Wednesday, November 27, 2013

From Florida

After reading on Facebook this morning and looking at the pictures of the weather  and snow in London, Brighton, Orangeville, Orleans , Camden East, Ottawa, and Chesterville, I have to admit it is kind of nice to be here in Florida. Dare I mention that I am sitting outside typing this post? Maybe I had better not!
Anyway here we are in Florida and  I have been enjoying this rather different lifestyle. Here are some of the projects I have been working on.
These socks had one already knit when we got here and I finished the mate. There is another sock on the needles but it is not progressing very far very fast.

 I have begun my appliqued quilt and I am thoroughly enjoying  the work. There are a few pitfalls like this red bird is facing in the wrong direction but I figure in the long run it really won't matter too much. I just finished this blue jay, which does not look like a blue jay, today. Would have finished him sooner but I lost his wing and had to cut out another one.
 Here are a couple of shots of Macy. There is not much doubt that she is a water dog, especially after falling in a few times the first few days we were here. Now she goes in quite voluntarily, often more frequently than we would like.

 And here are the two buddies. When we leave the house, Macy goes in her crate but Mollie has the run of the house, having long since stopped chewing everything is sight.  It is not unusual to come home to find Mollie in the bedroom beside the crate, keeping her company.
I am cross stitching on Giovanni's alphabet  and will post a photo when I finish the first alphabet. It looks great. I think I have about 4 letters to go.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Ornament exchange



At our November stitching retreat we had our annual ornament exchange. Here are some pictures of the treasures which were exchanged. Everyone went home happy with a lovely new ornament.











Saturday, November 16, 2013

Two remarkable women

I lost two dear friends last weekend.

The first was Adriana Valks , one of the original Thursday Stitchers. Kathy A would pick her up and bring her to my house to join Wendy, Carrie and Christine for a couple of hours of stitching around my dining room table. That was back in 2002 or so.
Adriana was an excellent mentor and and an exquisite stitcher. We all loved her and welcomed the opportunity to let her mother us a bit, especially those of us who had already lost our own Moms. Beatrice always said, her Mom had plenty of love to give everyone.
We will miss her very much.

The second  remarkable friend I lost last weekend was Anne Hundevad. I met Anne in 1975 when I moved  to Brighton. I met her for the first time when my Mom and I drove to Brighton that summer to sign the lease on my tiny rental house, next door to Anne and Jim. They were charging me the princely sum of $140/month  to live in the best place in town. I loved it so much that I finally bought the house  and still live there. The path was well worn between the two houses and many are the days I came home to find tomatoes and zucchinis on my back porch fresh from Anne's garden. We spent many days and evenings in her kitchen discussing all manner of things. Kentucky Derby day was always a special one as the three of us would gather around the TV  with a glass of wine and watch the race!

I will miss my two dear friends, aged 97 and 96 respectively, but will always treasure the memories I created with them and the lessons I learned from them.



Saturday, November 2, 2013

Anita's Amazing Arboretum

Antia has been planting, pruning, stitching, and  embellishing these trees  for months..but was all that work ever worth it!!!











Then on the same day we were admiring Anita's trees.. one of ours came blowing down. It did slow down traffic on the road for a couple of hours. I wish I had taken  pictures when we had the police car with flashing lights, the town works truck with flashing lights, the front end loader, and the gas company truck with their lights as well. 






Here is the cuteness factor for the day!