blue star stitcher

A chicky-quicky

2012-02-12T08:05:00.000-08:00

**Just a reminder- comment on my last post to enter my V-Day giveaway**

Forgive me for taking fuzzy over-exposed pics with my cell phone again. I was just excited to share my quicky finish. It is Bent Creek's "Are you my Mother?" I thought it was so cute, and it only took me about 4 hours of stitching to finish it. I am trying to get a bunch of spring-ish ornaments done to hang up in time for Easter. I found the cutest white shelf at Goodwill for $6 bucks, and it has a towel rack underneath of it that I want to fill with ornaments (who needs towels!) Anyways I changed all the colors on this one of course. In case you wanna know, I used Crescent "Purple Aster" & "Magnolia Blossom" Gentle Art "Shutter Green" & Gentle Art "Nutmeg" and Weeks "Sally's Sunshine" with "Curry" for the stripes on the little chick.

And this is my progress on "Lord's Blessing", I am really enjoying this one and have been neglecting all my other Crazy January projects. I think I am just going to have to get this done before I pick up one of my other bigger pieces.

Love is in the Air

2012-02-09T13:36:00.001-08:00

Well actually its on my back porch! In the form of a flock of wild love birds that love to come and visit my tame lovebird Kiwi-wi. So I thought ala Garden Grumbles, who always has such cool nature pictures on her blog, I would snap a few of my own. Surprisingly the wild lovebirds let me get almost within arms reach of them to snap these photos. These birds originated in West Africa, which is why they are able to survive here in our warm climate with mild winters (it's been in the seventies the past two weeks here, beautiful weather!)Kiwi-wi though only goes outside when the afternoons are warmer, she has an inside cage too. As soon as I put her out in her porch cage she starts calling loudly to her wild friends, and within a few minutes these two are on top of her cage. There is actually a flock of about thirty birds or so that live in our neighborhood, but I think it is the same two that come to visit her each day. I put a dish of sunflower seeds on top too as a treat for them.

This is my progress on Diane Arthurs "Give Thanks", it's stitching up pretty quick. Though my fingers are itching to pick up another spring project. I have not been brave enough yet though to attempt finishing Lizzie Kate's "Spring Alphabet" again, i'm not sure i'm up for the frustration! So it is still sitting in a Ziploc baggy with all the pretty eyelet trim. Would it be wrong to just hang up the Ziploc bag as my way of displaying it?

And now something exciting. I wanted to do a little Valentines giveaway. So here is Bent Creek's Stoneware wishes "Be Mine". I did the "Peace be With You" one last year and loved it. I am including all the threads needed to finish it and some little heart buttons from my stash (the chart I ordered didn't come with Bent Creek's buttons.) To enter my giveaway just leave a comment! I will pick a winner on Valentines Day.

Somewhere out there....

2012-02-03T14:22:00.000-08:00

Somewhere out there my 7th grade home-ec teacher is laughing at me. You see in 7th grade home-ec short-sighted me never imagined I would want or need to know how to sew eyelet trim onto a pillow. In 7th grade the only thing I remember caring about was 7th grade boys and when school would be over with and whether I liked my outfit that day. In 7th grade I laughed at girls who sewed their own clothes or did anything crafty. Now I wish I had paid attention when we were learning how to sew pillows. It probably would have saved me about 2 hours of frustration last night! So after multiple attempts to sew the trim on correctly I finally gave up and stuffed it all away in a bag, and cleaned up all the thread I had ripped out over and over from this little pillow.On a happier note I did find a cute little bunny button at Hobby Lobby, and am quite happy with the little bunny gazing wistfully up at my giant carrot.

And this is my 15th project of the challenge. I originally thought I would be organized and stitch in a very strict order days 1-15 and then start over at day 1. I have quickly realized that is not how it is going to go. I can't do organized, but I can do whims. So each morning I peruse my stitching basket of all 15 projects and pull out whichever one calls to me. I like this one, it is definately top 5. Of course I may be biased towards anything with bunnys. I re-dyed the fabric on this three times! I originally started with Chartreuse (pic on the right) which looked spring green on the cover of the dye box but turned out BRIGHT green on the actually fabric. So that piece got tucked away in my linen box, it might work for a later halloween project instead.

First Finish of 2012!

2012-01-30T13:11:00.000-08:00

YAY ME! YAY ME! YAY ME! Little Happy Dance! Woo-hooo!!!
Ok let me settle myself. This is my first finish from all the projects I started for the 2012 Crazy January Challenge. I like Lizzie Kate's they are cute and small and bright. I found the cute easter fabric at Jo-Anne's, I want to make this into a little ornie/pillow. I also want to find a cute little bunny button for the lower corner of the alphabet. I thought the chick/easter egg buttons would do, but when I got them home they were way bigger than I thought, and I really want a bunny to go along with my carrot. Sigh, so still searching for my bunny button to finish this. And I will just have to find another Easter piece to start on, because the little chick buttons are too cute to stay in my button jar for long.

And I wanted to take another (better) picture of my Bent Creek "Home" piece, so that everyone could see the lovely shading in my letters. I so love the color (Weeks-Moss) I picked out for this. And for once I actually snuck outside in the daylight to take a quality picture. Yay me again! I have worked on my other 15 pieces for the January challange, but nothing to exciting so I will save those for another post.

Ho with a Heart

2012-01-13T06:22:00.000-08:00

Forgive my silly title. It reminded me of Lula, from the Stephanie Plum series. Is anybody else super excited for the movie to come out? Even with Katherine Hiegel playing Stephanie (so wrong, but crossing my fingers she can pull it off)

So this is my day 10 project for Crazy January Challenge, Bent Creek "Home". This last year has been my year for Bent Creek patterns. I changed the colors of the letters, and used "Moss" by Weeks. I really like how variegated it looks on the lettering, which of course you can't see in my dim photo of it. Trust me, and next time I'll use better lighting for my pics. It's hard to get natural daylight when most of my photos are taken after little ones go to bed.

I started another Bent Creek for day 11, The big zipper "Go with all your Heart". There will be no pictures, I hate it!!! It came as a kit with the Perl Cotton threads included. Well I have never stitched with them before. So at first I wasn't sure if I was supposed to separate strands, like with DMC. I tried separating them (didn't work they fuzzed immediately). Then I tried sewing it as one strand which felt like I was sewing with yarn. I also was working on a 28ct evenweave instead of the recommended 18ct linen. So I will be ripping out the first hours worth of stitching and starting again. I also spilled coffee on the edge of the fabric (I know! I know! drinking and sewing I should be ashamed!) So it seems like this project was fated to fail. I still would love to finish this design. Wagapapa is stitching it on her blog, which is what prompted me to finally go out and get it. It looks so cute!
And this is my Day 12 project. A change up from all the Bent Creek, Lizzie Kate "Halloween Rules". I was fretting over what to stitch this on. I actually went out and bought 3 different linens. I wanted a pretty golden color like the linen in the picture. But didn't want to special order it and couldn't find one I liked at my LNS. I actually was putting off starting this because I just wasn't sure what to stitch it on. So I dug through my stash box of linen again, and was lucky enough to find a big enough piece of 32ct Laguna. I have a habit, a bad habit, of saving things for a "special project". I never want to use what I have in my stash, because it's too nice for whatever I am working on. Well this is going to be a big peice, and i really like the design and will probably have it professionally framed. I realized if that's not nice enough to use my stash linen on, probably nothing will be and it will be sold someday by my children at a yard sale for a quarter having never been stitched on by me.

I'm ahead! No wait I think i'm behind.....

2012-01-08T19:02:00.000-08:00

Really I am not sure what I am today. Still trying to keep up with the Crazy January Challenge, and doing a good job on the stitching just not on the posting. So today I present you the last four days of the challenge, plus 1 extra (so technically I think that makes me ahead, right?!?)
First at the top is off of an old Prairie Schooler chart #51 Garden Beasties. I changed the colors on Mr. Snail to a periwinkle purple and his body I am going to do in greens. This was my day 5 stitch.

Next up is another Mirabilia, Petal Fairy. If I can get her done in time I would love to have her framed by spring. I remember Halloween Fairy stitching up pretty quickly so I hope she is the same. I hand dyed the evenweave. I saw a picture online of it done in this color and loved how it made the yellows and pinks in her dress stand out so well. She was day 6, I tried to plan to work on the Mirabilias on the weekends, so I would have more time to give them.

Day 7 was a smaller Lizzie Kate. I wanted to mix in smaller pieces since I promised myself I would not add any new projects into the rotation until I finished something. I also thought about saying I would stitch something from the same designer I finished, but since half my list is Bent Creek I worried that might get boring. I am also going to try and keep them in order to work on, so each should get about 2 days a months if I keep up the 15 project rotation. I know it's a complicated system even for my little brain.

This is what I worked on today, Day 8. Spooky Row by Bent Creek. I love the rows because they are generally quick for me to finish. I hand dyed the linen again, it turned out a little lighter than I had hoped. I was going for a Frankenstein green, and it came out more pastel green. I am hoping once I stitch it with all the dark colors and add a dark frame I will like it a little more.

And this is my +1 day, day 9 started early. It is a Hands to Work design. Another designer I don't stitch too often. I liked that I could personalize it with our names. I have the best boyfriend ever, as yesterday he patiently waited while I spent a very excited hour in my LNS ooohing and aaahhing over all the new designs I hadn't seen since I hadn't been in there since pre-Thanksgiving. So this one was picked out for him. It also edged out another Prairie Schooler design from my list, so I spent part of this afternoon editing my list and will need to get it posted to my sidebar somewhere. Perhaps that can be my goal for next post, I hate fussing with the blogger gadgets.

day 4 Give Thanks started

2012-01-05T07:34:00.000-08:00

This is a Dianne Arthur's peice again, "The Lord's Blessing". Another Autumnal peice. As with the Halloween start hopefully this one will be done in time to hang up for the season. I am stitching it on Aida, which I have gotten away from using, and it is so crinkly and stiff that it's scratching up my arms. Hopefully it will soften up a little soon.

And this is my 5 year old learning how to sew. My oldest made a Hello Kitty purse, and entered it into the state fair last year. Well of course anything big sister does, little sister has to do too. Besides keeping the yarn on the needle, she did pretty good. I had to promise her she would get to enter it into the state fair this year. I think she was a little jealous last year when both mommy and big sister won ribbons, and all she got was a ride on the carousel and some fry bread at the fair.

New Years resolutions

2012-01-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

This is my day 3 project for the Crazy January Challenge, being posted on day 4. I stayed up until the wee hours working on it last night, and by the time I was done stitching I didn't have the energy for posting. It is "Sea-ology" by the Trilogy. Another designer I don't stitch very often. This challenge is expanding my stitching repertoire. I like the color I chose for the crab, I was debating between this one or a brighter red like "liberty" or "Louisiana hot sauce" by Weeks.

So this morning I started in on one of my New Years resolutions. They are pretty much the same as last years: Be more Organized, Be more Healthy, and Be more Creative. I was working on the healthy one this morning. My 8 year old asked if she could ride her bike to school, and I thought I would run next to her pushing the jogging stroller with my 5 year old in it. It's about 8 blocks to her school, making it a 2 mile round trip. Easy workout right? What I didn't factor in was that I normally ride my own bike next to her, and the last time I was on foot while she rode was when she was 5 and had just gotten her training wheels off and I was holding on to the back of her bike so she wouldn't tip over. A motivated 8 year old is WAY FASTER than a wobbly five year old. WAY FASTER!!! So this morning I looked like exactly what I was: a slightly out of shape -sweaty -30-something mom -about to have a heart attack while trying to keep her New Years resolution. By the time we made it to the school I was too out of breath to even say good morning to the crossing guard. But it did motivate me to keep lacing up my Reeboks until I can make it look easy (or I really do keel over in a sweaty mess on the sidewalk). Really whichever comes first.

Day 2, project 2

2012-01-02T19:10:00.000-08:00

And this is Day 2 of the Crazy January Challenge. It's "Thine is the Trick and the Treat" by Prairie Moon designs. I have never stitched one of their designs before, but I saw this last Halloween at the Spinster Stitcher's blog, and loved it. I also love her blog, she is so funny (and her little dog Stewey too). Anyway I figure this will be nice to have in a rotation since I tend to get bored just doing on color, and this is a whole lot of DMC 310.

I hand dyed the evenweave for it last night, and managed to splash a bit on my shirt. So later that evening as i'm changing into my jammies, I am looking at my belly and wondering how I got that huge purple bruise. It took me a few seconds before I realized I had also managed to hand dye myself in the process. I like the color the linen turned out, it's not as blue as the picture makes it look.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone is having a great start to their New Year. Mine started with getting ready for work this morning, stepping out of the shower after washing my hair, and having all the power go off. So today, all day long at work, I have looked like I was out way too late partying. When the truth of it is I was sound asleep long before any balls dropped or fireworks went off. Sigh, hopefully this isn't indicative of the rest of my year.

So I have started a new challenge. Something I have never participated in before. I joined the Crazy January Challenge 2012 Yahoo group. I know, like I need to start anymore projects. I was surprised (well not really) at how easy it was to pick out all the charts I wanted to start. Here is my list, modeled by my elderly black lab.

And here is my first new start of the new year. This is the brand new just released Mirabilia chart "Golden Apples". I have stitched 2 other Mirabilias over the years (Halloween fairy/Shakespeares fairies) but never finished either. Not for lack of enthusiasm for either chart, maybe for lack of skill/patience. You may notice on my list I have 2 Mirabilia's planned to start. Finger's crossed at least one of them gets finished.

Remember last year when I asked everyone what stitching the face "over one" meant on a Mirabilia? Well I am going to be brave and try it on both. I figure it's a small-ish area and DMC thread, so what have I got to lose?

Christmas-time

2011-12-26T09:18:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but a part of me, after having a very wonderful Christmas is just glad it's over. I love Christmas, giving presents, decorating, lights, music, Santa and his reindeer. It is all so nice when its chilly and dark outside to have it be so festive inside. But a little part of me is looking forward to taking down all the lights and decorations, finding homes for all the new presents, packing the ornaments away carefully in their boxes, and taking down the tree. A part of me is looking forward to the New Year and a fresh start and new goals and moving forward from what has been a stressful year with lots of changes (good and bad). A part of me looks forward to spring time, and new gardens, and open windows, and warmth.

These are my very last minute finishes for Christmas ornaments.

These two are of my oldest's ornament. It is from Lizzie Kate's 6 fat men series. Of course with some color changes, and additional beading for his eyes and buttons

This was made for my sweetie. It is a Bent Creek Flair chart. I liked it because it's not Christmas-y so he can hang it somewhere year round. Again, I probably changed every single color I could. I liked the thread I used to border the cloud gave it a silver lining.
And this is my youngest's ornament. It is a San Man freebie. My youngest loves penguins,she calls them penguino's. Anyway we had a great Christmas, I hope your families did too!

John Lennon = persona non grata in my house

2011-12-17T11:47:00.000-08:00

At our house we have been playing non-stop Christmas music since before Thanksgiving. I can't help it, it's so cheerful and there's nothing inappropriate for little ears to hear. Well little did I know that Christmas music, specifically the John Lennon "Happy Christmas/War is over" could lead to a boat load of questions. As it was playing last week I mentioned that John Lennon was killed in December the year after mommy was born. I wish I had never said anything, I didn't think they were even listening. But of course instead, this led to the question of how/why/what happened??? And now every time it plays they re-ask me the whole story and are oddly/morbidly fascinated by it. And it is really hard to delicately explain "crazed gunman" to a child. We have even had to google/wikipedia it, because when I told my 8 year old I didn't know why she told me she was sure Google would know. So now that is the one song I wish they would stop playing on the radio, not that it's not a perfectly lovely song. Also the pic of John Lennon/Yoko Ono that is featured at the top of the wikipedia page on John Lennon, you know that famous one by Annie Leibovitz, while also lovely--not so appropriate for children.

And these two angels are part of the embarrassing number of Christmas ornaments I have started and will never ever finish all of this season. I love the simplicity of the two colors. I am using a Krienik gold thread for their halos/stars/belts, and a navy blue Weeks thread for their gowns instead of the traditional black. The top one is done/framed in a cute little frame I found in a thrift store for $2. The bottom one is an almost done WIP. My goal is to someday do all of them.

I hope all of you out there are having a "Happy Christmas" season.

P.s.... its 64 degrees here in Phx today, so if you can see snow from your window i'm a little bit jealous.

Turkeys Turkeys everywhere!

2011-11-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

As I may have mentioned before, I like to stitch "in season". And this is the season of the bird. We actually already cooked a small turkey last week for dinner, and the left-overs only lasted maybe a week. For Thanksgiving we are going the non-traditional route of a Honey Baked Ham, YUM! The above was just finished, it is off of a larger chart "Harvest Blessings" by Diane Arthurs,(its about 3x3 I think).

And this was my start on Lizzie Kate's November flip-it, which sadly will have to wait until next November to be finished. And I found the cutest little wooden frame for it too. I was a little disappointed this one won't get to be displayed on Turkey day. Of course I again changed every single color I could on it. And as you can see I changed my mind on which color brown to use as the background for the letters, so now I have to rip all the dark brown on the right side out (it came out too dark for me).

And let me just post a warning about these next pictures...they may only be interesting to me but I was trying to motivate myself to finish this one this year. Obviously all that good motivation only lasted 5 days...sigh my touch of ADD struck me down again. I started on Bent Creek's Uber-Turkey and this is where I am at so far. I was trying to take pics every day to keep me motivated to work on it. I remember what a pain the Uber-egg became even though I loved the design and bright pastel colors. So I was trying to get this one done pre-Thanksgiving. I have changed all the colors on it, not sure I am liking my tail feather choices so far. Yet another turkey packed away for next year.

I have already started some of my X-mas ornament stitching, I think I may have even gotten my Thanksgiving stitches done if I hadn't started in trying to get some ornaments done before we put the tree up. I hope everyone has a wonderful Turkey day with the people you love (and stays safe/sane on black Friday).

State Fair

2011-11-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

In October in Arizona the State fair comes to town, and this year we were in it! I entered "Walk in the Woods" by Cricket Collection and won 2nd place.

I also entered my "Harvest of Love" by Lizzie Kate and won 3rd in the pillow category.

My daughter on the other hand took FIRST PLACE woo-hoo! for her hand-sewn Hello Kitty purse she made. Yeah MAYA! My little crafter, I'm so proud.

I am already plotting my state fair entry for next year. And while I was so excited to win a ribbon, the piece that won first place in the stitching category I think should not have won. Is that wrong of me to say? Am I being a sore loser? It was a kit from Michael's/Joann's that was done on 14ct Aida with DMC, while it was large and colorful, it just was not as fancy/skillful as other pieces that were there. I'm not saying my piece should have taken first, it was done on plain even-weave with DMC off of a chart from 1989 I think. But there were a few pieces I saw that were just beautiful, and I wish I had taken some pics of them too. Stitched over one, with variegated threads and also alot of really difficult stitches I'm not brave enough to even attempt yet. So it did make me wonder who exactly they had judging and how I could get on the committee! When we went to pick up our pieces I asked the lady how they chose the judges. She said that most of them were from a local quilting guild (which is close but not the same as needlework). Im still excited to enter again next year though, and I know Maya is too. It's fun to see in person all the amazing stuff other crafters are making. P.S.--the winning piece is the one to the left of my head in the photo.

Anyways we spent all afternoon/evening at the fair, and finally had to drag the girls home at 09:30 at night, way past bedtime! We decided it was time to go home once the Snoop Dogg concert let out. The girls would have stayed till midnight though.

Halloween Hangover!

2011-11-06T10:31:00.000-08:00

These are my two girls Halloween costumes. Zoe was Dorothy this year, and Maya was a princess. I loved both their dresses, oh to be five again. I myself went as a pirate this year, and I almost went as a very naughty pirate. I found a parrot at Goodwill for 99 cents. It was one of those talking ones, but of course had no batteries with it. I bought it anyways thinking it was still pretty cute even if it didn't talk. I got it home and stuck batteries in it and WOW did that parrot talk. It said some things that would make a sailor blush. He actually said about five different witticisms, each one more vulgar than the last. It seems that Polly wanted more than a cracker. Needless to say Polly promptly had his batteries removed, and did not get to attend our preschool trunk or treat!

Now that Halloween is done, I have spent this week putting all the decorations away, and eating my children's Halloween candy. You might think my hangover was caused by all the empty candy wrappers laying around my feet. And while I do feel my teeth starting to tingle with cavities, my hangover is actually caused by x-stitch. I started lots of Halloween stitches, so many they now have their very own WIP box...sigh. I also was forced to admit I started more Halloween stitches than I finished. Instead of binging on candy I binged on cross-stitch.

This is one of the few I actually finished this season. A Lizzie Kate from the "Fall Crazy" chart. I actually forgot to sew the star on her witches wand, so I had to improvise and sew on a little charm afterwards. I also found some cute star sequins at Jo-Anns and added those on too.

This is another Lizzie Kate, off of her "Halloween" chart. I changed all the colors and it is stitched on hand-dyed even weave. One of my litle candy corn buttons broke in half as I was sewing it on. It was my own fault, I didn't want to dig for a smaller needle to sew on the buttons with. I love the little spider button, what a cute idea to sew on his legs.

And these are all my starts-and put away till next years.....The box gets bigger every year. Sigh (and a little of giggle of glee ... I really do love Halloween stitching!)

Trunk or Treat

2011-11-06T09:07:00.000-08:00

For Halloween our preschool did a Trunk or Treat event. It was the first year I had gone (actually the 3rd year our daughter has attended the school though), and I had lots of fun. They do a raffle supporting the school and above is what I made. It's Lizzie Kate but I changed the colors into primary colors. The frame is from Pier 1, and I found it for 5 bucks at Goodwill! I painted the mat a bright yellow, and the preschool teacher had the children put their fingerprints on the wooden part of the frame and then turned them into flowers & bugs. It turned out so cute! And it raised $85 for the preschool which is awesome.

And this is what I won from the preschool raffle. The bag is handmade with really beautiful batik quilting fabric. And the inside was stuffed with really cozy/fuzzy/fluffy yarns. Is it so wrong of me to be inspired to take up knitting? Anyways I was so excited to win this.

And below is my oldest daughter and me (and our ghostie) in the trunk afterwards. I made the mistake of wearing pointy pirate boots as part of my costume and could barely walk afterwards. I also hand-dyed the skirt from white to red. The most impressive part of this is that I managed to not dye anything else in my house bright red!

Excited for Autumn

2011-07-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

This is my first bloom out of the sunflower patch, so excited! Though the seed packets lied in the 6 to 7ft tall claim, mine are only about 4-5ft tall. But still pretty,maybe it's just the heat that is stunting their growth. There is a little bee perched on the bottom left of the sunflower, see him?

These are all my recent finishes. By showing you them here in all their unfinished glory I am trying to shame myself into actually finishing them into something pretty and display-worthy. People ask me all the time how many cross stitches I have hung up in my house. Well i've been stitching for 20 years now, so you would think I have more than a few. But really I only have maybe 15 out on display. I know I have stitched more than that, so in a recent clean up of the craft room I did a count of my finishes, and WIP. I'm gonna take a deep breath now and admit my secret....I have THIRTY FOUR finished/not finished peices stuffed in a bag on a shelf in my craft room, and TWENTY SEVEN works in progress....EEK! So my goal for the year is to get every single finished pieced out of that bag and up on a wall, made into an ornament, or given as a gift by the end of this year. I didn't put all that work into them just to have them sit in a bag. Though most of the joy of stitching for me is in the stitching itself, not necessarily the finished project. I am still pondering a way to hold myself accountable on the finishes. I'm thinking a little sidebar list, where I can cross out the finishes as I go.

And this is my Mount Everest cross stitch. It is a Sandy Orton design, Autumn Sampler, measuring 14" by 18". And it's not solid stitching. It has little designs that are fun to finish, but lots of details and backstitching, and thread changes. So this is the piece that has taken me 4 years to get this far on, and will probably be another two before it's done. I am reconsidering doing the other 3 seasons ( I have already started the Spring Sampler).

On the non-stitchy front this is what has been taking up the rest of my time. We adopted a new bunny, Gypsy. Who so far has done very well with the chaos and children and dogs in our household (I was a little worried we would give new bunny a heart attack).

Also I finished Zoey's door this week. I chickened out on painting Tinkerbell on it myself, and instead found a cute wooden cut out to glue on (like the letters for her name). I also painted a cloud of glitter/fairy dust around her that doesn't show up very well in my pics. I'm just happy she has a door again.

giveaway winner

2011-07-16T12:46:00.000-07:00

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:2
Ok, first things first...my giveaway ( a day late but for me thats almost early!) The winner is #2 Nataly of Nataly's Needle Creations picked by random.org. Which is funny, because I actually won a great giveaway on her blog a few weeks back. So congratulations Nataly, I think I still have your address and will get the goodies mailed out next week.

I have had a fun week, I spent it camping up north out of the heat. We went swimming at a local creek with a great swimming hole and a rope swing. I conquered my fear of heights and swung off the 10 foot high tree branch (if my eight year old can do it so can I) Beware...blinding photo of me in a swim suit clutching a tree branch to follow....yes there was water below me....

So camping was great, the girls had lots of fun swimming, trying to catch fish, lizards, and frogs. We had a resident skunk come into our camp each night, but nobody got sprayed. There was a full moon each night, so even though we couldn't have campfires (due to the recent Arizona wildfires that burned up half our state) we still sat out at night. All in all a great summer camping trip.

This is my latest finish. "August" by Lizzie Kate. I have a huge Autumn sampler I need to pull out and work on, but it's so big I just can't get motivated to even start on it. I know I won't finish it this year, and this is year four of stitching.I still love it though, and can't wait to see it hung on my wall. I'm trying to motivate myself to work on it a bit before moving on to Halloween stitching. It is only July after all!

And this is the rest of what I have been doing with my week (busy week I know!) I painted both my girl's doors. Maya's I think is done, she loves it, purple is her favorite color and she helped me paint the wood letters of her name. Zoey's I am still debating wether to try and paint Tinkerbell on it, or just search for a decal/sticker thing and hope it doesn't peel off in a week.

July Give-away

2011-07-06T00:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes I finally (after 2 years of on and off again blogging) got around to having my own giveaway. But first my fifth of July finish. My stitching mojo failed me last week, and I was struggling to get this one done by the 4th of July for my seasonal decorating. Well I did manage to finish it on the 4th, but it was not framed and hung in my home until today. Overall I like it, the white still does not stand out as much as in the chart.
Now onto my very first give-away! The little pillow is a Bent Creek design, called red-winged blackbird, who is obviously now a red-winged blue bird in honor of summer. I'm also giving away a patriotic chart to go with. It's a Homespun Elegance chart with 4 cute little house/sampler designs. So if you'd like to win, leave me a comment and i'll pick a winner on July 15th.
And this is my next project. I have decided that from here through November it will be all Autumn/Halloween stitching all the time (you can't hold me to this though). So my first project is a Lizzie Kate flip it for August. I have a bunch of Lizzie Kate Halloween flip it block's started also, and a huge fall piece that is this close to being done. This one will probably be the only new project started and the rest of the season will be spent finishing old ones. I love decorating for fall (it's my favorite season), but i'm making myself wait until August 1st to start putting out my fall displays. When you live in one of the hottest cities in America it's hard to stay thrilled about summertime for long. Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July, and is enjoying summertime in slightly cooler climates!

Pillow Project

2011-06-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

This week we sewed pillows. On a whim....well on a four year old's whim who went with me to Jo-Ann's to get more fabric for the goldfish quilt and "discovered" hey they have Tinkerbell Fabric here. She was so cute, she carried the bolt of fabric up to the cutting counter all by herself, and it was almost taller than she was. So above is the finished project, one for big sis and one for little sis.

Big sis got to help with the making of the pillows. She actually did really good. I let her cut the fabric with my fancy quilting scissors (not ready to hand her a rotary cutter yet). I sewed the first line then, and she followed it with a 2nd. She even worked the sewing machine all by herself, pedals and all. So it was a fun little project.

These are the two giveaways I won that arrived last week. Too pretty, I was so excited to see these two packages arrive in my mail box. Marj of the Eclectic Quilter send me the cutest little knick-knack bag, and included a beautiful orange fabric that will go perfectly in my goldfish quilt. So thoughtful.

And Nataly of Nataly's Needle Creations sent me all the awesome cross stitch loot on the left. 3 pieces of linen, 2 great charts, a whole bouquet of thread, and the little sewing scissors (who can ever have enough scissors). So I wanted to say a great big THANK YOU to both of them for brightening my whole week. WOW!

This is my teeny tiny, barely worth showing bit of progress on Red White and Bloom. The white is not popping as much as I would like, but I really want to get this done and hung before July. So I am accepting what I don't want to change and hoping once it's framed I will still love it. If not I'll take it down and re-stitch the white in time for July 2012.
And I know last post I said I also wanted to do a blog give-away since I have been so blessed. So this is a sneak preview, next post I will announce the full give-away. I think I will finish this as a cute ornie with the fabric underneath it, and of course toss in some other goodies with it. So check back later this week. It's triple digits here all week, so where ever your reading from I hope your summer weather is cooler than ours!

Lucky Me!

2011-06-07T10:35:00.001-07:00

Above is my very little progress on Red-White-Bloom. I'm thankful there's still a few more weeks in June to get this one done, my stitching mojo has slowed down a bit on it.

I have been having a lucky week on other people's blog giveaways though. I won Nataly's blogiversary giveaway, of Nataly's Needle Creations. Two cute charts and linen/thread to go with them. Congratulations Nataly on 1 year of blogging. I also won Marj's blog giveaway from the Eclectic Quilter, which was a cute little knick-knack bag in the prettiest blues/pink. Now I think I may have to have my own blog giveaway, since I have received so many wonderful things from other peoples. Details next week (i'll have to work something up first! I have a cute idea in mind).

And this is my oldest stitching away on one of her own projects. It's a Hello Kitty purse, out of a kit from Jo-Ann's. The kit said for ages 6 years and older, well she's eight and let me tell you some of the directions confused even her 30-something mom. But she really liked all the sewing involved, all the pieces were whip-stitched together with yarn, so that was easy enough for her to do on her own.

And these are some pics of my growing garden. This is my pumpkin patch. I have one little tiny pumpkin started already. The bud is a little bigger than a quarter. The vines on these things grown at least a foot a day, it's awesome to watch.

And this is my desert flower garden, lantana and bougainvillea. The hotter it gets here the more they bloom. And the lantana will eventually spread and cover the whole bed, while the bougainvillea will grow up and cover my lovely block wall fence.
And this is a misplaced sunflower growing on one of the fern planters on my porch. In front of the porch we planted a bed of sunflowers (see below), and I think little hands may have strayed and planted an extra seed amongst the ferns. These are the rest of my sunflower seedlings. Eventually these will grow to be 6 ft tall (I hope). They are already growing really quick, they've only been in the ground about a week now.
Thank you everyone who answered my over-one question. I love to look at (ok drool over) everyone else's lovely/gorgeous/sparkly-beaded Mirabilia finishes. But every single time I would puzzle over why/how they stitched the faces over one. It makes sense now, though i'm not sure I am brave enough to ever try it.

Play time

2011-06-02T13:41:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a fabric in your stash that you love so much that your scared to use it? The goldfish fabric above is that one for me. I bought it back in October from a quilt shop I don't normally frequent. And I LOVE it. So much so that I had to remind myself it wasn't doing any good sitting on a shelf, and if I never used it my children would eventually sell it at a yard sale after I was to old to sew. So this has been my playtime for this week, making a small wall hanging with my favoritist fabric. No pattern on this one, I just really wanted to feature the cute gold fish. So I have been adding bits and pieces as I go around the center 3 blocks with fish. On the left panel, the small blue circles have fishy skeletons on them and I did some beading around them last night. (Note to self don't bead before the quilt top is finished no matter how excited over it you are).

And I wanted to say thank you to Daffycat for the email letting me know the issue with my comments. I was pretty oblivious and had read other peoples post about the recent blogger issues thinking to myself the whole time I was lucky I hadn't had any issues yet. So hopefully now my comments will be fixed if you care to leave one. And hopefully someone will have the answer to my "over one" question from my last post. (Maybe the universe was trying to tell me I was not meant to stitch something so detailed and to stick with the simple and cute.)

Red White and Bloom

2011-05-31T12:03:00.000-07:00

So this is three days worth of progress on my Country Cottage Needleworks piece. I am also hoping to have this one done in time for July. I am really liking stitching seasonal pieces this year. The downside of this is that al my WIP's aren't getting any attention because I am moving from one new project to the next. I'm still not sure on this one that the white is showing up as much as I would like, but too late now.

And I have a question for my fellow stitchers, this may be one of those DUH questions that I really should know after 20 years of stitching. But I just don't get it. I have stitched a few Mirabilia pieces (never finished one yet), and sometimes when reading other people's blogs about them they say that they have stitched the faces "over one". Now I know what stitching over one means, but why would they only stitch the face over one? Wouldn't that make it uneven from the rest of the piece? Do you have to double each stitch to make it come out even? Am I the only one confused by this? There is probably some detailed instructions on this on the back of one of my Mirabilia charts, but have I ever read the instructions on anything! And Google just made me more confused. So I am releasing my question into blog-land and hopefully someone out there will know the answer.

"Glory"-finished in all it's glory!

2011-05-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

So my Weeks Beige came in on Thursday. And I just finished up "GLORY" this morning. Now to find a suitable frame for it and get it on the wall before July! I may be hitting the Goodwills next week, it's an odd size to frame, I think about 10"x4". But i'm sure I can find something. I have had a couple previous Bent Creeks rows framed professionally and they came out to about $80 each. While they looked really great, theres no way i'm affording that now without a few months of saving up, so this one will be a home-made framing project. This project only took me about a month to finish up, and the lack of color changes really wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I am glad it's done though. ***And as a RAK if anyone would like this chart (you may even have time to do it in time for 4th of July also) leave a comment and i'll mail it off to you.***

So on to my next project. Here is my dilemma I have too many projects I want to start right now! One is already started, the Clean And Fresh piece. It's actually been started since 2006! And the worst part is is that it's a really easy piece to work on, lots of color changes, bright happy colors, and I love the design. So it should be done by now! Instead I pull it out for a few weeks each year and fumble along on it, until stashing it away for another year.

And this came in the mail with my beige thread. Come on, I couldn't just order one little skein of thread. It's Red-White-and Bloom by Country Cottage needleworks. Another summery/patriotic piece. I even dyed my own linen for it last night. I started with tea, but it didn't come out dark enough to make the whites really stand out. So I did a second round with coffee, and i'm hoping by using three strands of the white it will really pop.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend, I know i'm loving these first few days of summer before it heats up to the surface of the sun here.

P.S..... Nataly of Nataly's Needle Creations is having a blogiversary giveaway on her blog...check it out!

BEIGE: the cruelest color

2011-05-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

This is the latest work on "Glory". Almost done!! Yay.....except for that tiny little patch of beige on the upper right. Do you see it? In between the R and the Y? It would take maybe one more strand of beige to finish it. Its less than 40 stitches! And do you see the empty floss tag at the bottom. The chart said it would only take 1 skein of Weeks Beige. And I can't remember if I used part of this skein on a different project, but I know I am very frugal with my thread. And my two needlework shops are about an hour and a half drive there and back, so it may be a bit before Glory sees completion. SIGH. So frustrated right now.

The rest of my week was pretty wonderful. On Thursday we had a picnic at the park. There were dozens of bunnies out on the grass, and we had the whole grassy area of the park to ourselves (well plus lots of critters). My four year old chased them all over. After dinner we flew kites. And the funny part is how I lectured the four year old not to let go of her kite string, and then she handed it to me and I got her kite stuck in a tree. Bad mommy!
UPDATE: Thank you so much Karen for the offer of more thread. I just went and ordered it online today so hopefully by the end of the week it will be here (and theres still plenty of time to finish before July). I also ordered that Trilogy chart I mentioned a few posts back with the mermaid and crab...it's called Seaology. And FYI Roberta at Cottonwood Lane Primitaves is having a giveaway of the cutest little penny rug...check it out!

Red, Beige, and Blue

2011-05-17T13:55:00.001-07:00

This is my little bit of progress on Glory. Not so bad working in one color, no thread changes at least. I've gone through a skein and a half of Week's Garnet so far. Eager to get this done, and pick out a smaller more colorful project. There is not as much variegation in the red and blue as I would like, but I used the colors the chart called for.

Not much else new this week. Got 5 more zucchini out of the garden. They were huge already, they grow so fast! So I am ending my post with a poem that has applied to my own life so much over these last few stressful months when so much has been "unresolved" in my own heart....

"I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try and love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books in a very foreign language. Don't search for answers, which could not be given now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then , someday far in the future, you will gradually, without ever noticing it, live your way into the answer."

~Rainer Maria Rilke~

Summertime

2011-05-14T15:36:00.000-07:00

I just finished this, and am taking blurry cell phone pics again. But I was so excited to share!! I got this done in 1 week. I changed pretty much all the colors, and added the water at the bottom instead of the hook on the chart (poor little gold fish should enjoy her summer too). I haven't done anymore work on Glory, but since this is done I will have all day tomorrow to work on my red and beige (I have to work up my excitement for that) I have had a stressful week, so it's a relief the weekend is finally here. Last night we ate the first five squash/zucchini out of my garden. Also the yellow Dixie squash is finally blooming, so hopefully soon I will have green and yellow squash for dinner.

I have the attention span of a carrot!

2011-05-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

This is my little bit of progress on GLORY. I have all the letters finished. Which I was excited about until I realized that all I have to look forward to is lots of red and beige. How boring! It will be done by fourth of July though, i'm determined!!!
Though my need for color and cute may undermine all my determination. I had to start something new! And my local LNS didn't have the Trilogy crab piece I wanted, so I went with Lizzie Kate. I started (and never finished) the Think Spring one in March, but since it is no longer spring I am moving right along to summer. Here in the land of AZ we just happen to have never ending summer. I finally caved and turned on the air conditioning last week, it was a HUNDRED degrees out all ready. Makes me dream of cute little sea-gulls on the beach. (Yes i'm pretty sure the white bird is a sea-gull and not an albatross as I was originally calling him)
And now for some pics of my garden that I have been promising. This is a little nest of quail eggs in my front yard. There was a new flock of baby quail out and about in my yard already last week and they are so cute following the mom and dad quail around in a line.
This is one of my pumpkin plants. I think it is one of the Big Max variety. They haven't started to grow vines yet, but seem to be doing well.
One of my tomato plants. I got about 10 tomatoes off of each plant. I am wondering if they will last through summer. They only get morning sun here on my porch. I think this kind is called "Early Girl Hybrid".
This is my zucchini, I have five plants growing. I also have Dixie Summer Squash growing in the same bed. But the squash have not exploded like the zucchini have.
And this is my pumpkin patch again. I love calling it that!! I have my very own pumpkin patch to grow my very own jack-o-lanterns.
And my peppers and lettuce.
This is my inside little herb garden. I have basil, stevia, parsley, mint, and lavender. My girls were so excited when I told them all the leaves from our little indoor garden were edible. I tried making pesto with the basil last week, but it did not turn out so well. I've used the basil in other things though. It just makes me happy to see it grow.

2 more stars to Glory

2011-05-02T10:44:00.000-07:00

I had to take down all my Easter decor last week, and now my walls are empty. I'm debating moving a few of my permanent display pieces around, but kind of really like them where they are. So I am hoping to finish Glory by the end of May, so I can get my Summer/Fourth of July decorations up. I am also looking for a few other smaller summer designs to work on. I really like one by Trilogy with a cute little red crab and a summer/beach scene, but can't remember the name of it. I always work on one bigger piece and then a few smalls. And right now all my smalls are Halloween stuff.

This week was a slower week than last week, luckily. My garden outside is still growing. And my tomatoes are finally turning red. I have two tomato plants with about 10 tomatoes each on them, but it took forever for them to ripen. I also have summer squash, peppers, and a pumpkin patch. I think i'm most excited for the pumpkins, I planted a white variety (Lumina I think) and a Big Max variety which is supposed to make 20lb pumpkins. Hopefully they will last through our hot hot summer here.

Happy Easter! yes yes i know i'm late

2011-04-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

This is my Easter finish for this year. "Uber-Egg" by Bent Creek. I really like most of their uber series, and think I may do their Thanksgiving Uber-Turkey as my fall seasonal project. Somewhere in my counting I messed up on the lower left hand side of the egg, so I have a lop-sided easter egg. It's ok, it's one of those mistakes people notice only if I point it out.
This is my Easter finish from last year, finally framed . I think another Bent Creek piece, but I changed alot of the colors on it. The colors they used looked grey-ish and for spring I really like the purples instead. I hand painted the frame. It was actually a really nice wood frame originally from Target that I found at Goodwill for 99 cents. I was tempted not to paint it it was so nice, but for 99 cents how could I resist a little creativity and the opportunity to pull out my paint brushes!

And this is my BABY, turning eight this year. Her birthday fell on Easter this year so we had a friends party on Friday instead. We made friendship bracelets, and she got a bunch of legos which are her new favorite thing. I kind of like that she likes legos, since they are not so much a "girl" toy. It's also fun watching her read and follow all the directions in putting together all the little cars and houses.

I hope everyone's Easter was wonderful, and filled with all things Spring.

What Happened!

2011-02-22T12:07:00.000-08:00

Actually a lot has happened in the last four months. I have been a busy busy (slightly frazzled) little bee. Besides the usual holidays, I switched shifts at work (we do it every 6 months so that at least is nothing new, moved houses (same city...really less than 3 miles away from old house), remodeled a bathroom (and had to explain to a 4 year old which buttons for what on the new water saving toilet), painted a whole house (if I never see a paint brush again it will be TOO SOON), and ran a half marathon (someone should have better explained to me how far 13 miles really is!!!)

So now my life is just beginning to settle back down. Most of the boxes are unpacked, and the ones that aren't have been hidden in closets. I still can't find any of my craft supplies, but now have nice IKEA bookselves to put everything away in once I do. Don't you hate it when you have to go out and buy something you KNOW you already have but just can't find. Yes I am now the proud owner of FOUR craft knives and 3 hot glue guns. When the end of the world comes I will so be ready...to craft! I've also planted my spring garden and have 2 different kinds of squash, 4 different kinds of peppers, 2 kinds of radishes, lettuce, and tomatoes growing. By the end of summer I should be able to fix myself a lovely salad. Pic's of the new garden, and maybe some of all my x-stitches displayed in their new home in the next post I promise!

In all of this I have been able to start and even finish a few cross stitches. I have my two Easter ones framed and hanging already, I just don't have pictures on my computer yet. This is my next seasonal piece, "Glory" by Bent Creek. I love the patriotic-ness (is that a word?) of it, but am not sure how long i'll be able to tolerate only three colors on such a large piece. Also the threads aren't as veriegated as I would like.

So here's to actually getting back to blogging this year. I like doing it, and LOVE seeing everyone else's work. It always helps me find my next project. Not that I need any more projects! Sigh

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T09:12:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-23T16:52:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-11-08T15:25:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-04T19:25:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-28T19:59:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-23T18:47:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-19T18:42:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-17T11:37:00.001-07:00

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

2010-10-14T17:54:00.001-07:00

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....

2010-02-10T16:25:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-02-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

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!

2010-01-26T18:38:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2010-01-21T18:11:00.001-08:00

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!

2010-01-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

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?

2010-01-13T21:33:00.000-08:00

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.

Merry Christmas!!!!

2009-12-24T20:37:00.000-08:00

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 :(

2009-12-14T10:43:00.000-08:00

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!!

2009-12-09T14:52:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2009-10-31T16:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-21T19:30:00.000-07:00

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!!!!

2009-10-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-10-07T17:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-09-22T18:40:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-09-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-09T18:17:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-09-05T13:55:00.001-07:00

My first

2009-09-03T12:22:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-09-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

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!

An inventory and a VERY lofty goal

2009-08-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

I miss my machine.
They said it should be
done in about a month.
So while it is gone, I have
picked up one of my
cross stitching WIP's.
I have a whole box of them tucked in Ziploc bags in my crafts closet. I keep my quilting WIP's in plastic Rubbermaid tubs in there too so I can stack them all together.
Today though instead of working on anything I decided to check what I have to work on. I am suddenly realizing there
are only 4 more months
of this year left. And while
I keep accumulating new
projects I am slow to get any actually done. The
"fresh and clean" is five
years old, the Autumn piece is about 3 years old, and the "Daughters Love" is over a year old.

They are all pretty large cross stitches. Sorry for the bad pictures of them, I just pulled them out of their bags and hoops to see where I was on them. I wonder if I should start on the one I am closest to finishing or the one that will take me the longest. Right now I have been working on the August piece, which is probably the furthest from being done.

I am doing a little better on quilts, I only have three right now and they were all started this year at least. So my new goal for the year is to finish all six projects before the end of the year. That way I can start the new year fresh and clean. It will feel good to have them cleared out of the closet. I like each of them so much and they deserve to be finished and enjoyed not sitting in a box for another year.

My quilts I want to finish are "spring rose" the pink and green one, "hopping along" obviously the frog one and probably the one I am closest to finishing, it will probably end up as a lap quilt, and "Pink Pinwheels" which will be for my daughters full sized bed. I am starting to wonder if it is crazy to try and finish 6 projects in under four months. But I think starting next year "finished" will motivate me (and hopefully keep me from starting anything new!)

"Spring Rose"

obviously I need to finish some more sashings

"Hopping Along"

I think the official title is Infrognito on the pattern

"Pink Pinwheels"

S.O.S. = Sewing-machine on Strike

2009-08-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

So a little frustrated today, I had all morning to work on my quilt, and planned to sew a few more blocks but my sewing machine wanted to take the day off apparently. I think it is something with the bobbin, every 5th stitch or so was loose. So I spent most of my morning cleaning out the bottom of my sewing machine (ewww how does all the fuzz get in there!) and reading my owners manual for the first time (besides the very quick glance at it when I first bought my machine). I still have not fixed the problem though. The rest of my morning was spent fusing petals on and cutting out more petals.

Flower with mixed petals....

While cutting and fusing petals though I changed my mind on the lay-out, and am going to do mine a little different than the magazines. I think I like the flowers with the petals all from the same fabric rather than doing 8 different petals on each flower. I am not sure and will probably still use the ones I have already done with the mixed fabrics. But I think having it all the same shows off each fabric better.
Flower with the same petals....

Ones with different petals...

The very top pic is the blocks with same petals

Pinkalicous

2009-08-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

I laid out my petals tonight for the pinwheels quilt, with the thought that I would count them to see how many flowers I could make. Well there was so many that I have resorted to just guesstimating (let the petals fall where they may)! I have 20 different fabrics, with about 15 petals of each, and each flower takes 8 petals so.....I have about 300 petals or 37.5 flowers (yes I had to pull out my calculator for that one). A full size quilt takes 56 flowers so I will probably need to cut a few more (about152 more petals) uuuggghhh :( The lighting wasn't that good at my dining room table, it made my pinks look orangey but I tried to divide them up into light pinks and dark pinks so I can alternate flowers on the quilt.

I cut some more petals tonight too while watching my new favorite kids movie "Coraline". Any mother who has ever had a sass-mouthed 6 years old tell them "you aren't my real mother" will appreciate the movie. And yes I am her real mother and have the belly and boobs to prove it! Anyways in the movie Coraline finds another world with a doting "other mother" who is perfect until she tries to sew buttons onto Coraline's eyes. At first I worried it would be too dark for my sassy 6 year old, but it's a semi-scary story told in a very cute/non nightmare inducing way.

Trying something new tonight

2009-08-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

This is my first time at paper cutting, I checked out a book from the library after seeing some amazing ones online. I think the fairy turned out really cute, the moon wound up lumpy though from the glue so I will have to fix it before I hang it. It only took me 30 minutes to do and I didn't even have to read the directions (i'm a visual learner). Just copied the picture from the book, (I free handed it though, no tracing) and cut it out. I think I am most proud though that I avoided any bleeding fingers!

Family

2009-08-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

I am home sick from work tonight, due to a bout of food sickness possibly brought about by husbands cooking. Anyway between swigs of pepto bismo I managed to sew some more squares together for the pink pinwheels quilt. This is only half way done for a full size quilt. To date this is the biggest quilt I have done. But I love all the little pink petals that have yet to be sewn on, you can just see the one I did in the top left corner.
Last night my sister came over. Her and my mom have never believed in the saying "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all". I think saying something nice might actually burn their tongues, or at least give someone else a heart attack. So I had just finished cleaning the kitchen, and she still found something wrong (the bamboo plant by the window didn't have enough water). Then on her way out she saw the little bluebird pillow I had made, and I proudly told her I just finished it. But instead of saying how cute it was she told me it was too fluffy for a door pillow. If I didn't already know that this is just how she is it would hurt my feelings. Instead I am just amazed how they never find something nice to say. I guess you can't change your family though, and have to just love them how they are.

There were directions?!

2009-08-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

This is my latest fresh start. It's out of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine June 05 issue, it's called "Pink Pinwheels". And the little girl in me adored it at first sight, so I am making it for one of my own little girls. I have a bad habit though of looking at the pictures more than I look at the directions in all the wonderful quilt magazines. So my first mistake was not paying enough attention while cutting out the petals. Half my petals go one way and half go the other, so I divided them up into separate "flower" piles and will just say it was inspired by nature, no two flowers alike. My other mistake is in the picture on the left. Somehow during my frenzy of cutting I missed a selvage so now have the fabric name included in my quilt (but why would the call such a pretty pink "basic gray"?). We went to the quilt museum in Paducah Ky last summer (AMAZING!!!), and there was this gorgeous Amish grapevine quilt. The little note next to it said the Amish always included an imperfection in their quilts because only God could make perfection. Well the imperfection in their quilt took me twenty minutes to find (one tiny missing grape that didn't even look missing). But I like the idea that life is never perfect, so a quilt shouldn't try to be either!

Another confession

2009-08-12T23:27:00.000-07:00

This little pillow (finished about 15 minutes ago) took me 3 hours + to make! Math was not my strongest subject, and I had to re-cut and re-rip every little seam in here at least twice. You wouldn't think it could be that hard. So now this little pillow is proudly hanging on my front doorknob (bluebird of happiness) where I know little hands will be yanking and tugging at it by early morn tomorrow. But for tonight it is a clean and finished project, by next week it may very well be a doll pillow or at worst a doggy's chew toy.

My favorite time of year

2009-07-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

My favorite time of year is right around the corner. I love Autumn, kids going back to school, fall leaves (though not where I live), cozy fires at night, Halloween then Thanksgiving. I wish I lived somewhere you truly got to experience all four seasons. So in honor of my favorite season I have already started my fall decorating. I finished this pillow in less than a week, it has tan corduroy around the edges and on the back a really cute pumpkin fabric. I have explained to my two children that this is a "special" pillow and is not for letting the dogs lay on, or for drinking juice over or for wiping messy hands on. I figure that should keep it safe for about a week in my house.

1 finish and 1 new start

2009-07-24T15:08:00.000-07:00

I finished the "faith" piece, and found a cute (and cheap) Ikea frame to put it in. Its hard to see all the white in the piece, I guess the daylight was too bright for taking pictures in, but inside I kept getting glare off of the frame. I started an autumn themed Lizzie Kate piece, its small so I am hoping to have it done this weekend (fingers crossed) I love the variegated thread from Weeks on the pumpkins. Fall is definitely my favorite time of year, although where I live there is no such thing as "seasons". Its likely to be 100 degrees still on Halloween. I also bought a cute Halloween witch ornament with lots of sparkly Kreinik thread, and a big mermaid chart. I have promised I wont even start that one until I have finished one of the big projects I already have in progress. I have a big Autumn one, its kind of like a big collage so I have been working on it in sections, I have the Daughters Love piece for my oldest that just needs the background done and then back stitching, and then I have the Fresh and Clean piece which is almost 80% done. I could probably finish it in a month if I worked on only that. But i'm not that motivated because of how expensive I know it will be to have it framed!

Is it wrong that I didn't want to add a new post because I enjoyed looking at the picture of the finished piece on my last post so much?!?

WoooHoooo!!!!!

2009-07-11T12:57:00.001-07:00

It is finally done!!! And will be delivered this afternoon to its new home!! I am so happy to be finished. It was a little stressful having this deadline hanging over my head, and also always the question of "will they like it/will it turn out ok?". But I am very happy with the finished product and think they will love it too. Now I can resume working on my many works in progress and also not feel guilty about spending my night hours quilting instead of cross stitching. The picture on the left is a little blurry due to my six year old being the one snapping the pic but it shows how happy I am to be done!!

More froggies

2009-07-02T01:19:00.000-07:00

I did four more frogs today and also finished the three I didn't have the stuff to finish last night. It's about 1 am in the morning and I ought to be in bed (my kids get up sooo early!) but this is the only quiet time I have in my house. It's funny looking at the picture alot of the frog bellies don't stand out as much as I hoped they would. Maybe my next four I'll go brighter on them.

We made a trip to Joann's today to get the fusible webbing, and of course found more frog fabric. But the find of the day was the cutest Halloween fabric. I have one other small wall hanging to do and then I think I am going to try my hand at designing **that would be making up as I go along***my own Halloween quilt. I think it is my favorite holiday of the year, its fun to dress up and decorate the house with all the spooky stuff.

Hopping Along

2009-07-01T01:10:00.000-07:00

I actually cut and sewed eight frogs tonight but I ran out of fusible webbing so the other three still have no legs. I am actually not sure I like that the legs are just glued into place, but hopefully the quilting will hold them in place. It took me about three hours to do these tonight. I would say there was a lot of sewing and cutting involved in each square (9 separate pieces to sew together) but it could be I am just slow. It is fun getting to play with the different batiks though for the frogs skin. I normally avoid that section of the quilting store for some reason.

Ribbit!! Ribbit!!

2009-06-27T02:12:00.000-07:00

I escaped yesterday to my local quilt store and found this frog-tastic new quilt. I just had to put together one block last night, it was to cute to wait. The design shows 3 frogs made out of each fabric, but there are two many different batiks that would look great as a frog so I will be making all of my frogs out of different fabrics. Also the design says to paint the eyes on with fabric paint, but I am thinking I will try and find some cute tortoiseshell buttons for the eyes. Anyways very excited to have yet another new project in the works. I am still working frantically now to finish "special delivery" as my goal was to have it done by the end of June. Did I mention I had also picked up 3 new cross stitch charts. I need to wear a sign around my neck that says please don't sell me any new charts when I go into my local needlework shops.

Almost Done!!!

2009-06-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

Yeah!! Almost done with "special delivery". I only have the backstitching and a few feathers to add in. And of course the babys eyes to stitch in, I am going to do them the actual color of the babys eyes even though the chart calls for brown. Also on my own project "Faith" I am close to a finish. I just have to do the white outline, a few more words and little flowers on the stem and I am finished. I made myself promise I would not go back to the cross-stitch shop until I finished some of the many wip's I have at home. After these two I am going to try and finish my "spring rose" quilt top. I want to have that one professionally quilted (#1 I want to try a fancier pattern for the top, #2 I dont want to machine stitch it and #3 I definately dont want to hand stitch it). But I have never used a professional quilter to finish my work, so I am sure it will be an interesting challenge finding someone and then turning over a project to them that I have put so much of my work and love into.

Almost Done

2009-06-12T01:43:00.000-07:00

Special Delivery is still coming along as slowly as ever. I hope and plan to have it done by the end of June. I have been feeling yuck for most of this week, so have only worked on it twice. I have also stopped working on any of my many other projects. I just want to get this one done!!

I don't like it!!

2009-06-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

So I spent four hours yesterday cutting and sewing pieces for the mermaid quilt, I was very motivated and had gotten myself a new rotary blade so it was much easier. But then last night when I laid them out on the floor they just weren't right. There were just too many colors, and while the original had a cool 70's vibe going mine just looks more like Florida retirement home tropical (the bright turquoise and greens did it). So I think I am going to only use one of the batik prints against the turquoise tie dye fabric and then do the mermaid in a dark navy with variegated thread outline and maybe some beads thrown in. I just have to find the motivation for another day of cutting out little tiny pieces. I'm not a detail/precision person more of a a throw it all together and see what happens, so rotary cutting kills me. Anyway I think I will have to set it aside for a moment and try and finish special delivery, I am so close and just want to have it done. Hopefully the next post of "Special Delivery" all I will have left to do is the outlining.

One hour

2009-06-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

So this is what an hour of my day looks like. See those two tiny blue squares on the left side. Yes it took me an hour to do just those two. In my defense I did iron all the other fabrics you see in the pic, and I also had one hitting/biting toddler with a tattletale for an older sister to deal with. But still I must admit I am a much better cross-stitcher than a quilter.

Yes I started ANOTHER project, I don't even want to think about how many I have going right now, they will never all be done!! This one was inspired by someone else's blog and I saw the piece and just had to make one of my own. I was reading QuiltDads blog (yes a man who is crafty!) and he was part of a quilt exchange and received a beautiful doll quilt with all these awesome oceany blues and greens and a mermaid! I couldn't resist the mermaid. And also in some dim part of my brain I thought hmm a doll quilt that shouldn't take too long.....I am on hour one and have only two measly squares to show for it.

Part of why it took so long today is that today is my "zombie" day. I work night shift so on my weekends I switch back to sleeping at night by just staying awake for almost 24 hours on my last day at work. Its not pretty. Think jammies with really bad hair. I really needed to replace the blade on my rotary cutter today (would have made this all go much quicker) but couldn't muster the energy to shower and dress so a trip to the store was out of the question. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be switched around to daylight hours and can venture out into public again.

The thrill of a fresh start!

2009-05-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my husband had off work, so we drove out to our local Ikea store for lunch and some shopping and then found this really cool needlework store that was way on the other side of town from us. I guess I should be glad there's not a really cool store right down the street from our house cause then I would be broke (or having to work there in exchange for cross stitch charts!) Anyways I hadn't been there before and there is nothing as exciting for me as getting to see all the beautiful designs actually stitched in person. The one above was a shop model and the pinks and greens were beautiful. The picture on the chart doesn't do it justice. So I started this one at work last night instead of working on "Special Delivery". Another cool thing about this one is it came as a semi-kit with all the threads needed included, so I was happy about that. Plus this new store carries Crescent colors threads, before I was having to find replacements out of Weeks or Gentle Art threads. So all in all I am very excited to have a new cross stitch shop to visit here in town, I love just going to look at all the beautiful pieces on display. If you live in Phoenix the shop is called Attic needleworks, and the other one I frequent is Needler's Nest. If you know of any other good shops let me know.

Devil in the Details

2009-05-28T12:50:00.000-07:00

So I worked on finishing my July snippet all morning, only to have it end in disaster. Well not total disaster, but a lot of work only to have it come out wrong. If you notice in the pic the top block looks crooked compared to the bottom, that's because theres one to many squares on top, so the whole top will have to be ripped off and re-sewn. But not today, this little mess killed my motivation to continue. So instead I have painted my nails, and caught up on everyone else's cute cross stitch blogs. At least I have a whole month ahead of me to finish this piece.

July Snippet

2009-05-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

I am almost done with the "July" Lizzie Kate snippet. I liked how the June one turned out so much, I couldn't wait to do this one. I will probably have it done by tommorow. I have only been working on it two days so far. I found fabric to finish it with today, I just want to find some star beads to do the outer edge with now.
I have been working on "Special Delivery" too. I would guess it is about 40% done. I will try and post another picture of it with my next post. It's still not as fun to work on as the Lizzie Kates, especially with an August deadline looming over my head.

It only looks like progress...

2009-05-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

Since I finished my Lizzie Kate I have been forced to go back to working on Special Delivery. It looks like I have done alot cause I haven't posted a pic of it in a while. But actually it is moving very very sloooowly. I'm also running out of colors to do on it. I finished the blue tag and just have few more leaves to stitch and all the rest is browns and whites and greys. This was much more fun to stitch the first time. (The baby looks a little freaky without eyes, I may have to do those next)

bzzzy bee!

2009-05-14T21:12:00.000-07:00

I finished my Lizzie Kate snippet!! It turned out so cute I think. I found the perfect bee fabric in a quilting store, actually bought 3 different colors of the same print. I cut out circles from the yellow fabric and fused/stitched them on top of the green fabric.
And my bee charms off of ebay arrived today. I also changed the french knots I had for the flower centers into just a backstitch, the knots looked too messy. The only part I'm not happy about is the bottom where I had to hand stitch it to close it off. I have yet to figure out the invisible stitch (where the stitch is hidden inside the seam) so it looks sloppy to me because the thread shows on the outside.
This will probably wind up as a wall hanging above my calender. I'm thinking of doing the July snippet and finishing it the same way. Except instead of bees, I would do a striped background with blue stars in the circles.

99.9% Finished

2009-05-12T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah! I finished my Lizzie Kate June snippet. I ordered little bee charms yesterday off of ebay, so I am waiting for those to arrive to sew it into a little ornament. Instead of the buttons that came with the chart I did french knots for the flowers center, I figured buttons and charms might be too much.

I also worked a little more on "Special Delivery". I'm not going to work on anymore projects until I get that one finished. I may go into color withdrawl though with all the neutral colors in that one, I love the brights (hence the Lizzie Kate addiction!)

More Wayward Progress

2009-05-10T16:34:00.000-07:00

So I did work on "Special Delivery" a little bit more last night (a very little bit)! But then of course went right back to my snippet. I am almost done with it, so exciting! I don't like how the blue looks behind the word June though, so I am sending my other 1/2 to the cross stitch store tommorow to pick out a new shade of blue. Its right next to his work, and I would go myself but its a 45 minute drive each way. So I only go when I am hunting for new projects, all other times I send him with a list of what threads to buy. The ladies there actually know he's there for me its too funny. You can kind of see the blue thread I was supposed to use in the upper right corner of June , it barely shows up. The piece was supposed to be stitched on tan fabric, but all I had in my fabric stash was blue and I was a little too eager to start this piece so I went with what I had. I thought about maybe doing a grass green instead of the blue behind June, but the piece already has a lot of green in it. Anyway can't wait to have it done and finished. I am going to the quilt store tommorow to look for some cute bee fabric to finish it with.

Progress on all the wrong projects

2009-05-09T15:29:00.000-07:00

I got a little bit more of the Lizzie Kate "June" snippet done last night at work. I haven't even looked at "Special Delivery" though. I'm thinking instead of stitching the bees on this one I am going to try and find some bee buttons or charms to attach. I am going to make this into a little ornament pillow thing, and finish it with either sunflower or bee fabric. Nice and summery. Tonight is a ten hour night at work so hopefully I will have some down time to work on "Special Delivery". I worry I am going to keep putting it off until right before the baby is born and then be stuck stitching 24/7 (which is never fun when you HAVE to do it).

2009-05-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

This is another "will be done" on my list that i'm hoping will actually be done by June. I love Lizzie Kate stuff, the bright colors make it so much more fun to do. I also worked a little more on "Special Delivery", mostly on the leaves. The green is a nice change of pace from all that white. I mostly just want to get it done so I can go back to working on my own stuff.

my first post

2009-05-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

This is my latest work in progress, I have already completed it once for my own daughter and now am doing it again for a friend. I forgot how many different shades of white there are in it!!! But i Y the little babes tiny feet and toes.