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 :)

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 :)

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 :)

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...

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:

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.

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 :)

Back to stitching and blogging...???!??

It has been 1 1/2 years since my last blog entry and my whole life changed... My little baby girl Lisa is not so little any more, she went through Kindergarten and is now already a cute 1st grade girl. I didn't have time to do ANY stitching at all but I hope to get back into it a little again now. I picked up Ruby Owl's Sampler again while listening to:

Wicked Appetite
by
Janet Evanovich

and hope to be able to post a few pictures later.
I missed everybody a lot and spend some time today on a lot of blogs. :)

Our friend just left for their holidays

...but they will be back in about 2 weeks. And then we will go on holidays. I am so looking forward to our holidays. We will go on a roundtrip for about 1 1/2 weeks and then we have to come back because Lisa has an appointment with a specialist and will get tubings in her ears. Hopefully that will keep her safe from these almost permanent ear infections.

I am excited since I got Vikki Claytons newsletter saying that she is in the process of dying 40ct linen. That is definately a must buy for me....well known as a linen addict.... Can't wait till she is offering it in her shop!

So this is my not too big progress on Rubie Owl's Sampler. Surprisingly I am not tired of stitching the leaves, yet. I absolutely love them and the colours.



And this is where I spent some time during the weekends while Lisa is playing in her little pool in the yard.

Long time no see...

...seems like I had one of my frequent blogging breaks again. But this time not as long as in the past. I did stitch a bit and we got some additions to our family and it seems as if summer is comeing to Brandon finally.

Lisa was still asking questions about her cats in Germany and sometimes she suddenly started to crying because of them so we decided to find some cats for her. We never wanted indoor cats but living in town there is no other choice....
I am pleased to introduce you to Holly and Ally:

I finished Kindred Spirits it was a fast and fun stitch.

Kindred Spirits by The Primitive Needle

threads: Belle Soie Silks and for the 4 stitches in Kiwi I used DMC

fabric: 40ct R&R Reproductions Dark Cappuccino

started: 2009-05-07

finished: 2009-05-22

From Sea to Shining Sea FINISHED!!

From Sea to Shining Sea by Little House Needleworks
threads: Belle Soie silks
fabric: 40ct Lakeside Linen Winter Sky
started: 2009-02-10
finished: 2009-05-07

Derek is pretty confident that he passed his red seal exam in Toronto. He flew back on thursday afternoon and we are so happy to have our little family complete again. Now he is busy looking for a Harley...because I promised him that he will get his Harley after accomplishing the goal to achieve his red seal. :)
He was so happy to be back. Toronto is a little bit too big for us countrynuts. LOL




But even in the middle of a big city you can always find some beautiful spots....

Sunday we spent a nice afternoon

at the Winnipeg Assiniboine Park Zoo before dropping Derek off at the airport hotel.


While walking through the zoo Lisa talked the whole time about the little train with the steam engine we saw in the park. So we went for a train ride later and guess who was a little bit scared sitting in the noisy little train:

Still not finished with FStSS. I got the silks for my next project yesterday that'll speed me up, I guess :)

The week was dedicated

to planning Derek's trip to Toronto. He has to go there to take a test for his Canadian red seal as a Journeyman Millwright. Tomorrow we will bring Derek to Winnipeg and spend a nice day there and while Lisa and I will be heading home Derek will fly to Toronto. We can pick him up at the airport on Thursday again.... So please cross your fingers for him to pass the test.

I just put a few stitches in From Sea to Shining Sea but still....I am getting there LOL Hopefully a finish tomorrow evening or on Monday.

The weather

is so nice right now that we spent some time outside cleaning our yard from the last leaves and making the flower beds ready for the plants after work. Not that we are already done but at least it is a start. Lisa asked us to put up her little swimming pool. LOL But it is not THAT warm yet.
While listening to Twilight I stitched some more on FSTSS:



And I have still one and a half CD left to listen to..... yay :)

We came back from our road trip yesterday late afternoon and went back to work today. It was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of places. I will tell you a little bit later about it after we freed the pics from the camera :)
I am not too good at stitching 40ct in the car so I had an excuse to start the cute Red Snowman by Shepherds Bush. That is all I stitched on it during our trip....I was more busy looking out of the window I guess, LOL:


But I also made a little progress on The Mountains. This part is the most timeconsuming:

I am going to build a house

in the mountains with my little crosses soon. But first I let some trees to grow ;)

I don't plan to finish my goldwork right away. I think I will just stitch once in a while on it for now.

We are going on a roadtrip over the long Easter weekend and we have never been further west than Virden. So this time we will discover a little bit of Saskatchewan. I am so looking forward to get out of the every day routine. Especially now that the weather is getting warmer. All the snow is melting away. The roads and driveways are free of snow and outside of town there are only some snowspots on the fields left.

Wanda, if nothing comes in the way I will come to the EAC seminar in Regina in 2010. I am looking forward to meeting you there! I can't wait to see what classes will be offered. Do you by any chance know some addresses for Needlecraft shops in Saskatchewan?