IHSW and Lovely Gifts!

Be prepared to look at a lot of photos! Get yourself a cup of tea, or coffee or whatever your choice of drink is because I will bombard you with loads of photos!!

First signs of spring:

A delightful evening at the symphony with my hubby:

IHSW Stitching:

I had to add some motifs on Hannah since stitching borders makes me restless.  I love that little basket of fruit!!

A quick freebie stitch from the Primitive Hare that I started and finished in one evening. I used HDF's Barnyard green silk.. an utterly delicious green! (Click on the link and it will take you to the freebie chart)

Found a better fabric choice for Baked Goods:

Picked up another thrifty treat to match our other orange 40's glass bowls:

My RAK I sent to Angela was received, so here it is:

Stitched on Navy Blue 32ct. lugana with Kodak Blue HDF silk

I'm glad she liked the package! I found this lovely freebie pattern from Whispered by the Wind website.

I received another order I made in January and was told by my hubby that I have ENOUGH FABRIC AND STRINGS TO LAST ME A LIFE TIME! DO NOT BUY ANYTHING MORE   :(  So now I can't....

40 ct. Newcastle linen in Mirage and Sand

Trying out Crescent Colours Threads

My first ever SANQ magazine...love it!!

And finally....the mailman/woman has been very good lately delivering me all sorts of gifties.  I received my beautiful giveaway wins from Angela and Lynn.  Thank you so much ladies! Your finishing skills are exquisite and both pieces I cherish so much and have displayed already in my living room.  Dear Lynn sent me a few little extras and threw in some crinkle toys for Titus to play with! There are two crinkle toys but one has disappeared somewhere! He loves them and sends you a big purr Lynn!!

Angela's box is so amazing! I will be trying out her tutorial one day and try to make one of my own!! Thank you again dear Angela!!

Lynn's pillow is so pretty and I love the little buttons and threads she added to the package.

 Hugs to you both!! 

Blessings to you all!!

Valentine's Day and Kids

Sugar and kids.  What a mix.  On Valentine's Day at our school, we had quite the celebration.  First we had a "Love" assembly which was darling.  The kids sang the Beatles "All You Need is Love"...ba de da de dum...then in the afternoon, the parties started.  If you thought Halloween caused kids to go batty, Valentine's is worse! First of all, most of my kids who come to me in the afternoon, didn't come because of the parties.  I get it though! Who would want to leave a class full of sugar and love to learn in my room??! Even though I had cinnamon hearts and red jube-jubes to entice them with, it would be cruel to pull them away from the fun.  So off I went to go visit the Valentine's parties.

Wow....I never knew so much candy and chocolate everywhere could  smell so strong and overwhelm my senses!! Every room I walked into, kids were bouncing off walls while teachers were hiding in the corners at their desks thankful to see an adult who wasn't high off of sugar come and give them a reassuring hug and say in a soothing voice..."It'll be okay now...the kids are going home soon...ssshhhh...it's okay."  Kids came bounding up to me with pink cheeks, hair askew and speaking rapidly in high-pitched tones, "Mrs. Doll!!!! Look at what I got!! Here's your Valentine!!" Big hugs ensued and off they bounced like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. Oh those munchkins!!

It was literally, a sweet day.  

My lovely husband bought me some roses which was unexpected and a lovely surprise.  I'm not usually that big on going all out on Valentine's but it was nice to receive some roses.  

In the spirit of Valentine's and pink, I picked up this lovely little hand-painted clay pot from Mexico at the thrift store for $1.00 and this oil painting of violets. 

It's IHSW and I should be stitching....


Big hugs to you all!!

Titus the Stashaholic and TUSAL

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post.  I have been horribly behind on catching up with blogs, and I feel as though I will never catch up.  I'm looking into purchasing a Samsung Galaxy which I can use while I'm traveling and I hope I can use my long commute to catch up on emails, blogs and reading!! I think it will be a useful tool and it's a lot cheaper than an ipad!! 

Last week I received my giveaway win from Pat, the Southpaw Stitcher, and I am amazed at what she sent! She was so generous and sent me an assortment of ornie fabrics, a cute little ort catcher and of course the PSS chart with the threads and linen.  Thank you again Pat for the beautiful stash!

I had to include the photo of Titus on top of my giveaway wins.  When I opened the package the other night, he sauntered in and laid on top of everything!! He sniffed everything very gently. I had to take some photos to show his love of stash.  He's really addicted!!

Luckily he is a gentle cat and doesn't dare to use his claws on my stitching! As you can see I had fun with the collage feature! 

On the weekend, I stitched a bit on Knotgarden, Hannah and I finally finished Baked Goods.  I looked for some fabric to match Baked Goods and I found one, but I'm not overly sold on the match.  I may have to take a trip to Fabricland to see what other fabric would work.

I also started the lovely BBD chart that Carolyn gifted me.  I decided to work with the 40 ct. Vintage Light Exemplar.  It's slightly peachy in colour and I think it works well with the threads.  The photo shows it as grey which isn't the case.  I need to find some pretty vintage buttons to go along the side there.  Just where I can find some, who knows.  This city is lacking in the vintage button department!

Here's my collection of orts for February's TUSAL.  I took the photo on a beautiful silver salmon platter that my Nana gave to me.  There's lots of orts this month from all the stitching I managed to do!

Now that one of my RAK's was received, I can show you what I stitched for Mouse. I chose Nancy's Christmas freebie to stitch.  I used a mulberry Silk thread and ribbon from HDF.  I'm glad Mouse loves her RAK/Bday gift.  

So there's just a few more things to share.  I finally received my birthday order from Needlecraft Corner.  It was a gift from my mom and I'm so excited to stitch some of the designs I chose!! I feel a wee bit overwhelmed now with all the stash I have acquired! I think I'll lay off from getting anymore until I've used what I have!! Thank you Mom!!

Charts from BBD, Carriage House, and PS

Beautiful threads from CC, GAST and Dinky Dyes Silk

I hope you enjoyed this post.  I'll leave you with a photo of some pretty tulips I bought.  I can hardly wait for more flowers to bloom here.  It's been rather cold out and I only see the snowdrops poking out.  Very late for Vancouver!

Happy Stitching!

Anne

Feeling Blessed and Grateful

Hello everyone!

I have been one lucky gal as of late.  Last week I won not one, but three giveaways!! I couldn't believe it!! I feel very grateful and blessed to have been bestowed such lovely gifts.  The first giveaway I won is from Pat, the Southpaw Stitcher.  Her darling black lab Molly, sniffed my name out of the bowl!! So thank you Pat and Molly for picking me.  She is sending me the Plum Street Samplers' Hares' Christmas chart complete with linen and threads! So generous of her.

 Then, a couple days later, I received emails from Lynn of Kearnel's Korner, and Angela of Hooked on Stitches, telling me that I won their Grow a Blog Party giveaway! Okay.  By this point I was really blown away!!  Angela made one of her famous boxes for the giveaway and Lynn stitched the prettiest little design with flowers and birds to make into a pin pillow! It's always so nice to receive stitching from others.  I will cherish each piece.  So thank you again ladies!! Big Hugs!! 

I was RAK'd a lovely chart with threads from Carolyn, Taking One Stitch At A Time.  Also a sweetie! Big thank you to Carolyn too for making my week!!

Here's the chart and floss.  I want to start stitching the pattern but can't decide on the fabric.  I think I'm leaning more towards the vintage light exemplar (the peachy coloured linen).  

Hmm.  I really like the lambswool linen too.  I suppose I could start stitch a bit on both and see which one I like best. 

Since it's the month of love, I thought I would share with you some of the many musicians I have been obsessed with/infatuated/drooled over when I was a teen and young adult. I may reveal a few of the others later on...hehe.  

I did manage to stitch a bit over the weekend, until I got REALLY distracted by traveling down nostalgia lane listening to one of my favourite bands, Suede.  It's funny how I almost forgot about them! All my CD's are buried in a box in our storage locker and it's a pain to get into it.  I used to be quite infatuated with the lead singer, Brett Anderson.  It was fun looking at old photos of him and seeing him now. He's actually aged quite nicely.  Still a handsome man to me!!

Back in the 90's

Twenty years later

I really adored Suede's music and am excited they are reuniting and will be releasing a new album in March.  They were the original trailblazers of Brit Pop music in the 90's although other bands, such as Blur and Oasis, received more recognition than Suede.  They were very talented and I really enjoyed listening to their music again.  

Oh right, stitching.... I stitched a wee bit on a few things, so instead of posting individual photos, I played around with Picasa's collage button and came up with one photo.  Picasa has so many great features to play with your photos!

 No Titus for now.  He's resting with the hubby since he's so hard at work laying around all day!!

Hugs to you all!