Halloween Quaker

Quaker d'Halloween by Jardin Prive
stitched on 28ct linen Kauri by Kiwi Illusions
using DMC floss

I finished up my Halloween Quaker on Wednesday afternoon during my get together with my local group of crafters. There were only four of us out and we did a little happy dance to celebrate. I love how this piece looks on this fabric! This photo is the closest that I've come to capturing the actual looks of the fabric. I will be having this one framed for sure, maybe with a distressed black frame. I'll have to see how it looks but I think that might work.

 Now I've given myself permission to start something new. I thought I might get going on Paradis Perdu but with Christmas not all that far off  I'm in the mood for a holiday stitch. I'm just doing a toss floss for Jenny Bean's Christmas Sampler by Shakespeare's Peddler. I've narrowed it down to two fabrics from my stash. I'm trying very hard to use up what's in my stash, at least until after Christmas.

I've been baking and cooking up a storm the past few days. I'm headed to Rebecca's tomorrow to spend the day stitching with our group of travelling stitchers. I originally planned on driving there tonight but I haven't been sleeping all that well lately and I thought it better to sleep in my own bed tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone and in preparation I baked some Skor blondies and made a roasted vegetable dip. Then I found out that my DH and I are on for the coffee hour after church on Sunday so that meant baking some more goodies. So it's been rather warm in our kitchen!  Between Bob and myself we've baked two fruit loaves, three pans of squares and roasted the veggies for the dip. Bob is known for his banana bread and I thought I'd try and outdo him with this cranberry pumpkin loaf. I'll let you know who wins the bakeoff!
Thanks for all your comments on our Thanksgiving turkey dish. I've had a few requests for the recipe and if anyone else wants it, just email me and I'll send you a copy.

Time to pack my stitching bag for tomorrow. I hope to have a few pics from our SAL to show you on my next post. The weather is supposed to be cold and rainy for our day. Perfect for spending the day inside with our needles!

Family, Fall and a Halloween Quaker

Good morning everyone! I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend and for my Canadian bloggers, how was that turkey? Yes, it was Gobble Day here yesterday in Canada and boy were we blessed with an awesome weekend, at least in this part of the country. Let me show you a taste of the bright skies and gorgeous fall colours which we are so fortunate to have in this area.

I didn't realize I had the guy wires captured on film as well in that first photo. Kind of spoils things a bit.

Since our weather has been so gorgeous the past few days, I spent many hours in the gazebo stitching. I decided to concentrate on my Halloween Quaker and I'm happy to say that I'm nearing a finish on this one. I haven't got a clue yet what I'll do with it when it's complete. Most likely it will be framed and I'll hang it in our rec room. I really like the colour of this fabric unfortunately the mottling doesn't show up very well in the pics. At some point in time I'd like to stitch Prairie Moon's Thine is the Trick and the Treat which is waiting in my stash and this fabric would work really well for it as well.

The floss I was waiting on for Paradis Perdu has now arrived and I'm anxious to get going on it so hopefully I can have the HQ finished within the next couple of days.

Our Thanksgiving meal turned out really well. I tried 3 new side dishes and the cauliflower casserole was the unanimous favourite. It seems our family just isn't that fond of sweet potatoes with the exception of my oldest, Jeff. So he went home with the bulk of the remaining dish along with a good portion of the remaining pumpkin pie. I didn't want that sitting around where I could dig into it all the time. Daniel took the other half home with him. The crockpot turkey was amazing. No slicing involved, the turkey just fell off the bones when we went to remove it from the pot. The meat was so moist done this way that I will definitely be using this method again. It's a perfect way to have turkey throughout the year without all the fuss of stuffing the bird. As you can see from the pic below, we all looked pretty pleased as we sipped on coffee following the fixings. My youngest phoned from Toronto and I was happy to hear that his group of friends had all pitched in to have a traditional turkey dinner. Chris and a couple of the others are  vegetarian so there were 4 different veggie dishes for them. I was really surprised at how much food they all prepared especially since most of the group are males.

The weatherman has told us that today will be the last nice day for awhile. Cooler temps and rain are on our doorstep. With that in mind, I'm heading outside now to get my gardens cleaned up and remove some of the dying flowers.

Have a great week!

A new group

I was fortunate enough this week to be invited to join a new group which has formed in our village. I had run into one of the ladies earlier in the month at a church supper. When she found out that I was now retired she inquired as to whether I would be interested in joining a group of local quilters on Wednesday evenings. You don't have to quilt, she told me. Just bring your stitching and join the group. Well before I could make it to the first night, the group evolved into something a little different. We have decided to meet on Wed. afternoons now and you are welcome to bring any craft of any kind with you to work on. We are meeting at our new church in town, called The Gathering House . This church has formed a community cafe where groups can meet and it's absolutely fantastic! The setting is a cafe atmosphere, complete with tables, comfy sofas and a gas fireplace! They were very accomodating and set up several tables for us. It's a wonderful place to gather and our hope is that the group will learn from each other. Anyone learning to knit can receive advice or if someone wants to learn cross stitching, I can give them some tutoring. I was pleased to see the mom of one of my youngest son's childhood friends is part of the group. I hadn't seen her in years! Several of the ladies said they would be glad to help me with my ladder stitch and blanket stitching. I think that this gathering will be a fabulous learning experience for all or us as well as a chance to form new friendships.

As  you can see, I took along my Jardin Prive Halloween Quaker and put some quality time in on it. I also stitched on this last night at the Tuesday group. I had grown a little tired of stitching on Gobble and wanted a bit of a change. I think I'll stick with the HQ for the next couple of nights and then pick up Gobble again on the weekend.
I also picked up LHN Acorn Hill but ended up sharing some time with the frogs. The progress I had made on it yesterday ended up coming out along with some previous stitches so no pics. I finally put it away in disgust. For some reason this piece has given me nothing but trouble and I can't figure out why. It's not like it's difficult!



Boo Tree freebie by Rose Krizan

Yesterday morning I was in the mood to do some finishing so I pulled out one of my previous stitches, Boo Tree. He was supposed to be a pinkeep but I forgot to put in my pins before the glue set on the trim so it will remain as is. I'm not happy with the fact that I didn't get it straight from top to bottom but seeing as it's only for me I can live with it. I do love the backing fabric on this one. I think I found it on ebay and it's such a cool Halloween print. I also took a picture of the trim I used since you can't see it all that well in these pictures. It's a fuzzy orange trim which I stumbled across at the dollar store.

Don't you just love the little witch standing beside my Boo Tree?

I like to call her Wanda and she  is a new addition to my Halloween decor.

I've also included a closer picture of her below. I just love the face on her!

I want to take this time to also welcome any new followers of my blog. I love getting to know other stitchers out there and I always appreciate it when you take the time to drop by and comment.

Welcome!!