Three is the Number

Bonjour everyone!!

It has been quite some time since I posted.  My blogoversary came and went last week but I was too sick to do a post.  Feeling feverish on the hottest day of September wasn't pleasant to say the least.  I was melting on the inside as well as on the outside...ick! The cold is overstaying it's welcome.  My chest and throat are still sore so I may have to take a trip to the doctor's today.  I have still been thinking about what to do for my giveaway since it's my third blogoversary and I wanted to celebrate that with having three winners.  However, I don't know what to giveaway! I was thinking of stitching something little for each person, but that may take awhile.  I will let you know when I make up my mind. 

Stitching, crocheting and sewing has taken a bit of a back seat since school began.  While I was sick, I did manage to stitch an Autumn design. 

It's a freebie from Blue Ribbon Designs called "Acorns and Owls."  I stitched it on 28 ct. R & R Espresso using DMC, GAST and HDF threads.  I think it's adorable and I hope to finish it up as a little pillow.  Very fun design to stitch!

As for Hannah, I have three motifs and three blooms left to stitch, plus the 1 over 1.  My goal is to finish her by the end of this month. I still have hope this will happen!

I crocheted two more rounds since the last post.  Titus seems to really enjoy me crocheting.  I always have to hide the yarn as I crochet since his little claws come out and play with moving ball of yarn!

I love how he lies around like this!

So on Labour Day, my hubby and I took one last bike trip to a place called Barnston Island.  It took us about 2 hours to cycle there and a short barge/ferry ride to the Island.  The island is located on the Fraser River and is mostly made up of farms.  We saw a lot of animals on the island and derelict buildings.  We even bought some organic beef from a cattle farm, although at first I read the sign as" Beets for sale."  I ran up to the woman and said "We'll take some beets!" To which she replied "Well, all of our beets are gone but we have beef!" Oh...did I feel silly.  Anywho, here's some photos of our trip to enjoy.

We crossed the Patullo Bridge...very scary bridge to ride over!

View of the Fraser River, skytrain bridge and New West to the right

Smiling and shaking with fear at the same time

The ferry tug boat

Cute barn

Derelict door

A cat, a rooster, a dog and some chickens chilling out together

A donkey we fed some apples to.  He's wearing a mesh mask to protect  him from flies

Happy cows!

I hope to catch up with my blog reading.  I've been pretty helter skelter when it comes to reading/commenting. I have been liking Feedly except for that it isn't updating my blog list when I follow a blog.  I didn't notice this until recently and now there's a bunch of blogs I've joined but are not in Feedly.  Not too happy about that bit.  I don't know if this has happened to others, but if you know of a way to fix it let me know.  

Hugs to all and happy stitching!!

Anne

Last Days of Summer

Hello everyone!

Thank you all for your comments on my camping adventures.  My husband and I read your comments and he got a kick out of how many people said "Something touched my foot, I'm OUTTA THERE!"  He admitted he was scared too though and wanted his heart to stop beating so loudly so he could hear what it was out there!! Unfortunately, the only way we could hightail out of there would be to pack up our gear and cycle out.  So not really much of an escape route.  When I went back to school last week, I chatted with the Grade 4 teacher and she said she has a cabin right before you head into Smuggler's Cove.  I asked her if she heard the blood curdling screams in the night.  Lol!! Anyways, she said the next time we are there, if we need to stock up on water we could come by.  Nice to know there's someone nearby that I know!

Well, the last week I have been very busy with school and catching up with friends. I had another great sewing day with my cousin-in-law and she and I craft-bombed my apartment.  I managed to finish sewing up the panels of my quilt and she made two cute little pants for her baby to be.  Check out our progress!

My panels!!

Linen pants with chicken fabric

Her pants are adorable.  We love that chicken fabric we found at Dress Sew.  She made similar pants with guitar fabric as accents but I forgot to take a photo of them.  I still have yet to cut out the border and panels for my quilt and I hope to soon, after I get over the fact that my panels are slightly off.  Very hard to stitch straight!!

While we were sewing and being productive, I found something I made in my Grade 12 textiles class.  I remember designing it to represent my Russian and Irish sides but never finished it into a pillow.  I hope to finish it soon so I can actually use it.

Firebird design by me stitched with a variety of embroidery stitching

My appliqued shamrock

I also received in the mail my trim pack that I won from Nancy at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe.  I chose the Halloween pack, although I don't celebrate or stitch anything Halloweeny, I loved the autumn colours and will use it for my smalls.  Thank you Nancy! I love her stuff!!

On Wednesday, I had a lovely visit with Melissa from Words and Blooms.  She came over to my Nana's and brought me batting for my quilt. So generous of her!!  She also gave me a beautiful cross stitching Christmas book with a pattern she had stitched awhile ago that I commented on.  You are amazing Melissa for remembering that I loved that pattern! I'm hoping to stitch it for Christmas this year.  We had tea and chatted about all sorts of things.  I always enjoy visiting with Melissa! Hugs to you!!

Of course with school looming over me, I felt I had to surge ahead on Hannah.  I'm finished one corner and hope to finish the other soon.  I'm really excited about finishing her but sad at the same time because she has been fun to stitch.  I always leave my 1 over 1 stitching till the end.  I also picked up Knotgarden last night.  I haven't stitched on Knotgarden for months. 

6 more blooms to go!

Love that little deer leaping!!

As for my granny square blanket, I have been adding a row a day or every other day.  Usually I crochet in the morning with Titus lying beside me in a sun beam.  He decided to roll around on my mini blanket just to add a few more of his hairs into the yarn!

After all those wilderness photos, I thought I'd be a bit civilized and show you some city scapes. 

Art gallery steps

Robson Square

The Pink Flamigos from the Rumpus Room

Well, I think that's about it for today.  I still have not decided about what to do with my giveaway.  If you have ideas please share with me! I was thinking of having 3 winners for my 3 years of blogging.  Perhaps something stitched for 1, a gift card and some stash? Really can't decide!


PS, Adding photos on blogger has been really odd lately.  It's taking forever to add just one photo.  I get that circle thingy that changes colour, like a wait symbol, but find it never adds the photo unless I click on it a gazillion times.  Anyone else having this problem? I use Mozilla and Picasa.  Chrome doesn't work well for me.

Cheers until the next post! Hopefully the first week of school will go smoothly!!

Hugs to you all

From me and Titus!

Smuggler's Cove and Porpoise Bay

Finally I am posting the photos of my camping/cycling trip.  It seems so long ago that I was staring out at a crystal clear blue, green ocean with starfish clinging to rocks.  The heat of the day with the soft moss under our feet is now a fleeting memory as the days get cooler.  Such is summer; that glorious time of year which vanishes swiftly, vapor-like as it wafts by mingling with fresh smells of Autumn.

We spent two days at Porpoise Bay enjoying the estuary, the town of Sechelt and the sun.

A jelly fish reflecting the sun

A view of the Bay  at the estuary early in the morning

Beautiful water-smoothed rocks in Sechelt

After a few days at Porpoise Bay, where we felt the peace disturbed by a city that had followed us there with its noise and boisterous crowds, we decided to leave for a more remote location.  So we stocked up on water, since Smuggler's Cove did not have any running water, and began our journey starting with a killer hill.  We conquered the hill with shaky legs and coasted all the way down to the Cove in under 2 1/2 hours. 

Beware the bears!!

To get to the campsites, we hiked about 1.5kms in.  There was no way we could ride our bikes there as the trail was full of people and rough terrain.  There were a few black swamps with boardwalks to get across and at one point, we tried riding across.  The boardwalks are narrow and only had railings on one side. So as I was riding across, my handlebar touched the side railing and my bike ricocheted off the railing and I nearly fell into the swamp...gear and all! After that, I walked my bike across those boardwalks.

When we reached came to the campsite area, of which consisted of three spots, we saw the cove where all the smuggling of rum happened over 100 years ago.

Smuggler's Cove has a seedy past. Now it's a marine park and enjoyed by day hikers and campers like us. 

Larry Kelly charged Chinese labourers $100 to smuggle them in the US.

Excited about our adventure we pitched our tent in the furthest campsite from the trail. 

Our little home away from home

Once set up, we followed a trail behind our campsite and saw hundreds of tent-like webs cradled in the trees. 

At the end of the trail, it opened up to an azure paradise, replete with starfish, moss and arbutus trees.  Stunned, we sat in silence, soaking up the glory of the cove.

Coming up to Paradise

Rocky crags

Hundreds of starfish huddling together waiting for the tide to come in

Our mossy seats for two days

Arbutus tree

The only deciduous tree that sheds it's bark and keeps it's leaves

Ignore me...look at that water!!

Beautiful forest moss

Close up of the moss

Oh how I wish I was there again!!

Onto the animals at night part.  So our first day there we heard some loud sounds coming from the bushes.  My heart literally stopped as I thought a bear would come crashing through the bush.  It wasn't a bear, it was some squirrel dropping it's nuts from the treetops.  Or so we thought.  The squirrels there are really tiny, and these sounds were quite loud and too large for a tiny squirrel to make.  Throughout the day, we heard more odd sounds...like something was gnawing on skulls and making weird wheezing, gurgle sounds.  That night, I slept like a log.  The advils helped with that.  My husband, however, didn't.  He told me in the wee hours of the morning that something was circling our tent! EEK! What the heck could it be?  That night, after being bitten to pieces by the bloody mosquitoes...they ate me but not him! BAST***S is what I called them, I was lying down with my book when I heard a thump jump from the log near our tent close to our tent.  It definitely WAS NOT a squirrel.  I stopped breathing.  Literally.  I wanted to hear what it was.  We heard something pitter-patter over our tarp beside the tent.  Then it went to our kitchen area and our pots rattled a bit.  Hmmm.  My hubby pulled out his harmonica and started playing it frantically.  Our thoughts were that the noise would scare whatever it was away.  Well, a few minutes later, something touched my foot.  I SCREAMED!! So loudly I swear people in Vancouver could hear.  My hubby said "Talk to me! Talk to me!!" I said quietly "Something touched my foot!"  Out came the harmonica again and our axe and knife.  LOL! Like that would help us win a fight with a bear! It definitely wasn't a bear because bears don't touch feet lightly or pitter patter over tarps.  All night this animal circled our tent and my hubby said that it touched his head at times.  EEK! Luckily, it was our last night there since we ran out of water.  So not to leave you all in suspense, we figured out about a week ago that the animal was.....wait for it............

A PORCUPINE!!!

They do gnaw on bones and sound like a kazoo!! Thankfully that's all it was.

Okay, back to the Cove.  We left bright and early in the morning.  As we passed the swamp, beautiful kingfishers swooped and chased each other in the morning sunlight.  It was magical.  No photo could capture that beauty. 

The morning sun

This photo was taken the night before. 

Blinding sun

the dead trees

The coolest bright green algae in the black swamp waters

It was heavenly and quite the adventure.  I don't know if I will camp over night there again.  My mom forbids it! My hubby thinks that he can save us from a bear...so silly.  Anyways, we ventured back to Porpoise Bay for our final few days.  The weekend was noisy and more crowded than before.  The 200 cyclists came and took over the campground.  Thankfully Sunday they left and we had a peaceful anniversary floating in the Bay and eating clams.  I've never had fresh clams before and I have to say there were the yummiest shellfish I have eaten yet!!

Thank you for getting this far.  It actually was nice taking the time to write about our trip as it transported me back there for a time.  Tomorrow I'm off to school to set up my classroom and get things organized.  I have a lot of crafty photos to show you all but I may leave that for another day.  I noticed that my 3rd Blogoversary is coming up September 12th but that's a bad time for me as it's a hectic time for teachers.  I'm really not sure what I want to do.  I know that I will have 3 prizes, but what those will be...who knows.  

Hugs to you all and thank you for visiting!!

Anne