Still Alive and Kicking...

... though it's probably hard to believe since so much time has passed since my last posting.  I've had my youngest sick with the stomach flu twice in the last few weeks, just getting over it the second time now; my daughter had it once and a cold at least twice; and my oldest figures his turn is coming at some point.  Between work, home life, and hobbies, time just slips by.

Two months from my last post, I do have some items to share!  First, round robin pictures (so far, the only projects I've finished this year):

We were originally going to have five people participating in our round robin, so this lady had five patterns for her Christmas tree theme, so I did two of them... so much fun.

Thanks to some time off in February and a vacation to the beach, I got more done on my February Noah's Ark sampler than I thought I would though I didn't finish it.  Hopefully before the end of the year at some point!  Here's as far as I got:

My March project was from HAED (Heaven and Earth Designs) called The Edge of Night.  I had some issues with it, my fault completely, and didn't get very far.  I was around 1200 (if I remember correctly?) stitches into it and decided I didn't like the coverage I was getting and frogged it.  After doing about 400 to 600 stitches again, I decided I liked the first coverage better and frogged it again.  Needless to say, I didn't get a page finished of that project in March and was some frustrated by the end of the month, used to making a bit more progress than that.  It doesn't look like much, but here's my ending point as of the last day of March:

April brought me to my cupcake cushion.  I had started working on just the border before the new year, thank goodness... what a tedious part!  I have hope that I'll finish this by the end of April.  A series of completed steps of it:

Arg, it isn't letting me post the last picture I have... so I guess I'll have to return and post an update before this much time has passed again!

Happy stitching!

A busy, busy February

Already into February... time just gets away.  I've been stitching away.  I picked up my February project on the 1st of the month, intending to get back to Safari to finish page 2.  Here's the progress as of the end of January 31:  

Not far to go.  I had planned to pick it up and finish it off maybe that first weekend in February, just to at least be done with page 2, and I've been enjoying my February project so much, it's hard to put that one down.  I may need to sprout another set of arms is all lol..

February's project is the Noah's Ark sampler by Teresa Wentzler.  Many of her designs have blended colors, but not this one, thankfully -- I think that would've done me in.  Here's the progress at the start of the month when I picked it up and the progress as of Sunday evening, February 5.

Currently, the ark is finished and I've made it to the lower left corner of the picture above the alphabet there.  The squares of the border will each have animals in them, stitched 1 over 1.  My daughter loves looking at the animals and naming them (she's 4), so I will probably let her dictate which animals to do first, second, etc., when it gets to that point.

It will likely be another couple weeks before making another posting as I'm off for vacation for two weeks as of Monday.  I was undecided as to which to take with me and decided on both!

When I return, I hope to delve into the next chapter of the RR, the Christmas tree theme, and March will have me starting another larger project from scratch, a chart called The Edge of Night from Heaven and Earth Designs.  Happy Stitching to all!