UFO's in a western town

Quick, what song does my title sound like?! It's something something in a western town. A group from the 80's (90's?), Brits, and a little hint-they were boys and a place where you would buy a pet! Give me the name of the song and group. If there's a bunch of you, I'll draw a name and I'll send you a little something! Leave a working email too if it's not on your profile.

I thought I would get on here and show what I've been stitching on lately and road trip pictures.

This is the scene outside my front door. The monsoons have arrived and it has rained for 11 days straight here. Well, it stops and then after daytime heating, it's storming. Needless to say, the fire restrictions have been lifted. Yesterday's storm was pretty frightening though. It lightning and thundered and rained for 90 minutes and as I type I can hear a thunder boom. Places flooded, I had two rivers going by my house on either side. I'm thankful whoever built this house kind of built it up so we're on a slight hill. The lightning was hitting within 2 miles, sometimes within 1 mile. I sat here with my head inside my shoulders. I hope we don't get a repeat.

I've been flitting from stitching this and that. First, here is my 4th of July SAL FB project, Dear House by La D Da..

Before, all I had was the middle section of the brown flower and a portion of the chimney. On 35 or 36ct vintage examplar linen by Lakeside. That fabric is becoming my favorite. The SAL was you stitched a patriotic piece or one with red, white, or blue. So the floss is Midnight by GAST, a beautiful dark blue. The verse says-'Dear house, you are really very small Just big enough for love That's all'. Cute saying. I didn't stop stitching after the 4th, just kept going. It's a slow piece but it'll be pretty after it's done.

The next thing I stitched is Merry Hart by PSS...

I'm stitching this with a few ladies on a PSS FB group for #plumstreetsunday. Any Plum Street you have, stitch it on Sunday. Above is two Sundays worth of stitching. It's not a lot! I'm doing this on 36ct Platinum Edinburgh, coffee dyed a bit.

And lookie here! Frosty Forest by CCN! I decided it's too nice to be in the UFO bin.

The 4th block on the right is going in. I have to remind myself that I like stitching houses. Sorry for the wrinkles. I'm back to a block a month so I'll be picking Forest back up to finish that one for the month.

Here's another one from the UFO bin..Trick or Treat from the 2012 Halloween issue from JCS..

That is where I stopped couple years ago. I brushed it off and will be stitching on this when I'm done here typing. I'm using all called for fabric and floss. I'm a little worried about running out of the overdyes since these are older flosses. The dye lots are so different. I feel like some Halloween stitching. Hard to believe July is almost over. 

Okey doke, road trip! We went to Tombstone couple Saturday's ago, the 7th. It's a 4 hour drive straight down I-17 into Phoenix, then over to I-10 down to Tucson. We left early to avoid the hottest part of the day but it still reached 99 in Tombstone. Motel room wasn't ready when we got there so we went to the Boothill Graveyard..

The main characters of the OK Corral shootout against the Earps and Doc Holiday. The wooden markers have to be changed out every so often but they are buried there. There was money on a lot of the sites; probably to play a round of poker in the sky!

One of the more photographed graves. He was an agent for Wells Fargo and died in a shootout.

Playing cards was a dangerous occupation if you cheated!

This is an Ocotillo cactus..

They grow tall and the canes after they're dead are used for fences. We saw several of these 'fences'! 

I couldn't take a lot of pictures. My darn iPad kept overheating and then a full storage message kept popping up. So a few more pictures with my cell. 

Here is one of the characters who greeted us after wandering the cemetery. He was announcing a shootout show in one of the buildings. A lot of these people dress in the style back then and the women were just beautiful in those old west style clothing. My daughter and I wanted to dress up and get photographed but we were working with a budget!

We didn't ride in any of these coaches. It was hot so we wandered around in all the stores and mercantiles lining this road for shade and cold drinks.

There was one place I really wanted to check out and that was the Birdcage Threatre. My daughter didn't send me the good picture she took. They also charged for a tour through the building. We didn't take it, just stood in the front part. Still there after all these years, the inside looks how it did in the late 1800s. There's a poster that is still on the wall and it has the knife slits and bullet holes in it from angry miners and cowboys. The Birdcage was a poker place, theater, and bordello. Here's that poster of Fatima..

I know you can't see it but there's a knife cut down between her knees at the front and a bullet hole where her belly button is. The guy inside showed us all the bullet holes still stuck in the wood. 

And from our motel window, the rain starting up a little ways from us...

I have always wanted to see Tombstone and now it's off my bucket list. For some reason, I don't mind the 5, yes 5 hour drive to Las Vegas and Tombstone was only 4 hours away but it was a hard trip. I think it was because it was so hot. Halfway there, we stopped for drinks and snacks and it was 103 at 11 or noontime. I'll go back in the winter next time!

Oh yeah, the reason we went was for the ghost hunt! Interesting. Held inside the home of a Chinese woman. These old west towns had Chinese labor who worked on the railroad or in the mines. This woman had her own business. So my daughter got a dowsing rod and I chose a EMM, electromagnetic meter. Spirits are said to give off that energy if they're close by. We didn't get anything but when I held the dowsing rod and walked around, the right rod kept moving left. The left rod was steady but the right side kept moving so that was kind of cool! 

Leaving Tombstone though was interesting. We ran into a border patrol checkpoint! A bit scary. He asked us if we were US citizens and we said yes, and he waved us on. Tombstone is not very far from the Mexico border.

Alrighty, that is it. The lightning and thunder is firing up again. I'm just going to stitch on whatever yells the loudest but I do want to spend some time on Trick or Treat. Don't forget to play the little contest. If you're around my age, 54, you'll recognize it I think! 

Take care!

Cock a doodle doo!

Hi all! Hope the weekend was a good one. Saturday was good, went to the big rodeo parade my daughter and I. Sunday I wanted to die. I don't know what I ate that made me so sick. I was in my pajamas all day, moved from my bed to the couch. Around 5 last night, I could finally sit up without having to run to the bathroom. I had toast this morning after going 24 hours without food. Wow. That's the sickest I've ever been, food poisoning or stomach bug. I ate from chik fil A in the afternoon Saturday and may not ever again! Last time I ate from a fast food place and got sick, I didn't eat there again for 5 or 6 years. It was chicken then too. I don't know if chik fil A was the culprit though.

That is why I'm posting today. I have 3 finishes! First is the Tribal Rooster by White Willow Stitching..

The fabric is 32ct Wren by PTP. I hope it's not blurry on your side. I just love it! I used up the entire two skeins I bought for this. Primitive Rainbow by Barbaral Creations on etsy, a Hungarian or Romanian dyer. I started running out of the blue and green and yellow parts of the floss because I had been cutting my floss to get certain colors here and there. I had to floss dive to find colors to match those colors. There's one shape that shows up darker from the substitute floss but I bet you can't tell which one it is. I had this project kitted up for more than 2 years so it's nice to have it stitched up. I'm not sure how I'll finish it but I'm leaning heavily toward a pillow.

I decided that I'll stitch another Tribal Rooster but using this silk floss this time..

It's a pretty color and I'll need one more skein. I'll also use a higher count fabric, like 36.

Next finish is Christmas Bird..

So cute and a quick stitch. On 32ct vintage country mocha with some GAST and DMC floss. Two symbols on the graph are almost identical so I messed up the 1 stitch inside the red square flowers. On the bottom they are a different color than the two on the top and on the right. Oh well. Not sure how I'll finish it.

Last but not least is Black Pumpkin by SubRosa..

I'm not sure of the fabric. It might be Abecedarian, maybe by R & R. Black DMC used. I'll make this up as a pincushion that is on the cover of the chart which can be seen on the last post. Then mount it on something painted black. A quick stitch. This will be an exchange gift for the Halloween Harvest exchange. Terri will get us our partners tomorrow. I'm already ahead! I may stitch up a few other things to go with Black Pumpkin. Pineberry Lane has a freebie with 3 little designs on it, a strawberry, and 2 pincushions. The strawberry and one of the little pincushions with a strawberry bush on it I'll stitch in black. 

What will I stitch on now? I don't know but I might get back to Cobblestone Crossing. On the 4th, I joined a one day SAL on FB to stitch on something patriotic or with blue, red or white on it. I'm doing Dear House by La D Da, a UFO..

I think the floss is Blackboard, it has a very dark blue tone to it. Poor thing hasn't seen the light of day in a couple years.

Sometime ago, I finished a Stacy Nash drum design of a tombstone angel. Couple weeks ago, after reading and rereading the instructions of how to construct a drum finish, it was go time. Aargh, it's a total fail..

I wished that I had practiced on just plain fabric than use this finish as my guinea pig. I still have the chart and fabric for this but I'm just bummed. The strawberry is black velvet and I'm not happy with it either. I machine sewed the top and bottom fabrics together and I think maybe I should hand sew next time. Turning it right side out, it crinkled up the fabric and so I tried to iron it out..People, don't try this at home. So you see what happened when I tried to iron it, creases everywhere. I stuffed it with sawdust which I thought was nice, pretty messy though. Vonna/Twisted Stitcher had just put out a tutorial on a drum finishing which uses mat board for top and bottom but I wanted to stick pins into mine and I like them better, just like the prim designers make theirs. Wah, wah. Back to the drawing board!

That's it! I have to get ready for work.

Thanks for stopping in. I want to wish a big Welcome to the new followers on both Bloglovin' and Blogger/Google. I don't even know who runs these blogs anymore! Anyway, welcome and I hope you stick around for awhile. Happy Independence Day to us Americans and happy stitching to those elsewhere!