stitching and dancing...

I've got so much to share, so let's get some housekeeping stuff out of the way. Last month I barely stitched, so I didn't have anything to show for my TUSAL, but here is September's. I know I'm very late in posting it, but the picture itself was taken on time (which was September 8th).

I also have a happy dance to report! I actually finished stitching With My Needle's Quaker Samplings III on September 1st. Here are some pictures of that finish... first of the whole thing and the close ups.

With My Needle
Quaker Samplings III
Stitched on 28ct ivory joblean, using 12 1/2 skeins of Rose Garden Simply Shaker GAST

After I finished stitching on that one, I pulled out an old WIP, something I haven't stitched on since May of this year... my Heirloom Lace Sampler canvas project by SJ Designs... All this time I've been calling it by the wrong name, I've been calling it Antique Lace sampler, but I finally went back far enough in my archives to see who the designer was and found the proper name for it!

Here is a close up of the last two parts I needed to fill in with the lighter grey thread. Now I just have the filing stitches with the dark grey thread left on this layer and then I can start the third layer of stitches... that one will definitely take a while as there is a lot to do on the next layer.

Once that is done, I will only have the beading left and I can finally say its done!

And here is the whole thing laid out. Still lots to do, but worth it as it will be nice (if I do say so myself) once its done.

And now on to Molly! I worked on her a little last Sunday for the SAL, but didn't get a chance to post my progress, so now you get a two in one deal! I also have a picture of my progress from yesterday too.

Here is where I left off with my progress last week...

And here she is as of yesterday... not the best picture, but you get the idea.

I'm really enjoying working on her, including the tree, which is where I am now - that large block of one colour... I'm looking forward to seeing Barbi's progress on this one, she ahead of me, so its fun trying to see if I can catch up to her!

Now last but not least, I pulled another wip to work on this week... I'm working on the LHN Coffee and Tea series... I'm working on Iced Tea right now and then once that is done I have one square left before that one is finished completely as well! No pictures to show on that yet, since I only just started working on it tonight.

Till next time... happy stitching!

stitching and garden photo update...

My holidays have been great so far, I've been enjoying myself tremendously and even relaxing a bunch. I really could get used to this!

Anyways, I thought I would update with more pictures. Yesterday was our SAL day and even the best laid plans don't always work out.

We started out with a lovely late breakfast with friends, and it was great to sit down over a bagel and starbucks drinks and just chat and catch up. Then hubby and I were to head to the mountains and enjoy the rest of the day there, but something came up and in the end hubby ended up being busy and I ended up enjoying the day stitching... so I had much more stitching time that I originally thought, so I got some pretty good progress in on Molly.

Though I'm not sure if you can tell in this picture (unless ofcourse you click it to make it bigger) but she seems to have some creepy lizard looking eyes... I didn't really notice this until I stitched them... oh well, the over all look of the pattern is what I love, so I'll just have to get used to her eyes staring at me while I finish working on her. :O)

Last week I pulled out Quaker Samplings again, and continued along with that one. Here is my progress on it as well... As of Saturday I had all of what you see done except for the center of that large quaker motiff on the bottom, I had a wonderful stitching afternoon with another friend today, and I filled that in this afternoon.

Here is a close up of what I stitched today...

And more and more flowers are starting to bloom in the garden, especially more poppies right now, so I thought I would show those off, as well as my kitty who I haven't shown in quite sometime - it is difficult to photgraph an all black kitty, but she and the weather cooperated with me yesterday when I took her photo...

And last but not least I would like to show you our "new" neighbour! The reason for the " " marks is that, we used to have a set of hawks that lived in one of our trees but for the last few years they had moved away, and I'm happy to report that they are back, this time in our neighbour's yard.

wips...

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, but here is my progress on Molly... not a heck of alot. But Sunday was a beautiful day, and so we puttered around in the garden, laundry was done and then Sunday night we went to a classical piano/chello concert/recital. So even though we were home for the majority of the day, I just couldn't sit still enough to get a lot of progress done! Hopefully next week.....

Also I decided that since my thread for Quaker Samplings III arrived, I would pull that one out and work on it. Here is how I made out with that one as well...

spring cleaning...

I've been plugging along on my stitching, though I haven't had much time or patience for it lately, but I have done a bit more on my Quaker Samplings III. I wanted to see how big it will actually be, so I continued with the alphabet. The line underlining the letters is done right till the end, so that is how big it will be. Since it is so large, it was difficult to get a decent photograph of it. I'm going to put this aside for a bit, and work on something else (not necessarily new, but who knows with me!)

Last week, we also had some lovely weather, so dad and hubby were busy working in the yard to do the spring cleaning. I think this is the earliest we've (read they) have ever done it, but the yard and garden all look pretty now, and we just have to wait for Mother Nature to do her thing with the spring sunshine... though I know in our yard becuase of the way it faces, things take longer to peek out of the ground.

Speaking of doing things early, my lily of the valley are growing like weeds already! At this rate, I just may have some blooms to actually take out to mom on Mother's day, which will be a nice surprise, as normally this isn't the case. I always take some out to her grave after the fact, since they tend to bloom after Mother's day has passed.

I also plan on doing some spring cleaning of my own, but more of the stitching and reading kind. I have way too many books, and way too much stash, so keep watching this space for the results of my purging. Oh, still no sign of my fabric so still no start date for our Sunday SAL for the four girls with Barbi on Sundays... hopefully soon. They did say it was to be mailed this week, but who knows... till then I'll just keep working on other stitching stuff.

After all that lovely weather that we couldn't believe we had, just as a little wake up call, Mother Nature reminded us that after all we do live in Canada, and what else can we expect this time of year but snow...

Saturday evening we had ourselves a spring snow blizzard! To the point that the snow actually stuck to the grass. The one good thing though is that it didn't last, and by Sunday the snow was all melted and faded away like a memory!

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.