game and giveaway

On one of the Hungarian blogs I read, Rita is having a game/giveaway. Please check her blog out if you want to play.

I'm not sure if these entries will count, so to be safe I am stitching something new. However, I did stumble onto these patterns a few years ago, and the link was one of my favourite for Hungarian folk motifs (one of my weaknesses and true loves - I love anything relating to Hungarian folk culture). I was very sad when the link no longer worked, and tried to search the web to find them again. Thanks to Rita, I now have the new link to some of my favourite patterns! So thank you for that!

I originally stitched myself a pillow (still needs to be made into one) way back in 2005 using one of the motifs from the first link in Rita's blog. If I remember correctly, I used DMC 820 - four strands on 20ct joblean for the my pillow.

The following year, in 2006 I was asked to stitch the group gifts for our Western Canadian Hungarian Folk Festival (WCHFF). By then the link for these patterns I had no longer worked, so I had to use my pillow's pattern to count off of.

I stitched 17 banners in total - I managed only 15 in time for the festival, the two hosting groups recieved theirs after the fact. As well as four little pillows as extra gifts for the guest instructors which I made at the festival itself. For these I also used DMC 820, but this time only two strands on an unknown count of evenweave fabric that one of the dancers brought back from the flea market in Budapest, Hungary. It wasn't easy to stitch on, but once I got the first few stitches in I was good to go.

Here are some photos of the banners: 1. the 15 stitched but not finished into their final shape, 2. what the actual banners looked like (the shape is the shape of our province), 3. the little pillows

happy canada day!!!

Happy Birthday Canada!!!

I thought I would celebrate today by sharing a couple of my "Canadian"/patriotic finishes as well as some freebies I found around the net.

Both of these designs are from Lizzie Kate, I just swapped out the American flag for a Canadaian one. I didn't put dates on them, but I stitched these quite a while ago. I still need to actually "finish" them into something!

And some Canadian freebies for you (who doesn't love freebies!)

- freebie # 1
- freebie # 2
- freebie # 3
- freebie # 4

Just click on them above, and the links should take you directly to the patterns. Let me know if for some reason they don't work! Enjoy!

more dancing and a sal update

I missed updating my blog yesterday with my LHN Sunday stitch a long, so here is my progress a little late. Not sure how the other two ladies are doing, but hopefully they will update as soon as they can. I love watching our progress on these, as all three of us are progressing in different directions so to speak on the design.

Again, I didn't get much time for stitching - which seems to be the trend lately for Sunday's, but I did get more finished than I thought I would. I know I keep saying this, but I really do like stitching these designs. They're just so fun. I'm looking forward already to my next one to start once this one is done! (still deciding)

Also here is a little bit of happy dancing, as I finished the letter "o" in the alphabet blocks. Again the ususal photos, a close up of the block and a "group shot".

Right now, I decided to pull one of my other wips that hasn't seen the light of day for a bit - I'm working on Autumn in my Garden this week before going back to the blocks. I'll show you a progress picture in a few days, once I have enough to warrant a picture.

lhn sal update

Here is my progress from yesterday's stitching session:

Its coming along quite nicely, and though I'm not close to being finished, I was thinking that I would like to continue with these LHN Sunday stitching sessions. So girls, would you like to continue after we're done with this pattern? I know I will. I have so many LHN patterns in my stash that I really want to stitch, that this is a good way to at least get through some of them.

Jucus also tagged me in a meme, so I'm going to go stitch and think about it and then post a little a later.

dancing, orts and stash

Where to start... let's start with the dancing! That is always fun!

I finished the next letter in my alphabet blocks, here is "n", as well as a "group" shot of some of the blocks around it.

Next up, its my progress report for the totally useless SAL - here is my ort jar so far:

And now for the stash... I picked up three Blackbird Designs charts and the reason I got them now and not later, as I'm supposed to is these charts have a tendancy to go out of print and then very difficult to find if you can find them at all. Two of the ones I got were actually out of print already but I managed to find them.

I got: BBD My Heart is True

BBD Thank You Sara Tobias - which I manged to find before they reprinted, so its not really out of print anymore

And last but not least BBD Blessing Be Thine - which I think is my favourite out of them

When I first saw this on Yuko's blog, I was in love and started my search, but found out very quickly that it was out of print. So I sort of gave up and put it out of my mind. Then suddenly I saw on Miss Jane's blog, that she had just ordered it from a little store called Country Sampler. So I quickly went to their site and ordered it for myself!

I'm not starting any of them just yet, I have too many on the go as it is... though I will admit it is difficult not to start anything new - and I don't mean just out of these three new purchases. I'm feeling the itch of startitis happening and that isn't a good thing. That is what got me into the trouble I'm in as is!

road trips and sal's

As I mentioned in my previous post, we had guests here till yesterday. They were here for a total of 10 days and we had a great time during their visit. I didn't get to see them as much as I worked during the day but it was fun none the less.

My husband and the two guests went on a road trip on Saturday to have a look at the scenery around here - they went towards Saskachewan to see what a real prairie looks like. They took some photos and I thought I would share some of my favourites. Please click on them to see them closer/bigger.


They saw a couple of animals along the way as well, and I just love these old farm houses.

In the stitching front, I was good and went back to stitching my alphabet blocks, I'm working "n" right now and am just a bit more than 1/2 done. I should have a happy dance photo in the next day or so. However, in the mean time I have joined another SAL (click on button for rules)

So as of today, I have emptied out my ort jar and have started brand new. I will have to find a bigger jar, as mine fills up fairly quickly, but till then here is my jar all empty and void of orts just waiting to start the SAL with tonight's stitching session.

We're supposed to do progress pictures every new moon, and since this month's new moon falls on Monday the 22nd, we'll see how much/many orts I can get in there before then.

I know its silly, but it is a neat way of recording your stitching adventures, and it will be fun to look back at at the end of the year. Let's see what I can produce in the next six months! So if you are up for a little silliness and fun, please join us!

a new look and some stitching

I thought I would try something a little different with my blog again... hope you like it. I'm still getting used to it, though I know its not a big change, I do prefer the three column templates better. However, this will be good for the next little while.


Onto stitching... I didn't get a lot of stitching done on the weekend, so I don't have a lot of progress to show on the SAL but here it is... I am enjoying this and enjoying the colours. I hope one of these Sunday's I'll have more time to actually sit down and work on it!

For the rest of my time last week, I kept on going with the canvas project, so here is where I am on that one. I still have quite a way to go before its finished, but I'm enjoying working on it right now. Here is a picture of the whole thing, and you can see how much I've already filled in and how much I still need to do before even starting the backstitching parts.

Since I've reached a good stopping point, I'm going to put this aside for a couple of days and go back to my alphabet blocks as those sort of have a deadline (hopefully Christmas) that needs to be met. As it is I'm only half way through the letters but I still need to make a few "filled" in squares as well.

We've also had guests here since last Monday, and they leave tomorrow. Its been fun and nice to have them here, it will also be good when they are gone. The house can go back to normal, and I won't have mountains of dishes to do (they all like to cook and all like to use lots of dishes! - since I don't cook, I'm usually on clean up duty ) Our poor kitty has also gone into hiding (she doesn't like people very much) since they've been here and I hardly get to see her!

Anyways, that is it for now, I'm heading back to stitch...

other stitching updates

Not much has been going on in my world that is really blog worthy, so I won't bore you with those details, however I did manage to do some stitching last week. I really couldn't decide what I wanted to work on, so I finally just pulled out one of my older wips - my antique lace canvas project. I went back through my archive posts and found I haven't really touched this one since March 2008! Over a year ago!

I've been working on the filling in stitches, and if you click on the link I gave above, you can see where I left off last year and where I am now. Don't worry the hearts will show once the whole thing is done, there is still a whole ton of backstitching to do once all of this is filled in. Please ignore the little grey dots/knots you see, as they are just waste knots that I was too lazy to get rid of before taking the picture.

sal update #2

Well I can finally say I did some stitching on this piece yesterday. I'm actually quite happy with my progress considering I didn't sit down to stitch till fairl late in the evening.

I'm actually really enjoying working on this and it will definitely be hard switch to something else tonight.

home of a needleworker too sal

Well as I mentioned in my other post I didn't get a lot of stitching done this weekend, what little I did get done was on Friday night. So needless to say, I have to hang my head in shame as I didn't even touch this SAL on Sunday! I didn't even put the fabric in my qsnaps! The above picture is the best I can do for a progress picture! I definitely have lots to catch up on next weekend!

I will say that both Evi and Barbi made great progress, and Evi even sewed a nice carring bag for her project! Sorry to say mine will just live in my mesh bags along side my other projects.

happy dances and other stuff

Well I managed to get a little stitching in over the weekend. It wasn't much, but I was able to finish of the letter "m" in the alphabet blocks I'm making my great-nephew and his soon to arrive little brother/sister. So here are letters l and m, as well as a shot of all the letters together.

I also saw this on one of the message boards that I freqent, and thought it was pretty neat.

Yes, that is actual - not painted on - cross stitch on the hood of that car! Pretty neat. There are more pictures and information here, scroll through the other pages of pictures, there is some other neat things that are cross stitched as well.

i'm still here!

I haven't really felt like blogging lately - not much going on as well I haven't been stitching all that much - so really I haven't had anything to share lately.



However, the last few weekends my hubby has been helping one of our best friends' to build their new deck. Actually more like expand their existing one. They managed to do it in two weekends and considering its their first ever deck, I think they did a great job.

Here they are hard at work still, doing the stairs. You can see where the old deck ended - where the gray railing is by the bbq. From there, the stairs leading down to the the new deck, and the lower deck is all new.

Here we are enjoying their new deck, with her mom in the background helping with the planting.

Family also came over this past weekend, and I have some pictures of my great-nephew. He is such a cutie! All you want to do is just hug him all the time! Here he is helping his great-grandpa plant some flowers.

And then just another cute photo of him. He was down in the garden with someone, while I was on the deck above, and was zooming in on him for pictures.

On the stitching front, as I said I haven't stitched a lot lately, but I did manage to finish off the letter "L" block and am almost done with "m". Once I'm done the second one I'll post a picture. A couple of us are going to do a little SAL for LHN Home of a Needleworker (too) starting this Sunday. I'm looking forward to stitching this with Evi and Barbi and seeing their progress on it compared to mine. We will be stitching it only on Sundays, as a little treat at the end of the week. Hopefully this will bring back my stitching mojo! May is usually a bad month for me anyways, so thank goodness its almost over!

Evi was wonderful and made us our very own logo for it, which is now on my sidebar! I just love how it turned out! I wish I was as talented and knew how to make those things!

I've decided to stitch mine on 32ct ivory joblean with a mix of DMC and the recommended Crescent Colours. But who knows Sunday is a still a long way off and I could still change my mind for my fabric choice!

a dance and a surprise

Just recently one of my favourite designers (Blackbird Designs) posted a freebie with a competition on their blog. I did stitch it, but didn't finish in time to enter - I finished right on the date they drew the winner's name! But that is okay, I wanted to stitch it for myself not for the prize.

As you can see I can't follow directions that well, as they asked to add a bird somewhere into the sampler - I'm not a big fan of birds, so I of course added kitties! One day (hopefully soon) it will be finished as a tin to hold my needles. I already store them in a tin, I just need to make it pretty! And yes I have a lot of needles that I need a tin to store them in, as I tend to buy them in bulk whenever I go to Budapest!

I stitched it on a mystery fabric that I recieved in my Dinky Dyes fall '08 thread pack (great fabric and colour btw) and I stitched it over 1 using GAST in a great colour called Basil - purple and green combo overdye. The first picture was taken at night under my lamp and shows the thread colours better, the other two were taken in the sunshine.

At the end of last week I also recieved a suprise in the mail from France of all places, and for the life of me I can't figure out why I got it! Then it dawned on me!! It was probably a PIF that I signed up for a while ago, and forgot - since no one posted to my PIF at the time. So I would like to say a great big thank you to Aniko as it is a beautiful gift and the stitching on it is just perfect! I love it, and I love everything you sent! It arrived at the perfect time as well, as I needed some cheering up and this did the job!

I recieved a beautifully stitched little pocket with my initials stitched over one, and a lady bug button to close it with, as well as the cutest little ladybug clothes pin, a lovely ladybug post card, a ladybug thread keep (which will be put to very good use!), a ladybug purse/bag holder (so you don't need to put your purse on the floor) and last but not least, a very cute lady bug pattern from Bent Creek! (another favourite designer) I feel so very spoiled! So thank you so very much!

And last but not least, I found two new charts to add to my wish list... the two new ones by LHN - have you seen them??? So very cute! Alphabet Rhyme and Bee Sampler. I can hardly wait to get these and stitch them up, especially the Alphabet Rhyme one. But I have to be good for awhile, so they're going on the wish list for now.

its finally here!!!

Spring that is! Beautiful weather, lovely sunshine, double digit temperatures, aahhh what more could a girl ask for - other than stitching time of course!

Things in our garden are starting to finally wake up, my lily of the valley garden looks like it will produce a bumper crop this year - definitely looking forward to those, and the rest of the flowers are all starting to slowly peek out from the ground as well! I'll post more pictures as things actually start to bloom! The trees are also starting to bud, and hopefully very shortly we'll have beautiful green trees and grass to enjoy!

One of our cactus plants also decided to bloom recently after three years of not doing anything! It also looks like it will have a bumper crop of blooms, we've counted at least 5 more coming... not like our christmas cactus that has been blooming constantly since december - though it does look like its finally slowing down.