A finish and some surprises

 I finally put the finishing touches on Night Owl this past week -- hooray! -- another ornie ready to go.  I adore the colors in the cording on this one -- so warm and fall-ish.  Making the cording is my favorite part of finishing.  I love seeing how the different yarns work (or sometimes don't work) together.  It isn't obvious in the picture but one of the rust yarns has some glitter in it, giving this ornie a little bling.

Next up is the latest Stitched with Love Exchange.  The topic for this one was Bees, Butterflies and Birds.  I stitched some birds for Lisa who is a bird watcher.  I'm so glad she liked  it.  The owl is from JMD Designs and the little blue bird is from the BBD booklet With Needle and Thread.

I received a wonderful package from Deb in this exchange.  The pillow she stitched for me is so beautiful, I love it!    I think I'm getting a little goofy about buttons, trim and fabric -- can't seem to get enough, how weird  is that?  So I love that she included some here.  The needles, of course, will be put to good use and I have admired the Hot Cocoa pattern being stitched by other bloggers so I'm looking forward to stitching it.  And check out the Canada tote -- isn't it adorable? I love that moose!  My dad and I got a good chuckle out of it :-) 

Last summer, I trimmed my pussy willow bush/tree/monstrosity to within an inch of it's life (from which it has bounced back wonderfully this year, I'm almost sorry to say -- this thing is out of control!).  I kept some of the straighter branches from this trimming and let them season outside over the winter.  So now I've got myself some really pretty, rustic-looking rods from which to hang stuff.   Deb's gift is the first to benefit from the willow's sacrifice.  Thank you Deb for such a great exchange!

Yesterday I received another package in the mail from MiiStitch (who is also the host of another exchange called the Summer Holiday Exchange).  Check out the lovely stitched pieces I received from her:

Can you believe it?? A beagle with a heart on her arse!!  How cute is that!?  I love it!!!  How do I know it's a she beagle and not a he beagle, you ask?  No winkie ;-)    ROTFLMAO!  This is particularly funny to me right now because my little girl beagle Meadow just came out of season about a week ago.  And my boy beagle Spider (who is also her goofy brother) has been driving me crazy with his amorous advances on his sister (not that she has objected, mind you) -- and he's neutered!  I am so terribly glad that's all over now.  But I digress ....

Back to the exchange.  I love the little sheep pouch.  I can't wait to show it to a friend of mine who adores anything with sheep on it -- she will be so jealous.  But that's not all .... inside the little bag were more little goodies:

How wonderful is that!?!  Thank you Ingrid for this super exchange!

I'm stitching something for Heather in this exchange but it isn't actually finished yet, so no pics.  I've run into some technical difficulties with a new (to me) finishing technique.  I hope to have this ironed out over the weekend -- cross those fingers please and wish me luck. 

And here's wishing a good weekend to you!  After all it's IHSW!!

WIPocalypse -- July update

I spent alot of time stitching since my last WIPocalypse update.  Unfortunately I didn't do anything on White Christmas -- the hardanger piece.  Instead, I picked up the beagle puppy (started January 2011) and stitched lots on it.  All that's left to do is the collar, eggs, grass and backstitching:

I'm planning on making the grass green (instead of the original straw color) and adding a few small lazy daisy flowers in it.  This piece should definitely be done by the next update.

Another WIP from 2011 is the Tulip Sampler by Rosewood Manor.  Because of all the backstitching on this piece, I'm going slow on it so that I don't burn out from said backstitching.  Probably only stitching one or two squares a month.  I finished the 2 squares in the pink rectangle over the weekend:

The original plan was to finish one of the squares over the weekend but things went so smoothly, I finished them both.  I have to say that even though there is tons of backstitching, it isn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Dare I say, I'm finding it almost relaxing.  I think it's because there is a pattern to it within each square -- making it almost mindless.  Imagine that!

And lastly, I worked on the Old European Sampler and am still making headway on it -- slowly but surely:

With a little luck, I should get around the corner in the near future (maybe by the weekend since this in my Mon-Fri stitching project).   I think once this is done, the piece will go faster -- or at least seem to go faster.

I hope everyone that celebrates it, has a safe and fun 4th of July!

IHSW for June

I managed to get a bit of stitching done over the weekend.  Not as much as I had hoped to do but enough to make me happy.  I finished one quilt square on the Tulip Sampler and started another.  Granted, I didn't get much done on the new square (which is really a rectangle), but it's a start:

I love the look of this piece but all that backstitching is so daunting to think about.  My approach here is 'one square at a time -- don't think about them all'.  It appears to be working.

Prior to IHSW, I picked up the beagle in the basket project and finished the beagle!  Hooray!  I wanted to finish the entire piece during the week but that didn't happen.  I could have worked on it over IHSW but I was tired of beagle colors and wanted to see different, prettier colors (thus the Tulip Sampler).  Anyway, here it is:

The original puppy has a red collar but I'm leaning toward a pink one .... though I do like the red one ... decisions, decisions.

Not too bad for a week's worth of stitching if I do say so myself.  I hope your weekend was as productive and I'm off now to see if they were . . . .

Toodles!

A beagle and a heart

I kept forgetting to take a picture of  this one.  I bought this beagle pin at a conformation show last year but don't have occassion to wear it much.  Since I think it's cute, I decided to stitch a frame for it so I can display the pin even when I'm not wearing it.  The "frame" is based on Wessex Stitchery and took me about a day of laundry and stitching to do it.  The difficult part was turning the first corner -- it took me about 4 or 5 tries to get it right.

I realize most people don't care for the baying of beagles but every time I hear a beagle howling after a bunny, I can't help but call the sound 'a joyful noise' .... and smile.

Switching now from beagles to Heart Note Alley, this SAL is almost finished.  I love this pattern (even though it was plagued/cursed/hounded *wink* with multiple frogs) and am very happy with my version of it.

Thanks for visiting!

A plan

Since I am mostly caught up with Christmas stitching (just one more ornie to finish) and with SALs except one (Mary Wigham), I have picked MW back up and plan to work on her until Dec. 31st.  Hopefully, I can get lots done on her, especially since the dogs and I don't have agility classes until February.  Maybe I could actually finish her, not by the end of Dec, of course, but sometime in Feb .....  hope springs eternal ......

I stitched a little on MW Sunday evening.  Unfortunately,  a very little, since I'm seem to have a cursed cold now.  Here's were I left off with MW in June:

And the arrow marks the little bit I did on Sunday:

Not much, but it's a start .....

Anyway, back to the 'Plan'.  On Jan 1st I begin the 15 day challenge.  And on Jan 1st I plan to begin with The Great Pumpkin Conspiracy from The Cricket Collection.  Jan 2nd I will be at an agility trial so I'll start an ornament.  The easiest one is from Angel Stitchin' -- the reindeer peeking around the Christmas tree.  After that, I'll just start whatever hits me that day. 

I have decided what my last piece will be.   I already stitched it for a friend of mine and want to do one for myself.  It's a beagle puppy in a basket with eggs.  This was hand drawn onto some kind of fabric (unfortunately, not waste fabric) and then cross stitched by a client of my friend onto a jersey as a gift (kind of like paint by numbers).  My friend has a kennel (Echo Run) and raises beagles and, when younger, she used to have egg-laying chickens.  There's no pattern for this piece except the original on the jersey, which makes it difficult and why I haven't done it before now.  The picture is the reproduction I stitched for my friend.  I absolutely love the face on the beagle pup -- it's so sweet. 

Have a good day!