Confessions of a Stitchaholic

2007-09-09T09:16:00.001-07:00

Well I should be painting the trim around my entryway door as its sunny , but hey I just finished my breakfast and dont feel like painting yet! so I'm doing this instead...... I finished some little finishes that I have done over the last week or so.
This first one is an old Freebie by waxing moon designs that I stitched while dh and I were out driving on a logging road along the north Fraser river one sunday.

In spite of the rain it was a good day. Ate our lunch up at a little lake, but we had to sit in the van as it was pouring rain LOL

Not sure what I am going to do with this yet, might make a little card out of it for one of my DIL as I have seen some cards recently that stitchers have made and it has really got me interested in doing some, stay tuned!

This next one of the little grapes is a free design from Pam Kellogg that I stitched on a little piece of cream colour aida. Wasnt sure what to do with it when I finished but again I think it will make a nice little card.

it's not very big only about 2 and a half or 3 inches across the width.

Right after I finished this I started a DMC free chart called Orange flower, that was on a monday but I got my first order from the Sanman Originals that same day and pretty much ditched the orange flower project and started immediately on a little designs with flip flops on it.

I finished that one the same day and started on the dragonfly one that night as well , they are both stitched on 14 count lilac aida cloth and I am going to either make a card out of the flip flop one or frame it for my friend Kim. she wears flip flops all the time so it will be a good choice for her.

Not sure what to do with the dragonfly one yet, its probably a bit to big for a card might just frame it or make a wall hanging or something out of it. Hmmm maybe something for the bathroom, I dont know!

This last little one, I did last thursday, I was supposed to start the Sanman September installment of the SAL but havnt yet,,,, I know I will regret it but "oh well" This one i stitched on 18 count aida in sort of a bluey gray colour and its small enough to make into a card. there was another butterfly charm with it but it was tooooo big on this count of fabric so I will tuck it away and use it on something else in the future. This one I will be giving to my friend Diane who is a huge fan of butterfly's! she will love it !!!

When I finished this one off I managed to force myself to get back to the DMC freebie and work on it for the rest of the evening. It's not quite done and I needed to get some red floss #321 to finish it off tomorrow. I AM going to start the stitch along chart tomorrow, I am!!! Honest LOL

In between working on all these little projects I am of course working on my main project which is the MiB sampler which was a free online mystery sampler a few years ago on a french designers website. It is one that has a little chart for each month of the year . I started this 2 years ago on a piece of 32 count ivory linen and it took me awhile to pick out my four colours of floss, it was one where you picked your own colours and I have seen a lot of versions in many different colourways! which only makes it harder to choose. In the end I picked two purples #550 & 553 and two olivey greens #730 & 733 and they work well together so I am happy with the choice I made. when I picked this up last week I had just a bit of September left to do and as of today I am into October. i do a 20 hour round on this project mainly because it is quite large and I figured with less time each round it would just take tooo long so 20 hours seems about right. My only dilemma this time is I have been able to manage about 2 and half months stitched in the 20 hours which would put me into December when the time runs up, soooo I think I am going to just finish it off this time even if I go over my "allowed" time , then I get another new start! always fun to do that dontcha know!

anyways off to do some painting (last coat??? we'll see) also have a couple of spots around the doorknob on my main door to touch up.

Need to list a few more knitting books on ebay today, I have sold 8/8 so far in the last week and made 90.00 bucks!! thats okay have 12 listed right now and 6 have bids so hoping that the other 6 sell as well!

using a digital camera is sooooo easy compared to a few years ago when I listed some, using the scanner took forever so its a much quicker process now.

2007-08-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

WELL WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!

couldnt get anything to work here in the little window thing that you type in! seems to be going okay now but I I may have published a blank post Oh well!

So I have some WIP updates to do that I have finished up working on in the last week.

The first is my map of Australia by Heritage Stitchcraft and this is after another 15 hours work for a total of 30 so far!

I am gong to finish the border and outline of the country and then go back and fill in the details last, I got quite a bit done on the last round . did the top border from the yellow flower to the whit e one, bottem border got the whole bottem section and up the left to just under the little bird you can see. on the outline of the country got a bit along the bottem coast and top coast done.

probably will give this to my oldest son for a present to commemorate the year he spent there about 5 years ago. Except for the massive amounts of colour changes in the border and the funky little half cross's that heritage likes to use (although a pain to do they do make the picture great) I am quite enjoying stitching this and its coming along pretty good, but I hve no set deadline to finish it by either so that makes it nice.

Moving right along without wasting any time I switched gears and projects to do a 10 hour slot on my care Bears Christmas stocking; this is for my Granddaughter Daphne so I do have a deadline and when it comes up again I think i will just have to soldier on and get it finished.

the poor little yellow bear had no face before this session so I finished that off, his hat, the pink bear and the rainbow from down beside the yellow bear up to the edge. I had hoped to get all the rainbow in that section done but didnt quite get there.

Back to the start of my rotation now for 20 hours+ on my MiB french Sampler. I only have 3 and ahalf months left to stitch before its done, so I may just continue past 20 hours and get it done.

2007-08-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

2007-08-24T08:17:00.000-07:00

Well was I right? I am a slacker when it comes to posting !!

The budget thing is going good, I havnt spent any money on stash since I started !! Only a couple skeins of DMC that I had run out of on a project I was working on. Not sure if I mentioned that for the odd skein of floss that I buy as I run out I am not going to add that in to my spending. Only if I hit a big sale and buy a bunch of floss at one time.

so I am going to try and put in a couple of pictures of recent finishes ...... ahem. drum roll please

This is called " I Pine for You' and is by Sanman Originals designs. I finished this on the 9th of August and its part of the 2006 12 Days of Christmas SAL that Sandy of SMO's put together last year. Some of us from the board she runs didnt get a chance to do the SAL then and are doing the 12 charts one month at a time this year.

The brown lettering actually shows up much better in real life than the picture , but you get the idea!

I changed the thread colours in this from the charted ones and used overdyed floss instead.

Oh and its on 28 count linen, probably going to make a little banner thing out of it.... still working on that process in my head.

The next design is from the same designer and is the August installment of the stitch along. I looove this one!! It just works so well when you live in moose country.

I worked on this little guy for about 3 days total and finished him off on the 20th of August.

He is just sooo cute, I really enjoyed working on him. another stitcher who did this had used the plastic lights instead of stitching them and I blatantly stole this idea, freely admitted!! But it just works so well, dont you think?

I have a few mondays and thursdays free to stitch some other small items before starting the September chart, yikes its nearly september already... god where did the summer go? oh wait, we never really got one here, had a couple of warm days in July but thats a bout it, sad!

While I have been turning out these small designs I have been plugging away thruough my rotation.

Finished up another 10 hours on my Mini Cottages by Michael Powell, another round will see this one done.

His designs are so fun to stitch, this is the second one I have done, and would like to do more, but the kits are sooo expensive, but some of the designs are coming out in chart only form which is nice.

The painting in the entry way of my house is moving at a snails pace, but moving it is! I'll save more of that till tomorrow.

But I really should ge t outta here now and get ready for the gym and for work .

2007-08-13T12:12:00.000-07:00

SLACKER that I am.....

I haven’t written a darn word since last Thursday and even then that was days late! So I am going to try to get caught up today and tomorrow and even try to figure out how to load some pics on the thing.

So stitching wise I made a big decision to drop out of the 50-project challenge. It was basically done with other stitchers on a couple of stitching boards where you finish stitching 10,25 or 50 items before buying any new stash. You could have some exemptions to cover things like subscriptions; gifts etc and most people purchased floss as needed to finish things.

I started my challenge about the middle of last September and finished off 32 projects in that time. But I was getting really antsy to buy some charts etc and when Sanman had some really cute little girl designs on sale for a $1.00 last weekend I caved big time LOL and bought 8 (they should be here this week)

So I decided it was time for a change and decided to become a stitcher on a budget a.k.a “A Moderate” whereby I set a limit of how much I will spend per month on stash based on income etc.

I have set myself a limit of $50.00 (Cad) per month which seems a reasonable amount, based on income it should be $44.00 but I thought $50.00 seemed a nice round number, some would say $40.00 is a nice round number too but its MY budget, not theirs!

This amount will cover anything over and above the odd skein of floss needed to finish something. For instance if I run into a good floss sale and go nuts and buy 50 skeins because its such a good price, that will come out of my budget but one skein of DMC 433 to finish something, well I just can’t be bothered to add that in LOL

I have a spreadsheet all set up to track my budget, cause I love lists and things like that, kinda obsessive compulsive on that score! And I plan to try really hard for the next couple of months not to spend anything to save more dh’s and my trip to Ontario at the end of September. But the siren song of new charts is singing in my ears so we’ll see what happens, maybe when my stuff from Sanman comes that will be enough to plug my ears for awhile!

2007-08-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

Long weekend

Friday

Didn’t’ get to much stitching done on Thursday due to working then instead of Friday. Had to take the cat to the kennel and then had an appointment with the orthotics guy to tweak my left insole. Right from there to work and spent most of the evening packing etc for my trip to Grande Prairie.
As Thursday is my day to stitch on smalls , the little bit of stitching done was on “I Pine for You” by Sanman Originals. Finished off the 3rd pinecone, some pine needles and a bit of the border.

Up early for a walk/run, new lift thingy in left shoe feels okay, no pain anywhere etc even running! Keep your fingers crossed.
Bus left at 9:15 am and I got a fair amount of stitching done on Mini Cottages I by Michael Powell while riding the bus and listening to a book on my mp3 player. Also did some regular book reading and even dozed a bit! DH picked me up at 3:45 in Dawson Creek for the one hour trip to Grande Prairie. No more stitching gotten in while visiting with son , dil and granddaughter.

Saturday

No stitching done as we had an afternoon wedding to attend, It poured buckets right up until we got to the church and then you could see the sun coming through the windows and that was the end of the rain for the next couple of days! The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time dancing and partying at the reception!

Sunday

Up latish, and then out for Sunday brunch with the kids. Home for a nap LOL and then out to the gift opening at some property the brides parents own about a half hour drive SW of Grande Prairie. Beautiful day , one thunderstorm went thru but although we could hear it and see the clouds it missed us and we had a sunny afternoon.
I managed to do some stitching both on the way out and home again, working on the middle house which is the biggest one and is mainly white, white, white!
This project I had classified as one of my small ones, which would have 5 hours each round stitched on it. But I only did that much the first round and I could see that it would take forever doing it that way, it really should have 10 hrs each rnd. With that in mind I decided to do 15 hrs this rnd and get it up to the 20 hour mark and then it will probably get finished on the next ( 3rd ) round . Spent the evening playing with the baby and watching TV with the kids.

Monday

Left GP just after 11 their time after spending the morning hanging out with the kids, packing up etc. by the time we gassed up and hit Timmies for a coffee it was close to noon.
Beautiful day for driving, sunny but not to hot, some strong winds near Chetwynd though, rocked the van around somewhat!
Got back to PG about 5 pm and started right into the laundry **sigh** it never ends !
Worked on my Sanman project while driving and in the evening at home, got quite a bit done, pretty much the whole left side and made a good start on the 2 pinecones on the right hand side. Thursday of this week might see this finished.

2007-08-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

Busy!!

I got a little caught up in some tidying, and decluttering over the weekend and actually got dh to let go of some old things, namely the desk that had been in youngest sons room but was missing two drawers and was basically ready to let go of life! I got this desk for my 14th birthday, yes thats right an eon ago LOL
and it owes us nothing so its gone and also a really old metal kitchen table that has been downstairs for a long,long time is also gone (never thought he would let that go)
what started all this was finally getting the sidelight window by our door fixed, it had been cracked and covered with plastic for....... well since we moved in really ( ahem, ahem cough, cough in 1990) dont want to rush into anything!! so I've been saying for years that when that window is fixed I will paint the entry way, which needs it badly after 15 years of three boys dragging, bikes, ski's etc up and down the stairs :)
so the baseboard is ripped off, paint is purchased and have started to wash the walls and fill the holes.
On saturday after taking all the junk I cleaned out to the dump or recycle or thrift store , dh put up the two new outside entry lights that I got in a clearance bin at home depot for $10.00 , they look awesome!!

All this home improvement activity of course cuts into my stitching time, but I did manage to finish up the 15 hour slot on my Acorn pillow by Donna Vermillion Giampa. I am loving how this design is turning out, the colours in the picture are so dull but on the fabric they pop so nicely!
the next project up is Michael Powells mini cottages I, which I had only done 6 hours on before but am thinking to do 10 hour slots on this one, its small in size but is fully covered in stitches. Gotten in about 6 hours on it so far this round, that includes ripping the white out of two houses I had started as I had done them in DMC 5200 instead of regular white.
Mondays (and thursdays) are the days that I stitch on smalls and right now I am working on the monthly SAL with some ladies on the Sanman board. The designs are the 12 days of christmas from last year and some of us who didnt get them done or started even , are doing them on a monthly basis this year. I just started the July chart "I Pine for You" and made some decent progress on it. I have gotten a little bit behind due to 2 wedding samplers that I had to stitch and then June had two charts and I spent a bunch of days working on the second one and not making much progress and finally I have laid it aside, it just wasnt working for me, didnt like how it looked so I may do it later on perhaps on a different piece of fabric.

On monday evening my DIL Rejeana and granddaughter Venessa 5 mos, left to fly back to kingston, ont. they had been here since near the end of May, so it was very sad and teary monday evening after their flight left (not much stitching when Igot back from the airport let me tell you!) but they arrived home safely!
my youngest son will be back with them in about 10 days after finishing a summer of military training at a base in New Brunswick.

so my coffee is nearly done and I have a ton of stuff to do today, so I better be off for now!
I guess the next thing is to figure out how to post pictures!

2007-07-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

PS: I figured out how toupdate my profile!! arn't I clever?

2007-07-27T08:12:00.000-07:00

I'm Baaaaack!!!!!

after a couple of years of having absolutely nothing to say i have decided to get back on the blog wagon! I still have nothing much to say but will ramble on about my stitching, sewing, quilting and my granddaughters!!

I need to update my profile on here but as of yet cannot remember how to do it...... sigh*** once i figure that out it, it should be a cinch to figure out how to put in a list of my wips!

I had an AHA! moment yesterday, this is worth noting , because they come very few and far between for me.
anyways I have had a love hate relationship with stitching frames and am always on the lookout for the perfect one that will do all the things I want it to.

One of the things I have found that I love about frames is being able to stitch with one hand above and one in the back of the stitching, much faster ( at least if feels faster to me )
well , humph, that appears to me what I like most about frames.... thought there were more but I cant think of any at the moment.
what I dislike is having to loosen knobs to flip it to the back to finish off a thread, a huge pain in the butt especially when there are a lot of colour changes.
sometimes they are awkward to use , depending on the chair thats being sat upon!
and they are definatley not as portable as just a hoop, or q snaps.

so obviously there are more things that I dislike about frames than like, but the faster stitching thing really does outweigh nearly everything else.
I got a frame a couple of months ago , it is a frame that sits on the chair with you..... what I mean is two upright supports that on either side of your legs with the wooden scroll frame attached between them. Seemed like it should work not to bad, I didnt have to loosen any knobs to flip it over and although it wasnt really all that stable it worked for the first project I had on it.
next project was a bit bigger though and things started going down hill so I got my dh to build a special rod for it that would replace the lower scroll rod in the frame. the special rod had up right dowels in it so Icould put my project on q snaps and then just rest it on this special rod and the top would rest against the rop scroll rod.
well this was not too bad at all, in fact it worked just great with one small downside. It wanted to tip towards me all the time, but if I sort of had it propped against my stomach it worked.
moving on to a smaller project I got it all set up on the q snaps and special rod etc and it was extrememly tippy and because it was somewhat smaller , the stomach thing did not work. well I spent hours with a screwdriver loosening and tightening bars and rods trying to find a good configuration on things to make it work. well I couldnt and went back to holding the snaps in one hand and stitching with the other.

This brings me to the aforementioned AHA moment! bet you thought i would never get to it ?
so I had been thinking, I had something to rest the top of my q snaps against I could stitch two handed.. and bingo I was sitting and looking at my living room yesterday (wanting to rearrange things) and noticed the frame sitting on the floor and thats when it hit me! I could take out the scroll frame completely and just put a rod from one upright to the other and could adjust the height to where I needed it by whichever holes I used on the uprights. Well let me tell you it is the best of both worlds, when I need to flip it over to the back I just turn it over,can stitch comfortably two handed and the top of the q snaps doesnt slide off the rod because the rods have the no sew stuff on them to attach fabric to the scroll rods. I am a happy camper :)

So I should just be zooming along now on all my projects! I only have about an hour to go on the current wip, which is Donna Vermillion Giampas Acorn Pillow. Should be able to get that in this evening after work. Then move on to my next one, always exciting-almost like starting a new project!

I need to move on with my monday/thursday project as well, not loving the one I am doing, found myself actually prefering to do some deep housecleaning instead of stitching yesterday!! what the heck is up with that?? and then when I did stitch on it was kind of lethargically stitching and looking for excuses to get up and do something else! Trust me that is not me , I am not a clean freak and would much rather sit on my butt and stitch the day away! so I decided to put that piece away for awhile and on monday I will start something new.
probably the july installment of the Sanman Originals SAL ( the unloved project was "over the river" also by SMO ) and I can go back to the other one some other time.

but now its off to work for the day, love my part time job but would rather stay home today and stitch!!

2005-04-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

My Moose is about 20 % done now after this round in my rotation! It is going to take some time but it will be worth it, as the design is starting to show now, with the trees and the mooses back end and legs nearly complete.
I actually got more done in this four day rotation than I had done in the six day rotation before! got figure!!
been also doing a lot of tidying and decluttering around the house, Jordan and Kassi arrive on wednesday evening so have h ad to step it up a bit. Have made quite a few trips down to Big Brothers and Big Sisters with boxs of donations.

I finished off Kassi's cow towel on saturday, I plan on putting some interfacing on the back of the design part and then maybe zig zag a border around the design on the front picking up one of the colours from the cow.
yesterday was DD SAL day, but I got very little done on my august dragon, considering working on this all week just to get it finished or nearly finished.

Havnt decided what to work on today for elf nite, maybe just my dragons!

2005-04-13T08:58:00.000-07:00

Been so busy stitching, I havnt blogged!! lets see since the end of March, i finished off my week on Marqoiur finsihed off the water babies sampler the first weekend of April. It turned out really cute just waiting now for bab to be born.

the week of april 4th to 8th I worked on Hideaway cottage, getting it to just over the halfway point. Finished off the Just Nan ornament on monday and started one from Bent Creek. Havnt 'finished' the JN one as I hav e not been able to find a tassle or cord that I would like to use on it. Probably will have to wait until the craft storess come out with their Christmas stuff in the fall.

couldnt decide what to start on the weekend so spent most of saturday morning watching curling and going thru patterns. finally decided on doing an Ellen Maurer Stroh design called 'Mom Cow' on aa white kitchen towel, got it all done except the bow around the cows neck. It is going to be for middle sons girlfriends birthday this summer.

Monday I decided I did not like the colours in the Bent Creek design and didnt really want to keep working on it. so I couldnt decide on what to stitch so didnt stitch anything! Yikes!! I am going to kit up a couple of ornies ready to go for next monday and also another couple of smalls ready for the weekend.

I am working this week on my Moose by Louise Gregoire, this thing is going to take FOREVER!! totally solid stitching which will be about 10" by 14 " (just a guess at the moment) on 18 count and lots of confetti type stitches and small blocks of colour. But it is beautiful.

2005-03-31T08:30:00.000-08:00

I decided on the Just Nan , Holiday in Ice ornament last monday and made a pretty good start on it. changed a couple of the Kreinik colours to use what i had. probably got about 1/3 done on it.

Tuesday back to my Marquoir Mystery Sampler, was working in part 4 when I ended last tiime. Got that finished off and am continuing to work on part 5.

Had to go up to Wal Mart and get some Anchor floss to use on my Water babies sampler as the DMC colours were all to dark at every place I went to. the Anchor seems like it will be ok. I'll try it out on saturday.

Off to Dianes today for stitch, Pat has to be at work at 3 pm so I need to find a ride home if i can or I will have to cut it short and get him to pick me up before work.

Going to start doing some wall washing and spring cleaning this afternoon, the house is a mess, well not untidy but getting a bit cluttered downstairs mostly ski stuff which I will have dh and ds clean up on the weekend.

2005-03-28T07:11:00.000-08:00

I did it i stitched an ornament last monday!! after working for 6 hours and then messing with the computer till about 6 pm I was finally able to sit down and stitch! I picked out a simple SB ornie from the 1999 ornie issue. I thought i would be able to get most of it done in the evening...... well got it all stitched up! On tuesday morning I sewed it up and made a twisted cord for it and finished it off completely!

So dragged out Maple Leaf Montage on tuesday and got started on it for its 4 day slot. didnt get much done on tuesday , just a small chunk. Wednesday not much more for some reason, no cadets this week so can' t even use that as an excuse. dh and I did go over to Diane W's for him to fix her stereo but that was only about an hour and a half. Beginning to doubt wherther i would get it done or not.

Thursday stitch was at DianneB's and I did get quite a bit done between there and home in the evening, starting to think I might get it done, if not friday certainly a couple of hours on the weekend would see it done.

Friday morning dh and ds off to Smithers for the last Biathlon race of the year. did some puttering around downtown, wanted to go to the library but it is closed until tuesday. rented a couple of movies and came home and stitched. I finished it right after supper!!! Boy it is a nice design, turned out so well. Worked on next weeks project for the rest of the evening.

Saturdaygot out the Waterbabies birth announcement to work on, also went digging around in the closet downstairs for some yarn to knit up a blanket for S and B's new baby, found a couple of likely candidates just need to choose one.. went out for Coffee with Wilma B and we each showed off our WIP and some recently finished things. Lots of curling on this weekend so got lots of stitching done watching the games.

Have run into a problem with one of the floss colours in the WB sampler, #959 which is used in the lettering along with 958 (greens) ran out , so I dug out the extra skein I had and lo and behold it is darker than the original and you can notice it quite easily...grrrr.... i hate when this happens! so what to do, unpick the bits I just stitched or what? Ended up stitching just the parts of the lettering with the darker green, and plan on hitting the couple of stores that carry DMC tomorrow and taking the new darker floss with me and seeing if someone has an old/new skein that is the lighter one. probably a long shot but had success once before with a situation like this.

plan on stitching on an ornie today, either a Just Nan design or another one that i have kitted up ready to go (cant remember which on that it is though)

2005-03-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to decide what to do with my rotation. have been wanting to tweak it recently but couldnt make up my mind what to do. Mostly I want to work on smaller things on a regular basis and cant seem to work them in.
So here is what I came up with: going to reduce WIP from 8 in rotation to 4 which means I will work on them once a month instead of once every two months. but the total days in each rotation will be reduced from 6 to 4. weekends I am leaving free to do finishing (sewing/framing) or small projects .

Now that I figured out how I wanted my rotation to look, how to get it there! so I went thru my wip list and picked the 4 projects that would take the least amount of time to finish. IE: PRairie West , did about 55% in the first round, another one I did 25 % etc sohere is the plan
week of Mar 14-18 PWsampler, which is now finished!
week of Mar 22-25 Maple Leaf Montage and so on.
I did start a weekend project, a baby birth sampler for Scott and Deb- estmated time to stitch 4-5 weekends.

I also decided that if a rotation wip is sooo close to being finished on a friday, I can finish it off on the weekend if I want to. so I guess in some ways it is a very structured rotation and in others it is sort of loosy goosy.

this past weekend, I finished putting the beads on PWS , and sunday was the Dragon Dreams SAL. On which I finished off the July gemstone dragon and got the head and wings done on the Aug dragon.
didnt get any done on the birth sampler! I might have to get this into my rotation sometime and get it finished off!

Now the other couple who was pregnant had their baby on this past saturday and it is a girl! so I think I might not do a birth sampler, just give them the kitty bib and maybe knit up a blanket!

I want to do an ornament today!!!!

2005-03-15T07:50:00.000-08:00

Still not feeling well on sunday, mostly layed around and rested did some stitching. I did run out for a minute up to WM to pickup some fabric to finish off the birth announcement pillow. Dh is leaving to go north tomorrow and I need to get it done.

Finished it off, and it looks great! found some fabric that is perfect match. and I trimmed it with some nice white lace.

Monday worked on finishing off the baby feet sampler which I did. then was planning to start an ornament but couldnt decide which one to start!!! so I didnt start any!

2005-03-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

Interesting week, got the baby feet sampler about half done on monday, should be able to get it finished off next week. started on my Moose on tuesday and got a fair amount done during the day. after supper dh and i went downt town to have a quick visit with BIL who was in town putting on a career fair. He is an instructor at a technical college in the lower mainland. While we were there I started feeling funny in my stomach....... by the time we got home i went to bed, sent dh for gravol about 11 pm it started. I won't go into all the gory details but suffice it to say I couldnt keep nothing down all night, had to resort to suppositories! yikes. by thursday I was feeling not bad and went to work at Wal-Mart for nearly 6 hours friday. Dumb, Dumb move I was wiped., feeling sick and crappy friday evening and today as well! I plan on taking it easy the rest of the day and even monday if I have to.

needless to say all I got done on my more moosie was on tuesday, really dont feel like stitching today either.

blecccchhh!

2005-03-06T19:40:00.000-08:00

another week gone and soon spring will be here! hooray! It will be nice to sit outside and stitch in the backyard again.

well as I said in my last post I would be working away on baby birth sampler last monday, but I messed it up pretty good. there is a border stitched all in white that sort of looks like lace. I did all one side and then realized when I got to the corner that I had miscounted right back at the beginning. Ugggh! so I ripped it all out and decided I could sew on a piece of ready made lace instead, it would also be much quicker!
With a the special spring that comes to my step when I am starting a new project I went and got the little kit I had gotten at Wal-Mart a while ago to start. we have some other friends who are expecting so want to have something ready.
this kit has little baby feet on it and you can stitch them in either blue or pink, I went with the blue. I will have to pick out something else to do in pink just in case.
Tuesday I started Prairie West Sampler, my third in the Jeannette Douglas across Canada Series. After looking frantically for my fabric, that I was sure I had all ready for it..... I went down to the Willow Basket and bought a piece of fabric. and of course while putting away the stuff I had pawed thru I found the piece I had planned on stitching iton!! figures! Decided to keep the piece anyways as it will work for two other samplers in the series.
All ready to start, I have the embellishement kit and everything... but wait the beads!! of course I was missing one regular and also a small Mill Hill Bugle bead as well. Back to the Willow Basket again! got the regular ones and had to order the bugle beads, also ordered the Mill Hill Treasures that I need for Autumn Queen at the same time.
Finally sat down to start, ended up getting just over half done by tonight, no real problems with any of the stitches, although the feathers were a challenge, they were sort of done freehand in satin stitch and It just seemed I couldnt get it right, but they look ok!

2005-02-28T09:06:00.000-08:00

another week gone and here we are at the end of february already. should be starting my work for a falls prevention project for the elderly this month. also am taking over the merchandising contract from the lady I have been working with for the last 6 months. she was finding it too much with her two little kids as the hours were haphazard sometimes long sometimes short.
stitching wise had a productive week, got quite a bit done on the baby birth sampler last monday. finished the inner border of flowers and vines and about half of the middle border which has little animals etc.
tuesday went back to work on my Marquoir sampler, finished off part one,part two and part three and just under half of part four. there are nine parts total and the colours I chose look great as the piece grows. I think this looks good in any of the colour schemes that I have seen though!

Since I missed the Dragon Dreams SAL last sunday I decided to work on my gemstones this sunday. (yesterday) finished off the Onyx dragon in the center after changing the numbers he is holding from 2001 to 2005. and I got the Ruby dragon about half done so a fairly productive day stitch wise.
continuing along on birth sampler today, baby is due in 2-3 weeks so must hustle along on it!
tomorrow I am starting Prairie West Sampler by Jeannette Douglas, can't wait!! this will be the fourth of her designs that I have stitched and am looking forward to an enjoyable journey on this one as well.

2005-02-21T08:58:00.000-08:00

Had a good weekend out in the bush, beautiful weather, not to cold and lots of sunshine! I am of course absolutely bagged out this evening.
the only bad part is no stitching for those couple of days and none today either!
I did make some good progress on Autumn queen, although I had to start a new skein of # 818 floss and even though I mixed old and new together there was a distinct straight line between the two !! ugggh! so I ripped out the section and tried to figure out what to do, the thought of taking out and redoing all the stuff in that colour was not an inspiring thought! I had two extra skeins of the 818 and checked the other one , it seemed perfectly matched to the one I had used to start the project, so I stitched a couple of rows this morning and it is fine! problem solved and I pitched out the lighter skein so I wouldnt mistakenly use it!
continuing work on my baby birth sampler today for sons friend, center is all done, need to work on the borders today.

2005-02-16T23:21:00.000-08:00

Woohoo , got a lot done on Maple Leaf Montage this past week. It is about 75% done now! One more round? maybe a bit more.. we'll see.
Finished off the Kitty Bib on Monday, turned out quite cute. Started on a birth sampler for a friend of my middle sons. She is apparantly having a girl, they say so the design I chose is in mauves. Got a start on it but not a great amount done. The design is from an English cross stitch magazine but not sure of the designers name.
I should probably do a boy one too just in case 'they' are wrong !

Started back on to autumn queen yesterday, will probably work on the edge of her cloak with the wisper thread this round. Never really done much with wisper so not sure what to expect. I did put a question on the needlework boards about using a hoop or q-snaps on those areas after they are stitched. Seems most people use the hoops or whatever and then brush up the wisper when the piece is done... sounds good to me.
I do have to go on a cadet excercise this weekend from friday afternoon till sunday afternoon and if know myself I will be to pooped to stitch on it when I get home on sunday so the poor project is only going to get about3 1/2 days instead of 6. The last round on her was the week of Christmas, so not much done then either! LOL

2005-02-13T09:27:00.000-08:00

Been down for a day and a half or so with the flu. yuccck! Started to feel weird thursday evening, but really knew what was going on when I got up early friday morning to take Pat down to his ride to Kelowna! Did not feel good at all, and I hate being sick! but gave inand hauled blankets and pillows out to the couch where I dozed and watched tv all day. felt better saturday moring but still not 100 % but by late afternoon I felt fine and yippee this morning I am fine!!

Stitching wise I got some of the maple leaf and white background done on wednesday, Thursday finished off the maple leaf and continued up the right hand side. Friday did not get a stitch in at all. Saturday I got all the white done up to where the word is at the top , so will continue on with that today and hopefully start the right hand side of the flag today as well.
Don't plan on doing much today in the way of going out or anything, so hope to get quite a bit done! tomorrow is elf day and I want to finish off the cat bib I have been working on and start a little birth sampler. Then on to Autumn Queen next week.

2005-02-09T08:02:00.000-08:00

A really good start for the week on Maple Leaf Montage, got a lot done on tuesday! Finished off the white area and lettering under the left edge of the maple leaf, stitched the maple leaf stem and the bottem right hand point on the leaf. went to work on the bottem right hand and lettering and am working my way up the right hand side including the right half of the maple leaf.

I ran out of white last night at about 10:30 or so and had to call it quits probably a good thing! dh was supposed to stop at LNS on way home from work but he forgot! so I will have to pop out this morning to pick some up.

Have cadets this evening but hope to get in a few hours on it today probably in small batches of time.

2005-02-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

Had a good weeks start on Hideaway Cottage, perhaps not getting as far along as I thought I would but still at about 22% done after the first session of working on it. I love how Marty Bells designs look, with all the subtle shadings of different colours, there is alot of colour changing to do but it is worth it.

Worked on my kitty cat bib today, finished off the middle cat with the fork and moved over to the orange one holding the spoon. Got him all done except the backstitching, thought I might get a little further on this than I did as I seemed to put in a lot more time this week, than I did last week ..... oh well! should finish it off next week.

On to Maple Leaf Montage tomorrow, hope to make some goood progress on this one this rotation as I know I didnt get a huge amount done on it last time.

2005-02-01T10:55:00.000-08:00

Finished my week on The Four Seasons sunday evening. It is about 25 % done now working over on the upper right hand corner next round. Might go a bit quicker as while doing the middle sections less border stitching to do. find the borders a bit persnickety to work on .

monday was elf stitching day, and could not decide on what to stitch *&^&%$ I hate that!! wanted to do something for some of the babies that are coming to friends this spring. I have a bib done, it is for a boy though so need to do somethings for girls and either as well. Lets see , 3 babies coming that I know of . I want to do a something big for S & D's baby as I am closer to them. Couldnt find the birth announcement design that I want to stitch for them, I did the chart about nine years ago and still have it and thought it would be good. Cant find it though. Went up to WalMart and got a white bib to stitch 3 kitties holding cutlery on. also got a little birth announcement kit with baby feet on, can do either pink or blue. and also found some little patterns for birth announcements in my stash.
After all that I could not decide what to stitch, started the 3 kitties on the bib but cannot stitch with the aida part attached to the bib so decided to undo the stitching and will restitch it after the x-stitching is done. I just could not get in the mood to stitch on it last night , I did get most of the middle kittie done though and I zig-zagged the edge of the aida this morning so it wouldnt fray away to nothing.

I might do a little bit more on it this morning before starting this weeks project which is a new start. Marty Bells Hideaway Cottage. This is the fourth in the series of small cottages I have stitched the other three already and they take about two to three weeks to stitch. So maybe will be done on the third round.

I just started my fourth trip through my rotation and although I will have two new starts this time, I dont think I will have any finishes. The closest to being finished is Maple Leaf Montage, and it is slightly under halfway done. so not likely to finish it. Unless I finish Prairie West Samplerr in one rotation round. ??? we'll see!

2005-01-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

Making great progress on The Four Seasons this week, just about finished the spring section but am actually working into the summer section. sort of working from left to right thru the motifs on the top and then will go back into spring again and work the next row of motifs. working on a huge orangeish flower in the upper right hand border today and when I finish that I am going down to just below border to stitch 3 ladybugs!
getting a cold today, yuccckkkk! so am downing Vitamin C like crazy to stave it off or at least minimize the symptoms.
Youngest son finished 8th (jr men) at Cananadian National Biathlon Championships in the spring competition Yeahhh for him! another race on saturday to come and a team event on sunday!

2005-01-24T22:38:00.000-08:00

AArgh!! did not get my Onyx dragon done! hardly got anything done on it actually...... but I did have a good elfie stitching day on the following monday ( the 17th ) i finished off the little train ornie that I had started the week before. and I mean finished, I cross stitched the front and back together and then fringed about a quarter inch or so. Turned out cute.
Started a new project on tuesday its called Toy Wreath and is a design that was in a 1994 Christmas Cross stitch magazine. I am doing it on Linaida which is linen woven into an aida fabric. very pretty and easy to work on.
weather very warm and wet here, unusual for this time of year, the roads were actually skateable on tues and wednesday. No cadets wed evening so more stitching time.
Got about 20 % done on the project of the week by sunday evening. Its going to be cute when its done.

2005-01-16T08:57:00.000-08:00

My moose has a rump, well most of a rump anyways! I finished off the upper left section of the chart and have moved onto the lower left section of chart which is just a little bit smaller than the upper.
Decided to work on the mooses rump on thursday working from the more central area over to the edge of the chart.
Alas though I only got a bit done on him on friday as we were busy setting up and getting ready for plan B for the cadet Biathlon race because the weather was only going to warm up to be -27 on race day. no stitching at all on saturday, doing the indoor race all day and just to pooped to do more than get a bath and go to bed. The heat in the building we were in was out so the out of town cadets were sent home at 6 instead of staying over again. but the heat is on again and all is well. so am looking forward to not having to go out today if I dont want to!
and it is only -20c this morning woohoo! a heat wave, but it is snowing!
so my moosie is put away for another few weeks while I move onto other projects, today is my Dragon Dreams stitch along day and I will be working on my Gemstone Dragon sampler, which has 13 dragons, one for each month and a 13th one. I am on the middle (7th) which is the Onyx dragon ( the extra one) after doing Jan thru June in rows of 3, 2 and now 3 again. the onyx dragon is about one third done and I hope to get him finished today and move onto July. I am using this as my project to work on when I finish a piece in the middle of a rotation time period. I would like to hurry it up and get it finished is what it boils down to really.

2005-01-13T08:39:00.000-08:00

well after doing some more on the little friendship sampler I had started the previous monday, I did not like how it was looking.... so I quit working on it and started some ornaments for next year.

i made a list of who I would like to give ornies to and have started a little train engine for a lady who works at hubbys business, she lost her husband almost two years ago and he was a huge model train fanatic. The design is from a Leisure Arts book called 250 christmas quickies and the plan is to work thru what I like from there and then move on to other designs.

Back to working on my moose again this week, should finish off the section of chart (today)that I have working from then I plan to move from the upper left and do the lower left next. I think each section of chart is approx just under a quarter of the total but should check it out. I might even just move onto the mooses rump which is in that upcoming section.

stitch is here at my house today, and it is a bitter minus 34c as of 20 minutes ago.

tomorrow work , paying the vet and then getting this Biathlon race started, and then the race on saturday will limit my stitching on this project after today, but small progress is better than no progress!

2005-01-10T08:05:00.000-08:00

Monday again so soon! Its been a hard few days adjusting to the dog being gone. I didnt realize how much company he was for me when I was home alone. I talked to him quite a bit! and at least he looked at me and sometimes even wagged his tail but the cat doesnt even acknowledge you are around. Unless of course you have an available lap to sit on.

Stitch wise it has been good, keeps the mind busy I guess. anyways finished off the Threes a Crowd birds on saturday evening while watching "A Touch of Frost" turned out really cute and looks good on the pale green fabric, maybe another entry for the Silkweavers contest this year. So in keeping with my latest plan of working on my Dragon Dreams stitcha long piece when I finish a project before its slot is over. I worked on that for sunday. although i was out of the house all day, I was able to get some work done on it in the evening.

Had a bit of backstitching to finish up on the June dragon, and then started the 13th 'Onyx' dragon. I put him in the middle because he is holding the numerals for the year and not a gemstone as the others are doing. I just have to change the year from 2001 to 2005. Got about a third or so done and the monthly SAL date is coming up this sunday so maybe I can get him finished and move onto July.

Today I will be working on my Sampler with the elfies probably wont get it done but hope to passs the halfway mark on it. and maybe get some pllanning done for what I want to get done on mondays over the next while.

2005-01-07T13:29:00.000-08:00

First stitch and B****h day of the New Year on thursday at Shirleys , planned to get a lot stitched on my little birdies. but alas our beloved dog Rocky who was 15 yo and had been going downhill since Christmas took a turn for the worse and byThursday morning I knew it was time. So my youngest son and I took him to the vets and had him peacefully put to sleep. Was a very sad day for us and I couldnt get it together to go to stitch. but I talked to the girls and they wanted me to come up even just for a coffee. I did and DS went to the Gym for a while , I guess it helps to keep busy and have the mind occupied on other things.
I got a little bit done on the birds at Shirleys and some at home in the evening and plan to sit down and watch a movie this afternoon and do some more then. I might get them finished in one trip thru my rotation, then I would get to start something new again next round- Smile!

2005-01-05T08:56:00.000-08:00

All that thinking I was doing, Yikes! I tweaked my rotation **yet again! ** but now am back to the way it was before all this thinking happended! I guess , "If it aint broke, dont fix it" applies here!

I finished the Jeannette Douglas piece on Dec 30 ,04 and went work on the blackwork snowflake ornie that I had been having so much trouble with on mondays. Managed to finish it off the same day, with only a minor glitch that didnt show up till I was doing the border so I just left it . Hardly noticable really unless you know it is there. After I finished that piece, I went to work on a pre-finished bib that I had started previously during a mid-rotation finish. It is really a cute little denim bib with red trim that I stitched a bulldozer pushing peas and a truck carrying a carrot! have a couple of friends that are expecting this year so hopefully one will have a boy! I finished that off on Jan 03/05 and started on Marquoir story sampler. finally picked some colours that I like, DMC 3808 (dark) 3810 (med) and 3811 (light) and a piece of nice white 32 count linen. Worked on it all day sunday like a crazy person and almost finished part one! but it looks real nice!

On monday I started a little friendship sampler for my friend Diane for next Christmas, how organized Is this I ask? anyways doing it on white aida and using a DMC varigated Rose colour but dividing it into a dark thread and a light thread for the two different colours. I didnt get to much done as my right thumb was quite sore, gee from stitching like a maniac the day before, ya think? anyways made some progress and decided there are some changes I will make in the design as I go.

So tuesday I decided to go back to original 8 slot rotation and just move the Marquoir sampler slot, which was empty anyways because I had just finished the JD sampler.

So started the Threes a Crowd design by Valerie Pfeiffer, it is three little birds sitting on a branch with two of them squawking at each other over the head of a very annoyed looking bird in the middle.

It is not a big piece and I nearly got the middle one done last night, just his feet and a bit on his head to do today.
and I decided to work on my Gemstone Dragons as usual on the 3rd sunday of the month and also it can be my mid-rotation finish project to work on for awhile as well.

2004-12-30T07:54:00.000-08:00

well look at this, 10 day s since i was last here! sad state of affairs! I blame christmas :lol

the week of the 21-26 was the week for Autumn Queen turn, got some done, maybe double the small bit I had done the first round. but some progress was made watching some movies etc.

the ornie I have been working on for elfie night is somewhat of a pain in the patootie!!! I keep making mistakes and having to rip out,this past monday I just threw it down on the couch in disgust vowing to never pick it up again!! It is still sitting on the coffee table mocking me! and now I am thinking maybe I will do something else next week and then go back to it! man am I nuts or what?

This weeks project is Time to Stitch by Jeannette Douglas, it is a small sampler that had its border almost stitched last time and even with the new years holiday weekend coming up I should be able to finish it!

We got ourselves a printer after Christmas so I have spent time printing out saved charts and looking for new ones on the internet! Of course doing that opens a whole new can of 'I want to start this , and start it right away!' so I have been thinking how to incorporate maybe a project just for sundays, barring the one set aside for the DD SAL (that I would love to be finished)

Maybe I should do my Gemstones when I finish something mid rotation ( just until it is done) and then start something else for those days.
I am thinking of paring my rotation down by one slot to 7, if I go to the sunday project though, but still cant quite decide what to do?
need to sit and think somemore I guess!

2004-12-20T08:48:00.000-08:00

Wenesday wasnt much better for stitching time either, Thursday got a fair amount done, mostly working on the center maple leaf and the white on the left side of it.
Between friday and saturday only a bit more done on it. but I sort of knew this would happen to the pieces up in the rotation during the weeks surrounding Christmas.
Sunday was supposed to be the DD SAL but not one stitch was put in, a surprise birthday party for me and then out to dinner and decorating the tree took care of every available hour in the day.

2004-12-15T23:13:00.000-08:00

Sunday, finished of the 'Follow your dreams ' thing for Pat and started doing a baby bib.
It is done on a denim colour bib and has a bulldozer pushing peas and a dump truck with a huge carrot on it. didnt get quite half way on it.
Monday is elfie day, I stitched a design from a book called' Celebration of stitching' the design is a backstitched polar bear with bargello northern lights in greens, purples,. quite cute. started a blackwork snowflake free design. I am doing it on mauve linen with an overdyed greyish greenish floss.

went back to work , technically on tuesday to Maple Leaf Montage, but didnt get any stitching done at all! sigh, I hate days lke that!

2004-12-12T08:27:00.000-08:00

snowed all day friday, roads were miserable!! did all my work that I had to do and went gift wrapping from 3;30 to 6;30 pm only myself and the supervisor on and we were busy , busy , busy! Dan home late.
I finished off Climbing Rose Cottage, but did run out of the thread for the satin stitch hearts.picked up some on saturday and finished it off. meanwhile started workin gon Follow Your Dreams a little freebie design that I plan on giving Pat for Christmas.

went gift wrapping saturday morning for three hours again , four of us wrapping so not so bad as friday night!

Had our Christmas party saturday night, so no stitching done then!

2004-12-10T07:28:00.000-08:00

Tuesday came and went with me out looking a t some of the specialty bedding shops for a pillow, found several but the prices start at about $90.00 and up..... Yikes! Don't know what to do, but still waking up with neck and upper back pain and I cant really tell if my pillow is to high or low ** sigh**

working on Climbing Rose Cottage this week. a fairly small design that I should get finished and have some time to stitch a couple of small items.
we went down to sharons for stitch on thursday and managed to get a lot done on CRC , probably will finish it off friday even though I have to do the order at the $ store, put some signs on a display at wal-mart and then do the gillette thing at costco.
also gift wrapping athe mall at 3:30 till 5:30

ds Pat is off to Canmore today for some Biathlon racing, just got back from driving him and gf down to his coachs so they could get going at 7am. snowing out!!!

2004-12-06T19:23:00.000-08:00

Baking done!! after feeling like superwoman I discovered I had screwed up the base mix for the Nanaimo bars (turned out way dry, but edible) and also the shortbread which I had to start over! Superwoman fell to earth with a thud, let me tell you!
Presents and baking , all wrapped and on their way to Grande Prairie with dh this morning.

Advent calendar was put up on the wall today as well, I decided to go with glued on velcro spots to attach the snowflakes under the days. but it looks real nice!

well it is elfie day for me today, but I did not raise a needle to stitch all day or evening. finished off a good book and rested my sore left thumb.I need, need , need to find a new pillow!!!!!!!!!!!!

2004-12-05T10:26:00.000-08:00

not getting to much done on my cross stitch project these last few days. Have been working on getting my advent calendar sewn up and on the wall- Up and looking great as of last night! Had to do some shopping yesterday to get middle sons presents so they can get taken up to him by DH this week. Got all of them wrapped last night and still had to knit up a scarf for his girlfriend on my bond. last night I didnt think I would get the two other scarves for two of his friends done as I couldnt find the pattern I had used and also couldnt remember what key plate I had used before (*(&&^&$$#

anyways up at 7:45 this morning to get some baking done ( cause son can't spend his first christmas away from home without some of his favorite treats! ) and knit up one scarf! well by 10:00 I had done about 3 doz each butter and mincemeat tarts and made a start on shortbread and Nanaimo bars (waiting for butter to soften up a bit more) and I had knit up the three scarves for Jordans girlfriend and two other of his friends. I feel like superwoman right now, hopefully the rest of the day goes as well.
there is a curling game on at noon and I plan to get some stitching in then after sewing up the three scarves.

2004-12-02T21:28:00.000-08:00

Back to work on The four seasons by Marjolein Bastin again this week, this will be its second round in my rotation.
went off to fabricland yesterday morning and found some nice red with gold snowflakes fabric and some double sided interfacing stuff that should work for some body in the hanging.
also got a really cute snowman panel that you sew up into a stuffed snowman about 14 inches high, too cute!
was busy doing other things and didnt get any stitches into my prooject on wednesday :(
started a very good book yesterday and it kept me reading until almost 2 am and i woke up tired at 7;30! but stitch was here today so didnt have to really do much. Just Diane and Shirley today and the Rosemarie dropped in for a coffee in the afternoon.
Darned frogs came visiting as well, it seemed like for every three stitches I did I had to undo two! you know like the three steps forward two back saying?

pretty tired tonight even though i had a short nap on the couch after the girls left, I may stay awake thru ER or I may just tape it and go to bed!

2004-11-30T21:24:00.000-08:00

I finished it !! managed to get everything done except a bit of the wording 'Merry Christmas' done yesterday. Worked on it today to finish and in spite of a visit from the frog's and nearly running out of floss I managed to get it all stitched.
went up to wal mart to find some fabric for the backing and edging and also something to stiffen it a bit.
once upon a time there was quite a bit of fabric up there but it is nearly all gone and could not find what i wanted.

Did get a bit of christmas shopping done though! Yaaaaaahhh!

2004-11-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

Plodding along on my Advent Calendar the past few days, isnt that a horrible way to put it? LOL I have been making reasonable progress. Went down to Staples and enlarged the tree sections of the charts and that has helped a great deal!
I am working this project on 25 count with 3 threads and I always thought that it was less bulky on the back to carry threads a bit instead of starting and stopping. well I was wrong, wrong, wrong! I did it that way on the first small tree and then tried starting and stopping , weaving in the ends on the second tree. and it is definately less bulky, surprise, surprise!

I am down to about the bottem third of the second tree and then there are a couple of blotches of snow on the ground to stitch, and then the border and day numbers. I am trying to decide whether to continue on with this and finish it off or leave it. At the moment I am leaning toward continuing on at least till monday. It will be my elf day project, which is sort of ironic as that is what it started out as. so I will see how much is done at the end of the day tomorrow.
by the time I get the finishing done on it , it will be maybe a few days into Dec but that is ok, I can just move the snowflake markers for those days when I get it up.

Met up with my stitching friend Wilma yesterday and we also met up with a lady who Wilma met on the Canadian Stitchers on the Yahoo website. Turns out Debbie and I have many friends in common, one of those small world things!

well yakking away here doesnt get my trees stitched so off I go to throw a load of clothes into the dryer and upstairs to continue on for a bit.

2004-11-26T11:28:00.000-08:00

A snowy day today! Its been alternately snowing and then warming up and melting for the last few days here, making the roads fairly slipppery. Good days to stay in and stitch !
Work is progressing on my calender just a bit left to do on snowman and have made a start on the trees. I am going out to make an elargement of the tree part of the chart as with all the different colours it is a bit difficult to work on .
I really don't think I am going to get it finished by sunday evening I guess I will have to decide sunday evening whether to continue or not. depends on where I have gotten to .

I would like to get it up for this year, I wish I had thought about this before hand, ** sigh**

welll this is short today so I am off to staples to enlarge my trees.

2004-11-23T07:51:00.000-08:00

Its Tuesday again, another week gone by. I worked away on my moose last week but did have a couple of days where I basically got only a few stitches in on it. On sunday it was supposed to be my Dragon Dreams stitch a long day but I decided I needed to get in a few more stitches on moosie and also work on my cow. dh is heading up to sons city in about 10 days and I need to get it finished framed and wrapped to go with him as ds is not able to come home for Christmas this year.
skipping ahead to yesterday, I finished off my cow last night so that is one more thing out of the way and I still have time to stitch one or two ornies for the tree.
As I said earlier I was a little dissapointed in my progress on my moose last week , I probably ended up at about the 10 % done mark, which is ok, I just thought I would get a little further along.

This week I am working on my Advent Calender, I am thinking about just finishing this off for Christmas and then going back to my rotation. We'll see how much I have left to do at the end of the week.

Pat is off to vanouver today for his interview with the military, he will be home again tomorrow. and Dan is away as well so maybe I will have a couple of extra hours to put in on my stitching this week :)

2004-11-16T21:21:00.000-08:00

Good Stitching day on Monday! Got quite a bit done on my Cow-a-Saki cow for ds , it is about half done now. another monday or two and I should be able to finish it off and get framed. I may have to work on it during the week as I need to send it up to him the next time dh heads up that way before Xmas. I am lucky I got anything done on it at all because I finally got Janet Evanovichs 'Ten Big Ones' from my library ........ It was all I could do fo put it down to stitch! but I did finish the book off reading in bed LOL

Got some done on my rotation project Moose by Louise Gregoire. It is a very beautiful picture of two moose in a wooded area, with lots of birch trees etc. the whole thing is solid stitching so it will take a while. I did about a day and a half on it last round so it will be interesting to see how much I will be able to do in the full five days.
I havnt decided who will get this when it is finished, lots of time I guess as it will probably take 6 rounds ? just guessing really.

was out to a candle party this evening so will be doing some stitching while watching a couple of shows that i taped, namely 'Mad about You' (love that show) and NCIS, also a couple of half hour decorating shows but may not get to them all tonight.
Then off to beddy by!

2004-11-15T08:09:00.000-08:00

well after my negative thoughts regarding last weeks project 'Brollies' I did get it finished Sunday evening! I indeed didnt get anything done on it on thursday and not much on friday either. Mostly due to the way I felt after thursdays festitvies.
Got a bit more done saturday in bits and bobs of time.
Sunday I did not leave the house and managed to get some good streteches of stitching in, although I figured by then that I would get it done. Only two rounds of my rotation to finish it , but then it is not very big either.

so now I have done some tweaking to my rotation, becuase I wanted a way to fit in the small projects that only take a few hours to stitch. so this past weeks slot was for 'Scenic' and since I didnt really have many charts in that binder I decided to use my imagination to file them into other categories and use this slot for small/misc projects and just work on as many or as few as I can do in the next round.
I plan on trying it this way to see how it goes or i may change it if I get a useful tip from someone on another method.

tomorrow I will be back working on my Moose picture, I only got a small bit done on this in the last round as I only started it on the last day of a round.

Today is for working on Jordans motorcycle cow!

2004-11-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

Yikes I havnt posted in almost a week! where does the time go I wonder? Let's see on friday I worked for a couple hours in the morning and had to be at the legion for poppy distribution from 4:30 till 9:00, then went for a quick beer with another officer whom I owed one to. I did manage to get a bit of stitching done in the afternoon and then after I got home in the evening.
at that point I still wondered whether I would be able to finish this project on sunday.
Saturday I went out to nearly all the craft sales with Rosemarie and only stitched for several hours in the evening, also realized I only had one strand left of # 898 and didnt have another skein in my stash. No problem I thought as I can get one at Lewiscraft on sunday.

We had snow overnight saturday which always looks nice, but isnt necessarily nice to drive or walk around in!
Sunday I worked on all the cross stitching and decided to leave all the backstitching till I got the new skein of 898. I was thinking I would probably get it finished today afterall!
I had to be at the cadet corps from 12 till 2 for some uniform fittings. Only one person showed up, Oh well. Lewiscraft was out of #898 and the other store that carries DMC was closed, there was no way I was not finishing this thing today!!!! I looked up the Anchor cross and went up to walmart and got a skein of anchor 360 which when I laid the one strand I had left of 898 over it you couldnt tell the difference. To make a long story longer I finished it Just after supper!
I started this project in april 2002 and it shouldnt have taken this long to finish but at least it is done now.
I started the next project in my sampler slot Jeannette Douglas's 'Time to Stitch' which is a fairly small project and uses silks and overdyed in cross and specialty stitches. I got about 2/3 of the outline blocks done before it got packed away for its next round.
Monday I finished off Kassies cow,for Jordans girlfriend. It turned out really cute and I got one started for Jordan as well. so had a fairly productive day.

Tuesday was a busy day out of the house, work, no sleep and taking Linda out to an eye appointment in the morning and then groceries kept me out of the house and busy on other things till evening.
my proiject this week is Brollies by Heritage stitch craft. It is a tone on tone scene of people withumbrellas ina rainwashed street.
done all in blues with some grays and yellows it is quite striking. Not a big project I have worked on it once already in my rotation and got it about 45 % done. I would like to also finish it this round, but with not much stitching yesterday , today work all morning and then cadets this evening.Thursday due to Remembrance day festivities I will unlikely get any stitching done and also oldest son Andrew is coming home for a few days as well.
So future for finishing this project this rotation does not look good **sigh**

so now I am up to date in my blogs, maybe I should go up and put in few stitches before going to work!

2004-11-04T19:07:00.000-08:00

Ribbit, Ribbit, Ribbit
I had a visit from the frog today

I found that I had a group of flowers one stitch to far to the right and it threw my count out because this area is right at a corner. well I managed to fudge it and it looks ok and I dont think anyone will notice unless they hold up the original picture from the magazine and go over each area with a magnifying glass.

I feel like I havnt made much progress today because of all the frogging, counting and recounting!!! but there are a couple of good shows on TV tonight that I will watch and stitch while watching. hopefully keeping the little froggies at bay. LOL

looking forward to finishing this project.

2004-11-03T07:49:00.000-08:00

Okay so its been awhile, yikes a couple of months actually. always felt I never had anything to say but decided awh what the heck sometimes its good to get your thought s down on paper or computer !

I went back to rotating projects again in late august. I have 8 slots Floral (fruit) ; Houses; Misc. (still life etc, maps) People (incl angels etc) Samplers; Scenery; Animals (birds) and Christmas. I am still doing elfie stitching on mondays and working on a monthly DD stitch a long. It is a weekly rotation where I stitch on a project from tuesday till sunday.mondays being my elfie day. once a month whatever project is up when the DD SAL comes up loses one day.
am on my second trip thru and so far have finished off these items, Pears Pillow, Mini Spanish Cottages, Bay Colt and Reluctant Scholar.

the current projects are as follows

Fruit slot- The Four Seasons by Marjolein Bastin
Houses - Climbing Rose Cottage by Elizabeths designs
misc. -Maple Leaf Montage by Lynne Nicoletti
People- Autumn Queen by Mirabilia
Samplers- Gathering Honey by CS & CC mag.
Scenery - Brollies by Heritage Stitchcraft
Animals- Moose by Louise Gregoire
Christmas- Advent Calendar by Pam Kellogg

Elfie project is some cows by Stoney Creek.

This week it is Gathering Honeys turn, when I started this quite awhile ago I was doing a 10 hr rotation and after a few turns through I quit working on a rotation and went to one at a time. I managed to finishe off most of my former rotation projects this way and started and finished several others but not Gathering Honey. I found I could not bring myself to work on it and after a couple of hours would put it away. Then I started stitching on it once a week with a UFO group but even then I found I would pick it up later in the evening and put it down earlier than any other project.

Well since putting it in this new rotation I am nearly done it! the first round thru I got it up to about 75 % done and am hoping against hope to finish it off this round. the area I am working on it right now is some flowers down in the corner, so lots of colour changes and backstitching, this thing is filled with backstitching. made some decent progress yesterday hope to get some done today even with cadets tonight.

have to go out to there airport this morning to see off a friend who is going home after coming out for a funeral of an old friend of hers. but that is only an hour or so.

2004-08-06T13:03:00.001-07:00

yak, yak , yak, well I am trying this graph thing I found on another site, so I can put the name of a project and then a bar graph underneath to show how much I have done on it. but I am so sadly illiterate when It comes to this sort of thing!

Ok so if this works, but I want it on the side like it showed on the other website, waaaaaaaH!

2004-07-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

after filling holes in the walls for and hour and a half or so, came home and sewed the borders to Heirloom anniversary sampler. wasnt too hot out today so was able to function and get some stuff done in the house, including making dog food. which the dog is appreciative of :) worked on my Pam kellogg advent calender , got the hat backstitched and his head finished and features backstitched.
worked on his scarf in the evening while wathcinga movie, and of course I goofed up and had to rip out about 2 hours work. Gad but thats frustrating!!! and now I aam doubly paranoid about ripping stuff out incase I rip the fabric again.

Dan and I watched a movie called 'touching the void' about two climbers who had an accident on a mountain in Peru. It is a true story, I saw the guy who had broke his leg and then been cut loose and crawled out of a crevasse and down the mountain on Oprah a while ago! an amazing story!!!

It seems like it will be a nice sunny day today,(tuesday) so I plan on stitching outside in the yard this afternoon, on my pears.
this evening down to the cadet hall to sand and maybe prime the walls. hope it is not to hot in there.

listed some items this morning on ebay and really must get some more up in the next day or so , hopefully I will get a couple that take off in the bidding and make a few dollars. mostly cross stitch but need to list some of my knitting books as well. I should try maybe listing some of my knitted hats maybe.? hmmmmmmmm!

2004-07-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

Monday, Monday!

Here it is monday already, which means for me it's snowman day! I hope I can finish off my snowmans head and maybe abit of his chubby little body and then I can share a scan of him with the girls on the Pam Kellogg board.

I made some decent progress on my pears over the weekend, got the row of various bunches of pears down the left side done , but then noticed as I was starting to work my way back up the next row of pears, that I had goofed up on the very bottem corner where there is some leaves.

Sooooo had to frog that out and the other bunches of leaves I had started as well, because I had counted out from the ones that turned out to be wrong. Argghhhh! also I accidently snipped one of the fabric threads when frogging. I have restitched the cut thread area and it looks ok and stable, have also done a bit more of the leaves in the corner but have not caught up to where I was *** sigh*** I hate frogging!

was not able to stitch much in the evening on sunday as we had an officers meeting for the upcoming training year at the Cadet Unit dh and I both volunteer at. It seems like it might be a nice day out again today,although i am going down to fill holes in the walls at the cadet hall so I may be ready to run screaming into my pool if it gets really, really hot out.

I need to get Heirloom anniversary sewn up this week as Kim and Daves anniversary party is this coming weekend. party, party, party! should try and do it early in the morning when it is still cool out and I am not groggy with the heat LOL

2004-07-21T23:27:00.000-07:00

been busy since monday getting a lot of stitching done, the house decluttering has not been going at all though.
after getting a fair whack done on my SAL project on sunday I spent most of monday working on my snowman advent calendar. got his hat done and part of his face. watched some of season two of one foot in the grave (season two) and listened to these high green hills on tape. Dan is up north this week and Pat was working at coast mountain from 10 till 2. went down to pick him up and while I was waiting for him they asked him to work until 3:30 Aackkk! Had to go home and and then go all the way back down.
also had coffee with Rosemarie today and showed off my Heirloom Anniversary sampler, even though the border wasnt finished. she thinks it is very nice!
On tuesday Pat started his job at Princess Auto, I let him take the van and I just stayed home and stitched. Got the border fiiinshed in the afternoon and then went out to pick out some fabric for lining, and backing. found some dark brown for the lining and a small print floral with mauves, roses and gold that looks great with the sampler. Put all the beads on the border and the teardrop bead on in the evening.
also went up to visit Ralene in the hospital this afternoon on my fabric expedition, she was home for the weekend but ended back up in there on monday evening, they still do not know what is wrong with her, headace and fever.

tried to decide in the morning if I would pull out my pears pillow or start something new as my next main project. left it to simmer in the old brain while I went to see Dr. about my knee. he says nothing in there like a chip or a break or anything probably just damage to the tissue that will take some time to heal and not to kneel on it!!
had coffee with Lindalou while waiting for Pat to finish work and then went home and pulled out Pears Pillow and stitched happily away on that this evening.
Been watching the 'From the Earth to the Moon' series this week two episodes a night. very good! enjoying it a lot.
my friend Diane is off to Edmonton on thursday mornging to see her new Grandaughter born today! we will miss her at stitch n' bitch int he park tomorrow.

weather has been not great, some clouds and a bit of rain,cooler temps. should warm up to about 26 or so tomorrow and continue this warming till at least the weekend.

2004-07-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

Had a productive weekend, stitching wise! not so sure about anything else. Pat went camping saturday evening to Fort St. John with Rejeannas family, Dan spent most of saturday down at the shop getting ready for his north trip this week.I stayed home and did some stitching and sitting in the pool in the afternoon when it got hot out. Got all the Hardanger stitching done on Heirloom anniversary sampler, got the bellpull hardware today as well, just got some wooden ones.
Now I just need to find some fabric for lining and backing but will wait till next week to go looking.
Sunday Dan and Fred went fishing and didnt get back until about 8pm, they got some nice fish, mmmmmmmm! Pat also got home about the same time, he won a pair of winter mittens in the family fishing derby but he didnt even fish! go figure!!
I had a lovely day, went out for breakfast with Diane, up to the Bon Voyage we had a nice time sitting and drinking coffee and yakking for a while. ran into Fran who taught the two older boys grade two way back in the eighties. I run into Fran everynow and then and have a good chat with her, as we did yesterday. She is off to Germany for three weeks in a few days and has no plans to retire anytime soon Good News for the students coming to her classes!

Did my one hour on HAS yesterday and have finished all the beads in the hardanger part, reworked the ribbon rose in the center which I was not happy with. also got about 1/4 of the way around on the border, which works quite quickly.
Also finally finished the april dragon on my DD SAL project and got about half way thru the May Emerald dragon. He looks like he is off centered from the two above him but I hope it is just because his tail curves over closely to the March dragon, the rest of him is centered perfectly. So they will be put away now until the third week of August when I hop to finish April and make a great start on June. Might be on vacation, so will either have a great day stitching on them or a day where I hardly accomplish anything.

While I was stitching yesterday I listened to my current book on tape 'These High Green Hills' by Jan Karon listened to discs 4 -6 and part of seven. Also watched one episode of the second season of 'Six Feet Under' and the first two episodes of 'Sex and the City' season five! I feel like I accomplished a bunch yesterday I even did some laundry and washed the rug in the entry way.
monday is elf night/day and I will work on my Advent Calendar and also put in an hour on HAS as well.
weather still hot here, I think there was a thunder storm in the night as well. Hope no more fires have started up anywhere after a couple of weeks of wet cool weather we seem to be back into the hot dry stuff. nice for us but not for the forests.

2004-07-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

Here it is July already and I havnt blogged for months, not sure why just havnt.
after some rainy days last week it is sunny and fairly hot again, good for sitting in the backyard stitching or even in the pool reading. i dont have little kiddies anymore but I do have a kiddie pool in the backyard :) very refreshing.

Been busy stitching as usual, went up to visit son in Grande Prairie the beginning of July and had a great time, not much stitching but lots of eating (and dare I say it beer drinking) and going here and there. Also had S.E.X.
on a small scale, getting only one kit, a couple of charts and some fabric. for those not in the stitching lingo loop
SEX stands for Stash Enhancement eXcursion, aka shopping!!!
In laws were up last weekend, hubby and I took his parents here and there, they always stay in their motor home in our driveway when they are up so gives us all a break from each other when we need it. we went to the railway and forestry museum, Dans dad climbed up onto an old tractor and they got to watch an old steam crane work and Dan even got to Blow the whistle! also went up to the University to see any changes as it has been a while since we took them up there. the new medical school buildings are well under construction and we got a small tour before the older folks pooped out. but we did go back the next morning for MIL to get a mug at the bookstore on campus and we went up and visited the library as well.
they left tuesday morning to head home, and arrived safely the next afternoon.

Stitch wise , I have been working on Heirloom Anniversary Sampler for hubbys long time business partners 25th Anniversary coming up at the beginning of august. I am just doing the bottem part right now, it is all hardanger and then just the border to do and sew it into a bellpull for them. It is a beatiful sampler and I am enjoying working on it immensely although cutting for the hardanger is always most stressful!!!!! but no cutting errors to report.
Also started on Pam Kelloggs Christmas Advent Calender as my weekely elf project, just started it on 12th of July so only a small amount done.
well I should mosey off and get dressed now and get something else accomplished around here today.

2004-04-26T08:21:00.001-07:00

didnt get much done on nb last week at all, went away wed evening to kamloops and came back on friday. I usuall stitch in the van in daylight when I am not driving. but just couldnt keep my eyes open most of the time both on the way down and back.

today is elfie day again and i must try to finish my ornie that i started a few weeks ago. but have a lot of laundry, vacuuming etc. plus need to go out and pay a few bills etc. so I need to make sure I set aside some time to stitch.
dh and i's income tax refunds came in Whooooohooooo! hence the bill paying , but it will feel good to pay off a couple of small loans I have. and my selling on e-bay is going pretty well and I have made a few dollars which always helps out a familes finances , even if it just frees up cash for stash!

so as soon as i finish my coffee i am off to start the day and a sunny one it is.

2004-04-26T08:21:00.000-07:00

2004-04-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

well here it is tuesday already , had two very slow stitching days... sunday was the Dragon Dreams SAL where I am working on the gemstone dragons . I am doing them on one piece of fabric and have done Jan, Feb and had March half done. well he is not much more done now *sigh* and then yesterday I should have been able to finish off my CWC ornie but it is just over half done as well. and the annoying thing is I didnt get much else accomplished when I wasnt stitching!

maybe today i can get some progress in on my bear on natures beauties.

2004-04-17T09:23:00.000-07:00

its been day since i blogged! been busy with selling off some of my knitting stash on e-bay since I can no longer hand knit, it seemed like a good idea, but what with scanning stuff, listing and then contacting people when items close it takes some time. but it is fun and I have made some money over the last few days, which is always handy especially since I have had all those major repairs to my van over the winter.

been working away at natures beauties, on the fourth to last animal the bear, he is huge! and all full crosses like the panther only BIGGER! the ptarmigan that I started on sunday is finished as is the bunny (small and the egret) which is quite big but all half stitching and some open spaces. I cant finish the backstitchingon egret till I fill in some of the bear which is behind him.

monday worked on my ornie with my elfie friends I am working on a crossed wing collection ornie on 28 count over one, two days of work on it and it is only half done.

thursday spent the day with Diane and Shirley stitching away, got quite a lot done on the egret that day and on thursday evening worked on gathering Honey ,my official UFO for several hours and managed to get some areas finished off which gave me a nice fuzzy glow.

woke up to a light wet snowfall on the ground here, well it is only early spring! planning on working on my bear today, inbetween library, grocery shopping and maybe a bit of laundry as well.

2004-04-11T13:38:00.000-07:00

well t is a beautriful sunny easter sunday here! youngest son is at work, middle son is on his way back to Alberta as he has to work tomorrow. he came down friday after snowboarding in the rockies for the day. we had our easter dinner last night and youngest ds's girlfriend joined us. she brought me a beautiful easter lily!

I have managed to get some stitching in over the weekend, as what self respecting 22 yo would spend all his time with his parents?!
I have finished the Killer Whale on my project, did the backstitching this morning over a cup of coffee. and made a small start on the ptarmigan, he is very small and mostly half stitches so I am looking forward to getting him done today and I havnt quite decided on what to move to next, the bear or the egret, have to make a decision soon i guess.

been searching for a skein of wildflowers floss for the next Jeannette Douglas sampler I want to do, a friend of mine is going to the coast this week and said she would pick it up at the xstitch store there. but when I emailed them they didnt have it and dont plan on getting it ack! so off to search the web for a canadian supplier that I can get it from without them charging an arm and a leg to mail one skein of floss.
I found a shop on Vancouver Island. she had the cheapest price $4.87 and only $1.52 for shipping. some places wanted something like 4.95 just for shipping.... not this puppy boy!! So the jeannette Douglas project might be next in line, have to think on it some.

well I hear a chocolate egg calling me.......

2004-04-07T22:31:00.000-07:00

well here it is wednesday already,just got in from cadets and am thinking I should go upstairs and stitch! also have a snack...... Hmmmm.
natures beauties is coming along, finished the panther yesterday and am now working on the killer whale.when it is done I should be about halfway thru the piece. but it is still holding my interest quite nicely and I have hardly thought about what to work on next :)
I even did some housework today, ie; vacuming , washing kitchen floor etc. cleaned bathroom. I even tidied up the stack of papers that were on the dining room table for the last 3 weeks or so. they ended up there when my T4 slip for income taxes turned up missing when dh went to do our taxes. ended up doing a major file cabinet clean out and reorganization. got everything sorted shredded or whatever up to this years stuff and it just ended up on the table sitting there gathering dust. but its away now and all tidy in file folders till the next time I am in a hurry and just stuff things in willy nilly LOL
well enough for now , i think i will go and listen to my book on cd and stitch for a bit before going to bed.

2004-04-05T08:31:00.000-07:00

another weekend come and gone! Of course now we are on Daylight savings time and have the nice light evenings! a sure sign of spring and hopefully a nice summer. worked on natures beauties all weekend between doing other things of course ,the panther is taking forever to stitch....... I started him wednesday and got his head finished last night, minus all the backstitching and the background stitches around him. I guess it was to be excpected as he is the largest animal I have done so far on this project and totally full cross's. He will have to wait until tuesday for anymore attention though.
today i am either going to do an ornament or maybe start Pam Kelloggs Christmas Advent Calender , havnt quite made up my mind yet, could have something to do wtih the headache I woke up with but it is nearly gone now.
getting some stuff ready to sell on e-bay i think, as I am not working and the repairs to my vehicle over the last few months have been horrendous! so getting rid of some stash, cross stitching and knitting is a way to help pay down some bills. and since I can no longer hand knit it seems a waste to hoard ALL my books!

2004-04-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

Just got in a few minutes ago from the library where I went to get a couple of books on cd to listen to when I stitch and nothing interesting is on tv. I am reading the Stephanie Plum series on cd (after reading all the books) and also picked up a cd called In a dry season, mystery sounds good.

gotten some done on natures beauties since I last blogged, finished the penquin and done the hind end and tale of panther. he is going to take awhile as he is solid cross stitchs , the other animals I have done were mostly half cross's with some white areas left totally unstitched.

had my regular stitch n' b___h day getogether with Diane and Shirley yesterday at Dianes, i kept having to rest my eyes as I had only gotten about 4 hours sleep the night before, aaarrggghhh! took a short nap when I got home and then had to go out and do the grocery thing. Worked on a UFO project yesterday evening. This is a design I started about a year ago when I was stitching on a rotation basis. I tried working on this in Feb of this year and after a couple of hours I just couldnt stand it anymore. I love the design it is called Gathering Honey and was in an old Issue of Cross Stitch and Country Craft magazine. did about an hour and half on it last night, seemed ok I guess because I knew I was putting it awaya t the end of the evening . working on this project every thursday evening is a goal I set myself for this month so hopefully I can get this design finished.

2004-03-31T09:41:00.000-08:00

got quite a bit accomplished yesterday, washed and dried DMC's free chart The Blues. sewed a lizzie kate design into a small pillow , stuffed and everything.
finished the penquin on my natures beauties project and have now moved on to the panther, lots of black. also discovered the needle I was using was like square or something as it was bugging my thumb quite a lot. switched to another needle and no problems at all! go figure..
listened to a book on cd during the day while I stitched, Janet Evanovich's One for the Money. I have read all her books twice I think but listening to them is just as entertaining.

spent a bunch of time creating some files on the computer to keep track of the books I want to read, but I think I have them pretty organized now just a matter of finding them at the library and reading them.

planning on framing the blues today and maybe one other ornie or something just to make my quota for the month LOL

off to accomplish something!OOOOH my gosh Happy Anniversary to me ! I forgot! good thng dh is away , i can just have a card ready when he gets home and he will never know i forgot!

2004-03-30T09:38:00.000-08:00

Had a good monday stitching, finished two ornies, Christmyth fairy and another one from a Cross stitch Christmas magazine 2000. amazing I got them both done considering I went out and took all the recyclable stuff down to the bins, ran a couple of errands and then met my friend Linda for coffee.
Came home expecting to have to vacuum and sweep up the leaves around the doorway and ds Patrick(18) had already done them both!!! good thing I brought him a treat from Timmys! so besides some laundry and the odd load of dishes and cooking pasta for supper I was free to stitch for the rest of the day and evening.. Whoo Hooo!

back to working on Natures Beauties today, stitching the penquin,he's very cute! I also need to frame a piece that I stitched for my friends JJ and Horst.

I hope to get some links on here soon and maybe then i can share some of the pics of my work.

cheers

2004-03-29T10:25:00.000-08:00

Well I have enjoyed reading other peoples blogs for awhile , so have decided to jump on the bandwagon myself!

I have been stitching for nearly 10 years now and would like nothing better than to have someone else take care of the mundane such as cooking, cleaning etc so I would have even more time to stitch.

Currently working on a kit from Dimensions called Natures Beauties, this kit has been with me awhile but I have never got around to working on it. what finally pushed me into doing it was some expensive repairs to my vehicle over the last few months, so I am doing my part for the family finances by not running out to buy more DMC floss every day or so!! I am sure it helps (HA) so I have been working on this kit for a week and have done 3 of the 13 animals on it, the wolf, loon and fox and have started the penquin-it almost feels like finishing a little mini project when each animal is done.

Today is Elfie nite, where I get together in cyberspace with some other stitchers and we work on either Christmas Ornies or gifts for someone else or even for ourselves. going to do a Dragon Dreams design today, its called Christmyth fairy, havnt picked out fabric or anything yet and the carpet upstairs is screaming to be vacuumed after a weekend of paper shredding! I should get off the computer now but will probably go do some more surfing before going upstairs.