All Finished

 Lizzie Kate's Spring ABC's is finally finished, yay!  Its larger than I expected so I'm really glad I chose 32 ct fabric to stitch it on, but I love how it turned out. Now I definitely want to get the Autumn design. 

I already have winter, its actually partially done, I started it at Thanksgiving but then set it aside for Christmas designs.  I have Summer as well and that's moved up to the top of the To Do list for sure.

Spring Clean Up

 You know its officially spring when the city comes down the street sweeping up all the sand and gravel spread down on the icy roads all winter long.  Now I just have to get busy and rake the leaves off the grass and everything will be good.  There's a lot more leaves appearing on the trees and bushes now, yay, finally we'll have a little greenery around here.

 Made quite a bit of progress on Spring Alphabet this weekend.  I'm still battling the sinus infection so I spent a lot of time just stitching and watching TV on Sunday.

But I made up for it Saturday - went for a long walk with Denny and Mac, then went to the Childrens Hospital Book Fair and didn't buy a thing although there were a few books I checked out.  I was hoping for a couple cookbooks but there really wasn't that great of a selection.  They had a ton of Jean Pare cookbooks but neither the Square and Slice one or the Slow Cooker recipes.  Rats, was hoping to snag the two of them at the sale.

But I have added a few more titles to my kobo wish list :)

Title-less

Got a little more done again yesterday, but thanks to a revived sinus infection, I spent a lot more time mindlessly staring at the computer screen than I did stitching.

A few more squares

Managed to make a little more progress on Spring Alphabet after changing the one green color.  Still not totally thrilled with the contrast but I'm not changing it again, lol, it will do.  Love how nice and bright the colors are in this design.

Mid week

Made a little progress on Lizzie Kate's Spring Alphabet and then had to rip out one color.  I'm using a mixture of threads and since I didn't have Weeks Grasshopper I chose to use the recommended DMC.  But it was too close to the other green in the pattern so I wound up ripping it out and using a lighter shade.

One of these days I might actually get a project finished. LOL.

But in the meantime I've finally chosen which tree company to go with to remove the tree that's too close to the house and it goes bye bye on Saturday.  Can't wait!  Once its gone it will lessen the chance of any critters tap dancing across the roof.

Raining on Sunday

Sunny Saturday

Spent most of the day running around to various stores but wound up not buying very much,  Was very happy to find two more EOS lip balms I didn't have - lemon drop and strawberry are now in my collection and I think strawberry is my absolute favorite so far.

It was sunny and blue all day and warm enough that we were able to hang around outside later in the afternoon.

Dark and Stormy afternoon

It started raining late afternoon and it was really coming down for a couple hours.  Nothing but grey skies as far as the eye could see.

I remembered to pick up my renewed passport this morning, I think I was in the passport office for all of a minute.  Talk about a quick pick up!

Finally decided that 'Rain Fell' is simply not going to work on that blue fabric, I can't think of a color to change the girl's dress too and the blue it currently is just clashes with the fabric color.  I think I'll re-purpose the remaining fabric for some of the Prairie Schooler 'Bunnies' patterns.

Winterwoods

Yup, started yet another project, this time its Winterwoods by Alicia Paulson of Posie Gets Cozy blog fame.  It was quite the experience sorting out the Weeks threads for the project. Good thing I had some of the required threads in my stash, that way I was able to compare colors with the pre cut thread included in the kit and figure out which was which.

Half A Groom

This is one of the designs from the 365 Cross Stitch book I picked up on the weekend. Love the colors and love that its different from most wedding designs.  Lots of backstitching though and that's something I haven't done in ages.  Used to be you had to backstitch all the designs you worked on, but  most designers have gotten away from it in their designs now.  I used to hate it, but now I find it kind of relaxing to do.  Go figure LOL

Colder Weather

Ran a few errands this afternoon and stopped by the park long enough for this photo.  Would have loved to wander around and take some more but the wind was blowing quite strongly and it was COLD out.  Seriously I was only out a few minutes and my fingers were freezing.  I'm starting to think Mother Nature has decided the week or two of warm weather she gave us was summer and now we're back to autumn and winter again.

Saturday

 Still loving the fabric color but really not sure about the blue in the girl's dress, it seems to clash just like I was worried about.  Tossing around possible changes - another blue? grey perhaps?  Or a total swap to a lighter pink to compliment the flowers?  Really not sure what to do.

Found this British magazine at the bookstore and since there are at least half a dozen patterns I can see myself doing, I figured it was a good purchase.  Most of the designs I really like are by Joan Elliott.

There was quite the difference in weather between yesterday and today. It was 20 C yesterday and today I doubt it got any higher than 9 C plus it was super windy with gusts up to 40 kms an hour.  Brrr, you never quite know how to dress if you're venturing outside at this time of year.  But we can't complain, the snow's been gone for weeks and that's unusual!  Fifteen years ago yesterday was the Blizzard of the Century that led to the Flood of the Century.  Glad we don't have to deal with that this year.

Good Friday

 Wow, talk about supremely unmotivated today.  I didn't even bother to change out of jammies, but then I guess holidays are good for that.  Watched the Barrett Jackson auction from Palm Beach most of the afternoon, did a little more cross stitch - I'm still working on the LHN design and was more than a little surprised at how cheap a lot of the cars were going for.  But then I guess tomorrow is the day the more expensive vehicles will hit the auction block.

Finally managed to find a 'tree' to hang my Easter ornaments off.  I think its actually supposed to be for jewelery but hey, Pier One showed it being used for ornaments on its website so I guess I can do the same.  And it was about half the price of the Easter 'tree's they were selling.  So the price was right as well.  And I can use it for other holidays as well as Easter.  If I get busy and do some sewing I could whip up some small cross stitch ornaments to decorate it with between holidays.

Bus Ride

 Yes, that is a new start you see to the left.  'And the Rain Fell' from Little House Needleworks caught my eye and I couldn't resist starting it.  This is the second try, the first I started on a greyish blue piece of unknown 28ct.  This is a piece of  Ocean Depths opalescent linen from Enchanted Fabrics that I've been hanging on to for year, figured it was about time I actually put it to use.  Not sure if the blue in the girl's dress is going to clash but so far I like the color combos.

I'm such a dork.  Transit was offering free rides on the new Rapid Transit route that officially opens on Easter Sunday and I had to go check it out.  Not like I've ever been on a bus before, I know, but hey this one goes through a tunnel and goes up to 80 kms an hour for a wee stretch.  The bus was totally packed, in fact there was a cameraman at the station from one of the local news channels and when we got on board, there was another cameraman and a reporter standing at the front of the bus.  This is big news in the city LOL, guess that means I'm not the only dork.

Oops

More progress on the Lizzie Kate design.  I still love it even if I've discovered I don't have a long enough piece of fabric to finish the full design. Guess I'll be doing some creative cutting and a few words will have to be left off the finished product.

And yes that is a new start, I'll leave it a surprise until I make a little more progress.  But everyone can feel free to guess ;)

Critter Day

                                   Mac, Hudson and one more sky/tree study - blue sky this time!

Skies

The top picture is the sunset tonight, the other picture is Sunday afternoon's sky.  Love the different moods.

Was up early today so Denny could come over and use my computer - her internet was out - and today is the first day for camping reservations.  That was two hours of thumb twiddling, what a crazy system to have everyone trying to book for the whole summer.  There were probably a couple thousand people in line ahead of her and by the time she managed to get in there were no camping sites available in the size she wanted for the four days she wanted.  Good thing Darrell was on his computer at work trying to book one as well, he was successful, whew!

I'm still plowing along on the Lizzie Kate Double Flip-Its but discovered late in the evening that the piece of fabric I'm using isn't going to be long enough to do the full design - argh!  Not sure how I ever thought it was going to be long enough, it looks like I'm going to have to leave out at least two of the designs.  And of course that annoyed me enough that I started tossing around the idea of another start.

And yup, just before bed I put the first few stitches in.  I.  Am.  Bad.  What the heck, what's one more start with all the other ones I have going.  Photos of the stitching tomorrow.