Snowy Deer and Sunny Deer

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by recently (through the Grow Your Blog party, regular readers and to those who may have just surfed on in). If you are looking for my Grow Your Blog post, you can find it here.

We have been away up north for a few days, but before we left I finished up Snowy Deer (and corrected the face on the raccoon). I can't wait for the next instalment.



While we were away we visited a farm/petting zoo, where we met Snowy Deer's cousin Sunny Deer. Isn't it gorgeous?



It was a very hot day, but luckily there was plenty of shade on offer for both the animals and ourselves. Annabelle was a bit too young to enjoy it, but our 12 year old niece and I certainly did.

We took a nice drive part way up Mt Taranaki. You can walk to the top if you don't mind a strenuous 8-10 hour climb. Even though the temperature was in the mid 20s (Celsius) where we were, the sign said it was -8 degrees Celsius at the summit. I was content admiring the summit from below.



Anyway, the real point of this post was to remind you that my giveaway will be drawn on Monday 3 February. If you'd like to throw your name in the hat please comment on this post here. Everyone is welcome to enter.

Grow Your Blog

Hi everyone

This year I decided to take part in the Grow Your Blog event. So for those that have stopped by as part of this event - welcome! And to those who have visited before - welcome back! (To find out more about the GYB event, you can click on the icon below).

My name is Rowyn and this is me...



I started blogging in 2005 to record my cross stitch finishes and connect with other stitchers. I've made lots of stitching friends along the way and participated in stitching round robins, stitchalongs and exchanges. It has been a lot of fun.



Over the years I've also shared photos of my much loved furry family members (past and present). I particularly love cats and bunnies. We currently have three cats (Petal, Meg and Tess) and two bunnies (Millie and Cola). The bunnies have all been rescue bunnies, and Petal is a rescued cat (Petal has some severe facial injuries/disfigurement inflicted by her previous owner. She has a safe and loving forever home now though!).



I live in a beautiful country and love sharing photos of New Zealand. We actually have some future trips planned, so there will be new photos in the nearish future.



I love my garden, but right now it's not looking so great (it has looked pretty lovely in years gone by). We are going to completely makeover the back garden (dig it up, change the shape of the garden beds and replant it). I'm looking forward to this, although I think it will require some serious planning this time. If you have any hints or tips on where to begin when planning a garden, feel free to leave a comment and/or email me.



I'm also Mummy to six month old Annabelle. She is a placid, happy baby. When she smiles at me or laughs it always melts my heart (sometimes it can even bring a tear to my eye!). Here she is pulling at the frills on her onesie and rolling around having a great old time. It is fair to say that her Daddy and I are very smitten with her.



So that is a bit about me and my blog.

If you want to follow my blog, the Followers button is on the sidebar (I've moved it up to the top so you can easily find it). I'm also on Flickr, Pinterest and Instagram - the links can also be found in my sidebar. My email address is in my profile if you want to contact me. Or you can simply leave me a comment to let me know you were here and I'll return the favour and come and visit your blog.

Thanks for visiting! I look forward to finding new blogs to follow and making more blogging friends. And to those blogging friends who I already know - thanks as always for reading and your lovely comments xx

New blogger

It would be great if you could pop on over and give Lynda a warm welcome to blogging.

You can find her blog here - Purple Pixie Dust

Thanks! :-)

500th post giveaway

I noticed last night in my blogger dashboard that I have made 499 posts to this blog since I started in 2005. So here is post 500!

I think 500 posts is worthy of a giveaway. If you would like your name thrown into the hat (it doesn't matter where in the world you are), please leave a comment on this post. I will tailor the prize to suit the winner. I will get Annabelle to pull the winners name from a bowl on Monday 3 February (NZ time).

Here's a little progress on Snowy Deer. So far it's shaping up to be a cute forest!

This and That

I finished up the first block of the Frosty Forest series last night. Although, I think my raccoon looks like he is stuck in the headlights of an oncoming car. I wasn't sure how many times to wrap my thread around my needle. The chart recommends stitching the French knots in one strand of thread and the gap seemed sooo large that I went around six times! I definitely overdid it, so will correct that later.

Snowy Deer arrived in the mail today, so how is that for great timing - I can just keep on stitching.



Last night I made a start on French Country Baby Carriage by JBW Designs. I am stitching it using Crescent Colours 'Clay Pot'. It will be personalised for Annabelle, who is six months old today (since I never got around to stitching her a birth sampler - although I have finally seen one I very much like!).



Here she is about 11 days old. Looking back at photos she was so very tiny (a month early and some other small problems), but she is such a happy, smiley, placid, funny little girl who has grown so much that we can happily forget all of lifes less shiney moments encountered along the way.



We finally found a suitable friend for my bunny Cola. Meet Millie. Oh boy she is cute.



It is quite hard finding companions for rabbits. I like my rabbits to be around the same size in case of any dust ups, and most of them have very strong/dominant personalities (even though we like to think of them as sweet and fluffy). However, so far so good with Cola and Millie so hopefully they will keep each other company for a good many years.

Have any of my readers suffered from ovarian cysts? I ended up at A&E on Saturday morning after being struck by a sudden and intense pain. I nearly blacked out during this odd episode and they think it was possibly an ovarian cyst that ruptured. I have never had anything like it before. The Doctor says I may never have one ever again, and that would be fine with me! I was also very lucky that my DH was home and that I was able to get Annabelle back in her cot safely before my head went fuzzy. I'll eventually receive an appointment for an ultrasound to check things out (although I think that will be closing the barn gate after the horse has bolted).

I hope you are all having a great week and getting lots of stitching in.

Frosty Forest

Here is my progress on Raccoon Cabin, the first in the Frosty Forest series by Country Cottage Needleworks. I am very much enjoying this, and can't wait to see it grow in the coming months.



Annabelle will be six months old next week. The time has gone so fast! Here is my current favourite photo of her. It was actually taken at the supermarket last weekend! :-)



I hope all my friends in the northern hemisphere are managing to stay warm and safe while you experience that crazy polar vortex.

Forget Me Not

I stayed up late last night and finished up my Forget Me Not Sampler by With Thy Needle & Thread. It is such a pretty design (the photo doesn't do it justice, as it is a dull day here today).



I chose not to dye my fabric, as the colours looked really nice against the cream fabric. Plus you really never know what colour/shade you are going to get when you dye your own.

Next up for me is the Frosty Forest series. I'm hoping to get Raccoon Cabin stitched up before Snowy Deer arrives in the mail.

It's just a quick post from me today - so have a great weekend!

TUSAL (Totally Useless Stitchalong)

Hi everyone

I've decided to join in with Sharon's (Daffycat) TUSAL. Check out her post here and all the ins and outs of the 2014 TUSAL here.

So here are my first lot of ORTs (from the Forget Me Not Sampler). I will have to battle hard with myself not to clean them up and leave them sitting around until the next TUSAL.



I am using a crystal bowl which belonged to my Great Grandmother. It must have found its way out to New Zealand (from England) with my Grandmother when my Grandparents and Dad emigrated here in 1950.

In other news, my bunny Cola might be getting a friend tomorrow. We are taking him to the local shelter to meet a girl bunny called Lali (to see if they might get on). Long time readers might recall that Cola was adopted as a friend for my bunny Tiggy. They were very fond of one another. Unfortunately, Tiggy passed away about a year later. We then adopted Charlie as a friend for Cola. That lasted about a year too, but then there was a bit of a dust up - so Charlie now lives with my Mum. Since then we have been hanging out for a friend for Cola (I'll only adopt rescue bunnies) and Lali might just be the one. Fingers crossed! I'll be back with a photo if it all works out.

Hope your new year is off to a great start!

New Year's Eve

Annabelle is tucked up in bed, and I'm about to get my stitching out. Ohh, the excitement of New Year's Eve. lol. But before I do any stitching I thought I would do a blog post to show you my finished Sew Advent SAL. I really love how it turned out. I think I have some bell pull ends in my stash drawers, so might have a go at finishing it that way.



As mentioned in an earlier post we had a few days away up north at beautiful Mt Maunganui. We mostly spent our time walking around the mountain and relaxing by the beach and in the apartment. Annabelle still needed her routine of feeding, naps and an early bedtime, so it was a refreshing change of holiday pace for us.





I had some other nice scenery pics I was going to share with you, but can't find them at the moment (Santa came early and I got a Samsung Galaxy S4 for Christmas. I have taken over 1000 photos already, but I'm still trying to get a handle on the automatic back ups and the phone sending them off to Dropbox etc. I guess I'll be back when I've located them!).

I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year's Eve! Happy new year.

Christmas Eve

One more sleep and one more installment of Carol's Sew Advent SAL to go! I've changed the band that says 'Advent' to 'Annabelle' to mark her first Christmas.



Here she is the other day showing off her new skill of holding her head up.



We are very excited about her first Christmas, even though she'll not know what all the extra commotion is about! Santa has some great pressies lined up for her.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas!