Big News! A BIG Finish and Two New Birds!

Hello all my faithful readers!  It is the start of summer here in SW Ontario, Canada!  It has been hot and sometimes humid.  We aren't getting the rain we had in the spring, and we could sure use a little now!  I keep watering my tomatoes and herbs and flowers, so they are all doing fine!

I have been busy, obsessed really, with finishing my Castles In The Air!  I have finally finished it, beading and all!  I ran out of gold beads the other day, so I had to grab some at my LNS during a dash to the big city!  Here it is in all its GLORY!!!

 There really is a castle!!  LOL!

I am so excited to finally share it with you all!  It seemed a little bittersweet as I was stitching the last part.  In a way I'm sad that its done, but on the other hand, I think its time to move on!  Now it goes to my Mom and she can frame it up!  I will post a picture when she has it framed and on her wall!

Before I got the last part of CITA, I was working on The Stitch Specialists Tree of Stitches!  I showed you the fabric and threads in my last post.  Here is what I have completed thus far!

Part 1-Cross Stitch

 Part 2-Smyrna Stitch

 Part 3-French Knots

 Part 4-Eyelets

 Part 5-Rice Stitch

 Part 6-Cushion Stitch

I am working on Part 7, Jerusalem Stitch now!  I hope to slowly catch up on this one.  I have just been using overdyed floss that I have in my stash in greens and pinks.  I am loving this one!

I have a small ornament that I have been stitching while my DD is rowing, and when I ran out of beads for CITA.  I hope to be finished that in a couple of days, then I would like to concentrate on TW Designworks Spring Carousel Horse!  I hope to finish it this summer!

I have joined a new SAL group, actually an off shoot of The Stitch Specialist's group, called the TSSChatelaineSAL yahoo group!  Everyone will be working on Chatelaine's of some sort starting  August 1!  I have chosen to work on three of the smaller ones, a freebie called "A Tiny Rose Mandala Garden", and two from the Gift of Stitching magazine, "Lavender Garden" and "Romantic Rose Garden Mandala".  I am waiting for some silk threads to come in from my LNS and then have to find the beads, as they don't call for Mill Hill!  I have been searching in vain for a bead conversion for Delica beads or even a good supplier, but have had no luck!  Maybe someone out there in blog world could help!

I have a couple of my animal and bird pictures to share!  First off is this cute bunny that has been hanging around in the evenings!  I managed to snap this one thru my window!  Isn't he cute?!

 This beauty is a Baltimore Oriole!  He loves the nectar from my hummingbird feeder!  Come to think of it, I haven't seen any hummingbirds for a while!  Hmmmm.

 This shy one is a White-Breasted Nuthatch!  I have been trying to snap a photo of this one for almost a year!!  Every time I tried, I couldn't get the camera turned on fast enough!  The reason he is upside down is because I had Hubby attach a suet feeder on the bottom of my cedar feeder.  I saw similar feeder in a magazine and they didn't give a price, and I really like the idea!  Hubby said we had an extra feeder kicking around, so he just attached it!  And we saved some money! 

I hope everyone is enjoying summer, or winter in the Southern Hemisphere!  And that you enjoyed my update!  I will post soon with more stitching to show and can't wait to see what everyone else is working on!  Chat soon!

June Update! (And so soon! LOL!)

Hi All!  Here is another update on the happenings here at the Joyes' house!  Finally, May is over and we are into June!  My schedule has opened up immensely, which has been great on the stitching front!  Below is Papillon Creations Castles in the Air!  Part 22 down, and one more to go!  This month it was the four corners, and they are lovely!!  There were two versions, a drawn thread and a four-sided stitch version!  I chose the four-sided stitch version, as this is Aida!  I couldn't fathom trying drawn thread stitches on Aida!  LOL!

 Top Left corner.

 Bottom left corner.

 Top right corner.

 Bottom right corner.

 Once I have the last part I can start to bead!  I hope to have this completed early in July!  Wish me luck!  Because then I want to work exclusively on my Spring Carousel Horse!

I also finished my May ornament for my Ornament SAL.  It's by Country Cottage Needleworks, from one of the JCS ornament issues! (Sorry, can't for the life of me remember the year.)

 And just this morning, I finished stitching June's ornament, a LizzieKate, from the 2007 JCS ornament issue!  I started this one on June 6 while watching DD row out on the lake!  Sat in my folding chair, in the shade and stitched!  It was glorious!

Here is a picture of the biscornu that I made for my sister's birthday this year!  It was a freebie from designer, Faby Reilly!  It has two of my sister's favourite things, Lilly of the Valley and ladybugs!  She was thrilled!  She sent me a photo from her phone, as I forgot to take a picture!  :(

This is a picture of the invitation I sent out for DD's birthday this year!  I made it with my Cricut machine!  I am trying to use this more in my cards and scrapbook pages, as I have it!  And I have a bunch of cartridges, so why not put it to use!

The girls had a blast!  The three other girls met us at the salon, where they got to have manicures and pedicures!  They went with the wildest colours and the most fun finishes!  DD had her nails painted black with a white crackle finish!!  Way cute!

 They they all came back to our house and had homemade pizza and snacks!  Here are the four individual pizzas I made for the girls!  They choose their own toppings!

 Then they had cake!  White cake with purple icing for  DD!!

They had a sleepover and took over the living room!  Hubby picked up an air mattress, so it all worked out great!  They played basketball and volleyball outside!  Then they were all gone about noon the next day!  I got a very big hug and a "Thanks for my party, Mom!" after all the other girls were gone!  Makes it all worthwhile for me!!
Now last, but not least, I have a new bird to show you!  This one is called a Brown Thrasher!  Sorry, Dad, another one you don't have!!  LOL!  They like to forage on the ground for food and seeds!

Well I should get going now!  Hubby said that he hoped to be home close to 3 pm today, and it's getting to be that time!  Just going to fold a couple loads of laundry, and since I finished what I set out to do this week stitching-wise, I think I'll put the fabric I've chosen for the Tree of Stitches on my scroll frame and maybe make a start!  Have a nice weekend, everyone!  Chat soon!

April Tidings!

Hello all!  It's my monthly update!  That seems to be the frequency of my posts.  I'm not sure why that is.  I would like to post more, but things get in the way!  Like housework, illness, you know, life!  I think it's a woman's lot in life!  I feel guilty that I haven't posted, but feel guilty if I post and haven't got my housework done!  It's just a vicious circle.  How about I'll do my best?  Does that sound alright?

This is a finish for Brooke's Books Yahoo group challenge.  Unfortunately, I didn't get it done in time!  DD, my Mom and I had gone away for a few days early March Break up to my sister's in Peterborough to visit, shop and hang out!  Very close family friends, Deb and Wendy with her little guy Korbin joined us for a couple of those days.  We had fun, visiting shopping, drinking wine, playing Korbin and my sister's new puppy!  But after getting home, I got a wicked head cold!  I don't wish that on anyone!  So I wasn't able to get it done on time, but made this one a priority to finish up as soon as I was well!

I used some linen that I had on hand and beads and metallics from my stash!  Quite pleased with it, actually!  I have a couple ideas for finishing it, so when I decide and finally get it done, I will post!

Next is my update for CITA!  Part 20!  Only 4 parts to go!  I don't want to gush again, (but I will!) but I am loving how it is turning out so far!  This month's version is a wonderful bee hive!  With lots of specialty stitches!  This one is really stretching my stitching muscles!

Here is the close-up!  There was the Herringbone stitch, Lazy Daisy, Rhodes Berry, Ray stitch, Partial Eyelet, Spider Webs, Fishbone stitch, and the Chain stitch!  I had never done the Chain stitch before, and it's not as hard as I thought!

Next up is my Ornament of the Month for April!

This one is by LHN, Gingerbread Tree from the 2010 JCS Ornament Preview issue!  This one was so fun and fast to stitch up!  It only took two days!  I started it at my DD's rowing practice.

DD has really kept me hopping, with rowing, basketball, now volleyball (which is over next week!  Yay!) and we just started horse-back riding lessons again!  And she was sick last weekend!  She called me up from school last Friday afternoon saying that she wasn't feeling well!  She was right!  She had fever, chills and a rash on her wrists and inner elbows!  There was some bug going around at school, and what a bug!!  I kept her home an extra day Monday to be on the safe side.  And she is back to her normal self!

I also took our kitten, Chloe into the vet's to get spade this past Wednesday!  I just picked her up this morning!  Boy is she glad to be home!  And I really missed her!  She's always following me around the house!  The only thing is, she went into her first heat a week before her appointment!  I made the appointment, and the next day she was in heat!  Figures!  But after three days, she was done!  My DD was worried that she was really sick!  Having to explain to my 12 year old was so funny!  By the time I had finished my explanation, she had this really disgusted look on her face!  It was priceless!!

Here are a couple of my recent bird pictures!  I zoomed in on them from inside my house to the trees!  I just love watching the birds!  I get so excited!  My DD just rolls her eyes!  But my Hubby will point them out when he's home!

Let's hope that Spring is finally here!  We had a lovely day here in Southwestern Ontario yesterday!  Light breezes and sunshine!  It was glorious!  It is still warm today, but overcast!  I would really like the sun to shine for more than a day at a time!  Because I really need to get outside and clean up the lawn!  I have huge amounts of sticks and branches and stones to pick up off the yard!  I hope that Spring had arrived where you are, and that you can get out and enjoy warmth!  Have a lovely weekend, everyone and chat soon!

March Has Been Good To Me, So Far!

Boy, am I glad February is over!  The weather has been crappy!!  Snowy, cold, and all I have wanted to do all month is hibernate!  But have heard that winter isn't done with us yet!  Apparently, it's supposed to be cold and yucky into May!  Darn weather man!  Did you know that Meteorologist is Latin for "Liar" ?! (Just kidding!  Heard that joke somewhere before!  LOL!)

Since the weather has been so bad, I have been fairly busy stitching since I last blogged!  Have finished off two more sides of the VS Gingerbread Stitching House!  I love watching them together!

And here is my update on Castles in the Air!  Part 19 had either another floral square or a "Folly", and enchanted glade!  Mom chose the folly!

Here is the close-up!

Next, here is my March Ornament of the Month SAL piece!  It is from the 2006 JCS Ornament issue!  Had this on kitted up for a while, so I thought I would get it done!  I think I will be turning this one into a pillow ornament!

One of the few bright spots in the month, was a trip to my LNS  , Stitch-It-Central, with my DD and my parents!  Mom, DD and I spent just over an hour in the store, while Dad waited patiently (Thanks, Dad!) in the car!  It is a good thing we stopped for coffee first!  LOL!  This is a fantastic store, and she has a super on-line store as well!  Maria is wonderful!  And her selection is great!  If you get a chance to visit or shop on-line, please do so!  Her prices are very competitive!  I plan on doing most of my needlework buying with her!

Picked up Crescent and Weeks Dye Works floss for more SAL ornaments, as well as a few DMC's, some fabric for a Christmas project, Kreinik threads for DD and myself, and a smaller hoop for the ornament stitching!  Plus, she gave Mom and I each a small Lizzie Kate chart for the month of February!  Which was only for on-line customers!  Not sure I should have mentioned that, but I just wanted to show you all how wonderful I think she is!  Mom gave my DD hers because DD mentioned that she liked it!  That is how it came to be in my picture!

Here is DD's latest cross-stitch project!  This is from 2004 JCS Ornament issue, by Dragon Dreams!  She had most of it stitched, except for the metallic portion and the french knots.  It called for Colonial knots, but as I had never done those before, I asked whether french ones were okay!  Wasn't really a question so much as a statement!  LOL!  She's happy with the way it turned out!  Now she is working on a new project from Janlynn's called Forever Wild.  It's of horses, of course!

I am so excited!  I discovered I won a blog giveaway this morning!  I had actually forgotten that I entered!  I subscribe to this blog by email, and usually get it the next day.  So I started reading the blog entry for yesterday while I was having my coffee this morning.  Not really paying all that much attention, more skimming the entry, towards the bottom I'm reading the winner's comments to the two giveaways, and one starts to seem familiar!  Lo and behold, there is my name!  It made my day! So I emailed my thanks and address to the email supplied!  I can't wait for it to get here!  It is a new book, not yet released called Cardmaps Today, from Scrapbook and Cards Today magazine!  I think I should enter more giveaways!  LOL! 

Have started a new project from Little House Needleworks called Gingerbread Trio!  I couldn't help it, it called to me and I finally got all the floss for it!  Tee hee!  Then it will back to the Flower of the Month afghan, more VS Gingerbread Stitching House, and Part 20 of CITA!  Don't have any new bird photos this month, so far!  Hopefully it gets warm soon so I'll have some new ones!  I hope the weather is starting to get better where ever you are!  Chat soon!

SAL Finishes, and a New House!

Hi all!  I hope everyone's week has been a good one, and all have managed to survive the wicked weather!  Our area didn't get the ammount the weatherman was calling for, but we still got enough!  My DD had a snow day last Wednesday, and a PA day on the Thursday, so she was quite happy!  She and I spent her snow day stitching and watching movies, which was lovely!  And since I got my housework done Thursday and Friday, now all I have to do this weekend is laundry and stitching!

On to the updates!  Finished Part 18 of Castles in the Air by Papillon Creations!  A little Tudor cottage!  I just can't seem to stop gushing about this one!  I love how everything is turning out!  But I think that if I had the whole complete chart in front of me, I would be overwhelmed!  But by stitching pieces of it every month, it isn't overwelming and I look forward to the challange!

Here is a close up!  I just love the arbor!  It is just so sweet!

I outlined the fence, otherwise you couldn't see it, and adding metallic blue to the white would just look silly on the fence!

I also started the February ornament for my ornament SAL.  I really wanted to do a Gingerbread one, and really liked the Country Cottage Needlework one from the August JCS ornament preview issue.  As I was stitching it, I noticed the title,"Season of Love" and thought it was pretty apprpriate for the month of February!  February being the month of love, hearts and other gushy stuff!  LOL!

Have a new start to share with you!  I couldn't help it!  I thought it was so cute!  I am working on Brooke's Books Winter House Challenge!  I used some fabric, metallic floss and beads that I had in my stash!  We are to make it our own by adding beads, buttons and whatever else takes our fancy!  It has two cardinals in it, so you see why I needed to stitch this one?!?!

This is what I have done so far!  I have set it down now though to work on my Flower of the Month afghan, Februrary's Violets!

I don't have any new pictures of birds, but I thought I would show you one that I took over the summer.

I am sorry that it is kind of hazy, but my camera went from air conditioned house to hot late afternoon summer air very quickly, and I had to get the shot!  There was a banded pigeon that had started to hang around my bird feeders (Sorry, I should have taked pictures of it!) for a few days.  But one day I noticed a bunch of white stuff on the back lawn, and went over to investigate, and discovered it was feathers!  Later that afternoon I saw this Cooper Hawk guarding its kill!  I felt bad for the pigeon, but it was sorta neat to see the hawk!  But other birds disappeared for a few hours!  They don't particularly like it when hawks come to visit!  LOL!  The hawk took off with the pigeon into a tree.

Well, that's all I have to share this time!  I hope everyone is staying warm and dry, and stitching!  Till next time!

Stitching, Cats and Big Red!

Hi all! I had intended to post an update on Monday, but it didn't get done! I have a real good excuse this time! Honest!

My internet provider was down for part of day. So, you see it really wasn't my fault! Then the power went out for a few minutes. I waited all day for the internet provider to get things worked out. I called them a couple of times to see when the problem would be resolved, and waited very patiently and politely. (With my old provider, I was snarly and miserable, because we always had so many problems, dial-up, phone lines, it was endless misery!) Then Hubby came home after picking up his load, and for supper before taking off for California. My internet was still down, so Hubby called for me to try and see what the issue was. He spoke to a really nice girl and they were trying all kinds of trouble-shooting, only to realize that I had forgotten to push the reset button on the huge surge protector!! (see above mention of power outage!) Now again, in my defense, I wasn't here when the wireless router was installed (Hubby did that!) and don't remember if he mentioned that fact. Well, now I know! The look on his face was a combination of resignation and exapiration. I am used to that. Technology and all its accompanying cords defeat me.

On to the updates, and better late than never, right? Here is the second side of The Victorian Sampler Gingerbread Stitching House. I am LOVING working with silks!! But I have to make sure that my hands aren't rough! The silks really catch on every little thing!

This is the very first biscornu that I ever stitched, but I never finished it! I couldn't figure out why it was so hard to sew together! I had a tutorial up and was following the instructions, but it still was very hard to do! I put it away to work on at a later date, and promptly forgot about it. I was between projects, and starting to go thru my stash and found it again. So I decided it was time to put it together. As I looked at it I realized that I had only used one strand of floss for the backstitched border around the design. No wonder I was having trouble whipstitching! Trying to get the needle under one strand was a exercise in frustration! After I removed the one strand and replaced it with 2 stands of floss, things went much better. As a matter of fact, I finished it that night! A UFO done!

Here is my first ornament for an ornament SAL, going for the whole year. We do one a month, and at the end of the year, we should have 12 ornaments finished! I have the stitching done, but not the actual finishing. I think I need to chat with the finisher, aka Mom! LOL!

I had a picture of my Spring Carousel Horse, but it was blurry when I looked at the photo on my computer, so that will have to wait! I only finished a few leaves, so there wasn't really that much to report anyways.

Here are some pictures of my kitties!

Chloe is very playful and likes to get into michief!! The only plant that I have and haven't managed to kill, she tries to eat!! It is my gardenia plant!

Here is Princess Periwinkle who is not at all happy with the new one! She is my baby!

Here is Hubby's buddy, Copper! This is the usual scene! All he does is sleep and eat! And snore!! Typical male!!

Now for my GRAND FINALE!! My Dad and I love to watch the birds, and he has taken special delight in telling me that he has a woodpecker at his place that I don't! He has named him "Big Red"! Everytime I was over there, I'd ask where this woodpecker was, and Dad would inform me that he had already been there! I accused Dad that he was lying! LOL! Well, I now have my own "Big Red"!! I have been trying for two weeks to get a shot of this shy giant, and Monday managed to shoot him!! Here he is!! The red-bellied woodpecker! (I'm not sure where his red belly is, but m bird book informs me that this is his name!) He actually looks like he was spray-painted with flourescent paint!

I have come to the end of the update. I am working on Part 18 of Castles in the Air, and hope to be done today. Then I would like to start Brooke's Books Winter House Challange, until February 1, when I need to work on another ornament and EMS 2010 Flower SAL afghan. Hope all is well with everyone, and the weather is good where you are! Till next time!