PhotoHunters - Game

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Game"

I took this picture in Santo Domingo this past February.  Dominoes is the national "game" of the Dominican Republic.

Snow Day Fun!

Overnight on Tuesday we go a huge dump of snow, in the area of 20cm our first big snowfall of the year! Busses were cancelled, so I didn't have to rush to get into work ontime, but I still had to go into the school despite 95% of the kids staying home.



Here' sweat greeted me when I went out to my car in the morning. I was sooo lucky, Todd had gotten up early to snowblower the drive, brush off and warm up my car! What a sweet thing to do.

Since kids weren't around I decided I'd partake of a day of arts and crafts! We turned the TV on and enjoyed a Criminal Minds and CSI marathon. I had decided last week I needed something new to go into my book display for the Christmas season. I was tired of hanging garland and balls from the ceiling. So a Google search was in order!

I found this awesome idea, that involved recycling a book and would be just fantastic!



The process started last week when I cut apart a book (many have asked me what book, it was Pierre Burton's Last Spike), it was very liberating! Then I started rolling the pages into cones and securing them with a little scotch tape. I had shown this picture on Facebook, asking my friends of they could guess what I was up to! Someone jokingly responded "unicorns!" So it became "project unicorn".



On Wednesday I took in with me a sheet of mat board and my hot glue gun. I started construction!






There was one last finishing touch, but I needed to go to the dollar store to get some red and gold Christmas balls!



Look at my beautiful book page wreath! It fills my book display beautifully and I can't wait to hear everyone's reactions when they see it!


- thanks for reading!

Weekend Stirching

Well it turned out to be the perfect weekend for stitching. Friday night I did all of my running around, Todd and I had a nice dinner out (which we rarely do) and I settled in for the weekend, especially when the snow started to fly on Saturday morning. I wasn't going anywhere (also had my snow tires out on just in time!).




I picked up this Lizzie*Kate chart with all the threads a couple of weekends ago at Knowledge and Needles when I went to the November Timberhouse retreat (I haven't blogged about it, but have pictures on my camera). I had been on the fence about buying it for awhile, until I saw it stitched up on Sally's blog, then I had to have it.

After working on the Accolade since I came back from retreat, I decided it was time for a bit of an over-one break, and these we're calling my name! I pulled out some 28ct fabric to stitch these on. Digging around for the perfect fabric I realized my 28ct drawer is ready to puke fabric everywhere... In other words it's getting hard to close it without some escapees. So I either need to start using this stuff up, or I need to buy more fabric to fill up my 32ct drawer which isn't even half full. I've been gravitating towards higher counts lately so of course the 28ct has been piling up.

So since Friday night I have stitched up all 3 Lizzie*Kate Flora McSampler 2012 Ornaments. They are stitched on mystery 28ct fabric using a combination of Weeks Dye Works and DMC threads. I also outlined each of the designed and did a backing piece so I can whip stitch these together... Whenever I find my finishative. I also included a motif from each pattern onto the back of each piece. I'm not sure if I'm going to just whip them together or add a beaded edge.




Rejoice



Noel




Believe

I really love the colours used to stitch these.

Since things have calmed down just over a week ago, not only have I been stitching quite a bit, I've started something else back up again. I've started posting to my other blog again after a long silence. I use this blog to talk about my struggles to loose weight, and to lead a more active and healthy life. I think I need it at this time in my life to get and remain motivated. I've been doing a combination of either treading water or drowning for quite awhile now, and I need to turn things around again.

- thanks for reading!

PhotoHunt - Over

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "over"

I took this picture this past August during my trip to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  We took out to do some mackerel fishing from the small fishing town of Main-a-Dieu (translatest to hand of God).  When the day was "over" the fisherman cleaned some fish before scrubbing down his lobster boat.

Accolade

For the last little while The Accolade (NOT a HEAD) has been receiving my attention.



Here she is, I last worked on her on Thursday night. I'm quite enjoying this piece.


- thanks for reading!

Farewell Adriana

I've been trying to compose this post in my head for over a week now. No words can do this woman justice.




In the wee hours of Sunday, November 10th, my favourite 97 year old stitcher went to Heaven. I'm not a person of faith but I know Ariana is up in Heaven stitching up a storm. This past Friday we said goodbye.

I am honoured to have known Adriana, been in her presence to call her friend. I've been so lucky to know this woman for the last ten years of my life, and I'm richer for it.



When I first met her I can recall that she was stitching on Aida, that she was too old for linen/evenweave. It didn't take much for us to encourage her to pick up evenweave again. She never gave up evenweave again, because she was "too old". Adriana taught me that age truly is a state of mind, she wasn't 97 years old, she was 97 years young.

She was a woman of deep faith, a lady who always wore a skirt or dress, she was a proper lady, kind to all, never had a bad thing to say. She was graceful and beautiful and would fill a room despite her petite stature. She was loved and we could feel her love for us.



She handled life in stride and with grace.

If I could grow up to be like anyone, I want to grow up to be like Adriana.



- thanks for reading!

PhotoHunt - Neat

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Neat"

This is another picture from my trip to Charleston, South Carolina in July.  We spent a day walking through the historic neighborhoods in Charleston.  On one of the houses I found this really "neat" doorknocker!