Christmas Gift for Lisa V and final ornament exchange arrives :)

I decided this year to stitch up 2 small things for my good friend Lisa for her Xmas parcel. I stitched an ornament for her tree and a flat fold for her to display! I love both designs and was very pleased with the way that they turned out :) The ornament is LHN Woodland Snowfall stitched on 28ct Water Lily Lugana with the recommended DMC floss.

The flat fold is CCN Let It Snow stitched on 28ct Mushroom Monaco with WDW Union Blue, CC Bean Sprout and DMC floss. I also added some white beads and a snowflake charm. I'm so happy that Lisa loved it too :) I know I was so tempted to keep this one as I just LOVE Snowmen but I know that Lisa does too so this one would have a happy new home to go to! I also wanted to surprise her with something a little unexpected!

Side View of the bows

Back view of the Snowman fabric

The last of my personal ornament exchanges arrived yesterday afternoon from Lisa D. Lisa stitched me this fabulous LK design stitched over 1! The stitching is so tiny and perfect and the finishing is fabulous, I just LOVE it. It is a wonderful addition to my tree, thanks again Lisa!

I've been stitching ahead to next year for some exchanges in January so no other pics to show just yet! So far I have an ornament, LK Round 3 and LHN round 3 exchanges stitched but not finished! I'm now free of commitment stitching until March so it's time for some personal projects probably LK ABC Lessons and BC Winter Snapperland.

We had our first snow storm starting last night into today. We had quite a bit of snow but school buses have not been cancelled so it can't be too bad. I hate winter driving and this is my first test of it with my new car too! At least I don't work until tonight so wish me luck, the roads should be mostly clear by then!

Tomorrow is the last day to enter my end of year giveaway! I'll be drawing a winner just after Midnight on Thursday, so stay tuned! Thanks for stopping by today. I appreciate your visits so much and your comments too :)

Count em....one, two, three!

How's this for a wonderful mail day?? All these parcels just arrived for me, the mailman buzzed me and I met him in the hallway and he just kept handing them over! Too bad this can't happen everyday right?!! LOL. So without further ado here are the lovelies inside.....

First up is a wonderful Xmas present from my friend Eileen in the UK. I "met" Eileen a few years ago through her wonderful Yahoo stitching group and we hit it off straight away! I had to laugh at her note after opening all these wonderful gifts because she says that she didn't mean to create a "theme" for my gift but it just kinda happened! Gee, wonder what I LOVE, couldn't be Snowmen could it??? Everything is perfect, perfect! I loved this Val's Stuff design Fall and Winter Duo as soon as I saw it online and it's so wonderfully finished with little jingle bells and beads for a hanger. I adore him, absolutely adore him! Thanks again Eileen :)

And here's a closer shot of that wonderful ornament above!

Next up is my personal ornament exchange from Angela at A Bit of This and That. WOW, you should have heard my little squeal over this one! LOL. Seriously folks I LOVE Snowmen :) This one is a Prairie Schooler design from Christmas Trees II. It's wonderfully stitched and finished, I adore him too! Thanks again Angela for a wonderful exchange.

And here's a quick snap of the backing fabric.

And then last but certainly not least is my YLPS round 4 exchange from Laura S (no blog). She stitched me this wonderful ornament design from last month's Gift Of Stitching magazine. I have this one but hadn't started it for myself, whew! It's beautifully finished with lovely red beads around the edging and she even included a couple of lovely hand made candy cane decorations too! Thanks so much Laura, I love it!

Well, I wasn't expecting 3 parcels to arrive at the same time but it sure is a lot of fun opening them all! I have 1 more ornament exchange on it's way from Lisa D and a Xmas parcel from Lisa V that I am looking forward too!

There's just 3 days left to enter my final giveaway for the year. I work on Thursday night so when I get home will close the draw at midnight and post a winner shortly after since I'm a night owl anyways! Good luck to everyone who has entered so far, please leave me a comment to enter on that post only, link is on my sidebar!

Thanks for stopping by today. I appreciate all of your kind comments and visits :)

Personal Ornament Exchange with Maggee....

I had a wonderful surprise waiting for me in my mailbox yesterday morning after working. My personal ornament exchange from Maggee has arrived. She stitched me LHN Joy on a 32ct cream linen with DMC floss. She added little beads in the middle of the flowers around the border too :) It's so beautiful, I just love it! A truly wonderful and cherished addition to my Xmas tree. Thanks again Maggee, it was fun exchanging with you.

Here is a pic of the fabric on the back......


And here is my dilemma, these are the wooden boxes I use to create the stitching box finish but they have been discontinued here in Canada (or at least I can't find any within a 15 mile radius of my home) and wondered if the next time anyone is in Michaels in the States can you please check for me to see if they still sell them? Can you please email me at apxstitch@gmail.com, I 'd greatly appreciate it :) I want to take a day trip to Buffalo next year but this is the main reason why, so don't want to waste my time if they have been discontinued in the States as well. I find Michaels Canada so damn frustrating for anything now! Forget trying to get stitching supplies except for DMC floss and basic evenweave fabric they have nothing else and I have so many creative ideas too!

**Edited** To answer some questions.......I don't really need more than 1 or 2 of these boxes right now and realistically can actually wait until I can travel to the States myself probably next May/June. I'm hoping really that Michaels still sells them and grabbing as many as I can to bring back with me. Thanks to everyone so far that has emailed offering to send me some :) I'm just afraid the postage will be too high to ship them up here! LOL.


Thanks for stopping by today! I hope to have another exchange to share with you all soon along with a stitching update too :)

So much to share....

First I'll start off with a Happy Dance! This one seemed to take me forever to stitch but in all fairness I did get sidetracked with lots of exchange stitching. I want to frame this one to hang near my tree. It's the LK Christmas kit from 2008.

This next one if for my friend Eileen as part of her Xmas present from me. We have been exchanging ornaments for the past few years and really wanted to stitch up something different. This is a Blue Ribbon design A Star On Top and I was so pleased with the way this one turned out. I'm happy to hear that Eileen loved it too :)

Next up is a Prairie Schooler Nutcracker stitched for ME :) This one is now on my tree and I'd love to stitch up more of these if I have the time.

I started this one a few months ago but put it aside for a different design for an exchange. I decided it was too cute not to finish up and I will be using it for a future exchange. It's a LHN design called Two Sheep stitched on a beautiful green Lugana not that it shows in the picture too well :)


And finally silly me forgot to post a picture of this RAK that I sent to Nicola ages ago. She even emailed me ages ago to let me know that she loved it too :) It's the LK Xmas flip it and I made a Scissor pocket pin keep with it.

I went to see another Surgeon on Monday and this one thinks that all my problems are due to Gallbladder disease so I have to have surgery to have it removed! FINALLY!!! It's only been 4 months now of pain trying to convince someone to listen to me. Anyway I'm waiting for a surgery date but was warned it would be next year as it's not considered emergency (I'm not yellow enough yet) it's elective. I don't mind so long as I'm not thinking I'm going crazy anymore not knowing why I am in pain. The thing that bugs me the most now is having to stick to a super low fat diet, I miss pizza and chocolate both foods are not on that low fat list for some reason! LOL.

I've had a super busy weekend even despite all my best attempts to get a good case of stitcher's butt it hasn't happened! We did go out on Saturday to get our H1N1 flu shots though and today has been spent putting up the Xmas tree and hanging up the outdoor lights.

Well, this is my third attempt at posting this, blogger is not co-operating with me tonight! It's time to run and get some more stitching done before bedtime.

Giveaway # 3 (Ornaments) winner is........

Michelle!!!

of Michelle's StitchCraft Place

Congratulations Michelle, please email me at apxstitch@gmail.com with your mailing address so I can mail the ornaments out to you. My daughter picked the winner out this morning but alas I have no camera at the moment.

Thanks so much to everyone for entering :) I appreciate all of your comments so much and thank you all for taking the time to stop by to read my blog.

There's one more giveaway this year and it's the big one! LOL. I have over 500 entries right now which completely amazes me and I'm so happy that you all agree with me on how well it has turned out. The only unfortunate thing is I can't find anymore of these wooden boxes at Michaels in Canada as they have been discontinued. It's time for that trip to Buffalo with a few hundred dollars next year to buy the supplies I can't find up here. Thankfully it's only an hour and a half drive away from where I live but now we need a passport even travelling over the border by car and I don't have one yet.

Good luck to everyone on my last giveaway. The link is on my sidebar, please leave me a comment on that post only for a chance to win.

Personal ornament exchanges :)

All of my personal ornament exchanges have now arrived so instead of sharing them one by one I thought I'd share them all in one post. I'll leave all the pics at the top of this post as I still don't know how to drag them and still have them be click able to make them larger, any ideas? Sometimes blogger co-operates with me and sometimes they don't! LOL. That's my excuse anyways :)

The first one is for Maggee, it is the LK Rejoice from an older JCS ornament issue. I love my Snowmen and of course Lizzie Kate so this was an obvious choice for me.

The second one is for Angela, it is from Cranberry Christmas by Prairie Schooler. I love Prairie Schooler designs as well and this one really caught my eye as something very different from what I normally do.

The third one is for Lisa, it is from Candy Cane Wishes by Plum Pudding Needleart and surprise it's another Snowman!!

I'm happy that all 3 ladies enjoyed them and now I'm anxiously waiting to see what they each will stitch for me in return. I was really early in mailing like I usually am so there is still lots of time before our arranged mailing dates.

I will probably be doing this again next year too, I love my ornaments!

Thanks for stopping by today :)

So much to do and no time to get it all done....

I've been busy stitching up a storm but unfortunately I can't show any of it as it's all for future exchanges! I did finish up an ornament, a Little House design and another LK design and I'm working on a second ornament which is almost finished as well. I wanted to show some stitching though so here is a pic of the ornies my Mom has stitched over the past couple of weeks, can you guess who's gonna be busy finishing??? LOL.

My health......wow....I could say it is still the same as it is but seeing the Pain Specialist and hearing his opinions on what is wrong with me has got me very confused. After a very long discussion which was wonderful that he listened to me, he actually does feel like I have 2 separate problems going on. He thinks I did have shingles back in July (without rash) and now suffer nerve damage to the major nerve running along my ribcage, coincidentally the pain starts and stops where the nerve runs so that made me go hmmmmm! But then I have the eating problems, the burping, indigestion, nausea and the weight loss that isn't explained by that so that's probably Gallbladder disease. I see another Surgeon on Monday and hopefully with a Pain Specialist and a Gastro Specialist as well as my Family Dr. all in agreement he will book the surgery for me. Fingers crossed! I am now taking anti-inflammatory to try to calm this nerve down and if that doesn't work then we will try the nerve block injections to freeze the nerve. Unfortunately the pain of nerve damage from Shingles can last for a year or longer after the shingles outbreak. I think the only way to know for sure is to take my gallbladder out and see if the pain has gone away or not. The problem is that all my test results on my gallbladder have come back well within normal range so the Surgeon thinks there is nothing wrong and if they do take it out and it is really healthy then they have to explain to the review board why they took it out. Patience, I'm trying to have patience :) The only good thing to come out of this is learning healthier eating habits and the loss of weight that has kept me down for almost a decade.

I have to say I was completely thrilled that so many of my fellow stitchers have entered into my giveaways. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your comments and popping over to visit so many new blogs. I can't explain enough how much joy it gives me to create something to offer to another stitcher. To me that is more fun than receiving anything myself :) I want to wish the best of luck to everyone.

I'm off now to finish watching season 4 of Biggest Loser Australia, if you haven't seen it and you love Biggest Loser it's actually better than the American version (my opinion). Being the TV junkie that I am, I'm also enjoying season 2 of Merlin and season 8 of Spooks. Out of the new American shows I really like Vampire Diaries, Good Wife and V was excellent. I really enjoyed Flashforward but now it's weighing me down and isn't amounting to anything special, so i"m really disappointed in that one.


I'm almost finished the LK Christmas is kit from 2008 and I also started Bent Creek Winter Snapperland along with acquiring some new stash this week too so that's why I need more time or another pair of hands, LOL! I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way!!!! I'll also have some pics to share of my ornament swaps in a few days.

Until next time.....

The winner of Giveaway # 2 is......

Kahlie!!!

Please contact me at apxstitch@gmail.com with your mailing address and I will pop these charts in the mail for you.

Thanks to everyone that entered, I still have 2 more giveaways so if you weren't lucky this time there's still a chance to win another giveaway :)

Another health update will be posted later on today/tonight, I just got back from the Doctor's and I'm all behind in my cleaning! I'm also gonna sneak in watching the second episode of Spooks which just started it's 8th season :)

Thanks for stopping by!

This is it.......(final giveaway unveiled)

Design: Needle Necesseties

Designer: Little House Needleworks

Fabric: 28ct Cream Lugana

Floss as recommended

Finished as a Stitchers Box (perfect for holding your scissors, needles and floss for a current project)

the BIG ONE!!!! The one I hope that everyone will want to win, the one that has taken me almost 2 weeks of stitching and finishing. It's my final thank you for visiting my blog this year, it's my END of Year Blog Giveaway!!!!

Okay, enough at trying to be dramatic :) Seriously though, this one I am extremely proud of, it turned out exactly as planned and more importantly hoped and prayed for! All the pics above are clickable for more detail.

Now the important stuff.......if you'd like a chance to win this lovely stitchers box please leave me a comment on this post only :) The rules will be a little different this time around since this one has taken me longer than my other giveaways to put together. So read below if you want more chances to win!

If you leave me a comment on this post your name will be entered into the basket one time.

If you leave a link on your blog back to my giveaway your name will be entered three times.

If you are a follower your name will be entered five times for a chance to win.

Please let me know in your comment if you have done any of the above.

Anyone may enter this giveaway and I will leave this giveaway open until December 10th midnight (Toronto time) and will announce a winner on the 11th. This will leave me lots of time to mail it out before the kids are off for Christmas holidays and if the post is co-operating you may have this delivered in time for Christmas.

Until next time, Good Luck to everyone :)

Prairie Schooler Exchange Round 4

Design: Redwork Santas
Fabric: 28 ct White Opalescent Lugana
Floss as recommended
Finished as an ornament

I have just heard from Mary Jo that my round 4 exchange for her has arrived. With it being so close to Christmas and me being in the Christmas spirit I decided to stitch up an ornament for her which happens to be my favorite finish :) I was quite pleased with the way this one turned out and was happy to hear that she liked it too. I just LOVE Prairie Schooler Santas!!

More ornaments should be arriving soon so I will have lots more to share with you all! I have been busy stitching up another ornament for my new Private Ornament Swap Group that will begin in January and I have my round 3 LK chart picked out and ready to stitch up next. I also have my end of year giveaway piece stitched and finished and I'm extremely happy with the way it turned out.....stay tuned for details :)