August 28/07

I finished the puzzle biscornu last night. The freebie came form this site which took me a while to figure out because I do not read German at all, but the biscornu patterns motivated me to figure out how to get the patterns!!

This one is stitched again with mystery threads on a 28 count Monaco (I think, I chucked the tag out!). I did one side in green and the other side in blue to give a little contrast. I have done a couple of other variations that still need to have the final finish, but this was my favourite variation.

Aug 19/07

Another small finish. I think that I am addicted to smalls at the moment because I do not have to wait six months to see the finished result and I see definite shrinkage of the stash! This one is "Renaissance Bookmark" by Teresa Wentzler. The design was a freebie from her site. I do forget what I stitched it on, but I think that it is a 28 count lugana. ETA: I have just realized that this picture does absolutely nothing to show how beautiful the design truly is so I will have to try again to get a better photo.

Some sad news. I just heard on Friday that my LNS has closed. Admittedly, I have not been there in a while since the motherlode of a stash that I have has had everything I have needed for any of my recent projects. Now, the closest NS is over 100km away in Moncton.

This weekend has been rather busy, kicking off with a wedding shower on Thursday, moving books on Friday night for the Rotary club, a birthday party and a wedding reception on Saturday and I am off to my mom's here in a minute for a lunch with my sister and her boyfriend who are here from Halifax. Then, I need to mow the lawn and research a topic for my course on globalization for the second essay of the course. Thank heavens that Monday is a vacation day for me because I sure need it!

My heart sank this morning as I was waking up to the newscast. Another Canadian soldier has died in Afghanistan. Knowing that my brother is on-call on the notification team at CFB Gagetown this week made the news even more sad although fortunately (poor choice of words in the circumstances, for sure), the soldier was based at CFB Valcartier so my brother does not have to tell a family that their loved one has died. War sucks.

Aug 15/07

Here is the ornie I stitched for the July ornie SAL. He is called "Stuffed Snowman" from Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Cross Stitch 1996. He is stitched on mystery fabric with mystery threads from my mystery thread box and his arms are twigs from the yard instead of wire as in the pattern. His scarf is braided from the mystery threads because I have little or no cotton cloth in my craft room.

Aug 10/07

No stitching pictures, but I was playing around with my new camera yesterday and took some pictures as proof of my stitching addiction! May I introduce you to my stash (the shelves on the right contain my recycling centre):

and my pattern collection:

The thread drawers really make my stash look way worse than it is! Several years ago, my boss helped out a friend who was closing a craft store and sold off her inventory in our store. One day, I was in the stockroom and saw all of the DMC floss that was sitting out there so I offered to buy it up! I have long lost the total, but I got the floss for about 20 cents a skein and should have enough to do me for at least 10 or 15 years of stitching!

I am currently working on a freebie bookmark that I found on Teresa Wentzler's site. My stitching has been slowed a bit by a mega migraine that hit me on Saturday and lingered for 4 days as a nagging soreness on the side of my head. Stress and allergies are so not my friend!

Life has an interesting way of coming full circle sometimes. Last night, I had a couple over for dinner. Shawn is the brother of Matt Kidner who was here in 2001 as a Rotary Youth Exchange student. I visited with their family in Australia in 2004 when I was there on the Rotary Group Study Exchange. Shawn and his girlfriend Steph are here in Canada this year on a working holiday visa and are in this region for a month or two. It was so cool to be sitting out on my deck last night and talking about all of the people and places that we have in common.