I wasn't too sure about the colours when I just laid them flat out on the linen before I started stitching, but now I absolutely love the colours of Hallow Eden.



Beginning of August I finished Jenny Bean's Halloween Sampler. I will put it in my pile of wrapped up finished things for now. Somehow I don't like to do the framing. I guess I am just a little scared to do it, since it will probably be quite difficult to get it straight in there....if I only had couple more hands. That would make it easier :)

Jenny Bean's Halloween Sampler - Shakespeare's Peddler
40ct vintage pearled Barley
GAST
2011-01-30 - 2011-08-06

Lisa woke up early this morning - of course! Why just can't little kids enjoy a Holdiay by sleeping in??? ;)

Since everybody else was still sleeping we both went for a little run. She is so cute when she tries to do some sports with me... Oh Mommy, see, I got some big muscles already, lifting her little fist and shaking her skinny arms at me. LOL

It is already lunchtime so I better wake everybody up, so that we can enjoy the nice and sonny day with a bike ride.

Leave you with the not really visible progress from yesterday:

It is crazy how fast time goes by! We went for family visits to Germany in June and now summer is nearly over. Temperatures in the early mornings are below 10 degrees Celsius now but at least usually raise up to the mid twenties during the day.

I was admiring Hallow Eden on other stitchers blog for quite a while ... I finally gave in and ordered the chart and threads. Luckily I found the exact right fabric in my stash :)

I started about three weeks ago and this is how far I got:


I tried to activate mobile blogposts from my Blackberry but couldn't get it registered. Pretty frustrating! Would have bin so nice and easy to do... Does anybody have experienced any problems?

Happy Easter!

I didn't stitch any eggs nor bunnies, but a little progress on my three projects since my last post....long time ago....

First there is Scarlet's Christmas Sampler by Chessie & Me:

Then Jenny Bean's Halloween Sampler closer to finish:


And Susan Rambo, still my favourite to stitch on. I just wish I could spend more time stitching...

I started running again since most of the snow has finally disappeared. Not really a lot to talk about yet but at least I made my first steps outside. Usually getting started again is the hardest part, so I am looking forward to running be fun again ;)

Once again....

After I got my order from "The Silver Needle" I couldn't withstand the temptation to start Scarlet's Christmas Sampler. A companion piece from Chessie & Me to the Jenny Bean Samplers from Shakespeare's Peddler. It is pretty small, only 93x93 stitches. So it shouldn't take too long. I ordered the chart and the GAST Limited Edition threads. Very nice colours :) The chart comes with 36ct Vintage Pearled Barley by Lakeside Linens and it feels kinda strange to stitch on 36ct, since I usually stitch on 40ct. I wasn't stitching too much lately, as the last 2 weeks were quite busy. Last weekend we went for a shopping weekend to Bismarck, ND. But shopping is a good alternative to stitching ;) I will post pictures of my progress on Jenny Bean and Susan Rambo in my next post. Have a fun stitchy night everyone....

It is so much fun to stitch....but I have to make sure, that I don't neglect Jenny Bean's Halloween Sampler since it is not too far from being finished anymore.
I am just wondering what I am doing wrong taking the pictures. The colours don't look like this in reality at all...

Susan is here

I couldn't stand the temptation any longer and started Susan Rambo. I just can't catch a good picture of her. I am stitching her on R&R Saltmarsh Green, but it doesn't look green at all:


Hopefully I will catch a better picture some day. I like her a lot! But she also scares me a lot, because she is so big....

Sunday it snowed all day long ... and the forecast shows snow storm warning for tomorrow with 30-50 cm's of even more snow. The weather fairie doesn't seem impressed at all that the calendar shows springtime already. :(

I made quite a bit less progress than I was hoping for during the last week. But there is so much going on always after work...
Anyways, only the house and the fill in stitches on the top left side are left.
Maybe I should reward myself with a new start ....I just don't think I have any more patience left over to wait till this one is finished. :)

Susan Rambo

is sitting on the table right in front of me and staring at me ;) Seems to motivate me quite a bit, can you tell? :


Still lots of snow around here. It looks really nice but unfortunately it is VERY cold... So not a good idea to spend a lot time outside...

Otherwise not much going on here, so I hope to get a bit more stitching done tonight. See you later...

I am going crazy....

It was a busy week again and the evenings were not very productive at least not in the meaning of stitching.

On Wednesday I got some free tickets for the game of our local ice hockey team at work. Unfortunately that was the game they did not win after a long series of wins...
Anyways: Go...Wheat Kings...Go!!! :)

I just put a few stitches in the top left and 2 more tombstones:


Browsing blogs I got so excited to see some stitchers starting on these very big and beautyful samplers, that I couldn't stop myself from gathering all the materials for Susan Rambo after I got my copy of the SANQ in the mail on Friday night. Not sure how long I can withstand the temptation to start her. I should really know better....I plan on stitching her with DMC on 40ct R&R Salmarsh Green. It is a real nice soft green/grey but I couldn't catch the colour with my camera. I haven't stitched with DMC in a long, long time, so that will be a nice change. Two of the colours in the list didn't seem quite right when I compared them to the picture in SANQ so I exchanged those to what I thought looks more like what's used in the sampler.


...And I fell in love with Ann Grant from Shakespeare's Peddler. That's not quite right though...I fell in love with her the first time I saw her on the SP's blog. But now seeing Nicole's and Deb's start on her I HAVE to order the chart and thread pack. Have you seen it??? - Just beautiful! So as soon as that package is gonna show up here we can expect me to go crazy again and add to my already big number of WIP's. But stitching is supposed to be fun, isn't it??? ;)

Can you see the difference?....LOL

The week has just begun and I feel burned out already. My coworker is on holidays for a little over a week now and work is absolutely crazy since she's gone. Can't wait for her to come back. Enough whining for now... ;)

It looks like I didn't get too much stitching time after my blog post anymore. Hopefully more today. It is not even worth to post a pic...LOL

Hello again...

...long time no see....

Somehow everything else seemed more important than blogging lately....or should I better admit that I was too lazy to blog and THAT made other things look more important. LOL

I am not great at stitching repetetive motifs and I had a hard time on the border. It took me FFOREVER! Since I finished that, I enjoy every minute stitching Jenny Bean's Halloween Sampler.

Renae: No, I am not using the limited edition Sampler Threads. I just purchased the chart no too long ago and at that time all the limited edition threads were sold out already. But I really like the "normal" sampler threads, too.
Courtney: Thanks for telling me. I ordered a second skein right away - but still haven't received it yet. That's another reason why I was so eager to finish the border first. I hope it doesn't matter too much if I switch to a different dye lot in the center on one of the motifs...

I also put at least a few stitches into the Crazy Christmas Trees. The bright colours make it a fun stitch. Especially since I finally found the gold fiber that, I thought got lost, but was just hiding in my stash :) This is my favourite gold since it is so smooth and easy to stich... It is silk but looks like the other gold threads (Kreinik etc) but so much easier and more fun to stitch.

Here's a picture even though the progress is not crazy big...



Many thanks to Terri for this wonderful chart. She had a giveaway before she moved her blog....and I won it... yay! I absolutely adore this chart! I am considering stitching the girls dresses in a different colour though. What do you think?

2nd finish in 2011 - Rubie Owl's Sampler

Last night, just before bedtime she got finished. Stitched in my favourite colours:

Plum Street Samplers - Rubie Owl's Sampler:

Belle Soie silks

on 36 ct. vintage sand dune by Lakeside Linens

started 2009-07-04

finished 2011-01-29

And the winner of my poll " What should I stitch next?" with 50% of all votes (12 votes LOL) is....... Shakespeare's Peddler - Jenny Bean's Halloween Sampler:

....talk to you soon - I am a little bit in a hurry to start this beauty right away. I hope for your understanding :)

It is snowing again!

Big snow flakes are falling from the sky...at least not too many at once ;) We already have lots and lots of snow.

Ice skating on the big oval in the park was a lot of fun yesterday. But it was pretty windy by the time we finally went. Snow was getting blown across the streets and it looked like waterfalls flowing off the roofs of the houses. It looked really weird.

Rubie Owl a little closer to be finished:


And please don't forget to vote what I should stitch next (pictures are in my previous post):

"Oh mommy....

...it is so pretty! Can I hold it and you take a picture of me?" LOL


Today Lisa's school has a personal development day, so I am taking the day off and we will go skating for a while. It is a very nice day and the temperatures are awesome! Only -4 degrees C and also beautiful sunshine.
I am not the fastest stitcher lately. But if I get to it, I enjoy stitching a lot. Getting closer to finishing Rubie Owl's Sampler:


Of course I already think about what to stitch next and would like you to help me...It is such a tough decision for me... ;) please vote for a project. Pictures are below the poll...



Dahlbeck - Crazy Christmas Trees


and this is how it will look like:


LHN - Quilting:


And Shakespeare's Peddler's - Jenny Bean's Halloween Sampler is one of the things I found in the mailbox this week:

1st finish in 2011

Finally done...it took me quite a bit longer than expected:

Autumn Arbor - Drawn Thread
NPS, Gloriana & SJ beads
on 40ct Zweigart summer khaki
started 2010-12-31
finished 2011-01-16

I guess I should go back to stitching on Rubie Owl's Sampler now!????

Some stash in the mailbox

I love coming home from work and finding an envelope from a cross stitch shop in my mailbox...This one read Casa Cenina in Italy.
I ordered some must haves :) just before Christmas.

There are from top left to bottom right:

Sorbo - Renato Parolin

Before Christmas - Renato Parolin

Halloween - Renato Parolin

Couleurs d'hiver - Renato Parolin

Messidor - Calendula (lots of yummy special stitches)

Halloween by Renato Parolin is calling my name very, very loud. But at this time I will be strong and stick with my WIP's.....maybe I will allow myself one of the smalls out the book Couleurs d'Hiver... LOL

It is growing slow...

but it grows. The leaves of the last tree I stitched were queen stitches. Time consuming, but I like stitching them very much.



I found some pictures to share on the camera...Snow fun from last weekend:

A "short" weekend

The weekend went by so fast and it seems like the week ahead is super long. I guess I got used to having long weekends and short work weeks during the holidays.
The weekend started with Tobogganing on Friday night. Even though it was pretty cold with the windchill we enjoyed it a lot and spent a little more than 2 hours on the hill. Saturday skating, ice hockey and baking cookies (they were all gone the same night LOL)....and grocery shopping at 10:30PM :( But at least it isn't crowded and shopping doesn't drag out too long.
Sunday ice hockey and skating again and for me finally some stitching time.

The pumpkin is frogged and re-stitched. It was not a lot, I was just a bit moody because I had to frog quite a few times on this little project already....

The little leaves on the 5th tree are smyrna crosses, a nice change from the regular x's.

And again......arrrgh

The pumpkin on the left side is 1 thread too high...and when I realized that I was so demotivated that I just put my stitching away. I will rip it out but I just couldn't make me do that last night. On Autumn Arbor I did nearly as much ripping as I did stitching and I can't really say that it is very demanding or difficult....it is just me screwing it up all the time. :(
I'll give it another shot tonight....

Not too much stitching yesterday. I made just a little progress on Autumn Arbor.
The day started pretty cold. In the morning time it was -24 degrees Celsius which felt with the wind like -37 degrees.....brrrrr. But during the day it got warmer and reached -11 in the late afternoon so we went tobogganing and had tons of fun. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures.


And now some grocery shopping, supper and then finally some stitching time :)

The frog visited with me...

It was a nice and quiet first Monday of the year filled with kids, grocery shopping and stitching....and frogging (arrrgh). I had to frog the complete second tree because my little bird was on stitch too short and I didn't want to start moving the trees.

Of course I made another mistake in the tree but I will leave that in there. I think every piece I stitch has one of my errors in it....That makes each one unique LOL

My Goals for 2011

maybe a little too optimistic....as always ;)

Did somebody say I have to pick 15 WIP's? I picked a few more and I am embarrassed having to admit that there are "a few" more....anyways, I spent a while taking pictures.

Finally all together there are 21 I picked out of my pile:


Here the ones I would like to make some progress on:


1. Carriage House Samplings - Black Horse Inn barely started, even had to frog most of what I stitched.

2. Cross Eyed Cricket, Inc. - Skeleton Crewstarted about 2 years ago

3. Heaven and Earth Designs - Real Snow Job, A not more than a start either. Not even 1 page out of...???...28 or so...

4. Rosewood Manor Designs - And A Forest Grewmaybe 1/4 to 1/3 done

5. Victoria Sampler - Heirloom Homecoming Sampler accessory pack rustic Don't know why I don't do any stitching on it. It is a lot of fun but needs some attention I sometimes don't have any more after work

And these are the ones I would love to finish:

1. Acufactum - Findus the Painter. I started this when Lisa was about 2 years old...I better hurry now otherwise she will be too old for it

2. Atalie - La Vie en Bleu. So many special stitches - so much fun. I just somehow didn't order enough of the silks. Should probably order some extra stuff to make it worth ordering in France. LOL

3. Blue Ribbon Designs - Peppermint Twist Started this as an SAL on a special Peppermint Twist SAL blog....

4. Dahlbeck - Crazy Christmas Tree Row. Not a big project. I think, I started this some time in 2006

5. DMC - Tulip. Started long, long time ago....

6. Drawn Thread - Autumn Arbor

7. Drawn Thread - The Birth Band Started this when I was in the hospital in June 2007, just before we came to Canada

8. Drawn Thread - Toccata Two So beautiful....

9. Haandarbejdets Fremme - Gerda Bengtsson - Thistle. I absolutely love thistles...

10. Jardin Prive - My Lady's Quaker. Started in 2009. I made color changes and did not write down what I am using - have to find the right brown now...

11. Jeannette Douglas Designs - Take Time To Quilt

12. Little House Needleworks - Quilting. Should be a quick finish.

13. Permin of Copenhagen - Sampler 1852 HH21168 If I rememeber right, I started it in 2001 or 2002. It is massive, stitched on 28ct linen...

14. Plum Street Samplers - Rubie Owl`s Sampler

15. Shepherds Bush - Into the Night. Started some time in 2010

16. Victoria Sampler - Christmas Treasures Sampler. Started in August 2007