Tag ..... I'm "IT"

Well, this is a first for me, I've been tagged.  I need to answer 11 qestions:

1. What is the strangest thing you’ve ever confessed to eating for breakfast?

Bonnie: Two fruit servings – Orange juice and Peach Schnapps.

Tracey: Shreddies along with Homemade Skor Bars.

Anita: Original Mini Wheats along with Reeces Peanut Butter Cups.

Jody: Cold, left over asparagus.

Julie: I don’t think I’ve ever had anything strange for breakfast.

Marcy:  Birthday cake -- yum!

2. When shopping, what aisle do you gravitate to first?

Bonnie: Home Décor unless distracted by Bling.

Tracey: Books and magazines.

Julie: Movies

Marcy:  I hate to shop so just go in and get it over with.

3. What is the most recent book you’ve read?

Tracey: 50 Shades of Grey.

Anita: 50 Shades of Grey.

Jody: 50 Shades of Grey.

Bonnie: 30 Shades of Grey – I’m not done yet.
Julie: I am currently reading “The Hidden Power of the Gospels”. Most recently finished Janet Evanovich’s book (#17 Plum series)

Marcy:  The Gold Bug, a short story by Edgar Allen Poe  

4. Who is your favourite movie star dream guy/gal?

Tracey: Johnny Depp.

Anita: Richard Gere.

Jody: Robert Downey Jr.
Bonnie: Colin Firth, Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Mike Delfino from Desperate Housewives, Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs; Bonnie is greedy!!

Julie: This is a toughie! Dominic Cooper was hot in “The Devil’s Double”. Orlando Bloom and David Schwimmer round out my top 3.

Marcy:  The above are all good but I've always loved Humphrey Bogart.

5. Do you file your patterns by Designer, Alphabetically or by Category?

Bonnie: Who files??

Tracey: Mainly by category, unless it’s a series.

Anita: Ditto to Tracey.

Jody: Ditto to Anita.

Julie: Filing? What is that??

Marcy:  What Julie said

6. Do you stick to the pattern when stitching or change it up?

Bonnie: I tend to change it up.

Tracey: hmmmmm 9 times out of 10, I”ll stick to the pattern.

Julie: Generally I stick with the pattern. I have made a few modifications on occasion

Marcy:  I make many modifications

7. Would you ever want to try your hand at designing?

Bonnie: Why yes of course.

Tracey: Perhaps…

Julie: Depends on the kind of designing you are talking about, LOL! I have created a couple of my own designs.

Marcy:  Definitely 

8. Do you tend to stitch more or less in the summer months?

Bonnie: Less. I spend more time in the gardens.

Tracey: Definitely less! The gardens always seem to be calling my name.

Julie: I tend to stitch more when I feel the urge. Season doesn’t equate into my mood for stitching unfortunately.

Marcy:  Probably about the same -- I hate the heat

9. Have you ever attended a stitching retreat?

Bonnie: Yes, at Brentwood on the Beach with the Stitching Sisters and soon to be at a cozy cabin in the woods.

Tracey: Ditto

Anita: Ditto

Jody: Ditto

Julie: Nope. But sure would like to sometime. I would love to go to the one in Nashua (NH – where I lived for a few years) and to Colonial Williamsburg.

Marcy:  I did (a small local one) and enjoyed it loads

10. If money wasn’t an issue and you had the opportunity to choose from one or the other, would you totally renovate your home and stay, or move.

Bonnie: I would move to a one level home. (with a pool and lazy river)

Tracey: I would pick my house up and move it to the country. Is that an option?
Bonnie: No Tracey, that is not an option.

Julie: MOVE!

Marcy:  Ditto to Julie

11. Do you track the hours you spend on a stitching project?

Bonnie: Not always, but I did for a special gift. I tracked it as 197 hours.

Tracey: I used to... I just don’t care anymore. I finish when I finish.

Julie: Never. It takes away the fun of the craft for me.

Marcy:  I did once -- but never again!  I don't want to know how long it takes. 

Now I'm supposed to write 11 questions and pick 11 people to tag.  Ummm, did I mention that I'm basically lazy??  So if you've never been tagged and always wanted to be, considered yourself tagged and play along by answering the above 11 questions and tagging 11 more bloggers.  Enjoy!

Unfortunately, I don't have any stitching pics to show.  But since it's going to be incredibly hot and humid (which I hate!) over the weekend, I'll be having a stay-inside-the-A/C-kind-of-weekend doing my laundry and stitching.  Pics will be forthcoming the beginning of next week.

Keep cool everyone!

OES and ASCA

I picked up Old European Sampler again and am making a little headway on it, as you can see:

For some reason or another, I'm having trouble keeping momentum going on this one.  I think the main problem is that I'm falling out of a cross stitching phase and into an embroidery phase.  This happens once in awhile.  The other problem is the colors -- and yes, I did choose them all by my lonesome.  Blues are not my favorite (this goes back to grade school and 8 years of navy blue plaid uniforms -- yuck!  To this day I run screaming if I see navy blue plaid) but I really like the blue/brown combo I picked.  It's just that the colors don't hold my attention while stitching all those x's --- Zzzzzzzzz.  I've got a few different stitches in there but apparently not enough to keep my interest.

However, I will finish this piece because it's going to be so pretty and I will be really happy with it once it's done.  I know this.

I also worked on the beagle puppy but forgot to take a picture - duh.  Basically, I stitched more of the basket, so not much interesting going on here.  I still haven't picked a collar color.

Keeping with the beagles but going off stitchy topic a little here, the dogs and I were at an ASCA (Australian Shepherd Club of America) agility trial over the weekend.  Since when did you get an Aussie? you ask.   Ummm, never. I reply.  ASCA allows all breeds, including mixed, to enter their agility trials.  This was only our second ASCA trial.  We had an excellent time and since all the dogs are in the novice (beginner) class, we had lots of qualifying runs (Qs).  Willow (10 yo beagle) had the most runs (4 each day) and got 6 Qs out of her 8 runs and her first ASCA title (woohoo!).  Shasta (4 yo beagle) ran twice and Qd both times.  River (8 yo papillon) had only one run and Qd it (he can't handle the heat so I only entered him one day in the morning).  Stormy (13 yo semi-retired little brown dog) had 2 runs and Qd both of them (way to go old man!).  Marcy (50-something yo human) ran 13 times and was (is) exhausted!

May your week be filled with laughter, stitching and puppy kisses.

A young Stormy flying

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!

Heart Note Alley is finished . . . .

You may notice that I decided against the lacey border.  Not because it wouldn't look nice but because it was becoming a headache trying to get the thing centered and the corners pretty.  Sooo, rather than spend hours on something that isn't fun, I just dropped it and moved on.  I'm still looking for a little frog, though.  I have one but he's too big.  If anyone knows of a tiny, flat frog charm available somewhere out there in internet land, just point me in the right direction.

Many thanks to Kathy Bungard of Gracewood Stitches for this lovely design.

June WIPocalypse

I'm late but I did get lots done.  And so without further ado .......

Almost all the white bells are stitched in White Christmas (only have 3 more sets at the top to stitch -- woo hoo!).  Once this is done, I can start the cutting.

The Old European Sampler has been gathering dust so I pulled it out and got some done on it also. 

The Tulip Sampler hasn't seen the light of day since January of 2011 when I first began it as part of the 2011 Crazy January Challenge.  I just love the colors in this one and intend to give it some major TLC.

The next few pics are a biscornu and some ornies that have been stitched for some time and needed to be "finished".  The biscornu is called Tumbling Spools (I think).  I forget the designer's name but it was offered in an EGA magazine issue from 2010 or maybe 2009 (hmmmm ... memory like a steel trap).

I decided I wanted to add the 4 buttons on the underside corners to match the spools.  Who knew that I, a lover of pink, didn't have a single pink button??  After a quick visit to JoAnn's, I do now.

These 3 Christmas ornies were from the 2011 Crazy Challenge also.  I finished the actual cross stitching in 2011 but never made them into ornaments until now.  As of now, I'm thinking I may remove the red beads from the sugar shocked reindeer's cording.  I'm not sure I like it.

And even though this isn't part of WIPocalypse (unless you count the "finishing" part) I want to include this lovely stitched by Linda B as an exchange from the Fair and Square group:

Hmmm .... can you tell I've added "finishing" to my WIPocalypse list?  When the world ends, I want to get all my little stitchings "finished".