were 9, we had enough food I'm sure to feed 9 x 9! Well ,maybe not quite that much but you get the picture.

There were some newbies joining us this time. Karen is one of my coworkers and is never able to come stitching on Tuesdays because of commitments with her children. It was great to have her join us and she's going to try her darndest to free up an occasional Tuesday in the future.

Mike joined our Tuesday night group this past fall and took the opportunity today to bring along one of his coworkers. Nancy has been considering joining the Tuesday night group and this was a chance for her to meet a few of us and see if the fit was right for her. I think she'll be out on Tuesdays in the future!

Sally and Diane are both regulars in our Tuesday group but had never been out to my little village to stitch with us. It was absolutely wonderful that so many were able to come and I hope that once I'm finished work we can do this more often. Here's a few more photos from our afternoon.

Lori & Nancy followed by Leslie & Diane

Sally (lt) and Roseanne (rt)

Clarisse enjoyed the day too. So much so that I had to put her away in my bedroom for a short while. She insisted on climbing into everyone's bags and at one point she took off running with one of Karen's skeins of DMC in her mouth.
Any for anyone who parked themselves on the seat where she normally takes up residence they were subjected to having their hair sniffed. A regular nuisance she was!

Being the hostess, I didn't really get a heck of a lot of stitching done. I tried spending some quality time with Spring Quakers but just couldn't concentrate enough so I switched to my Maison No 4.

Here's where I'm at with the 2 designs over the past week.

I have a few things I'd love to order that were released at the Nashville Needlework Market but they will have to wait until
next month. My budget for February has been blown!

Here's why...... Rose Quaker by Stickideen von der Wiehenburg and a new release by Jardin Prive ... Sampler au bouquet I.

I also managed to find an interesting design on Ebay. I've been looking for an Adam & Eve designs to stitch and came across this one quite by accident. It's by A Mon Ami Pierre and is called Paradis Perdu.

Thank you to each and every one of you who took the time to drop by and tell me how much you love my new framed stitch, Spring Lace. It's occupying prime space in my entrance and is receiving soooo many compliments from my visitors. I've grown rather fond of it myself!

I hope everyone is enjoying their own time to stitch this weekend. Spring is just around the corner!

First motif completed

I couldn't resist the pull any longer and so begins Spring Quakers by Rosewood Manor. I loved this design the moment I set eyes on it! I'm using the recommended Valdani floss and really enjoying it. This particular floss is overdyed and comes in a 3 strand spool. I'm using all 3 strands so there is no need for separation which is what the chart indicates. The colours are really beautiful and vibrant and show up great on my Queen Anne's Lace fabric. Unfortunately this picture really hasn't captured either one all that well. The lighting is so poor by the time I'm home from work. I started with one of the bigger motifs and it used all but 3 of the floss colours. It might take me awhile to complete this one but it is definitely going to be worth it!

Spring Quakers is too large a project for me to carry into work so I have a new travelling stitch. Tra La La's Maison No 4 is perfect for this and has a lovely spring feel to it. Most of these charts use DMC floss. However this particular one had DMC conversions for 2 overdyed floss. These 2 called for Atalie threads which I assume are available in France. I liked the colour variation for these 2 so I substituted with what I had in my stash. I'm using CC Razzleberry and GAST Currant instead.

The framers called this week with another of my finishes. As you know, I'm trying to get as many of my favourites framed as possible before I retire. Spring Lace by Whispered By The Wind was next in line. I absolutely love this frame but I when I picked it out I wasn't thinking about my wall colours at home. I wish that my walls were darker than they are. It would show this one off so much better. It's such a gorgeous frame!

My back is pretty well back to normal now. Thanks once again for all of your well wishes! My car returned on Wednesday and it looks so good. They even cleaned the inside which if you ever rode in my car you would know really needed it. I don't think I've seen it look this good since I first parked it in the drive! The weather here the past couple of days has been really mild and a good deal of our snow has melted. However temps are supposed to drop overnight again with some more of that white stuff forecasted. And I was just thinking that perhaps I could ditch the boots!

For my sweetheart

Finished just in time for the big day! I put the final stitches in this on Sunday afternoon. I ended up restitching the word True because it looked like I'd stitched it with only 1 strand of floss rather than 2. The floss is by Silk 'N Colors and the colour is In the Burgandy. It's a 12 strand floss and I think that somehow I managed to split one strand into two. It wasn't noticeable but I feel much better about it. This is to be framed and will hang in my DH's office. I'm going to let him pick the frame that he wants.

I had to work this past weekend so Bob took me out for dinner to celebrate the holiday on the Friday night. He made a reservation at our favourite tea house in the village of Williamsburg. Once there, we ran into another couple who are friends and asked them to join us. It was a truly enjoyable, relaxing evening and a great way to celebrate Valentine Day.

I have a new start to share but I'll save that for later this week. I'm heading to bed now. They're calling for a flash freeze overnight and I imagine the roads will be rather tricky tomorrow morning. I'm driving a rental since my car is now in for repairs so I'd rather leave early and take my time. I never feel as comfortable when I'm not driving my own car.

Thank you for your continued well wishes for my back injury. I've improved considerably since last week .

I'll leave you with a picture of a gift that I received from a friend at Christmas which I think is really appropriate for Valentine Day. Trish knows how much I love Jim Shore collectables as well as cats and added this beauty to my collection. It's called Cozy Heart. I hope you all had cozy hearts at the close of this Valentine Day.

The North Wind Doth Blow

It most certainly does! That wind has been quite active and bitterly cold leading to increased time indoors to finish this sweet piece...... Little House Needlework North Wind. This has been a wonderful design to stitch but I've made an error which I won't let happen again. I chose the fabric for this piece from my stash. It's a dove gray Monaco and there was a paper pinned on to the fabric by the seller with the dimensions. I didn't check it, just folded it, found my centre and began stitching. Halfway through I realized that the fabric wasn't as wide as I'd anticipated! I only have an inch on either side of the border. I'm hoping that when John goes to stretch it, he can sew on another piece of fabric and perform a miracle. I won't make that mistake again. I'll make sure to measure each piece of fabric myself after I've purchased it. That said, I really enjoyed stitching on the Monaco and I'm checking my stash to see if I've got any more of it.

Following my accident last week I'd hoped to get in lots of stitching with my extra time off work. However my back has not cooperated. Keeping my head bent as I stitch results in more pain in the upper back and at the base of the neck. I also found things more uncomfortable when I returned to work this week. The commute into work didn't help matters any either. So I think I'll be making an appointment with a physiotherapist to help out. I consider myself very lucky especially when I think of one of my coworkers who also had an accident last week. She lost control of her car on black ice, rolled it three times and ended up landing upside down. This all took place during a snowstorm on Highway 401, our major east-west highway in Ontario. They had to break the glass in her window to get her out. She suffered a laceration to her forehead and she also has whiplash. We're all so glad that she's alright. This highway has a high volume of transport traffic and things could have been so much worse.

I want to thank all of you for the lovely get well wishes and concerned comments which you left for me. It has really helped knowing that I have so many great friends who care so much. Your concern has really touched me.

Following my NW finish, I brought out Fair, Kind, True, hoping to get it completed by Valentine Day. It's moving along nicely and I just may have the stitching completed in time but the finishing will come later. I also love the fabric I'm using for this one. The colour is Earthern by Picture This Plus and I think I will be ordering more of it. The fabric looks too light in this picture. It's a really lovely hand dyed sand colour. Fabric colours never seem to come out right in my pictures. I'm not sure if it's the lighting or what but I can never get them right!

I'll be bringing out Cast All Your Cares this weekend to put in some more stitches. However it's a little too big for taking to work with me so instead I've found another start. It's called Maison No 4 by Tra La La and I love the colours used in it. The colour scheme fits in very with Valentine's Day. I also couldn't resist the pull of Spring Quakers any longer and I finally put in my first stitches yesterday. I'll have a picture of my progress soon.

Last week I was thrilled to find out that I won the Pumpkin Challenge on Becky's blog. I've won a gift certificate for the online stitching store of my choice. I've chosen 123 Stitch and I think I will hang onto this until after the Nashville Needlework Market. I'm sure it will result in lots of new must-haves for my stash! Thank you very much Becky! The challenge was a lot of fun and really got me motivated especially in regards to finishing.

After the arrival last week of the hawk in my tree, I haven't seen any of the little birds around. Or any of the birds for that matter! They've all been in hiding. However the bright sun today has brought them all out again. Here are a couple pics of the some of the visitors to my tree today. I believe the small bird is a gold finch, fluffing her feathers to keep warm.

I hope all of you are keeping safe and warm during all this rotten weather. While we here in North America are shivering, our friends Down Under are having a bit of a heat wave. Maybe they'd like some visitors?!