Sunday, September 25, 2011

Finished!

Enchanted Cottage finished as of about a half an hour ago, September 25, 2011.  The cording wasn't as horrible as I imagined it would be and dreaded the whole project, so I'm grateful for that!  I am also a pro at French knots now!

I'm still waiting for my patterns from Mystic Stitch, and I found a couple patterns that I'm going to turn into pillows, one for each of my two younger ones.  Still looking for something of interest for my oldest... sports cars maybe, if I ever find some of those.  My daughter will be getting cupcakes, my baby a pillow with farm animals, both from the same past issue of Cross Stitch Gold.

I've got threads sorted to start the next in line... so much for finishing some WIPs lol  I'll be starting Footprints tonight.  It came in a kit from a friend of mine and has evenweave... another first.  Excited to try it!  Happy stitching!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Almost to another finish...

Closing in on another finish... at long last.  This picture was as of last night.  I was able to do a little work on it today, so currently, what there was to do on the pathway is finished as well as filling in most of the left side and some yellow along the edge of the house on the right.  I still have a bit of green and the detailing to do.  There seems to be a ton of French knots in this, so I'm not looking forward to those :S

Today was my friend/coworker's baby shower, so she finally received Baby Monkers and loved it.  I'm so glad... I wasn't completely thrilled with the frame job I did on it, but she was happy, and that's what counts the absolute mostest.... her due date is November 8, but she and her boyfriend are getting a place as of October 1 and setting up the nursery immediately.  Should look wonderful amongst her many other monkey-themed items!

On another note, my stash groweth... Three words:  Mystic Stitch sale.  After looking for a day and a half off and on, I determined the six I couldn't bare to go on without and purchased the patterns in the B3G3F deal... SO excited to get those.  My husband teased me about what I would do in 2034 when I only have 100 or so left that I'm planning to do lol.... could be a worse habit/hobby/addiction!  I'll have to add those to my official To-Do Niche list eventually.

Until next time.... happy stitching to all!

Friday, September 9, 2011

A peaceful setting...

Enchanted Cottage kit, progress as of September 9, 2011, prior to the start of the weekend stitch-a-long (SAL).

I think I've got my next bigger project decision made, too.  Over a year ago, I was involved with what is called a round robin.  In our case, we were a group of four people, two in the United States, one in Canada, and one allll the way down under in Australia.  We mailed our pieces around until everyone had stitched on each other's in the owner's chosen theme.  Mine was tropical, and I ended up with tropical birds, but I love it all the same.  It was during this process of the round robin that I fell in love with my next project:  cupcakes!  The lady in Australia, now a good friend of mine, had the cupcakes for her round robin theme.  There were actually nine of them, and we were to stitch one cupcake.  This came out of a magazine that she had, and I love it!  I can't wait to make this into a pillow for my little daughter, Savannah.  I've had the threads and the pink aida purchased for a very long time.  At long last, I got a hold of the pattern!  Yay!  But, I did promise myself that I wouldn't start on it until I got the Enchanted Cottage finished, so at least I'm motivated!

To the right is a picture of my finished round robin from 2009-2010, the first I took part in.  I'm so glad it was such a good experience; I've heard such horror stories about some of them!

Below is a picture I took after adding my cupcake to my friend's project, to give an idea of the "cupcake pillow."

Anyone who knows me, knows I also greatly enjoy TV and movies.  So excited for some of the new series coming this fall, but really bummed about the cancelling of Hellcats. 

Yeah, that was a bit random, wasn't it?  haha... So glad it's Friday!  It's the weekend of another Facebook friend's SAL, so I'm hoping to dig into Enchanted Cottage and have more progress to post on Monday!  Happy stitching, everyone!!

Friday, September 2, 2011

Currently stitching...

Nothing overly fabulous in the works at the moment.  I picked up one of the various WIPs I have in the works and have been fiddling with that when I'm able to while trying to decide what I want to do next "for real."  I've decided I really want to work on my HAED Noah's Ark, but since it is such a large project, it's difficult to do with a toddler cruising the furniture, curious about what Mommy has, so in the meantime, I'll continue working on the smaller project.  It's Enchanted Cottage, one that I realized I hadn't even included in my To-Do Niche!  I thought I would share the last picture I had taken of it, from back near the beginning of February 2011.  Yikes, it's been in the works way too long... time to finish it up!  There's only a little bit more done on it now -- I'm a few stitches shy of finishing the flowers within the black border.
~Enchanted Cottage, as of February 3, 2011~
I'm not sure why I set it aside for so long.  I am a little leery of the "something new" with this kit.  There's thread to make a cording that goes around the oval when completed.  I'm nervous about how to do this and have it look good or whether it'll be all goofy looking and then ruined when I try to undo it and fix it.  I may simply go buy my own cording to afix to it so that I won't have to contend with both the twisting in making my own with the threads included as well as trying to figure out how to afix it properly... only time will tell how that comes out, I suppose.

Happy stitching to all!