Frederick Bottom Shelf & Puzzles

 I know it has been a while since I showed an update on Frederick. I have been stitching at least once or twice a week, but don't always feel like photographing and updating my blog. 

I am working on the bottom shelf of books. I have run out of a few colours from the kit, but I went through my DMC floss and found something close enough to substitute instead of contacting Dimensions and ordering more floss.

Dave & I have worked on a few puzzles in the past month. We like to sit outside on the patio working on the puzzles.

This one is a 1000pc called the Beach Hut by Ravensburger. We enjoyed all the bright colours and beach theme.

This one doesn't have a name, but we loved the colours and it was very quick to build. It only took us 4 hours to complete.

This is the first time I have built a shape puzzle. I love tea, so I borrowed this one from my sisters. I thought it would be easy to assemble. Well I was wrong. I started it, then Dave helped me. I think it took about 4 days off and on to complete. I am happy to say we finished it, but I don't think I will go out of my way to do another one. It was one of the hardest puzzles I have completed. There are pieces that look like edges that are not.

This puzzle also had 13 hidden object pieces.

Let The People Choose - Pets

 

Thank you Jo at Serendipitous Stitching for hosting the Let The People Choose each month. The theme for July is Pets. 

As a child my family only had dogs. My husbands family had lots of animals living on a farm.  When we moved in together way back in 1985, we had 5 budgies. 

When our boys were young we had many different pets ... 

hamsters (Hammy & Digger). This is Digger, he was so sweet and didn't bite people.

guinea pigs (Eeyore, Popcorn & Jellybean). This is the habitat we built them.

red-eared slider turtle named Frodo who lived 12 years.

and this is the first fish tank (20 gallons).   

Now our boys are adults, but we still have a fish tank (75 gallons). We have a pleco (algae eater) named Waldo who is 16 years old and 5 clown loaches, but they don't have names.

  

I have stitched a few cats for my sister-in-laws back in 1998 & 2003.

and yes, I'm still working on Frederick the Literate for my son and daughter-in-law.

I stitched this turtle in 2006.

But my favourite is the Rainbow Bridge by Sue Hillis stitched in 2011.  This is a tribute to all of the pets we have loved over the years. I added extra animals to this project to make it personal (budgies, a hedgehog my sister had, a ferret that my sister's friend had and a nicer looking turtle). 

Books Update #4

 I haven't stitched much lately, but here is a photo of my progress so far.

We have been busy working on another jigsaw puzzle. We did this puzzle in exactly 1 week.

I have taken 2 photos of the finished puzzle. Dave & I just bought a new DSLR camera Nikon Z50. I usually take photos with my iPad because it is easier to update my blog, but I do love how much clearer the images are with the new camera. Cross stitch of Frederick was taken with the new camera as well.

iPad photo (8 mega pixels)

Nikon Z50 (20 mega pixels)

Books Update #3

I finally reached the end of the first row. Black vertical line is a shadow at the end of the bookshelf.  There is still lots to stitch on the top shelf. Above Frederick’s butt is a bird. I need to finish the green, blue and rust coloured books, but you can see how wide and how tall the project is because I started stitching the bottom shelf. I love stitching the bright coloured books.

Cat & whale

I worked on Frederick a lot yesterday (afternoon & evening). Close up of Frederick’s butt and leg.

Here is the whole project.

Dave & I finally completed another 2000pc puzzle. This was also a Christmas gift from our youngest son Jordyn. 

This was the hardest puzzle we have done so far. It took us 3 weeks, but we didn’t work on it every day. 

It is a beautiful puzzle to look at from a distance.  

Up close it is a pain in the neck. There was so much blue and it looks like paint brush strokes, not clear detail.  

Let The People Choose - Snow

Thank you Jo at Serendipitous Stitching for hosting the Let the People Choose each month. This month’s theme is SNOW.  We certainly got a lot where I live in Ontario, Canada.  Here is a photo taken looking outside my front window today.

I try to participate in this SAL, but either don’t have anything to post or I forget to post. I only have one project that I stitched related to snow called Snowman Wisdom by Sue Hillis.  It was a fun project to work on back in 2016. I made it into a wall hanging with snow fabric.

Books - update #2

I completed the book title The Three Mouseketeers and added the symbol at the bottom. I also did 3 bookmarks at the top on the last 2 books.