A quick update

I finished a little witch over the weekend for the Halloween Ornament SAL.  This is a freebie from The Little Stitcher called Vintage Witch.

Love that nose!

I stitched some more of El Muro II.  My little village is almost finished, just a few more houses to go.

And I finished The Way to Happiness sampler.

Love it!

Have a good one!

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.

"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