Happy Thursday everyone!!!

I hope you're all ready for some "trick r' treating" tonight. Now that my youngest brother is not so young anymore, I get to stay home during this spooky night and await the kids who might ring our door bell. Problem being is that we live on a street with not so many houses on it... so that means not too many kids show up at the front door! And I don't blame them!!! If I were I kid I'd want to go where I can get the biggest bang for all those miles I put on my feet in the cold :) Ahhhh to be a kid again with a pillow case (or two) in hand pilfering all those houses for candy and chips hehe. 

Luckly, our door bell fortunes have increased lately due to some large new housing developments in the area and that equals MORE TRICK OR TREATERS :) What can I say? I just love seeing all the costumes that are donned this special night and handing out candy bars! 

I have it all planned out. The music, the decorations, and the PUMPKIN! Wait... the pumpkin... Well boy do I ever have a story to tell you about pumpkins. 

Usually it's tradition that my brothers and I go out and get our Halloween pumpkins at a nearby local farm. So Sunday arrives, it's nice, not too threatening on the rain side of things... although I can see some scary looking clouds in the distance... So I ring up my brothers to go get our pumpkins. We arrive... no pumpkins... disappointing. We always try to support local businesses first but I guess we'll just have to go to the grocery store... WRONG. No pumpkins at the grocery store... none in the whole metro area!!!! WHAT????? 

So there we are, all crammed into a car with our significant others, brainstorming where on earth we can find a pumpkin... on a Sunday... before everything closes. There's but one last place to try, Lester's Farm. A bit of a trek but we HAVE to have a pumpkin for Halloween! It would be like not having a tree on Christmas!

So off we go to Lester's, we arrive... A MILLION cars! Now if you're like me and think positive, the fact that there are tons of cars spilling out of the parking lot and into the street you'd think "Boy... they must be the only place left to have pumpkins. Thank God we are going to get one"... if you're a pessimist you'd probably think "CRAP! It's probably a free-for-all in there"... think Lord of the Flies...

If you're the pessimist, you were right. I walked in with hope only to see that the crates and pallets that used to hold pumpkins were practically empty, with only the saddest looking pumpkins left... the ones who've been beaten and bruised. Much like how I was feeling in that particular moment. I was totally deflated. My picturesque Sunday with my family had flown the coop. 

I all but gave up when I spot two GINORMOUS pumpkins left at the very end between what used to be pumpkins but now had their guts spilling out onto the ground. 

I make a beeline for what is now our "greenish", warped, yet perfectly funky and weird pumpkin.  

Now it's all over the news. "NO PUMPKINS!" "PUMPKIN SHORTAGE HITS THE AVALON". Literally, radio hosts are asking people to call in on how they plan to cope with this shortage and be creative and carve other things... watermelons, turnip, cantaloupe... you name it. While these substitutions are great solutions if you don't want to miss out on the tradition of craving at Halloween, they're still just not the same as getting up to your elbows in pumpkin slime. 

I know one thing for sure... From now on I'll be getting my pumpkin much earlier and will appreciated it soooooo much more :)

Lastly, I'll leave you with a couple pictures of two very curious pups... They were looking at me as if to say "Mommy, why are you taking pictures of pumpkins???". So I took the opportunity to grab a few snaps of them in the morning light on the front deck :) Now hopefully they'll sit just as well when the doorbell starts ringing!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

PS: Be sure to sign up for my giveaway! Make sure you comment on my giveaway post if you'd like to participate!!!

Happy Monday everyone!!! 

Well I've had quite the bit of luck lately both in  life and here in our stitchy world.

Thanksgiving may have passed but I am so grateful for so many aspects in my life.

I've also been privileged to win not 1... not 2... but 3 stitchy giveaways recently (see I told you I've been lucky!). 

First I won an amazing giveaway over at The Snowflower Diaries! Thanks so much Maja!

I also have to thank Regina at Oubliette  for hosting one of the most informative giveaways ever ;) Basically, all the entrants had to respond to following questions:

1. How many blogs do you read regularly?
2. How much time do you spend reading blogs each day?
3. What sort of  content attracts you to the blogs you do read?  For example:  photos, musings about the needle arts, the style or personality of the blogger, humour, etc.
4. Do you enjoy message boards devoted to stitching?  If yes, which ones do you read?
5. Do you use Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with cyber friends who share your love of the needle arts?
6. Do you belong to a stitching group that meets in real space and in real time and promotes person-to-person sharing?

Now just stop and think about what your answers would be! Really makes you think doesn't it. I loved seeing all the answers and was amazed when I was picked as the winner for a 123stitch giftcard!!! Awesome! Thanks so much Regina :)

Last but not least I have big thank you for Nancy at the Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe! Where I won some fabulous hand dyed floss :) I know I know... I've already told you about this but seeing as it's a recap of these amazing givers I figured I'd include everyone :)

Annnnddd now it's your turn!!!! It's time for me to pass it on right?!

We'll have two lucky winners this time round! 

Prize 1:     $10(US) Giftcard for 123stitch.com

Prize 2:     A stitched pincushion by yours truly :)  

All names will be entered to win either prize, so no need to make a distinction on which one you would want. The first name I draw will be the winner of the Giftcard and the second will win the pincushion.

Now for the rules!

1. Comment only on this post if you wish to enter.

2. Leave an email address if you are a no-reply blogger (I've had a hard time tracking down people in the past).

3. Past it on! Make sure you post/link my giveaway on your blog please :)

Giveaway ends on November 15, 2013

I'll draw the winner on November 16. 

1...2...3... GO!

Until next time dearies!

Melissa

Happy Thursday,

I have a new finish and start to show you all today! I haven't taken part in IHSW for a LONNNNG time, despite my best efforts. It's easy to let life whisk away your weekend I find, so hermitting can be a bit of a challenge. This weekend past however I found myself with a little extra time on my hands than usual and decided that some quality time with my stitching and netflix was in order :) I stitched until my hands and fingers went tingly and watched a season and a half of Bones. Yup I think I'd qualify this as a successful weekend!

I finished another house in the Santa's Village series by CCN and have another waiting in my WIPs bag just waiting for a start. I have 5 out of the 12 in the series right now... and NOW CCN has announced another series called Frosty Forest! I'm going to have to speed up because I find myself already loving the concept of Frosty Forest... oh dear ;)

Santa's Stocking Store
Country Cottage Needleworks
Stitched on 32ct Opalescent Belfast

I also put a start in on L*Ks new Mystery Sampler, Holly and Hearts.

I've been dying to start in on this sampler and have had it waiting in the lineup for a while. But I was being very disciplined and made myself hang off on starting until I finished my Santa's Village WIP! YEY for willpower.

Unfortunately, Santa's Magic has been neglected over the past week or so... just because I'm working with Kernik thread now and I hate it.

I figure once I've put the last stitch in part one of the L*K mystery sampler I'll kick my but in gear and continue on with Santa's Magic. I find with large intricate projects I always like a little side project just so I can take a break from it from time to time. Anyone else do this?

Also, do you notice how everything I'm working on right now is Christmas related?! I must have an obsession subconsciously... 

Ciao for now!

Melissa

Happy Monday!

I have a case of the Monday's today. This morning when I woke up I thought to myself uggggghhhh can't I just stay in bed???? I could hear that it was raining... there was barely enough light to see about my bedroom... combine this with a comfy bed and a puppy cuddled into the crook of your legs and I'm sure many of you can see why I just did not want to move. But despite ever fibre of my being wanting to stay put, I slapped the alarm clock one last time at 7:05am and flicked off the blankets to meet the cool air that seems to have seeped into the house as October has creeped along. I wrap myself up in my house coat and beginmy morning routine... shower, put dog out, feed dog, get lunch ready, do hair (no makeup... too lazy today), jump in car and off I go. 

All day my body screamed... I just wanna go home!

I hate starting my week off like this. But then I guess there are just some days that are more difficult to put up with (let's face it we all put-up with Mondays more often than not...). Perhaps we should have a revolution and demand 4 day work weeks! Who's with me? I jest of course, one always wants what one cannot have :)

So to perk myself up here I am again whipping up a post just because I feel like it. So what I am I going to talk about today? Well the garden hasn't seen much action on my blog lately so that feels like a perfect topic! Specifically, harvest time. I very nearly entitled this post "The Harvest" but of course I had a sneaking suspicion that I might have used that title before. Lo and behold, I have. SO dirty digging it is!

Harvesting veg is not nearly as neat and straight forward as just pulling things out of the ground. Nope. Wearing gloves is an absolute necessity... especially when the soil is soaked with rain water. Perfect recipe for mud if you allow yourself to get messy.

This year we expanded our efforts to many more onions, more carrots, garlic, more turnip, asparagus, rhubarb (bit of story here), beans, cabbage, and the all traditional potato (although this is our first year growing it). Once a couple of new beds were constructed and everything was planted the garden was pretty well left to it's own devices. Too busy house building you see. We won't thank ourselves next year as I'm sure we'll be weeding forever. 

That being said, we got quite the haul this year. I'm sure we could have had even bigger and better veg but for what we got I think the garden did quite well!!! And I should mention we've been harvesting from the garden ever since August, so we've gotten quite a lot from our growing garden :) (PS: I'm convinced my boyfriend is the one with the green thumb. Without him I'd be lost and I'm sure things would probably only have grown to the size of a quarter haha).

Here's some pictures, but keep in mind that there is tones more still waiting to hauled out of the ground!

Hnions!

Our piddly little cabbage...

Spanish Onions :)

L'ail! Garlic 

Now...just to come up with recipes to use all this stuff up! If anyone has any suggestions on how I can preserve my onions I would be ever grateful as I have a million and no clue what to do with them all!!!! 

Despite the dreadful Monday start, Fall will continue to be one of favourite seasons... just stop raining already!!! :)

I'll leave you now with my puppy/doggy pics! Couldn't take picture of just one of my pups now could I!?!?

Baby Arya

Beautiful Leia

Until next time,

Melissa

Happy Wednesday everyone!

I find myself in need of a distraction from life today. 

Just last night there was a horrible shooting in my sleepy town of 20,000 and as of right now 3 people are dead. Let's get one thing straight... this type of thing NEVER happens here. The police even issued a warning for everyone to stay inside and lock all the doors. I wasn't at home when this all happened, instead I received a panicked text message from my boyfriend which told me come straight home after my quilting class and not to stop anywhere. I was even afraid to bring my puppy out for a pee! Needless to say I hardly got any sleep as I kept picturing a raving lunatic with a gun at my back door... even at 4:30am... and what's worse is that I was just across the street from the shooting not 15 minutes before it occurred. 

My heart aches  for the tragedy of it all, but also for the innocence that seems to have all but dissipated from my usually happy, bustling yet quiet little town. I completely fail to understand what drives one person to do this to another...

As you can probably tell my mind has been pondering this tragedy all day long... so I've decided to get it off my chest and distract myself a little by taking pictures and writing a post of my new dive into the quilting world.

I have to say I am loving what I'm seeing so far!!!

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I began taking a quilting class back in September and hope to complete a small lap quilt (although it's quickly becoming bigger as I add more things).  Here are my squares so far:

Apparently this type of quilting project is called "stacking the deck" or something like that. I'm not overly fond of the pattern but it'll do for my first quilt :)

Originally I was just going to sew them up in the way I've laid them out above... but I was thinking that perhaps it could use a little sashing between the squares to help break up the patterns I've used. I can't help but feel that it would just be "too much" if I just sewed them up as they are now.

And believe me when I say that those squares weren't so square before I cut the edges off them and made them a consistent size. I lost about 2 inches over all from each square by the time it was all said and done... but I do take comfort in the fact that I was not alone in this :) Thank god for my quilting classmates. 

In the end I suppose I have to accept that I'm just a newbie, and unlike taking up cross stitching again, it will not be like riding a bike!

In preparation for the fact that I will get better (one hopes) I've already bought fabric for my next quilting projects!!!!

Don't those faby's look delicious! They are in what's called a Jellyroll and they can used in various ways to create a quilt. One quilt I'm planning on making is the Jelly Roll Jam quilt that Fat Quarters has kindly created a tutorial for (thank god). Here's the video if your interest is peaked!

If you have any other suggestions/tips or favourite quilt patterns you'd like to share with me I'd love to hear them!!!

Until next time,

Melissa

We have lost one of our own today...

Take a few moments today to remember Cathey.

Happy Thursday!

Wowzers have I ever been distracted lately. After getting a good start in on Santa's Magic a couple of weeks ago, literally ZERO stitching has taken place. I guess I have a few good excuses for this.

1. Work

I'm not what you call a workaholic but I've been busting my butt at work lately. At work early in the morning, often the last to leave the office, bringing work home. All because I'm in the middle of a series of workshops I've put together and it's literally eating up my days! It's constant work on presentations and one email and meeting after another. By the end of the day all I want to do is go home and crash... not move a muscle... not even touch a pan to make supper.

So this is what it's like to be a busy professional?!

Don't get me wrong! I'm feeling more fulfilled than ever and I'm very happy that I'm run off my feet. I prefer it that way. But boy, I can't wait until the pressure is off! Another month and a half to go!!!

2. Quilting

I started my quilting class exactly 2 weeks ago! Super fun, but again makes for a loooooong day as I stay out in town rather than going home after work because I would just have to turn around an hour after I get home just to come back to do the course... so I stay out in town. And did I mention the class is 3 hours long and doesn't end until 10pm!!!! Never doing that again. 

I am starting to fall in love with quilting though! I've order some new fabric and have my 10 blocks for my quilt class nearly finished!!! EXCITING!!!

3. NEW PUPPY!

Myself and my wonderful boyfriend have our first furbaby! I picked her up 2 Saturdays ago and BOY she is starting the be a handful. It makes me wonder how I ever got through having two puppies at once not even two years ago. Blue and Leia have since grown up quite a bit and Blue has gone off to live with my brother. Anyway here is our little Arya (AR-EE-yuh) the Irish Setter!

Hopefully I'll be able to get back into the stitching swing once she doesn't need constant supervision!

Toodles for now!

Melissa