Happy New Year!

Hope all of you have a safe and wonderful New Year's eve!  Thank you all so much for a wonderful 2011, and here's to an even better 2012!

We're heading out to the Hungarian Club tonight, for dinner and dancing and ringing in the New Year with good friends.  It's going to be a great night :)

Last 2011 Ort report

Just a quickie as we're getting ready for our Christmas Eve festivities.  Family is coming over for shrimp.  It's become a bit of a tradition with our family.  Hubby makes to die for shrimp....so he's got 5 pounds of it to prepare.  I just sit back and enjoy.   My day will come tomorrow.

In the mean time here is the last ort jar of the year. 

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!!

It's Christmas time!

And I'm all ready!  I didn't think that I would be able to pull it together this year.  We had a wonderful time in Ottawa.  We had out appointment on Friday morning and were basically finished in an hour, then we had the rest of the weekend to explore.  I took lots of pics that I have to sort thru and then I will post some pics.  The only sad part was that I didn't even think of getting in touch with Dani and we could have arranged to have a lunch of something.  boo hoo!!!  Dani...Next time!

Got home from Ottawa...worked two days...and then came down with the flu!!  Yep full blown flu.  I thought it was just a cold.  I took Wednesday off because I felt like crap quite frankly, and still not feeling great got dressed and went to work.  One look at me, the Doc pulled me into an exam room, and I was diagnosed with flu.  Was told to go home, with an rx for Tamiflu and antibiotics and lots of liquids.  Temp that morning 103.3! 

I just watched the calender as the days ticked away and nothing was done.  The only thing...thank goodness...was that my shopping was done, and I had my village up before I left for Ottawa.  But I got it done.  Got the main tree up and trimmed.  Then pulled out the stitching tree and got that one all done up.  And then the new small one with the smalls and our family name ornaments on it.  I didn't bring up even a quarter of my Christmas stuff to put out this year.  My energy level is still a little under par, but I did get some nice pieces out, so I'm happy with how the house looks. :)

The trim and the ornies...

 The Main tree....our live Fraser Fir...it's glorious!

 The village...better known as "Barbi-ville"

 The nativity that my hubby surprised me with...gorgeous!

 My Stitching Tree!!!!!

 The stockings were hung...along with my reindeer collection.

 The smalls tree.

 the next two pics are actually close ups of the ornies the I stitched with I was 12 years old.  The drumming teddy and the candycane teddy...the were needlepoint kits that my mom got for me one year...after that...all bets were off.  I still treasure these. (as I treasure all my pieces)  but these ones were the first :)

 The view from my desk

I'm still alive!

...but barely!  I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  Trying to get everything sorted at work, and then here in the house.  Getting ready for Christmas.  I have my village up, but nothing else. 

Tomorrow....leaving on a jet plane to go to Ottawa!

I'm excited about it but then again it feels like it's bad timing.  But oh well. 

So as far as stitching goes.  I haven't done much of it at all.  Mary Margaret has a head now, I was hoiping to post a pic of her, but I just don't have the time at the moment.  I will when we get home on Sunday. 

PROMISE!!

Thank you ...and good night!

I DID IT!!!  I blogged every day for 1 whole month.  Now you all know how truly boring I really am!
But it was good.  There were days it was a struggle and I hated posting without pictures but it couldn't always be helped.

Thank you for bearing with me.  I promise I won't put you all thru that again...until perhaps next November.

The movie last night was really good. I'm going to go see it again I think, Breaking Dawn 1 really was beautifully done. I highly recommended it.

I have the beginnings of my village started today.  The houses are all in place and lit up, tomorrow I will be placing the trees and the people and the various activities that take place in Barbi-Town.  Yep..I'm the mayor, I can call it whatever I want.   LOL

Early Post

Off for an early dinner and a movie with the girls tonight, so I don't know what time I'm going to be home.  Only one more day of NaBloPoMo left and I don't want to miss tonight, just in case.

Everyone Have a Great Day!

Living in rubble!

I was going to scan my progress on Mary Margaret tonight so that you can see how little I actually got done yesterday, but my scanner is under a pile of fabric and trimmings right now, so I think that it's best to leave that alone at the moment.  It's very strategically piled but in such a fashion that if I move even one stitch of it it will all cascade to the floor.  So I'm thinking better of it.

Then I went to take a picture of it so that I can post it, and just as my camera turned on it turned right back off again saying "low battery" so I can't do that either. 

Oh well, it's not meant to be.  I would say that I will post it tomorrow, but I'm going out with the girls tomorrow and I don't know when I'll be home.   But eventually Mary Margaret will get posted.

Promise. :)

About last night...

So I did no cross stitching yesterday, because I was planning on doing some finishing of ornies.  Well I did get them all cut and pinned and ready for finishing, so I am part way there.  Hubby came home and we cuddled on the couch and watched movies. Which was sooo nice.  So during the week I'll get them done.

The ornies:

The fabric

All that left now is the stuffing. :)

Happy dance

Finally finished this piece. I LOVED working on this.  The hidden images emerged as it was being stitched because you couldn't see them in the chart.  I was actually telling Dani that I think that I might even stitch this again one day on black but reverse the direction and have them both on the same wall.  I think that would look amazing.

McDonald's Maple Leaf by Lynne Nicoletti stitched on 28 ct White Jobalen

Thank you again Dani for letting my borrow your chart! :)

Went and did a little bit of shopping today.  Went to Peir 1 and bought a few new ornies for the formal tree.  Oh they have such beautiful ornaments there!  The colours are stunning.  I got some fun pieces...plus I got my gift for the secret Santa at work from there as well. 

Right now I'm pinning ornies to backings and getting ready to hoping run them thru the sewing machine tonight.  I just want them all done by next weekend.  So even if I don't get all of them done tonight, I'll still have the rest of the week. :)



New Moon TUSAL

My November ort report is as follows.  Lots of ornies....beautiful autumn colours from MacDonald's Maple Leaf....some darker threads from Mary Margaret.  Lovely combinations of colours. For those that haven't yet and would like to join the TUSAL you can find the link on my sidebar and go visit Daffy-Cat's site to sign up.  Show off your ort's fellow stitcher's...it's just another way of showing off our progress :)

I'm going to stitch until I get a happy dance on Maple leaf tonight and there's a freebie or two that I would like to stitch up for ornies.  And then I have to gather and sort and organize the finishing that I have to do with the ornies that I've stitched not just this year...but (shamefully bows her head) last year as well!!  EEK!!  So tomorrow there will be NO cross stitching...only finishing! 

This is the last hunting weekend of the season!  And then I get my hubby back!  I can hardly wait to spend a full weekend with him!  We have actually planned a little romantic getaway to Ottawa.  Both out of necessity and out of pleasure.  We have to go to the embassy to renew his Hungarian passport, it's that time again.  But this is the first time that we've actually had to go to the embassy.  We've always been able to just get it done here locally at the Consulate, but rules changed this year and it has to be done there.  Which is ok...cause this way we are making an extended weekend of it.  Flying out on a Thursday and coming home on a Sunday.  We were going to wait with it but then we thought that if we wanted to go to Mexico in February we wanted to make sure that we had all our documents set before we make plans for that.  I think it will be wonderful.  We've never been to Ottawa, and I'm sure that it's lovely....even though it's really late fall/early winter. 

So much to do before Christmas and it already feels like the weekends are wasting away, and I have nothing done!!!! 

Quickie

Got caught up in watching the National Dog show that I PVR'd this afternoon with hubby, and now we're off to bed.

Bigger post tomorrow!

Writer's block

No idea what to talk about tonight, I haven't stitched, I haven't taken any pictures, I haven't really done anything today accept work, and read blogs and looked at online stitching shops, adding to my ever growing wish list.  Might even take the plunge and order some stuff this weekend.  We'll see.  Kati has given me the itch as she fell off her wagon and went stitchy shopping!  Now I want to too!  LOL 

This blogging everyday is HARD!  If you count it up, I'll have blogged more this whole month than I have the whole YEAR!

Baby's got a new "set" of shoes

Winter is on it's way and therefore every fashion foreward dog that lives in Calgary must have a fine pair...errr set of fur trimmed booties...don't you agree?  LOL  I wanted so badly to find pink ones for her, but there weren't any, so these will have to do until I find them.  I didn't get them though because I want to torture her in anyway...it's because with the cold and the ice and the salt and the gravel that they are going to spread on the roads and the sidewalks, it's not going to be good for her paws.  Now whether she's going to like them or not at first is another story all together...but she'll get used to them :)

My gosh they are sooo darn CUTE!

IHSW success

Well I think for my first time hermitting I think I faired pretty well.  My maple leaf I posted yesterday, and then I didn't get a chance to work on Mary Margaret as much as I wanted to, but there's always next Sunday.  I love working on her.  In fact I love both my projects that I'm working on at the moment.

Hubby came home with a sore throat today.  Not good!  So as per usual he had to be baby-ed tonight.  Didn't leave any time at all for stitching tonight.  So I'm hoping that tomorrow he'll feel better and I'll be able to finish up my maple leaf.

About to settle in...

for a night of stitching.

Spent a lovely morning and afternoon with hubby.  Went out for breakfast and then did a little Christmas shopping.  Almost finished now.  Only have to buy for the baby and the baby-daddy and then it's all done accept for the wrapping.  Which I love to do. 

I've started thinking about my christmas village and having to do the finishing on the ornaments that I've stitched through-out the year.  So I'm going to be doing those during the evenings I think this week and then major on Saturday.  So I might have to put the cross stitching aside on Saturday and get those done.  It'll be fun.  Put on some Christmas music or a couple of good girl movies and I'm off.   Did you know that the one radio station that I listen to at work has already started playing Christmas music all day, every day!  They started on Nov 15th.  Now I'm all for Christmas music...and yes I am listening to it...but doesn't that seem a tad early to you?  It's always been Dec 1st they start.  Oh well...it's up to them I guess.

Oh!  While we were out I also bought my New Year's Eve outfit!  We have made plans to go the Hungarian Cultural Centre and ring in the New Year with friends...and that includes my love Kati and her DH  and hopefully Edit and her's :)  It's going to be a magical night...I can feel it  :)

Look how much stitching I got done yesterday and Friday!  I think I did pretty well so far for my hermit weekend.  More to come with Mary Margaret, who poor thing hasn't had a stitch in her yet today...but I'm about to rectify that in about 15 minutes or so.

I think I might have a happy dance with this one this week.  Thanks again to Dani for letting me borrow the chart.  I love this!

Busy stitching...

Had a great day of stitching and hope to continue for another hour or so.  My hunting widow weekends are coming to an end, meaning that next weekend is going the last weekend of peaceful stitching.  But it will be nice to have me weekends back with hubby too.

Will post my progress of what I stitched today...tomorrow. :)  Tomorrow is Mary Margaret day!

Oh I did a little redecorating of my blog too.  I couldn't wait anymore to start decorating for Christmas and when I found this I had to use it. 

Hermitting!

It's this weekend!!  And I have already settled in and have stitched for a couple of hours.  I'm soooo happy.  My project is perfectly snug in my qsnaps at the moment and don't want to take them out...so I will take a scan of it at the end of the day tomorrow. 

It feels so good to stitch.  I miss it if I miss a couple of days.  I have been looking at all the wonderful stitched ornies in Becky's ornament challenge and can't help but thinking...."oh I want to do that one." "oh I must find that one and stitch it"  "Ohhhhh I love that one, I have to stitch that one"  It's an endless circle of wanting and wishing and enabling my friends...and I've always been sooooo bad at fighting peer pressure.  LOL

Another pic-less post!

EEK!  And another day without stitching...what is becoming of my world??  LOL  had company tonight which was nice but I don't know...there's something about having people over on weeknights that seems to throw the whole week off.  Or am I just that anti-social?

Tomorrow after work I'm going to Costco and I'm going to do my grocery shopping and then on Saturday when they are saying that it's going to be blistering cold here and hubby will be off hunting for the day, I may just build a nice fire in the fireplace (first of the year) and stitch and watch girl movies.  Or the shows that I've pvr'd and want to watch.

Nothing to show

This is really just a drive by posting tonight.  I didn't get any stitching done last night after I posted, I ended up cuddling with hubby on the couch and watched the game.  Which was really nice :)

Then tonight we went out to watch a ringette game that a friend of our's daughter was playing in and then we just sat around and visited for a couple of hours. 

Tomorrow perhaps some stitching, I'm looking forward to the weekend.

OH!  I almost forgot!  Don't forget to rush over to DaffyCat's blog and sign up for the 2012 TUSAL  She has her sign up sheet up for 2012.   I've changed to link on my icon on my sidebar as well so you can click on that anytime if you change your mind and want to join us later :)

Christmas Eve Flight

I've had this in my freebie folder for a couple of seasons now and I thought that I would pull it out and finally stitch it up.  I love it!  I found it when I was doing my year of the reindeer last year.  And I just never got around to it.  I sure am glad that I did it now. It's another little happy dance for me this year.
It's by Sampler Girl and you can find it here.

Christmas Eve Flight by Sampler Girl

I've got MacDonald's Maple Leaf all squared up in my qsnaps so I'm off to stitch for the last two periods of the hockey game.

Oh exciting news!  I've signed up for International Hermit and Stitch Weekend.  It's my first time and it sounds like fun.  You can click on the icon on my sidebar to find out more info and join! 

Progress

Woke up this morning with the plan of going to work and then coming home and finishing up my ornament and starting back on Maple Leaf, but instead...had a hectic day at work, so that by the time I came home I plopped down on my chair and didn't move! 

So I haven't picked up any stitching at all tonight.  I figure that's ok I got lots done last week. 

Here's the progress that I made on Mary Margaret, I was really hoping to finish up her skirt yesterday, but it wasn't meant to be.  Next Sunday for sure :)

No Camera

Well I wanted to take pictures of my new fabric for you all to see but I forget that hubby took the camera hunting with him.  So I'll have to wait for him to come home in order to show you what I got.

Did some stitching on MM today and still intend to continue stitching on her for the rest of the evening.  I worked on an ornie yesterday as well and have about 3/4 of it done, so I won't bore you with that either. 

I'll have some scans of progress tomorrow.  Just wanted to make sure that I got a post in for today.

Another ornie

I stitched this up yesterday while I was enjoying my day off.  Oh how I love long weekends.  This actually meant to be a gift tag of some sort I guess, but I have made it into an ornament (or I intend too anyway)  I just love it, I thought it was really pretty.  Found it in the Christmas Issue of Jill Oxton's Cross stitch and beading magazine.

Made it to the fabric store yesterday and got a few fabrics for finishing and found some small pompoms as well.  So I'm a happy girl.  I'll take some pics and post tomorrow.

I'm having a stitchy day with my SIL tomorrow, so that will be fun!

Lest We Forget

Thank you

Cookie for Santa

This little joy to stitch is from an old JCS Ornie issue (1999) to be precise.  I've already got the next one all kitted up and ready to stitch.  I'm having such fun!!

A Cookie for Santa by Hillside Samplings from 1999 JCS ornie issue

I'm hoping to go to the fabric shop and do some backing shopping for all the ornaments that I've stitched to finish them out and then I may even drag out the sewing machine to get started on them.  I really want to find those pom-pom type trimming that I see people using because I think that I've got a few that would be finished perfectly with that trim.  So that's my mission tomorrow.

It's a long weekend for me so I have 3 glorious days to spend fiddling with my ornaments. :)

Snow Hop

Hot off the q-snaps!  This is a design by Sharon of DaffyCat Designs. Her designs always make me smile.
It can be found here.  It will be the first instalment over at Becky's Christmas ornament challenge as well.

Snow Hop by DaffyCat Designs - stitched on 28 ct white lugana

Stitching Ornies.

It's hockey night on tv for me tonight so I'm stitching on an ornament.  More than half done, but still not finished.  So tomorrow I will have a scan of it. 

The plan this week is to work on ornaments.  Should be good.

ok.. so I know that we gained an hour with the time change...but am I the only one that is finding it even harder to get out of bed then it was last week? This morning I literally had to roll out of bed.  I was exhausted!

MM progress!

Well I know what I've got to do...I've got to stay off the computer on Sunday's on concentrate on stitching instead of playing Words with Friends for hours a day!  I obviously have an addictive personality!  LOL
But that's ok, cause I'm addicted to stitching as well.  I didn't get as much done on Mary as I wanted to, but I did get some of it done.

Next Sunday....no computer....and smokin' needles.... thank you very much!

SAL Sunday

No progress pic of MM yet, because I still have a couple of hours left to stitch on her.  I don't have much progress so far, being distracted by some chatting (you know who you are!) and then hubby came home from his hunting trip.  So with that and supper and getting ready for the week ahead, the time just got away from me as far as stitching goes.  But I'm not giving up yet.  I will have some progress to post tomorrow :)
Here's a new scan of Maple Leaf....still stitched another hour or so after I posted last night's pic.  So here it is.  The colours in my ort jar are so pretty right now with all the fall coloured threads. :)

Maple leaf progress

Spent a whole lot of my day today on the computer and then had company, so didn't have too much time to stitch during the day today, therefore I put my ornaments on hold.  I kept my maple leaf in the qsnaps and worked on that tonight...but I'm not sure when the daily cut off is on blogger, so I didn't want to post any later, in case I missed today's deadline for posting.  So here I am...still want to stitch for another couple of hours tonight.  But so far so good....

...I'm watching The Devil Wears Prada, one of my fav girl movies, and then after that Confessions of a Shoploholic is on...so I may watch that and stitch into that as well.  We'll see. 

Tomorrow Mary Margaret's up again. wooo hoooo!  Monday I'll throw an ornie in the mix. :)

Busy stitching....

My project is so snuggly perfect in my qsnaps at the moment that I don't want to take it out to scan it.  Hubby took the camera with him on his weekend hunt, so I don't have a pic to take, so again, this is a post without a picture.  :(  But tomorrow I will definitely scan in the progress on my maple leaf and perhaps a finish of an ornament. I've got two that I would like to stitch up tomorrow.  (sounds a little optimistic, I know, but I'm going to try) 

I've been seeing all the lovely uploads at Becky's ornament challenge and I'm thinking that I am already falling behind.  They are all so beautiful though and I want to stitch all of those too.  Oh my...I really do get swayed by peer pressure. LOL

No stitching last night

Once I finished posting here last night, I did a little bit of surfing and taking my turn at my game obsessing on Facebook "Words with Friends"  I'm playing with 7 people and I love it.  It's not a big committment each day either, cause you play your word and wait for your partner to do theirs, and that be whether they are on next, or when they feel like it.  So it's great.  Perfect for me.  I did my surfing...looking at stitching sites, stitching blogs, making a list of everything that catches my eye. (my list is very long!!!) But when I do some stash shopping I always cross off a couple of items.  Enabler's...that's what you all are!  LOL

Then when I was done at the computer I sat down and pulled out all of my JCS Christmas Issues with a pad of stickie notes and marked off all the ornies that I would like to stitch out of those.   ummmm....I wonder how many trees I can fit in my house?  There are some that I have literally wanted to stitch for YEARS and never did...so I think that I might concentrate on those for a while...but then I also want to stitch all the LHN ornies...seeing as I have all of them....and then there's the ....... oh it's no use...there will always the something that I want to stitch and never get around too.  So we'll just all have to wait and see what hit's my fancy when I sit down for some ornie stitching again.  Which I think will be this weekend.  Snow is predicted for tonight and into tomorrow, which will mean the hubby is going out into the wild blue yonder to hunt.  He has his hobbies...I have mine!  LOL  It all even's out in the end.

I've got emails to catch up on too...so if you are waiting for one from me, I'll get to them this weekend.  :)

All the pretty colors...

I did some stitching last night while hubby watched the hockey game...which was a disaster for our team...so we only watched part of it, so I didn't get as much done as I wanted to...but still enough to make a post for my second November post.  hehehe  I'm hoping to get more stitching tonight. Adding some yellow to the mix tonight. 

I love this project!

Do I Dare take the Challenge?

I've never done it before and I don't know if I will be able to post every day in November....but I think I can give it a try...I just don't know if my life is interesting enough to talk about every day.  Mind you I have lots of pics that I can share thru the month.  Hey I haven't shown my Yellowstone pictures yet from August...(I just heard a whole choir of groans from you all! LOL)  I'm sure that I will think of something to write about. (or bitch about) I'll try it!

Today is All Saint's day....so to those of my loved ones (and yours) that have gone before us...you are remembered and loved forever!

A start, A finish and A sweater

So had a great week of stitching.  Lots going on on the home front too.  Bought new bedroom furniture, so that means that cleaning out the old furniture, cleaning the nooks and crannies and places that you don't normally clean until the room is empty or furniture is moved.  So there was dusting and vacuuming and carpet cleaning going on.  EEK!  Lot's of decluttering too.  Deciding what to keep out and what to put away and get rid off.  But it will all be good...soon...I hope! 

But in the mean time I did get an ornie finished. One of my favorites from the JCS ornie issue this year.  You can't tell from the scan but the red and the silver dots are shiny with Kreinek thread, and it's soooo pretty in person.

Christmas Tree Cat by Brittercup Designs from JCS 2011 Ornie Issue

I also started a new project...thanks to Dani for letting me borrow this, as I searched high and low for this chart and it turns out it was OOP...Dani has it beautifully pictured in her banner on her blog.  It's MacDonald's Maple Leaf and the colours are amazing on this project!!!  I love how it's coming along, and can't wait to get at it again.

Then on Sunday is our SAL with Kati!  Very excited about Mary Margaret!  And I finished her sweater so on to other things next Sunday.  (Oh Ick!  I didn't see that streak from the scan!!! too lazy to rescan)

Tomorrow is the start of the Christmas Ornament Challenge that Becky has started.  So all the ornaments that I stitch from now until December 31st are going to be posted there as well.  I'm happy about that :)  I love my ornies!!!!

Drive by orting!

I have a busy night so this will be quick, I just wanted to post my ort jar for this month.

I wore this mask as part of my halloween costume last year and I still love it....however this year....Egyptian Queen!  LOL

Have a great weekend!

Welcome Mary Margaret...

Or at least what little there is of her!  I had planned a full day of stitching from morning until night yesterday.  But alas, it was not to be.  Saturday we were out in the yard, raking and pulling out everything out of the flower beds, cleaning out the pots and containers.  Which is all well and good, and it all looks wonderful! (I love the fall clean up!) Unfortunately, regardless of the allergy pill that I had taken on Saturday.  I woke up on Sunday morning with a huge headache from sinus pressure, with my face and eyes all swollen. booo hooo!  So after a couple of hours of struggling to get rid of the headache.  I just ended up taking another allergy pill and laid back down and slept until 4 in the afternoon.  I NEVER do that!  But I did wake up feeling better.  So it helped.  Still a little swollen around the eyes today, but at least I don't look like I got attacked by a swarm of bees anymore.  So this is what I managed on Mary Margaret last night for a couple of hours.  She is going to be so much fun to stitch! YEAH!

I also had a little ornie finish from last week. I thought this turned out pretty.  I don't know what fabric this is, or what shade it is.  I know that's it's 28ct but I don't know anything else, it was in the scrap drawer, but it was perfect for this piece :)

Fresh Fallen Snow by Little House Needleworks - from 2011 JCS Ornie issue

I am going to be starting a new project this week as well.  First I am part way through another ornie and then I'm starting.  I have everything ready to go, so it's just a matter of starting it.  I'm excited about that piece too :)

Another smile from Lulu!