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?