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!

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!

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!!

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!

Once Upon a Weekend...

Ever have one of those weekends that you wished you could rewind and just sleep through instead?  Yeah, whatever could go wrong this weekend, DID.  Among some minor things, I don't know how many times I had a bit of a mistake on the stitching and had to unstitch... that's no fun for any of us to realize our small imperfections, but we know that we can't live knowing that mistake would be in our work, even if others wouldn't.  The weekend was filled with eventful incidents, among them my daughter possibly either dislocating her shoulder or fracturing her collarbone and my 12-year-old son getting sick in the car.  At this point, both are feeling much better, thank God.

It doesn't hold a candle to those over on the East Coast.  My thoughts and prayers have been with you all this weekend.  The hubby and I have kept tuned in to the news and can't believe the damage done.  I hope that as waters recede and more and more survey the damage, it is done with care and safety to your person above all else.

On a good note this weekend, I did stumble onto a couple of prizes at garage sales.  I picked up a Minnie Mouse for my daughter for $1.00.  How awesome to find this, the one toy I desperately wanted to get her at Disney and couldn't see paying the $20.00 at the gift stores for this little stuffed Minnie.  So that was quite the find!  I'm also pleased that I managed to find a couple of cross stitch charts for a quarter each:

They're charts for somewhat larger projects -- 13 x 10 inches and 12.25 x 10 inches -- and I'd prefer kits, but they're cute, and I couldn't pass up a quarter!  If nothing else, maybe they'll make some cute little gifts in Christmas cards this year for some favorite stitchy friends.

I also found another project of a different breed, something brand new that I've never done before.  It is a full kit, a felt Christmas stocking kit.  I'm not sure when I'll begin this as I already have so much in progress, but some day.... I certainly have the patience, so I'll try my hand at it:

I haven't yet decided which child it will be for, and if it turns out, it will have to be equal, so I'll have to buy two more suitable for the other two, naturally! 

Last, but certainly not least, I had a finish today!  I finally finished the two little monkeys for my friend's baby's nursery.  Her baby shower is on Sept. 18, so I have plenty of time to get a frame and get it wrapped up and ready to go for her along with the other couple of things I have to go with it.  I'm sure she'll be quite pleased!

Now to decide what's next.... I have several projects in the works already and should do one of those.  I have another friend expecting and have a pattern picked out for her that I'd like to do, but until I get to the store for thread, I think I'll have to satisfy myself with a current WIP.  I'm thinking possibly Noah's Ark Christmas -- over on the right is a WIP picture.

Vacations and stitches and news... oh my!

First and foremost comes the stitching news -- here's the current progress on the monkeys for my friend.  I best get it done, too... I've discovered that her shower is on September 18, so it needs to be ready to roll!  They're coming along, taking shape.  I had to do some major unstitching the other night when I wasn't paying attention and accidentally added an extra small row of seven whole stitches.  Amazing how bad a little mistake can throw you off like that.  All is in order now!  Hoping to finish my current color tonight (DMC 435) during America's Got Talent.

Which brings me to my next topic:  my favorite summer show, America's Got Talent.  Tonight is the big wild card show.  SO excited to see Seth Grabel (magician) have another chance and hope he gets through this time!  Sending out some good vibes for the Summerwind Skippers, too.

Saturday we got home from a wonderful vacation to sunny Florida.  We spent a few days at the beach and then went on to Orlando and soaked up the sunshine (and some rain) at Sea World and Disney.  We had two days at each, one extremely hot and one rainy at each park.  Everyone had a blast, and my littlest, not even 8 months old yet, was so good riding around in the heat in a stroller for the better part of a day.  On our last day at Disney, we were at Disney Hollywood Studios where I experienced the scariest ride of my life:  the Twilight Zone's Tower of Terror.  Literally thought I was gonna die lol...

Here's the view that we saw as this horrible invention launched us up an elevator chute and then let us drop again before doing it again and again.  I'm still not sure how I managed to get a photo.  I imagine I gripped my camera in fear and accidentally hit the button haha... what you don't see is me screaming like a banshee.  In all seriousness, it was like an elevator shaft inside what was supposed to be an old abandoned motel.  The elevator doors at the height of this shaft in the Tower of Terror would open, so all you could see was this and it made it feel like you were launched out of the ceiling... I've never been so scared.  Would I do it again?  Yep! haha

Me with my darling kids and Mickey Mouse from Fantasia!  My daughter was overjoyed to finally meet Mickey.  This was towards the end of the day, our last day at Disney.  She ran right up to him and gave him a huge hug.

Next is the ornies I received back from my partners in our Christmas in July exchange.  They'll look lovely on our tree this year!

Last, but not least, we made an offer on a house today.  Our littlest was a surprise to us, so we've been getting tighter and tighter in our current home.  The one we found is just on the edge of our small town and gives us a country feel and has a huge yard for the kids to play in.  Keep your fingers crossed for us, please!

That's all for now -- happy stitchin' everyone!

Christmas in July Finishes

It seems as though I've been working on these little items for ages, but it's only been about six weeks or so.  These items came about from a Christmas in July exchange I got involved in.  Always one to have a creativity spaz attack, I ended up with not one ornament for each person I'm exchanging with but several little items since my mind wouldn't stop coming up with ideas, and I couldn't decide.

The ornaments that started it all:

Bookmarks--A brand new experience for me. The fringe on the bottom one is courtesy of my wonderful husband. I was going to leave it with just the ribbon. I'm SO glad he suggested something for the ends... looks much better. The top one is my favorite -- the colors, the beaded "ribbon." I really like how it turned out!

Magnets -- creative experiment number two. The top is stitched on aida with green and silver ribbon on the sides. The bottom is stitched on perforated plastic. Both are fit nicely into 4x6 photo magnet holders. I have a few of them here and since I couldn't get to the store to buy stuff to secure to the back to make magnets (or even know what to look for), I figured this was a clever solution.

Satchets -- yet another first. Both are stuffed with "Ocean Breeze" potpourri. I suppose with Christmas in July, "Evergreen" would have made more sense, but I wasn't thinking at the store. I was thinking more about vacation in Florida, so "Ocean Breeze" it was.

Finally, some finishes to post on my blog.  I'll be working furiously on the monkeys for my friend over the next week or so.  If it isn't finished before we leave for Florida on August 2, it will be going with me... they'll be going with me.  I won't pretend I'll have it done by then.  I will be bringing along another WIP just in case I'm able to finish that one up while we're off relaxing.... too bad the beach is so sandy.  It would be an awesome spot to stitch!