Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!! Ours is off to a roaring start, I already spilled bacon grease all over my stove (yuck) and almost dropped the Turkey while trying to flip it over into the roasting pan, man those things are slippery! But while dinner is cooking, I wanted to take a quick second to wish every one a great holiday.

"Thankful" row made it back just in time for Thanksgiving. I am so happy with it. I rarely have things professionally framed, but always love them when I do.
This is "Thankful" among my Thanksgiving display on my piano. We still have the little pumpkins left over from Halloween. And the fall garlands I got for 60% off after Halloween. I love the color they bring into my living-room. All the little crafts next to Thankful are courtesy of my four year old and her wonderful preschool teacher. Someday I will miss having little painted turkeys made from tiny hands.
And this is the gobble-gobble quilt top. Another one that was done just in time. I love the punch of color brought from the bright red binding. Please ignore how clean our couch is, it is old and well loved by snacking children and dirty dogs. But we wouldn't have it any other way. And below is the back of the gobble quilt. I used a yellow fabric with green/red/orange leaves on it. And the stripe down the center is made from left over pieces of the nine patches from the front. Which I swear were in a straight line when I sewed them together, though now they look really crooked in the picture.

Anyways I hope everyone has a great Turkey day, filled with family and friends and lots of yummy food.

Row Row Row your boat

I have been on a Bent Creek Row kick these last two weeks. I finished "Thankful Row" and it is now at the framers. Due back to tomorrow, just in time to be on display for Thanksgiving. And I just started this one, "Winter Row", and again I changed the colors more to my likings. The letters were a brown, and I want them to look icy/frosty so I changed them to a variegated blue. The snowmen are also being stitched in DMC silk to make them look extra chilly, and I am going to but some silver thread into the blowing snow.

In between "Thankful" and "Winter" row, I also managed to finish Autumn row. But have not made it into anything, so it may not be part of my Thanksgiving tableau. I still think it is cute though, and the only thing I changed was the leaves. You know the only thing I don't like about these rows? The photo on the chart has so many buttons attached you can't see the actual piece. Sometimes things look better simple (I know! coming from me the queen of buttons, sparkles and bling!)


And this little peice is a gift that just arrived in the mail today. So cute, I think I am going to have to frame him though as he is too big to make into an x-mas ornament.
Well hope your Thanksgiving prepartations are going well. I have house scrubbing to do tomorrow, and then a full day of cooking planned for Thursday. I am excited to be hosting it this year, but am starting to feel a little under the weather. If I can just stay healthy till Friday! Dayquil/Nyquil/Theraflu here I come. And no I didn't get my flu shot this year, and I can already hear my mother and her I told you so. SIGH!

And the turkeys are in the lead!

So I finished my gobble gobble quilt top today! Yeah for me. I have a super cute idea for a peiced back, i'm gonna use the extra squares from the nine patches to make a stripe along the center. I used a soft corduroy for the sashing on this, to give it a little extra weight/warmth/snuggly-ness. I think it may just be done before the end of the week. I also picked up a pretty orange blendable (or in x-stitch terms "variegated") thread called Candy Apples to do the quilting with. Though the backing fabric is pretty busy so i'm not even sure it will show. But I will know it's there.

And this is my cross stitching for the week. It is a Bent Creek. I'm just not ready to start stitching X-mas ornaments yet. I don't want it to be winter time yet! I changed the colors on this one. Originally the letters were supposed to be in brown, and the vine running through them was also a lighter brown. Me being a color girl couldn't resist changing them to a brick red, and the vine to a nice green. I think it still looks fall-ish, don't you?

Trees and Turkeys

I can't make up my mind what to work on this month. My goal/X-mas present to myself is to have 10 new ornaments stitched for my tree this year. If you remember from last year I only have the one tiny little mouse for my own tree while I have made dozens of ornaments for friends and family. So this is my start on that goal. It is a Lizzie Kate, and oddly enough it is the only one I like out of this chart.


But a part of me is not ready yet to start gearing up for Christmas/Winter and wants to enjoy fall just a little bit longer. We are having such beautiful fall weather, highs in the eighties and nights just a little cooler. It's the perfect time of year for walks to the park and a little work in the garden. Also I hate that all the stores are already bombarding us with Christmas stuff. I really think they overdo on the Christmas holiday season (it shouldn't last two and a half months!) So this little lap quilt is my Thanksgiving quilt. The black looking squares are actually a dark brown.

This is a close up of the fabric that inspired me to start this little quilt. Aren't the little turkeys just the cutest? The red and yellow fabrics have sparkle in them too. I know I can finish the top in time, but i'm not sure I will have it quilted in time for this years Thanksgiving. But I like to work on seasonal stuff during the actual season, so even if it's not done in time I will still love working on it for the Autumn theme. (And Jo-anns had the turkey fabric at 40% off already-yippee).
Halloween Fairy has alas been put aside unfinished. I decided that if I stitched the spiderwebs at her feet with the wrong color thread that it really would bug me for forever and ever and every time I looked at her. So I have mail-ordered the correct thread, and hopefully I will pick her up again and finish her once it arrives.

FALL FUN

This is trick or treat fairy, almost done. I have been hesitating on doing the moon/spiderwebs because I bought the wrong color Krienik, and I can't find it at either of my LNS so I will have to order it which means it won't be done in time for Halloween. The thread I did buy is probably close enough, but if I use it am I going to notice it's wrong every time I look at it? So I am undecided...sigh!

This is the Lizzie Kate "Bless our Home". I finished it this week, it was a cute older one I have been wanting to do for a while. Sorry the picture is so blurry I was using the camera on my cell phone.

Another cell phone pic, sorry. This is another quickee I stitched up this week. It is from Brook's Books spooky little critters I think. Your supposed to stitch it on perforated paper but I HATE stitching on paper I always tear it. Also I don't like to see the back of my stitching (not that it's not perfectly neat it's just never neat enough for me)

This is us carving pumkins tonight. My seven year old worked on hers for two hours!!1 This is the first year I let her carve her own pumpkin, and she did good she still has all her fingers and no stitches needed! Her pumpkin was huge too, at least two feet tall. I made her gut the inside all by herself.


These two are my youngest hard at work on her pumpkin, with much help from mom.

And the next is of me gutting my own pumpkin. For some reason the goop inside makes my hands itch like crazy the next day. I wonder if i'm allergic (but I can eat pumpkin pie by the pound!)We had such a fun week. Tuesday we went to a local pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins. Last night we went to the state fair, where I got my fix of indian fry bread (west coast version of funnel cake but wayyy better!) I even rode a few of the roller coasters with my oldest. And tonight we carved our jack o'lanterns. Fall is most definitely my favorite time of year. Hope everyone out there is ready for Halloween. I just went and bought my candy today, now if I can only make it last until Sunday.

We are a "go" for beading

Today I finished all the "regular" stitching on Trick or Treat fairy. Tomorrow comes sparkly threads and beads. Can I finish it tomorrow? It doesn't look like that much more, just the cobwebs by her feet and the moon then the beads on her dress. I just hope I still have all the beads and Kreinik threads I need. I went and bought them two weeks ago and put them in one of my cross stitch tubs (yes I have enough cross stitch stash to fill several 5 gallon tubs....my name is Stephanie and I am no longer in control of my stash) So I hope they all stayed together, as sparkly threads and beads have a way of growing little feet in my house.

And because yet again I have the attention span of a cocker spaniel, and I couldn't take anymore of Trick or Treats blacks and browns, I started another little project. I needed a fix of brighter colors and cute. So I whipped up this little Lizzie Kate "Bless our home" chart. I just have to finish the border and grass (which I will probably do tonight while watching Netflix (what a thrilling Saturday night!). I want to make a cute little door pillow out of this.

A pillow a pumpkin and a leg

Hooray for me!!! I finished my Halloween pillow this afternoon, even with 1 sick kid and another kid home from school on a half day. My three year old sat with me in the kitchen and pretended to sew along as I worked on this. While the sick seven year old zoned out on the couch to her latest Netflix movie. She's not sick enough for me to make her stay in bed all day, but she is certainly sick enough to complain heavily and expect to be waited on hand and foot for it. I'm just hoping not to catch whatever she has.

This is a close up of the pillow. It was put together with an idea rather than a plan for what it would look like. So I kind of winged it all as I was sewing it together (how unlike me I know!!!) I actually decided to skip the charms, as this pillow's place will be on the couch where it will receive lots of attention from kids and dogs who would just turn the cute charms into a choking hazard.

And this is my little bit of progress on Halloween Fairy. I think I can-I think I can -I HOPE I can have her done in time for Halloween. After the other leg and pumpkin are done then comes the beading and sparkly threads. I'm not sure if that will be quick work or just a pain in the pumpkin!

It's the weekend!!! Hooray

This is my Mirabilia "Halloween Fairy", almost done. I just want to have all the stitching done by Halloween. She doesn't have to be framed in time, but just knowing she will be ready and waiting for next Halloween and can be out and displayed for all of October next year. I have to give a little rave to "Just Cross Stitch & Needlework" on this one. They have earned my subscription! I had seen this pattern several times on other peoples blogs and loved it. Well you can't buy it as a chart, at least not that I found. She was a project in Just Cross Stitch in Sept 2008. I checked on ebay and the going price was about $20 for the magazine since it is out of print. So I wrote the magazine asking if they had any back issues. They said no, but they do reprints for $3 bucks. So I was very happy to save myself $17 dollars on this one.

This is part of my Halloween decor. The middle bat was made by me to frame the Lizzie Kate, and I often get asked if my seven year old made it. Honestly it's made out of felt, sparkly pipe cleaners, and hot glue! But it makes me smile every year when I pull it out.

And this is what is framed inside the bat. It is a Lizzie Kate, and I love the variegation of the threads, especially on the little vampires cloak.


We went to the deer farm yesterday outside of Flagstaff. It was nice just to get out of the heat, and it rained a bit while we were up there. It's still 90 degrees here during the day, and we see rain maybe twice a year so rain and cool weather are super exciting. The leaves were changing up north so it was a nice drive. The deer here are so funny. My oldest literally had a pack of 15 deer chasing her down the trail to get fed. My youngest who is three, was not so thrilled over the pushy deer, even after several Bambi references. After about 30 minutes she finally got brave enough to pet them.

Hello Hello

This is my finish for this month, hopefully this weekend it will be turned into a cute Halloween pillow. Halloween is my favoritist favorite of holidays. This is a Trilogy design, and it came with a charm pack of buttons and charms that I still have to sew on. And of course I ran out and bought extra charms to go on it because you can never have too much bling! I have also started two Mirabilia designs. "Shakespeare's Fairies" and "Halloween Fairy" from Just Cross Stitch and needlework. I will rave about them in a later post as soon as my camera will take pictures of them. For some reason ( I was using my cell phone to take pics) but it cut me off after the two of this project. I am hoping to have the Halloween Fairy done in time for Halloween, she is soooo pretty.

I know it has been a while since I have been active in blog-land. It has been a difficult year. Personally I am going through a divorce and the accompanying move/divying up of stuff that goes along with it. So honestly I have been too sad/stressed to blog. But I have still been cross stitching and now I am starting to see light at the end of this part of my life. I know there must be something better in the future for me, whether that future is alone or with somebody else. And I am still very blessed with all I have, my children, my job (lots of people are still wishing they had jobs these days), my new home, my family who has supported me so much through all of this, and last but not least creativity which gives me a much needed outlet/distraction at the end of the day!

What I lack in experience....

Here is my confession for the day. I will try just about anything once. Which puts me square in the beginner category of most things. I'm OK with that...mostly. As the saying goes what I lack in experience I make up for in sheer enthusiasm! Though I have dreams of being an expert anything, I also have the attention span of a cocker spaniel and am easily distracted.
So my new thing for today is hand quilting. I just finished a table runner for spring, and thought to myself "hmmm it's small enough what a great opportunity to give hand quilting a try". So I just spent the past half hour hunched over on my couch stab stitching about 4 square inches of quilt. I managed to bend my sewing needle in half and also sew the skin of my middle finger to the table runner during that time. I am going to keep going on it, but for today I had to set it down. I feared I wouldn't be able to get my shoulders down from my ears if I didn't just put it down and step away. Someone out there tell me this will get easier! I'm not going to post a pic until it's done, and don't be surprised if the photo of it is oddly blurry.And this is blue bunny finished. I have already made my husband promise to teach me how to use his Dremmel to carve Easter eggs into the frame (the trying new things again) so I am making my own frame for it. Below is my new start. It's Uber Egg, from Bent Creek. I am in a spring mood, so my house is being redecorated as a giant Easter egg since I can't wait for the flowers and green grass to reappear!

Blue bunny

I never finished my blue bunny project, so now that I'm done with Walk in the Woods, I have picked it back up again. I ran out of thread to finish his little bunny tail, so I have been waiting on the mailman to deliver it. I ordered it from one of my favorite shops online, because I didn't want to drive the hour it takes to get to and back from my LNS here for just one skein of thread. I really like the color, but in the chart his spots are darker. So I am waiting to see what he looks like all done to see if I want to change his spots to maybe purple so they stand out more.



I was in a rush on my last post so I didn't get to mention my trip to the Phoenix Sewing expo last weekend. It was OK, it cost $30 bucks between parking and tickets for my mother and me. So I probably won't go next year. They had alot of quilting stuff, but really most of the fabrics weren't any cheaper than my local quilt shop. And I didn't see any fabrics I really couldn't find in my local shop either, so that part was just so-so. But what I did find were these two really cool patterns below. I had my three year old with me, and when we got to this booth full of these awesome dolls, and pumpkins, and all sorts of animals I think both of our eyes lit up. It was hard to explain to a 3 year old why we couldn't touch and play with all the beautiful dolls (it was a little hard keeping my own hands off them). So I bought my two favorite patterns and will be re-creating the awesomeness at home. I am a little worried though as my sewing expertise is definitely novice. But I figure the dolls are meant to look "quirky" so if I mess them up a little it will only make them cuter!

The top picture of the mermaid is by Elinor Peace Bailey, and if you haven't been to her blog its worth it just to watch the clip of her talking about her dolls. She is the cutest artsy funny old grandma lady, definitely the type of woman I aspire to be. And her dolls are so unique/creative/amazing. I so far have not been in to art dolls really, but at the Expo the details on all the dolls literally took my breath away and got my creative juices drooling. Anyway it's not the same looking at them on the computer, but her blog is worth it just for how funny she is.

Walk in the Woods is finished!

Yea!!! Walk in the woods is done! For a pretty large piece it actually got done really quick. Isn't it funny how some projects are just a breeze and then others take FOREVER to finish. I started this the beginning of December. It's all DMC threads without a lot of back stitching which made it an easy one to work on.
This is my Lizzie Kate exchange from Aubree of "For the Love of Cross Stitch". Wow she did such a great job on it. And it was such a cute idea changing the February part of it to say Stephanie instead. Also the finishing on it is awesome. That is my least favorite part of making stuff is finishing them, because mine never come out as perfect as I want them to be. Needle books like this are definitely still above my skill and courage level.
Anyways I love the little needle book and am very excited to show it off in my sewing kit! Thank you so much Aubree.

Mission accomplished!

I am participating in the Lizzie Kate exchange, and mailed off my piece today. It is such a relief to have it on its way! The mailing date was Feb 1st, so I got it done down to the wire. I have actually had my piece finished for a week now, I just really hate the post office. I don't think of myself as a procrastinator, maybe I'm in denial, but it is always such a relief for me to just have things finished.
This is my WIP for the week. I am hoping to have it done for springtime, I love the blue bunny on it. Whats funny though is I didn't use a single color it called for because they all looked so different from the cover of the chart which I really liked. On the cover the letters look purple, but then the threads were actually shades of grey which didn't seem springy at all to me. So I changed everything. Hopefully by my next post my bunny will have a head :)

Rain rain go away!!!

It's been raining for 2 days straight here, with a third day (at least) of more rain expected. And normally I love any kind of weather here (I live in a desert- the land of eternal sunshine). But this week I have been sore and grouchy and tired, and I am blaming it all on the weather. We have gotten four inches of rain so far (which yes to us desert reptiles seems like A Lot) and our 3 dogs are refusing to go out in the puddle our backyard has turned into. So four times today I have been forced to stand in our front yard with them (only slightly less puddley) and yell at each of them to "Go Potty"!!

My husband who got a weather station for xmas though is thrilled with all this weather, I dont think he's talked about anything but low pressure and barometers all week.

OK enough talk about the weather. Besides the grouchy mood (or maybe in spite of) I managed to clean off my dining room table. I now only have four boxes of stuff/debris left to sort through. Which almost seems manageable. What doesn't seem manageable is the amount of WIP's I have going. And whats funny/worse is I actually have more "finished...but not finished" projects than I have WIP's. In the assorted boxes I found 23 finished cross stitch projects ranging from small Lizzie Kate/Bent Creek ones to huge ones that I am done stitching but never framed/made anything out of! They have just been sitting in boxes since I finished them. So now in addition to lots of WIP's to get through I have lots of DBD's (done but not done's) to actually do something with.

These pics are of my first Done but not done finish. I stitched this two years ago and loved the design! I think it is a Dianne Arthur? And it has sat in a box since then, all I needed to do was cut it out (it's stitched on the plastic canvas stuff), and sew the ends together. So in anticipation of Spring (especially this week with this gross weather) I pulled it out and put it together. It's a candle wrapper, I'm not sure if you could tell from the other pics. Anyways 1 down, 22 more to go!

I've got it under control...really!

So this is my work in progress craft pile. Underneath of it is a very nice dining room table, that we haven't seen since Christmas. Also underneath of it is the 500 pieces of dollhouse that my husband is putting together for our daughter. I called in sick from work last night, and literally went to bed right after dinner. Well the extra rest must have done me some good because I woke up this morning with a new zeal for my resolutions. So far I have managed to sort out all my quilting stuff from the pile, and now all that left is my cross stitch (at least 20+ WIP's are buried among this) and my drawing stuff.

Another blog I follow had mentioned "The Fly Lady" on her blog a week or two ago, and after checking out her website and totally being in that place, I have been kind of getting into her whole system of cleaning. The Fly Lady's big thing is to do a little at a time and not to get overwhelmed. Which is exactly what I tend to do, to go all out for a day or two and then be so exhausted I can't/don't organize for another month. I wish I was better at the organizing part, I love reading Spinster Stitcher's blog (she and her dog are SO FUNNY!), and looking at the pics of her perfectly organized craft room. So I am doing a little at a time, and trying not to start anything new until I can see my dining room table again.

This last pic is of a Lizzie Kate x-stitch I did for an exchange that has to be mailed out for February. I figured something Valentines would do nicely, but I changed my mind. I stitched it one over one, and it turned out really small (duh!!!) so I figured I wanted to do something more substantial. Maybe this will get turned into a card for Mr. Stitcher or something. And yes I am ripping out the white edging on it still cause for some reason it didn't agree with me, the brown of the fabric was showing through the white too much. Hope your weekend is off to a great start, and wish me luck keeping this cold at bay!

How are your resolutions going?...or are they already gone?

OK, it's been a busy year for me so far, and I feel like I have barely gotten anything accomplished! I made three resolutions this New Years. The first one was to be healthier (i.e. lose 50 pounds, work out more, and eat less sweets). I have been doing a little better on the eating healthy part (baby steps...baby steps...I must keep reminding myself to put down the Hershey bar!). On the working out part of it I have been running 4 times a week (I've ran 20 miles already this year!) And I've also been using the Nike+Ipod thing to track my runs and am doing a challenge with a friend on Nike's website (I'm kicking her butt...I can't help it I'm competitive). The losing 50 pounds part of the resolution is sad to say kicking my butt though, I don't think I'm fat but I am definitely chubby. I keep losing then gaining the same 5 pounds over and over again. Sigh...I keep reminding myself that I'm not 20 years old anymore, the kids don't care how big my thighs are, and when I was 20 I also had 2 free hours everyday to spend at the gym, now if I did that my family would report me missing!

My second resolution is whats been keeping me so busy, it was to be more organized. And man is it a lot of work to be organized!!! Does the Hoarders show scare the bejesus out of anyone else?! It gives me new motivation to keep on going. I have been sorting through my craft stuff and so far have filled 25 16 qt plastic tubs with stuff. I keep telling myself when it is all done it will be so nice to know where everything and have everything labeled and stacked up nice and neat. I dream of some day have a studio all to my own, but right now I have settled for the hall closet.

My third resolution was to be more creative. And I have yet to figure out the logistics of this one. I can't start anymore projects without blowing my second resolution..so maybe I should focus on finishing more projects. I also want to work on my drawing/painting/making stuff up from scratch more.

The pictures above are my projects for the year. The Love one is a Lizzie Kate design I changed the colors on cause I love the over-dyes. I plan to make a little pillow for Valentines day, as I never finished my penguin pillow for winter and still have my Fall harvest pillow out cause I love it so much and can't bear to put it away for the season. The other pic is Walk in the Woods which is actually almost done, just the bottom border and the nest to finish. And the top pic is of a new quilt top/wall hanging I started that I almost have all together already. I'm not sure I'm loving the colors yet, as they look so different from the one in the book. But the fabrics called to me in the quilt shop so I figured it's a small piece if I hate it I can make it again with other colors.