June 13/17

Here is a photo of where I left off last night after stitching my way through three episodes of the latest season of "Orange is the New Black". We had some friends over last night to play washer toss and to sit around our firepit until a fierce rain and thunderstorm rolled in. We went from feeling a few drops of rain to grabbing the kitchen chair we had taken outside and running as fast as we could to the house! The storm passed within an hour or so and cooled us down from the 31C (37C humidex) that we had been sweating through all day.

Does any one else find that stitching allows them to filter through the madness of the day and life to find some calm in the eye of the storm? Sometimes I wonder where the negativity that I start out with when I sit down to stitch ends up being stitched into the piece or whether it is the time and focusing on something beautiful that allows my brain to make the negative have less of a hold on me. Turning the negative energy into something beautiful helps to keep me sane. My life is no more or less stressful than any one else's and stitching is one of my coping mechanisms.

Today's plan is to finish this post, stitch while watching a couple of episodes of OITNB and mow the lawn once it dries out enough. Then, there is a much needed haircut appointment this afternoon and grocery shopping. Oh! I also need to remember to buy three graduation cards for people in our lives who are graduating from various levels of education. The joys and exciting happenings on a day off.

Happy stitching!

January 3, 2017

Today was my regular day off from work and because we have both been home since December 30th, we have been able to take care of several of those little projects around the house that only take a few minutes, but never seem to get done. The outside Christmas decorations and lights came down and were stored away. Christmas cards were put away because I keep cards that are sent to me although I did re-purpose one of them into the red gift tags seen here. I used the gift tag on the right as a template to cut out the shape and a hole punch to make the hole.

Then, I moved onto finishing this ornament wreath that I had made recently. I was going to put a ribbon through the wreath itself to better camouflage the wire, but I was not able to manipulate the wire ribbon in such a way that I was happy with the result so I re-positioned a few bulbs instead to hide the wire. Making bows is something that I have never attempted before so this bow is my first! I used a snowflake patterned white ribbon and a twist tie to make the bow along with several passes at plumping the ribbon to look full while hiding the twist tie.

This piece was finished late last night, too late for a blog update. I did not get around to washing it today or thinking any further about how it will be finished.

A Christmas ornament that I had stitched before Christmas was partially finished today. While I was waiting for the glue to set on part of it, I started stitching on this ornament that I found on pinterest recently. The fabric is a 28 count amber coloured linen and the threads are from my mystery thread box.

My computer is telling my that is 10:07pm and 6:30am is going to come early after being off for most of the Christmas break and such a productive day that also included a hike in the woods with our Maggie and a loss at curling tonight. Ciao!

December 26, 2016

Stitching challenge for 2017

I am putting this here as a reminder that I want to do this challenge.