September WIPocalypse

My favourite season of the year is here and already the cooler days and nights have heralded its arrival. I've been anxious to start an autumn stitch but I intended to finish what I was working on first. I'm pleased to say that that finish has taken place.

 Heartstring Samplery A Stitcher's Resolution

I'm so pleased with the finish on this one. There was a minor mistake in counting which resulted in a slight alteration of the border but I can't tell so I figure no one else can either. I used 3 different lots of the same floss to finish up the flowers in the border to give things a bit of variation. This is pretty much all I worked on this past month besides my small for the upcoming Smalls post.

This past weekend I joined a group of stitchers who belong to Upper and Lower Canada Stitchers, a Facebook group. The group is comprised of stitchers from Ottawa to Toronto and everything in between. The SAL was organized by my friend Lianne and it was a huge success! The Brigadoon Restaurant in Oxford Mills was the site of our get together. Here are some pics from our fabulous day.

The Brigdoon Restaurant

 Our second floor stitching area

 The third floor stitching area where most of us gathered

 A former co-worker Karen and myself

Mike and our organizer Lianne

Mike's fabulous wool penny stitch

Some of the Tuesday night stitchers from Ottawa

You might recognize some fellow bloggers in the next two pics! 

 Dani and Bonnie

Beatrice and Ann

We are so fortunate to have such a large group of stitchers in our area. It was the first SAL for this group and we hope there are many more. The day passed by so quickly. We shared a delicious lunch buffet in addition to our passion for stitching. Ann brought linen, floss and charts to tempt us with from her stitching shop Knowledge and Needles.
There were also some fabulous door prizes including charts, needles, homemade vanilla, and soaps. Not one person went home empty handed!  Thank you so much Lianne for all your hard work in making this day so special. 

Next post I'll show pics of my trip to visit Lori Brechlin's open house at Notforgotten Farm. See you then! 

August WIPocalypse

Summer's end is near. I can feel it. The evenings are getting dark sooner and the days have been a little bit cooler. Already I'm spotting trees that are changing colour. As the season gets ready to change I feel the urge to get into some autumn stitching. I'm browsing my stash to see what I can come up with.

In the meantime I have some progress on This IsThe Day although it is meagre. I'm working on background fill and outside borders.

 Here's a closeup of the background. I had thoughts of not stitching this portion but in the end I pulled out needle and thread and got started on it. It's very time consuming and boring!

The other piece I worked on this month was Heartstring Samplery Stitchers Resolution. If you remember I had started this one at the tail end of July when I realized that I had the fabric going in the wrong direction as I was stitching. I was too annoyed at myself to start frogging and I was anxious to get started on it again so I pulled another piece of the same linen out and restarted. The frogging on the other can wait until a rainy day. I was just lucky that I had more of the same linen in my stash!

I'm about a third of the way through this one now. I'm working on the top half and then I have a border all around the piece to complete. The colours are predominately neutrals but they look good on this fabric and I'm happy with the results so far.

I did a bit of antique shopping on my recent vacation. I'm looking for other ways of displaying my needlework besides framing it.

I purchased some rather interesting pieces including an old bread board with the inscription "Staff of Life" along the top. I have a Blackbird Design piece in mind for this one. The child's slate has slate on both sides so I can display the needlework on one side and still have the slate showing on the other. The large file drawer in the first pic has a felt bottom and I plan on displaying some of my work inside the drawer or using it as I would a dough bowl, displaying some of my small finishes. I'm hoping I can use the frame I purchased for one of my smaller finishes.
I'm really starting to enjoy these antique hunts!

Now I'm off to check out  those autumn themed charts again. See you next month!

August Smalls and a Muskoka visit

I'm ahead of the game this month with two small finishes. Both involve flowers since I have very few summer smalls to display around the house. The first is designed by Teresa Murgida of Primitive Acorns and is called Wild Camomille. I love the bee in this one!

The second finish is designed by Esub Rosa and is simply called Summer Pincushion.

This will be a pincushion once I get a finishing day underway.

 I haven't had much time for anything other than the smalls this month. I will post a progess report on my larger WIP at the end of the week. Hopefully I'll have added to them by then. Vacation has taken up most of my time this month. We visited our beloved Muskoka region for the first time in two years. We didn't book our usual cottage because it's on an island and we weren't sure how well I'd be able to get in and out of the boat with my new knee and hip. However the new joints performed admirably and we hope to return to the island next year. Instead we booked a cottage in the Torrance region on Lake Muskoka.
Here a just a few pics of our lakeside visit.

 The view from the dock

 Our rental

 A lovely wooden launch

 Muskoka sunset

 A dinner cruise aboard SS Segwun

 Port Carling - hub of the 3 big lakes

 One of the many boathouses seen on the lake

Dockside stitching

 The Segwun steamship entering the narrows on Lake Muskoka

 The Segwun is the longest operating steamship in North America

 There's a seat by the lake just waiting for you!

See you all soon!

July Blue Moon WIPocalypse!

It's that time again! Tonight the full moon will shine down upon us meaning it's time for a WIPocalypse post. Sorry but this is not the blue moon. Too cloudy around here to get any pics.

As you can see from my previous post, we've had a rather busy month around here. I did manage two small finishes which can be seen on that last post. In addition I pulled out an old WIP and added more stitches to it. This piece was started in Sept. 2013 and I keep stalling on this one. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I'm using a larger Q-snap (11x11) which makes things awkward and I'm stitching with one strand on 36 ct. 
Anyways, I was determined to get more done on this. It's called This Is The Day and is designed by Tracy Riffle of Hands To Work Designs.

The first pic is the point at where I had left off last year followed by where I am today.

 The first pic is also a truer indication of the colour of the fabric. I just couldn't get the right lighting on today's photo. It's coming along but there is still a huge amount of border to be done both around the alphabets and on the outside. I also have to fill in the background on the numbers and the alphabet. 

I started a new piece a couple of days ago and just discovered a major mistake so it looks like I'll be frogging out everything I've stitched up until this point. It's by Heartstring Samplery and is called Stitcher's Resolution.

What I've done is to start the piece with the majority going lengthwise rather than crosswise. I don't know what I was thinking! I knew that the design was wider rather than longer. I just measured and I can continue but with only a one inch margin for framing which just isn't enough. So tonight I will start the frogging process and restart tomorrow. I'm wondering though if I should restart on a fresh piece of fabric rather than this one? I'm hoping there won't be any marking that prevents me from re-using this piece.

 Clarisse joined me outside in the gazebo this morning as I stitched. We bought an outside pen for her too which we place in the shade. That way she can join us on the patio without running off. So far though she's not too thrilled with it. She still wants to be outside of the pen. Using a leash is not an option because she always manages to either wriggle out of her collar or tangle herself up.   

We've spotted this little fellow in the yard recently but Clarisse seems to miss him every time. She's either sleeping or she can't be bothered to come look outside the screen.

Next post I hope to have some pictures of my stitching taken by the lake in Muskoka. It's our favourite vacation spot and we haven't paid a visit there for two years now so I'm excited to be going back.
Until then, keep cool!!

July Smalls SAL and lots of family visits

This month has been a whirlwind of activity for us yet it started out fairly quietly. The first week was lovely weather for outdoor stitching with a coffee close by. I didn't even bother to change out of my PJs!

During this quiet time I managed to finish a sweet small designed by Jenny Hoffman of Country Rustic Primitives. It's called Bee Garden Pillow Tuck and yes, it will be eventually finished into a small pillow tuck.

 Then the month started to pick up. My youngest son Chris and his girlfriend Violet returned home from a five week visit to Europe. They visitied Romania, Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Belgium and Ireland. Their pictures are amazing and for any of you who are my friends on F/B you will have been following along on the journey. I'm so glad they were able to share this experience!

 Cruising on the Danube in Budapest, Hungary

Next my grandchildren and my other two sons arrived for a weekend visit. Lots of silliness and lots of fun!

During this time I managed to finish off another small. This one was given to me during my knee recuperation. It's a Country Sampler Club piece designed by Stacy Nash called Queen of Spring Sewing Roll.

I haven't decided yet which of the above fabrics to finish the roll with. The one on the right came with the kit and I found the one on the left in my stash.

Now it was time to hit the road for a visit with our family in Windsor.

The first visit was to see my sister in Michigan and one of my nephews. Wish I could get over there more often!

  

The next get together was to celebrate my mom's birthday. With the exception of my eldest and his two girls, all of her grandchildren were present for the occasion. We actually celebrated a month early because we were all able to attend at this time.

  

The next day brought the main reason for our visit. It was to attend the wedding of some close friends' daughter. My son Chris and the bride have been friends since nursery school! My husband was the organist for the ceremony and I was the soloist.

Finally we finished off the week by going to hear my BIL's jazz trio perform at one of our favourite high school pizza joints. I don't think I've stepped in there since I graduated high school!

Besides all of this fun we also had a 50th wedding anniversary to attend back home.

Sorry if I've bored you with all of the family pics but there are several friends who don't do F/B and who like to check in here to see what we've been up to.

I did try to get a Christmas small finished for the challege this month but I failed miserably. I have had to frog the same section 3 separate times now and finally I found the mistake. However a lack of time prevented me from continuing with it. 

We're home now for a rest and I've started a lovely new piece which I hope to show you on my next post. Then it's off to our favourite vacation spot, Muskoka! I do hope to spend many hours there stitching on the dock. See you soon!