February

 February is my birthday month I couldn’t resist buying this Lori Mitchell figurines several years ago

We had an unexpected snowfall on January 31st.  Often we get snow in February.  A bit lasted overnight.

I managed to resist buying any fabric until the last week of January.  This Quilt Retreat fabric by Cynthia Frenette was too hard to resist I think I resisted it for almost 48 hours.

I like staring new cross stitch projects during my Birthday month and Gathering Honey by Luminous Fiber Arts was the one to choose. I changed the colour of the silk to Mango Belle Soie.

I’m a long time Snoopy/Peanuts fan and could not pass on sharing this.

The bird and flower are now completely stitched.  The triple border was tricky to stitch

Now I wonder if any snow will show up later in the month? I guess I’ll have to wait and see.

lunar New Year

The Autumn and Winter flowering shrubs and trees are not as plentiful this year due to the late Autumn drought and colder Winter temperatures we had this year.  But finally some are starting to out on their show.  The yellow Witch Hazel is always a late arrival.

This was an unexpected cloud formation at sunset the other day.  I love how it somewhat mimicked the form of the tree.

The orange Witch Hazel is a much bigger colour show than its yellow cousin.

It seems to have many more petals to them and are much denser on the branches,

Today is the Lunar New Year, I wish you luck, good health, wealth in the year of the rabbit,

 As part of my goal of Renew my word for this year I decided to pick up my Somthing’s Fishy BOM designed by my friend Uschi Geiner of Woolies on the Coast.  I’ve not stitched on it for awhile and it still needs a bottom sandy bottom border to be added.  As always I put some of my own twists and changed placements of her design.  I modified the seahorse from her design.

Last night I decided to stitch this rickrack guy.    I hadn’t yet done the bullion knots around the outside the French knots or the Palestrina stitching on the tail.  I’ve decided to move the mouth placement a bit lower as the fish is angling down to the right.

One of my favourite pieces to develop were the two jelly fish.  Trying different fibres for their tentacles amongst my collection.

I may still add some more stitching to them before they are done.

I love how these tentacles drift along side of the praying mantis,

Enjoy your Sunday and have a lovely Lunar Celebration.

Word of the Year

 I decided to look back on past years to see which words or phases I chose for my word.  I was surprised to see I started this first in 2012 and the word was Enjoy. The next year I chose Creativity. 2014 I chose a phrase Sew Finish It Up.  Followed by A New Leaf, Explore New Directions, Stay Focused.  Mindful, Surprise, Inspire, Inspire Creativity and Harmony was for last year.

What shall I choose this year?  Another phrase or a single word?

I decided on RENEW.  The condo building I living in is having a major renewal of it.  The roof, decks, windows are all being replaced.  It’s time to renew other things in my life also.  I’ve renewed my ,I’ve if reading books and have probably read 5 or 6 in the past month.  I hope to renew my love of travel later in the year.

I started New Year’s Day with a new cross stitch design.  Here is a peek at my first few hours of stitching.

I’ll let you know it’s a BlackBird Designs piece which should be a quick one to stitch.

2022 at an end.

 I has promised to try and post more in 2022 but when my Mom passed away in January I just couldn’t try.

She would have been 97 in May 2022.

Here she is on her 90th birthday.

I worked on a lot of cross stitch during this year.  This is one of a trio by Bonnie Sullivan.

This is a freebie I found and it is a favourite.

I need to get this one properly into its frame.  Another freebie.

We had some snow in early January.

Stitched using silk thread.

The crocuses started showing up.

Our weeping cherry trees put on a lovely show.

I did a We Women block swap online,

I designed a stitching wallet for my Block of the Month I’m doing with Sue Spargo.  I can’t share pictures of the actuall project but it’s called TradeWinds and has a fish theme to it.

The pictures are out of order but here is the interior of it.

I got the deluxe double project bag and designed to also design a mini quilt for the front of it 

Here it is all closed up.

The exterior when fully opened.

Another of many cross stitch projects I made this year.

I also designed these crows for my mini iron caddy.  They were inspired by my friend Uschi who dyes lovely wool and is a wool pattern designer.

Each bird is stitched slightly different than the next.

I designed a crescent moon for the front using the trellis stitch.

And a sunrise for the base.

In July I headed down to Oregon and met up with an online friend Audrey aka Stitchywitch42 on Instagram.

I made a brief visit to the Oregon coast to enjoy the salt air.

Then I went to Sisters for the Outdoor Quilt show.  The first since July 2019 that I’ve attended.

Net up with Anna from the Woolie Mammoth blog along with Stitch Roadies and Quilt Roadies YouTube channels.

One of several cross stitch projects that got frowned,

A little scissor fob I made

Along with some counting pins.

Our first snow of the season showed up on November 29th!

Chinese Lantern 

I went to the Fraser River Lodge for a quilt retreat,

Stitched on my circle sampler.

I got the borders on Midnight Escape.  This was a bird block swap that I decided need the bird to be in a large brass bird cage but managing ti escape.  Hand appliquéd.

As the snow turned up early I hung my finally bound Let It Snow designed by Buttermilk Basin.

Another circle camper stitched.

We had snow for the Winter Solstice.

Stolen from Facebook doesn’t he look yummy?

The courtyard view.

So true in Vancouver,  we got about 12” down on the quay.

The water feature froze up again.

King Tides and rain caused sine flooding in Vancouver but nit here on the quay.

From my @shhdesignsquilts account on Instagram.

And fron my @shhdesigns1 account on Instagram.

Have a Safe and Happy New Year,