sharing a gift...

I can finally share with you my mystery stitching I did a little while ago. After every sort of techinical difficulty you can imagine, the whole gift came together, and now finally we were able to deliver the gift to its recipients. It was a long difficult road to get there but I think it was worth it and I hope the recipients think so too.

With out further ado... here is the stitching!

I stitched Heart In Hand's - Together, on a mystery pale green/mint 28 ct fabric. It was a fun stitch, and I just may have to do it again for myself! I really like the way it turned out.

And here is the whole gift... I stole the picture from her facebook page as all the ones I took didn't turn out!

My hubby made one of those photo books on his mac and it turned out lovely. I wouldn't hesitate to make more of these, the quality is great. The only thing not showing in the picture is the cd we made for them with all their wedding pictures on it. My computer can do the light scribe thing where you can add a picture to the front of the cd - I've never used it before, but it was fun and the cd turned out super cute if I do say so myself!

final catch up post... (long and picture heavy)

I've so behind in posting that I realized that I would never catch up to myself if I didn't start somewhere! So I'm going to do a final catch up post and quickly fill you all in as to what has been going on and keeping me busy...

Time has seriously been just flying since Thanskgiving here in October. I blink and another week or month has gone by...

Stitching wise I haven't touched a needle since my last post, so no change whatsoever to my TUSAL for the last post of this year. I won't repost the picture since it is in the previous post. I have signed up to continue my TUSAL for another year. Its sort of fun to see how much or how little stitching I do in a month's time, as well as to see all the colours collect in the jar. So the next posting for that is January 4th. I've updated my date for it as well as the link (click on the TUSAL button on my side bar) if anyone would like to know more information or would like to join.

Hopefully I'll be able to get my normal stitching mojo back and start stitching again... I really miss it!

Hmm, where did we leave off... October posts... Thanksgiving weekend...and also my birthday weekend, we spent a fantastic 4 days (since I took the friday off as well) with friends and family.

We went for our now 3rd annual mountain retreat with a great group of friends and had a fantastic time pampering ourselves at the spa, enjoying the mountains and the scenery with a nice walk, and just overall relaxing and having fun...

When our time in the mountians was over, but before we headed home, part of my family came up to join us for the day... we had more fun walking around in Banff being silly, enjoying the hot pools, and even getting to see deer close up.

However the weekend and celebrations didn't stop there... family came over for Thanksgiving dinner as well as to celebrate my birthday. I think my two great nephews enjoyed the cake!

Also in October, the girls and I went out for a Girl's Night to see "For the Love of Shoes" which was a fundraising benefit for Breast Cancer. It showcased shoes donated by 12 famous Canadian women, which then in turn were made into beautiful works of art by 14 Canadian designers and artists. We had a fantastic time, a couple of us even won door prizes, including me! If you know me, then you know I don't carry a purse but I love looking at them. I don't buy them becuase I don't carry them! However my door prize was three purses! One of those Miche bags where you can just change the outer shell. I always thought they were so neat and I finally got one (or I should say 3)

We also enjoyed some family time at the Corn Maze. It was the last day of the season, so the corn was all yellow and dried out and it was very muddy but we all had a great time.

I've already posted about Halloween, so we can hit November now! November was another busy month, but not so much with picture taking opportunities but more, just the day to day stuff, with work, school for the girls, their extra curricular activities, and our volunteer stuff.

Winter did hit big time, and the girls took full advantage of it, with one of them taking snowboarding lessons and the other skiing lessons...

One more exciting thing did happen in November... I was lucky enough to meet Paul Brandt. He was have a media release party for his new upcoming show "Build it Forward" , and my one of my best friends was attending and could bring a date. She picked me! It was really a really fun night, I got to meet some very lovely and interesting people, including Paul Brandt himself.

I know I'm missing more stuff, but I think that's it for now... This post is turning out to be much longer than I thought it would.

I hope to get some stitching in before Christmas, but so far December is turning out to be jam packed full of events and going ons as well.

saturday's drive by posting

I've been plugging along on my Quaker Sampling III by With My Needle, and I finally have a good chunk to show off... here is where I am as of Thursday night...

I'm really enjoying working on this, and I just love the thread colour - Rose Garden, Simply Shaker GAST, its definitely one of my favourites.

Thursday was also the TUSAL day, and I (as usual) forgot to post my ort jar... here its is... I just took the photo now, but I haven't stitched since Wednesday, so not much has changed.

I also got a message from Evi, who let me know my belated birthday gift to her arrived. Actually it got there very quickly, as we mailed it on Monday and she had it in Europe on Friday! I'm so glad though that it didn't take long to arrive, as well as to read that she liked what I sent her.

She was the suprise recipient of my Blackbird Designs - Bird in Hand. And we (mainly hubby) sewed it into a lined bag for her.

Also included in the package were 4 balls(skeins?) of Alpaca wool, two cross stitch patterns - one by the Trilogy: Friends in all seasons and one by A Mon Ami Pierre: Nine Red 1, and a small SanMan tuck banner - I love Tulips. You can see a better picture of them on her blog, as I took my pictures late Sunday night before quickly packing it to mail.

oh the weather outside is frightful...

Boy oh boy its chilly outside! Its "only"-13 degrees celcius but it sure feel like a lot more! I've been fairly busy the last little while and its only going to get worse as the holidays approach, so that means little stitching time! I really hope I will be able to finish off all the ornaments that I would like to!

I finally finished off the last ornament of the Plum Pudding series - the little red bird, as well as managed to stitch the backstitch border around them all so I can finish them up as little pillows. I think stitching it twice is enough for now. I may stitch them again later, as they do really work up quickly and are really quite nice too.

Also during my surfing I saw a cute little ornament stitched up a few blogs so I hunted it down fo myself and have already stitched it twice! Its the "Joy" freebie ornament by Lilybet Designs. Another very cute and quick stitch.

You can't really see but there are white stitches scattered around the tree as if it were snowing, it shows better in real life. As well, the star buttons are missing from the tops of the trees, but I'll add those when I actually do the finishing.

Here they are all together!

Saturday, I did a little stash shopping. One of the LNS here was having an open house, as traditionally they are just an online store, so a couple of us decided to go and make a date out of it. Sadly there were only two of us instead of three, as something came up. But we made a go of it and our signifcant others ened up joining us for the day, so in the end there were four of us.

I had a great time and my hubby was pretty good, he enjoyed himself as well. We hit Traditional Stitches' open house did a little damage there - at least I did, and then since we were fairly close, we also went to Cochrane and hit the Stitching Corner, where I did a little more damage.

After we went to the two stitchy stores, we thought we would give the guys a break - though they did really well, and we looked around a few different stores in Cochrane. The weather was so nice - I think it was +8 or 9 that day that we stopped at the ice cream shop and each grabbed a cone. Yummy! (shhh... I will admit as good as Cochrane ice cream is, I prefer My Favourite Ice Cream Shoppe over by Garrison Woods...more flavours and bigger scoops too!)


Here is what came home with me:

Needle Threader - My Big Toe Designs
Joyeux Noel - Blackbird Designs
Button Up for Christmas #2 - Victoria Sampler
Button Up for Christmas #3 - Victoria Sampler
Time to Read - Jeanette Douglas Designs
With My Needle - The Goode Huswife

We really need to do this more often, if not the stash shopping but getting together with stitchy friends. It was fun day out.

Also don't forget to enter into the draw for the three prizes of my year end giveaway! I'm so excited to see so many entries already! Good luck to everyone!

great mail day!

I'm at home not feeling well today, so I was a little blah and down. But what a better way to cheer up than to recieve something fantastic in the mail! (finally something other than bills!)

My wonderful friend Evi from Hungary sent me this wonderful package as a belated birthday gift. She makes the most wonderful knitted and crocheted things, its an honour to get anything from her belated or not! You have to check her blog and her meska site out to see all the neat things she makes. Though her blog is in Hungarian, please drop her a line (she speaks English as well) if you like what you see.

I recieved a beautiful scarf and mitten set, as well as a very pretty cross stitched bookmark, and a gorgeous skein of hand dyed floss - she dyed it herself and made only two skeins, one for her and one for me! How sweet is that! Now to just find something super special to stitch with it!

Check out the close up of the detail on the scarf... I just love it and think its beautiful! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! No words can say express just how thankful I am or how much I love it!

Though I don't really want to rush winter and the cold weather, I can hardly wait to start wearing these! They are such a pretty eggplant kind of purple, so very pretty and so very difficult to get a good picture to show off the true colour!

and the winner is...

After adding all the names, checking who posted on their blog or not, and giving everyone the right number of entries, you can see that my little bowl sort of overflowed... making it difficult to pick a name properly.



Mire vegig mentem a nevezok nevsoran, es megneztem, hogy ki is volt az aki hirdette is a jatekot, olyan sok nev volt, hogy a kis edenyem meg volt pupozva... es nehez lett volna normalisan nevet huzzni...

So I put them all into a different one...took it upstairs to my hubby's office and he pulled a name.
Igy egy masik talba tettem oket, es fel vittem parom iroda szobajaba, es O huzott egy nevet...

The grand prize winner is.... es a fo nyertes.... F. Diana (vagyis Dia)

Since I was in a really great mood, I asked him to pull another name.... es mivel nagyon jo kedvem volt, megkertem hogy meg egy nevet huzzon...

the second winner is.... a kovetkezo nyertes pedig.... Adri

And then I thought what the heck, let's do one more! So he pulled a third name.... Es akkor gondoltam egyet, es mondtam miert is ne... huzzon meg egy harmadik nevet....

the third winner is..... a harmadik nyertes pedig.... Ircsi

Thank you so much for playing/entering and congratulations to the winners!!! I really wish I could send something to everyone! Would the winners please send me your addresses to katica_hu@yahoo.com so I can get these into the mail to you as soon as possible! Please note that if you don't respond within a week, the prizes will be sent to someone else... Thank you again!



Koszonom mindenkinek aki jatszot es gratulalok a nyerteseknek! Sajnalom hogy nem tudok mindenkinek kuldeni valamit! Meg szeretnem kerni a nyerteseket hogy a cimuket a kovetkezo emailre kuldjek el - katica_hu@yahoo.com, hogy fel tudjam adni minel elobb. Szertenem fel hivni a figyelmet arra hogy ha egy heten belul nem jelenkezik valamelyik nyertes akkor a nyeremeny mas valakinek lesz kuldve... Meg egyszer koszonom!

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!

snowball fight!

It seems that I was hit with a snowball thrown by Evi that has been going around the Hungarian blogs... I'll try and answer the meme as well. After all it is the season for a little fun!


What's your sign: Libra - and I completely fit into that, I always seem to be trying to balance things, trying to keep the peace or trying to make everyone around me happy. I don't like confrontation at all...

Interesting thing that happened on your birthday: other than me being born, I'm not sure so I looked some stuff up... Louis XII of France married Mary Tudor on that day in 1514, and I also share a birthday with John Lenon.

If I won the lottery: You can bet I would quit my job, and grab my hubby and travel! Plus of course make a few other people's dreams come true!

A bad habit you can't get rid of: leaving everything to the last minute. No matter how hard I try to get stuff done in time or even early, it never fails, something will happen that it won't work, and I'm left scrambling as usual at the very end.

Surfing the net: Internet Explorer and google as the search engine

Caffine: don't usually drink coffee, so I tend to get my caffine fix in tea or a coke.

Colour of your clothes: 80-90% black... I do have other colours but will wear them in combination with black.

What are you wearing now: my "at home clothes" sweats (black of course) and a grey sweatshirt (its cold) and fuzzy socks

Last book I read: Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows for the umpteenth time - I think its time to jump into the book stash I have and find some new reading material... love the book but I have so many others I would/should read just piling up and collecting dust

Pet: my kitty Snow White (of course she's black)

What animal would you never choose as a pet: any reptile or a bird, though my neice does have (or had - I'll have to check with her) a snake and it was pretty cool (at least from far away)

What do you like best about yourself: hmm, that is a tough one... I'd guess my loyalty, that my friends and family always know they can count on me when they need me.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years: Hopefully better off than I am now, so I can better help others around me, but hopefully also with a family finally...

Most recent good experience: Kiss goodnight and an "I love you" from both dad and my husband (I know mushy)

Favourite food: krumpli leves and krumplis teszta (potato soup and potato pasta) the way my mom used to make, I'll have to figure how to make them as its been a while :O(

If its winter: scarf and mittens. Never (almost never) wear a hat, I don't really like things on my head, but all I can say is thank goodness for heated seats in my car!

The pillow you sleep with: I actually sleep with two, one big one that is sort of medium - not too hard not too soft and a small one. I can't sleep without that small one so I take it everywhere with me - including extra pillow cases if we're going on a long trip

Needlework/craft of choice: Cross stitching of course, though I would love to learn to quilt, knit and crohet... my poor SIL tried to teach me to crochet and all I could manage was the first row, I could never get the hang of the second row of stitches... so if you all want I can make you a nice and really long chain!

Favourite dessert: Ohhhh another tough one, I definitely have a sweet tooth and love desserts (you can tell by looking at me!) I actually have several, it just depends on the place we are at... coffee icecream almost anywhere, dobos torta, tiramisu (at Guszto's in Budapest) turo gombc (at Nancsi neni's in Budapest).... aww heck, let's just say I love desserts otherwise the list would be way too long!

Mobile phone: I do have one, but don't use it as often as I should. If DH and I are together, I leave it at home since he has his. But if we're going for type then I'm a Nokia girl all the way, though I do really like hubby's iphone!

What's in your purse right now: ummmm, I don't carry one... I do love them but hate carrying them. I tend to stuff everything in my pockets, so we'll go with that. if needed then my phone, but definetly kleenex, lip stuff, my wallet and sometimes gum (not at the moment as I just recently ate the last piece)

In the kitchen/cooking: well we all know how I am with that, as not that long ago I did a blog post on the very subject... if needed I will cook, I know how to make a few things, bt in general, I didn't inherit that gene from either of my parents. Mom could look into a fridge and see a bunch of stuff to make a great meal out of, I could look at the same fridge and think there's nothing in there that is edible so let's order in!


I'm going to throw a few snowballs myself, and hopefully this will get some people blogging again, as I really miss them as well as their blog updates! Off it goes to Kati P, Edit, Barbi, Zsuzsi, Elsie and Julie - come on guys let's get blogging again!!!

Viva Las Vegas!

We went to Vegas last weekend (Nov 7-10) with a group of friends and had a fantastic time! (we need to go again!)

Here are some shots of: 1. Our hotel, 2. our room, 3-4 view from our room

Of course our reason for going was the Madonna concert and a little bit of gambling (okay a lot -but it was on the penny slots). The concert was fantastic, and if I could have, I would have gone again to the second concert the night after! It was so worth going.

We did some shopping, lots and lots of walking and we also took in another show while we were there. We went to see Carrot Top, and omg he was funny! Hubby's eyes were sore from rubbing them so much from crying - that is how hard he laughed and my stomach hurt I was laughing so much. We really had a great time, though I know we could have done more, seen more, it was good to just go and relax as well.

And of course being the cross stitch addict that I am, I also made a stop at the LNS, just to see what its like compared to ours here across the border. I will admit I was impressed with the amount of "stuff" they had in the store. The models were great - and all were labled so you know what the design is and who designed it. The wall of thread, well what can I say about that other than I want one!! DH came with me, but didn't take any pictures inside the store as he felt a bit silly in there with the camera around his neck. I did do a little stash shopping while there, I mean you can't go to an LNS and not pick something up! I didn't do a lot of damage, though I'm sure I could have, but I knew I had to fit it into the suitcase as well as the other stuff we bought!

I do have some more pictures, and will load them up onto my webshots album in the next couple of days, so please take a peek!