May's Small

My small for May is Run Run Rudolph by Raise the Roof.  I think he's cute but hopefully not too cute for my 13 year old nephew.  I did remove the big pink cheeks from the pattern -- pink is so girlish, my nephews have informed me in the past. 

You can find it in the Just Cross Stitch 2009 Christmas issue.  And if you want to see other lovely smalls go here.

Have a good day, stitch something.

A Hermit weekend

I did it.   I hunted down the threads for Mary Wigham and spent a little time on her for IHSW.  I finished the center medallion with the flower and started the flower pot above it.  Woo Hoo!!

And that's about it for the weekend ... stitching-wise that is.

May WIPocalypse update

Ack!  I'm doing a terrible job with WIPocalypse projects this year.  My intentions were to work on Mary Wigham and The Tulip Sample but I haven't touched them -- not even once.  Here is a picture of these 2 projects.  Maybe if I look at them here, I'll get motivated to stitch on them.  They are both about half done.

What I have been working on is an exchange piece that I can't show to you but here's the fabric I plan backing it with:

And here's El Muro II, a SAL I've been working on.  It's coming along nicely and I'm happy with my color changes.  This is such a cute little village.

And lastly, I've finished my monster for the Halloween SAL.  It's Wicked Night from The Primitive Hare and, yes, it is a bit large for a small but I LOVE(!!!) it.  It needs to be 'aged' in coffee yet before I finish it into something.  It's stitched on 22 ct ivory hardanger fabric with dmc 3371.

It's hard to believe May is half over and considering the yucky spring we've been having, even harder still.  We are supposed to get another inch of rain today.  My back yard is a mushy mess and the grass is growing higher every minute.  ..... sigh .....

Enjoy your day!

April Smalls SAL

I finished a couple more Hardanger angels for the Smalls SAL.  This little pattern is a fun, easy stitch.  Go to the Stitching Lotus site for more info about this SAL.

Happy stitching!

Progress on Two SALs

I finished another section to The Way to Happiness sampler (I love this piece):

And started a new little project El muro II:

I also stitched my band on Becky's Friendship Sampler but because it's a mystery, I can't show it to anyone ..... sorry.

Enjoy what's left of April.

A Hermit Weekend

I got a bit of stitching in for April's IHSW.  I worked on The Way to Happiness sampler -- the words under the sheep.

April WIPocalypse

It's been awhile since I posted anything wipocalypse related this year.  I've been too busy fighting the new computer to do much posting.  But now that things seem to be settling down on that front, I plan to have more fun with this 'pita' technology.

My plan for 2014 WIPocalypse was to work on Mary Wigham and the Tulip Sampler.   Wellll, neither of which has been touched to date.  So for this report I've got a picture of The Way to Happiness sampler that I'm doing for myself.

 

At first I wasn't too sure I liked these colors, mainly because I really liked the colors of the green one for my friend.  However, the more I stitch it, the more I like it.

Why are these things so complicated???

You would think that all this computer stuff would get easier but it doesn't seem to be the case.  I bought a tablet (my first) with a camera that takes totally awful pictures.  And rather than post with craptastic pics, I've been trying to hook my camera up to this annoying tablet.  Without success so far.  However, I did manage (after hours of effort) to link up my tablet with my pc -- hooray!  yippee!  happy dance time!  what a tremendous waste of good stitching time!

And so without further ado, I finally have a stitching update.

First up is Acorn House from Jeannette Douglas.  This is my April ornament for the Halloween ornie SAL.  April's subject is owls.  I love this little house with it's spooky neighbors.  I did make an adjustment to the pattern by changing the border.

Next is The Way to Happiness sampler.  I hand stitched (because sewing machines hate me and the one I own is pathetic) a border around it.  This is only the second time I've tried this type of finish.  There are some problems / errors with it but I'm happy with the end result.  The directions call for quilting along the seams but I think I'll pass on that step.  I finished this last weekend but my fingers are still a bit tender.

I also joined the Stitching Smalls SAL over at Lotus's blog.  The small I chose for March is a cute little hardanger angel by Rita Tubbs.  The little lady on the left was my first attempt.  She's a bit off along the bottom ruffle but rather than ditch her, I made a little adjustment so it isn't quite so noticeable.  Of course, I didn't notice my mistake until the blanket stitch border was done.  The lady on the right is correct except for the little bodice.  That's a slight addition to her dress.

 

I'm afraid I'm late posting this picture for the Smalls SAL but hopefully there won't be a repeat for April now that I'm getting better with this tablet.  I just really wish they could make these things easier to use.  In hind sight, I wouldn't get one.  I think I'd go for a little lap top instead.

 

Take care and here's hoping Spring makes it to my backyard sometime before June.

Bats and butterflies

I love this little witch's hat with it's bat tassel and glitter.  The designer is The Stitchworks.  It's my March's witch for the Halloween ornie SAL.

In my last post, I mentioned the Friendship Sampler my EGA chapter is doing this year.  We are to stitch a top for the sampler to set the 'topic' of it.  Since I'm partial to butterflies, I decided to start my sampler with one.  I found this butterfly in an old leaflet called Butterflies and Flowers from Carolina Cross Stitch.

 

Next month, I'll pass my sampler on to the next stitcher and won't see it again until everyone has stitched their band.  It'll be a year before the mystery is unveiled.  I don't know if I can stand the wait.

"Meow" says the beagle

I have a finish but first you need to see what I saw the other afternoon.  Imagine my surprise when I turned around and saw a beagle on my window sill.  And it's my lazy, least agile beagle, Shasta, to boot.  There hasn't been a critter on my window sill since my last cat died.

I wish I could have seen her get there.  I can't imagine what prompted her to give it a try.  There was no food involved, so I don't know what her motivation was.  She must have stretched from the couch arm over to the window sill.  I'm just happy she got stuck there long enough for me to get a picture of it.   Though I would love to see what she looked like from outside the house.   Can you imagine the comments from passerby?  "Say lady, that's an odd kitty you've got in your window."

And no, I didn't have to rescue her.  She got down on her own.  Clever beagle.

Okay, on to the stitching.  I finished The Way to Happiness over the weekend.  I love it and hope my friend does too. 

I will be starting one for myself soon but first I have to prepare the fabric for a Friendship Sampler that the members of my EGA group is doing.  There are about a dozen of us participating in this project.  It's going to be a band sampler with everyone stitching a band.  The fabric is 40" long and will definitely be the longest thing I've ever stitched on.  I need to mark the middle and the 2 edges and I need to stitch the top band.  Since I just bought the fabric last week, I don't have anything done yet.  Though I did wash the fabric and iron it over the weekend.  Our meeting is the 17th so I need to get my rear in gear here.  Once we begin, I won't see my sampler again until it's been stitched by everyone involved.  

I've never done anything like this before and am really looking forward to it.  Though I don't know if I can stand the year-long suspense before seeing it again.

I've been stitching . . .

but haven't been doing much online recently.   I'm still trying to get the hang of my new computer.  Nothing is where it used to be.  The whole thing gets a little frustrating at times so I've been avoiding it.

I started a new sampler, The Way to Happiness, a SAL from Jardin Prive.  It's going to be a birthday present for a friend of mine.  Since her birthday is coming up in a couple months I've been working on it exclusively for 2 or 3 weeks and enjoying it very much.  Once hers is finished, I want to do another for myself.

Autumn Log Cabin is coming along nicely also, though I haven't touched it since I began my friend's gift.

And finally, I finished a little bat ornament for the Halloween Ornie SAL (my apologies, I can't get the link working for this one -- I give up, problems with the new computer, grrrrr!  One of these days I'll have it figured out.)

Have a good stitch day

Beyond time for an update ....

Wow, it's been almost a month and a half since my last post.  I'm going to blame it on computer problems and leave it at that.  These machines can be so frustrating at times.

Anyway, I finished an autumnal small for the Stitching Smalls SAL I joined this year.  It's Spooky Tree by Elizabeth's Designs.

I

Another ornament I worked on is Not Forgotten from Plum Street Samplers.  This one is for the Halloween Ornament SAL.

And finally, a larger, different type project I've been working on is a class my EGA group had.  It's a doll skirt.  Here it is almost finished.  I had intended to take a picture of the whole thing flat when I finished  stitching but forgot.  Sigh .... oh well.

Here she is, all assembled and finished.  She's a little hippy, and if I were to do her again, I would leave a couple rows off her skirt to make her a little thinner and easier to assemble.  I had a hard time getting that skirt gathered around her tiny waist.  But I think she turned out okay.  Especially since this type of finish is a first for me.  

Time for a little pirouette, my lady ....

Have a good week and thanks for visiting.

Happy New Year!

I'm afraid I've been slacking a bit in blogging lately.  I'm going to just blame being busy and go on from there.  Stitching has also been a little slow, plus I keep forgetting to take any pictures of my modest progress so I'll just leave you with a wish for a good new year and a picture of little Firefly snuggling with her newest friend.

More Christmas stitching

Last Saturday was my EGA chapter's Christmas party so now I can show some more of my Christmas stitching and show off some of the lovelies I received.  Let's see .... where should I begin??

I think I'll start with the things I received.  This first ornament is from our Guild ornament exchange and was stitched by Becky.  Isn't that the cutest finish?  And she rusted the jingle bells herself.  I'm definitely going to give that a try.

We have a secret sister exchange also (don't you just love exchanges??)  This jolly old elf was stitched by my secret sister (Becky, of the rusted jingle bell ornie above).  When you pull the bottom string, his arms and legs move.  How cool is that!?!  I, myself, will probably never, ever, ever attempt this finish.  I hung him on my frig so I can pull his string often and giggle at his jig.  I hope I don't wear him out.

The lovely Mistress Jessie made everyone in the guild one of these wool trees.  Don't you just love the little button ornaments?  I certainly do.

Here's another of Jessie's handiwork.  I love Blackbird Designs and pink.  Needless to say, I love this needle book.

Now on to what I stitched for the big event.  My secret sister was Jessie, a big fan of everything French, pink and Blackbird Design.  Sooo, I stitched her a small pillow that covered them all.
 

 And then I stitched this for my friend Becky

 And this for the ornament exchange

And now I want to tell you the saga of the scissor keeps.  For last year's secret sister I stitched this ornament:

I loved this little stitching lady so much that I decided I would stitch scissor keeps for the officers of my guild for next year's Christmas party. 

And here the saga begins!  I started them immediately in January and finished stitching them in January -- all 4 of them.  I set them aside and forgot about them for a few months.  Fast forward to June or July and I remembered I needed to assemble them into scissor keeps.  Hmmmm, where did I put them?  I searched high and wide in my house but never found the little buggers.  Come October, I thought I better get going and stitch them again since they obviously have disappeared, not to be found again (at least until I restitch them -- you know how that goes).  So I buckled down and restitched 3 of them, assembled them into fobs, bought cute scissors and little Christmas tins to put them in.  Have you noticed a problem with the numbers here?  I couldn't for the life of me remember why I stitched 4 the first time -- after all, I only needed 1 for each officer -- VP, Treasurer and Secretary (I was the President so I didn't need to make one there).

Sigh -- the best laid plans of mice and men . . . I forgot our region rep.  Duh!  Honestly, if my head wasn't attached, I would probably either lose it somewhere or forget to put it back on when it fell off.  What do you think the chances are that the original 4 will turn up now??  I'm guessing zip.  So I need to stitch another one.  Hmmm, I can probably stitch her from memory at this point since it'll be the 9th time.

What did I learn from this -- don't stitch things too far in advance.  Heaven forbid I should just get organized!

Have a good week.

Still happy dancin' ....

Santa is finished! 

The pattern called for red and white threads with smyrna stitches in his beard but I changed to brown overdyed and ecru threads and used eyelets for the beard.  Then to hide the black thread of his eyes, I attached a slip of ivory muslin to the back before adding the eyes.   The fabric was only big enough to cover his whole beard.  If you enlarge the picture you can see it peeking through the eyelet holes.

I also stitched almost half of the Autumn Log Cabin SAL part 3 over the weekend.  Though I do have some frogging to do tonight where that thread is hanging.  It isn't much so it shouldn't take too long to fix - knock on wood.

Have a good day!

Big Happy Dance

I'm ever so happy to say I have all my Christmas gifts stitched and assembled!  Yippee!  This is the very best gifting-shape I have been in for many a year.  And, to top that off, I almost have my brown Santa finished.  I started attaching the beads and it's going fairly quickly.  Barring a catastrophe, he should get finished this weekend.  Don't you just love the look of his beard?

Let's go back in time to Autumn . . . in October, I participated in a Halloween exchange and forgot to post a picture of the lovely package I received from Janet.  I adore the pillow (that fat little bird makes me chuckle every time I look at it) she made for me and was sorry to put it away for Christmas decorations.  Though actually, I just moved it into my exercise room where I can still see it while burning those holiday calories.  I love the LK fall basket pattern and the pumpkin fabric is perfect.  Thank you Janet!

For my part, I sent a package to Connie filled with assorted bugs, bats and pumpkins.

I love this pattern and one of these days, I'm going to stitch it for myself.  This trio of jacks gets me giggling every time I stitch it.  I love the goofy looks on their faces -- too funny!

And now back to winter . . . .

Some finishing touches

Firstly, thanks for all the nice comments on my last post!  It was very kind of you to take a moment out of your busy day to say 'hi and job well done'.  Thank you.

And now for the final finishing touches to my little ornaments.  Though some just got a bow or a tassle, others got a button or two.  Since it's technically still Autumn (though it's snowing at a goodly rate right now), I'll start with the Halloween ornies.  I had wanted to get them all done for Halloween this year but that (obviously) didn't happen.  Well, at least they're ready for next year.

DONE

DONE

AND DONE  -- I love the spider on a button here

And next up the Christmas ornies.  These are all gifts.  I like to make Christmas ornaments as gifts and right now I'm in good shape for the holiday.  I think I only have 3 or 4 more to finish (they're already stitched just waiting to be ornamentified).  This is definitely the best shape I've ever been in since I started gifting ornaments.

I love the red trim but am still trying to decide about that yellow.

I never thought the green-package-with-an-orange-bow button would ever find a home.

My brown Santa got a little loving also.  All that remains is the beading and his beard.  The beard will be next while the beads are last.  I probably won't do anything more on him until all the gifts are finished.

If you believe the weather forecasters, we're supposed to get some serious snow the next couple days in my neck of the woods.  If you're traveling in the northeast on your way home for Thanksgiving, drive carefully and have a wonderful visit with family and friends.

YUM!  My favorite.