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.