Halloween Town Start

Hi everyone! I have started the Frosted Pumpkin's Mysterious Halloween Town and never realized how slow I'd feel after joining instagram (brendaxstitchhaven). So many people are such fast stitchers, and have so much time on their hands! I have a full time job and husband and we were unusually busy this weekend.

Here's where I'm at so far:





Reasons I'm not further along number one, we were looking after a friends cats (she has three):

Look at that face! You just have to hang out with them and pet them. :)

Two & three: We went to my husband's cousins' gradation party (where I took my stitching) and we went to a special event at our local movie theather. Busy busy.

And finally four: I goofed up the fence and I'm trying to decide if I care to fix it or not....

My co-worker's baby is due today and I finally decided I should start working on her baby sampler.




Now, question for all of you, which fabric should I use: Pewter, Natural or White? The little boys' bedroom is navy with orange and lime accents (hence my color choices).

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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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ATC Exchange

Hello all! I just received my ATC exchange (from a forum I belong too) and it's the cutest thing ever:

 

The theme was desserts and we each said what kind of desserts we liked best (I said Tiramisu; ice cream; baklava; cheesecake; gingerbread) and our match got to pick what they stitched to send!

I convinently had this little white frame that fit my ice cream sundae perfectly!

 

I think I'm going to take it to work with me to brighten up my cubicle a little bit.

Here's what I sent (cupcakes were top on her list!)

This was my first exchange and I am quite excited with how it turned out!!!  Have you ever participated in an exchange?

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Mother's Day Gift

If you've been reading you know that I started my mothers' day gift the Sunday before mothers day and finished the stitching in time (in two days!). Once I finished the stitching part I went to find a frame. I couldn't really find anything square that I liked and would go well in my parents house so I decided to bite the bullet and pay to get it custom framed. Was it worth the cost? I don't know, but it does look really nice. :)

I really should stop taking pictures with my cell phone and take out the DSLR. The best camera is the one you have with you... even though I'm at home, with access to my nice one. Eh. Next time. :)

I gave it to her yesterday and she really liked it, just as I thought she would.

I started a Little House Needleworks design, Gingerbread Cookie. It was suppose to be my May ornament of the month, clearly I didn't get it done in time. I'll just have to finish 2 this month so I can get caught up. It's possible! Maybe I'll find a really small one to do after I finish this one. I'm going to search etsy and hopefully find something kinda nerdy! :)

I also decided that I just had to join the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery's Mysterious Halloween Town Club. I am quite excited about this!!! It'll be my first mystery club! I was going to purchase the Cosmo floss called for, but the total was like $20 (because of shipping from Canada and I couldn't find it locally) and I can't really justify that when I only needed to buy 2 of the DMC alternatives.... I made an order on 123stitch for the 2 DMC & the 4 overdyed floss and some misc floss I needed for various projects (to justify the shipping cost of course!). The first part starts on June 17th and it goes for 4 parts. The last of which will be released on September 18th. Anyone interested in joining me in a SAL?

I think I've already settled on my fabric. It's called Tempest which was my first fabric from Steph's fabric of the month club, it's a really nice light plum-ish shade of purple. I'll do a floss toss as soon as everything comes in so you can see what it looks like. You never know, I could change my mind between now and the 17th, but I'm pretty sure it'll coordinate well. And since I have so much fabric I really didn't want to have to buy more..... At least that's what I'm telling myself! ;)

Have you ever done a mystery sampler?!?!

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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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Monogram Framed!

It's been way too long since my last post. Sorry about that! Life keeps getting in the way. I did finally get my cousins' monogram framed for her wedding. I really hope she likes it!

I mean, I like it, but you never know with other people. :) Sorry the picture isn't of wonderful quality, but I was kinda rushing to get it framed and wrapped and everything. ;)

I'm still waiting for my Mother's Day gift to be finished. I am getting it custom framed and it's almost $90. :( It better be amazing! I've never had anything professionally framed. I usually buy a pre-made frame and order some mats and put it together myself, so I think I have super high expectations for this.

Are you working on anything rush wise? Presents maybe!?

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Mondays!

Hello all, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. The marathon was here this weekend which put a damper on anything we would normally do. I try to avoid everything when it's going on. We hung out at home and I got some stitching done instead!

I also got a package from Threads cross stitch store in Lancaster PA. I had visited back in September when my husbands' good friend got married out there and loved it so I "liked" them on Facebook. Well, as it turns out the owner of the store is moving to Maine and couldn't keep the store anymore (I guess no one wanted to buy it, and it was a side hobby of hers) so they were having a closing sale. 40% off everything (except DMC floss). I called and sent and email with a big list of things I would like and they were nice enough to kook around and make suggestions for other things if they didn't have something. I ended up getting 18 skeins of floss (Weeks, Crescent Colors & Gentle Arts), 5 patterns (3 LHN, 1 Drawn Thread, 1 baby pattern) and a huge piece of Belfast fabric for the Drawn Thread pattern for $57. Yes, this totally kills the budget.... again. I NEVER THOUGHT I HAD A PROBLEM... until now. But in my defense I only just started stitching again (I started at 10, but through college and beyond I didn't have time) and didn't have any stash as of June 2013. I'm making up for lost time! I didn't take a picture of the fabric, so here's a picture of my kitty with a bottle cap on her head!

I finished the monogram for my cousin!! I'm going to go get a frame & mat tonight!! I'm so glad I've finished, I started it back in January and it kept getting put off. At least it's done now! I realize I should have blurred more, but oh well. At least with the date hidden it will be slightly harder to figure out. ;)

And I decided I needed to make something for my mom for Mothers' Day. I was looking through Cross Stitch Collections past issues and I saw this in issue 220 and thought it would be great and at only 40x40 it should stitch up quickly. My parents own a house that was built in 1880, so while this isn't from that era, it is vaguely art nouveau, which my mom likes. I started around 2pm and here's where it was before I made dinner and then again before bed (around 10:30):

Everything was from stash too, you can't tell in these terrible quality pictures, but the fabric is actually a really pale pink, it's called Baby Lotion I think.  It was originally done in shades of purple, which is my favorite color, but I didn't want my mom to think I actually made it for myself and then just gave it to her because I had nothing better... Not that she would actually think that, but maybe! My mom's favorite color is red, so this kinda goes along with it. And their dining room and library are both shades of maroon so these could go well in either room if she wanted. I know she displays my December Faerie all year long so I am pretty sure she'll display this one too.

I had promised her a geisha years ago, which I still have yet to finish, it's like 3/4 done too!! It's on Aida though and it's a kit, both of which I hate. Maybe for her birthday, in September, in 2015. ;)

I'm hoping to get it finished today before I head out to get a frame for the monogram and pick up one for this too. =)

Hope everyone else was just as productive as I was this weekend! I'll take pictures of both pieces framed too!

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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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We're back!

We escaped the dreary weather here and headed down to Mexico fr a week for a friends wedding. It was quite lovely! The resort we stayed at was very nice (but expensive) and the wedding went quite well! We headed down to Playa del Carmen after the wedding and had a great time down there too.

Back to the grind unfortunately. We went back to work on Thursday and have been busy ever since. No need to settle down, we're still young! We went to a local beer festival yesterday and then today was my cousin's bridal shower and soon we will head over to my in-laws for an Easter dinner (early I know).

Here are some updates:

I finished the red ornament:

Did a bit more on my Tirasmiu:

And I won a lot of 57 (yes, seriously) fabrics on ebay:

I have created a spreadsheet with all the colors, counts, and sizes. =)

I think that's all for today, enjoy the nice weather (if you are starting to see some).

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