New Years Day Stitching

Started stitching yesterday after a hiatus. I started this project last summer, hated the coverage on the window panes and just put it away. I think I was burned out after my last finish!

Pulled it out again today and have done all if the blue color shown. This is LHN Home of a Needleworker (too). If I didn’t already have this in my stash, I would pick the original (more of a Sampler style) one over this one. I guess my tastes have changed since I purchased this many years ago! I still like it though!

The odd blue light is the tv as seen through the fabric.

Once I finish this up I may tackle one of my long neglected chatelaines!

Happy New Year to all!

Ornament and TW Updates

HI…  Even though I’ve been quiet on the blog, I have been doing quite a bit of stitching!

Here is my progress through yesterday on my Teresa Wentzler Egyptian Sampler.  I think my husband, who I’m stitching this for is finally starting to get what goes into cross stitch!  I’ve been working on this, on and off, for about a year and a half.  I’m happy to say that I’m more than halfway through with a long way to go!  I’m happy to have finished the frame all the way around and the background in the arch.  A little tedious but not as bad as I thought it would be.  When I started doing the background I had to pull out the staff and the flail on the middle figure but it shouldn’t take much to add those back in now.  I’m loving stitching this!

I spend the week of Christmas with some family and kitted up a Victoria Sampler ornament from the 2015 Just Cross Stitch Ornament Edition to take with me.  When I travel I like to take something small.  There were some errors in the pattern as published, so for some of this I was just on my own.  Plus the accessory pack that I ordered had two different sized stars!  I contacted Thea at Victoria Sampler and she sent me the correct button size.  I love the little gingerbread man buttons!

So for now, I’m just going to keep on working on Egyptian Sampler and ignore all of my other WIPs.  I’d love to finish it up this year.  🙂

Holiday Stitching

I think I’m starting to get my stitching mojo back!  I did a couple of ornaments for friends… you’ve seen these before, but here they are again with new names!  These are the Victoria Sampler Virtues ornaments with names replacing the virtue words.  People just love these and they are so quick and easy that I end up making them every year!  I know I’ll do more so I just keep all of the fabric and floss and ornament forms kitted up:

I also started a new project – The Drawn Thread Perennial Border This thing calls for a huge amount of colors for such a small project that only has color in the outer most border of the project… How many greens do you really need???  🙂  I like it though and  the flowers look like lots of fun to stitch – lots of different kind of stitches.  Here’s what it will look like, hopefully, when I finish it.

My progress so far, and all of the floss….

You can just barely see the whitework I’ve started in the middle.  I’m using the recommended thread and fabric and I’m hoping it’ll pop a bit more once I’ve added more of the textural stitches.  Its platinum fabric with white DMC.  Maybe I should’ve used the extra white stuff?  Or maybe perle cotton?  Or maybe I pulled 28 instead of 32 fabric?  I just hope it all works out in the end.

Catching up…

I haven’t posted in almost a month!  I haven’t really been stitching and have been depressed about continued unemployment, winter, loneliness, relationship issues, etc.

However, I’m pretty happy right now because I GOT A JOB!  It was through a former industry contact and I’m really excited about it.  🙂  I’m supposed to start Wednesday, but I’ve been sick sick sick, with what my Dr says is a virus, since last Tuesday and am wondering if I’m going to have to put off my start date by a few days.  I have wicked sore throat, hurts to talk, turn my head, plus a lovely uncontrollable cough and as of this morning, an earache on top.  I don’t remember the last time I felt this bad.  I don’t think its just a common cold though because I don’t really have any sort of head congestion.

So the only stitching I’ve done since my last post was work on the Sweetheart Tree Pumpkin biscornu…  Here’s my progress so far:

I’m just not feeling very inspired to work on this, but I kind of hate to put it away until its finished, especiallly since I know it won’t really take that long. What I really want to work on is the Lizzie Kate Noel Squared pattern I picked up at my last LNS trip. I already had the gingham fabric.

I figure for sure I’ll start it when I go to visit my parents for Christmas.  I may also bring the Lizzie Kate Banner that I started back in the spring.  I normally am not really a fan of LK (too simplistic), but I want something easy to stitch right now.  I can’t even think about picking up a chatelaine!!

I’m kind of bummed about not putting up a tree this year.  I’ll be gone from the 21st to the 28th so it seems a little pointless.  🙂  I have still yet to hang all of my 2009 Christmas Ornaments!  Maybe next year….

February Ornament

Today I finished up my February Ornament:

Mill Hill Poinsettia Tiny Treasured Diamond

I just love these ornaments… they stitch up quick and easy and are so pretty when done. Next time I’m at my LNS, I may take a look to see if there are any other that I like.  8)

Since its Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d post a pic of the beatiful tulips (my favorite flower) that DBF sent to me at work yesterday:

Last night a friend and I went to see He’s Just Not That Into You.  This friend and I have read the book as a much needed reality check in the world of dating after divorce.   The movie was very funny but I was a bit disappointed by the ending since it seemed to negate the truths spouted over and over throughout the rest of the movie!

New Years Eve and Apple Rolls

I’m off work again until January 5.  🙂

Today I had an e-mail from an old friend asking me for a recipe I used to make – Apple Rolls.  I sent him the recipe, then realized I had all of the ingredients on hand to make up a batch, so that’s what I did this afternoon….  These are rolls of sweetened bread surrounding apple slices that are coated with cinnamon and sugar.   The apples bake inside the dough and the cinnamon sugar melts and gets gooey. They are sooooo yummy!  I cut the recipe in half and ended up with these:

I normally don’t make New Year’s Resolutions, but I do have a goal to finish stitching Alpine Seasons in 2009.  I’ve been working quite a bit on it the last week or so, and I hope to get quite a bit more done in the next 4 days that I have off work.  Look out for a progress pic late Sunday!

Four hours until the New Year here in Indiana…. off to stitch!

Merry Christmas!

I’ve been laid off work this week due to slow business and took the opportunity to go to Oklahoma to visit my parents and my brother’s family.  I left on the 20th and got back Christmas Eve.  After a delayed flight back to O’Hare, DBF and his son picked me up and we went to his mother’s house in Hoffman Estates for their family festvities.  We had a nice time, but didn’t get back home until 3:00 this morning.  Of course, we all slept late, woke up late, exchanged gifts with DBF’s son, then took him to his mother’s house.

We went to breakfast/lunch, then went to see The Curious Case of Benjamon Button, which I really liked!  We didn’t open our gifts to each other until around 4:30 this afternoon.

While I was in Oklahoma, I only did a tiny bit of stitching, mainly because I wasn’t really into what I was working on, plus the lighting wasn’t the best.  I think I’m going to pull out my  Alpine Seasons and work on that a bit.  I’ve got more time off next week so should be able to get some good stitching in.

A while back,  I sent a note to my friend Susan’s mom, Shelagh, as she’d gotten sick.  When going through the mail this morning, I saw that I’d received a package from her.  She stitched a really pretty pincushion and sent a nice card.  I didn’t expect anything at all, so was really touched by what she wrote and her thoughtfulness:

Since I’m always losing my needles in the couch (between cusions and in the arm, where I usually sick my needles, I’m sure this pincushion will help. 🙂

So, I’m off through Sunday, then have to work a couple of days next week.  I’m feeling spoiled by all this extra time off over the holidays…

I hope everyone had a peaceful holiday with friends and family.

38!!!

I celebrated my 38th birthday last week with cards from friends, special treatment from DBF, and a visit from my friend Susan.

Susan visited me last weekend and brought me some lovely gifts:

I love everything – what a wonderful gift in a pretty little bag! She also brough a mini carrot cake (my favorite), which didn’t live long enough to make it into the photo. :p We went out to lunch and stitched at my house and had a lovely day.  I’ve always wanted a friend who I could stitch with, and Susan fits the bill perfectly!

DBF gave me an electric blanket (I LOVE IT!!!), an origami kit (expect to see pics in the future), the Rachel Ray vegetarian cook book and the Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging.  He also treated me to a lovely meal at Indigo, a newer restaurant I’ve wanted to try.  This is easily the finest restaurant in Elkhart County… a wonderful menu, excellent service, and live jazz.  Oh yeah, and I almost forgot, all of the tables had the cutest candle holders – maybe a sea urchen?

All in all – a great birthday!

Oh Christmas Tree!

I finally got my Christmas Tree out and set up.  I really wasn’t too excited about doing it and haven’t felt in a holiday mood, but then I decided maybe I wasn’t in a holiday mood because my Christmas Tree wasn’t up yet!

Here is the tree – the tree skirt was made for me by my grandmother:

I have several stitched ornaments on the tree that I thought I’d show pictures of… some were made by me and others were given as gifts or received in ornament exchanges:

There are a couple of other stitched ornaments on the tree, but I felt like this post was getting a little too photo intensive! As I was hanging my ornaments last night, I had the thought that I’d love to have even more stitched ornaments on my tree, and might try to stitch at least one a month in 2009, either to keep for myself or to exchange with others. 🙂

The tree has been up for two days now and the kitties have not destroyed or tampered with it in any way – AMAZING! It could be that I set up the vacuum cleaner (aka cat eater) next to the tree to discourage any sort of tree climbing or ornament batting. LOL. I should put some lights on the vacuum and a bow on top.

Thanks for looking at my tree and thank you always for the lovely comments that you all leave.

Labor Day Weekend Stitching

Saturday morning, I finished up my latest project, Little House Needleworks Thread Gathering:

I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. It is my first LHN design. I stayed up pretty late Friday and got up early Saturday to finish it up because I was excited to start my new project, Victoria Sampler’s Where Stitchers Gather. Here are all of the supplies ready to go. I just love the floss colors on this one…

I did actually get some work done on this over the weekend, but got home late from DBF’s family holiday thing today and I don’t feel like getting the camera out and uploading and stuff. I’m thrilled with how its turning out so far, so I doubt I’ll be able to contain my progress pic for too long, maybe later in the week…

Saturday I went on an emergency trip to a LNS, Needle Nest, because I found that I didn’t have the fabric I thought I did (wrong count) for starting Where Stitchers Gather… while I was there I looked through a whole bunch of Laura Perin designs looking for a couple that I saw on her website last week. I think its somewhat fortunate that they didn’t have the ones I was most interested in, as I have too much to stitch right now and am saving up for the marketplace at the Celebration of Needlework next month.  Anyway, I did pick up my first pair of stretcher bars for a canvas work design I have in my stash… to be started…. someday.