Reflections

Stitching
I have stitched for a long time and I think I have figured it out. For me it is the journey. Yes, I like to finish things, but most things that I stitch are large and take a long time to finish. I never work on just one thing- short attention span? Early in 2006- January 21st to be exact I discovered Heaven and Earth Designs at my LNS. What a delight, they suit me perfectly. I love to stitch over one with one strand and these charts were designed for that- no more compromises and alterations to stitch how I want to stitch. I continue to be enchanted with my original chart, Angel by Sanderson, and have added many more charts to my stash. With 4 others started and a new start in the New Year they continue to hold my attention.
Me
At 52 I like my life. I am basically a loner BUT not lonely. I met the love of my life in university and when he passed away suddenly and way to young 15 years ago I spent my time working and with my children. There is no desire to have another significant other in my life. My children are adults now. At 22 my daughter has a career as a nurse at a childrens rehab hospital and my son at 19 is still deciding what to do with his life.

My Dilemma

I have a real problem! I absolutely love Nadia's Pine Cone Fae and I have received the chart. I wanted to include it in my large Nadia piece and make it my project for the 2007 SAL. But... it is the wrong size! Now I don't know what to do. I had planned 9 fairies for this but what do you think of 8- with 3 on the top and bottom rows and 2 centred on the middle row, one of which would be Pine Cone. Calla Lily is the same size and could be the second chart on the middle row. I would do the 2 middle ones with background and all of the others without

It's Time for my Annual Dinner

Every year between Christmas and New Years I have a few friends in for dinner and today is the day. And.. tada.. I am ready. The house is clean (relatively since I am NOT the best housekeeper), the food is prepared and most of it on cooking, the dog bathed and now I can stitch for a couple of hours.
Just in case anyone is interested the Menu is
Chicken a la King
Meatballs
Hash Browns Casserole
Mixed Veg with Cheese
Caesar Salad
with Cheesecake and Chocolate Mousse for dessert
and Shrimp and a Cheesball with crackers to start.
It is sit down for 11 and my son and his friends will eat in his basement apartment.

Merry Christmas to All

It is about 11:30 Christmas Eve and I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Will I be ready?

My Christmas shopping is done and all wrapped
My house is decorated.
But..

I need to clean the house
I need to grocery shop
I need to get the presents to various households

2 days left!

Bad bad blogger

I will freely admit I have been very bad and not blogged for a while. But, my shopping is done and it is ALL wrapped! So I can say I was busy and I did think about it but never got to it- oops.
And this was my present to me:






What a difference this makes. I thought I loved my lapstand but there is absolutely no comparison. Stitching is a joy and maybe a little faster without the balancing and re-arranging. I can still swap out all of my scroll frames and switch from project to project- currently Blossom Fae is mounted on it.

Apparently I do have an issue with pink. I received my order of pink silks from Vicki and as you can see from this picture- pink is NOT the focus. I can honestly say I thought I was thinking and ordering pink!

Patchwork Sampler Update

I think i figured out clickables, so here is my Patchwork Sampler update as of Dec 1. I was working on the stockings and decorating so have not worked on it in a while.

Helping....NOT

This is our cat Butterscotch- who actually 'owns' my son. He is about 6 feet up the tree and "helping" with the decorating. I was adding the garland and he continuously grabbed the garland with his paws. This happens every year and he goes up and down the tree and spends hours sleeping in the tree before and after it is decorated! We have generally been very lucky and he is very careful and no ornaments have been broken as a result.

They are done!

I have finished the four stockings and everyone has made their choice. Here they are! All hand stitched- mainly blanket stitch

Stitching amd Commitments

I need to start by saying my 'children' are 22 and 19! Last Christmas when we were opening our stockings it was noticed that our stockings are starting to fall apart. I made my stocking (and one each for my Mom and Dad) when I was a teenager.. so many years ago. When my daughter was born I made one for her and then when my son was born I re-did my Dad's, who had passed away for my son. So needless to say the youngest stocking is 22 years old. They are beginning to show their age. I infamously suggested at that time that I could make everyone, now including my daughter's significant other new stockings. This has now come back to bite me. I was shopping with her this weekend and she brought up the fact that I suggested I would make new ones. So until this is done the only stitching I will commit to is finishing my RR. I have purchased all the supplies I need for this and will make a start tomorrow. The one good thing about this is it will give me time to select my missing pinks!

Missing Pink

So, I went to work on my Patchwork Sampler and was deciding what colour was needed next and thought I should be adding something pink. Well low and behold I do not have any pink. In my mad buying spree of silk I did not get pink. Now I sort of understand this, I am not a pink person- that is my daughter. I gravitate to greens, oranges, corals and red. But to have no pink is ridiculous. So I am off to look at pinks!

Silks and Colours

Just for Fudgey
First Page-Vicki Clayton
3 shades of Rum Scullion
Copper Red
Marque de Circe
Nectarine
Flame
Peach Melba
Amethyst
Raspberry Sky
Caribbean Eve
Caribbean Reef
Peacock
Meadow
Jazz Blues
Second Page- Vicki Clayton
Ice Dragon
Earth Dragon
Summer Sky
Fire Dragon
Dragon Fire
Dragon Breath
Dragon Blood
Turkey Red
Dandelion
3 shades of Wrasse
Emerald
Dragon Hoard
Turquoise
Page 3 Vicki Clayton and Gloriana
Gold
Garnet
Rose Quartz
Wine
Purple
Sapphire
Rose Flame (G)
Monet's Pond (G)
Teal Twilight (G)
Tropical Sea (G)
Summer Sky (G)
Page 4 Dinky Dyes
Tropic Sunshine
Mango Tango
Bush Fire
Ruby
Jacaranda
Ameythyst
Pacific Sunshine
Coolibah
Aquamarine
Sydney Harbour
Coral Lagoon
Ningaloo

I am having sooo much fun playing with colours

Yummy, yummy, yummy

I got my order from Stitching Bits and Bobs today. Yummy, beautiful silk threads from Gloriana and Dinky Dyes. Oh the colours, I can't wait to stitch with them. Now to plan where to use each of them in Patchwork Sampler.

A little spooky

You Are a Chihuahua Puppy

Small, high strung, and loyal. You do best in the city with a adults - young kids could crush you!

What Breed of Puppy Are You?

This is a little spooky- this was in Stitchinfiend's blog and hers came up dachshund which she has and I came up chihuahua and Bella is half chihuahua

A Colour Commentary

Every once and a while someone on the HAED board asks a question about a specific colour in a chart because it seems the colour does not fit in. I know this happens to me all the time. I can be stitching a face and all of a sudden I am using green or blue. Shadows are often burgundy and grape when I am expecting greys. It is just amazing to me as I complete the section how well the colours work in the end. I can use the same colour in different areas of the chart surrounded by totally different colours and the same colour has a totally different feel and impact. The effects of colour is a mystery to me and one of the things I love best about stitching.

Happy Dance Today

My silks from Vikki arrived today! Lots of yummy yummy colours. I looked at them and fondled them but was very very good and did not stitch with them. It is the Re-discover SAL over at HAED and I am working on Mask of Colours. I will ogle them all weekend!

I Started...

I started my Patchwork Sampler last Thursday and worked on it and Michelle's RR this weekend. Unfortunately no picture of Michelles but I did manage a picture of the sampler:

It is not a great picture, the colours are brighter in real life. Now for the colours:
Turquoise is Soie d'Alger 132
Bright Multicolour is Colorwash Jelly Bean
Purple is from Vikki but it was a sample with no name or number (or I lost it)
Purple/Green/Yellow multi is Vikki's Dragon Tongue
Gold is Splendor 909




I am soooo loving doing this. I get to pick the colours. I cannot draw a stick man to save my life but I love playing with colours. Coloured pencils, pens and markers are toys to me.

I am now waiting for 2 silk thread shipments- one from Vikki and one from Stitching Bits and Bobs with a variety of silk threads....playtime!

An Amazing Day

I stayed home from work today because of serious intestinal cramps so it should have been a really bad day..but.. I got my charts from Ina today including Patchwork Sampler.. and.. I got an email from Vikki that my silks have been shipped. Now to find the fabric and I will be all set to start. It will give me a good alternate to working on Michelle's RR which I am working on.
I have completed another page of Wizard of Oz and will take a picture and post it on the weekend.

It's been a week

since I posted. I lost track of time! I am trying to complete another page of Wizard of Oz so that I can move on to Michelle's RR. I am about 85% through the page so not much longer. Michelle's piece is the angels and mermiads from Selina Fenech. I am going to stitch Angel og Compassion. I have the chart, my selection is marked out so I am ready to go.

Enabling, Silks and Notefish

I love to cross stitch and about a year ago I was in my LNS and they showed me the HAED charts and I had to have one.
Then I discovered the HAED Website and BB and started a major stash acquisition of charts.
Then there is alot of discussion about using silk threads so off I go to look at silk threads and think I would like a new start in silks. Decide that the conversion of a HAED is too much so look for alternatives.
Then Fudgey in her blog starts showing a Patchwork Sampler that is absolutely amazing. She passes on the information about the chart.
Then I contact Ina about the Patchwork Sampler and order that and 2 other charts.
So now I can seriously look at silks and end up with a wishlist spanning several worksheets in Excel and cannot figure out what I really want.
Then Annette from the BB shows her Notefish Wish List and I can finally get organized with all my desires and I have started this project. I love it. It is easy to use and completely visual! See the link to the right.

Hmmmm?

Who ties all the little knots at the end of skeins of silk thread (floss). I do see the purpose of some but not all.

New Start Results

So, after the new start SAL this weekend, here is my start on Blossom Fae. She is part of a major Nadia Tate project that will eventually have either 6 or 9 fairies.

New Start SAL

The new start stitch along starts today. I am starting Blossom Fae. So this is the update on current projects. I have completed about 25% of another page of Wizard of Oz (no picture) and have completed another page of Tahliana.

How does the mind work

I was reading Fudgey's blog and Dave's blog, then had a conversation with someone about how big a box was. It pointed out that my mind is a little flakey. I grew up during the period when Canada converted from imperial to metric measures and apparently my mind cannot decide which one to use. I think of myself in feet, inches and pounds but ask me how far away a place is and I answer in kilometers. I think of potatoes in pounds but meat in kilograms. Temperature is definitely celsius and speed km/hr.

Oh well it is just one of those things

Some Word of Wisdom

A friend forwrded some words of wisdom from Bill Gates. Although he has made millions of billions but he is also willing to put his money where his mouth is

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good,

politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it
opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

Hmmm... Friday the 13th

Yesterday was Friday the 13th. I am not overly superstitious but it was certainly an odd day. Weather included bright sunshine, rain. sleet, wet snow and back to sunshine. As I sat at work there was some wind, but nothing extra-ordinary. But, as I drove up my street coming home from work, there was a massive tree down on my neighbours lawn. The good news is that it actually looked liked it was felled perfectly- in the centre of the lawn, no houses, fences or cars hit- amazing. I have to admit though that we got nothing compared to upper New York State. Buffalo which is less than 2 hours away got 60 cm (2 feet) of snow- now that is a nasty Friday the 13th!

Happy Birthday Lindsey!

Details....

While I love the end results, detail stitching is yuk!. I am working on Tahliana and in the space of 100 stitches, there are 20 different colours. It is the bow in her hair.

The New Me

Current Projects

Wizard of Oz



















Mask of of Colours


















Tahliana Flowerbud Fae
















Angel

It's a Long Weekend

A 3 day weekend here in Canada
Lots of stitching and lots of cleaning

Even better- 2 days of no frogging

GRRRR

Frogging twice in one day.....grrrr

One thing only!

I just need to vent about how much I detest frogging. Only about 20 stitches- but blaaaah!

OOPS on spelling

Ok so I can't spell- two ways not tow ways

Good Day in Multiple

It was a good day in tow ways:
There was a chat on the HAED board that was fun, entertaining and educational. Lots of people there.

Also I completed the last of my 2006 goals so the rest of the year is mine- now what to stitch. I want to wait for the SAL for a new start but that may not ahppen

What Pet should I have

Your Ideal Pet is a Cat

You're both aloof, introverted, and moody. And your friends secretly wish that you were declawed!

What's Your Ideal Pet?

Mars YES!

You Should Rule Mars

Mars is a planet that shines brightly and loops wildly around the solar system. You are perfect to rule Mars, because you are both energetic and independent. Like Mars, you seems attractive and bright to others - but you're difficult to pin down. You are a great thinker, but you only think in the present and ignore the future. Full of enthusiasm and inspiration, you are into your own thing... and rather insensitive to others.

What Planet Should You Rule?

Maybe, Maybe Not

Dark Purple

To others, you seem a bit dark, mysterious, and moody. In truth, you are just a very unique person who doesn't care what others think. And you really enjoy your offbeat interests and friends. You've decided that life is about living for yourself - simple as that.

What Color Purple Are You?

Trying Again to Start

I have decided that it really is time to have a blog and post at least occassionally.

I am a rabid stitcher and love most if not all of HAED designs.

Is this a sad commentary on my life!