Another Finish

Another WIP done and dusted!  I have been working on this one for a loooonnnng time!  It's not like it had

any specialty stitches or anything, it was just the whole working-on-black idea.  I convinced myself that I could only work on it outside while it was sunny, or when my eyes aren't tired.  Well, that policy didn't go over so well obviously!  I used my newly gained motivation from finishing the bird picture to set to work and complete this one.

 I have always had this in mind to be hung up in my craftign space, and that is exactly where it's going!  I have had the frames for a few years, so they can finally be used for their original purpose!  I say frames, because there is a companion piece to this one, I just don't know if I will stitch it or not.  Right now the other frame is happily housing a small tapestry so maybe I'll just move on to other things.

 Last week the weather was unseasonally warm: we were wearing shorts and talking about turning on the air conditioning.  This week has been gray, freezy and raining.  We even had snow on Saturday night and woke to a white Mothers Day.  Good thing I got a new cappuccino/tea/coffee/latte maker to take the chill off!

Stay warm and have a great week!

Finishes

I was rooting through my cross stitch drawer the other day and was surprised at how many stitched pieces I have waiting to be finished.  I decided to finish this JBW design off as an ornament:

My best news of the day is that I finished the cross stitch for my Grammie's birthday!  Well, finished it as much as I am going to!

I have said before that this was not an easy piece for me.  Sometimes you just have those I think.  I love the entire design - so cute, and it made me want to stitch it for my Grammie right away.  However, it has just taken too long and I didn't really enjoy it at all.  So I'm hoping it looks OK as is: I'll have a better idea when I find a frame for it.

This is what the design is supposed to look like:

I just don't have the stomach to start the other two motifs!  Since I am definitely not going to stitch it ever again(!), I am going to gift it away.  If there are any stitchers out there who would like this chart, leave me a comment.  I will happily send it anywhere!  If  more than one person wants it I'll draw names.

And finally, an early Mothers Day gift for me.  Actually I just bought it for myself today because I liked it.  I attended the local pottery guild's sale today and purchased this necklace:

The colors are pale blues, greens and yellows.  There were lots of lovely dishes there, but at the moment I have no room for more dishes.  There is always room for jewelry though!

Have a great weekend, and to all the Mums out there I hope you have a beautiful Mothers Day tomorrow!

Food: A Find; Some Fun

I love to cook for my family, but in the summer it gets to be a bit of drag.  I want to enjoy life outside, not menu plan.  The rotation of hot dogs/hamburgers/pizza/salad gets a bit monotonous.  So, I devised a plan.  Starting last week, I have implemented French Suppers.  Every day for supper we eat salad, grilled something (veggies, meat, fish) and a demi baguette.  You probably think that sounds monotonous!  However, salad is never the same.  I have been putting everything on our salad, including left-over wild rice and cold roasted chicken.  Mr. Crafty World comes home, puts something on the grill; I put the baguette in the oven and chop the lettuce.  The kids eat the lettuce  (minus the dressing), eat  the meat/ veggies/ fish, and the bread.  Everybody's happy.  I had to take a picture of last night's salad because it looked (and tasted) sooo good:

Grilled veggies, Israeli couscous, goat cheese and fiddlehead ferns.  I shamefully told the kids the fiddleheads were forest worms just to gross them out so I wouldn't have to share :o

A big bonus to eating salad is that you can't just scarf it down.  You have to eat it slowly, thereby enjoying it and giving your body a chance to realize it's full before it's over full.

Now to totally negate any benefits of salad, I have been baking.  Actually it's for the school bake sale, so we're OK!  I made vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting and lemon bars. 

I have been thrifting a little lately, and found a small bag of silk thread on wooden spools.

The colors are very pretty, and combined with a few other wooden spools I have make a neat decoration displayed in one of my vintage canning jars:

And lastly I did a bit of card making last night.  I love how this one turned out:

It's actually more green than the grey that you see here.  Although, grey would have been nice....

I love making cards but it usually takes an hour per card, just because I have to go through every possible combination of paper/stickers/embellishments.  By the end of it I'm out of creative ideas for the verse, so it's usually just "To... From Me"  Hardly inspired!  So if you get a card from me, just know all the love is in the outside!

All Sorts

It must be spring!  I have had a few 'gentle reminders' that I haven't posted lately; I have been busy but it never seems to be anything truly spectacular.  However, if I only posted when I felt I had something spectacular to say, I think this would be one empty blog.  I've just been coasting along, doing my usual stuff since April 8.  The biggest time taker for me lately is reclaiming the upstairs of my house:  I can see my whole living room now!

This was previously filled with "stuff" from the basement during the renovation.  For two and a half months there was only a little pathway through here...

I have been catching up on a few projects that have been way too long in the works:

I started these for My Favorite Boy almost two years ago.

Yes, you are reading that correctly: it says 2006.  We have been to France twice more since then and those pictures are not in an album yet either!  The sad thing was it only took me a day to complete the album.  Actually I choose to look at that as a good thing, so I don't feel overwhelmed about those yet-to-be completed albums.

 

I started something new:

...and re-vamped some old things:

(before)

(after)

I have also been at the garden center, where I was supposed to be looking for a fern and some dirt.  I got bewitched by these flamenco pansies, which remind me of little girls in ruffly party dresses.  I'm going to pot them in a planter so I can be bewitched every day:)

 

A fair amount of spring cleaning has been going on too, but really it's not blog-worthy!

On the topic of gardening and spring cleaning, let me share a small story.  On Saturday Mr. Crafty World and I were sitting on the deck, lamenting on the huge expanse of dandelions in the backyard.  I always say we should just come to peace with the dandelions, because it seems we can never get rid of them (we don't spray due to the kids); they are at least green, and the kids think they are great.  Mr. Crafty World is always teasing the kids, telling them that their birthday parties will be weed-pulling parties, etc.  So on Saturday I suggested that we give the kids a penny for each dandelion head they pick off, and that way they won't spread so fast and we would only be out a couple of dollars.  Like three dollars maybe.  He thought it was a great idea so we recruited Our Favorite Girl who is always eager to earn a few loonies.  She worked and worked, and soon Our Favorite Boy came out to work his share of the two or three dollars.  They asked if buds counted for a penny too, and we eagerly said yes, thinking that if we could prevent the next crop from coming up it would be worth the now five dollars we figured we would have to pay.

The kids worked and worked, and when it was time to count the dandelion flowers and buds, Mr. Crafty World and I ended up forking out seventeen dollars to our little workers!  We have since implemented an hourly rate for weed pulling.

Have a great day everyone!

Grey Skies

...had nothing on me today!  I am determined not to let the weather get to me when it's all overcast and raining.  After all, it's just rain.  (My pretty new umbrellas are a big help too!) 
So: today was not so uber-productive, but I did:
a) clean my bathroom.  Now I can have a nice relaxing bath in a super shiny clean tub :)
b) watch half an episode of Cityline - which I never seem to get a chance too - and worked a bit on the basement baseboards.
c) decorate (previously cut and baked - what a way to do it) sugar cookies and do a drop off to Mr. Crafty World's work.  I figured he needed a bit of a pick-me-up.

Since the quilt store is just a few blocks from his work, I picked up a bit of fabric for my next two quiltlets.  Is that restraint or what?

Then it was over to Costco for a new cookbook.  A friend made the dauphinoise potatoes from it the other night and they were really tasty.  A little French inspiration is always good :)

I was planning on buying a bunch of yellow tulips for the house, but got a better idea instead.  I am trying to cast off my Alberta gardening mentality (grow nothing until June, nothing!) and headed off to Lowes for some pansies.  I came out with a bunch of flowers and practically skipped out of the store.  That's how excited I was.

After picking up My Favorite Boy from school and letting him splash in puddles to his heart's content on the way home, I planted everything.  Now I have some nice spring-y displays to greet anyone who walks up the path:

Oh, it was such a good day. 

Easter

Goodness; another holiday has come and gone and I wonder where the last three and a half weeks have gone.  Actually I do know:    Between the two of us, Mr. Crafty World and I have spent the better part of it  priming, painting, sawing and putting down floors.  We are on the final leg of our basement renovation and I'm pretty excited about that.   It won't be much longer now until we can move everything back downstairs to its nice new space, and I can have my living room back.  The Easter Bunny was really smart this year and only hid eggs in the hallway and family room.  Those are the only two places where basement stuff isn't taking over, so there would be no chance of us finding treats a few weeks from now!  I am also very eager to clean my house if you can believe it: I haven't been able to do it properly for almost two months now.  I clean the places I can reach, but sadly there is a lot of space that is collecting dust. 

Despite all the work, I did take some time to make a few things for Easter.  No sewing this year, but I did make some sugar eggs and cookies. 

The kids went nuts over the sugar eggs: there were many requests for hot tea or warm vanilla milk so they could pop a few into their mugs.

I had a chance to bend my brain around the crocheted egg pattern, and got two worked up.  I'm happy how they turned out, and am eager to make a few more next year.  I made mine out of cotton yarn instead of crochet cotton, so they are quite a bit bigger than the original.  I think if I make about three more it should make a nice little garland for the mantle.

We have had some very nice days around here, and I used the first few to sit outside and work on some granny squares with my bargain yarn.  I had originally planned on only doing a 9 square, but I see I will have to make it into a 12 square.  So, more granny making for me but it's good practice and that's definitely what I need  when it comes to crochet.

I am also trying the join-as-you-go method, and it's going well, but I'm not sure how I feel about the look of it.  I think I would prefer more stitches on the sides to hold it all together.

This year my birthday fell on Easter Sunday, and I got the most gorgeous cake ever.  I don't think I could ever decorate one so beautifully:)

There are even chocolate caramel eggs between the layers if you can believe it.  Sweet stuff from a sweet family.  I got a few homemade cards too:

I was extra touched because I know they used their very best stickers for them.

And now that all the celebrations are over it will be back to work on the basement.  I'm not sure how soon I will be posting anything again, but I do check into my favorite blogs briefly once in a while.

Enjoy the spring weather!

Flowers All Around

Things have slowed down considerably here in the crafty department.  The last few weeks are a blur for me; lots of running around getting ready for Mr. Crafty World's return after a 5 week absence.  A blur of trying to keep it together while a nasty head cold settled in.  Life is leveling out again,  though I'm now on some antibiotics that are making me feel a bit, disconnected, I would say.  Earlier in the week I ducked out for some shopping.  I haven't been to the thrift stores since Jan. 23rd. Yes my friends, I can hardly believe it myself!   Actually with all the basement stuff still sitting in my living room while renovations are being done, I have found it to be the best kind of deterrent to adding anything new to the household.  I was a bit afraid that not having been to the thrift shops in so long it would end up as a kind of free-for-all kind of shopping trip, but I was remarkably resiliant to all the wares available to me for such good prices.  I think still being a bit ill took some of my enthusiasm away.   I did not, however, come away empty handed - you didn't really think I would did you? 

First up is a lovely pale yellow teacup and saucer and sweet little creamer.  I must have had a subconscious need for pink and purple flowers; it wasn't until I got home that I saw how similar the colors are.

I don't really need another teacup, but it was just too pretty.  As was the other one I bought when I went back the next day!

Beside that is my favorite find: a souvenir compact with famous images of Canada.

. 

I was one happy thrifter to discover this one.  The powder screen and puff inside have never been used, and  it is in wonderful condition.  It fits with my retro needlepoint bag perfectly :)  I don't know how old it is, given it's great shape, but it was made in Great Britain, and you don't find many souvenirs made outside of China anymore.

More oldies came home in the form of an Enid Blyton book about a naughty doll named Amelia Jane (she really is bad!), and some plastic beads.

My next favorite item is this toothbrush holder:

I  thought the flowers on it were so pretty, and it would look nice on my end table with crochet hooks in it.  I even got the thumbs up from Mr. Crafty World on that one.  Now I need to find the rest of my crochet hooks!

I know one of them has been used for this: 

TA DA!!! My flowery tea cozy is finished!

I'm quite pleased with it.  More so because I thunk it all up myself.  I'm sure I bent/broke some cardinal crochet rules in my quest for a flower tea cozy though I had no idea what I was doing.

I'm still debating whether to add more flowers and/or to add buttons to the flower centers.  For now I'm just happy to leave it alone.  Mostly because these anti-biotics are taking the gumption out of me!

I used cotton yarn; just the cheap, crafting kind.  It is kind of an untraditional tea pot shape so I had a lot of problem solving to do.  I didn't want to go to the expense of using wool yarn in case I ended up tossing the whole thing. 

I got lots of practice making flowers and working a shell stitch, so I moving along quite nicely in my crochet journey.  Despite all the unravelling I still wanted to keep going, so I know I like to crochet!

And now the Earl Grey tea in my newly cozied pot is calling out to me, so I'm off to have a cuppa in one of my new teacups. 

Have a lovely weekend folks.