Ornament SAL October, The Giveaway That Almost Wasn't!, and progress

Helloooo!

Here's my ornament for October






I have misplaced the printed freebie chart. For the life of me, I can't remember who designed this. Maybe some of you know. I stitched it on 32ct ivory linen with WDW Louisiana Hot Sauce and I love that color. I thought it would look great against the ivory linen. Then I used a Kreinik fiber, the shiny colorful stuff, for the dots on the I's. They don't sparkle in the picture though. Don't forget to click on the pictures for better looks. This stitched up in just a couple days.

The Giveaway That Amost Wasn't, hmm. For starters, some of the items never made it to me until almost a whole month. I mention that in my last post, I think! And then two of the packages sat in my post office for a couple days because I made some mistakes on the packaging and the kind of postage I put on them and the clerks didn't notify me of the problem until 2 days later. On a side note: my local post office is trying to single-handedly save the USPS from going down the pipes and therefore, catch everyone on tiny mistakes that mean the difference between 1 cent and 0.50. Whatever floats their boat! Okay, rant over, onward!

I finally sent off everyone their Giveaway winnings and Diana let me know she got hers. Since she doesn't have a blog, I'll show you what I sent and made for her. She picked Halloween



Btw, she's the nicest person! I sent the Book of Days needlework calendar for 2014, the Halloween Silhouette pattern with a skein of silk and the linen that is below the scissors, the Halloween fabrics, the D needleminder, the scary scissors, scary DMC colors, and the Mystifying Mints in that great Ouija board tin, and






This is the Eliza An Pinkeep from the Merry Hallowe'en book of pin keeps by Stacy Nash, made into a flat ornament. I finished it off with the spider charm, the pretty fabric for the backing, and black trim. Diana liked it all. Thanks Diana, for visiting. I'm just glad it made it to her in time for Halloween!

Moral to the story-Give gift certificates! Lol. I really did enjoy making the flat ornaments though; could do without the drama!

I've been stitching and here's a new start



Love this! It called for 40ct but I'm using 36ct flax and the called for threads. I'll make it into a pillow and trim it with a dark brown chenille that I have. I just finished the cookie.

And here's Home by Pineberry Designs



Looking more like a home! I didn't read directions and am using 2 strands of the Toasted Marshmallow when it called for 1 strand. I'm hoping I don't run out of Toasted Marshmallow!

As for Mary's Sampler from PSS, I only stitched two angels. There's more to stitch this time around I've noticed! So no picture of Mary.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it! Thanks, everyone, for stopping in and leaving a comment. Hope those of you who do Halloween, have a real spooky one, watch some scary movies. To those who don't, have a Happy Autumn Thursday!



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Blingin' Downton Abbey!

Speaking of Downton Abbey, did you know that the new season comes out sometime in January? Can't wait! I love that show! It's been gone for almost a whole year. Deadliest Catch is like that in that the show comes back on in April and ends in July and then the wait begins.:(

I'm making inroads with finishing all my ornaments and small stuff. Remember Downton Abbey? Well here she is, all blinged out!









Designed by The Sampler Girl, I chose my own fiber colors for this. I checked out Vonna's tutorial for the flat ornament, and since I haven't figured out how to put a link on here that'll connect you right away, here's the address http://tts-learntofinish.blogspot.com/2011/10/flat-ornament.html. Thanks Vonna! Anyway, my confidence doing the flat ornament has gone up exponentially! And now I just want to flat-ornament everything!! So I'm trying to use fabric that I have already, and this fabric I thought could match the silk that I used for the words. Then I prettied it up with the trim, made the small bow and attached it with the gold pin on top. It's pretty!

Diana, Ann, and Myra, you'll be happy to know that the Giveaway packages you've been patiently waiting for will be in the mail Tuesday! Yay! My gosh, that ONS I ordered from took forever. I emailed them and asked about my order, and on this past Friday, it arrived. It took a month. I was disappointed in how they packaged it up though. They took a loose piece of bubble wrap and put everything in it, didn't try to tape it up and when I got it, half of the things were in the mailer and the other half rolled up in the bubble wrap. Their website says they answer their emails in 48 hours, but I never got an answer. I'm liking the Inspired Needle and 123Stitch more and more! They do a great job.

I thought I'd show my glue-smooshing technique to stick the back and front of an ornament together



What do you think? Lol! Top to bottom: a five pound weight, broken 3 lb. weight, a book of the best poems, a Harry Potter book, and An Echo in The Bone by Diana Gabaldon! Below all that is the ornament! Haha. All amongst the chaos that is known as my crafting table. It does the job!

Here's my stitching on Mary's Sampler by PSS




So since it looks like Diana doesn't have a blog, I've taken a picture of the ornament I made for her and the goodies. I'll wait for her to receive her package and then I'll post pictures. I forgot to take pictures of Myra's and Ann's prizes but they may post pictures on their blogs.

I think that's it. Today is the last day of my 3-day weekend, back to work tomorrow, and I've got laundry to do. Not to mention my new favorite show is on tonight, Sleepy Hollow. It's almost Halloween too. Bwahahhah!

Thanks for stopping in!



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Turtle Trot October, a finish, a start, EE-I-EE-I-O

I have a Turtle Trot finish!



This is Dead of Night by Funk and Weber Designs. On 32ct black linen. If you look at the last time I posted a picture of this, you'll see that weird line of stitches that was above the cats back. I ripped that out and stitched it better. I'm glad to have this one done. I was over on the HOE Exchange site checking out the rules for their new Halloween I exchange. I came thisclose to joining that! I know! Monday is the deadline to sign up. I'm ready to move on from Halloween.

Here's another Trot WIP that I finally dragged out. All it had was the heart and most of the house



What a horrible picture! It looked bright enough when I took it! Here's what it should look like done


I hope to have it finished for Christmas 2014! There's a lot of backstitching on this. Vonna from the Twisted Stitcher brought up tossing a WIP that she lost interest in. I'm starting to feel that way about some of my Turtle Trot WIPs. I know of one that I just dread working on. I have a few stitches on it. I'll make a decision on it soon.

So I had a hankering for a new start



Sheesh! Another bad pic. The color of the house on the chart soo not matches what I'm stitching. I think the discrepancy is from the camera flash when the picture is taken for the charts. Not much I can do. Another thing I've noticed is the finished measurement is so much bigger than what I have! I'm using the called for linen count. It's a mystery to me!

Seeing as I've been a good girl not buying oodles of stash lately, I treated myself to these two



LHN Exodus 20:16 on the left. I snagged this on eBay. On the right is Little Lamb Sleeping by the Drawn Thread.

It's looking like I'll finally have my ONS order sometime this coming week. On the invoice it says if you have not received your order, wait 14 days to contact us. So I contacted them. They emailed me Friday to say my order is on its way. You know, with 123Stitch I never have this problem of them having to backorder anything. Besides, they let you know when something can ship out right on the item page. I like them a lot.

Since Diana has not gotten a hold of me concerning her giveaway win, I'm giving her until this coming Friday to contact me. There's no way to get a hold of her. So, if I don't hear from her then, Saturday I'll draw another persons name on the Giveaway post. So be sure to check this blog this coming weekend.

Well, I gotta cook dinner. I see I'm up to 108 followers. Welcome! Thanks for commenting and visiting, appreciate it!


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For Cathey and her family

Saw a new blogpost from Sharon (Daffycat) on my blog list titled A Sad Day so I opened it. It took me awhile to digest what the post said. Then it hit me. I burst into tears and said "And I didn't even know her!". Cathey had passed today. My daughter sat there kind of flummoxed over why I'm crying. I had mentioned to my daughter this fellow blogger who was fighting some bad cancer. That's right! I didn't even know her. But I was going to throw my weight behind her fight virtually. Through the airwaves! Lol!

She's not in pain and suffering anymore. From past experience, for myself, you don't want them gone, you want them right there in front of you! So to her family I say-She was a fighter, a very brave woman whose family was very important to her. All this from just reading her blog! Her character came through in her words.

My heartfelt condolences to her family and friends.



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TUSAL October, Yoo Hoo Diana! and Lighting a fire underneath my...hmm

It's that time again, which means we're snowballing through this part of the year! I invite you to the right of my blog, at the sidebar where it says TUSAL dates, and there will be just two, TWO, more dates! Things are going too fast, I have no Christmas gifts bought yet, and no Christmas-y things stitched. Aaahhh!

Here's my orts



Lots of black, white, and orange there. I've moved on to Christmas stitching though, starting with PSS's Mystery Sampler. Here's the little bit that I have



If the rest of the pattern goes this way with the small amount to stitch, I can keep up. I'm doing mine on 36ct Vintage Lentil from Lakeside with most of the right flosses. The sun hadn't gotten to my side of the house yet with this bad picture.

There's a little 'something' going on right now with a blogger who has an open letter to a designer on her blog stating her displeasure with the difference of floss color on the model on the chart and the actual stitching. Here's my take on all that..while getting my thread together to stitch the PSS sampler, this is what I came upon with GAST Shaker White



Even with my dreary picture, you can see a big difference in color. The lighter color I bought earlier this year or last. Wow. I have to eyeball a pattern to see if I have enough thread from the one lot to stitch what I need to because no telling if you'll get that same color when you order.

The second part of my title means I've got to hunker down and stitch more. This past week was stressful so I picked up a needle and finished one of my Turtle WIP's, which I'll show on the 13th. Just the act of stitching got my head back on straight and now I'm motivated to start a whole bunch of stuff!

I'm putting out an ALL POINTS BULLETIN (police-speak!) on Diana, the other winner of one of my giveaways. Yoo Hoo, Diana!! She has yet to email me with her mailing address, and she has no blog but follows several. Lesson learned, next time I have a giveaway, I'll ask everyone to put an email with their comment. Myra and Ann, I haven't forgotten you! I'm still waiting on a shipment from an ONS, which is taking awhile.

Well, Autumn has certainly arrived here in the high desert of AZ. Its downright chilly! Love it!

Hope the weather is great where you're at! Welcome follower 104!



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