Tumultuous Times

Hello everyone!

Thank you all for your condolences and prayers for the passing of my Grandma.  It was good to be back home and to reminisce fond memories of her with my family.  She looked very peaceful and I was sure she was there watching me while I read the service.  She was a very kind and loving grandma who looked after me quite a bit when my mom worked.  She always made my favourite deserts and being a typical Ukrainian Grandma, made us eat, eat, and eat!! 

Memory Eternal Anastasia!!!

That's what we say as Orthodox Christians.  

Here's a lovely photo of my Dad's parents. Doesn't my grandpa look like Clark Gable?!!

Now I have one grandparent left, Nana.  I spend my Sundays with her and cherish every moment.

Although this month has been tumultuous, yes we are still on strike, I have been trying to look on the bright side of life.  Stitching and crocheting has kept me sane and level headed.  It is as though crafting soothes me and lets me work through my thoughts and emotions.  So without further ado, enjoy my photos of some of the therapeutic work I have done and the photos of a beautiful Prince George I took during a few walks and hikes with my family.

A Bull Moose in the Forests of the World trails

Little country road by my house

Forests of the World lake

Forests of the World dock and lake...people fly fish here

close up of a moose butt!!

Red breasted woodpecker

Wildflowers picked by my railroad here in New West

Finally, I framed Magic Garden.  

Magic Garden Framed!!

Progress on BBD's SAL, granny stripe and Sarah Chapple

Eyelets were stitched outdoors in the heat of the sun

Onto the repeat colours now!

Sarah's pretty cherry tree with a delicate 4-sided stitched fence

Did I forget anything...or anyone?

Titus!! My little furbaby! I missed him and he missed me terribly!

Titus helping me stitch!

Again, thank you for taking the time out of your day to come here and comment.  I am horribly behind in my blog reading and hope to catch up next week.  I have a wedding to attend on Monday and a stagette tonight...then nothing for a time!

Hugs

Anne


Edited:

Oops! Forgot to mention that I was featured in Cross Stitch Collection's August issue!! I was so flattered they asked to interview me and they will be sending me a copy of the interview. Most people won't realize this, but when they sent me this, I noticed I sent them an unfinished photo of Hannah Brassington! Notice how there isn't any writing in the diamond?! 

 

Magic Garden Finish and Samplers Galore!

Hello everyone!

Welcome to my new followers! Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post.  I'm behind in emails since I've had a load of stress heaped onto my plate this week.  Both in life and in work.  Just a lot of decisions and different paths to ponder makes for a dizzy head.  One really wonderful event happened at work on Thursday; a designation for a sweet, dear boy close to my heart came through which means he will get some aid time for next year! I literally cried when I heard the news! The poor Grade 7 boy working on his math who had to witness my exclamation, looked concerned for me.  I told him not to worry, the tears are happy tears.  A very bright light in a week of changes. 

On Friday night, I added the last stitches in Magic Garden.  It was a really fun design to stitch and I'm happy to pass it along to someone if they would like it.  I know dear Maggee is still working on hers so don't forget to cheer her on...like I will!

Details: Stitched on 40 ct. Vintage Exemplar Linen with GAST recommended threads.

Samplers Galore

Now I have three samplers on the go! This weekend I forged ahead on all three of them.  I finished the border for the BBD SAL which I know starts today, but since I work all week I thought it would be smart to get a head start.

 Added a wee bit of progress on both JCS and Sarah.  As we say in the stitching world, progress is progress!!

Yesterday was Mother's Day and my aunts and I took Nana out for a lovely brunch by Coal Harbor.  The day was gorgeous and the food delicious.  We had a wonderful day together.  Happy Mother's Day to all of you! I just wish my mom could have been with us as well! 

My Nana is an amazing woman and she has a tendency to proclaim to people how old she is, and it's always a year older than her real age.  She was saying she's "85!" but really, she's 84.  She's always done this, hence my confusion with what her real age is! Love you Nana!! We are very much alike in our personalities and cheek bones!

Granny Stripe Progress: 2 more stripes! Yay! I loved working with the last colour: lipstick red.  It is very bright and cheery.  

I was perusing Attic24's blog the other day and noticed the mandala frenzy that is going on in the crochet world.  Some really amazing mandalas out there that I think I'm going to start one myself.  I just need to find some bright coloured cotton yarns.

Borrowed from Attic24's blog..isn't this brilliant?!

The last picture is from Zooty Owl's blog.  Check out her great tutorial for making mandalas!

Today, my husband and I went into the last antique store on Antique Alley in New Westminster.  We chatted with the old, darling lady there about all sorts of things.  I found so many items I wanted but could not get at the time.  But I had to purchase this!!

My very first antique cross stitching piece by Esme Tuck, stitched in 1929! Pre-World war II!! I NEVER come across anything like this in all my times I've spent in thrift and antique stores.  I think this is so sweet and the price was right at $40. Before we left, my husband picked up the teeniest little old leather-bound books on the counter.  Uh oh....BOOKS...and small old ones to boot.  I picked one up and it was Turgenev! A book I've never read yet of his but will soon read!! It was only $5 so how could I pass it up?!

What a great day! I hope to catch up with you all soon! 

Here's a photo of Titus since some of you were wondering where he was in the past few posts.  

Hugs

Anne and Titus

O Birdy and Blackbird Designs SAL

How was everyone's weekend? Mine was rainy but productive in a stitchy sense.  I would've rather cycled around and worked out my hips/thighs that have bloomed over the winter, however, sitting on those same hips/thighs catching up on Hart of Dixie with needle in hand was equally exciting!

So I finished La-D-Da's O Birdy. Thinking of a pillow finish with a twisted cord for trim. 

Details: Stitched on 40 ct Flax Newcastle linen, fast becoming my favourite linen to stitch on. Threads are a mix of DMC, AVAS and GAST.

I also threw in a few more stitches into Sarah Chapple and Magic Garden, my SAL with Maggee.  I still can't believe how long MG's fence is taking to stitch up!! Hopefully next Friday I will finish it.

Then after browsing through online stitching stores, and making mental lists of a plethora of designs to stitch, I came across the Blackbird Designs SAL that Alma and Barb are sharing with us.  I have yet to make a simple alphabet sampler and so have decided to participate in this SAL.  I'll need to put down my other projects to make time for this one.  I pulled some threads and had some difficulty with the pinks/purples.  I want to use my favourite Dinky Dye's Madi's Rose but I couldn't find it in my stash??!! Not sure where it took off to! Then I pulled two linens and am unsure of which one to use.  Let me know what you think.

Lakeside Linen's 36ct Buttercream.

This one is much more yellowish in reality, less cream! The yellow is very pretty and brings out the gold.

Or PTP's 36 ct Legacy Linen...nice marbled antique look.

Hard to decide.  Hubby thinks the Legacy but I'm leaning towards the buttercream. Decisions...I'm the worst with them!

Granny stripe progress! I've been crocheting on the train which is great.  I'm about to add another colour in for my ride tomorrow morning.  Can't decide between a teal or a dark plum colour.  I'll bring both.

I also had a surprise in the mail.  I recently won one of those darling little LHN sheep charts from Tricia at The Stamper's Stitches.  She included the most adorable little handmade card with the chart.  Once I stitch the design, I'll pass it on to the next stitcher. Thank you Tricia!!

From last week's bike trip, some black leafed clovers and pretty succulents.  We have a terrible time keeping succulents, no matter how much we DO NOT water them, they ALWAYS die on us.  I so wish to be able to keep succulents at some point in my life!!

Have a wonderful week! It's going to be sunny again when I work....isn't that the way?!

Anne

Cherry Blossoms

Hello everyone!

It's been almost two weeks since I've posted and to tell you the truth, I don't have much to show today in the way of stitching.  I've been busy working on Meari's mailart and am almost finished it.  I made some decisions regarding the granny stripe and quilt.  Thank you all for your input and advice.  It's so nice to have others put in their opinions, based from experience, which helped me make an informed decision.  I decided to rip out the granny stripe and redo. Probably will restart this weekend now that there's been some time in between the ripping.  As for the quilt, I will stitch in the ditch for the main parts of the quilt, then hand quilt some sort of leafy, floral design on the red panels with red thread.  That way I will not be taking 8 years, ahem Barb!, to hand quilt my first quilt!! 

Titus trying to help me with quilting...not!

Unraveled yarn, ready for a new start

Pinned and ready to sew the red panels!

 
I made some minute progress on Magic Garden.  Dear Maggee hasn't been very well so I've been trying to put off the finish, which is fine since I have a gazillion other things to do!! I've also worked on JCS a bit and have contemplated starting Sarah Chapple.  I wanted to start her on Spring break but forgot! Oops! 

The peacock is finally DONE!

Magic Gate

My granny square has grown by 5 rounds.  It's taking longer and longer to do each round.  I'm hoping that I'll only have to do another 10 or so.  

Spring is special to all of us.  It brings the prettiest flowers and feelings of hope surging through us. In the Lower Mainland, we are quite blessed with a large number of cherry blossom and magnolia trees.  I tried my best to take photos of my favourite trees however, they didn't capture their true beauty.  Enjoy a few flower photos.

The cherry blossoms were taken at Burrard Station and the Magnolia tree at 22nd skytrain station at night.

The star Magnolia, so fragrant

I couldn't resist buying some pretty daffodils to cheer up the place.  They make me smile.  (I still have St. Patrick's day pillows up since I don't have any spring/Easter pillows!)

I'll leave you with some sleepy Titus photos. I resisted taking another Vampire Titus photo.  It's so funny how when he sleeps like that how much he looks like a vamp!

As for blogger issues, if there are anymore, I might just switch over to Wordpress...but we will see!!

Take care everyone

Anne