Jan 29/10

I was cruising through my blog list the other day when I saw a design on Vee's (not me, but another Virginia!!) site. Here it is stitched on 18 count Aida and with colour variations courtesy on my mystery thread box:

I am going to take one to Newfoundland with me to give to my guy friend and another to Guatemala to leave with the orphanage I am going to visit in May. These little cuties can be stitched in a few hours if your needles are a-flying!

Jan 26/10 Part Two

The Lizzie Kate is done and in its frame:

Well worth the half hour I spent wandering through the mats and frames section of Michaels the other night because I just could not find a mat and a frame that suited both the piece and the recipients. Years ago, I used to go to a framer who was also a friend of the family. He always enjoyed working with me because my vision was always so very different than his when it came to framing my pieces. My visits to his shop to get a piece framed were never short and sweet, but the results were always fantastic. Unfortunately he moved to the West Coast about 6 or 7 years ago and then passed away. I have not been able to find a framer who can match both the quality of his work and his infinite patience although the last framer I went to may just be a match for me!

Back to the Lizzie Kate.....
And here is my poor finger that got sliced when I was handling the glass:

In the end, the glass did not fit into the frame after putting in the mat, the stitched piece and the sticky board so now I have to figure out how to dispose of the glass without slicing my fingers any further!

Jan 26/10

Whee! I was just waking up when my doorbell rang and there was the delivery person with my new natural light bulb!! Yay! Now I will be able to see properly when I stitch and I will no longer need to carry my bedside lamp back and forth from the bedroom.

Can you tell which one has been used almost daily for 8 years and which one has been promptly installed into the lamp? The $19 in postage was well worth getting the bulb replaced although I have since discovered that I could have saved some money by buying it off of eBay.

Once I get off the computer this morning, one of the first things on my to-do list is to frame the Lizzie Kate so I may come back to post another photo later on today.

Jan 24/10

There has been a fair bit of stitching going on around here even though I am still waiting for my natural light bulb to arrive. One of my cats broke the light bulb in my bedside table lamp that I drag to the livingroom each evening to use to see my stitching. She tried to crawl off the back of the couch and along the arm of the couch but was unsuccessful in her attempt to squeeze between me, the lamp and the needlework that was spread all over the place as I was settling in to stitch while watching "Dr Zhivago". The lamp went flying and the bulb was snapped off at the base so then there was a whole big expedition of retrieving the lamp and its pieces from the floor, unplugging the lamp, unscrewing the broken bulb base, scrounging around in the linen cupboard for a new bulb and properly wrapping the broken bulb for the garbage. Then, I settled back in to stitch and the cat eventually made her way back to the back of the couch where she likes to sleep behind my head.

The Lizzie Kate is stitched and waiting to be ironed and framed before being given to my newly-married friends. The Dimensions Snowman has almost all of the full stitches stitched so perhaps tonight I will get to the rest of them before starting on the half stitching. My craft room needs another decluttering attempt, but the basement needed to be done first as a friend may be renting out my spare room shortly and she would have been up to her ears in chaos when she stepped out of her room if I had not sorted and stored the boxes that were randomly strewn across the basement floor. It is amazing to me how much stuff I accumulate, but now most of it is nicely organized in the storage room, added to the donation pile or waiting for my next trip to the local recycling bins!

Non-stitching-wise, I am in the midst of organizing trips to Guatemala (May), El Salvador (November) and Newfoundland (whenever the work schedules for my boyfriend and myself coincide in such a way that it is worth the price of the flight to get there; he has just moved to NF and started a new job.). I was researching accomodations in St. John's, NF the other day when I came across this one: Monastery Spa. There is a week long package and when I saw that one, I thought, "Hell! Who needs a boyfriend?!". If I went in for a week long spa, I would never be seen again!

Well, time to head to the curling club to help out with the Little Rocks program before going to my Mom's to celebrate the January birthdays of my two brothers. Lovely way to spend a Sunday!

Jan 19/10

Whew! Where is this month going? Time is just whizzing by me although the blur may have something to do with meeting an amazing guy, working, curling and deciding to go to Guatemala in May. I did start some new stitching projects recently to take a wee break from the intensity of stitching HAED Iris. Not having my daylight lamp makes HAED too difficult to stitch and I need to do some quick and easy projects just to break up the monotony of stitching one huge project.

Lizzie Kate's "Just Married" on 28 count linen with threads from my mystery box. The colour scheme chosen by LK did not fully suit the friends I am stitching this for so I am using my own colour scheme:


This one was actually started before I started the LK in an attempt to declutter my craft room a little bit. Even though I am not a fan of winter, I LOVE to stitch snowmen for some reason. They are just so cute and adorable and this world could use more cute and adorable!

Jan 17/10

Oops! Gotta' learn how to rotate the photos before I post them! Unfortunately, I have to run to work so the figuring will be for another time. Here is my most recent order from Cross-Canada Stitching:

I love snow men and could not resist these little guys! Plus, friends of mine were married on Jan 2/10 so I plan to whip up the Lizzie Kate for them.

In other news, the light bulb burned out on my stitching lamp. I could not source the bulb locally so I ended up ordering it directly from Verilux in the US. The shipping costs almost as much as the bulb, but at least I know that I will get ALOT of use out of it! :-) In the meantime I am using the lamp from my bedside table which is making me appreciate all the more the bulb that is on its way!

I had a wee stitching accident last night. I am stitching a Dimensions kit and have been using the needle from the kit. When I stitch, I use the middle finger of my right hand to push the needle through and I never realize how much I use that finger to do that until I do something stupid like pierce the finger with a needle and then proceed to hit the same spot umpteen times because I was too lazy to go find a bandage!.....There, I finally got smart and went to find a bandage! Now I am good and prepared for an evening of stitching if I do not fall asleep at this desk first.

Jan 10/10

I just spent the weekend at the Carleton Curling Club in Saint John and my home club, Hampton. My team finished 8th in a field of 18 at the Pictures Plus Bonspiel and good fun was had by all. We played three closely fought games against several supper women who were fun to curl against and fun to socialize with off-ice. Here is my prize:

the bandstand in Kings Square in Saint John.

After curling all day and hanging out in the wee hours with a great bunch of Newfoundlanders, I dragged myself to my home club to help instruct a group of young curlers. The kids were so awesome! They did not seem to mind that this was the first time that I had done any instructing and I had fun watching them get all excited about screaming "Hard!!" as they encouraged the sweepers when I let them play on a full-sized rink. It was so cool to see them get into a game that I so thoroughly enjoy. One little boy who had been a bit of a challenge during the session, but sorted himself out when I gave him lots of praise, came up to me afterwards and said, "That was awesome!". That compliment made being chilled to the bone worth it.

Jan 5/10

The new job brought a nice little signing bonus so I FINALLY bought myself a new tv after a year of thumping the floor to adjust the wonky cable connector. You can see the old tv that I bought in 1995 to the right as it has not made it to the basement yet. On the left, you can catch a wee glimpse of my cross stitch pattern collection:



Still stitching away at HAED Iris:


One added bonus of the bigger screen tv is that my eyes are finding it easier to flicker from the Iris piece (being stitched over one and being held quite close to the end of my nose as I stitch) to the tv and back. The old tv had a relatively small screen so my eyes have been taking a few seconds to adjust when I would look up.

Jan 2/10

Happy New Year plus one day! I hope that everyone has had a great start to the year and is looking forward to bigger and better things. 2009 ended with a break up email and me falling asleep at 11pm before the fireworks while 2010 started with me waking up when my friends came home from the party we had all gone to next door. We stayed up until 4:30am, listening to tunes and laughing until we could laugh no more. Not a bad way to start the year, in my opinion!