First Harvest

Here are my wee bits of progress on my two favorite stitches right now. I am hoping I can keep momentum on these and just get them done! Well at least the Witch's Hat, the other one still has 4 more pages of stitching to go. I changed the border on the Witch's Hat, in the magazine they used just a basic orange. I have had this Week's thread in my stash for a while with nothing to use it on, and I thought it fit this piece perfectly. It is called Jack o'lantern. 

And this is what I am really excited about this week. Our first summer harvest out of our garden. We picked 23 squash/zucchini last night. Some of them had already gotten as big as my little one's legs. When they are that big they aren't really good for eating, but still pretty amazing to see. We planted yellow squash, zucchini, cantaloupes, strawberries, and sunflowers this year. So not a huge crop but still a lot of fun to see things grow. When we were piling the squash in the basket, my shepherd kept trying to sneak them out. She managed to eat several pumpkin rinds last year, so I am glad we fenced in the garden to keep her out.

Peeling Potatoes

Above is my progress on "Thine is the Trick or the Treat" for the week. I added a witch, who's stitch count seems to be totally off somewhere, and I am not sure if it is me or the chart. I have heard from other bloggers that there are issues with the chart, and I did have problems with the pumpkins in the top center. I kind of figure as long as the witch fits in her designated circle that I am okay. It's funny how different the color of the linen is in each photo. The one on the left was taken outside in daylight, but the color of the second one matches the actual color so much better.

 And this is what I meant by peeling potatoes, instead of stitching I am spending my week winding thread, lots of thread. 2 gallon ziplock bags full of thread needing to be carded and organized. This has all been sitting in a craft drawer for weeks...ok maybe months...and maybe some of it years! And each time I get a new chart I run out to the craft store and buy a whole new skein of thread, when I probably already have it if I could only find it. So in the long run this is saving me money that I can later use for more charts or better linen instead of thread. It is just SOOOOO TEDIOUS!

And below a little bit of progress on Witch's Hat, one more sunflower added in.

Happy Mother's Day!

So this is what I have been working on this week. Witch's Hat out of the Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue from 2012. This is only a week's work of progress. If I could only keep my momentum think how many projects I would actually finish! I hand dyed the fabric on this too, and really like how it turned out. 

And this is the other project I have been re-inspired to pick back up. I would like to thank Sandra of Stitching in Sunny Cal for the motivation to do so. She is stitching it too, but she used the prettiest purple variegated thread (check out her blog it's awesome!). I actually commented on her blog about how much I liked her project, and when she answered me she asked "isn't yours done already?" Ugggh no! 

And this is how I spent my Mother's Day. We drove north up to Sedona for the day. The first hike we did was Bell Rock Trail. We hadn't done this one before and got there a little before noon.There was no shade on this trail and it was sooo hot. We made it to the base of the mountain and headed right back for the car.   And then we headed to our favorite trail by Oak Creek. It runs right along the creek and is shaded because it runs down the middle of the canyon, and was about 20 degrees cooler than the first trail. At the end of it you can wade in the creek. Our family is pretty out-doorsy so spending Mother's Day out hiking was pretty close to perfect for me. My girls and sweet husband were also sweet enough to get me some new linen and threads, boy does my family know the perfect presents for me.

 I'll end with a shot from my garden this morning. This is a blue Hibiscus I have on my porch. It is really hard to keep Hibiscus here since they are tropical, and well I live in a very dry very hot desert. Anyways I love how delicate they look and such a pretty color. I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day too. I think my wish as a mom (and probably just like every mom) would be that my children could stay little and sweet just like they are now. My oldest turned 10 last month, and I can't believe a decade has gone by so fast!

Whew! I have been a busy girl!

I know! I know! I have disappeared from blogging for two whole months again! But I have some really good reasons for it. I got married in March (that's me in the photo~the lady in white with the flowers). After that we spent a week in Disneyland. Sigh, I didn't want to come home we had so much fun! Anyways as soon as we got back it felt like it was right back into work and school events and everything else, and I just haven't had a spare minute to sit down and blog.

Just Married!

Honeymoon in the Happiest Place on Earth! 

This was my little "something blue" for the wedding. I hand stitched our names into the ribbon that went around the bottom of my bouquet. I really like how it turned out, and it's a nice memento from our wedding.  The other crafty part of my wedding was hand-dyeing my dress. Yes, you heard me right I dyed my dress the night prior to my wedding in a soup pot in my kitchen sink. Just the underneath layers of all that tulle and fluff. I dyed them a pretty baby pink. You can kind of see it in the photo below. It was a little nerve wracking, thinking if I ruined this dress where on earth was I going to get another one the night before my wedding, but I was super happy with how cute it turned out!

I have been a busy stitcher too! I just finished my piece for the Seasonal Exchange. I can't show it yet, as it hasn't arrived at it's new home and I don't want to spoil the surprise, but lets just say I liked it so much I wanted to keep it for myself. One thing I love about this exchange, is that you don't have to mail out pre-season. So if it is a spring piece you are stitching, you normally don't have to send it out until May or at the end of spring. I know it's not as much fun to have to wait a whole year to display whatever you receive (and really how many of us wait?), but it makes it more fun to stitch spring while it actually is spring instead of in the middle of winter. I also received a beautiful exchange piece from Alison of Stitches of Time. It is a blackbird design from the Stitcher's Journey book. Isn't the pink tulip just perfect for spring?

So ready for spring

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:8

The winner of my little Prairie Schooler giveaway from my last post is Tricia of The Stamper's Stitches blog. Congratulations Tricia! I had to use the random number generator gadget instead of my usual way of letting Karma pick a name out of the hat, because my little parrots unlike me, don't get up before the sun. 

 And these are the two little ornaments I have been working on this week. The above one is from Just Hatched, I loved how the flowers/chicks matched the larger PS chicken piece I just finished. And below is another little chick ornament off of the Bunnies and Chicks chart from my giveaway. It has been so cold here I am longing for warm spring weather. I have my spring wall almost completely done up, just waiting to get my new finish back from the framers and I will post some photos of it.

You guys were right!

~DONE!~

2 days ago--almost done

Oh my, this was the very last thing I wanted to work on this week. But thanks to everyone who commented on my last post I can now add this to my "FINALLY FINISHED" list for the year. Thank you for all the motivation. And honestly it really did take me less than two hours to finish all 24 chicks wings and sew on some seed beads for their eyes. I am excited to send this off to be framed this week, and hopefully have it back and hanging for my spring wall. Yes, I have a wall in my dining room that I switch out with seasonal decorations/stitching every few months. This will be perfect for spring into early summer.
 Today we are off to the book fair. Every February they hold a huge book sale at our state fair grounds. Sunday is half off of everything, and I always find some great crafting books and cross stitch charts while i'm there. The only part I don't like about it is man do people get pushy over tables piled with books. But I still love going. People camp out in the morning waiting for it to open, on Saturday they have rare/hard to find books. But they also have paperbacks for 50 cents and normally I get most of my charts for a dollar. Anyways it's something exciting to do on a lazy Sunday, and I so look forward to it every year.
And in honor of my recent Prairie Schooler finish I thought I would have a little giveaway. I am trying to collect all the PS charts slowly but surely (I think I maybe am at about 40% right now), but sometimes I am not so organized and wind up with two of the same chart. This would be one of those charts. It is "Bunnies & Chicks #121". I stitched the little bunny last year into a cute ornament, and do love the designs on this chart. If you would like my extra copy (and perhaps some other stitchy extras thrown in) leave me a comment. Hope you all are having a great Presidents Day weekend, i'm off to buy some books!

Why do I do this everytime!

So this is my two weeks worth of progress on Prairie Schooler chickens. I have made a good bit of progress, but do you know what I do when I am steaming along on a piece and coming this close to finishing? I suddenly lose all motivation to finish and every other WIP in my basket starts calling my name. So even though I only have some little chick wings to go on this one, and even though it would probably only take me two hours of stitching or less to actually finish this one I suspect it's just getting farther away from being done. One of my favorite things about spring here in the desert is stitching outside in the sunshine. I have been doing lots of that this week, it is so much easier on my eyes to have natural daylight. Also it's been so nice here all week, in the 70's during the day. I take our two parrots out on the back porch with me and love watching the wild lovebirds (tiny bright green parrots) come to their cage to visit. I had a few people ask on my last post what chart the chickens piece was from. It's the one on the left,"Village Green". I love how Prairie Schooler has so many different charts that coordinate so well with each other. I want to stitch the little chick ornament off of "Just Hatched" to go with my bigger finished piece.

A long winters break

I know! I know! I haven't blogged in quite a few weeks, but I have been a busy stitcher. And runner! Above is my girls and I this past Sunday. I ran in the Phoenix PF Changs half-marathon (for those of you that don't know that is 13.1 long long miles). It was awesome! The girls made signs and cheered me on. 22,000 people ran the half marathon with me. I came in at just under 3 hours (a pretty slow pace I admit, but hey I was there and I finished). It was so much fun, but a lot of my cold winter nights were spent on training runs after work in the dark...brrr. I am glad it's done, but am tempted to sign up for the next one in June just to keep my healthy momentum going.

So this is what my stitchy fingers have been working on. Three projects at once, all spring related. I did a little winter/Christmas stitching, but didn't actually finish anything. It was so cold here at the start of January that I found myself yearning for warmer spring weather. I have no right to complain really, our lows are in the high-40's but for me that's COLD! Above is my start on a Prairie Schooler. I love the pattern of chicks on either side.

This is Cricket Collection. I liked how they sewed on the wording in a different color linen. Also we get a bunch of crickets here in the summertime, and I have always loved to hear them chirp at night.

And this is my last. A Bent Creek zipper kit. I have a big square in the middle of my bunnies head because that is just how I stitch! I get bored with big areas of the same color so instead of working in rows, I wind up working in more of a wandering pattern. I try and stitch "pretty" but sometimes when I am stitching just for fun and I know no one else will ever see the backside I like to do it my way.