A long winters break

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

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

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

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

Black Friday

It truly is Black Friday at my house today. We are busy cleaning up from yesterday's feast and putting away all the Autumn decorations, and I HATE IT! I don't want the season to end, I don't even want to decorate for Christmas yet. Even though I do love putting up Christmas lights and hanging ornaments on the tree. I'm just not ready yet, I need another month of fall!

I took some photos of the Autumn/Thanksgiving decor before putting it all away. This little turkey is off of a Dianne Arthur's chart "Harvest Blessings".

This one is of course a Bent Creek "Thankful Row" I love the red lettering and the vine behind it.

This one I am not sure who the designer is, I purchased it off of ebay. It came framed already, and I love the little pumpkin on the corner of the frame. If you know the designer i'm all ears?

This is of course a Lizzie Kate design. These square IKEA frames are great to pop in little seasonal designs. I have two or three that I just rotate my smaller stitches in and out of.

This one is "Autumn leaves", a pretty quick design just using DMC thread. Since our leaves don't change color here I like to pretend still. And really it's what leaves, we have palm trees and cacti!

Slow nut to crack!

Still dragging along on this one. I like it, I do. I just have other stuff I want to be working on, but i'm determined to finish this first. Fingers crossed it will be done this weekend. My other projects that are calling to me to work on before Thanksgiving are Bent Creek's Uber-Turkey (i'm about halfway done) and I want to start Bent Creek's Gobble. I always like their seasonal charts, and I love putting up different cross stitch for each season.

We spent our Veteran's Day exploring. We drove down to Tucson and on the way stopped to check out the cotton fields. We don't have as many cotton fields up around Phoenix, so it was neat to see it and tell them how their grandmother used to pick it by hand for like a nickel a bag.

I knew they were my kids, when the found seeds inside the puffs and were excited over "all the money we will save stuffing pillows if we grow our own cotton!!". So we are going to try, not sure if we will actually get any cotton out of it but it will be neat to see if the seeds even sprout.

Being an Arizona girl at heart, I like to "visit" winter. I wouldn't want to live anywhere with real snow for several months of the year, but I can admit it is fun to play in the snow and be out in the chilly weather for short (very short) periods of time. And yes I do call that half inch of snow you see in the photo snow. Anything more than this and I would be bunkering down to hibernate and putting snow chains on the car.

And this is down at Mt. Lemmon. It is amazing to go from the base of the mountain with saguaros and cactus to the top where there is snow and pine trees.

And this is my youngest, Zoe and I on the ski lift. I have never been on a ski lift before (again I live in Arizona, winter sports aren't my thing). I temporarily forgot I was scared TERRIFIED of heights. And sweet boyfriend had reasured me "don't worry it's only 10 feet off the ground". That was a lie, and then the chair was swaying in the wind, and bouncing when ever it went past a pole. If my youngest hadn't been on with me, I would have made them stop the ride and get me down! Never again! Yes the mountain was pretty, but that ground underneath looked hard and sharp.

How is this taking so long!!!

Uggh this has taken me all week just to get this far. I like the design, but in my head I was thinking small=quick. So far this one has been dragging a bit. It is Cricket Collection, the chart is from 1997 (I graduated high school that year!). I like the folksy look of the little acorn.

These are my two fall exchanges for the Seasonal Exchange. I stitched the little squirrel and finished it as a flat ornament. The pumpkin pillow was stitched for me by Laura. I love the gold beaded trim she used. It is a Bent Creek design, I know because I have wanted to stitch this one for myself for a while now. .

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!!! If you are here for the blog hop my letter is "C" (like candy or cats or chills!) Also the next blog you need to visit is Stitches by Carin. I hope everyone has a super spooky Halloween filled with candy and fun! We are off trick or treating tonight with Glenda the good witch, and the Wicked Witch of the East!

Halloween countdown!

EEEKKK Halloween is tomorrow! Are you ready? Costume set, candy in the bowl? I just have to go get candy tomorrow morning and I will be ready! I have most of my Halloween pieces out and on display (I think I still have 10 or so finished ones that I never made into anything this year). This one I have honestly forgotten who the designer was, I stitched it such a while ago.

This is what we spent our evening doing. Carving pumpkins. I am actually a little allergic to the guts of the pumpkin so I have to wear gloves to clean out my pumpkin. Weird allergy I know. Pumpkins and lemons are the only two things that get to me, so I guess I can say I am lucky!

And this is what we spent the last part of the evening, finishing up my oldest daughter's costume. I am excited to show you tomorrow the finished result! I missed blogging yesterday due to a doggy emergency. I volunteer with a local rescue group and they needed a foster home for 5 border collies that had been found at an abandoned home. We went and got them and about 8 puppies out of just a dirt pit. So I spent the day driving dogs to vets and giving lots of dog baths. Unfortunately one of them has an injury to her leg that is so bad the vet said they may have to amputate! We go for x-rays tomorrow, so if everyone could send prayers and good thoughts for a sweet little dog named Mary, I am hoping for some miracle that she can keep her leg and heal!

Halloween Countdown!

Two more days until Halloween, OH MY!

I was feeling brave tonight, so I tried a new finishing technique. I think I like how it turned out too. This one is a Bent Creek holiday snapper. I love the black cats whiskers. I backed it with a thin piece of cardboard and then hot glued it onto a piece of felt with a ribbon in between. Super quick and easy for a small little ornament. I was also feeling brave updating my blog's background, I hope it doesn't slow down how fast my page loads. Sometimes when people have music on their blogs it takes forever for their pages to load on my computer. Though maybe that's just because my computer is older than at least one of my children!