Colors Galore

Looks like this is the weekend for prime fall foliage viewing.  Gorgeous blue sky, and bright bright colors.  Love it!

Believe it or not, this little lake is in someone's front yard in Fargo.  Talk about unexpected.........and completely lovely!

Stopped at the farmstand in the parking lot at the local Kmart.  It was closed but made for a perfect opportunity to wander around and take pics of autumn type produce!  Even fooled a couple people who stopped by when they saw us cause they thought the stand was open.  Oops!

 Also had the Hjemkost grounds mostly to ourselves. There were a couple other people wandering around snapping photos but they left fairly soon after we arrived (promise we didn't scare them away LOL).

Mr. Smiley

  Mr. Smiley was more than happy to pose for pictures today, it was his idea to go into the corn field and smile, although he did lose his shoe as he was heading back to the car.  Maybe it was a bad idea to let him wear his Crocs LOL.  He just can't seem to keep his feet in them.

Finished One!

            One of the four projects has been completed.........yay!  Let the Happy Dancin' commence:

One of these, one of those....

I know I know, wasn't it just yesterday when I was all gung ho on working on the flamingo design from Cross Stitcher magazine?  Yeah, and then I got distracted.  Easy to tell I have the attention span of a gnat sometimes LOL.  I just wasn't feeling the bright colors at this time of year, since there are signs of autumn every where I wanted to be using browns and oranges and rusts.  I didn't want shades of pink and bright blue and yellow.

So I started 'Thomas' by Notforgotten Farms.  Its a design I've wanted to stitch for a couple years now and I finally ordered it  Eventually its going to wind up framed in my dining room but ummmm............first I need to finish stitching it eh?

But see, I got distracted again............yet?  And I started 'Autumn ABC' by Lizzie Kate.  I'm okay with the fabric I'm stitching it.  Would have preferred something with more of a brown tinge to it rather than a yellowy tinge but I wanted to do it on the cheap and use something from my existing stash in order to justify the framing costs.  And hey there's even the fun of the mini happy dance each and every time I finish another letter!

But then...............you guessed it!  I got distracted again and its all because I was organizing some of my supplies.  (see its not always good to try to be tidy hehehe). I found 'Autumn in New York' by Primrose Needleworks and decided it would be fun to stitch.  So I.............ummm..........as you can tell from the photo, I started YET ANOTHER PROJECT.

Ay yi yi!

But good news I'm determined to stick with this one until its complete and then work my way backwards through all my other starts of the past few days LOL.  Wish me luck!

I see PUMPKINS!

Discovered a new veggie market in the city and besides having a great selection of vegetables, fruit and other goodies such as pies and cookies they also had a great Autumn display out front of the store. I think I probably spent more time wandering around and take photos of the various pumpkins, flower and gourds then I did inside the store.  But hey I bought something!  Green onions, a mini apple pie and some chocolate chip cookies.

But mostly I'm just thrilled with the photos I got :)

Signs of Autumn

Started a new project from the British Cross Stitcher magazine.  Eventually it will be a couple of flamingos and I'm going to make it into a wall hanging.  Not sure which room it will end up on, but its super brightly colored and I can't wait to see it all completed.

EEK!  Are those fall leaves on the ground already?  It seems as if summer has disappeared practically overnight.  But if I think back to this time last year, I guess we're right on schedule for a little fall color. I remember taking leaf pics last year near the end of September.  Really crossing my fingers and hoping we have as nice an autumn as last year, it was in the 80's in October.  The older I get the more I appreciate the warmth sticking around!

Picked up this great turkey for my Thanksgiving table at Michaels.  It was either 4.99 or 2.99.   I guess its supposed to be a sugar bowl but I doubt I'll use it as that, it may simply wind up as a decoration on my dining room table.  Love it!  They had it in several different colors including green but I thought amber was the best.

Ahhh, what a good natured dog Mac is.  Just testing out a few ideas for her Halloween portrait LOL.  She looks like she approves!

UGH

                                                                  

Here's Little Miss Sunflower by Little House Needleworks all completed.  And the UGH is because I saved the house (the largest amount of stitching) to do until last.  I stayed up until the wee hours last night trying to get it completed, I could have sworn it was supposed to be done in a lighter color but I doublechecked the legend and nope, I was using the right color.  Did I bother to check the cover pic, nope!  I can read!  Its the right color.  Soooooooooooooooo I continued stitching away with DMC 950 even though I thought it looked a little too pink.  But hey, I didn't design it and the legend told me I was using the right color.

I finished it tonight, all proud of myself.  And as I took it off the Q-snaps revealing Little Miss Sunflower herself I noticed the vast difference between her apron and the house color.  Sooooooooooooooooo this time I grabbed the cover pic and had a look.........

And discovered I stitched the WHOLE HOUSE IN THE WRONG COLOR. Its not supposed to be done in DMC 950 its supposed to be done in ECRU.  It is too pink considering its supposed to be basically off white.  ARGH!

That'll teach me to doublecheck, turns out the symbol for DMC 950 was a line with a squiggle in it and the Ecru symbol was a straight line. My only excuse was it was late last night and I should have called it a night and gone to bed and finished the stitching tonight, as it happens I did anyway.

SIGH.  That'll teach me.  But I'm leaving it for now. I got some new stash yesterday and I want to start one of these designs.   I ordered them from a new ONS to me: Stitch and Frog,   I can't say enough about the service and quick delivery.  Usually it takes a minimum of two weeks for any orders to get to me up here in the Great White North but I got this order from Marty in just over a week, whoo hooo!  You can be sure I'll be ordered from her again and if any of you are looking for a well stocked ONS that offers great service I'd recommend Stitch and Frog to anyone!

'Thomas' is calling to me and you can bet I'll be double and TRIPLE checking every time I have to pull out another color of floss!

Road Trip

This afternoon's road trip took me through the south western part of the province and you can see it was just a little overcast.  It was just a little windy as well and every time I jumped out of the car to take a photo I wasn't sure if I would wind up getting blown over or not.  Would love to blame the wind on Hurricane Isaac but that's probably not the cause LOL

There's a few places I regret not stopping at to take some photos, there were two red barns that would have been great but I did manage to find a couple of other barns later in the journey.

It rained lightly a few times but nothing too much to handle, thank goodness.  The roads were pretty deserted as well, but it did help that I was on the backroads most of the time.

Almost missed this bridge, it was on a road just off the main highway I was on, but found a place to turn around and bingo, got a shot of it :)

The White Horse was where I intended the photo tour to start, but instead it wound up being the final destination in today's photo road trip.  Now tonight its on to watching the Nationwide Race from Atlanta and stitching some more on LHN's Little Miss Sunflower.  Progress pic tomorrow!