More Black Belt Stitching Wizard Stuff

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Final WIPocalypse for 2012

WIPocalypse was on Friday but I've been staying offline a bit, stitching, shoveling the driveway (again and again), hanging out with Christin (Friday and Saturday), eating way too much, and going to the movies... oh and avoiding the stores.  We've been into town a couple of times movies, lunch with Christin, and WOW you'd think since boxing day was like days ago the stores wouldn't be a zoo but the parking lots are FULL and I'm staying away!

Since my last WIPocalypse report I have....

Worked on The Accolade and proud to say I finished a page in the last month!

 The Accolade as of November WIPcocalypse

 As of December 29th

She has a face!!!

I've worked on Kathy's Christmas ABC Sampler

 ABC Christmas Sampler as of November WIPocalypse

As of December 28th

I also had some smaller finishes

 Santa and His Sleigh from Rainbow of Stitches

Three Snowflakes Fob from the same book

Snowflake 1 Freebie, gave this to my brother for his tree

Oh and Zeus was cute again!!!!

Friday, December 28, 2012

PhotoHunt - End

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "End", I'm sure when this one was picked they were referring to the end of the year.  The photo below is what came to mind right away!


September 2011 I reached the end of my first (hopefully not last if my foot behaves) half marathon!  This is me at the end of 21.1 KMs!!!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

My Stitching Pet peeve....

It doesn't matter what we're doing we always have a pet peeve related to it, here's my stitching pet peeve!!!


In all the symbols in the whole wide world... do you really have to use the same symbol in every configuration known to man?  It makes chart reading a pain.  Also, if you're dyslexic like me, it can spell disaster!!!  Right now I'd cheerfully love to kill the person who charted these triangles!!!

What's your stitching pet peeve?

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas!!!!



Merry Christmas to all my Family, Friends, and Readers!!!!

Monday, December 24, 2012

He's Coming....

Santa & His Sleigh
From the Book "A Rainbow of Stitches"
Stitched over one on 25 ct lugana
Stitched with DMC colour variations

This is an adorable little piece I stitched up earlier this month.  I kept meaning to share this finish with you, but there's nothing more appropriate than Christmas Eve!  He was a lot of fun to stitch up!!!



My good friend Tracey gave me a couple of wonderful gifts when we met up for dinner before she left for "back home" for the holidays! The two MASSIVE Peanut Butter Cups are a bit of a joke.  She got me hooked on the "king sized" cups from the States!  Don't worry I've given one to Todd, and I've cut mine into 1/4 and have eaten only 1/4 each day.  She also gave me the adorable scissor fob kit as well!!!!  Thank you Tracey and I hope you, Ed, Shilling, Quick and your whole family have a fabulous Christmas!

Well Christmas is almost upon us for another year!  My goodies are all baked, and we are set to have our annual family Chili/Chili Cheese Dog Christmas Eve Dinner with my side of the family!  I'm about as ready as I'll get for the big day, for the second year in a row I've just not had the "oomph" to put my tree up.  Having no kids, that's okay but I admit it doesn't feel like Christmas.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Last Exchange Has Arrived!

 Exchange from Shannon

About a week ago my last exchange arrived in the post, it took awhile to get here.  As all good Canadians know the minute any mail hits our border it comes off of the plane/truck and immediately goes onto dog sled.  At that time we didn't have much snow, and that really slows the poor dogs down!  The dogs did us proud, and Shannon's exchange arrived before Christmas!  She sent me this adorable gingerbread man ornament and fabulous goodies!

Zeus is playing with the candy cane on the bed

 Zeus managed to abscond with the plastic candy cane tree ornament.  I have since removed the string, she seems to like to play with it!  Who am I not to indulge my... I mean Todd's cat (I've been joking that she's his Christmas gift this year since she clearly adores her!).

This is what the roads looked like at the intersection in my Little Village
(that's one of two churches in my Little Village)

Oh my goodness!  What a couple of days its been!!!  In the last two weeks of school leading up to the Christmas break we've had three yes THREE snow days!  Sadly snow days don't mean that I get to stay home too.  As school board employees we are supposed to do our best to make it into our school, if not report to the nearest school.  For me, that's the school I work at.  The first two snow days I made it into the school with little trouble.  This Friday, was not the case we had a lot of snow... and I mean A LOT!  I'm not afraid to drive in the snow, or bad weather... to a point.  Well for the first time in many, many, many years the road conditions forced me to turn around!  The highway I travel was not only snow covered (I can deal with that) but beneath that was pitted ice, it was worse than driving on a poorly maintained dirt road!  In my wee car it was a little scary.  To even drive down to the next exit, turn around and come back home took me over 30 minutes!  My drive from my house to work is normally about 20!!  I'm ashamed to say I missed the last day at work before the holidays... I make it in most snow days when other people don't.

Our long driveway after we cleared it for the 4th time today!

The snow started during the night on Thursday, went all day Friday and into the night.  Todd was a sweetie and got up super early to clear the driveway for me so I could try to go to work on Friday.  To keep up the accumulation of snow, we shoveled THREE times that day!  Once was Todd on his own, the second time I helped, and the third time I did it on my own (took over 2 hours).    After that we gave up, decided we didn't need to get out and decided to clear it out for the fourth time today.  Of course we woke up to light snow... again.  Todd was not impressed he was outside for HOURS and I even went out and helped him for about 80 minutes.  I think we're going to have to do a little more shoveling tomorrow, Christmas Eve so that the family can come over.  All said and done, we received about 44 cm of snow!  That's longer that your kid's school ruler (standard 30 cm)!  Not only did we have to deal with snow, but our power flickered several times on Friday morning and went out for a few hours while I was shoveling the drive.

The Accolade pages 1-4

I did make good use of the day, despite spending a couple of hours shoveling wet, heavy snow I did manage to stitch as well.  I finished up page FOUR on The Accolade (not a HEAD by the way)!  So that's 4/12 pages done and I've made a wee start on page 5 yesterday.

Snowflake 1 Freebie
Stitched on 28ct Antique White Jubilee
Stitched with Carrie's Creations Blue Dreams

I've decided to slow down on The Accolade for a little while and work on a few "other things".  What those other things are, I don't know.  I will still continue to do a 10x10 block on The Accolade each day if I can, but I won't be working on it for hours at a time like I have for the last month and a half.  Yesterday this freebie took my fancy.  I did the finishing on it today, I whip stitched it together adding beads every other stitch.

So I am now off of work for TWO WEEKS!  I intend to spend a lot of it, on my behind stitching!  There will be a few visits with friends, lunches out, and maybe a movie or two.  Right now I just want to stitch!

Friday, December 21, 2012

PhotoHunt - Kindness

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "kindness".  The first thought that came to my mind was the kindness of the people/friends in my life!  Not everyone is here, but these are some highlights and people I've managed to find pictures of that I was in the picture too!  So often I'm the one behind the camera.

In no particular order...
Todd, my "other half" for the last 20 years!

Christin... we've been friends since college... way to many years ago now!  The way we talk to each other we've been mistaken as sisters by complete strangers... we've done many a road trip, concerts, and so much more together!

 Marline... my partner in crime!  When we get together, we often let our hair down!

Claire, we met in grade 10 when we were in the same computer programming class.  We took driver's ed together, and a lot of High School/teenage/growing up adventures!  I miss her so much and wish she'd move back to Canada!  Sometimes it can be years between visits and its like it was just yesterday!

 Mark... after running a half-marathon he waited for me at the 19K mark and ran in the last 2K with me!

 Todd my "other half", Yan, Andrew my oldest friend!

 Tracey, I've known her for 10 years now but in the last few years we've started spending more and more time together and we always have a blast!  Also her husband and Todd have become great friends.  Its so awesome to have a couple we really enjoy spending time with!

 Bonnie, she came to the Knowledge and Needles open house quite a few years ago and instantly became a part of my circle of stitching friends!

 Marline, Tracey and I also have a great time together!

 Kathy... just such a special person in my life!

 Amy - my best cheerleader and wonderful friend!

 Beatrice, such a lovely friend and always fun to spend time with!

 Lynn & Leanne part of my circle of stitching friends I don't get to see often enough.

There are so many other people in my life that show me kindness every day like I said I'm so often behind the camera that I don't have pictures with them and this blog entry would be a very long one! Thank you each and every one of you for the kindness you've shown me in being my friends and a part of my life!!!

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Ornament Exchanges

My fair readers will recall I've mentioned three ornament exchanges.  All three of my ornaments have arrived to their destinations!

Christmas Gift Sock Hop
Fresh Threads Studio - JCS Ornament Issue 2012

Cute beaded edge!

This first one was done with the Facebook Group Super Serial Starters and Divine Discipline Divas.  A few posts ago I shared with you what I received from this exchange, since then my ornament arrived!

Exchange from McKenna

I have also exchanged with McKenna, we agreed on a Fantasy themed ornament exchange.  Here's the wonderful parcel I received from her today.

Christmas Morning
Dragon Dreams from one of the JCS Ornament Issues (too lazy to go find out)

This cute Dragon Dreams design is what I sent her.

 HoHoHo In a Row
cLizzie Kate
Stitched on 28ct Butterfly Blue Lugana
Stitched with DMC

 I had the perfect fabric to go on the back!


My final exchange was with Shannon, her's is winging its way to me right now.  She received mine last week.  Here's what I sent her.  As soon as Shannon's arrive I'll be sure to share!

Monday, December 17, 2012

IHSW That Wasn't

Its the Christmas season, the busy party season!  I know that this weekend was busy for me aaaannnd when I wasn't busy stitching I was wasting perfectly good stitching time.


It was IHSW and I didn't accomplish much.  Saturday I went to Weight Watchers, baked and went to TWO Christmas parties (one I kidna sorta crashed and stayed until after 1am).  Sunday I didn't feel too great... and I was the DD so I can assure you there was no hangover, we went for breakfast and a little shopping... and back to bed!

 Kathy's ABC Christmas Sampler - before & after

The Accolade - before & after

Started this little snowflake trio Friday night

Snowflake trio finished into a little fob on Saturday!

While I was baking in the kitchen Zeus was enjoying a patch of sunshine on one of the kitchen chairs

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Final TUSAL for 2012

Well, this is it... a few days late for the final TUSAL of 2012.  Wow I've completed my second full year of this quirky, fun SAL.


Here's my ort jar for December.  I apologize about the blow out on the white for the ornament, but I don't feel like taking another picture.

Friday, December 14, 2012

PhotoHunt - Bells

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Bells"


This photo was taken in Santo Domingo, the capitol of the Dominican Republic.  I came across these old church bells in the colonial section of the city.

Friday, December 07, 2012

PhotoHunt - Zesty

I had trouble with this week's theme of "zesty" of course the first thing that comes to mind is food, or zest from a lemon.  But that was too "normal", you all know I don't do normal.


It doesn't matter where you go in the world or what their situation is, children have a zest for life!