More Christmas Finishes....

Hello again!  Goodness it ended up being a couple of weeks between posts. Work has been stupidly busy the last few weeks and I have been collapsing in a heap every weekend lately and, unfortunately the last thing my brain has been able to handle is facing the computer and blogging!  I have managed some stitching throughout the week but not on Friday nights... so I have nothing to report for the Friday Frolics blog, and I missed FNSI last weekend! (I had every intention of stitching but the office Christmas party had other ideas.... I so should have left early!!) This post is also a slightly late post for IHSW.... oops....

So onto the stitching update!

Surprise, surprise... I do have two finishes to show you today!  Both are "entries" in the Christmas Ornie SAL Blog... October's theme was Angels and November's theme is snowflakes / snowman or a winter scene.

October's theme first:
Remember some time ago I showed you my "Joy Angel" and she was looking bit strange....

Well, she is all finished now and currently on her way to England to be added to the Christmas Tree of Joy that Clare-Aimetu is organising for her local church.  Hopefully the tree will be full of cross stitched ornies from around the world all with the word "Joy" on them in one form or another.

The chart for this design can be found in the Cross Stitch Christmas magazine (1999), the design is called "Joyful Angels Triptych" (Designer Mona Eno).  There are three angels to stitch but I chose this one as she has "Joy" on her banner!  I stitched her on "Waratah" 32 count fabric from Stitches and Spice with DMC and Kreinik threads.  Unfortunately the shine I added to her wings doesn't really sparkle in the picture but it is there!

The second finish that I have to show you is my choice for November's theme.  I love snowmen and had a terrible time choosing which one to stitch.... so in the end I didn't do any!! Instead I went with a Fizzy Moon freebie and shoe-horned this into the wintery scene choice!

This freebie was published in the Cross Stitch Card Shop magazine (issue 92).  I decided to cover the plain white card with a vintage winter scene scrapbook paper that I had and then added a snowflake to fill in the rather large white space at the top.

This card is going to head off to the USA soon... The Birthday Thread Exchange Group that I am in on FB is doing a Christmas Thread Exchange, so I thought it would be nice to stitch a card instead of sending a bought one!

Well, that's all I have to show you today... the last couple of weeks stitching has been all about finishing these two pieces!  Now it's back to my November Halloween piece....

See you again soon.... have a great week!
Hugs xxx

Angelic Weekend Stitching

Well hello to another Monday!

I have a little bit of stitching to show today... and both pieces are almost finished!

So first up we have my Friday night stitching which I will also post over on the "Friday Frolics" blog shortly.

This time around I didn't stitch on an old WIP.... I decided to stitch on my October piece for the Christmas Ornie SAL as this month is rapidly drawing to a close and I haven't done my angel or nativity piece yet.

I actually started this new design on Thursday evening, so when Friday came around the Angel looked like this:

Before FF stitching

After stitching on Friday night, the Angel looked like this:

After FF stitching

and seeing as I need to finish her by the end of the week, I continued stitching on Saturday and Sunday on her as well... she now looks like this:

as at Sunday 25 Oct 2015

I know she looks a bit weird at the moment..... I have to find (order) the colour for her hair and locate some more of the colour of the shading around her wings, so I stitched what I could and then started backstitching the lower section.  I am not stitching the bottom of the dress as I need to keep this as a small design (further details on why later...).  You will probably notice that I changed the word "Joy" and stitched it in gold Kreinik.  I have also embellished her sleeve and head dress with green Kreinik just to bling it up a bit!!

For those of you that might like to know where this design came from.... she can be found in a very old Cross Stitch Christmas magazine (1999) - design is called "Joyful Angels Triptych" and is designed by Mona Eno.  I am stitching her on a piece of "Waratah" 32 count fabric from Stitches and Spice.

Once I had gone as far as I could on my Angel yesterday, I decided to pull out my little MS Xmas mouse again and pop a couple more stitches in him.

The last time I showed you the MS Xmas mouse #2 he looked like this:

now he looks like this - main stitching is now finished and backstitch has begun:

That's it for another weekend stitching round up.  See you all again soon!

Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx

What an amazing day we had!

Who would believe such pleasure from a wee ball o' fur?

~ Irish Saying ~

Scottish/British Shorthair Kittens

Yesterday Hubby and I had the most amazing afternoon!  We were asked by my baby sister if we could go and visit a cat breeder (CB) that she had been speaking to about a Ragdoll kitten.  Now for us this was a small road trip as we live south of the river and the place we were going to is east of the city - which meant we went for a lovely drive of an hour, fifteen minutes - no real hardship for a lovely afternoon out and the reward at the end of the journey was more than worth it!  As you will see...

We ended up spending three and half hours with the most amazing lady - yes, I did say 3 & 1/2 hours.... CB is the most fascinating lady and we had a brilliant time talking to her about her cats and her life and her research into the health and welfare of cats and rabbits (she used to also breed rabbits!).

CB breeds Ragdolls, British Shorthairs, Scottish Shorthairs and Scottish Folds.  My sister has wanted a Ragdoll for years and now the time has come for her to finally get one!  My sister lives four hours away from Perth so it's not easy for her to get down to Perth at the drop of hat to check out potential kittens, hence the mission she sent us on to see the kittens and check out the breeder.

The newest edition to the Family

While we were at the breeders we saw three litters of Ragdolls and spoke to my sister via "facetime" so that she and kids (and the dog!) could see all the kittens... love modern technology!  She was particularly after a blue point male... which narrowed down the choice quite well, and believe me it would have been very hard to choose one if my sister wasn't so certain of her 'dream" kitty!  There were 2 blue point males available to choose from, as well as seal point and cream point so it was just as well my sister knew what she wanted! We did show her all the other ones as well, of course... but this little boy in the picture above was the favourite!

Shall I show you the one that Hubby fell in love with and would have quite happily taken home if we didn't already have two amazing kitties?

Isn't he adorable?

He ended up falling asleep in Hubby's arms and he did seem to be very happy to stay there!

Kitty and his siblings

Then there was this little sweetheart....

Now I could have taken this one home!

While we had the other shorthair kitties out the breeder bought out this sweet little chocolate shorthair.  He curled up in my hands and went to sleep for at least an hour....

Now look closely at the photo above and you can see the the legs of a Blue Scottish Shorthair (nickname Cutie Pie) next to me. She was pregnant and due to drop her lovely bundle of kitties some time over the weekend - which she just so happened to decide to do while we were there!

Right in front of us......

In fact, Hubby ended up holding onto the moments old kitten while the breeder got Cutie Pie out of the bookcase where she had gone to have the first baby, and then took her back to her bed for the rest of the delivery!  Just amazing... and that was the second amazing thing that had happened during the afternoon. The first brilliant thing to happen was that another litter was also born about an hour after we got there (British Shorthairs) - the breeder had gone out of the room for a couple of minutes and when she came back she had these brand new kittens that needed attention as the mother wasn't quite doing her bit (first time mum) so we watched (as did my sister and her kids) while she rubbed and dried them and sorted out their umbilical cords and then she took them back to their mum for some love and care.

I haven't seen kittens or puppies born since I was a kid when our cats and dogs used to have their babies... it was such an amazing experience to be there when these brand new angels came into the world and it was such a privilege that Cutie Pie allowed us to be present when she had her first born (well first born from this litter anyway!)

So after three & half hours we left this amazing lady and her adorable feline friends on a huge high!  What an amazing afternoon - an afternoon that we will never forget!  Thank you CB and your beautiful kitties for allowing us to be a part of your life in such a wonderful way.

It is impossible to keep a straight face in the presence of one or more kittens

~ Cynthia E. Varnado ~

One Little Word 2011

one little word

A single word can be a powerful thing.

It can be the ripple in the pond that changes everything.

It can be sharp and biting or rich and soft and slow.

~ Ali Edwards

The paragraph above comes from a blog by Ali Edwards.  She started off a "one little word" challenge a couple of years ago primarily as a scrapbooking aid, but she also challenged her readers to incorporate it more into their everyday life, to focus on it, meditate on it and once a week create something relating to the word - ie a scrapbook layout, a journal/blog post or just something simple like a post-it note to put on the fridge!

I first saw this idea a couple of days ago on on SheilaC's blog (My Empty Nest is Full of Cat Hair).  Sheila wrote about how she had chosen "Focus" as her 2011 word.

After reading Sheila's post and showing it to hubby, it got both of us thinking about what could be our respective word for the 2011.  Mark is still thinking, although he does have an idea, he just needs to find the right word - once he does so he will post it on his blog.  So watch this space - or rather that space!!

Anyway, my thought processes went around, and around, and around again....  I went to Ali's blog and read through the postings from the last couple of years to see what other people have had as their words looking for "Inspiration".  Although in my heart I already knew what my word was going to be....

Yesterday I thought about words all around the idea of health and renewing myself; starting and finishing things; organising, etc.  Today I thought about words relating to love and happiness and cherish, - but you know what, 2 little words kept pushing all the other words out of the way and they insisted on being in the forefront of my thought process...

But, I still needed "Proof" that the 2 words that were foremost in my thoughts were the right ones!

So I then I thought to myself "how do I solve a problem like Noni?!?"  Do an ideas wall - cut out the words and mix them up and pick one that way.... yep sounds good to me!  But I thought I'd be a bit more "Creative" and used 2 of my card punches to make the cut outs for the words.  I then got a piece of black paper and laid them all out upside down.  But, before I had a chance to pick out a word something stopped me....

I had another thought - what about my Doreen Virtue Angel Cards.  I could use them to help pick out my word.  So after centring myself and "Meditating" on the task I wanted to "Complete", I shuffled the cards and let the Angels guide my hand.

Nine cards gave off the strongest "Yes" so I put them aside.  When I checked the cards, this is what I had turned over in the order that I picked them from the deck.

Their meanings are:

Listening - You are in communication with your Angels and the messages that you are receiving are very real indeed.  Trust them.  (Well, I did hear the Angels when they told me to get the cards and I trusted them to give me my word)

Meditation - Meditation is very important for you right now.  Enjoy practising it often.  (This is true - I have been telling myself for ages I need to take time out to centre and organise my thoughts more often, and that is what I was doing this morning when I was looking for "Clarity" on my word)

Focus - Think about what you want, not what you don't want.  Guard your thoughts carefully because they create your experiences.  (How very true, I have been thinking lately that I need to focus more on getting myself fit and healthy and stop worrying about why I can't find the time to exercise - so looks like this could be my word)

Playfulness - Fun and play is the Angels' way!  They guide you to add fun to your life, and to know that fun is a necessity, not a luxury. (Well yep, we could all do with more fun in our lives - I have always tried to live by the credo "stress less and laugh more", but unfortunately life gets in the way an awful lot of the time)

Harmony - Conflict is resolved in a situation that was troubling you.  Know that you deserve this peace and happiness, and accept it graciously.  (My star sign is Libra so harmony is very important to me - "Balance" and "Harmony" are a big part of what makes me feel good - so this is looking like my word for the year)

Serenity - You are moving into a time of greater inner peace and tranquility.  (Another potential word for 2011 that feels right and is speaking to me)

Divine Guidance - Trust and follow your intuition.  It is God and the Angels speaking to you now.  (This is interesting - when I follow my intuition things always turn out right - when I don't that's when life goes off course.  I know that I have to follow my intuition but sometimes I ignore it - should this be my word for 2011?)

Intention - Your intentions create your experiences.  What do you intend to happen?  Make sure that your thoughts and feelings reflect your true intentions. (Yet another card telling me to be careful in what I think - should my word be "Intention" or should it be "Positive" as in thinking only positive thoughts and no negative thoughts?)

Body Care - The Angels urge you to care for your physical body.  You are asked to eat healthy foods, to excerise regularly, and to avoid toxins.  (Well, well, proof yet again that I need to look after my health.  I have only used these cards about 1/2 a dozen times in the 4 years I have had them and each time this card comes up!  I think I am being told something... and this time I will "Listen".  My lifestyle goal for 2011 is to get fit and reduce my weight - so this card has just reinforced that goal!  Maybe "Health" should be my word?)

So, what is my word??  Actually my chosen word is "Faith".

"Faith" and "Believe" are the two words that have been coming up a lot lately in most things that I have done, and both words have been in my thoughts for some time.  They have over the last 2 days pushed all other words out the way and have become increasingly insistent that they be heard.  Even going through the process of the Angel cards is a sign that "Faith" and "Believe" are the words I need to "Listen" to this year.  I have chosen Faith over Believe as I feel that ultimately they mean the same things and Faith is the stronger word of the two.

So what do I mean by "Faith"?

To me this word is not just about a faith in God and Angels and their guidance, it is more about me having faith and belief in myself and in what I can do.

I have been thinking over the last few months about who I want to be in the next stage of my life - what sort of 50 year young lady do I want to be.  I have this desire to reinvent myself and to have the courage to be the person that I want to be.  I think there is a quirky "old"  lady hiding inside that wants to come out....

Yes, I admit it, I want to be a "Red Hat Lady", although technically I can only be a "Pink Hatter" at the moment!  In 2011 I will have been on this Earth for 47 years and now is the time to prepare for the next 47 years!!  And no, this is not a mid-life crisis - I think I've already had that!!

I am a confident, outgoing sort of person and I generally don't suffer from low self esteem, but I do worry about what people may think of me!  But now I believe that I have to have faith in me, and stop worrying about what other people may think when I wear quirky earrings or a silly hat, or a brightly coloured skirt, or funky shoes!  So from now on, if I want to wear something a little bit more outlandish than my counterparts, guess what I'm going to indulge myself!!

I am very lucky to be married to a wonderful, supportive husband.  We found each other in 2002 and right away I knew that he was my "Soul Mate".  I felt connected to Mark even before I spoke to him - it really was a bit spooky... it was my intuition talking to me then - and I listened to it!  We have been married since 2005.  Our marriage continues to grow and evolve as we do as people.  Mark believes that we are "Ying and Yang" and it is true.  He has faith in me, as I have faith in him and we both have faith and believe in our love for each other.  And guess what, we can both be quirky and whimsical together which will make it all the more fun!

I guess that proves that my "one little word" for 2011 has just "gotta be FAITH"

Til next time,