Woohoo and a little more Woohoo!

Big news for me yesterday.

Last night I had the presence of mind to check my bulk mail folder in my Hotmail account. Good thing I did, there was a very important email sitting in there. I got an email confirming that I won 2nd place for the Medium category in Silkweaver Fabric's Annual "Stitcher's Showcase".

It was for the free pattern "Fairy Celebration" by Passione Ricamo that I stitched late last year. I finished stitching the design on New Years Eve at around 10:30 and promptly took a picture and submitted it to Silkweaver for the contest. The contest ended at midnight on that same night. Am I ever glad I didn't flake on finishing that one. I had thought about not stitching that night and then submitting it the next year since it wouldn't have been finished in time. But if I had, I might never have won a prize!

I'll be getting 10 pieces of 13"x18" hand dyed fabric from www.silkweaver.com to add to my currently dismal fabric stash. (But it won't be dismal for long now!)


This is more than $100 in value since each piece (depending on the type of fabric) could range from $10 to $15 US, plus shipping costs! So the prize value is somewhere between $100 and $150 US! WooHoo!! I'm so excited right now. I got another email today confirming that they'll be shipping my fabric out on Monday!

Here's a picture of my winning entry. Now I just need to find a stunning way to finish it. I'm thinking of doing a wall hanging, but I need to find the right fabric to use for this.

And here's a link to the Medium Finalists on the Silkweaver site. If you want to check out all the entries and finalists in each category you can go directly to the main page for the contest here.

Well, that's my news for today. Hope your day is as great as mine was.

Happy Holidays and all that jazz

I came on to post and realized that I never posted an update about Wanda. I guess with all the hustle and bustle of Christmas, once the operation was over and done with I never thought to put it up on here.

Well, everything went wonderfully. The surgeon told Tina (Wanda's daughter) that these were the best set of Donor lungs he's EVER seen and she was able to breathe on her own almost immediately after the surgery. She was kept on the ventilator for a few days because the pain meds she was on were so strong, she slept too deep and occasionally "forgot" to breathe, but once they stepped her down a bit she was fine to come off the ventilator.

She's still in the hospital, but mainly becuase she's waiting for her anti-rejection drugs to arrive. Apparently when you're a NB Transplant patient, you have to wait for the drugs to come from NB. Ontario pays for all the transplant meds for it's citizens, but if you're an NB citizen you only get the anti-rejection drugs paid for... and they have to come from an NB Pharmacy... Not a big surprise there... NB is horrible for their medical coverage, but I assumed that anything paid for by one province would be the same in all the others... I guess I was wrong on that count.

Tina is doing a wonderful job of keeping everyone updated on Wanda's CarePage. It's a free site where a patient signs up and anyone who wants to keep up on their progress can sign up (for free) and subscribe to their updates. If anyone is interested in keeping tabs on her progress and doesn't already have the link, the page is http://www.carepages.com/. You need to sign up and then put her patient name in. (wandanorthrup)

Here's a picture of the Ornaments I (**finally**) finished for Olivia & Rachel this Christmas. This was my very first attempt at "finishing" anything other than to frame it. It's definitely a learning experience. Most of which is trial and error. I've made a few errors, now I know what not to do next time. I still haven't done "Our" ornament (mine and Jason's) I stitched the back piece last night and plan on finishing it before the new year. It never made it on the Christmas tree this year, but at least it'll be finished in 2006 and ready to put on the tree next year. I think I might try to get a few ornaments stitched up soon for next year. Hopefully that means that I don't have to try and do it all at the last minute next year. Not likely, but hopefully *lol*

Christmas went well here. We had a mountain of stuff in the living room under the tree. So much that we sat there looking at it wondering where it all came from. I mean, I know WE didn't buy that much. Santa brought Olivia a Dora the Explorer scooter and some Magnetic letters (for the fridge). He brought Rachel a play center with a "tent" to crawl inside of and a baby doll that squeaks when you squeeze it.

Here are a few "before" and "after" pictures...Before the kids got up and after the carnage! lol

Rachel had so much fun for her very first Christmas! She opened quite a few of her own presents, but when she did, we spent most of our time trying to keep the paper out of her mouth. She had quite an obsession with eating the wrapping paper. Olivia had a good time, because she not only got to open her presents, but about half of Rachel's too.

The girls got a big wagon from my FIL. One of the ones that have the fold up seats and cup holders. It'll come in very handy next summer when we go somewhere. Right now Rachel is a bit too young to spend much time in there, But by this summer it'll be perfect to haul both of them around. It's fun for them and will make my travelling life so much easier. They got a ton of toys and clothes and books. My mom got Rachel her own solid oak rocking chair. She got Olivia one her second Christmas and she saw the exact same one at a store recently and decided that Rachel needed her own as well. We've got Rachel's put away right now, since she's too young to use it now and we don't have enough room downstairs to keep things out that have no chance of getting used. Olivia also got her very own Race Track! She loves it. You "wind" the cars up and put them on the track and they go around and chase each other. It's meant for younger kids, no guns to control the speed, no track that has to be put together every time -- it just folds up when you're done-- and nothing hard they have to do. Another big hit with Olivia was the Care Bears they both got from Rob, Angie and Tyler. Olivia sleeps with hers every night now, and most nights tries to take Rachel's too!

We got so much this year. My FIL got me a Water dispenser that has both hot and cold water and a new pair of Jeans. Now I don't have to heat bottles, I just use the already pre-heated water! My MIL got me a new shirt and got both Jason and I a good shredder. My Mom and her bf got us a $50 GC to the Future Shop and a rain check for a bread maker. Of course, Canadian Tire never has anything in stock when it's on sale, so we're getting it as soon as it's back in. My DH got me lots of stitching stuff. I got a new scroll frame, floss I needed for a project I want to start, a new pattern for my stash -- Fairy Moon by Mirabilia, as well as a few small odds n ends. He also got me a new blouse and some new PJs (both which need to be exchanged).

Jason got a Table saw from his Dad -- which prooves his pet theory that if you think you want something, just borrow it enough and the person you borrow it from will get the hint... He's had his Dad's table saw in our basement for probably 6 months now. lol. His mom and her bf got him a 2gig card for his mp3 player, and the shredder I mentioned above was for both of us. I got him a biscuit jointer, a 4x8 sheet of Pegboard for his workbench and a bunch of the "pegs" to hang the tools on, a case for his mp3 player, a Map book from the girls, and a bunch of other stuff that I can't remember right now. For those who don't know what a biscuit jointer is, basically it's a tool to join pieces of wood together, especially when building furniture.

I've spent the last few days trying to decide what I'm going to do with my new pattern. I need to figure out which fabric to order. This is the reason I LOVE the "Fabric Choices" page I've linked to here, and in my sidebar. You can try out almost all the designs from some of the most popular designers out there (Miribilia, Lavender and Lace, Passione Ricamo, and Teresa Wentzler) and with many of the different specialty fabrics available from some of the biggest names in Hand Dyed Fabrics (Silkweaver, Sugar Maple Fabrics to name just a few) and using the magic of Photoshop, the patterns have a transparent background, so you can get an idea what the pattern would look like on each individual fabric! Like I said, GREAT SITE. You can also load your own fabric or picture scan to check it out. Anyway, after hours of looking through fabrics from many designers and weighing price and colours I think I've decided to go with Silkweaver's "Enchantment" Linnen. Here's an idea of what this should look like using this fabric. Of course the fabric doesn't look exactly the same every time, but hopefully it'll be close enough, because this is the look I fell in love with.

What do you think?

Well, that's enough for today. I should get a LITTLE bit of housework done before Jason gets up. I started the post at 9:51am and now it's 12:03pm, so I think I've spent long enough on here. lol. Mind you, that's including many breaks to play with the kids and do all the normal "Mommy" stuff. I've probably only been on here half an hour or so in total, it just seems like a lot more.

Rain Rain Go Away...

It's been a few days since I last posted. I haven't had a lot to say lately. Life's been pretty slow around here. I have been stitching quite a bit lately in the evenings so I've actually got another 10 hours done on my "Waiting" cross stitch. That being said, here's a picture of the progress so far.

I've also taken my first foray into the world of eBay! I was looking for some cross stitch patterns and saw a few that I wanted to get. I won the bid on two of them so far. The first one I bid on was a Stoney Creek pattern leaflet called Family Blessings. The pattern they showed on the ebay page was the Family Tree. It's so gorgeous! I HAD to have it. According to the Stoney Creek site the 6 patterns included in the book are "Prosperity Quilt Block Welcome", "Bookmark Vine Border", "Grandchildren", "Our Family Tree", "Irish Marriage Blessing", and "Home" I got this book for the great deal of $3.99 US (apx $4.54 CAN)

Here's the pic of the family tree I desperately want to stitch.

The second one that I purchased is Theresa Wentzler's Egyptian Sampler. I saw some progress pictures of this by someone else and liked it, but when I saw a pic of the finished product at the ebay site, I fell in love with it! I got the pattern for only $1.99 US ($2.26 CAN)

I also bid on two other auctions, but they're not finished yet. I'll find out in a few days if I won those bids or not. They're all from the same seller so I'll be able to combine them to save on shipping... I bid on Theresa Wentzler's English Cottage Sampler and Lavender & Lace's Celtic Spring. I was going to upload pics of them too, but blogger isn't letting me upload anymore pics right now...I'll have to post pics of them another day.