March Update

First off, Happy St Patrick's Day! I'm not Irish (or maybe I am for just today?) but I do have a table cloth that's got clovers on it, so I totally count that as holiday decor!

I haven't gotten much stitching done recently honestly. We've been busy making friends and going to the gym. Tonight we're headed out to a Meetup.com event for board games. It's being held at a local cider place. Maybe we'll make some friends there.

I finished the R I was working on for a friends wedding. I've just charted their last name for below, I'm not sure how I want to represent the date yet though.. write out the month or just use numbers? Thought?

I started the Dimensions Peacock kit (sorry it's sideways):

I switched out the fabric for a sky crystal linen that was a gift a Christmas or two ago:

I won't have to do all the background now! Which also means I'll have a ton of teal/blue thread left.

I also pulled out my Glendon Place Tiramisu pattern for a few nights:

It prompted me to order some fabric form CraftyKitten for the Cherries Jubilee pattern too (Tiramisu is also on a CraftyKitten piece, Plum Pudding is not) ... I still haven't finished one but I'm already planning on the third one to start. I make a mistake and it ticks me off so I stop stitching on them. Mostly because I have to fix the mistake in these patterns since they are so symmetrical.

Side note, I hate scroll frames. They just don't have enough tension in my opinion, but I did do some digging and trying different things and determined the best way for me to get tension was to do an S type roll, where it's over the top on the top and goes under on the bottom. I found the tension much better that way. Does anyone else have any suggestions for tension?! I have two of these frames that I never use because of the tension...

I also bought a magnifier/light! So here's a picture of my stitchy spot:

You can see my Lowery frame and my new light. It's great, I tried 3 other magnifiers before I bit the bullet and ordered this one. It's not the most attractive thing ever, but it allowed me to work on my Ink Circles Damask Square pattern so much more easily!

I also made those pillows this past month! They even have zippers. They go well with our sofa's blue velvet pillows that we had bought at Tuesday Mornings to go with the carpet we are now using in our living room. New place meant we had to rearrange our carpets to fit different spaces, our blue one is our largest and no longer fits in any of the bedrooms. I'm planning to make two more pillow covers at some point. I still need to buy two more pillows.

I worked on my Damask Square yesterday, it's on 40 ct crystal silkweavers fabric with Peacock Weeks Dye Works floss (1 over 2):

I've decided I love stitching with just one strand of thread, there's no worries about laying the threads right, they don't get tangled! It's so much easier with the magnifier though. I'm still young, but I'd like to be able to still see 40 years from now thanks! I also pulled out a hoop to use last night for this and I remembered why I hate hoops, those marks! It was only in the hoop for like an hour but left a nice ring... I'm going to have to find more random pieces of my q-snaps for this... I bought a 14in one but it's really just way too big. I should have bought another 9x9 instead.

How's everyone elses' stitching been going!? Is everyone ready for Spring? I sure am!

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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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Halloween Town!

The Mysterious Halloween Town SAL from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery starts tomorrow (not Tuesday like I thought, whoops). I'm all ready! Are you?

Fabric is "Tempest" from my fabric of the month club, Fabrics by Steph. I am still debating on if I should go grab the Cosmo floss when I'm in Denver or not... Decisions decisions! I might just buy some of their other patterns and buy cosmo for those because I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop myself from starting now since I do have all the DMC needed.

I also reached a small milestone on my Glendon Place Tiramisu I finished one page!! Only 5 more to go. :)

I really do love working on this, big blocks of color and silk thread! It's just very large for me. Other than my Chat (which I haven't worked on in... a long time) it's my largest project. :)

Anyone else out there getting excited for the Mysterious Halloween Stitch a Long?!?!

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WIP Wednesday June 11th

I picked up my tiramisu again! I am so close to finishing page one. I think I have about 100 stitches left, maybe no even that many. Then I will officially be 1/6th of the way done! Look for pictures shortly.


I haven't worked on the snowman for my MIL lately, but I did get the cat in:

I've done a tiny bit more since I took this photo, I have a bit of his (or her) orange coat in too. I really don't think I'm going to finish it in time for her birthday. It's hard! A bunch of fractional stitches, may colors, I think my fabric is 32 count, so squeezing those stitches in the middle is difficult. Yeah, I'm just making excuses now.


I am trying to finish up May's ornament of the month (yes, really, Mays, not Junes):

I'm thinking about putting my husband's name at the bottom and the year. Hopefully going to make one for myself too, unless I find another ornament pattern that I like better for myself.

Next post look for my floss toss for the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's Mysterious Halloween Town which starts on the 17th. I'm very excited. I love love love the fabric (FOTM from Steph's fabrics). It's a nice shade of purple and anyone who knows me will know I love love love purple. :)

Until next time!

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Tiramisu Update/Stitch from Stash

I just realized that I haven't shown my Glendon Place Tiramisu in a long time. I am so very close to finishing page one! It is a bit hard to tell because I didn't strictly stop at the end of the first page if I still have floss left when I was nearly the edge.

Glendon Place Tiramisu

I still have some border at the top to do, I'm really not a fan of stitching the border, I like straight lines better! :) It's slow going because I don't stitch every night and I've been in kinda a rut lately, which makes no sense since I just bought a ton of new projects!

I really should be working on my MIL's snowman, but I haven't really been feeling it if you know what I mean. I have to be in the mood to stitch specific things. Maybe she'll get it for Christmas instead of her birthday (which is next month). I should just try to finish it. I probably could get it done, 3 weeks is totally enough time.... *famous last words*

I purchased some Halloween patterns earlier this month:

Almost Halloween - Drawn Thread

It's Halloween - Drawn Thread

And I cannot wait to start them! But I still have my black cat to finish:

Holiday Cats pattern

I am a serial starter I think. I'm pretty close on this one though. That pumpkin is the largest thing, and it took a long time too! I would like to get it done before October, clearly!


As for stitch from stash. I went over. Again. I thought I had self control. Apparently I don't. I'm going to blame the fact that I didn't have much stash... until starting the stash challenge. I found a LNS and learned that another one was going out of business. I just had to buy things. THEN I found Steph's fabric of the month club, gotta join that, clearly. I think I'm going to back out of the challenge. I'm still going to try to keep track of my spending but I've had my eye on the needle needs stand & frame combo... which would kill the budget for an entire year (plus I want to get the 24" bars for the Tiramisu project). My husband says if it makes you happy then it's worth the cost. We both have good paying jobs and little overhead, so I want to enjoy my hobby now while life is going well because you can never predict the future.


Leave a comment below on how you're doing with the challenge (or why you aren't doing it)!

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Head Cold

I don't know about you, but I swear ever time the weather starts to change I get sick. I seem to have caught my Aunt's cold and I've been sniffling since Saturday. Normally chilling at home would result in lots of stitching, but I just want to sleep. I'm even took a sick day today (and I never take sick days because I want that time for vacation time instead!)

A quick update on the stitch from stash challenge, total spent in April: $24! I bought two pairs of scissors ($9 & $4) and I joined Stephanie's Fabric of the Month Club ($11).

Onward for some pretties:

 I added their last name, now I'm trying to decide which to finishe it off with:

"Est. 2014"

or

"Established

May 17, 2014"

Which do you think would be nicer?

And a bit more work was done on m Glendon place, amazing desserts, tiramisu. =)

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Minor Updates and March SFS

Hope everyone is well. Our weather here has been bouncing back and forth between being in the 50s to being in the 20s. I'm ready for straight 50s and 60s thank you very much.

My husband & I are going to be escaping to sunny Mexico for a friends wedding quite soon and I am very ready to relax and soak in the rays (with plenty of sunscreen of course, I burn like no ones business).

A quick stitch from stash update before pictures of the pretties: I spent wayyy too much this month. As you may have read in my last post it has been a rough 2014 so I started off March by buying a pair of Gingher Designer Series scissors. I used a 40% off coupon, but that made them $23.99 anyway. I had let some money accumulate from January and February so that didn't bust the budget but the haul at 123stitch.com did. I spent $46.18. I had been doing so well too...

Month	Total Spent	Total - Monthly
January	$             37.85	(5.02)
February	$             19.02	(5.98)
March	$             --	--
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Total	$         56.87	0.00

(Yes, I know the math doesn't line up, I am making March my pass month, I'm going to start with a clean slate), I went a little crazy on ebay too. :(

I guess this is my pass month, unless I don't spend any more money (which might actually be possible since I bought 4 kits and a pattern!) and then it would even out.

Anyways, on to the updates:

 

My Tiramisu has seen a few more stitches.  Nothing earth shattering, but I'm about half way done with page 1! 

I finished up the H for my cousins' wedding. I still need to add their last name, but I haven't decided on the font I'm going to use. If anyone has some suggestions I'm all ears!

And this was a new start. I found a border pattern on the internet with these cute little snowflakes so I thought I would do it in a nice red color, make it look a bit Scandinavian. I was actually able to finish this last night, so look for an update later in the week!!

My husband has been asking about a Megaman cross stitch, so I started that last night as well. It's super small so that should be done this week too! =)

Anyone else out there working on Christmas ornaments & presents super early?

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