Busy, Busy, Busy.....

Time just keeps flying on by - and even though school is now finished and my Scientist work has wrapped for the school year, I seem to be just as busy as before. How does that happen?

There has been a little excitement here in this neck of the woods - both of my DS' graduated from their respective schools last week. DS#1 is off to highschool in September while DS#2 is heading off to middle school. Naturally the schools conspired to both have their graduations at the same time on the same day, so I could only attend one of them. I went to DS#2's graduation while DH went to DS#1's grad. I also roped my in-laws into attending so we sent the 'boys' to DS#1's grad while the 'girls' went to DS#2's. Here are the boys all dressed up and ready to go on the morning of graduation:

They both look so grown up! I'm sure it was just yesterday I sent them off to Kindergarten....

In my last post, I forgot to mention some neat acquisitions that I'd made earlier in June....

The first weekend in June is always the celebration of Danish Constitution Day (or Grundlovsdag) . It's a bit like the 4th of July for Americans or Canada Day for Canadians. I'm really lucky that fairly close to where I live is a neat place called Sunset Villa. It's a restaurant, campground, park, retirement village and burial site for Danes living in Canada. Every year they have a big celebration for Grundlovsdag and we usually manage to attend - if for no other reason than the Danish baker attends and brings many of our favourite treats (Kransekage, among them - I actually has a Kransekage for my wedding cake many years ago!)....Here's a little picture of some traditional Danish folk dances that are performed every year - they usually get people from the crowd to join in as well:

In case you're wondering, the red, tubular like things to the left and right of the stage are guard houses. Most (if not all) of the castles for the royal family in Denmark will have guard houses just like these before them. The royal guards can seek shelter from the elements in them. There are special cut-outs at the top for the guard's hats - they're dome-shaped. :-)

Anyway, there's always a rummage sale that is much fun to paw through. This year I spied a really large collection of needlework books. Having no self control, I picked up these:


You'll never guess what I paid for all of these. $1. When I told the nice lady that was running the book sale that I wanted everything I had chosen to add to my library, she told me I could have it all for a dollar. I can't beat a bargain like that! I got a couple of books by Elsa Williams - one with some great crewel projects and another with canvaswork stitches. I found a neat book of assisi embroideries and a bunch of stitch books (Stitches by Penelope), some blackwork and beading and pulled work books too. It's a great haul and they'll all be enjoyable browsing books....

Now I have been doing some stitching and I can show off another thing that I finished. It was a gift for Heather over at Reflections in the Pond. I was very, very, very late getting her birthday gift to her, but she was very kind and didn't hold it against me! Here's what I stitched:

It's a freebie from the Victoria Sampler. I converted it from being stitched in pinks to purples. Heather is more of a purple kind of girl (and frankly, so am I!). I'm quite happy with how it turned out. I finished it into this:

This is the first time I've ever attempted to make a tin topper. It didn't turn out too badly, for a first time. Here's a picture of the inside and a side view of the whole thing:



It ceretainly has its flaws in the finishing, but thankfully Heather has a forgiving soul. :-)

And, miracle of miracles, I've actually done a little stitching. A while ago now I signed up for a painted canvas class from Janet Perry over at Nuts About Needlepoint. It's actually 3 kimonos that Janet is guiding us through. While I am an experienced stitcher, I've really not done painted canvas before and I thought this would be a good introduction - especially since Janet has been virtually holding me (and the other students) by the hand the whole way through. I've fallen dreadfully behind in the class, mostly due to needing to work on some models, but I'm enjoying myself, nonetheless. Here's where I am on the first canvas:

When I actually get time to sit and stitch, this piece moves along quite well - although the band I'm working on right now has given me some heartburn - it's a diagonal Victorian step stitch and while it isn't particularly difficult, I'm finding working in such a small space is making it hard to catch the rhythm of the stitch. I think I've got it now though and I just need to finish it up and go back and fill in the compensating stitches. The remaining bands are quite straightforward and the background will be fun to do too.

We went for a short camping trip last week and I wanted something easy to pick up and put down while we were at the campsite. Having recently acquired an iPod touch for my birthday, I'm finding it a real pain to deal with the headphone wire and the iPod itself. I keep misplacing one or the other because I don't have an easy way to keep them together. Then I remembered a little needlepoint kit I had picked up a couple of years ago that I had never stitched. It's one of those pre-finished Stitch and Zip cases and it's a great size for my iPod. So, I started it while we were camping:

In case you're wondering, I'm adding the lighter purple and darker green colours to the pre-printed canvas. I'm just doing plain old tent stitch (whether basketweave or continental) rather than jazzing it up with some more fun stitches. I was worried I'd run out of fibre if I jazzed things up a bit and I didn't have the mental energy to pull appropriate fibres from my stash. It's a nice fun, easy piece to play with.

This coming Friday, we leave for our really big summer vacation. We're driving all the way out to British Columbia through Canada and then back home through the US. Three and a half weeks in a vehicle. I'm calling this our drive-by vacation - we're going to drive-by everything! :-)

On the upside - DH agreed to schedule a stop at Nordic Needle. I've already e-mailed an order to them and DH has agreed to drop me at NN while he and the boys go off to do something else for a few hours. I can't wait!

Of course, with so much time spent travelling and so many places to see, the Travelling Project has surfaced again. I've got it all ready for its new adventure! Here it is before we leave:


One of the laptops is joining us on our vacation and I plan to blog whenever I manage to get an Internet connection. So, feel free to follow along on my travels!