WIPocalypse #2

Boy has the past month ever flew by. I completely forgot about the WIPocalypse challenge and working on my stitching after the first little rush I had at the first of last month. I did work a little bit on something I'm stitching for a friend, but I can't post it on here because I'm not sure if she'll read this or not. So, instead I'll post my teeny tiny progress in other areas for the month.

I got a whopping 3 hours work done on Fairy Moon. LMAO. I normally wouldn't even bother taking a picture of it, but I needed to be able to post something, so here's Moony at 78 hours.

I also managed to dig out a few smalls I did in 2007 and FINALLY got them framed. I did these for my two girls when they were tiny. They're bigger now, but they still love them. My oldest and I always read the book "Guess How Much I Love You" in which the final line is "I love you to the moon and back", and this became our key phrase for many years to tell the other that we loved them. So when I saw the "I Love You To The Moon" kit from Waxing Moon Designs, I HAD to have it! I got it off eBay and stitched it up quickly.

My youngest and I read this book as well and said the same things, but when it was time to do one for her I saw the "You're My Sunshine" kit from Waxing Moon Designs it was perfect. My youngest daughter had a thing for the song You Are My Sunshine. My Mother-in-Law sang it to her every time she saw her and Littlest DD always referred to it as her "special Nanny song". It was such a special song for her that at one point, I wasn't even allowed to sing it to her, only Nanny could. lol

So, after only 4-5 years of sitting in the finished container, I managed to get them framed for the girls. Here they are.

Hopefully next month I'll be able to post a little more visible progress, but for now Happy Stitching!

WIPocalypse!

Well, it's been several years since I've posted, or stitched for that matter but a friend of mine, Christine, posted on her blog that she was going to join WIPocalypse and after reading a bit more about it (here) I decided I wanted to join also. I'm hoping that it will give me back my stitching mojo, which has been sorely missing for a few years now.

So, I guess in lieu of doing a "progress" post for the first full moon of the year, I'm merely doing a small introduction post with a list of the WIPs I'll be working on, and maybe a few I'd like to start.

First of all, the two main ones I've had sitting around for forever and a day.

Fairy Moon - Mirabilia

This is the last picture I took of this WiP at 58.5 hours. It was taken nearly 4 years ago in April 2008! (see what I mean about getting my stitching mojo back?!)

EDIT:

Once I finished my post and dug out my stitching to get started I was pleasantly surprised. I had over 70 hours completed, but I'd just never taken a picture. I stitched for a few more hours last night and today and took this picture when I reached the 75 hour mark!

End Edit.

Summer Blooms.

This came from a magazine somewhere, I'm not sure which one. I LOVE the piece, but have the hardest time getting into it. I hate stitching it, but I know it'll be worth it when I'm finished.

Summer Blooms - 20 Hours - August 2007

What Summer Blooms will look like when it's finished! I only hope I make it there someday!

Dream Sampler by Dragon Dreams

Another one I'd like to add to my list is Dream Sampler by Dragon Dreams. I did this for my oldest daughter a few years ago and would like to do another for my younger. I've even gone so far as to buy the fabric and work the outline grid on it already. I just need to get my lazy butt in gear on this one. Here's the finished version of the last one I did.

There are others I'd love to add to the list, for example, I've already collected the patterns for Celtic Spring, Celtic Summer and Celtic Autumn by Lavender and Lace as well as the pattern for Romantic Stitcher by Passione Ricamo but I think the ones I have here with a few Christmas Ornaments from the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament issues I've collected over the last few years should be sufficient for now. However, I reserve the right to change my mind at any given time. ;)

Happy Stitching

Christine

Visions of Dragons

I Finally finished stitching my Dream Sampler from Dragon Dreams. I've got 45 hours total stitching time on it. I didn't end up frogging out the Watercolors in the fairy's skirt. It looked fine with half stitches of the MUCH thicker Watercolors fibres, rather than the Waterlilies that it called for. I did, however frog the backstitching around the fairy's wings (what a chore that was!) and the backstitch swirls beside the fairy's wings. (which is much harder to see with the finer thread)

This one is for Olivia. I do plan on stitching it again for Rachel once I find a fabric that I suits it.

When I get around to getting it framed I'll post another picture.

Oh, I forgot to mention that it's stitched on 32 ct Iris Garden Opalescent Lugana from Silkweaver.

Not much going on

Life's been pretty tame in small town New Brunswick lately. I haven't done much other than watch the tube and play with the kids... oh, other than nearly break my big toe the other day.


For some of you who know, we've got a wood furnace and the other night (Sunday) I went downstairs to throw a few logs in the fire and managed to drop one on my big toe. I don't think it would have been nearly as bad if I had actually been holding it and dropped it, but instead it slipped from my grip before I even had it off the top of the wood pile. Our small wood room in the basement has 9ft ceilings and the wood is piled in three tiers over 7ft tall... (I have to get on my tiptoes to get the wood at the very top) So, a log around 18" long and probably 9" in diameter when whole (it was split in half) fell 7 ft and landed on my big toe... needless to say I couldn't walk well for the next couple of days. Yesterday was the first day that I was actually walking without pain most of the time, though it was also the first day my toe turned purple, and an awfully pretty shade it was!



I haven't been doing much stitching lately. I managed to finish the John Deere Tractor I was stitching for my FIL. It was supposed to have text at the bottom telling the year of the tractor, but I left them off because his old John Deere tractor looks very similar to the pattern, but is a different year. I considered putting something like "Nothing Runs like a Deere" or just "John Deere" at the bottom, but honestly... I doubt he'll mistake it for anything else, so I just left it as it is, very simple.



I started working on Christmas Ornies for this year. I know, I know...I'm cutting it kind of close, but I just don't get the urge to work on Christmas stuff until nearly Christmas. I'm starting with the one I'm doing for Jason and I. (I plan on doing 3 each year -- one for each girl and one for Jason and I) It's the Joy ornament by Sweetheart Tree that's in the 2006 JCS Ornament Issue. I should be done in a day or two (it's not very big) and I'll post a pic then.



Two Christmas presents arrived last week, We ordered a new computer desk for ourselves as a Christmas present for all of us. Right now we've just got a cheap "student" style desk. Everything is open and no drawers etc... not the best thing with a very grabby baby in the house, so we ordered this one from Staples and it arrived the next day. (Note to Future Shop. Please please PLEASE take some lessons on home delivery from Staples!!) It's got a hutch on the top to keep things up high and away from curious little hands. It also has doors in several places to store all our junk that looks so cluttered and messy sitting out in the open right now. I tell you it'll be so nice to be a little more organized than we are now. And it's so hard not to just set it up and be done with it now, but it IS a Christmas present so Jason's adamant that it stay in the box until Christmas Day.



The other present that arrived was one I ordered for myself from Ebay. I've wanted to stitch Mother's Tree for a while now, and found it on Ebay for only a few dollars (including shipping I think I paid around $6.00.) So I thought it would be a good present for the girls to give to me. I won't be stitching it until sometime in the spring. I want to get substantially further in my rotation before I take on another big project. I think I'd get too scattered with another big one right now -- Medium one, maybe... but not a biggun. Unfortunately, blogger won't let me upload a picture now, if you don't know the pattern and want to take a peek, here it is. And if you want to see a gorgeous one that I found online, check this post out! She doesn't post much, but I LOVE her version of this pattern. Strangely enough when I did the research on my family tree on Ancestry.com I found that we actually have the first two ancestors on her tree in common. Neat!



Last of all, I realized that I never posted any Halloween Pictures of the kids but blogger is not cooperating on the photo front, so I'll try to remember to do a seperate post later.

Has it been that long? Oh My...

It's been a while, and I haven't been doing much for stitching. I just haven't been in the mood for it lately. But now that the new TV season is back upon us I may get a bit more done while I sit my chubby little butt in front of the idiot box for hours on end.

I actually just realized how much I watch that damn thing. I always knew it was a lot, but just today I commented on another blog about which shows we watch and I now realize that I'm totally and completely addicted to TV! Here's our list of the shows we are watching this season.

Sunday nights we watch: Simpsons, Desperate Housewives, Dexter and Family Guy

Monday nights we watch: How I Met Your Mother, Journeyman, Stargate: Atlantis, Heroes, Chuck and Californication

Tuesday nights we watch: The Rick Mercer Report, Air Farce, Law & Order: SVU, House, The Tudors, Reaper and Pushing Daisies

Wednesday nights we watch: Back To You, Private Practice, Criminal Minds, Life(haven't seen this one yet, but it's taped) and The Bionic Woman.

Thursday nights we watch: CSI, Grey's Anatomy, Survivor and soon Lost

Friday nights we watch:Ghost Whisperer, Las Vegas, Torchwood, Moonlight

Phew... it makes me tired just typing it. Damn it that's a lot of shows to watch EVERY week. That reminds me... Private Practice is starting in 5 minutes so I should hurry this post up.

Even though I haven't been stitching much, I do have some progress pictures to show.

I realized that I never did post my latest progress on Fairy Moon, so here she is at 28 hours work on September 6, 2007

I've also been working on another project for Christmas. It's safe to show it here because it's for my Father in Law who doesn't own a computer. It's a John Deere pattern I took from one of the Cross Stitcher magazines I have upstairs. I don't remember when it was published, but I saw it one day when I was going through my pile o mags and knew it was perfect for him. He loves anything to do with John Deere. He's got an old OLD Deere tractor that he kept using up until last year when the costs for repairs became more than managable. So he went out and bought a new one. Anyhow, I saw this and decided to stitch it for his birthday (June!) but that never happened and I'm now attempting to stick with it long enough to finish it before Christmas. If I can stay with it and not switch to any other projects I just might do it.

In other, non-stitchy news I took Olivia today to get her hair cut at the hair dresser for the very first time. Many people who know me in person know the trouble I've been having with trying to convince Rachel that pulling out big chunks of Olivia's hair is not a suitable passtime.

Anyway, it finally got to be too much for me. Her long hair was too easy to latch on to and I found that if I put Olivia's hair in a ponytail Rachel got a hold of it once in a while, but not nearly as much... so I went one step further with this and decided to get it cut. It had gotten to the point where Olivia is getting bald spots on the top of her head where it's all getting pulled out. It's also looking very messy and unkempt because there was so much breakage further down on her hair. So, lo and behold here is her new look. Don't mind the blurry pictures. My flash is acting up on me and hasn't been working this evening.

In case any of you needed reminded what her hair looked like before here's a shot. Her hair was in a ponytail for the first picture. Jason took these before we left for Sandy's (my hairdresser) but he didn't take her elastic out right away. I reminded him to, but he never thought to take more than one shot of front or back with the hair down and the front shot is horrible. She's making one of the strangest faces I've ever seen. So I guess you guys get to see the before with her elastic in. After all, that is what she looked like most of the time.

I've got more to post about, but don't have time tonight. I guess that's what happens when you wait more than a month between posts...

Dream Sampler

Well, another few weeks since my last post in blogland and really not all that much to say. I've got some more stitching done. I finished the next section on Dream Sampler, with the exception of the specialty stitches running between the lines of text that I STILL don't have the silk threads for.

I ordered (and paid for) them at my LNS June 2nd and I still don't have anything. I called a week and a half ago to check on it and was told that they'd be putting the order in "next week". I mean, god!!! If there was no plan to order it for over nearly three months, just let me know and I'll get them somewhere else!!! (Note: I just called them and the order should be at the store "any time now". I guess we'll see how long it takes. Because then they still have to send it to me. I'm not very happy with my experience ordering specialty threads... I waited two months for the first batch only to find out I ordered the wrong thing, then I order again from my LNS expecting a little better service and it's 3 months now...

Well, enough ranting for now, you guys don't need to hear it... Here's a progress picture of Dream Sampler at 26.5 hours. I went on two days past the "week" thing because I wanted to finish the section. I'm big on working in sections. I don't think the strict 10 hours/week rotation is working very well. I think I'll still use that as a general guideline, but I won't stick with it too hard if I need to finish a section.

The highlight of my freaking week last week was when I was sitting stitching and looked down at the bottom corner of my fabric and found THIS.

Olivia had decided that my fabric looked like it needed a trim! The cut is about an inch from the bottom at the highest spot and about 2.5 inches long. Luckily there is a bit of extra material at the top and bottom, but I was looking to frame it with a large mat... and this limits the size frame I can use by a bit. I may have to eliminate the mat altogether. I plan on trying to sew a piece of fabric on the back of the bottom corner so I can possibly still use the whole size when stretching and framing the piece. I don't know how the stretching will go if both pieces of fabric have different amounts of give to them, but all I can do is try.

A Little More Summer

Summer Blooms that is...

I finally got back into stitching a bit and have finished another 10 hours on Summer blooms. I was going to try and do a full week stitching, but the main reason I haven't been stitching lately is that I can't get into it with this pattern. I LOVE the pattern, and it's super easy, mostly full stitches with a few quarter stitches on the flowers, but I just can't get into it like I can with the others... Anyway, once I got to the 10 hour mark I gladly put it down to pick up Dream Sampler again. I had only one evening done on that when I got a call from my local library to let me know that my wait was finally over and the new Harry Potter had arrived with my number on it. (Woohoo!!) So, I started reading that last night. I should be done The Deathly Hallows in another day or so, but another book I'd ordered in at the library has arrived as well, with a third one on the way... so It looks like even though I finally got my groove back, my stitching may still be sporadic until I finish these three books. But luckily I'm a fast reader and it shouldn't take me longer than a week to polish off these three. (that's if I'm taking my time *lol*)

Anyway, here's the most recent picture of Summer Blooms at 20 hours work, taken on Aug 20 2007. I love it, and I can't wait until it's finished. (in more ways than one)

Click on the "Summer Blooms" tag at the bottom to see the previous posts about this pattern.

I've been stitching! Woohoo

Yes, it's true... I've actually gotten a minute amount of stitching done in the past few days. Not enough to warrant a progress picture, but at least it's something. Mind you, I think it's probably just my way of avoiding doing housework. I always find something more interesting to do when that comes my way.

Since I have no pictures to upload of my progress I thought I'd add another "cat picture". A few months ago I said that once in a while I'd upload one of many funny cat pictures I received via email. I promptly forgot all about this. So, for the record. Here is picture number 2.

Has it been 3 weeks?

Wow, where has the time gone. I knew it had been a while since I posted last, but I didn't realize that it had been so long. I've been on bit of a stitching lull. I haven't added more than a few dozen stitches to anything since I posted last, but I have managed to get one of my long completed cross stitch projects finished into my very first "no-sew Cube". (See the directions here)

I've had the project stitched and done for quite a while now, but I had to find some fabric for it. Needless to say, finding snow-y fabric in the middle of summer has been quite a challenge... I looked everywhere I could think of, but one day when I was walking through Walmart, I noticed a bunch of Christmassy looking fabrics on the end of the row and darted in for a quicker look. I found this very cute (and perfectly matching) blue snowflake fabric. Perfect. Seems that the Christmas fabrics came in earlier than usual and had just been put out the day before. What luck. The colours and pattern are a perfect match for this pattern.

I should mention that the pattern is called "Snow Ice Cream" and is by San-Man Originals. I didn't stitch it using the called for fibres. It called for a lot of overdyed fibres, which I didn't have... so I just kept pulling out different threads from my DMC boxes until I found some that I thought would work well.

All the swirls and snowflakes were all supposed to be stitched with an overdyed thread that went from blue to purple, so what I did there was stitch a few stitches using two strands of blue, then a few stitches with 1 blue and 1 purple, and then at the end I'd use two strands of purple... It worked very well.

In other news, Olivia has started getting an allowance as of this week. We have little "chore charts" that I picked up at Staples a few months ago where you can list what different chores she has to do each week to get her allowance. Of course being 3 years old we don't expect a whole lot of her yet. She has to Brush her teeth in the morning and in the evening, She has to help make her bed and help pick up her toys in her bedroom, and she has to help pick up her toys in the livingroom/kitchen. Then there's a spot to put an extra star if she's "Extra good" for mommy. If she refuses to do one of her "regular" chores (usually this is the brushing her teeth in the morning... she just won't do it no matter what I threaten her with) then she gets an X for that chore for that day. If she doesn't do something, but I didn't ask her to do it,(for example, her room isn't messy and there aren't any toys to clean up) then she doesn't get a star or an X.

At the end of the week we sit down and count all her stars and all her X's and if she has more stars than X's she gets her allowance. If she has more X's than stars, then nothing. The first week she refused to do most of the stuff on the list and at the end of the week I had to explain to her that because she didn't listen to Mommy when I asked her to do these things she wouldn't be getting an allowance. I think remembering that has helped her this week. She did much better and got a whole dollar for her troubles. She asked me to give her the allowance in nickels and dimes. (She wanted pennies originally, but I had already cleaned out my penny bank and gave it to her earlier in the week.)

Well, that's about it for today. We're headed off to see a parade this afternoon to kick off the summer festival here in our town this week. It's pretty boring for the adults, but Olivia is so excited. She's got it all planned out. She'll be in the Wagon with Rachel and she wants to bring a bag to carry all the candy that gets thrown to the kids. She doesn't want to miss out on a piece of it. lol. I'll post some pictures tomorrow if I remember.

Fairy Moon and a "big girl bed"

Well, I guess it's been just over a week since I posted last. I've been busy working on Fairy Moon pretty steady. I've done 17.5 hours on her in the last week and the progress looks great so far. I've included a picture of her progress so far. The missing "spaces" in the stitching is where the beads will go. I've never done so much beading before, so it seems a little intimidating, but I know it won't be as bad as I'm expecting it to be.



I've finished my week's rotation on her as of last night and already I can't wait to start stitching her again. I really didn't want to put her down. I'll be back working on Summer Blooms tonight. So far the rotation thing is working well. I haven't switched projects yet that I wasn't dreading leaving the one was currently working on, but then, once I start the new one, I absolutely love working on it too. It definitely keeps me fresh and is exactly what I was hoping would happen.



In non-stitchy news, Olivia got her new "big girl" bed yesterday. We've been talking about it for a while now. She's been trained at night for a while now. She's had a grand total of 3 accidents over the last two months, during the night. Those are pretty good odds. But, just in case, we also bought a plastic sheet for her matress... we're not ones for taking chances. :)



Here's a picture of Olivia seeing her "big girl bed" for the first time yesterday. We set it up while she was at Bible Camp for the morning. She was so excited. I wish I had thought to bring the camera up when she FIRST saw it, the video would have been great, but I forgot it and ended up going downstairs a few minutes later to capture the momentus occasion. *grin* BTW, the reason she has no shirt is because they were playing outside at the end of Bible camp and Olivia came home covered in dirt and mud... I made her strip down before she got in her bed... I didn't feel like washing the sheets again so soon. lol.

WIP and a HD!

Just a quick post to put up a pic of my most recent work on Dream Sampler at 12.5 hours, before I finished my "week" and switched projects". I haven't ripped out the stitching done with the watercolours yet. They only had one of the waterlilies in stock at "Because You Count" when I went up last week so I'm waiting to get them in the mail before I rip out the old stuff. That way it still looks done in the meantime.

I love love LOVE working on this one. It seems to be going so fast. I didn't want to put it down, but I've just started my first rotation and didn't want to fall off so quickly. :)

Dani, I knew that you stitched some of Jennifer's models for her, and I saw her Thank you to you on the back of the pattern. Also, I was curious if the pattern "Dani the Stitching Dragon" was made for you. I always assumed that it was but never thought to ask. And, no I don't think the watercolors would have worked for the specialty stitches. The rhodes hearts that I already did would have looked like a big blob if I would have used the watercolors instead of the waterlilies.

BTW, can I just say: Oh my god! I just ADORE stitching with silks. This was my first time, I was a silk virgin... but no more. And I've discovered something that I love almost as much as Pepsi... Well, no... not really... a bit of an exageration on my part. There's not much other than my family that I love more than Pepsi... But you get the idea!! :)

Here's a picture of my HD for today. It's a pic of a quick little freebie from Sweetheart Tree that I stitched up after I finished my rotation on Dream Sampler. I got it free from an ebay seller when I ordered some patterns from her not too long ago.

It's stitched on 28 ct Lugana. I think the colour is called Pewter, but I'm not certain. I think I might like to stitch it again using darker colours. I'm thinking overdyed silks... mmmm, Silks!!

I'd like to use dark green variants for the leaves and instead of light pink for the "Welcome" maybe a thread that changes from dark berry/raspberry to purples. I think I'm going to stitch some rhodes hearts using the same "berry" colour in place of the pink heart shaped beads. I'll find some similar "berry colour" petite seed beeds for it too to finish it all off.

I don't know if you can see it, but in the center of the diamonds there was a specialty stitch. (don't ask me which one, I can't remember the name right off) Anyway, it was done in Ecru, and you can barely make it out. Even when you look at it close up, it's almost identical in colour to the fabric.

Anyway, I'm off for today. I need to give Jason a hand building a Picnic table for a minute then I need to go get the baby up for lunch. Ahhh, my life. :)

It's been a while

since I last posted. May 31st to be exact. Almost a month ago since I last blogged. God I'm pathetic. lol. It' snot like my life has been so full of amazing goings on that I don't have the time to sit at the computer and write a short post... I'm just a bit lazy and I'm a LOT of a procrastinator. I tend to put things off till later, and then never get around to them. I think I have about 4 or 5 months worth of SBQs to catch up on... and I keep saying next week, next week... now I've got so many piled up in my inbox that it's just such a daunting task to get around to them all.

I have a little bit of "Doctor Who" fever again now that season 3 is starting to air... (or season 29, depending on who you talk to) I really like his new companion Freema Agyeman as "Martha". I wasn't sure if I was going to take a shine to her or not because, it's hard when you're replacing a popular character... (Billie Piper as Rose) People always have some expectations on what the new character will be like. I had the same bit of anticipation when David Tennant replaced Christopher Eccleston at the end of season 1, but I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE David in the roll. I adored Chris also, and they both are wonderful as the Doctor even though they both play him very different. They're both very likable and fun and funny. Of course, the funny part is a huge testament to the writers of the show, but they just have the certain way of delivering lines that is just perfect. I think the thing I like best is they're both quite "cheeky" in the roll. I think it's perfect for the character... Mind you, this was my first experience with the Doctor. I never watch any of the original series, so I didn't really have any preconcieved ideas on how the Doctor should act. Anyway, enough about Doctor Who for now... that's for tonight when the new episode airs on CBC *grin* Now it's time for a bit of a stitchy update.

I guess I'll first mention a little bit about the rotation I'm doing. I've decided that sometimes 10 hours just isn't enough. There are some times I can get 10 hours in 2-3 days if I'm having a really good go, so I decided to do a "10 hours or a week" rotation, which ever takes longer to get to... Basically if I am stitching a lot and get done my 10 hours in a few days then I'll keep stitching till I've stitched on it for a week, but if I'm having a time where I'm not doing much stitching, then I don't switch projects until I've got at least 10 hours done... that way I am always guaranteed to get the 10 hours in.

So, the first one I started this with was Summer Blooms by Marie Barber. Here's what it looks like when I put it down after the 10 hours to start Dream Sampler. When I pick it back up I'll fill in the little spots (they're just white stitches, so it'll look a lot like the empty places do now, and then backstitch the flowers before moving on to the lower areas.

After I finished this I moved on to FINALLY start Dream Sampler. I'm stitching it on 32ct Opalescant Lugana from Silkweaver in Iris Garden. There's a bit of a story here. After I got it I placed an order for the specialty fibres that it calls for from an online store. You may remember that post, it wasn't all that long ago. Anyhow I finally got the order, with a few extra GAST freebies thrown in for good measure. (Thank you Despina! BTW , GAST stands for Gentle Arts Sampler Threads for those of you not into that kind of thing.) When I opened the package up I saw the threads and was boggled. How am I supposed to stitch with such a HUGE piece of thread!! I had ordered the Caron Watercolors instead of the Caron Waterlillies. I mistakenly thought that even though the watercolors were cotton and the waterlilies were silk, they would be approximately the same size anyway. I guess I was expecting the watercolors to be the same size as a standard DMC/Anchor/Whatever cotton thread. Well, they're not. They've only got3 srands per thread and the thread is probably twice the size of a regular one. You can see them in the picture just above. The watercolors are the ones on the bobbins and the waterlilies is the one still in the twist.

At first I never clued in and I did start stitching with them, I was having a really hard time with the stitches. The thread was so big and full, and the holes were so small (32 count, you know) Everything was puckering and pulling strangely. It just didn't look nice. If you click on the pic to the left you can see a little better. The swirls are done in the watercolors, the overdyed portion of her skirt are the watercolors and the backstitch around her wings are the watercolors. Funny thing. The skirt is actually done with HALF stitches. The thread was so thick that I couldn't fit whole stitches in there, it was just too crowded, so I did half stitches instead and it didn't turn out half bad. If it weren't for the backstitching part then I might have kept going with it, but I find the backstitching just looks horrible.

Anyway, I was in Moncton this Saturday to take the kids to the Zoo with some of the kids and parents from the local drop in play group, and after leaving the zoo I took a quick trip down to "Because You Count" to ask about the waterlilies. I had never worked with, or even seen silks before and really wasn't sure how much of a difference they were in size. Well... you can see in the first picture that the skein of thread is about the same size as DMC threads, but there's 12, count 'em 12 strands per thread, not 6!! So they're even smaller than regular floss. So, I had to throw down the money and get them. Can you believe $8.40 per skein of silk thread!! That's almost criminal. I can't believe how expensive they are. I mean, I know that going to a brick and mortar store, it tends to cost a little more because of the higher overhead, and that I consider worth it, but still... By the time I got all 3 threads and paid tax, it was over $28!! for 3 threads!!! I had wanted to look around and get a bit more at first, but the only other thing I ended up picking up were some Piecemaker needles. Everyone I talk to and read blogs from seems to be completely nuts about these needles. So I took the plunge and picked up a few. They weren't too expensive. $3.30 for 6 needles. The cheapo Anchor ones I usually buy at Walmart are around $1.50 for 4, so a bit more money, but not horrible.

Well, it's too late to make a long story short, but the punch line is that I'm now waiting for the store to get two of the three threads in that I bought -- only one was in stock. They're going to mail them to me as soon as they arrive -- at no extra cost since I already paid for them, but I'm still waiting!! Oh well, I'll survive. It's not like I don't have other things to stitch. Besides, I now have to pull out all that backstitching and half stitches that I stitched with the watercolors... All hail to the frog queen, coming for a visit. Hopefully it's a short one.

In other news I had myself a yard sale last weekend and made around $250, then I badgered my dh until he got me a treadmill -- which the $250 is going towards. Apparently I've got high blood pressure. I have since I had Rachel, but my doctor told me "oh don't worry about it, it'll go down in a while." Well, apparently it didn't. So, now I'm trying to lose weight and exercise more to see if that will help enough that I don't need meds. That's why the tread mill. I'm a bit of a bugaphobe, if that's really a word, and I'm also terrified of dogs, so walking in a rural area with dogs in every 2nd or third yard during the summer when you live with the woods all around you doesn't work all that well for me... The good thing is that I know myself pretty well in this respect and I know I could tell the doctor that I'd walk each and every day faithfully, but it just wouldn't happen. Luckily Jason knows this about me too, which is why he didn't fight me too much on the treadmill issue.

Well, that's probably a long enough post for now. I'll try and remember to post a few zoo pictures tomorrow.

Summer Blooms

I finally got started on my Summer Blooms cross stitch last night. It's been one of my top "next starts" for a few years now but I've just never gotten around to it. I've had the material cut and ready for 6 months or so, but I was always working on Waiting and wanted to finish it before starting something bigish.

Well, I had planned on starting Dream Sampler from Dragon Dreams but I ordered the specialty threads from an Online Needlework Store (ONS) over two weeks ago and they haven't even SHIPPED it yet. I've emailed her a few times asking for an update and am always told "any day now".

I know that she's waiting for her shipment from the manufacturer to come in, so I know that technically it's not her fault, but there really should be some better communication on her part. And, if she didn't have the item in stock and didn't know when to expect it, she REALLY shouldn't have had it for sale on her site.

She emailed me a few days after I ordered to let me know that she was waiting for a few of the items to come in and I emailed back asking if I could expect them in "a few days or a few weeks?" and she told that they would be in that Monday. I should have seen that was a lie right then since the Monday she was talking about was Victoria Day. (Yes, the store is in Canada). We went to Moncton that weekend for a day without the kids and I had planned on picking them up at the LNS in Moncton if it were going to be a while for her to get them in, but decided against it since her order was coming just a few days later. Unfortunately I learned my lesson the hard way. All I can say is I will NEVER be ordering from Daisy Stitches again!

Anyway, now that I've finished my rant, I'll continue with my original point. Since I couldn't start Dream Sampler, I decided to start on Summer Blooms in the meantime. Neither one is a large project. Summer blooms is 204 x 90 stitches, so not too bad since most of the area is empty. The bottom 2/3 of the cross stitch is fairly sparse, being a topiary and all.

I've got about 2.5 hours on it now. I'll post a picture when I get a little further along.

I'm Finished Waiting!!

Just a quick post. I've finally finished "Waiting"!
She was done last night around midnight. Now all I have to do is get her stretched and framed when I have a few extra dollars for this.

I skipped stitching the blackwork border around the picture because I didn't leave enough room. Even with what's there it'll be a stretch (pun not intended) to get this piece stretched and framed properly. I've only got about 2 inches at the top and bottom right now, so if I had stitched the border as the pattern shows I would have only had about an inch left.

Anyway, enough talking. Here she is!

Waiting by Linda Jary

Stitched in DMC 28ct cream(?) Linen

Started sometime in 2005 - REstarted at 20 hours July 14, 2006

Finished - May 22, 2007

100 Hours Waiting

Well, I made it to the magical 100 hour mark on Waiting, but I'm still nowhere close to finished. Well, I guess close is a ?? word here. I'm much closer than I was 10, 20, 30 hours ago, but I've still got a ways to go. I'm guessing 30 or 40 more hours, stitching at my pace. I've barely touched her the past few months, only getting an hour or so here and there, so god knows when I'll get her finished.


Janice has been watching me work away on her (she's my cousin for those who don't know who I'm talking about.) and decided she wanted to stitch her as well. (Enabling points for me!) But I think she's actually got just as much-- if not more-- done than I do. I know she's waiting until last to work on the drapes. I advised her to do that, because I found even though I was getting a lot of stitching done, I didn't see much progress since the picture didn't seem to shape up very fast. Anyway, when she's done I'll get her to email me a pic and I'll post it here too. She stitched it on bright white evenweave (the pattern calls for white) instead of the almost mushroom coloured linen that I used. It makes a big difference in the look of the project. I didn't think it would make that much of a difference, since they're both light coloured fabrics, but it does.


Anyway, here's my 100 hour picture, and here's hoping that I can actually get her finished soon. I've got several more big ones that I want to start, especially Fairy Moon, since I've now got the fabric for her.

Fabulous Fabrics!

They're Here! They're Here!! THEY'RE FINALLY HERE!!!

Envy me! My fabrics have finally arrived from Silkweaver. Aren't they gorgeous. I've already got plans for a few of them.

Far left: 25" x 25" Enchantment 32ct Belfast Linen

Top row (l - r): Daffodil 28ct Opalescent Lugana, Blue Diamonds 28ct Opalescent Cashel Linen, Iris Garden 32 ct Opalescent Lugana

Bottom row (l-r): Sand 32ct Lugana, Blue Fusion 32ct Lugana, Meadow Mist 32ct Belfast Linen

All cuts (except the Enchantment) are 13" x 18"

I originally won 10 pieces, but I emailed and asked if I could exchange some of the winnings for one large piece (the Enchantment) to stitch Fairy Moon on.

Impatiently Waiting

I'm (Im)patiently waiting for my fabrics to arrive from Silkweaver. After nearly mauling my mail carrier for the last month and a half wondering when my free fabrics were going to be here, I got an email on Tuesday telling me that they'd been shipped. I can't complain too much about the speed though. I emailed Tracey at Silkweaver and asked if I could trade a few of my 10 smaller free pieces for one large piece that I need to finally start stitching Fairy Celebration. (see the bottom of this post) She had no problem with that and said that she was crazy busy right now but as soon as she got the piece dyed she'd ship them out to me. Since the piece I was looking for was a custom size piece and she had to cut and then dye it for me, it wouldn't be one she normally had in her stash.

I'm hoping that US/Canada Post don't take too long with the delivery. Hopefully they'll be here early in the week, because I could go completely nuts knowing that they should be here any day but not knowing when. The worst part is Canada Post recently assessed our mailbox as being too dangerous where it is and moved us to a community mailbox. We now get our mail about 1km down the road, which is nice when it comes to shoveling out our mailbox in the winter time, but it also means that I can't just run down to the mailbox while the baby's sleeping. I've actually got to get the kids up, dressed and ready for outside, then head over to the mailbox-- only to find that there's a flyer for the Beltone hearing test that comes to town once a month.
Needless to say, I don't make it to the mailbox every day now that it's moved.


Speaking of "Waiting", I realized that I never posted the 90 hour picture I took back in January. lol. It's been a while since I've done much stitching on it. Here's the most recent picture, taken January 31, 2007 at 90 hours work. The window and outside the window are completely done. I'm now working on the dreaded bieges in her dress again, though I haven't been working on her much, so no more pictures yet.

Tomorrow is Olivia's Ice show and she's going to be a snowflake with the other preschoolers. (the boys are snowmen) The costume is finally finished as of last night. I spent the evening hot glueing stars and sequens in the shape of snowflakes onto her costume. Then I velcroed a large snowflake on the back that one of the other mothers cut out and spraypainted silver.
The whole thing is very cute. I'll post some pictures tomorrow after the show is done.

Tonight however I'll be spending the evening decorating trees. The theme for the ice show is A Walk in the Park - Four Seasons, and we need 4 trees-- one for each season. We cut down four small birch trees in the woods behind my house and put them in buckets half filled with cement. Of course the winter tree is easy, I spreay painted some white on it to look like snow/frost and it's ready. Easy Peasy. But the other three are quite a bit more work.


I'm currently working on the summer tree. I'm using green painters tape to tape bunched up squares of green tissue paper to the branches. I've only got about forty minutes on it so far because I can't work on it when the kids are up. I'll most likely be spending all evening and half the night tonight working on it. Janice is coming over right now to pick up the spring and fall trees. They only need about half the amount of "leaves" on the trees because they would either be just starting to grow in the spring, or already half gone in the fall. Hopefully we'll get them done without losing too much sleep. It would have been a lot easier if Jason didn't have to work, then I could spend the whole day downstairs working on it, but unfortunately he does, and I couldn't get anyone to come watch the kids for a few hours, so I'm stuck doing it tonight instead.


Here's a picture so far. I got about 40 minutes work on it when Rachel was napping earlier. Olivia was a bit of a pest getting into everything down there while I was working, but we managed for a bit. Hopefully I have enough green tissue paper to finish it. Janice stopped and checked at one of the local stores to see if there was any more, but there wasn't. She picked up some green crepe paper streamers instead. I can attach these the same way, I think, but it might still look quite a bit different. Instead, I might try mixing the streamers in with the tissue paper so it looks more naturally mixed in, instead of on half one shade of green and the other half another shade. I dunno, we'll see how it looks tomorrow.

Edit: It's 11:15 pm and we just finished the tree. I wanted to log on and add a picture of the finished result. For some reason in the picture the tape holding the apples on (green painters tape) reflects the flash a lot more than the tissue paper or crepe paper streamers and it looks like it's quite a bit brighter. (It's almost glowing on the tops of the apples.) But IRL you don't even see it. It matches almost exactly the colour green of the papers. It looks pretty good.

Looking at it again in the picture, I think I might tie up that rogue branch on the left side and make it a bit more uniform looking. Then again life's not always about uniformity is it?
Damn, I get all profound and stuff at a quarter after 11 at night don't I?

Alright, I'm pooped. Off to bed for me! Later everyone.

Woohoo and a little more Woohoo!

Big news for me yesterday.

Last night I had the presence of mind to check my bulk mail folder in my Hotmail account. Good thing I did, there was a very important email sitting in there. I got an email confirming that I won 2nd place for the Medium category in Silkweaver Fabric's Annual "Stitcher's Showcase".

It was for the free pattern "Fairy Celebration" by Passione Ricamo that I stitched late last year. I finished stitching the design on New Years Eve at around 10:30 and promptly took a picture and submitted it to Silkweaver for the contest. The contest ended at midnight on that same night. Am I ever glad I didn't flake on finishing that one. I had thought about not stitching that night and then submitting it the next year since it wouldn't have been finished in time. But if I had, I might never have won a prize!

I'll be getting 10 pieces of 13"x18" hand dyed fabric from www.silkweaver.com to add to my currently dismal fabric stash. (But it won't be dismal for long now!)


This is more than $100 in value since each piece (depending on the type of fabric) could range from $10 to $15 US, plus shipping costs! So the prize value is somewhere between $100 and $150 US! WooHoo!! I'm so excited right now. I got another email today confirming that they'll be shipping my fabric out on Monday!

Here's a picture of my winning entry. Now I just need to find a stunning way to finish it. I'm thinking of doing a wall hanging, but I need to find the right fabric to use for this.

And here's a link to the Medium Finalists on the Silkweaver site. If you want to check out all the entries and finalists in each category you can go directly to the main page for the contest here.

Well, that's my news for today. Hope your day is as great as mine was.

A bit more Waiting

I just realized that I never posted a pic of my 70 hour progress of Waiting. I've now finished over 80 hours and so I have two pictures to post of this one today. I also have another small finish to show off. I saw a picture on an egroup I belong to where someone (Sorry, I can't remember who) posted a pic of a design she came up with. It said "Never trust a skinny cook" and had a small teddy bear with a chef's hat on. I fell in love with the phrase and decided to come up with my own version of this. I "thiefed" a few elements from some other patterns I had, so they're not all mine, but the overall design is.

Here are some pictures...

Waiting at 70 hours. Arm, Back and Scarf completed.

Waiting at 80 Hours - Other arm, Hair and 2/3 of the windowpanes completed. (My god that hair had a LOT of quarter stitches!)

Never trust a SKINNY Cook. (My new motto)

Waiting, Cravings and the Weather

It seems like everyone everywhere is posting about the strange weather lately, but we're seeing a lot of strange goings on here in Atlantic Canada especially. I mean, hell, it's January 6th and they're calling for a high of 11 degrees and a low of 1 degree Celcius (That's a high of 52 and a low of 34 degrees F for any American friends reading this.) The regional norms are between -15 and -4 degrees C (between 5 and 25 degrees F) This is CRAZY. We're having a pretty torrential downpour right now and for the past few days it's felt like early spring here! This has got to be one of the mildest winters on record for the area. I actually saw on TV the other day that 10 of the warmest years (worldwide) have occured since 1994 (12 years)... so 10 of the past 12 years have been the warmest years EVER recorded! It really makes you think about the whole Global Warming issue, doesn't it?



Rachel is getting ready to pop a few more teeth. Her two top incisors are starting to push through. You can see her gums are getting whiter as the teeth are getting closer to the surface. It should be any day now and my little one is going to move from 2 to 4 teeth. She's getting so big now, I'm almost getting depressed thinking about it. With Olivia it didn't seem as bad because I always knew I wanted another baby. But now that we have 2, we're pretty much sure we're done having kids. (not 100%, but about 99% sure) And, now that we're pretty sure of this, every new milestone is not only exciting, but saddening becasue this is my LAST baby! This is the last time I'll see one of my babies getting their teeth, learning to crawl, learning to talk etc etc etc. I know there are some (if not many) of you who know exactly what I'm talking about.



I had the chance to get my tubes tied when I went in for surgery on my Ovarian Cysts, but I didn't want to commit to something like that. I'd rather wait a while and go back for another surgery (or send Jason for surgery *lol*) once we're 100% sure we're done... but not until then.





Something weird happend to me yesterday. I was in Rachel's room getting her up after her nap and all of a sudden, out of the blue, I got hit with a VERY STRONG craving for a cigarette! Funny thing is, I quit smoking in June 1997 so it's been almost 10 years! I backslid a few times, afterwards but never for long, mostly just party smoking (I know you understand that Aunt "C"! That and "New Brunswick Smoking" *lol*) and I haven't even had a drag off of a cig in at LEAST 5 years, I'm not sure exactly how long it's been since I had a drag, but I know I've never had one since I've been living in this house. (5 years in May) It just seems weird to hit all of a sudden out of the blue like that. Honestly, it's something I never really expected to have to wrorry about anymore. Not after this long. Strange.



Well, now that I'm done with Christmas ornies and Fairy Celebration, I can finally get back to stitching on Waiting. It's been sitting for quite a long time (sometime in October was the last time I stitched on her) and I finally got my next 10 hours done with. I'm now at 60 hours as of the other night when I took the pictures. In reality I'm at about 64 hours now, but I don't have any pictures for that far yet. I'll have some more at 70. I've finished the lady's arm and have started on the blue scarf on her dress. She's coming along pretty well, hopefully I can stick with her for a while now and get quite a lot done. It shouldn't be too hard now that I'm done all of the "boring" stitching on the drapes. Here's a picture of my progress so far. Click on the picture to see a larger version.