Weekend stitching

I got quite a bit of stitching in this weekend:

The January mystery SAL that isn't going to be finished in January

The Sticklounge SAL called Odds & Ends designed by Tams's Creations

One of my crazy Christmas ornies designed by Brittercup Designs

And last but not least, I finished 2 Autumn ornies this morning by adding a little bling to the bottoms.

Not to shabby :)

2 crazy finishes, a couple SALs and help please

WooHoo!  I finished 2 of the crazy Christmas ornaments over the past weekend:

The sugar-shocked reindeer just needed the black to finish him while the Snow Bunnies needed lots of stitching.

I started a January Mystery SAL on Helen & Mahelia's blog.  It's mostly finished on the blog while I'm only starting -- so not much of a mystery for me:

I also started a new Sticklounge Project entitled Homage to Japan.  It's a pretty little sampler with a couple goldfish on it (I love goldfish -- especially the fat, fancy ones) and a Japanese proverb.  I didn't get much done on it because I wasn't happy with the original colors.  So after several starts and stops, I have finally decided on the colors for this first part:

Not much, I know, but I should be able to get this part finished now that all the tough decisions have been made.

I also picked a frame for the Baumchen.  Since I didn't want to spend a bundle here, I chose a standard size frame for it.  Unfortunately, there is lots of room on the longer side.  Hmmmm, perhaps I'll add a piece of lace here to fill in the empty frame space.  I found a nice piece of old lace but cannot decide how to assemble the whole thing.  Any suggestions?  Top, bottom or side?

It's hard to see the lace in these pics, the flash kind of blew it away, but even in real life, the lace is rather subtle.  At this point in time, my preference is the lace on the top .... but that could change.

Have a good one !

Some crazy stitching and a surprise received

I finished my first crazy January start and got lots done on 2 more:

After all those starts I needed to finish something and I needed some easy stitching, so I decided to work on these three ornaments this past week.  I really like this green fabric and may stitch more ornaments on it -- umm, sometime in the future.

I received these goodies from Jules' giveaway yesterday (thank you!):

The oriental book has some beautiful butterflies that I'm itchin' to get stitchin' but that will have to wait until I get some of my other starts finished.  The little framed 'Welcome' is just lovely.  And don't laugh, but the best thing is the honey from Florida -- yum!  

I   l-o-v-e   honey!

Thanks again, Jules.

It's going to be freezin' this weekend -- a perfect stitching weekend.  I plan to work on some of my SAL's and hopefully get caught up with them.  Should be a good time .....

The last 2 days of craziness

On Day 14 I started a project I've been fretting over for about a week.  And on Friday evening, I needed to make some commitments.  This is a piece called Flower Power by Ann Strite-Kurz that I bought a few years ago.  The pattern calls for canvas and perle coton but I, of course, wanted to be different and do it on evenweave.  I chose a 28 ct rose evenweave and some DMC threads -- it took me forever to do this.  Then I had to attach the fabric onto the scrolls.  By the time I actually sat down to do some stitching, it was about 8:30 - 9 pm.  The first thread I chose was grey -- it looked so pretty on the rose fabric.  *smile*   The second thread choice was a dark purply mauve.  It too looked realy pretty on the rose fabric -- however -- it overpowered the grey  *grumble!*  Sooo, I frogged the grey and added black instsead  *eureka!*  Then I went to bed.  Here's the result (fyi, colors are wonky):

 I think the black definitely goes better, however, I still  like the grey.   Sooo on day 15, I got up and worked more on this piece:

While the colors are truer, the pic does not do this justice.  I'm totally tickled with this so far, so much so that I had a hard time putting it down to work on my Day 15 project. 

But on Saturday evening, I started the Beagle in a Basket.  There isn't much to show of the beagle, but she is started:

 On Sunday I bought a plastic tub to keep all my Crazy 15 starts together -- previously they were scattered all over the place.  Now I can go to the tub and pick out something as the mood strikes.  I'm not sure what I want to continue first .... I'll keep you posted.

Happy Monday!

Another crazy kitty

Day 13 is another Brittercup design (the name of it escapes me at this time -- something about gifts).  It can be found in the 2010 Just Cross Stitch Christmas edition:

I'm a little pressed for time today so this is a short entry.  See you Monday for the last 2 installments of craziness.  Have a good stitchy weekend! 

An even dozen's worth of craziness

I have always admired the Brittercup kitties (mainly because I love black cats) but have never stitched one until last night.  This pattern is from the JCS 2009 Christmas edition:

I'm happy with the progress I made on it and can't wait to finish it. 

My first kitty was a precocious black cat I adopted from a shelter years ago.  He was the best cat -- athletic, friendly, confident, always into trouble and too smart for his own good -- probably not the best cat for a first-time cat parent.  As a kitten, he got his head stuck in one of my speakers, knocked over 2 fish bowls with Bettas (one was on top of the refrigerator) and my 4 shelves of plants, crawled inside my refrigerator, among other adventures.   He's gone now, but whenever I see a black cat in a pattern, picture or real life, I have to smile.

Thanks everyone for your comments, especially about my pups!  I appreciate you taking the time to leave a little note -- they also make me smile.

Can you believe it -- only 3 more days ......

Craziness plus a birthday!

Crazy day 11 pattern is another Sampler Girl called The Old Black Cat:

I did pretty good with this one last night -- at least I managed to stay awake.


Today is Meadow's first birthday.  It's hard to believe that a year ago she was this tiny, blind puppy -- a little eating, sleeping, peeing, pooping machine:

Three months later she's this sweet little running, jumping, chewing, eating, sleeping, peeing, pooping machine:

And a year later, she's developed into this adorably, wonderful, eating, sleeping, playing machine (thank heavens the chewing, peeing and pooping are under control):

My bouncing baby beagle is all grown up (snif) but still cute as the dickens:

Around Thanksgiving, we had a family portrait taken -- from l to r, Rudy (poppa), Shasta (momma), Meadow.  You can see where she gets her good looks .....

Thanks for looking .... and I'll be back tomorrow with more craziness.  Only 4 more starts to go.

Day 10 is ghostly crazy

I bought this pattern in 2006 and have been wanting to stitch it ever since but for whatever the reasons (ah ... other projects), it remains unstitched. 

Until now. 

I didn't get much stitched last night.  It took me awhile to gather the threads and decide on the fabric.  Once this was done, and I sat down to actually stitch, my feet were cold and I kept nodding off while stitching (not a good idea while holding a small, sharp, metal object).  So I called it quits pretty early last night with only a '-O' to show you today.  Hopefully, tonight will be better.

Until then ....

Crazy Days 7, 8 & 9

On Friday, aka Crazy Day 7, I started another Sampler Girl pattern.  I love, love, love this particular quotation because I hate, hate, hate the heat:

"What dreadful hot weather we have.  It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance."

Talk about understatement.  Anyway, I got quite a bit of it done:

Saturday, I started the Tulip Sampler by Rosewood Manor.  I just love the colors in this one.  Considering I spent most of the day in Pittsburgh visiting an old college friend, I think I got lots done:

On Day 9 or Sunday, I began a canvas piece designed by Cheryl Schaeffer for the Rainbow Gallery.  This will be my Santa for 2011.  Isn't he cute? 

Even though it doesn't look like I got much done, there was a bunch of prep work for this one.  First I had to paint the canvas blue and let it dry.  Then I had to iron it.  And before attaching it to the stretcher bars, I had to straighten a bunch of tacks.  The only tacks I had that weren't in use were badly bent and mangled, ie, totally UN-USEABLE.  Rats!  And of course, I needed to gather some threads for it (I currently  have 2 -- the green and yellow border colors.)

The pattern called for French Blue 18 count canvas.   I only have white congress cloth.  I thought about just stitching it on white but I liked the blue wall.  I thought about making the wall blue with a background stitch but decided against that.  I decided to paint the canvas instead.  This is kind of fun 'cuz I never know exactly what I'm going to get.  I was trying for a lighter blue but the one I got is okay.  I may have to change the color of the chair and ottoman -- I'll just have to see what hits me when I get there.

While I was waiting for the blue canvas to dry and between loads of laundry, I spent some time stitching on my Sticklounge project, Odds & Ends by Tams Creations:

This is such a fun piece but because I made an error near the 3 o'clock position and because I decided to not try to figure out or correct the error, I have been compensating the little objects to get back on track by 6 o'clock.   Since I don't know where the error is, I really hope my circle ends meet.  I'm going to be extra diligent to make sure this comes out okay. 

If not, I'll just put a little charm over the offending area.  What you can't see isn't there -- right.

See you tomorrow ....  go crazy, keep stitching!

Happiness is Apple Pies and Agility

Hooray!  Happy Days are Here!  I finally started a pattern I've wanted to do for a couple years now ... drum roll, please ......

And now to change the subject .....

A couple days ago, Libbie asked me who I do agility with.  Now that's a loaded question because I could talk about my dogs   f o r e v e r  but I'm sure you all don't want to read alot of babbling about them so I'll (try to) keep it short (or just stop reading here because there won't be any more stitchy stuff). 

Stormy is my oldest dog at 11 y.o.  He's a terrier/maybe poodle/? mix that I rescued as a puppy.  He's all heart, joy and personality.  Above is a pic of him when he was about 5 jumping at an agility trial in his lion cut.

Here he is, or at least part of him, pushing through the chute.

Willow is an 8 y.o. beagle.  I rescued her from the breeder when she was about 1.5 after the original people returned her as untrainable.  She did indeed have some issues but we have worked through them and she's become a good agility dog.  Willow is a perpetual puppy and I hope she stays that way.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pics of her doing agility on this computer so here she is hanging out in the back yard.

The last dog I trial with is River, a 6 y.o. papillion that I rescued when he was about a year old.  Poor little guy came with lots of issues -- he came from an abusive background.  He still has some issues and probably always will but he's much better.  He's very sensitive and gets nervous easily, so I only run him once or twice at a trial but I think he's starting to like it.  I don't have any agility pics of him either so these will have to do.

My other dogs don't run at trials yet, they are currently in training.

More beagles!  Shasta and Meadow (mother and daughter)



And, last but not least, Firefly, my little snuggle bunny, a 6 y.o. papillion.

Well, there you have it, my dogs.  And many thanks Libbie for asking about them.  I love my little rug rats and love talking about them.

Until Monday .....

More Christmas on Day 5

I bought this little kit a few years ago and am finally taking the time to stitch it:

I'm not a big kit fan but thought these little guys were terribly cute so had to have them.  The kit uses ecru thread for the beards, clothing trim and border areas but I'm thinking I'll change that to white.   The ecru looks "dirty" and doesn't show up well.  I think white will add more punch.  The eyelets are in the ecru and when I get back to this one, I plan to stitch the beard and trim in white to compare.  I may also change the eyelets from floss to perle coton.

After 5 days of stitching Christmas, I need a change.  So for days 6 and 7, I plan to begin two of the Sampler Girl's patterns.  These will be repeat stitchings.  I did them as a gift for a friend last year and planned on doing them for myself also.  Of course, I never got around to it.  And without this January craziness, I probably wouldn't have for another couple years, if ever.  I'm so excited!  I love these two patterns, the second one especially makes me laugh:

Until tomorrow ....

On day 4 it snowed ...

Not much to show for yesterday's crazy stitching.   I could only get an hour's stitching time in -- rats!!-- that's 2.75 snow flakes worth:

 Instead of stitching I went to the chiropractor last night.  It was my first time ever and I'm happy to say it seems to have helped.  I'm having a problem with sciatica (what a pain! -- literally) and it's interfering with my ability to run dog agility (among other things but that's the only really important one).

I'll be back tomorrow with the next installment of craziness. 

Mary Wigham update and more craziness

I spent more time on Mary over the holidays and managed to get the outside border almost completed:

I wanted to get the border finished before 2011 but it wasn't to be.   She probably won't get much more done on her until after Jan. 15th, when the craziness comes to an end.  I was also hoping to get her completely stitched by the end of January but I'm not sure that's going to happen either.  Oh well.

Speaking of crazy, here's my third selection, another Christmas ornament -- one I've already stitched as a gift and now will stitch for myself:

Until tomorrow .....

what fun!

Crazy Challenge 1 & 2

My first Crazy Challenge piece is The Great Pumpkin Conspiracy designed by Cross Eyed Cricket.  I picked a bigger piece for the first day because I planned on getting lots of it done.  Unfortunately it didn't work out as planned, so I only got a little done.  But the important thing is that it's begun.

Day 2 I was at an agility trial so I took a small, portable and easy pattern from Angel Stitchin' (Just Cross Stitch magazine's 2009 Christmas edition).  Between walking courses, running dogs, yakking with people, eating, pottying dogs, I managed to get more done than anticipated.

See you tomorrow for day 3's stitching.