Update and It Runs in the Family, Plus a Link to a Giveaway!

I was at my parents' house last week and since my Grandma has had to live in a nursing home, her house has been rented by my cousin. That meant my family had to move out a lot of her things since my cousin and his family have their own stuff. We're in a pretty small house, so we can't take much, but we also don't want some of the sentimental things to get thrown away. 

My older brother (lives in Fort MacMurray, Alberta) was also able to be home and he got a UHaul box. It's like a UHaul truck size, only no truck attached. You tow it to your house, fill it, and ship it to another location. This was much more economical than trying to drive all the way across country. 

There were many things saved for us to go through and one that I absolutely had to take home was this:

My dad has to determine what line Isabella Curry is from, but he knows it's in the family somewhere. :) There were also some plain black on ivory linen pieces that were interesting, but had no initials, etc. I don't know if they were stitched by anyone in my family or if they were purchased as decoration. They were sampler type pieces, and I forgot to get photos, but no signature like the above photo. This one is hanging on my wall now in my stitchy spot. :D

My great, great-aunt Jean and her sisters also stitched 5 chair covers in needlepoint and I will take one of those once I have space. My parents will hold onto it for now. 

There are 2 more with a wine or maroon background, one is a rocker and the other a chair similar to the top photo. I asked for the chair in the top photo. 

I'm also inheriting my Grandma's yarn collection. It's in several medium sized tubs and I went through it to see what was worth keeping and what wasn't. I found out that stashing and procrastinating on finishing must be hereditary!! She has so much yarn and there were about 5 pairs of wrist warmers unfinished, but fully knitted, and a pair of skunk mitts knitted and unfinished as well! And she keeps all the little bits of yarn too, so there was a ton of stuff that I threw away. So many small teeny skeins of white in different weights and softness.. 

At first when I saw all the bits of yarn I was thinking "I'll knit a blanket with all the bits", but realistically, my Grandma doesn't need a blanket, DD doesn't need a blanket (has 3, or 4?) and it would be much smarter to toss this little bits. So I did! 

More importantly, I'm inheriting her needle collection. She must have 50 at least! Possibly 50 pairs... She used to have them in a cylindrical ceramic container, but that must have broken as they're in a whisky bottle sleeve now. :D I will certainly not want for any size any more. I might even have to get back into knitting a little bit! 

Back to stitching, Princess and the Dragon has progressed a little for Animalia August:

From here:

To here:

and then I discovered I was out a little bit on the smaller motif on the right side, so I'm in the process of picking that out. I think I'll switch to a different project tomorrow. Still dragons, but something a little different. :)

And for the giveaway, if you haven't seen Miss Linda Lee's blog, Lov'N My Stitches, check it out! She's going to do a big giveaway when she hits 100 followers, and she always has something positive to post about. :)

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch