Final WIPocalypse Report

Christmas was good, cold but good. :)   Now it is somewhat less cold which is also good.  

I am about 1/3 of the way down page six.  It is slow going, with no TV to watch and only half a dozen stitches managed each evening while the news is airing.    Although I do not really care one way or the other if the hockey lockout ever ends, I admit that if we do get hockey back I will probably watch, just to get in some stitching.   Baseball, hockey and curling are good for that because one does not have to stare fixedly at the TV so as not to miss something.  :)

Anyway, here is RMC as of an hour ago.  

 

My granddaughter is a photographer and some time ago, when Scutter was visiting their place, she took this photo of him outside on their patio.  Obviously something had his attention.    She framed it and gave it to us for Christmas.   It is an excellent likeness and shows his colouring better than the picture I posted last month.  

 

 

I will continue with RMC until the end of the month, and then start something new.  I have A New Day, by My Big Toe, ready to go.   

 

R.I.P. Scutter July 2002 - November 26, 2012

We had to say goodbye to our beautiful orange tabby, Scutter, on Monday.   He was once close to 20 lb and over the past summer and fall had dropped to just 8 lb.   Tests were inconclusive and so we made the very painful decision to let him go.   He was ten years old.  

Some Rocky Mountain Christmas

So I decided that RMC would be finished this year, well that will not happen.  However, I did manage to make a little progress on page six and might finish half of it, since I decided not to bother with the ornaments at all.  

The first picture is before I started page six and the second is the little progress I made.  I have not stitched at all the past several days; not sure just when I will  pick it up again.   The fabric is actually more the colour of the first picture;  

October update - not much to write about this time

I fell into a bit of a slump the past week or so and did not get much of anything done at all this month.   I started the Mill Hill Ice Crystal kit and did not enjoy stitching it at all.  I still have the bottom and top to finish; might actually pull it out tonight and do that. 

I have three or four more of these crystal kits, each a little different but I think I will not enjoy them any more than this one.   I do have a couple of others too and will start on one of them this week.  

I managed to get a little more done on the globe section of World Peace Angel; not that you can really notice because of all the confetti.  

On other fronts, the renovations of our new room are almost done.  We tore off the horrible add-on and had a new 10x16 room built, with the stairs outside instead of inside.   Just a few small things left to do, baseboards, a few touchups here and there and we can put furniture into it.   We removed the door that previously led into the add-on and now can go directly into the new room.   I tried uploading pictures but one posted sideways and I simply cannot figure out how to put it right.  

And Now September is Done

After I finished the Sampler, I decided to reward myself with something small, so I pulled out a Lizzie*Kate chart called Time for God.   I finished it on the 16th and pulled out Rocky Mountain Christmas on the 18th.  I managed approx 19 hours on it with very little to show for it;  I was trying to do 10x10 blocks but it was taking longer to keep changing the threads than to actually stitch - confetti - so I decided to just pull a few colours and stitch with those, so that is why you see it all over the place.   Next time, which will probably be in 2013, I will endeavour to fill in the gaps.  

I have several Mill Hill kits I need to do before Christmas so will be starting on one of those, probably Tuesday as I have a meeting to attend tomorrow night.  

We had a gorgeous September, temperatures much higher than average, with almost no precipitation at all.  Things are expected to change though in the next couple of days, with a rain/snow mix forecast for Tuesday and/or Wednesday; any white stuff is unlikely to stick though.  

A Blue Moon Finish

I finished Sampler for my Mother on the 29th, just in time for another WIPocalypse report.  :)   I changed the intials the designer used for my Mother's name, since it was a short one and fit the space.   I also put her three initials in the top left where the designer just used two.   It is stitched on 32ct antique white Belfast linen and took approx. 325 hours.   It was my January 1st start.   

Now I am stitching a Lizzie*Kate piece, Time for God.   Very little is done on it yet, just 3 hours' worth so I will wait to take a picture.   I am using 32ct Goldspinner opalescent linen with Weeks threads.   

August WIPocalypse update

I am nearing the finish on Sampler for my Mother.   Just a few motifs left and I think I will work on them during August as well, rather than pull out another project.  The designer did not include an alphabet so I will have to find one of my own I guess for the intials.  I may even put her name instead of initials.   They are supposed to go in the centre of the large motif just below the one with the writing.  

My daughter is visiting from NB this month, with her 2-year-old; she is also a stitcher, so we are getting some good stitching time in during the evenings.  She is working on Celtic Summer, and a Hogwarts freebie.  

Majestic is finished

I finally finished The Majestic, after over five years of on and off stitching.   The backstitching took me a week; I really should have done it as I went along because with all the different shades of red it was really difficult to see just where the backstitching was supposed to go.  But I think I got it pretty much right.   It badly needs washing. 

We had a violent hailstorm yesterday, with a rainbow right in the middle of it.   It was beautiful, the hail not so much though.   The storm lasted about 5-10 minutes; stones were bigger than marble-sized and I thought we would have damage but fortunately we had none.    Another wild storm blew through again this afternoon but just heavy rain with no hail this time.    The sun came out 10  minutes later.  

Rain

We are told that June is the wettest month; I think we got all of the month's allotment in the past couple of days and it is still coming down.   Thunder, lightning, torrents of rain, hail and even a tornado touching down south of Calgary.  Fortunately no real damage there but lots of high water warnings from the mountain streams and rivers west of us.   There are severe storm warnings for areas all around Calgary; so far we have just had a *lot* of rain with some hail.   

June WIPocalypse Update

Sampler for My Mother is coming along nicely.  I am enjoying stitching this.  It is complete down the left side so you can see now just how large it will be.  Not all that much left to do.   The Majestic will come back out tomorrow.   I would love to have it finished by next update.  

One scarf finished

I finished the blue scarf that I pictured earlier in the year.  The yellow one, which only had the cast on stitches, is progressing nicely and the third has just a bit more done. 

Progress for April

It is May, in Calgary.  It is snowing. 

I have progress on two fronts this month.  I started and finished a quilt square for someone who shall not be named just yet. :)  

So I did not get a lot of progress done on The Majestic, just the bottom leaves, and a start on the two big ones at right.   But I still hope to have it finished this year, it will just take a little longer than expected.  

Another update

I want to start by thnking everyone for their lovely comments about my rose. They are much appreciated.

I got quite a bit more done on the sampler and this is progress after approx. 133 hours. The top four pages (of 12) are pretty much complete.

I will be stitching the rose again this month, and might even manage to finish it. :)

Not much else is happening, spring is still taking its time, with some nice days and others not so nice. I fell in front of Michaels on the 26th and hurt my knees and thumb; all of which are taking their own sweet time to heal. Nothing broken though and for that I am thankful. Just very painful bruising. It was my right thumb and I am left handed, so can still stitch, haha. My knees always hurt but now they hurt even more.

Oh, and on the Avon scene, I made President's Club for the first time in 25 years. I received this figurine, as well as a special pin and will get to go to the President's Banquet later in the year. I had to sell a specific amount of product to do this, and as I said, I did it for the first time.

The figurine is a representation of the first Avon lady, Mrs. Albee.

March update

We are three weeks home from Hawaii and already it is a distant memory. We had a great time while there but no stitching was done. In those three weeks since coming home though I managed to get quite a bit done on The Majestic. All of the red is now done except for some of the interior backstitching and I even got some of the bottom green section done. Hopefully when I pick it up again I can finish it.

February WIPocalypse update

Not quite the full moon but I will be busy on Monday so I am posting just a teeny bit early. I made fair progress since the first posting and will now be setting it aside to give The Majestic some time.

Silks

I really love the Dinky Dyes silks. So when Jo announced a contest on Facebook, I entered and was fortunate to win 25 skeins in very beautiful colours. They arrived last week and it was lovely fondling them and feeling the silkiness of them. Now to decide just what to stitch with them. :) I did have a few skeins already and stitched Love with a Capital L with them back in 2006.

Brrr..it is cold

Winter has finally arrived, and with a vengeance. It has been brutally cold the past few days, with temps in the -30s before the wind factor, but now it has started to improve; is actually just -25 now at almost 10 p.m. and a Chinook is expected on Saturday. Of course we are not housebound; as a TV commercial is fond of saying these days no self-respecting Canadian says let's wait for better weather. LOL

On the stitching front ASFMM is coming along nicely and I should have good progress to show in my next WIPocalypse update.

And on another front, I upgraded my phone to an iPhone 4S. The Blackberry was just so not user friendly. I am now trying to put some music on it by uploading a CD of my own but it is not going well. For some reason it wants to name all the songs as track 1, track 2, etc., instead of their actual titles. But I will presevere and figure it out eventually - I hope.

January WIPocalypse update

So far I have finished three motifs and most of the fourth. I think I am supposed to put my intials in the centre of that fouirth one, but am not sure yet if I will or will do something else. My Mother's intials go into a motif in the centre, quite a ways down and to the right.
The chart is called A Sampler for my Mother and is being stitched on 32ct antique white Belfast linen with DMC threads. The designer is AuryTM.

Winter? Not so much

What a weird winter this has been. The weather girl last night called it the "year of the Chinook". Last year we had so much snow we could not find places to put it; this year almost none. Outdoor Christmas stuff, that goes into the ground early before it is frozen, and has to wait until spring to come out again, came out today. I am concerned about the plants; they need the snow cover to keep them from drying out but there is none and we keep getting the drying Chinook winds. A bonus though - since moving to Calgary in 2006 I have had "Chinook headaches" - so far this winter I have not had any. That was one of the things on my list of pros and cons about living here - Chinooks were on the con list, along with quite a few other items. "Experts" said it would be one of the coldest winters on record - so much for that. Temp today is 10C (50F).

I will be posting my WIPocalypse picture later this evening or tomorrow morning. I am almost finished the fourth motif.

A really old UFO

I bought this as a kit from Shillcraft about 20 years ago or so. It sat in the box unopened for three moves until I finally decided to start it in 2006, while we were staying with our daughter during renovations of our new home. I think I have not done anything on it for at least three years, possibly longer. I might try to work on it this year. IIRC it is called Yin and Yang.

Knitting

Although cross-stitching is my passion, I also do a little knitting. Our Creative Fingers group knits/crochets items for the Children's Hospital and Drop-in Centre - afghans, sweaters, hats, mitts, scarves, etc. I just do scarves as I have forgotten how to do all the fancy stitches that I once did; just the basic knit for me nowadays. :) And of course I do not have just one in progress; I do not for my stitching projects so why be any different with the knitting? These are two that are partially complete. For some reason, although I take the pictures straight on, the camera wants to turn them sideways once they are uploaded.

But only sometimes.

And of course, I also have yarn "stash", so these will be future scarves. :)

Tuesday I always play cribbage at the community hall. We play six games and I did not win any $$ on the games - actually got skunked twice and had to pay .25 each time - but did win $11.50 in the 50/50 draw.

After about 4 hours or so I am half finished the first motif on my sampler. I should finish it tonight while watching the hockey games - Oilers first and then Canada plays Russia in the World Juniors semi-final.

The weather has been really good so far and we have yet another strong Chinook arch to the west. Temp of plus 7C is very unseasonal for this time of year.

The other two

These are the other two WIPs that I hope to stitch for the WIPocalypse.

Rocky Mountain Christmas, a Marty Bell design. I started this in July 1998 and finally finished page 5 in November. I would like to finally finish this in 2012.

World Peace Angel, an MLI design. Another that I started in 2007. I hope to make some progress on her this year but doubt she will be finished. She was not touched at all in 2011.

Happy 2012 Everyone

We rang in the New Year at the community dinner/dance. Lots of hugs all around with the sobering thought that (hopefully not) some of these nice people will not be with us this time next year. One of the pitfalls of living in a community of mostly seniors, many who are much older than I am, and I celebrated my 70th this past October.



These are the projects on which I will be stitching for the WIPocalypse.



This is The Majestic, a Silver Lining design. I started it in 2007 and hope to finish it this year.

There will be no updated pictures in January for this, as I will be starting a new project today and will probably work on it throughout January, before going back to The Majestic. I tried uploading two others as well, but for some reason I can only do the one, so will try in a separate post.