Winners!

We have winners for the giveaways posted last week.

They are:
Giveaway #1 (Snowmen):
Becka

Giveaway #2 (Footprints):
Karen

Congrats ladies! And thank you sooo much to everyone that has commented and visited my blog. It really helps keep me going!

I meant to take a pic of Dragons as I'm almost 1/3 done the new page already! But I forgot. :(

I will have a bunch of photos to share of progress after this weekend as it's 12 hour stitch at my LNS again on Saturday! I am very excited.
It's a long weekend in Alberta this coming weekend so more time away from the office is always a good thing! We will be hiking again as well on the Sunday. Not sure where but I'll post some pics if it's a good day next week as well.

In the meantime hope you are all stitching away!

GIVEAWAY - 151 followers!

Wow, you have all blown me away, I am now at 151 followers!
Thank you all soooo much for following my blog, caring about what I have to say and share about stitching and life.

As promised I have a giveaway to do. There are two different packages again (cause I hate just picking one person).

Giveaway #1
It's Christmas in July, as traditionally celebrated by the stitching community. For this one I have a Mill Hill Snowman bead design. Unopened and with all the supplies you need to make it!
The other item is snowman earrings with Swarovski Crystals. You have to make them but everything you need to do it is in the package. Here is a pic:

(excuse my carpet in the background I didn't think to grab a blanket instead to grab the shots on)

Giveaway #2
For some reason I have three or four variations on the Footprints in the Sand poem. This one here, in the giveaway, was in one of the many boxes that I inherited from either my Mom or a friend's Mom who no longer stitch.
It's gently used, there are some creases and wear and tear, but the pattern is still completely legible. I know I won't stitch all of the variations I have, so figured this one could have a new home! This package comes with #24 needles as well.

And of course all packages come with other little treats in them once I figure out what those are. :)


How to enter:
It's easy, you have to:
A) be a follower
B) leave a comment on this post that you wish to be included (let me know if you prefer Giveaway 1 or 2 or both, I know not everyone always wants to be included in each one)
C) for a bonus entry post the giveaway link on your blog and you will be entered again

The only other thing to be sure of in entering is that you have your email in your Profile, or include it in the comment. If I don't have your email I can't send you a notification that you won to get your address.

Entries will be open until Tuesday, July 27. I will post a winner on July 28. (winners will be chosen either by random number generator or names into a hat).

Elfland Page Finish, Cheryl's Bouquet & Pillow Pets

I actually got some stitching in this weekend!
After our crazy busy weekend last week we decided to take it a bit easy. Which means, stitching!

I worked on Cherly's Bouquet in the SAL weekend, she is coming along and should be in line for a finish this year if I put a few extra hours into her:

I also got a page finish on Elfland!! Even though the new SAL SK has started I still want to get Elfland finished. One more page to go on her.

I picked up my travel light at my LNS from Daylight. I am a bit disappointed that it doesn't have a cover over the bulb, as the bulbs are very expensive and I worry that I may hit it with my scroll rods. But we will see. It looks like there is a new one on their site that twists and has a cover (for the same price!) but I am not sure if it is available yet. But anyways doesn't matter as this is the one I have. It's to take to 12 hours that away from home and retreat in September!

And finally we got the cutest pillows ever at the Stampede (they have a vendor area that is always fun to walk through). These are called Pillow Pets and I gotta tell you it is the softest coziest little pillow I've ever had! They fold in to be a larger pillow:

Or they fold out to be flatter:

The turtle is mine (his grumpy face reminded me of my Grandpa so had to have him) and the penguin is the B/F's. They are just awesome! it's like being a five year old again in the comfort of your own home. and the quality is just unbelievable.
My turtle works great in place of my traditional pillow (when he is folded out) to hold my stitching on my lap.

I know I am very behind on posting comments to people's blogs. I am sooo sorry. I will try and catch up again. There are just too many great blogs out there!

I had an influx of followers this week, up to 149! I promised a giveaway at 140, so I will do one for sure in the next week. I just didn't have a chance to get it together in time for today. But I promise later this week you'll see one. And who knows maybe we will be celebrating 150 by then! :)

Thanks for all your comments and for following! :)

Calgary Stampede & Hummingbirds

My apologies it's been awhile. We've been busy entertaining my cousin and her man from Ontario. His first time out West and she hasn't been in a long time. It was their first Calgary Stampede as well.
What is the Calgary Stampede? It's a 10 day exhibition with fair grounds, a huge parade, rodeo, shows etc. It's a huge party time.

On Friday we went to the parade, it's the longest and largest parade in Canada and takes about three hours to watch! Here is Round-up Band (I was in this marching band once), they are junior high school students (I didn't take too many other pics of the parade, sorry, my bad):

On Saturday we had a Stampede breakfast to attend at my parents place(traditional pancakes, bacon and such), about 50 people came and it's my job to server up the pancakes.
Then we went down to the Fair Grounds, where it proceeded to pour rain! :(
But it was still a good time. Here is a pic from the skyride over the grounds:

Sunday we went to Banff and Lake Louise, showed them all the major sights. Here are a few pics (it was cloudy this day too).
The Banff Springs Hotel:

Downtown Banff (that is Cascade Mountain in the background):

And Lake Louise, it was a terrible day for photos, it's sooo much prettier than this but this is what we got on the weekend for a photo:

And then back to work. My Grandma is also here visiting so we saw her last night and just haven't been home in days it seems! But it's tapering off. I am at the Stampede with some girlfriends one more time tomorrow night and then I need some sleep. lol.

I have not stitched much at all. But did get a few stitches into Hummingbirds the other day. Here they are so far (have I mentioned that I find backstitching a huge PITA, I frogged three times on one section, but it looks nice so I will suck it up):

Not too much else to report. Just really tired from all our activities and such.
I got the cutest Turtle pillow ever the other day and will post a pic of it soon.
Also watch out, as I will be holding another giveaway when I hit 140 followers (just need 1 more!) :)

Hope you are all doing well and love hearing from you and reading your blogs.

New HAED Start & Canada Day

I have lots of fun photos to share with you all today. Hope you enjoy.

First up, a few more pictures from our mine ruin walk two weekends ago as promised.
Here is me (I actually like this picture of me which is so unusual):

And better ones of the ruins:

It was Canada Day on July 1st. And the B/F and I both got the Thursday and Friday last week off. It was sooo nice. We went climbing in the Rockies, it was cloudy so no pretty blue sky this time around; here's the B/F on a rock face (yes we have all the training and safety gear):

Then it was a Canadian Football League game in the evening, where our team the Calgary Stampeders won! Here are the fireworks from after the game:

And finally I started a the HAED SK SAL that started on July 1st. This is going to be Rose. She is a dream to stitch. I am loving her so much I find it hard to put her down. This is my progress so far:

And what she will look like when done:

(I like her sooo much more than Elfland, but I will try to finish Elfland too!)

We have a busy weekend coming up with lots of family coming into town including my cousin from Ontario, my Grandma and my siblings. All for the Calgary Stampede (it's a big outdoor western festival that runs for 10 days). It will be exhausting but hopefully fun! So pics of that to come next week. And any stitching I manage to sneak in there too.
Thanks for reading and for all your comments, past & present!

Hummingbird Stitching & the Ghost Town

 have been trying to find time to update this blog for days. My apologies to everyone.

First up some stitching goodness. Here is the beginning of hummingbirds. It will be four hummingbirds in slightly different positions and it will be finished as a bellpull. Here is the start:

And we did go to the ghost town. It was a beautiful day. This ghost town is near Lake Minnewanka just outside of Banff. It was an old mining town from about 1908 to 1930ish. They were getting coal from the mountains to use for the railroad at the time. Many of the buildings/homes have been moved as heritage sites (years back) to Banff or Jasper. But foundations and a few buildings still stand.
Here are some pics (the B/F has more great ones but hasn't downloaded them yet, so I may share more in a few days).
The scenery:

The ruins:

Some mountain goats on the road on the way out:

We have lots more great photos of the ruins but they have to get downloaded. So I will try and share them soon. (also my new meds are awesome as they are allowing me to get back into the mountains I missed it sooo much!)

We have a big day ahead of us, it's Canada Day!!! (like July 4th in the USA but for Canada). So most people are off today and took tomorrow off cause really what's the point in working. it's gorgeous here about 21C (70ish F) and we are headed back to the mountains to do some rock climbing!
I will post some pics later.
(and the new HAED BB SAL started today so another new start for me, I know terrible, I will have pics as soon as I get some stitching done)

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my blog. I appreciate every one of them!
And to my fellow Canadian, Happy Canada Day! :)