Updates and a New Start

Hope everyone's January is going well. This should be a semi-quick update.

I've been working on the Glendon Place's Plum Pudding, here's were I'm at as of Sunday.

Glendon Place - Plum Pudding

Glendon Place - Plum Pudding

Glendon Place - Plum Pudding

I ended up needing to do some frogging because one of the blocks was over a page change. At least I noticed before I went ahead and did a bunch more! Plus one for me!

I started this cute Lizzie Kate pattern, Winter Wishes. I like to have something small that I can take with me places, like the sofa, to the chair, over to the bed. You know how it is.

Lizzie Kate - Winter Wishes

Lizzie Kate - Winter Wishes

No firm plans on what I'll do with it when it's finished though. Maybe I'll try my hand at another flat fold! I made a 123stitch order and in it will hopefully be a snowflake charm it put on the little house. The Lizzie Kate one was $11! Instead I bought the Mill Hill version where I got 4 snowflake charms for like, $4. Hopefully they'll be a good size!

Also, my friend came over and we exchanged Christmas presents. She made me this awesome pillow with my last name on it. She crocheted the white background then cross stitched the purple. Isn't it super nifty?!?! I love it.

I think that's it for today! I'll be back tomorrow with a Glendon Place specific update. :)

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Finish & Christmas Decor

Hi all! I managed to do some stitching while also putting up some Christmas decorations. Since we were out of town for half of November we didn't get started as early as usual and because of that I only put up like half of our stuff. We have a Christmas village set that isn't going to make it out this year. It takes an entire day to put it up and I just don't have the time this year. It seems like an every other year type of thing!

Here are some decor pictures:

My mother in law gave us these adorable mini wooden Christmas ornaments. I had to go buy a little tree for them. My husband was trying to convince me that this tree should be just for cross stitched ornaments, but, I don't have enough for it's own tree yet and I think this tree is too little. :D

I managed to get my Fleur de Lys Tree by Scissor Tail Designs finished! I really want to get a frame for it,. Some things just scream frame me, and I think this is one of them. I think it'll fit in a 5x7 frame so I'm going to try to get out to a TJ Maxx. I'm thinking an antique white frame? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Fleur de Lys Tree - Scissortail Designs

Fleur de Lys Tree - Scissortail Designs

Fleur de Lys Tree - Scissortail Designs

I really want to get more ornaments completed next year, so I started a blog page just for that. The goal is 12 (one a month) but I listed out a ton so there would be options for me to choose from. You check it out over here!

I would also like to get some other projects finished (like both of my Glendon Place patterns (Plum Pudding & Tiramisu), my Chatelaine (Mini Mandala VI), and my Halloween Black cat). Does anyone else think I'm a crazy person? I bet if I tried I could finish it all, but I get distracted easily by new patterns... Oh and I have a collection of mugs that I want to stitch up. So many patterns so little stitchy time!

Quick reminder about the Glendon Place SAL! You don't have to start stitching, but you will need a post about what you're going to work on the week of January 15th. You have until then to decide! Let all your friends know! The more participation the more exciting it will be! 

How is everyone else enjoying December? Have you tried to make stitchy goals for 2015?

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Back from Japan

Hello lovelies! I'm back from Japan and have finally gotten over the jet lag from the return trip. They are 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time and wow did I feel every minute of that on our return trip. I've slept so much in the last week since we got back it's crazy! I managed to pick up a cold while we were there too so I'm pretty sure that did not help the situation at all.

I thought I was going to get some small stitching done. Nope. Not one stitch was put in. However I did manage to read 4 books and start another. Yes. 4 while on vacation. It was so much easier to just pick up my kindle rather than take out all my stitching. In case anyone was wondering I read the following:

1. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
2. The Winter People by Rebekah Purdy (I got the wrong book, I meant to read, The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon, whoops)
3. The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell
4. The Girls With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
5. Bird Box by Josh Malerman

I found all of these by looking at Goodreads.com's "Best Books of 2014." I liked some more than others, but I didn't put any of them down after the first couple pages, which I will do if I'm not into a book, there are too many books to read and I'd rather not waste time on one I don't care for.

While I was away, my "Stashmas" gift came in the mail. I belong to a group that does an exchange every year called Stashmas. I was terrible and my gift didn't get sent out until I got home. Basically I ordered a big order from a new to me company and it never arrived. Now I'm dealing with my credit card company trying to get my money back. I am so disappointed. I had heard good things about them from the stitching community and my husband ordered from them for my birthday and had no issues. I've been emailing them and getting no responses. I ordered on October 7th so you would think that 2 months would be sufficient time but apparently not. I think I was in such a rush to mail out the gift of mine that I didn't even talk a picture. I had ended up ordering replacements from 123stitch.com because they have never let me down. 

Here's what I got: 

I'm a huge Little House Needleworks fan and I have had this on my wish list for awhile! She also sent me the two skeins of overdyed floss and the button that goes in the middle!!! I love it and I cannot wait to stitch it. It's probably going to have to wait until 2015 though.She also sent over an adorable ornament!

I am almost done with the second little bear, I've ran out of motivation for him. How silly because he's soooo close now!

 
I started a new project that I am hoping to complete by Christmas. It's going quite well so far. I might be able to make it twice! It's Fleur de Lys Tree by ScissorTail Designs. I'm using Dinky Dyes, Evergreen.

While in Japan I stopped at a store called Yuzawaya (www.yuzawaya.co.jp Japanese only) and picked up a bunch of Cosmo floss and a biscornu.

The store was like a JoAnn Fabrics, with less fabric and more crafty supplies. It was on the 7th floor of a department store type building. I would call it a mall, there are so many malls in Japan. SO many! It was a little hard to find, mostly because we don't speak Japanese and we went on our first day there. I don't have any pictures from inside, I clearly wasn't thinking about blog posts while I was there.

They had DMC, Cosmo and Olympus (I bought some coral colors of this, I'd never heard of it). They didn't really have very many kits or anything though. The biscornu kit is from Cosmo as well though. I thought it was cute! They had tons of cute needle felted animals too. I probably could have bought the entire store, but it was day one and I didn't want to lug everything around in my suitcase. We tried to keep all of our shopping until the end which is only kinda a good idea.

I was also able to find a Japanese needlearts magazine at a bookstore attached to a subway stop,
Stitch Idées:

It's filled with tons of cool ideas, I'm kinda in love with these little pin cushions.

And there are some Christmas designs.

The charts are all pull out ones. It's different, but the quality of this magazine is amazing. It's like a book with the paper quality. I need to find all of them now! ;) It was only 1,200 yen which according to today's exchange rate, $9.92 (usd). All the ones I can find on eBay are about $17 + shipping from Japan. Not as awesome. I should totally have done more shopping while there (maybe seek out a used bookstore or two)! I suppose this just gives me another reason to go back!

Also, last, but not least by any means, I received a RAK (random act of kindness) from Andrea over at her blog, The Craft Room:

Isn't it beautiful?!?! I'm so excited, the finishing is so lovely and the pattern is awesome! I love how there's snow on top of the letters too. What a cool detail! Thanks so much Andrea! It's going to look awesome on my tree... as soon as I put it up! I seriously just took my Halloween decorations down this weekend. I mean, I was gone for half of November... I heard she also MADE the card that it came with!!! That's so awesome and I love it too!

Oh and check out the back, how cute!!! I have these little charms, but I haven't used them yet. :)

Another awesome thing that I learned since my last post, there is a community stitchy group here in my home town! I had run across someone's blog who was talking about this great framing shop she found and I emailed her about it (it's actually the framing shop I past almost weekly, I had even told my husband I should try it, how awesome is that?) and she mentioned a stitchy group that meets every Friday! I've been too busy lately, but I think once January rolls around I'll be able to attend. I'm really excited!

This has turned into a rambly post. I think I'm going to close off here for today. I am hoping to go through my vacation pictures soon and might post some next week for everyone! 

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MMMM 2.1 & a SAL

While Pull the Other Thread's MMMM might be over, the lovely Justine over at Justine's Cross Stitches decided to host in November. You have until November 5th (today!) to sign up! This one only requires 4 posts since the sign up deadline is a week into November already. I'm breaking away from the roman numerals and starting to number these posts instead.

I'm really hoping I'll manage to get 4 posts in this month, but honestly, I'm going on vacation for 2.5 weeks later this month and it might be a struggle. I do have a post or two lined up already, I'll just have to add some mini information and status updates to them! There will be a few train rides, so I'm thinking some stitching might be accomplished then.

My husband and I are going back to Japan and this time I'm looking up cross stitch stores. I don't know if anyone out there reading this knows of any stores, but if you do please feel free to let me know in the comments! I think I might have found one in Kobe, but I am not totally sure of their hours. Google translate can only help so much. I am for sure going to the fabric district of Tokyo, so I might find some cool stuff there.

I have finally started my holiday stitching! I'm 79% sure that none of my friends read my blog, so I am not really worried about posting pictures. :)

I started this little guy on Friday and he's been such a quick stitch! He's called "Festive Ted" and he's from the November 2013 Cross Stitch Collection magazine. It's amazing the difference back stitching makes!

The lack of light this time of year is really effecting my pictures unfortunately. My husband did buy me a light box, so I'm going to bust that out soon. The background is actually a lovely pale blue Monika linen I had in my stash. The bear's colors are from Victorian Motto. I think they were... shades of pumpkin maybe and a mix of DMC. I love love love Nacy's threads. They are really a pleasure to work with and I find that they don't tangle as much. Maybe because I don't keep them on bobbins, but in Floss A-Way bags instead.

He's got 3 buddies (Presents, Stars, & Mistletoe) but I think candy cane was the best. He is meant to go in a card, but I thought he would be just as cute as an ornament. I wish all of my projects where this quick!!! I think I'm going to make a buddy of his too since he turned out so well.I still have to add the year and my friends' baby's name, but it's done for now! 

I'm also getting around to stitching my swap gift up with the beads. I really don't think I'll ever do this again, my needle isn't small enough and picking up each silly beads is super annoying. I need one of those tacky bobs or something:

I have three more patterns picked out for some other people. I am hoping to start working on one of those tonight! I'm hoping to get these four finished by December so I can concentrate on one for my parents and then have a finishing day and crank them all out at once. Fingers crossed! At least I have already finished 7 of them this year so no one will be missing out on a present or anything. :D

Speaking of quick projects, or in this case, not quick for me projects, Neilteil (Stitched Up!) and I are going to jointly host a Glendon Place Amazing Desserts Stitch Along for 2015. You can find all of Glendon Place's "Amazing Desserts" Series here (scroll to the bottom). If you are interested, check out my link in the sidebar: Glendon Place SAL for more details and to sign up! There will be a fabulous prize at the end! The sign up deadline is January 1st. With your first post due by January 15th (but you don't even have to start stitching until April!) Hopefully there will be enough interest in this. If not, Neilteil and I will be doing our own!

I already have the Plum Pudding pattern so I'm asking for the floss, fabric, and beads for Christmas! I've clearly already started the Tiramisu pattern, but I think that would be an unfair advantage, so only new starts are allowed for the SAL (to be eligible for prizes).

Update: Nacy is having a 25 Days of Christmas giveaway, go and enter here! Her fabrics & threads are AMAZING. :)

Who else has signed up for another Mega Mini Madness Month? Who is interested in the Glendon Place SAL?

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Haul and Finishes

I just got a bunch of things in the mail! Happy mail dance time!

First off is my bingo winnings from Debby (from a cross stitch website I belong too), I've actually met Debby in real life when my husband & I were on vacation in Colorado. That made it even better.

This awesome owl card (I LOVE owls):

This cute booklet of snowmen designs:

Mill Hill - Frosty Friends

This awesome piece of crystal lugana (which is super difficult to photograph), I can already see some of those snowmen designs on it:

Light Blue Crystal Lugana

And my favorite, Fleur de Lys Christmas tree chart which I WILL be stitching this year. Debby said it was a pretty quick stitch and I think I already have some variegated floss for it.

Scissor Tail Designs - Fleyr de Lys Tree

I love love LOVE everything she sent over. I knew we had similar tastes!

I also received come charts from etsy that I purchased, each were $3 or less:

Lizzie Kate Winter Sampler, Winter Wishes, December Flip-it, Autumn Sampler, Spring Sampler and January Flip-it

anddddd the Leisure Arts Back-stitch alphabet (I had found #705 (More Backstitch Alphabets which I showed you in this post) at my mom's house, so I clearly needed the first set too):

Leisure Arts Leaflet 407 - 20 Backstitch Alphabets

I also got a piece of Crafty Kitten fabric in, but it's also a crystal and realllly hard to photograph. I plan to use it to make the Frosted Pumpkin Halloween Sampler at some point. I have the cosmo thread for it, which I am really excited to use! I'll try to do a floss toss in the sunlight this week.

Clearly I was busy online.... I should have my wallet taken away from me I think! The Lizzie Kates all came to $15 with shipping and the LA leaftlet was $6 with shipping, the others were gifts so I don't think I did too poorly.

While I was busy online I was also busy finishing ornaments!!!  I got my sewing machine back on Tuesday and whipped these up in the days since then.

Fronts:

Top left clockwise: Little House Needleworks (LHN) freebie Seven Pines, LHN Gingerbread Cookie, LHN Snow in Love, LHN Hot Cocoa, Freebie found online, LHN Season of Love)

And the backs:

Ornament backs (fabric from my mom's stash)

It was my first time finishing them into pillows! I had done some quilting when I was a kid, but I hadn't done anything in a long time. I'm pretty proud of them. Are they all completely square? No. But that's ok! :) Some of them are to be gifts even though I find it quite hard to part with them. I also finished another one, but it was for my swap, so once it's safely in their hands I'll post pictures!

I'm planning some finishing ideas for my Halloween projects too. I need to get some orange thread first for the Lizzie Kate one for sure. I'm still trying to come up with something for the Jolly Jack pattern. I'm open for suggestions, leave your suggestions below! :)

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New Finish

I might not have been working on Jolly Jack exclusively but I've finished stitching him!

I think he turned out really well. The top of the design is supposed to say "Jolly Jack" but I prefer it without any words. I think he's general enough to keep up all Fall, right?

I'm planning to finish him as a flat fold, one of those A frame designs that stands up on their own. I should be going to JoAnn's tonight (after I pick up my sewing machine, squee!) to buy the supplies. I'm going to pick up stuff for this, my black cat pillow (that I haven't finished stitching yet), my two swap items and my Lizzie Kate finish. I'm hoping I'll be able to get my finishing mojo on. Have I mentioned that I haven't sewn anything since I was like 10? This should be interesting. I'm sure I can figure it out. I'll post the results when I can!!

I've started a new ornament. Remember that ornament a month challenge that I said I was doing back in January? The one that I kept up with until May? Yeah, well, I'm trying to get back into it. I'm using Weeks Dye Works Wild Berries, Sampler Threads (Gentle Arts) Gold leaf and some DMC. The pattern doesn't call for beads, but I thought it would add something nice and sparkly so I'm going to try to add some. I'm going to hold off on posting a picture, just in case my swap partner follows my blog. She's the one who organized the swap so she knows I'm mailing it to her.

I did forget to show you my pretties from my local needlework shop: 

I bought these each for $1 on etsy (the "whites" and browns in the above picture are for the mugs):

I saw a Winter Tag one too that I should have gotten to match the Autumn one above. I'm waiting for her to post some other things that I might be interested in so I can save on shipping. They are all Angel Stitchin' patterns. I love anything coffee related so I knew I had to have those mugs! The hot cocoa one came with a cute little marshmallow button too!!

I found this Leisure Arts Alphabet at my mom's house (More Backstitch Alphabets, Mini Series #20):

I just bought the first one on eBay yesterday. You can never have too many fonts to choose from! I personalize Christmas ornaments for my friends' children so it's a nice thing to have around.

I know I have a ton of magazines some where (probably at my mom's house still) that I bought years and years ago at a book sale in front of an Ames (remember those?) Now I just need to track them down, but who knows where they are at this point!

Overall it was a win all around for me this week! 1 finish and 1 new start (from stash, in case anyone was wondering!)

Side note, the Frosted Pumpkin Mysterious Halloween Town's third clue came out and I'm not really feeling it. I think I'm going to change it a bit. I really don't think a bakery is fitting with the Halloween Theme. Now maybe a candy shop would be better. I really wanted a cemetery though. Which would you like to see more? A candy shop (minor changes) or a cemetery (a total over haul)? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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Sneak Peek

And there goes another week! This is crazy! Fall is almost here. How early is too early to decorate for Halloween?!?!

Speaking of fall, here's where I'm at with Jolly Jack. It got put on the back burner for the weekend while I finished the stitching part of my swap gift.

He's turning out so well! there are two more birds, more branches & leaves to go. Plus some random bits and bobs around. Still less than 3/4s done, but we're slowly getting there! I did some more last night while my husband was at PT. I have a star now too! And some leaves and branches. :)

And here's the biggest picture I can show you for now, my instagram swap gift. :) Find me: xstitchhaven. Don't forget you can click the picture and see a larger view!

Look how fuzzy that Wisper thread is!!! I am so glad I waited to go to my LNS before finishing. I love love LOVE the way it turned out! :) The teal is Weeks Dye Works Blue Topaz and the fabric is Silkweavers Tropical Breeze. My husband told me he's amazed how much work I put into something that I'm "just going to give away". I am 99% sure that my swap partner will appreciate it as much as I do. That's why it's a cross stitch swap. We all know how much time & effort goes into this and who is better to appreciate something than another stitcher? My mom is going to help me finish it since my sewing machine is at the repair shop (not to mention I have no idea what I'm doing!). I'm hoping for tomorrow but we'll see, time permitting. My husband has PT so he'll be taking the car. . . 

And last but not least my FOTM from Steph's Fabby's. This was really hard to photograph, but I think it's pretty true (purples, blues & pinks). It's called Soaring Dragonfly and I ordered an extra large piece since I knew I was going to love it! :) I have no idea what I'll stitch on it, but something whimsical I think. I'm open for suggestions!

I should have a piece from Crafty Kitten coming soon, which I think I'll do something Halloween on (me, Halloween, I'm sure you are shocked). It's a nice dark gray-ish color. :)

It's amazing the difference in quality of pictures now that I guilted myself into using my Nikon and just a tiny amount of editing (mostly to try to get the colors to show up better really).

Halloween Town Clue 3 comes out tomorrow! I'm excited, poor Jolly Jack will probably get pushed back again so I can work on that one! :)


Who else is excited about the third clue?!?!

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Instagram Swap

I'm always surprised when another week goes by and I'm here writing a post again. I hope time doesn't always fly by like this!

After two evenings at PT (my husband, not me) I was able to get the rest of the orange pumpkin done, I still have to do the rest of the cutouts and thee stem before he's done done though:


 
I took out my "big girl camera" for this picture. :) No lightbox yet though! It suppose to say Jolly Jack at the top, but I'm thinking I"m going to leave it out or change it to say Halloween. I'm not sure, clearly I'm not that far yet!

The girls on Instagram decided to hold a little cross stitch swap. I'm pretty excited about this one and the Christmas one I'm doing on another website. I'm debating posting it here. I don't know who follows both my instagram and my blog. I don't want my swap to know! Here's a sneak peak I already shared on instagram which won't do any harm. ;) I'm also going to go buy some Wisper thread. It's suppose to be fuzzy! I think it'll add a great dimension to the piece and I'm also going to personalize it. Then get my mom to sew it into an ornament. I took my sewing machine to be serviced over the weekend and it doesn't sound like I'll be getting it back for like 3 weeks.

I'm using Weeks Dye Works Blue Topaz and a 32 count Silkweaver linen in "Tropicial Breeze" that I had in my stash. It looks so awesome in real life! I got the pattern from one of the Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament editions. I think it's from the 2008 one (from that eBay haul I had).

You can also see my preferred stitching highlighting method. I use an app on my iPad called GoodNotes to highlight across. I do have to scan in my charts and then delete them when I'm done, but the ability to zoom in makes it 100% worth it.

I also worked a bit on my Chatelaine. Just some of the decorative stitches which is why I do not have an update picture. Slow going. I have too many projects on the go at once, it's hard to decide what to work on. Who else has that problem?!

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