We are a "go" for beading

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

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

A pillow a pumpkin and a leg

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

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

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

It's the weekend!!! Hooray

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

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

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


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

Hello Hello

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

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

What I lack in experience....

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

Blue bunny

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



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

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

Walk in the Woods is finished!

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