Merry Christmas!!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!! I am so excited for tomorrow! My kids are still at the "eyes all aglow" age and still really really believe in Santa Claus. It is so fun to get to see them be so into the true joy of the season. We finished up a few ornaments tonight (the wooden kind you paint from Michael's) and then drove around looking at Christmas lights. This is our Christmas tree this year.

And this is my little mouse ornament, the only one I have made for myself..... Next year I will have more I swear (if only it wasn't so much fun to make them for other people!)

This is a little snowman one that was made for me by a friend. Everyone always assumes I made it since I do so much stitching. So yes I have a total of two x-stitched ornaments on my tree. But lots of homemade ones by my girls which are really my favorites anyways. Hallmark just can't match an inspired toddler with some glue and love thrown in the mix.And this is my little bit of progress on walk in the woods. Only five more letters left to go, I am hoping to have it done by the end of the year. It has been so much fun to stitch.
I hope everyone has a wonderful blessed holiday tomorrow. MERRY CHRISTMAS to all and to all a good night!

Math...you are no friend of mine :(

Yet again my math skills have led me astray. My sweet (and more technically minded husband) even made me a chart on how big I needed to cut my squares for this pillow. Its the same size/design as my Harvest Blessing pillow but I wanted to "frame" the little penguins in the snowflake fabric and somehow it did not come out right. I cut most of my fabric today and am going to sew it together tomorrow once i figure out where I went wrong, and possibly re-cut half of what I did today...sigh. Hopefully it will turn out super cute and be worth all this math.

This is the Debbie Mumm fabric I used from Jo-Ann's. The fabric decided me on making this years Bent Creek snow globe as I realized the little polar bears would work great with the polar bear snow globe. So that will be my pillow for next Christmas and then I will have matching pillows for each side of my couch. Plus this leaves me a whole year to get it done!



Here is my little bit of progress on walk in the woods. Only eight more letters left to go. I am really loving this design, and its pretty easy since the letters are only one color so there is not that much switching threads around. I had thought about doing the letters in Weeks thread so they would be a little more colorful, but I like the way this is turning out with just DMC. I am excited to hang this on my wall. It has been a pretty quick one, I have only been working on it for about a week and a half now.

Hope every one's week is starting off well. Wish me luck on finishing my pillow this week! I'll definitely post a pic once its done (if you don't see it again that means I got frustrated with all that math and it was placed at the bottom of my sewing box never to be seen again)

No I didn't fall off the planet!!

I haven't blogged in a month, and I feel so guilty! I also feel like the month of November ran me over with a snow plow! It went by so quick, and it felt like I was sooo busy. We spent the week of Thanksgiving up north at a place called Hannigan's Meadow in a cozy log cabin. We cooked Thanksgiving dinner up there, and the kids got to play in the snow and the woods. The pictures below are of our family in front of the log cabin we stayed in.



We saw lots of elk, and my youngest
thought they were reindeer.
My oldest, who is definitely a city child, was worried to go in the
woods because she thought the bears would eat her. It was very pretty but I am glad we don't live somewhere that snow boots and mittens are needed. It took fifteen minutes just to get them in and out the door!

I have been a busy stitcher though, this is a new one I started called "Walk in the Woods". It is an old one by Cross Eyed Cricket published in 1996. I saw it in my LNS and loved it, I am not sure I would have bought it if I hadn't seen the stitched model. Sorry it's so wrinkly I just took it out of it's hoop to get the pic of it.

This is my failed x-mas project for my sister.
I am starting to think it is just not meant to be.
The picture on the left is the actual chart cover. The THREE pieces on the left are all of my failed attempts at doing it.

I started with the perforated paper that came in the kit. It said to use 3 strands of thread, and 2 strands + 1 strand of Krenlik for the sparkly parts. Well perforated paper is not meant to withstand all that thread and I now have a hole in the middle of my design that I can fit my pinkie through! So I started over on even weave using 1 strand of thread, and 1 strand + Krenlik for the sparkly parts. Well it quickly became to tight to stitch, so finally I started over AGAIN on Aida. Which was actually going okay until I lost the chart somewhere in transport between home and work (I'm lucky enough to get a little stitching done during the slow parts of my job). So now until I find the stupid chart again (cause there is no way I am buying this one again) it will be left as a UFO. I'm just glad I actually bought my sister a gift just in case, so at least I have a backup in case I never find the chart. UuuuuuGgggggggHhhhh!!!

This is Bent Creek snow globes penguin I started last year. I just had to finish the snow at his feet, so I got him done last week, and am planning to make him into a pillow like I did with the Harvest Blessing one in Fall. I like him, but I used DMC instead of Weeks, so his scarf didn't turn out as cute as the chart, also the chart used a darker blue fabric in the background so the snow showed up a little better. Next time I'll know better. I love the polar bear one from this year, but not sure I like it enough to want to pay $24 bucks for the kit.

And this is the Lizzie Kate one I am making for my own tree. I only have one tiny 1" by 1" mouse ornament for my own tree, so I decided I would make an ornament from now on each year for my own tree, since I have made tons of ornaments for my brothers and sister but never keep any for myself. Also the mouse ornament is my favorite one each year to get out of the ornament box, just because its homemade.

Last but not least this is the Pink Exchange piece finally finished into a beaded necklace. I was a little bummed my partner didn't post a pic on the Hooked on Exchanging website. So I wanted to post a pic of it here. It turned out to be 1.25" by 1". It was a Little House needleworks design stitched one over one on 30ct linen. I almost wanted to keep it for myself! I might make have to make it again.

Well I hope everyone holiday stitching is going well. I promise not to wait another month between posts!! :)

Happy Halloween!!!

I wanted to post a few pics of my Halloween decorations before we are off to an evening of trick or treating. The first one is the view from my computer (the top of my little roll top desk). I stitched the trick or treat piece 2 or 3 years ago and never finished it into anything, so this year I just stuck it in a frame so it could at least be out of my Halloween box for a bit.

This next one is of a bat I did last year. The design is a Lizzie Kate one that I think is adorable (like all of her designs are!).

The witch ornament was actually a gift from a friend, stitched on that hard plastic stuff.The outside is beaded with little black seed beads. She is definitely one of my favorites.

And the skeleton is the glow in the dark prairie schooler one that I just finished this month.

Anyway I hope everyone has a Happy and Safe Halloween tonight! Don't let the ghosts and goblins get you!!!

I feel better now

OK last night I admit I was a little tired and may have been in the midst of a tantrum over not getting anything done. But today I feel better about it. I took my sewing machine in bright and early this morning and they managed to fix it in less than twenty minutes and it was still covered by the last time I had it in a month or so ago. Turns out I was using too heavy of a thread for my machine. Which is odd, it was Coats and Clark for "machine quilting" but I guess it is for use on the bigger machines. Who knew, thread is not really my thing, though I do love cross stitch thread!

I have put away my Autumn piece for next year, and assembled my supplies for the Angel ornament above. My sister loves angels and lions so I figured this was perfect. I bought it last October but didn't have time to even start it for Christmas. So this year I am being "scroogey" and not making anyone ornaments (I normally make one for each family member). I am only going to finish this one. And if it is done before Christmas I might make myself an ornament. Strangely enough after making dozens of ornaments I only have one tiny little x-stitch ornament on my own tree!

And this was a trip to the cross stitch store after all the money I "saved" with not having to pay to get my machine fixed. Just because I am not starting anything new doesn't mean I can't plan ahead, and at least they are all little projects.

Gobble Gobble....Squawk!!!!

Technically I think crows caw, not squawk, but squawk is more appropriate for my day. This is the little bit I got done on my Autumn piece this week, I finished the turkey in the upper left hand corner. And I think this is probably all I will get done on this one this year. I am getting bored with it and also a little overwhelmed and am admitting defeat that it will not be a finished project this year. I have had a frustrating day after a very stressful week. I had five little projects to finish today and none of them got done! The crow below is a little candle wrapper that I am having an impossible time finishing, I have ripped out the outside stitches and ribbons four or five times now, and finally decided I would just satin stitch around the edges with my sewing machine. So I pulled my sewing machine out only to have it completely seize up before I even got a stitch in. So bright and early tomorrow morning it will be heading back to the shop. I am a little frustrated since I just got it back a month ago for similar issues, but I think it will still be covered from the last visit so hopefully it won't be another $100 dollars out the door.

And this is the full picture of Autumn before it is put into hibernation for the winter. Considering I have only been working on it three-four months with lots of little projects in between I have gotten a good amount done. Now is just the filling in parts and of course the back stitching (Yuck!)

So in light of all the recent stress and frustration and also in anticipation of the upcoming holiday season I am drastically shortening my to do list. I have started to be overwhelmed with WIP's and don't want something I love to become a chore. So by the end of the year I want to finish my charity quilt for Margaret's hope chest, pink pinwheels for my daughter, and an angel ornament for my sister that I haven't even started yet!

And I can't not post a picture of the awesome needle-fold Sharlotte of the Happy Needle made. I won it off a give away from her blog. It arrived in the mail on Saturday and has received a much honored place on my stitching shelf so I can look at it often. I also mailed off my exchange piece for the Pink exchange on Hooked on Exchanging, so I am anxious to know if they like it or not. By the way taking a two year old to wait in line at the post office is a special kind of torture!! I don't think she will see the inside of a post office again until she is at least 25!

Charity Thwarted!

So while I was playing on the computer Monday I came across a blog called Margaret's Hope Chest. It is a charity dedicated to giving 400 quilts to homeless children in Grand Rapids Michigan for this winter. While I live nowhere near Michigan I am a sucker for anything benefiting children so I was immediately inspired. I cut/pieced this yesterday thinking it would be an easy pattern (I hadn't done it before). Well the directions were a little confusing but I did manage to get it mostly together in an afternoon so it was a quick pattern but maybe not easy.

So here comes the thwarted part...I was laying it out last night to decide on the final block arrangement when my husband wandered past and fell in love with it and started noticing how I have yet to make him a quilt. So I guess this one will wind up being his, but I am going to make one for the charity too. I actually have a more kid friendly fabric with yellow ducks/blue bubbles so I will start cutting that tonight and hopefully have the top done by Friday.
That was one of the things that excited me about this one is that I rarely make "boy quilts", most of my quilts revolve around my personal preference for pinks. The pic below is the border/backing fabric. It is a little lighter colored than the brown flowers in the quilt top, but I still think its neat how it is basically the same flower pattern. It is also a flannel so its all cozy and soft. I am not sure if I will use it for the binding yet...I may do the blue fabric that is to the left (and right) of the brown in the middle. And this is the progress I made on my cross stitch last weekend. I have this little section pretty much done except for the white banner over the top of it. I only have one more large section to do and then all the filling in bits. I am so trying to get this done this month so I can at least hang it up in November before I start Christmas decorating and put it away for the year. This is almost 3 maybe four years of stitching here (its a 14 x 18 piece), I am anxious to have it done!!

Mini-vacation

Kind of a busy week, but fun. We went to Arcosanti, which is kind of a commune (they call it an urban living experiment) here in AZ.

Mr. Stitcher is interested in it because he is all for converting our house to being totally green/environmentally friendly. So it was interesting seeing how they grew their own food and lived on only solar power with no cars. We stayed there overnight on Tuesday, the picture is the main building where they make the wind chimes/bells that they sell to tourists. We on the other hand slept down the hill in a cement bunker which I was just grateful had indoor plumbing. It was definitely an experience, and I think next time I get to pick the destination for our date day!

I got my second strip sewn for pink pinwheels, I am going to wait to sew all the strips together though until I have them all done so I can arrange them better. I laid out the inner border stripey strips with it also just to see what it would look like.

I also started the next little section of Autumn cross stitch. I know it doesn't look like much now, but I wanted to get a pic before the weekend because the weekend is when I do most of my cross stitching. So I am hoping to have the blue diamond totally done before Monday. What I have not gotten done is finishing my two Halloween ornaments or my exchange piece (I only have four more tiny flowers to sew on it I just haven't picked it up!)

I hope everyone has a great weekend. It is finally starting to feel like fall here. We can actually leave the windows open in the mornings when it stays in the low 80's, of course by the afternoon it is still in the upper 90's. I love though that its finally getting nice enough to go outside.

15% of a quilt top

So I have been doing a little work on Pink Pinwheels, finishing appliqueing petals and centers on (which takes longer than I thought). And I finally have my first row sewn together. Only 6 more to go. I also started on the border stripes too, which were fairly easy. Here's what I don't understand though, this project is out of a quilting magazine so you would think they would try to make it as easy as possible. But instead of having you sew strips together and then cut them for the border strips they wanted me to sew 84 little rectangles together to make each border section. Ummm... I'd much rather take the shortcut! Anyways very excited to see this one start to come together. I am hoping to make it a Christmas present for my daughter. That's her in the pic holding up the quilt row.

I didn't really work on the Autumn x-stitch this weekend, I was trying to finish my Pink exchange piece. I'd rather make sure I have it done early than be frantically stitching at the last minute. I also finished a piece, I was inspired by Sharlotte's Blog-the happy needle to start Bent Creek's Owl on an Egg, it's been in my waiting to start pile for a while now. I kind of made it up as I went along though, instead of an egg I turned it into a pumpkin, and changed most of the colors for what I had in my sewing box already. I also started a Prairie Schooler ornament, using glow in the dark thread He's not done yet I still have some bones to fill in. Hopefully my exchange piece and both ornaments will be done this week. I started decorating my house this week for Halloween so the ornaments will fit right in!

New start...

If your a member of Hooked on exchanging 2 and are participating in the pink exchange...DONT READ THIS...otherwise don't worry about it...



Anyways I am participating in the PINK exchange, and have been stressing over what to stitch. I was going to do a Lizzie Kate ornament type thing out of her Living with Charm series of flip- its, but then couldn't pick which word to stitch, I have done all of them together in a strip piece already (which is woefully rolled up in my craft closet waiting to be framed), and in general like Lizzie Kate but I was worried my exchange partner might not, from her blog it doesn't look like she does much "cutesy" stuff. Anyways this is the first exchange I have done, and I really wanted to make something that someone else would be excited to receive. So I drove the 30 minutes to my local favorite cross stitch store this morning and found this one. It is a Little House Needleworks design (a local AZ designer yeah!), and I am stitching it one over one on 36 ct linen. Its kind of hard to read since it is so small but it says "Be joyful in hope". In case you are wondering what that weird metal square is in the picture, that is the best part. It is a little 2 in x 2.25 inch frame to make a necklace out of the cross stitch. So I got the chart and frame this morning, and started it this afternoon at nap time. This is about 2 hours worth of work. I don't think I will work on it anymore tonight though, its so small I might go blind from it.

And this is the bit I got done on Autumn this weekend. I actually got more done but had to rip it out again due to it being 5 rows off, grrrrrr! Another thing that is making me slightly nervous (ok really freaked out) is the white banner in the middle is off and I can't figure out why. I started this piece years ago and had put it away for a while, and when I picked it up again this year I just started stitching from the right side of the center circle and have worked my way clockwise from there (does that make any sense at all?). So now that I am three-quarters of the way around something is not quite matching up. I have decided to continue on the outer circle since all those line up with each other, and then if I have to I will restitch the banner.

Mr. Stitcher hopefully gets home tommorow or Thursday from his Grand Canyon adventure. So I will soon have to share my after bedtime stitching time again. I have missed him (3 weeks is a long time) but have really gotten stuff done around the house while he has been gone. Its kind of been like a vacation for me too. But I am glad he is coming home safe and sound this week.

A little bit of progress....

So three more blocks done on the Autumn quilt, I think I will have to add it to my list of "will be dones" for this year. To finish it to a lap size quilt it takes 24 blocks, and they say three jelly rolls but I am starting to think it will take more than that (or I will at least have to add in some fat quarters.
I learned a valuable lesson today while working on it, and want to pass it along to the rest of the quilting moms out there...


"DON'T SQUARE YOUR QUILT BLOCKS WHILE A TWO YEAR OLD IS CLINGING TO YOUR LEG SCREAMING ABOUT HOW HER SISTER WONT SHARE HER POLLY POCKETS WITH HER...YOUR BLOCKS WILL END UP COMPLETELY WONKY!"

Yes the second block from the left is now 1/2 inch shorter than it should be. I am hoping that I can somehow make up for it with my first block which is 1 inch bigger than it is supposed to be. Normally my girls play good together and I can fit in an hour of quilting after school/homework and dinner. But today my two year old decided to be well... two.

This is the bit I got done over the weekend on my Autumn cross stitch. I have almost finished the cornucopia, which I was not looking forward to doing in the first place. I am going to try and finish it tonight and get to work on the back stitching. Mr. Bluestar has been gone for a 3 week rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. While I worry about him (I bet it's COLD down there) it has been kind of nice getting some cross stitching done once the girls are in bed and watch whatever Netflix I want that I know he wouldn't like (Sex and the City season 1 tonight).

Pink Pinwheels update

For the Pink Pinwheels quilt I had my daughter design one of the flowers since it is going to be her quilt. I went out and got plain pink fabric and a fabric marker and told her she could draw whatever she wanted. Its a little hard to see in the picture because the fabric marker was such a bright pink. She loved the idea though, I had to keep her from coloring in the whole petal pink.

And below is the final size of the petal blocks (7x8), there will be three rows of border stripes that go around this though. I have about 10 blocks left over actually so I think I am going to make pillows out of them. I have to say I am a little intimidated by this quilt. When I lay it out all together it looks huge!! I have about half of the blocks still needing flowers appliqued onto them, and then I will have to wrestle it all together. I have never sewn a quilt this big before and am getting worried about sewing everything together. I know my daughter (she's 6) will love it though no matter what it looks like, so that's the good part I guess.

~By the way thanks for the comments on my last post it really helped me make up my mind on the back stitching!

No willpower!

My willpower to not start another project lasted me a week. I bought this pattern last week while out getting more fabric for "Pink Pinwheels" and promised myself I wouldn't start it until I finished at least one of my WIP's. But today while out getting more fabric for Pinwheels (this quilt is taking a lot more black/white fabric than I thought) I saw this jelly roll called "Pumpkins and Spice" by Moda. Fall is definitely my favorite season and I had to have it. This is actually my first time using jelly rolls for a quilt and I am loving the convenience of having the fabric already in strips (cutting is my least enjoyable part of quilting). So this is my first block of the quilt, only twenty three more to go. I'm a little worried though, the pattern said a finished size block should be 10x 10, but after squaring mine up it measures 11x 11. I don't want to cut off anymore out of the outer strip though because then it will be skinnier than the other strips. So I think I am going to leave it until I see what size my second block comes out as and then make a decision. And this is the little bit more I got done on my Autumn cross stitch this weekend. The white banner underneath her will read "Halloween" once I do the back stitching. The cat is also starting to develop. I am debating whether I should do the back stitching on this as I finish each section, or after I have the whole thing done. It is a big piece and if I wait until the end it will be A LOT of back stitching. Also I think it would be better motivation to see each section "done" as I do them. Normally I do wait until I have all the cross stitching done to do the backstitches. Any opinions?

Silent Saturdays?

My first

As I stitched today on my Autumn piece, I was thinking of all the cross stitches I have done (more than a few started and never finished... yes I have my very own box of shame), and how I got started and I wanted to write a thank you. The one above is my very first cross stitch and it is almost twenty years old. It is a journal cover made with red corduroy, lace and of course my cross stitch. When I was eleven we had a Mormon family move in next door to us. My extremely old school Catholic mother referred to them as if they had come down with something possibly contagious. But I loved them, they had three kids and the mom was oh so crafty. She had a vegetable garden (I remember one summer helping her make pickles), and quilted and stitched. My mother knew how to stitch, her own mother did beautiful embroidery and my other grandmother made quilts, but she never enjoyed making things. She also never taught me or my sister how to stitch, it just wasn't something she found fun. But the next door neighbors mom did find it fun, and passed that love of craft on to me. So even though I don't know where she is now, thank you Rose McKuen. It is amazing to me she had the patience to teach a fidgety eleven year old how to make something so pretty and that I still treasure today almost two decades later. My oldest daughter, who is six, has been asking me to show her how to x-stitch, and I am not sure I am ready yet (I already paint with her and that takes up most of my mess tolerance). But I hope one day both of my daughters will enjoy making stuff as much as I do.


This is more of the Autumn piece, I have started the witch in the lower corner (the red will be part of her dress). I think she is my favorite part of the piece so I can't wait for her to be done, she has the cutest black cat sitting on her broomstick with her.

I got my sewing machine back yesterday, so in celebration I spent my whole morning sewing. This is my progress so far on Pink Pinwheels. I need to do 30 more blocks and 256 more petals, but its getting closer to done. After I finish the flower blocks though there are striped strips to add on as the border. It was exciting seeing how big it was getting, this is almost enough for a twin size quilt and I need to get it to a full size quilt.

This is one of my favorite flowers, I love the rose fabric. But I am debating whether to use it. When I laid the quilt out this fabric stood out to much because it is such a different shade of pink. Maybe I will use it for something else if it doesn't get used here.

And this is the bit of cross stitching I got done while waiting for my sewing machine to return. I decided to work on the Autumn piece first since it is the season. But I know I will not have this done in time to display this Autumn. That's ok though its still fun to work on!