Part 2: 34 Degrees, A Summer Finish and IHSW

What to do on a super hot Friday? Stitch and take cold showers!!! That's about all I can do at the moment.  I may take off to a mall or the library to get some respite from our apartment but that means walking in this heat! I'm looking out our window and I spy some juicy blackberries...perhaps I will pick some! Gotta love those blackberries!

Last night, I stitched my little hot heart away and finished up Summer Quaker.  I did a lot of it while camping but just couldn't quite finish it in time.  I'm now mulling over how to finish it because there are 3 other seasons to stitch and I should probably do something that I can repeat easily.  Well, I'll let it come to me as it usually does over time.  I really need to get cracking on stitching Fall pieces. It seems that I'm always a month or two behind!! For now, feast your eyes on the lovely berry and rose colours of Summer Quaker.  

Now onto some lovely stash and gifts I have recently received.  Before we left for our trip, I received my amazing win from the most generous lady, Nancy from Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe. I chose a selection of threads including Nan's Red which I have been wanting for awhile. Wow does she include a lot of thread! I definitely will be purchasing from her in the future! I also selected some trims and have been dying to feel the chenille trim and cluny lace.  I can't wait to make some cute Christmas ornies and use those trims!

Oh! Who's that sniffing my trims?!??!!! 

I also ordered some threads and fabric from Needlecraft Corner for my pattern The Magic Garden Sampler.  Funny thing is I didn't see the other column of threads so I actually ordered only half the threads.  Sigh.  I'll have to order more another time! I really love the customer service from Needlecraft and how fast my orders arrive from the States.  Stash fast is a good thing!

Titus the Stashoholic

There's my big fluffy boy!!!! He's a stashaholic can't you tell?!!!

Bear with me, I've got a little more to show! So just this morning the sweetest little package arrived from Portugal, from the sweet and very creative Nia!! She sent me the cutest little giraffe thread winder with my favourite DMC thread wrapped around his neck like a warm scarf! I've named him Georgie the Giraffe and he's just too cute! THANK YOU NIA you made me smile and my day!!!

Georgie the Giraffe and cute postie from Nia

Last note!! It's IHSW weekend and I have all of Saturday booked...insert frown here.  I'll be working on either Jane or Knotgarden or both as much as I can squeeze in.  Here's a look at Jane.  I managed to stitch a bit on her last night in the cool night air.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend stitching!!

I almost forgot something! GASP! Thank you to my new followers for joining my blog and a big thank you to all for looking at my camping pictures.  If you haven't seen them yet, you can take a look at the post below :D

HUGS from me and Titus!!

Part 1: Camping and Cycling

I'm back from camping at Porpoise Bay!! A bit exhausted and annoyed that I can't cool off with a swim in the bay.  It's hot here and in our apartment it's about 4 degrees hotter than outside.  Yuck.  The thing with vacations is that you always want to go back as soon as you come home.  Granted, I do enjoy sleeping on a bed instead of a blow up mattress and snuggling with Titus, who by the way hasn't left our side since we came home, but I do miss being outdoors and not having any cares in the world.  Here are some highlights of our trip:

1. Meeting an amazing couple from the Yukon, the man was a teacher like me

2. Swimming in the clear water of the bay

3. Walking to the estuary and watching the kingfishers and enjoying the quiet

4. Seeing the meteor showers, the milky way and the gazillion stars in the night sky

5. The quiet by the estuary

6. Did I mention the quiet? Oh yes I did...three times....see I like quiet and listening to nothing but the birds!

7. Reading a good thriller at night with my headlamp

8. Stitching, although I didn't do as much as I'd like

9. Surviving the crazy lightning and thunderstorm on our second night there.

10. Being with my husband

11. Thinking we won the Caramilk Golden Key Contest of $250,000.  Yes, we thought we had the key (it was an image on the wrapper). Then I read the rules and saw that there was a 1 in 10 chance of winning.  My hubby said we could take the buyout of getting a lifetime supply of caramilk bars so we started doing the math.  Upon closer inspection of the wrapper and the rules, yes it took us a few times, I realized that it was an actual key that we needed, not what we thought was the key.  After the let down, we laughed for a long time about how we actually thought we won money.  You know what's funnier? My first words when we thought we won was "let's pack up and go cash in our prize!" Too funny!!!!!

Things that I didn't like on our trip...and yes there were a few moments!

1. After the torrential rain for 7 hours, a lot of our stuff was damp and took forever to dry...my pjs had a funky smell to them

2. The 150 mountain bike people that invaded our campground on our anniversary

3. They had a truck to carry their stuff!! So jealous!

4. They had a band AND a catering company to provide them with food....the pulled pork looked so good

5. Walking towards a secluded beach and stepping on barnacles that tore up my feet.  Luckily some fellow campers had hydrogen peroxide with them so I could clean my wounds

6. Not being alone with my husband on our anniversary :(

7. The big massive hill that went on for miles on our way back! But I'm glad we conquered it!! So it should be a highlight instead!!

Next year we will go somewhere more secluded and less busy.  It is time for a change anyways since this was our third time there.  

Enjoy the photos and if you like you can look at the web album too.  Oh and my sister's camera is mine now.  I bought it from her.  Unfortunately, I forgot to pack the charger so half of our trip is on my cell phone camera.  Anyways, here's the link:

Porpoise Bay Trip 2012

playing around with my camera settings

The nasty barnacles

Favourite photo of the Salmon Habitat that I'm going to print and frame 

The estuary, my favourite place to muse and be at peace

Looks like a miniature forest

Hubby's Kite!

I hope you enjoyed the photos.  I really had fun trying out all the different functions!!

Thank you all for your lovely comments and well wishes on my trip. I have a lot of catching up to do and hope to do so soon.  I will do another post after this to do with stitching and IHSW.  

Hugs! I'll be back later with those stitching photos!!

Bike Trip and a Blog Break

Hello my lovelies!!

Thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post and welcome to my new followers! The heat is on here in the lower mainland as we depart for the Sunshine Coast tomorrow morning!! Very excited to get away camping, reading, and stitching.  I am bringing a couple of smalls with me to work on while relaxing by the bay.  I hope to get some amazing photos too since my sister dropped off her Nikon Coolpix camera for me! I took some better photos of Jane, who I've been working on all week.  I've been concentrating on working on the border and hope to get that done, move onto the motifs, then the 1 over 1 and finally the satin stitched snake.  I've got a ways to go but I'm feeling closer to being finished! I'm already looking at a couple of samplers to start for next year, but I can't decide.  I'll fill you in when I make the choice.  

 I didn't get a chance to work on Knotgarden this weekend.  I hope Joyce will forgive me...I'm sure she will.  I got the scroll rods fixed too today and am looking forward to placing them on the rods and then onto my lapstand.  Finally! As for the zipper crisis, I haven't touched it yet but found a really great tutorial that makes zippers seem so easy to install. Heh, we'll see when I give it a go. When I get back from camping, I'm going to buy a new, longer zipper and some more fabric and try it again.  I won't let a wee little zipper get the best of me!! I've also printed off a couple of little fall smalls that I hope to stitch when I visit my family in Prince George, since September is around the corner and I love stitching fall designs! 

Some lovely flowers from my Nana's patio.

 

Titus says bye!!

Have a wonderful few weeks and I hope to catch up with everyone when I come back! Big hugs to all!!

Knotgarden and a Finish!

Hello my lovelies!

First I would like to thank all of you who joined my tea party and cheered me up.  Your comments really helped me, along with stitching all day on Knotgarden.  I was mainly missing my husband but there were other reasons as well.  So thank you again for your support! HUGS!!

On Saturday, I worked on my Knotgarden as I promised Joyce I would. I also stitched a bit on Sunday  while watching Battlestar Galactica.  I love that show!! Here's my progress so far.  I think it's starting to look really good!

The colours are so much prettier in real life.  I can hardly wait till I get my sister's camera soon.  Then I'll be able to take nicer, clearer photos!!

I thought I'd also include some pics of Jane, with 1 over 1 stitching, the By the Bay freebie, which is finished but not completely, and my Summer Quaker progress.  I had to do loads of frogging on that one which made me mad because I didn't notice that I had started the bottom motif too close to the border which would have made the whole thing off!! No way I could've fudged it!!

Just this morning, I set about finishing the PS Summer design into a little pillow.  That's something I'm good at doing.  Took me an hour to do though.  I was going to finish some other little sewing projects but I had a big fight with a zipper and ended up sewing the damn thing the wrong way.  I'm done with sewing today since I can't seem to do things right the first time.  What's more annoying is that I actually thought I was sewing it on with the zipper facing the front.  Guess I can't tell what's the back and the front of zippers! LOL!

I added a cute little gingham bow on the corner and I think the stars on the other corners are adorable.  At least one thing went well today!!

Another irritating thing for me has been google reader and my internet.  For over four days google reader wouldn't load so I'm slowly working through commenting now that it's working for me.  I updated firefox in order to be able to use the internet without it freezing and flashing me a "stop the script" message.  So far it's been okay, slow, but manageable.  I think I'm going to save up for an 1pad 4 for Christmas.  That's it.  I'm switching to Macs!!!

Here's a funny photo of how flat Titus can get.  He's been good company for me while my husband has been away.  He'll be back on Wednesday which is in two days!! So excited to see him!!

So there you have it! Some frogging, some sewing, some ripping, some swearing (Frak!!), and a finish.  I hope to get back to Jane this week though before we take off on our cycling trip.  When I pulled her out and ironed her, I noticed how VERY close she is to being done!!

Big hugs to you all and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you all who have sent me a kind word and email to cheer me up.  What also gave me a big cheery lift was I found out that I won a little something special from Nia! She is the sweetest and it gave me a boost at the right time.  Thank you darlin'!!

Love and hugs from

Titus and Me!


 

Tea Party

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
  Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It's a Tea Party, hosted by Parsley and her daughter! I figured since the sun came out and I am a little blue today, it's a perfect time to have my spirits uplifted with a spot of tea.  I picked Cream of Early Grey tea from David's Teas, pulled out my grandmother's Royal Albert tea cup that has the sweetest little cross stitched rose design.  I didn't bake anything because I'm all by my lonesome and I'm not about to eat a dozen scones, biscuits or cookies on my own! I will share with you my recipe for those vegan chocolate chip cookies that are delish!!

Titus joined my tea time too!

I wore my laced Victorian gloves while sipping my tea.  Mmmmmm!!!

The Recipe:

Anne’s Vegan Chocolate Cookies

1/2 cup vegan margarine (I'm guessing you can use oil too, but maybe 1/3cup instead)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup cane sugar (or white)
~this bit I changed~ it says 1/2 Tbsp egg replacer + 3 Tbsp warm water mixed...I just followed my egg replacer recipe and added 1 Tbsp egg replacer with 3 Tbsps warm water and mixed before I added it to the wet ingredients...it worked so I'm not going to mess with my methods~~If you have flax egg, that works too, just add 1 flax egg
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour (didn't have this so I just used my unbleached white flour--worked fine)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips (use whatever you have on hand, I used the chocolate bar, coconut and pecans--eyeballed it too)

Oven at 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 
In a small bowl, make the egg replacer mix, set aside.
With a mixer, beat the margarine until fluffy, add the brown and white sugar and beat for 1-2 mins until creamy. 
Beat in the egg replacer mix. 
Beat the remaining ingredients and fold in the chocolate chips, nuts, coconut.
Shape balls of dough and place on baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 mins or up to 14 mins.  Allow to cool for 5 mins on the sheet and then transfer to cooling rack.

It says for crisper cookies, use the 1/2 margarine and 1 tbsp olive oil. I guess they spread out more with the oil.

I hope you all have a wonderful day and enjoy your tea!!!

Hugs

Anne and Titus