Mayyyyynia?

Hi all! I'm back with my monthly update. I think monthly updates are working much better for me now. I tried to get it in around the 15th, but this month has been a bit crazy (aren't they all?)

Anyways, it's May[nia] and I decided to start 2 new projects! Go me! :)

First is Little House Needleworks' Gingerbread(wo)man. If you've been here for... 2 years, you'll know I made this for my husband in 2014 with plans to make one for myself as well. I'm finally getting around to starting mine! Here's my progress:

I think it's coming along nicely. I really only work on it when I don't feel like doing something that requires my Lowery. We're going back to Pittsburgh for a week soon so I'll probably bring that with me.

My first start (gingerbreadman was actually the second one, I just talked about it first) was my first MIRA! YAY!

It's Roses of Provence. I love love love the colors. My only complaint is there's a lot of color changes. I think I might learn to park for this lady... thoughts? Is she worth it? Should I keep up with my cross country stitching of her? I'm torn on it. (don't forget you can click the picture and zoom in) It's on a very light version of Rose Petals from Crafty Kitten (It was an opps I got on her facebook page several years ago).

I did find this cute little thread holder at Walmart:

It only holds her floss right now. Adorable! Do you see the 7 skeins of white for her dress?!?!

I worked a bit on my Plum Pudding:

Funny story (not really) when I took it out to work on it there was a GIANT SPIDER on it. Even though I keep it "safe" in a pillow case when I'm not working on it. SOOOOO I decided I needed a better storage thing for it, so I whipped this guy up:

It's lined in flannel (because that's all I had that was large enough). It fits my 17x17 qsnap which was the point. Hopefully no more spiders on my work. UGH. *shudders*

I barely worked on Passport:

I did added some stitches and backstitching to this freebie:

I think I might have shown this before, but it's my "current" WIPs basket. I have more that I don't consider to be UFOs but aren't "current" WIPs either.

Annnnd last but not least, y'all might remember the stitch along back in 2014 for the Frosted Pumpkin's Halloween Town? Well, I hated part 3 with the bakery so I just lost all interest. I finally recharted the bakery into a house and am making some progress:

I love the color changes (like my teal & purple houses). Do you see the cat I added?!?! I think I'm going to give him some eyes, maybe some whiskers too! I'm still figuring out the house... and there was a witch charted, but I kinda don't want to stitch her either, so it's still a work in progress ... charting as I go along!


OOOOOOOOh and I have an FFO! I know my friend doesn't read my blog so I feel like I can show this even though I haven't given it to her yet (excuse the glare at the framing shop):

I'm so pleased with how it turned out! And it was super reasonably priced. I'm kinda in love with it. I'll totally be taking more projects to this framing shop. I think they did an excellent job.

I bought some stash, butttttt what I bought is for my mom and I'm fairly sure she does read my blog, so I'm not going to spoil it! Goal is a September finish (her birthday is in Sept) but I want to finish one WIP (a decently sized one... like Halloween Town) before I work on that so it could get pushed to Christmas... not totally sure yet. I feel like I need to find some "manly" patterns and make something for my dad... any suggestions!?

How's everyone's May been? Productive I hope!

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May Update

I haven't been super busy but I have managed two more finishes for 2015 as well as working on my Glendon Place Plum Pudding & a new Ink Circles design. Hopefully no one minds my switch to a once a month update. I just can't find time to update every week anymore.

Here are my two finishes:

I have two more in the series to compete. I'm unsure if I will want to frame them separately or all together in one frame, but I'm planning to find a spot for them in the kitchen.


Here's my new start, Damask Square by Ink Circles:


It's on 40count sparkly fabric from SilkWeavers with Peacock floss from Weeks Dyed Works. It's sooooooo tiny I can only work on it in good light, with my reading glasses on for short periods of time, but it's going to look so great when it's done. I'm almost a fourth of the way done. :)


And last but not least, Plum Pudding update:





What's everyone else working on? Have any bug summer stitching plans??

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New Year New Starts

That's how it goes for you too right? New Year = New Starts!

I'm starting off the year strong. My last start of 2014 turned into my first finish of 2015! I decided to cross off one ornament on my long list (which can be found here), Peppermint Latte by Casey Buonaugurio Designs (you can find it in the 2010 Just Cross Stitch Ornament Issue).

It was done on a mystery piece of pink linen. After I took the first two pictures I realized that I forgot the bottom line, so the final picture has that! I like how it turned out! I'm going to add it to my to-be-finished pile (there's only 3 pieces there right now). I would like to go find some fabric for it, I don't really have anything suitable in my stash.

I tok one final picture of my Tirasmu before putting it away for my Plum Pudding start:

I started my Plum Pudding by Glendon Place for the SAL that Neil and I are hosting (you can still sign up here).

I was debating back and forth on the fabric choice. My Tiramisu project is on Jazlyn and has a much thicker weave to it, while this Lugana is very open. I was thinking that they would look weird side by side, but, who knows if I'll even be displaying them side by side, so I'm going to keep on with this. It'll be the same dimensions anyway. Which is what I actually cared about. The colors are so difficult to photograph. They are totally dependent on the lighting, and it's been gray clouds here for days, and probably won't let up until March!

I have also borrowed some hardanger books from the library. I thought it would be fun to try! Here's the books I got:

And here are my first two designs. Let's not talk about the counting mistakes I made on the kosher blocks that I didn't notice until way later (the white bits)... I think it's pretty fun and I am going to order some Caron Waterlilies threads (the ones that are equivalent to the DMC perles, I keep forgetting their names) to have fun with.

The JoAnn's near me really didn't have any options, so I got 2 purples, one green and white to start off with, I've found a few patterns I like so I'm thinking I'll start with the non-cut work ones and then try some cutting too.

That's it for today! Anyone else starting off into new hobbies for the new year?

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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 III

Mega Mini Month Madness post 3! Mmmm makes it sound like I'm hungry or something! As a reminder this is hosted by Pull the Other Thread check out all the other cool participants too (there's 22 of us total)!

I have two finishes! I'm sure you all are just as excited about this as I am. :D I finished all the stitching on these two pumpkin designs. I think I'm about done with Halloween/Autumn stitching for now. I really need to get caught up of my swap ornament and then ornaments for family/friends for Christmas presents.

Here's the first that I showed progress on last week:

 

Heart in Hand - Pumpkins

The bottom pumpkin looks crooked, but he's really not! When I iron him again I'll stretch him right out.

Heart in Hand - Pumpkins

I mailed this little cute patterns out to a fellow Instagram follower who really liked it. I'm looking forward to seeing her stitch it up! It was a quick little pattern. My favorite kind!! And the little Just Another Button Company raven is an adorable touch!

I also started and finished a little Lizzie Kate design:

Lizzie Kate - Tingles F-143 - Jack O Lantern

Per usual I changed the colors to match what I had on hand.

Lizzie Kate - Tingles F-143 - Jack O Lantern

After taking these pictures, I realized I forgot to add the green button that the pattern came with! Off to do that and hopefully finish these into tiny wall hangings tonight! 

What is everyone else up too? Starting on Christmas yet?

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October Mini Mega Madness II

If you recall I joined a challenge for October, Mini's! While I haven't gotten much stitching done, it was on a mini! Go check everyone out on Pull the Other Thread's blog.

Here she is:

Wee One - Pumpkins - Heart in Hand

Wee One - Pumpkins - Heart in Hand

I am using the recommended threads, but it's turning out a lot darker than the model picture. I did wonder that when I was looking at the threads when they arrived in the mail. I'm not upset, just surprised. I like it. I think it will get made into a mini pillow as well when I am finished. I'm hoping to finish it up by next week.

I haven't been able to do much stitching lately because my left hand has been hurting. I think it's a combination of typing at work all day and holding a hoop. I am really considering buying a Lowery stand. Or a Needlework System 4. Or a Needle Needs frame. I think I'm leaning towards the Lowery because of the three it takes up the least amount of space. Do any of you readers use any of these? I did order some crafting compression gloves as well so I am going to try that first. Much cheaper at only $12. Fingers crossed it will solve the problem.

I did manage to stuff my Lizzie Kate finish that I showed last week:

It still needs a good pressing to get out the lumps. Next time I have the iron on I'll do that as well.

I posed it with my very own blown glass pumpkin! My husband and I took a 2 hour glass blowing glass back in 2012 and we each made 2 pumpkins (this one is actually my husbands'). I love taking them out every year and thinking about how much fun we had. My husband actually bought us a glass blown Christmas ornament making class for my birthday (which is later this month)! I can't wait to go, but I'll be waiting until December when it's offered.

While out at TJMax I found this little guy and I had to have him. I haven't found a place to keep him yet, but he is so cute!

That's all for now, hope everyone is doing well! How is everyone else coming along with their Mini stitching?!

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Halloween Madness

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful October 1st. The Halloween season is fast approaching (though I've had my Halloween decor up for a few weeks now) I did reach my goal of finishing Happy Halloween before today!

Happy Halloween - Silver Creek Samplers - JSC Halloween 2013

I finished all the stitching! I also "signed it" after I took this picture (in the bottom right corner, DNA 2014 in the same color as the N). Now I have to decide how to finish it. I was originally thinking a flat fold like the one further down in this post, but I don't know if I could do it justice. Then I was thinking about framing it, but it's 6 x 7 inches. So while I could put it in an 8 x 10 frame, I would want a mat too and I don't think that's enough room. Dilemma! Let me know what you would do in the comments!

My super awesome friend (Kathleen, no blog) came over last night for a crafty night! She is working on a baby blanket that she is crocheting and then doing cross stitch on! It's actually super cool and I had never thought about doing that! We might make this a weekly or bi-weekly thing! Which would be super cool.  We would both be motivating each other.

I was able to get a lot done on my finishing. Keep in mind that both of these are only partially finished. The Jolly Jack needs cording around the edges to make it look neater (I'm thinking of making some in orange colors) and the pillow needs stuffing. 

Jolly Jack

Lizzie Kate - Flip It Halloween

I'm not totally pleased with the A frame flat fold, but for my first time I think it was pretty good. And I had to sew the ric-rak on by hand for the pillow and I think it turned out super well! Once I have both totally finished I'll probably share them again. They are both so cute. I'm so excited to actually finish-finish things! I don't have a big drawer filled with unfinished but totally stitched things. I do have a drawer with unfinished cross stitching though. Everyone does. Right?!

I also bought some more Weeks Dye Works thread for some additional small patterns in the Just Cross Stitch Halloween 2013 magazine. And a pattern just fell into my cart. I have no idea how that happened! The pattern called for some Just Another Button Company buttons so I bought two in case I decided to make it twice, once for myself and once for my MIL. We'll see.

123stitch.com order

Oh for my Ocober Mini Madness I think I'm going to work on those various Halloween pattersns I mentioned earlier. :) I don't know if my finishing of that Lizzie Kate counted, but yeah, I'm ready!!!

How are you coming along with your Halloween stitching (if you do any)? And what are you thoughts on finishing my Happy Halloween? Let me know in the comments!

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