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.

June WIPocalypse

June seems to have arrived rather quickly but its summer weather sure took its time arriving! It's been so unseasonable that I wasn't quite sure what to pack for my Prim Stitchers Society Retreat. Fortunately their weather in Pennsylvania seemed to be a little warmer than ours at home so summer attire prevailed. Before I get to the retreat I'll show you a pic of what I'm working on at the moment.
 Last month I had completed all save the border on LaDDa Awake My Soul. The border was a bit time consuming and it was the sole project that I worked on during retreat but I still didn't complete it until shortly after I returned home. It was a real hit with all the ladies at retreat a lot of it due to the fabric I chose.

The fabric is a Silkweaver evenweave which I found in my stash. I remembered that it was a Silkweaver but had to go onto their site to look up the colour which I believe is Autumn Blush. The fabric makes the colours pop and I love how it turned out. Time to save for some framing!

At retreat I picked up one of Nan Lewis' new designs (Threadwork Primitives) called Live Simply. As soon as I finished up Awake I started in on the new design. This past weekend I put in the final stitches.

This was a sweet little stitch which I hope to finish in a frame as Nan has with some ticking fabric and lace.Just click on my link to see her finish.

My latest start is by Heartstring Samplery and is called All The Pretty Flowers. 

Sorry, it's not the greatest pic but the lighting around here is pretty lousy right now. It's a sweet little summery piece that shouldn't take too long to complete.

After writing this I have decided to put up a separate post for the retreat. There are just too many pics to add and my computer isn't co-operating at the moment. So watch for a post to go up in the next few days with all my retreat goodies! See you then!

Edit: I forgot to say that I have loved reading all of your comments but suddenly I am not receiving them in my email any longer and I'm not able to reply to them. I've checked my settings and all is well so I don't know what has happened. Is anyone else having problems with this issue?

May WIPocalypse

May has involved a fair amount of stitching for me but only during the first week of the month and the latter 10 days or so. The rest of the month I've been dealing with vertigo which sidelines me from time to time. 
Last month's question, What is your longest running WIP?, involved my digging into my journal of starts. I knew which piece had been hiding out in the closet but I wasn't sure just when I had started it originally. As it turned out it was A Mon Ami Pierre Paradis Perdu which I started stitching in January of 2012. Now 2012 was the first full year following my retirement and when I look back at my journal I see that I kind of went overboard on stitching that year. Paradis Perdu was indeed lost in all the shuffle and brought out roughly once per year thereafter for some token stitching. However nothing has been added to it since early 2015. 

Once more I dug it out and gave it some love. Will it get finished this year? One only knows!
These are the before pics.

I've concentrated on the alphabet mostly this month and the apple tree. Here's my  progress so far.

I also picked up Awake My Soul and it's very close to completion. All that remains is the border.

May is a month of birthdays here..... my daughter-in-law, me and my son. This past Sunday we joined Chris and Violet in a joint celebration of our birthdays as well as a delayed Mother's Day celebration. Chris and V have just returned from their honeymoon so after a great dinner at Pub Italia in Ottawa we went back to their place to view all the photos from their trip. 

Earlier in the month I paid a visit to the Tulip Festival in Ottawa. I try to make it to this event at least every couple of years. Most of the tulips can be seen at Dow's Lake which is a great location for them.

Tulips are a favourite of mine and I enjoy seeing all the new varieties.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Harrisburg, PA for the 2018 Prim Stitchers Society Retreat. I'm so excited and can hardly wait to see all my friends. Next month I should have lots of pics from the event. Until then, have a great month. Summer has arrived!

May Smalls

There's been an awful lot of stitching and finishing of smalls going on here during the month of May. In fact it's probably the most that I've ever completed during one month. Of course it was all due to my procrastination and another bout of vertigo which set me on the back burner for a couple of weeks. In any case I had 5 gifts to complete either the finishing of or the stitching and finishing of before I leave for the Prim Stitchers Society Retreat next week. One gift is for the optional exchange which takes place at the end of the retreat while the other four are birthday gifts for friends whose birthdays have either recently passed or are up and coming. I'll hold off posting a pic of the retreat gift in case anyone who is attending spots it on here. The other ladies don't generally check out my blog so I think it's safe to post pics of the gifts.

First up is a piece I stitched back in early 2017 by Blackbird Designs called Remember Me. I knew exactly who I wanted to gift it to but only completed the finishing this week.

Next is a sweet little pinkeep from the Summer House Stitcheworks series Fragments in Time. I personalized this one with my initials as well as my friend's.

The third piece is a design by Shakespeare's Peddler called Jenny Bean's Pin Tuffet. I didn't have a small tart tin or base with which to make a tuffet so instead I made a small pinwheel. I improvised and used lace trim instead of ribbon since I didn't have any that worked. I love how it turned out!

The final finish is appropriately called Bee Heart and is a design by E SubRosa. I have never ever completed a heart shaped pillow and this was a challenge for me since I am neither a great finisher or into sewing. It didn't turn out too badly though. It's just a little wonky on one side but I know my friend won't care and will love it.

Next month I'll post a pic of my retreat exchange gift and any new smalls I get to. 
At this time I want to thank each and every one of you who left comments on my recent posts. I really appreciate them and usually try to respond to your comments but this darn vertigo has kept me away from a lot of reading, stitching and keyboarding. The eye movements just aggravate things. There are a number of reasons why we suspect that I've had a recurrence but it takes time and rest to get rid of it. I'm feeling a little better this past week so hopefully it's on its way out. 
Take care and keep those comments coming. I love hearing from you!

April WIPocalypse

In addition to my small finishes this month which I previously posted here, I have added some stitching to the lovely Awake My Soul.

I continue to enjoy the spring colours in this one. It's such a pretty piece. I want to do nothing but work on this one right now however I'm desperately trying to get some stitching done for gifts. I dislike deadlines and I should have started them earlier but we always think we have more time than we do, lol. Hopefully I will have a few days to devote to this for my next month's post. In the meantime I will show you some pics of recent finishes that I have had framed.

 Blackbird Designs  It's Spring Fever

Blackbird Designs   Evergreen

Both of these pieces have been framed by Patti Nicolosi of By My Hand Needl'werks. I will be picking them up from Patti at the Prim Stitchers Society Retreat which runs from May 31 - June 3. I'm looking forward to bringing them home and adding them to the other treasures on my walls.

I'm scouting through my stash now looking for a new start for when Awake is complete. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't often stick to my original WIPocalypse list. I go where my mood takes me and often something will just jump out at me and say "stitch me".  

April's question of what is your longest running WIP or UFO got me to thinking. I looked it up and a design by A Mon Ami Pierre called Paradis Perdu is my longest. I started it in Jan. 2012 and it still sits unfinished. I've completed quite a bit of it too. It's a large Adam and Eve design which I'm stitching with silks. I think the reason I've left it linger for so longer is that I'm not comfortable stitching it on the larger Q Snaps. It's difficult for me to hold in hand for any length of time and I'm not interested in purchasing one of the stand frames.  

It took me a bit of time to find these pics but just seeing it again makes me want to work on it. Now if I could only find it, lol!

Warmer weather is forecast for this coming week and with any luck I could quite possibly be stitching outdoors in the gazebo. I can't wait!

April Smalls

Based on the weather around here this month, it was a very good month to stay indoors and stitch. Lots of rain, snow and cold! I did manage to complete some projects but not nearly as much as I'd hoped. You see I was out running around in a lot of that mess!

One of the reasons for a lack of stitching was a trip back to my hometown. My hubby had a recital to play in London, Ontario and since I wasn't needed there, I dropped him off and continued on to Windsor to visit my mom and sisters. One other visit I had planned was to a childhood friend. One of the ones that you don't see often but when you get together it's like you were never apart. My friend Patti enjoys crafty things so I brought her a much delayed stitch for her birthday last summer. I showed you a sneak peek of it last month. Here's my completed finish: E SubRosa Designs Happy Birthday.

I really enjoyed stitching this one for Patti and she was very happy with the results. 

On to the next gift. This one I had hoped to have finished by now but time has been catching up to me. This is for another friend who loves bees. It's another SubRosa Design called Bee Heart. Here's where I am at this point.

I'm starting the second wing this afternoon. I find I need lots of quite to concentrate on the wing's intricate pattern otherwise I can easily count wrong. Besides the second wing I have a honeycomb pattern to stitch around the bee and then the final finishing. 

I also have 3 other birthday gifts to complete, one for my granddaughter and 2 for stitching friends that I will see at the end of May. Wish me luck. Time is not exactly on my side these days!

March Smalls

We turned the page on the calendar before I realized that I had yet to post my small finish for the month of March. This is a sweet little design by Pheasant Street Samplers called My Sewing Tools which I picked up last year at the Prim Stitchers Society Retreat.

I haven't decided on a final finish yet. Perhaps a needlebook? I didn't start this until quite late in the month but it stitched up quickly.

I'm already working on April's small. After arriving home from church following Easter services yesterday I sat down and stitched more than I think I had all last month! I've chosen a sweet little design by SubRosa to finish as a birthday gift for my childhood friend. It's appropriately called Happy Birthday. Here's a sneak peek of it.

I love the colours used in this design and it's also stitching up very quickly. Although Easter has come and gone, I'm in the mood to stitch another small design to add to my Easter/Spring display. Looks like I'll have plenty of time this month for another stitch! 

My eldest son is visiting with us for a bit. His girls are still in school so they remained home at their mom's place. It was great to have all three of my sons and my daughter-in-law join us at Easter this year!

I hope you all had a joyous Easter celebration. He is Risen! Alleluia!