Just in time for the snow to melt

I love the spring colours!
I have absolute no ideas how to finish it. I don't think I want it framed. Any ideas?

Mouton Printemps - Tralala

40ct natural ??? Stitched with DMC and Fil Atalie cotton

85x85 stitches

21 hours

2013-03-04 - 2013-04-09

And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

These 2 wonderful cuts of 45ct Gander linen showed up in my mail box yesterday. I have never stitched on higher than 40ct before and can't wait to give it a try. They were nicely wrapped up in little baggies and hand labelled. Don't you just love it if you get your supplies lovely packaged?




Here is my progress on Mouton Printemps. It should be finished soon....



And my new start on Sara's Mystery Sal.


And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

Mystery SAL

I would like to thank you for your encouraging words. They made such a difference and I proceeded stitching Mouton Printemps.

I also got weak and signed up for Sara's mystery SAL that starts on April 1st.
It will be a winter sampler when finished.

She already released the other 3 season samplers. The spring sampler was a mystery SAL too and just ended in February or March 2013. Isn't is so beautiful?:

 

I just love them all.  If you click here, you can see them all on her website.  :)

And my progress on Margret so far:


And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

Loss of motivation

I got struck by a loss of motivation when discovering that i missed to leave a space of two fabric threads between the pink border and the brown border. I thought about frogging but then I would have to order more of the pink floss from France but I am pretty sure that I can make the border work without taking I out and doing it all over. But it would for sure look better if there was a space between those two borders.... :(




And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

Long time no see....

Slowly I am getting used to my new job and work schedule. I am now working 2 days, 2 nights and then I am 4 days off. That makes the work week so much shorter and I only get to spend one half of the year at work and the other half at home...lol
Working as an engineer in a skating and event arena is so much different to what I have done before. But it is quite the fun environment too. Most of the time we have several skating and curling and agricultural arenas and a few event rooms. Now for the Royal Manitoba Winterfair all the ice came out and dirt was put in everywhere for horse jumping and rodeos etc. Lots and lots of stables were built too and when all that is over the ice comes back in until the Mötley Crüe concert. Just too bad that that isn't gonna happen on one of my nights....lol

Made a bit of progress on Margaret Cottham. Sorry, I didn't take it out of the Q-snap for the picture....didn't want to waste stitching time :)
I changed the last row of numbers up a little bit so that I can add my finishing year next to Margaret's. And I decided to wait with adding the date until I am close to actually finishing it.....you never know...sometimes things tend to take longer around here. LOL




After finishing Hare's Lucky Day I started Mouton Printemps by Tralala. I just love to stitch the flowery colours even though we still have a pile of snow outside and -15 Celsius (1 Fahrenheit) plus windchill. But the forecast says only 2 more weeks then we will be having above freezing temps. So soon bye bye to the winter. See you again in a few months. :)
And here it is after 11 hours of stitching (as well still in the Q-snap):



And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

Hare's Lucky Day

It was such a fun stitch. The big challenge is now to finish it into something before St. Patrick's Day.



Hares' Lucky Day - Plum Street Sampler Freebie
77 x 74 stitches
DMC on 40ct. Cream - HDF
2013-02-22 - 2013-03-03
And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

Stash in the mail

When we came home from our trip there was a little brown envelope waiting in the mailbox, containing this:




The reason for my order was the little thread bag with the aquamarine, dark and purple thread. I didn't have enough of them to finish a project I started a couple years ago. Somehow I ended up ordering only part of the silks needed?!! Must have had a sleepy moment.

The little bag on the left are threads needed for 2 future projects. And Celeste I had to order to make shipping from France worth while. LOL

You will be seeing more of La Vie en Bleu soon, now that I have all the threads needed:




And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

The Nordic Needle

Is an amazing store! It seems like there is no kind of thread that they don't carry. Just wandering through the isles of wonderful cottons and silks is stunning. Everybody was so friendly and helpful. Just great service!
My stash buying didn't go over board since the biggest temptation for me is always the fabric but they didn't have any 40ct in stock.
What made it home with me is "Winter Holiday Sampler" by Victoria Sampler with accessory pack and the white Mori silk to go with it. Then "Snowy Nights" by Prairie Schooler, some Whisper thread which I always wanted to try for Santa beards and sheep. I picked 3 different kinds of red to chose frame for "Christmas at Hollyberry Farm". I ordered the chart and threads a while ago but I don't like the Mulberry. It seems way too dark. So hopefully one of these reds will look nice.
The lady that rang in my goodies put a set of needles and a needle threaded in my bag....so nice! I will for sure make good use of them.

I did get a start on Lucky and am working on it this weekend.

And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

Road Trip

My new job will start on Friday and Greg came off his set of night shifts yesterday morning. By the time he arrived at home I had everything packed up for a road trip to North Dakota. So he got in the passenger seat and off we went.

Devils Lake was where we were headed yesterday. We stayed the night at the Spirit Lake Casino Resort and had a nice suite overlooking the lake....we will definitely have to come back in the summer time to enjoy the view with water:



Here a different direction with cottages and RV park, also a part of the casino resort



Luckily gambling isn't for us. Since being in a casino we hat to at least give it a try but 10 minutes were enough for us so we just went to enjoy the food and the whirlpool.

Today we're probably heading to Fargo.....do I need to tell you guys what's on my list of things to do there? Of course my first ever visit to the Nordic Needle. I am so excited! I got their catalogs in the mail when I still lived in Germany and now I will actually get to go there. Hope there will still be enough funds for a hotel room on my credit card when I walk out of the store. LOL

And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

Being a bad girl....

I figured I deserved to pamper myself today after all those tears on my last day at work yesterday. So Lisa and I went to the mall to buy a nice little top for me to wear tomorrow night when we go out for my send off :)
...hmmmm of course I ended off buying 2 tops. One I would have chosen in a different colour since I have never bought anything purple, but the nice lady in the store (talked me into) convinced me that the purple looks great on me... I decided to give it a try and of course I couldn't leave this oh so sweet black little top hanging there ;) guess I will have to decide last minute tomorrow which one actually to wear....
Blog surfing I realized that it is soon St. Patricks day. Thank you Paulette for the cute St. Patricks freebie! It is printed and the floss is picked. So here I go:

And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching evening.... Bine :)

Last day

Tomorrow will be my last day in my current job and even though I am excited to start something new I am very sad to leave the company I worked for during the last 4 1/2 years. The whole department will be going out for my good-bye lunch tomorrow, so everybody will be having a loooong lunch break :) And we will be going out for drinks on Saturday evening. Usually it is getting a little crazy when we are going out together....which used to happen about once a year.
A little progress on Margaret:



And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching evening.... Bine :)

Louis Riel Day = holiday = more stitching time :)

Thanks to the nice quiet long weekend I am getting quite some stitching time in and Margret is growing nicely.

This morning I spent playing and baking with Lisa. We made a yummy Babana-Nutella-Loaf for a late breakfast.

I found the recipe on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/pin/392798398719764697/
And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching holiday.... Bine :)

Back to Margaret

I hope everybody had a wonderful Valentine's Day. Greg and I had a fantastic dinner at a nice restaurant. He's laughing about me because I am ALWAYS thinking about food - I can't help it, I just love good food! LOL

This is how far I got on Margaret:




And off to enjoy another wonderful stitching day.... Bine :)

All You Need Is Love

This sweet little freebie by Drawn Thread was on my to-do-list for quite a while. In January I thought if I start now I might actually have it finished up in time for Valentine's Day....since that was the plan I kicked my own butt today after work and finally made this little pillow of it. I even had to make a quick run to fabric land to buy the filling and made it there 5 minutes before they closed. :)

But at least (just) in time for Valentine's Day:




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Kindle Keyboard

For quite a while now I have thought about purchasing a Kindle Keyboard because of its read-to-me feature. So if my hands are busy stitching or cooking it will read the book to me. Once I finally made the decision to buy one they were suddenly not available in Canada and amazon.com wouldn't ship them here. So I waited and waited because I thought they would come out with a new model but nothing happened so I finally bought a used one on eBay yesterday. I just hope it works..... It is even supposed to be here this week, can't wait to try it!

And a little update on Margaret Cottham:




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Margaret Cottham

A little while ago Nicole put her started Margaret Cottham up for sale. So I gave her a new home.



I have never stitched a "pre-owned" project since I always thought it wouldn't really feel like being "mine". Luckily I was wrong. :)













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Counting error...

I don't have a lot of progress to show. I made a counting error and am not sure if I rip or if I just move some of the motifs 1 over so that everything still fits. That's probably what I will end up doing.




For now I am gonna take a break from it and work on something else.
Not sure yet what it will be..... :)

An oldie....

I pulled out Bon Appetit from Mariska in the last couple weeks. Here you can see where I left off in 2008:




And this is where I am now:



Hopefully i can get a picture in the daylight at the weekend that shows the true linen colour. It is not as yellow- brownish as in the second picture.
If I can stick with Mariska until she is finished? Knowing myself, it is probably not gonna happen LOL. There are just too many temptations out there.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Last finish in 2012

Thanks to google, I think I might have figured it out :)
I stitched this little design called Merry Christmas from the Chartmaker, also known as the Goode Huswife some time around November. It wasn't my most relaxed stitch due to the fact that I stitched 2 over 2 on 32ct. I used the black 32ct because I have a very big piece of linen that I already brought over from Germany. If I will stitch another design on black, I will try if I enjoy 1 over 2 on 40ct black more.

Thanks you Ranae!! With blog press I can actually get the whole picture in the blog :) that alone is worth the couple dollars!
We will see if this easy way of blogging will make me blog more often...

Help needed....

I am wondering if anybody knows how to post pictures on my blog from my iPad? Everything seems so nice and easy... Taking pictures, blogging, but if I want to upload the pictures to the blog it isn't possible. Do I need a special app for that?
Thanks, Your help is much appreciated!