One more Christmas Friday post

I remembered to take a picture of the Christmas ornies for my nephews:

I bought some tiny black buttons to put on the Candy Sock over the stitched black buttons.  I think that will make a cute addition to it.  These 2 patterns are so cute -- I may need to stitch a pair for myself in my spare time.

I also got another square done on Rosewood Manor's Tulip sampler (the tall skinny one on the bottom).  For some reason or other, this one made me nervous -- all that backstitching just wasn't relaxing this time.  I was sooo glad when it was finished!  I hope this doesn't happen again -  there's still tons of bs-ing to do on this piece.  The square under this one is big and has lots of cross stitching in it so I'm planning on doing it next.  Hopefully that will be more fun and then I can go on to another session of bs-ing with a fresh, happy attitude.

That's the plan.

 My weekend is going to be spent grooming dogs, doing laundry and stitching.  Should be fun!  I hope your weekend is just as fun.

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".

Crazy Days 7, 8 & 9

On Friday, aka Crazy Day 7, I started another Sampler Girl pattern.  I love, love, love this particular quotation because I hate, hate, hate the heat:

"What dreadful hot weather we have.  It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance."

Talk about understatement.  Anyway, I got quite a bit of it done:

Saturday, I started the Tulip Sampler by Rosewood Manor.  I just love the colors in this one.  Considering I spent most of the day in Pittsburgh visiting an old college friend, I think I got lots done:

On Day 9 or Sunday, I began a canvas piece designed by Cheryl Schaeffer for the Rainbow Gallery.  This will be my Santa for 2011.  Isn't he cute? 

Even though it doesn't look like I got much done, there was a bunch of prep work for this one.  First I had to paint the canvas blue and let it dry.  Then I had to iron it.  And before attaching it to the stretcher bars, I had to straighten a bunch of tacks.  The only tacks I had that weren't in use were badly bent and mangled, ie, totally UN-USEABLE.  Rats!  And of course, I needed to gather some threads for it (I currently  have 2 -- the green and yellow border colors.)

The pattern called for French Blue 18 count canvas.   I only have white congress cloth.  I thought about just stitching it on white but I liked the blue wall.  I thought about making the wall blue with a background stitch but decided against that.  I decided to paint the canvas instead.  This is kind of fun 'cuz I never know exactly what I'm going to get.  I was trying for a lighter blue but the one I got is okay.  I may have to change the color of the chair and ottoman -- I'll just have to see what hits me when I get there.

While I was waiting for the blue canvas to dry and between loads of laundry, I spent some time stitching on my Sticklounge project, Odds & Ends by Tams Creations:

This is such a fun piece but because I made an error near the 3 o'clock position and because I decided to not try to figure out or correct the error, I have been compensating the little objects to get back on track by 6 o'clock.   Since I don't know where the error is, I really hope my circle ends meet.  I'm going to be extra diligent to make sure this comes out okay. 

If not, I'll just put a little charm over the offending area.  What you can't see isn't there -- right.

See you tomorrow ....  go crazy, keep stitching!