Sept 28/10

Well, what else to do on a wet and rainy morning besides pay bills and finish several little projects (submitting continuing education tests and fixing my bird feeder)? Oh yes! Update my blog. My needle has been going fast and furious in the evenings these past few weeks:

These first three ornaments are the almost finished versions of the bird stamp Dimension series that I purchased earlier this year. I am doing two at a time because I bought two of each, but have only taken a picture of one of each pair as an example of what I have been up to. The back stitching still needs to be done on all of them so they are far from complete although it is a nice feeling to at least have the main body completed.

 I am fascinated with cardinals these days after seeing a couple of them two years ago. They are making an appearance in our region of the country and I was lucky enough to have some of them in my yard. Birds are such amazing creatures and I am also very surprised that any survive in my yard because, yes, I am one of those cat owners who lets her cats out without bells. Before anyone yells at me, no one in my immediate neighbourhood has problems with mice so there are trade-offs. I used to put bells on my cats until the little beggars figured out how to adjust their collars on their necks so the bells did not ring.

 And who can resist Lizzie Kate? Not me! I have also been playing around with floss and fabric colours, using whatever I have on hand to stitch up these ornaments. I always keep the pattern photos close by while selecting the floss and stitching so that I remain true to the designer's original ideas in terms of colour and constantly refer back to the photos. These ornaments come from L*K's Tiny Tidings VII and XV.

 Last but certainly not least came this beautiful post card from my brother. At first I thought that it was a photo and then I looked at the caption on the back. This picture is titled "A Long Halt" and was painted by Silvia Pecota. You know that our soldiers have been there more than long enough when there are postcards of their missions.......



Sept 17/10

Stash picure for Christine (and others!). Here is what I managed to limit myself to last weekend when I was at the cross stitch shop, Because You Count, in Moncton. The fabric is even weave odds and ends. The rolls of linen were tempting, but my hands break out after handling linen any length of time.

And here is the result of using one of my new patterns and a piece of the odds and ends:

The threads were taken out of my trusty mystery thread box, of course. I have a couple of co-workers who are as cat-mad as I am so I am thinking about doing this one again, but maybe with a dark grey cat this time.

Well, off to workity work I go so that I can continue to feed both my stitching habit and my cats!

Sept 12/10

I realized as I was uploading pictures that I have yet to post a picture of Cooper, the most recent feline addition to my house. This picture is one that I took the other night while she was sleeping on the couch beside me as I stitched. It took her at least a month to feel comfortable here, the cool reception by the other 2 cats was part of the issue as was me going away for two weeks shortly after she joined us, but by the way that she is sleeping with a fully exposed belly, I would say that she is comfortable now!

And then there is darling Penelope who makes herself comfortable in the funniest of places:

Apparently, the kids in El Salvador need white cat hair on their school supplies. The hair must make learning easier or more fun or something! When she is not sleeping there, she hides out in the paper recycling basket which is where she just went to because I am not paying enough attention to her.

The 4 zucchini plants in my back yard are still being uber productive. So far this week, I have made a stirfry and spaghetti sauce with zucchini. Here are the muffins I made the other day:

 

Recipe:
3 cups grated zucchini unpeeled (I put mine in the blender)
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup oil
Mix in large bowl and set aside.

Sift together:
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Add dry ingredients to zucchini mix and blend. Then stir in 2 cups of whole wheat flour (I used all purpose because it was too late to run to the grocery store).
Drop into muffin tins and bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes.

I should post some pictures of the ornaments I am working on and of the stash I bought yesterday. Since I had to drive to Moncton yesterday to get something from my brother's house to mail to him in Afghanistan, I figured that a stop at Because You Count was a just reward for driving 150km to find a SCUBA license. I came away with a couple of Lizzie Kate Christmas ornament patterns and three rolls of odds and ends fabric left over from the cutting table. Again, if I ever stop blogging, just assume that the pile of stash that I have toppled over and that I am buried underneath it! :-)

Sept 6/10

Another postcard from Afghanistan:

The funny part was that my brother was actually home on leave when it arrived! Both postcards have taken almost 30 days to get here which is not bad considering there is no regular mail bag service out of KAF (they throw a bag on the plane if there is room). On the back he laments the soccer fever that gripped the base during the World Cup, probably amplified somewhat for him as his roommate at the time was from Holland!

And a little produce from my garden. Tomatoes and zucchinis are in abundance in my little garden this year. I am thinking that pasta and some kind of tomato and zucchini dish are in order for supper tonight. The grocery store here in town has some awesome local corn that I have now had 2 nights in a row for supper. Fresh corn, lots of butter, good friends, what more can one ask for?

Sept 3/10

Yikes! Where did the summer go? Mind you, this heat wave we are in at the moment is making us feel like summer is hanging on even though we are on the cusp of the Labour Day Weekend. I need to make a final inspection of my yard this afternoon to make sure that everything is secured or put away as Hurricane Earl is still expected to be classified as a hurricane when he passes over this region tomorrow. When I was out last night putting away my lawn chairs, I stopped to look at my brook which is really more of a series of stagnant puddles at the moment. I have lived here for over 10 years and have never seen that brook stop moving. The forecast is for several inches of rain tomorrow and we need it! This region is usually so lush and it still is compared to truly dry areas like Adelaide, Australia, but we need rain!

Despite the heat, I have managed to get some stitching done, mostly because it requires so little movement on my part so it was something I could do without sweating up a storm. I have also been on eBay and bought some more patterns because I needed them. If you are a Teresa Wentzler fan like me, a pattern like Diamond in Squares is absolutely irresistible!

Well, I should get going! I have to stop in to the post office to mail off a parcel for a friend in Mongolia and go for a 90 minute deep tissue massage (a treat to myself for all of the extra hours I have been working recently!). Then, who knows what I will get up to!

Aug 24/10

In my last entry I mentioned that I found some finished pieces so I thought I might post them. This one was done probably about 7 years ago as I stitched the matching quilt for my nephew when he was born:

Then, there was this piece that is reminiscent of what goes on in my house all of the time:

Just exchange the window and cushion for the floor mat in front of the patio door and you get the idea! Recently one poor little songbird was sacrificed to the feline hunting instinct but I did see some more little brave birds eating the berries off of my honeysuckle bush since then.

My current WIPs are the series of Dimension ornaments that feature birds, inspirational words and postmarks. These ones are the second one in a series of six that I have purchased:

And a wee warning before you scroll down further..................................................There are pictures of animal skulls, not something one would normally associate with cross stitching!

I was out clearing brush at the old apple orchard the other day when I almost stepped on this little skull. I found it so fascinating because it was so intact except for a few missing teeth. My lack of wildlife knowledge has me guessing as to what animal it may have been, but I am guessing that it may have been a fox or a similar animal. There was some fresh deer poop in and around the orchard as well, but I did not find that fascinating enough to photograph!

Aug 23/10

Hint hint hint that I may need to de-clutter this place----last night I found two completely stitched pieces that I had forgotten all about. I was moving some unopened kits around in an attempt to arrange them after some of them had fallen over because I was moving some paperwork that is stacked beside the kits and presto! a mystery bag. I opened the bag and there they were! On the big downside, I was finally getting my mystery thread box under control and now I have a big handful of left over threads to add to it from those two projects.

Clutter is a theme all over my house. I recently reclaimed a corner of my basement after giving away an old microwave that had been sitting in that corner for 2 years and getting rid of a bag of Christmas decorations to the Rotary Club table at the townwide yardsale. This weekend, I tackled my old car and found a bag of mittens that went to the Diabetes donation box and almost $6 in change which came in handy for coffee money today! Honestly! How does the clutter get so far ahead of me?

Aug 16/10

Not all of my artistic talents are stitching related:

I also do a great camouflage design, but I do not know how to obscure faces nor am I great at editing so I can not show you the sign my nephew and I made for his daddy.

A two week leave is just not long enough. How much longer will this insanity continue? I understand that the Afghan people want peace and stability just as much as anyone else in the world, but what about this little boy who fiercely misses his daddy? Why does he have to pay the price for the decisions made by the politicians and warlords?

Aug 4/10

Oops! Forgot to photograph this one and upload it! Another Joan Elliott on 28ct Lugana and stitched with mystery threads.

Aug 4/10

Over the weekend while visiting family and friends in Southern Ontario, I was showing my blog to my cousin's girlfriend so that she could see some of the things that I have stitched as she is into cross-stitch as well. While flipping through the blog, I came across several stash pictures of patterns that I had completely forgotten that I owned but apparently needed at the moment of purchase. Fast forward a few days when I was puttering around the house, I went through the pile of patterns on my book shelf and pulled out several to line up for stitching. If I do not post for a month or more, please come find me under the pile of patterns that has fallen over and suffocated me. Note to self: You really do not need to buy any more patterns. Ever.

July 29/10

Whenever my brother is away for an extended period of time for training or a deployment I try to send him a letter or a postcard once a week. The Canadian postal service has a sweet program where letters can be sent to armed forces personnel serving overseas without having to pay postage. In return, my brother sent me this post card of the valley where the Taliban destroyed the Buddha statues several years ago. The date stamp says June 30/10 and it arrived today. Not bad for having to travel all the way from Afghanistan through the Canadian military and civilian postal systems.

Another ornament stitched for the Christmas giving season:

This ornament is a Joan Elliott stitched on 28 Lugana and using my mystery thread collection once again! I usually take a quick look at the photos of the finished design to get the general idea of the colour scheme as envisaged by the designer before selecting what I have available to me in my mystery thread box. Every once in a while I do not do so well with my colour choices, but more times than not the design turns out quite well if I do say so myself!

July 25/10

The screen really distorts the image, but if you squint you can make out the day lilies, the thistles, the bee balm, the daisies and the other flowers for which I do not know their names! This is the view from my computer desk.

July 22/10 Part II

This post is brought to you first by a Lizzie Kate ornament:

stitched on 28 count Lugana and using mystery threads. I ignored L*K's colour suggestions because it is my ornament dagnamit! I also did a different stitch on the centre of the two-toned blue present. Because I am blissfully ignorant of actual embroidery terms, I can not tell you what it is, but bargello is coming to mind or perhaps a version of satin stitch. Someone help me out here! My brain is fried after only having one day off since a week ago Monday.

These two ornaments are some of the Dimensions series that I purchased from Mary Maxim a few weeks ago:

There are 6 in total and I bought two of each because I give the finished ornaments to my pharmacy assistants and since I work between 3 pharmacies, I have a few assistants to stitch for! So far, I really like these kits in that they are properly supplied and the stitching is pretty although not complicated. If anything, Dimensions has supplied too much floss as I stitched 1.75 ornaments with the floss kit from one kit! The mystery thread box is going to explode if I put much more into it which is why I stitched up the L*K to use some of its contents!

Well, it is off to bed for me as I have an important errand to run tomorrow morning!! Hello Nissan!

July 22/10

Honestly, there has been some stitching going on around here and one of these days, I will have the camera in the living room to take photos of the ornaments I am working on! In non-stitching news, I will be parking this:

in my drive way tomorrow. Hello to my 2010 Nissan Rogue in Iridium Graphite or purply-grey to those who call a spade a spade. The starter in my 2001 Saturn went two weeks ago and I replace my vehicles when something big like the alternator or the starter goes because I just do not have the patience to keep nursing the vehivle along at that point. I am having trouble admitting to my green eco self that I am buying an SUV, but that same self gets really irritated when the Saturn gets stuck in the street when the snow plough is late coming to clear the street. Also, my darling back is starting to get creaky from too many years of not drinking milk or eating dairy and not following my own professional advice to take calcium supplements so my Saturn is too low for me to easily get out of these days. I keep calling the Rogue a car as in "I am getting a new car!!", but it is an SUV. I shall have to find a way to compensate for my destruction of the planet.

July 17/10

Don't let the smell put you off! I have just come in from mowing the lawn and adding stuff to the compost bins. The weather is hot and sunny here today so I am rather fragrant after my multi-tasking of exercise and yard work! This summer I am experimenting a bit with the water that comes out of the dehumidifier that is going gangbusters in my basement. Instead of just pouring it down the drain conveniently located next to the dehumidifier, I have been stewing it in my plastic wheelbarrow along with all of the weeds that do not fit into my overflowing compost bins (I have 3). Each time I go out to add kitchen waste to the bin I am adding to, I scoop up some of the water to dampen the contents of each bin. The water is really boggy and smelly, but at least I am not just dumping it down the drain for it to be pumped to the sewage lagoon. I have also used some of that boggy water to water some of my flower beds that were drying out recently.

Well, off to work I go for the evening shift now that I have finished my yard work and showered!

July 11/10

Here is the Joan Elliot ornament:

Please do not look too closely at my finishing as it really sucked the big one! Somehow I was all thumbs and nothing would go right despite all of my efforts to correct the mess. The ornament is for Elsa and the adorable Robeez booties are for her gorgeous son Luis.

Yesterday, I went to St Andrews to visit with friends who are trailering there for the week. One of our must see shops was Candyland on Main Street. I was re-living my youth with this picture. As a treat since we were not allowed to drink pop that often, my dad would get a case of Pop Shoppe pop every once and a while. Now the stuff is hard to find so I could not resist when I found some in the cooler at Candyland!

Right after my friends had called to invite me to visit with them, I received a message on Facebook from a pharmacy classmate at Dalhousie that she was participating in an event in St Andrews that is raising money for hospice. From the paint brush of the very talented Poppy Balser:

And just for fun, I purchased this cute piece:

I was lucky to get it according to the organizers because if I had not bid the buying bid for it when I saw it, there were plenty of other people who were eager to get their hands on it! There were two other variations with different hair colour, but there was just something about this mermaid that made me smile!

July 10/10

Whew! It has been hot here these past few days! Yeah, yeah, there are those of you who are living in warmer climates who would scoff at the temperatures that I melt in, but remember I am Canadian where a fine day is 15C.

The heat has slowed down my walking and running somewhat although I did make great use of my treadmill in my lovely and cool basement last night. Another 5km in!

Some stitching has been done. The Joan Elliot rose ornament is finished and waiting to be photographed and mailed to my friend who has promised to deliver it to Elsa in Guatemala for me. I have also started some Christmas ornaments that I purchased as kits from Mary Maxim. Pictures to follow tomorrow as I am off to lovely St Andrews by the Sea for the afternoon to visit with friends who have a trailer at one of the camping parks.

The only other "creative" thing that I have done recently is to sit down with pen and paper to write a letter to my brother who has been deployed to Afghanistan. He probably would be glad to receive an email, but there is something special about getting something that you can hold and feel from home. Whenever he is away for extended periods of time, I try to write letters or send postcards once a week. Perhaps it is more for my sake than anything, but I know that he appreciates the effort.

June 29/10

The amaryllis is almost done. The cross stitching and the backstitching are complete. Now I am finishing up the border which is a couching stitch. The final stitch is one I can not remember and am too lazy to go get the instructions to find out. That last stitch finishes the stamen (or is it the pistil?). Anyhow, it is the little bit that sticks out of the bloom and bees like to land on it for the pollen.

 A closer if somewhat darker look at my couching stitch:

While I do like the final effect, once again I must admit that working with metallic threads does not excite me in the least. The couching stitch does give it a pretty effect but I was in a tangle of needles all of the time despite my best efforts. Maybe it is something that I should not be attempting when I have worked 7 out of 8 days recently. Just maybe.

My garden mostly groweth! The beans and the peas have produced 1 single plant out of all the seeds that I sowed. I should re-seed those rows, but well, you know what they say about good intentions. As it is, I just mowed the lawn after a week and a half so the garden re-seeding has been a little low on the priority list.

In other news, my trip to El Salvador is officially a go! I have a trip code, the flyer is up on the Habitat for Humanity website and now just to get going on the details and recruitment of team members. I can not wait to build again!

June 23/10

So, here is my progress on the amaryllis:

I have finished most of the full and half stitches, but have stopped working on the project because 1. a group of us are going in on a gift certificate for the couple I had thought about giving this to for their wedding and 2. I got way laid by making this ornament:

I am making this for Elsa, a young mom that I met at the Guatemalan orphanage in May. My friend who organized the mission is taking another team in August and when asked, she said that she would make sure that Elsa and Luis get the parcel I am putting together. I have also bought the cutest little booties for Luis that have little hearts on them. There is a strength and a deep sadness about Elsa that makes me want to reach out to her. No matter what happens to her, I want her to know that a lady from Canada cares what happens to her. The ornament is a Joan Elliot stitched over 1 on a 28 count Lugana scrap that I purchased last week at Because You Count in Moncton. Part of the reason that I chose this particular pattern is that I met Elsa at an orphanage called Rosa de Amor so I decided that the rose theme was fitting, plus I wanted Elsa to have something beautiful to call her own.

A little thinking was going on while I was out walking in the heat yesterday. The other night, a friend's neighbour called me a saint for all of the volunteer stuff I do and that really embarrassed me. I do these things because it is my honour and privilege to go to El Salvador and Guatemala and wherever. I am fortunate as a woman and a person to live in a country where I can be free personally, emotionally, politically and financially. Working alongside the people who I meet along the way is very humbling because they live in very challenging circumstances and yet they make the best of it and have such incredible spirit. I gain so much more personally than I give because my heart and my eyes are widened a little more each time.

The planning has begun for my next Habitat trip which is tentatively slated to be in November 2010......

June 14/10

My new kicks, bought the other day to inspire me to get my a$$ in gear again. I have not run in so long that I can not remember the last time I went for a jog! My body nearly went into shock yesterday when I put the first 5km of walking and jogging on these shoes. Here I go out the door to add 5km more.......