More starts ? ! ?

Yikes -- I must be totally nuts.  I have 3 more starts (with more to begin soon).  This first one is a class taught at my local EGA chapter.  It's a photo on canvas that will be embelished with embroidery.  The designer's name is Susan Goodman.  The first class involved the border stitching.  There are 2 layers for the border, the first is scotch stitch and the second is basketweave stitch.  I'm almost finished with the first layer.   I have until May 16th to complete the 2 borders.

I took a class from Susan Goodman a couple years ago at a seminar.  This piece is called The Red Window and it involved transfering other stuff to a printed canvas before embroidering over it:

 My garden has more flowers than the designer's, if memory serves me correctly, her garden was mostly greenery.  I thoroughly enjoyed stitching my Red Window garden.  This is a fun technique and I look forward the our second class on the Lily Pond.

My second new start is a lovely sampler by Lady Periphaeira called Star Sampler.  The original pattern calls for 2 colors but I decided to add a couple colors and some specialty stitches.  If you are interested, this is a SAL and you can still stitch along if you are so inclined.  We are up to part 3 so there is still plenty of time to join.

 

And the third and final start (as of today) is a patchwork heart I'm making for a friend.  I drew the heart on the fabric with one of those pens that has water-erasible ink in it, added some patches and started to stitch. 

The last stitchy pic is the Tam's Creations piece called Odds and Ends.  This SAL in on part 12 out of 13.  Hopefully, I can finish this part over the weekend, get the final piece and finish stitching this one next week.  Wellllll, that's the plan as of this minute. 

The next couple pics have nothing to do with stitching. Shasta is about a week away from delivering and I just had to take some pics of her belly. Tomorrow she goes to my friend's house (the expert puppy midwife) to have her pups. I'm going to miss her and cannot wait to see the babes. Shasta looks bigger to me than last time ...... she seems more restless / uncomfortable than the last pregnancy ..... the poor dear.

Later ......

I'm baaack ....

It's been awhile but things are finally settling down and getting back to normal at work -- hooray!  

Now if the weather would only settle down.  We are getting more rain today -- yuck!  The back yard is a big puddle that the dogs refuse to go out into to do their biznez BUT have no problem charging through to chase that elusive squirrel or crow.  Sigh.  And in addition to my dogs, I have a couple house guests for the week.  Happy is old and not so interested in being outside much but Moose is young and full of himself.  He loves to run around the yard, picking up as many sticks and pine needles as possible in his long, lovely Papillion hair.  What a sight!  The first time I let him out he came back a total mess.  Hehehe -- so much for the bath his mom gave him before his visit.  Let's see, today's Tuesday ..... we're supposed to get rain every day this week ..... soooo, by Friday, he should have all the sticks in my yard cleaned up and I'll be hosing him down to get the mud off.

Mind you, my beagles are just as guilty when it comes to getting dirty but not nearly as useful when it comes to yard cleanup.  Willow had mud splashed all over her face the other day, in addition to most other parts of her body.  She, Meadow and Moose had a grand romp through the yard.  When I suggested they spend some time in the kitchen to dry, instead of immediately jumping onto the couch for a nice rub and roll, Willow's feelings were hurt, Meadow didn't get the point and Moose wanted to go back out for another romp. 


Speaking of beagles :)  Shasta is making some beautiful puppies, even as we speak.  Check out that belly -- and that's not from eating too much .....

I'm getting a little long winded here but before I go on to some stitching, I have to tell you about her 'baby'.  A couple weeks before she came in season, Shasta started carrying around this little red bear.  She would take it everywhere with her and protect it if anyone(dog) got too close to it.  The purple bear is her third 'baby'.  The other ones were stolen and de-stuffed by Meadow.  Once de-stuffed, Shasta seems to loose interest in it.  Unfortunately, I only had the 2 until a couple weekends ago when Stormy won 3 more at an agility trial.  Yea Stormy!  Shasta was so happy to get a new 'baby', she almost took my fingers with it.

Okay stitching update ....

I finished this fun Easter SAL from Carol -- and totally enjoyed every minute of it.  Don't you just love the bunnies nibbling on the carrot tops?  Too cute.

Homage to Japan has one more part before it's finished.  Sorry it's laying side-ways, I forgot to change the orientation when in Photoshop.

My "Purple" Garden is coming along nicely.  When I picked the colors, I was thinking "Spring" Garden but everytime I look at it now, I think summer and watermelon.

And last but not least, I have started a new project (can you believe it?  I must be bonkers) called Friendship Heart.  This is the left top lobe of the heart and only part 1.  The photo colors came out kinda sucky -- the fabric is totally off.  In reality it's more a blue-green color, not grey.

Ummm, as to my crazy 15 challenge .... not much happening there but I hope to get back on them now that I have more free time.  

Take care everyone --- stay dry and mud free!

All work and no stitching make me a dull girl ....

Thank goodness I've been able to get some stitching in -- wouldn't want to be dull, now would we??  I will be sooo glad when work slows down.  Between working 6 days a week, 2 sick dogs and a lingering cold/allergies/sinus infection thing going on, I'm beat. 

Here's what I've been doing the past couple weeks:

Homage to Japan, a Sticklounge project

Odds & Ends, a Sticklounge project

Purple Garden, a Sticklounge project

Quickie, another Sticklounge project -- are you beginning to sense a pattern here??

Little Easter Sampler,  a Novalee02 SAL

WooHoo!  My first biscornus!  How cool is that??

Faces finished!  Not sure what I will do with this yet.

Later ......

Another quick update

Ooops, I forgot about these two:

January Mystery SAL almost finished -- the backstitching makes this one look more 'finished'



New tiny sampler from the Sticklounge
 -- they remind me of fancy, little doileys


Can you believe it ?!?  We are supposed to get 4-6 inches of snow in the next day or so.  What a winter!

Take care ......

Just a little update

Egads! we are busy busy at work.  So my off time is spent stitching instead of computering.

Sticklounge SAL Odds & Ends by Tam's Creations

Sticklounge SAL Homage to Japan by Remy Lawler 

Easter SAL by Novalee02



Flower Power by Ann Strite-Kurz. 

I am really having fun with this one and hope to get the third row in over the weekend.  The pattern doesn't call for it but I plan to put some beads in the little empty squares after all the stitching is finished.

 
 Have a good one ....... gotta run ......

January Mystery & Crazy Flowers

I finished all the cross stitching on the January Mystery SAL.  Now I have the backstitching to do.  I couldn't decide on an third color for the shared head area.  Instead of letting this piece sit around while I came to a decision, I did this:

Looks kinda cool.

Last weekend I wanted to stitch on Flower Power but just wasn't up to it.  Now that I'm feeling better, I picked it up and set needle and thread to it:

This is going to be so pretty when it's finished.  I enjoyed stitching it so much I may spend most of the week working on it.  I love the colors I chose and though it looks complicated to stitch, it really isn't.  Each band is composed of several different patterns interwoven to give the final lacy pattern.  I do one pattern at a time.  In the pic you can see the second band's first layer completed.  It's pretty as is but with each layer it becomes more ornate.  Once the first layer is down, the remaining layers don't involve much counting.  The repetition is actually kind of relaxing.  I suspect this will be my first large crazy finish.

Sunday, the dogs and I were at a teacup agility trial.  I only entered Stormy and River -- we weren't successful but had a good time.  Meadow got to play with her common brother (they are from a different litter but the same parents).  She had a blast.  Firefly got to sit in my lap and visit with her only surviving child, Pheonix.  Shasta is in season and almost ready to breed but just wasn't 'in the mood' yet.  She got to take a nice flirty walk with her paramore, Ruddy (maybe tonight will be the night??) -- get him all wound up and snarl when he tried to get to first base.  And last, but not least, poor Willow didn't get much attention or have much fun yesterday.  Tonight she has agility class -- hopefully that will make up for it.

Have a happy stitchin' week.

A little update between working and sleeping

Unfortunately not much stitching was done since my last update.  I'm having some sinus issues -- mostly I wish I didn't have the pesky things but right now I have a sinus infection.  I'm not sure why I get soooo tired when this happens but since all I want to do is sleep, when I'm not at work, that's what I've been doing.  I did manage to get the next part of Homage to Japan done over the weekend (and yes, it took me all weekend to get it finished).   I love wild violets and the ones in this piece are so sweet.  It took me forever to get them done because I kept making mistakes and having froggy moments (blame it on the sinuses).

Before the infection took serious hold, I did get some work done on the Busy Bee Tuffet and the January SAL.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the tuffet done for my Monday EGA meeting.  BUT as fortune (and nasty little sinus-loving bacteria) would have it, I wasn't planning on going so wouldn't get to take the biscornus class anyway.  Luckily (?) we had a major winter event -- freezing rain, sleet, snow, major slippery roads, etc, etc, etc -- so the meeting was cancelled.  Yup -- I was a happy camper -- the biscornus class is postponed until next month :)

Have a healthy, happy Wednesday.

Halloween craziness and a beeginning

I finished one of my Crazy Challenge pieces -- yippee! -- the Sampler Girl's "The Old Black Cat" with some changes to the border.  This is such a cute piece.  However, I decided the black spiders look more like ticks to me (bleeechhht!!)  --shiver-- way creepier than spiders.

And I started a new project (Busy Bee Tuffet by Chessie & Me) that needs to be stitched by my next EGA meeting on Monday.  We are going to learn how to assemble it into a biscornus.  I'm looking forward to learning a new (to me) finishing technique.  And as you can see, I've changed the colors:

 I love the little bee keep scissor fob and plan to stitch it also -- though probably not before Monday.

The weather man is threatening us with nice weather for the next couple days -- party sunny with temps near 50.  WooHoo!  Break out the shorts and flip flops!  I hope your weather promises to be just as pleasant .....

Wow!  I just noticed I have some new followers -- how cool is that.  Welcome!

Another crazy finish, lots of pink and a new garden

I finished my first Brittercup kitty on Saturday.  Isn't he 'dorable?  I just love him!

I think my next crazy finish will be the other Brittercup kitty.

Yesterday I finished part 10 of Odds and Ends.  I added a butterfly for my Papillions, a bunny for the beagles and couldn't think of a little logo for the Storm.  So I just made a representation of his smilin' face 'cuz he's such a happy, vivacious little dude.

Oh, and I started another Sticklounge SAL called The Purple Garden by Angie Designer.  However, I already have a purple butterfly garden (the designer's name escapes me)

and since purple isn't one of my favs, my Purple Garden isn't going to be purple.  It's going to be multi-colored, more like a Spring Garden (wishful thinking on my part).  I just started it last night so I'm not very far with it yet.

Enjoy your day!

Framed finishes and other stuff

See the Star and Baumchen are now framed -- yippee!  They aren't hanging on the wall yet but they're almost there.

I completed the border on my crazy Santa piece:

Stitched more on the January SAL (which is starting to look kinda cool):

And that's about it.  This weekend I plan to finish part 10 of Odds & Ends and the Brittercup Kitty ornament.  It's going to be another cold one but at least there won't be snow.  Another good stitching weekend.

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 !