Just some cross stitching

Taking a break from quilting for a bit, I decided to do a bit of cross stitching. Nothing too big, just a bookmark.

I didn't realize when I started that this is actually full coverage. I just liked the design and decided to use my own colours. I've done a bit more on this but it's not quite finished yet. The Aida cloth was purchased on Etsy from a fairly local person and I really like the way the edges are finished.

Since the first bookmark was taking so long to finish, I found another design that had way less work on it.

I also started a couple of stitch alongs but they have been put on hold for now. 

On another sad note: My quilting friend Marg suffered a stroke a couple of weeks ago. She had a brain hemorrhage, was operated on, was in ICU for a week and is now in a ward waiting to be admitted to a long term care facility. There is only one person allowed to see her and that is her son. I am told that her speech is indecipherable and that she may suffer another stroke at anytime. Marg was a smoker but never had any kind of cancer. I am hoping that she will be able to communicate with therapy. 

Going back in time

 In January, while I was in England, I kept busy doing a bit of crocheting.

I had purchased a couple of balls of yarn from Fabricland with the idea of making the new twins something.

Luckily, there were two different balls of yarn.

I don't often crochet but I don't mind doing it.

These are the finished items - a ball of yarn, directions and a soft, stuffed head.

I thought this was interesting. 

It's a little hand impression on a soft, thick blanket. It was of one of the twins in England.

I saw this on the way to the park. It's a hanging basket of flowers - in January.

Tomorrow is Canada Day and instead of wearing the traditional red and white, a lot of people will be wearing orange to "honour the Indigenous children who were sent away to residential schools in Canada." My middle daughter got an orange t-shirt from a friend of hers but it was a large size. She brought it over along with a book that has instructions on 101 ways to transform a t-shirt.

Here's her sister wearing the t-shirt after I transformed it. I just cut off a large chunk from the hem, sewed it so it's thinner and then gathered the top part. I sewed the two pieces together and voila, an easy fix.

While doing some searching and cleaning, I came across some needlepoint that I had forgotten about.

There were actually two. I asked my eldest daughter, who lives in British Columbia in an area where there are a lot of mule deer, if she wanted them. 

They need to be framed and the buck actually should be cleaned first. I still have another 'oldie' that I made but it's quite slanted. It's a couple of pandas and I suppose I could finish it and give it to one of my grandchildren.

The old and the new and more...

Over this past Christmas, I spent time in England with my youngest daughter and her family. Since Covid kept everyone celebrating with their own family, no one was coming over to our house so I thought I would celebrate with my youngest grandchildren, the twin boys and their 3 year old brother. I had a return ticket from my stay there last spring/summer so I surprised my daughter. They have a granny flat where I did my quarantine so it all worked out.

While I was there I came across this little quilt that I made for my youngest daughter, Ayla. The original design was in red, white and black (that is what was shown on the pattern) but both Ayla and I like turquoise. I think this may have been a kit from Connecting Threads. I didn't take note of the year that would have been on the label but it was probably less than 10 years ago.

Here's a little close-up of the quilting in the border.

Since it is now spring, I decided that my hall wall could use a bright, but small, wall hanging. I have liked this pattern for quite some time now and one clever blogger, Life in the Scrapatch took the free pattern called Pretty Posies from EQ and made it into a very easy pieced quilt. The only thing to keep in mind is which way you make the leaves. Some of them should be sewn reversed. Once I sewed the middle part together, I decided to audition a border.

As you can see, I didn't go with a green border.

I haven't had time to finish this. I was just thinking on machine quilting it so I didn't have to baste it or put it on a frame.


On a personal note: My husband passed away on May 27th. He had had emphysema for many years and only quit smoking about 4 or 5 years ago mainly because of the grandchildren. Sadly, it wasn't soon enough. My family has been a great help and they are (or will be) all here this month. I have been busy each and every day but this post has been on my mind to compose for a while.

And...

I just received my second dose of Pfizer on June 6th so my youngest daughter and I fully vaccinated. She lives in the UK so she got the vaccine earlier than we here in Canada. I can't believe how many people are not going to be vaccinated. I don't know if I want to be around them. Some are neighbours and others are friends and even relatives. All of my children have had at least one dose and are eager to get the second one when they are eligible.

Growing Family - special guest post

 This is a special guest post from my 10 year old grandson who asked if he could post on my blog. He's my eldest grandchild and quite a go-getter. Just recently he made over $200 selling worms and worm farms at a local farmer's market. Last year he learned to knit and finished knitting his young cousin a scarf.

Growing Family by Luc 

Hi, I am Luc. Welcome to the Growing Family. 

The growing family is where I put challenges that you can do. And I will show you how I grow my plants. So let’s get started with the first challenge. Every challenge will start every month.

So here’s the first challenge: to grow a sunflower. I will put pictures on how my sunflower is doing. but it will take time for my sunflower to grow. so wherever you get your sunflowers seed from – plant in a pot and water it daily.

Completed items and other things

 I'm busy sewing a couple of little dresses for my granddaughters who have birthdays next month exactly two weeks apart. Once I'm finished, I will take a photo.

In the meanwhile, I took some time to finish a few things that have been hanging around.

This is called Chilly's Gift. It is a small (4" X 4") card-sized cross stitch. It was a free design years ago and I thought it wouldn't take long to make. The original colours were red and pink but I changed to colours to suit me. There is supposed to be a charm in between the penguin's hands - hence the 'gift.' I haven't found one yet but once I put it in a card, I will go hunting for the charm. It's been hanging around for quite a number of years and I am glad that I finally decided to finish it.

I bake sweet bread almost once a week for my grandchildren who usually request it. It's a braided loaf with cardamom as flavouring called pulla in Finnish. 

This is what it looked like before I baked it. As an Easter surprise, I added red food colouring and on the top, I added sprinkles instead of sugar. It was an idea my little grandchildren had. I just made two more loaves today. They weren't as big as these because I think the yeast I used was a tad old. Nevertheless, my son said it will all get eaten. He has three little girls. The other loaf went to my daughter who has a little girl and a boy. 

I also managed to finish this sweater. I started it for my little granddaughter last year and since her birthday was coming up, I decided to get it totally done. I only had to finish off the sleeves (I knitted them together) and then sew it all up. I dislike sewing up knitted parts. That's the main reason my knitted items sometimes take years to finish.

Just a close-up of the yarn. It's a cotton chunky yarn that I bought decades ago. I have it in this pink, some beige, some blue and some gray. It was on sale and so far, this is the second sweater that I have made with this yarn. Years ago I made a pullover for my then, teenaged son with the beige. I still have the sweater. I need to make more sweaters to use it all up.

This is my hyacinth that started out with only three blooms but ended up with five. They are now done and planted outside to bloom next year.

About three years ago, on Easter Sunday, we were visited by a bunny rabbit in our backyard.

This little guy has come back again. There are actually two of them that we sighted yesterday morning but they were so quick, we didn't get any photos of the duo. This one camouflaged well.

Sometimes they do visit our neighbour next door (centre of the photo, on the other side of the fence) but they prefer our backyard.