Boo!

Good afternoon! Happy Halloween!🎃👻 It's been a couple weeks of stitching and weather, so let's do this💃🏻

Stitching first. I have a finish and some progress. My progress

Pumpkin Head from Twin Peaks Primitives. I started on his head since the last post. When I get bored with stitching the border, I'll work on his head or fill in that nice green color. I'm using all the called for DMC on this. Because I'm about to get into winter/Christmas stitching for 2 months, Mr Pumpkin Head will go bye bye for now.

My next WIP is Boo To You by Brenda Gervais...

I have stitched on this for a week. It's on R & R's Winter Brew which I just love with the called for floss. There are areas that are stitched vertically like her pumpkin head and her pumpkin head basket. At first I thought Nah, I'll just stitch horizontally as usual. I decided to try it vertically going by Brenda's instruction. That would be stitching half of how many stitches there are and then stitching backwards from the bottom up. You can see that on the basket, especially where its eyes are. I'm doing the same thing to her head. It takes some getting used to and I feel it uses up floss doing it this way. But I'll continue on. Miss Boo will be leaving as well.

Now my finish!

Here's Miss Lucian's School for Girls-Lesson 1..

The text says Trick or Treat Stitches Neat or Prickly Needles Stick your Feet. After the last post I dedicated all my time to getting this done. The changing font was fun to stitch, even the little orange and black 'dots' were too. It's finished as a table topper, on the model, with black ric rac trim and that's how I'll finish mine. When will that happen? Don't know but don't hold your breath!🤭

As of today I have 18 finishes on the year. For tonight while I watch Hocus Pocus, Corpse Bride, and whatever else I can find, I'll put in a few more stitches on Boo To You. 

Crazy weather!

Three confirmed tornado touchdowns. The picture above is not far from where I used to live. No lives or property affected since it was out in the forest but some of the pines were knocked into the road that goes through. I was at work that morning, texting my daughter because I'd heard they were getting crazy thunderstorms. At one point, she says Mom we just got a tornado warning and to seek shelter quickly. That scared me! Sure enough, after the National Weather Service investigated, it was determined to be a tornado. Two others here in northern AZ also but further north and the other in eastern AZ. We get tornados but they're rare. The last reports of tornados was 15 years ago. All day long, we kept getting tornado watches or warnings. What a day. I now know more about the watches and warnings then I ever wanted to know! Tonight, Halloween, we're supposed to get some heavy rain clear into Monday morning. I'm am going to hunker down tonight and tomorrow.

Honeybee, if you read this, thanks for checking on me. You must've seen in the news our severe weather.😊

As for trick or treating here in my new neighborhood, there's none. It's more of a retired neighborhood but there are a few families that have their grandchildren living with them.

I hope things are fine where you're at. Here we go into November! These last few months really just zoom on by. It's strange.

Here's to treats but no tricks for all!

Be sure to watch this space a week from today. I start gingerbread stitching tomorrow and will show where I get to on that. Today I want to keep it spooky!👻🎃🥸🤡🤖☠️💀

😆

Take care!

Odalys Polo Rachel

You may be wondering what my title means🤔those are the names of the hurricanes/tropical depressions that affected us here in Arizona. I'll talk more about the crazy weather down below.

Let's talk stitching! Nearly halfway through October already, I'd like to get back to twice a month posting.

Disclaimer: it's Halloween stitching from here on out! I have progress, a new start and a bit of stash. Let's go!

You'll recognize Witch Hill by Ship's Manor...

Sorry about the fold in the fabric, I try not to iron my stitching until the end. It's slow going stitching, and I don't know why! Since the last time I stitched on this, I put in the 2 pumpkins in the middle of the design. There's a lot of different colors on the hill and that's probably why I'm just chugging along. I can't wait to get to Miss Witchy there at the bottom.

Next is the PSS pattern called Miss Lucien's School for Girls Lesson One...

I just love this. Heck, I just love Paulette's Halloween designs period! The last time I just had the peacock and a few letters. It would be nice to have this finished by Halloween but I don't think it's going to happen. Since I've involuntarily, mind you, taken an extensive leave from any FFOing, I shouldn't worry😂

And it's raining again🌧️💨

This next piece should be a new start but I'm categorizing it as a WIP...

Meet Pumpkin from the Fang and Big Eye Gang by Twin Peak Primitives...

Not a lot to show but it's a start. I call it a WIP because I already stitched the cat on the left on the cover. I want to have all 3 stitched. They're pretty much full coverage. I find these hard to stitch though. The outer border are 4 rows of the 2 floss colors. On this piece, it's the black and yellow stitches. I think it's because the meeting place for the right and left border do not match. One side might have 25 stitches and on the other maybe 1 or 2 extra stitches. So I'm constantly counting the border stitches🫨 somehow it comes together.

Now my new start. Boo To You by Brenda Gervais/WTH&T...

She's on 36ct Winter Brew on R&R. She's a cutie. I'm using most of the called for floss. I'll have to look for substitutes for the colors I don't have. 

So last weekend I took part in the Harvest Moon Hangout which is brought to us by Lindy Stitches. It's a virtual event like the Jingle Ball. I bought a fat quarter of fabric and some fripperies...

The JCS magazine is from 123stitch. The fabric is 32ct orangey black linen that is perfect for a Halloween design I have in mind. A lip smoother and the tea round out my purchases. Not too bad I would say😌

Anyone thinking of stitching plans in 2027? I plan to turn 63 in January! As if I have any say in the matter. I think I'm going to have a start-a-thon type of plan but I'm not starting 63 things! If anyone's watching Sully Stitches Tara on flosstube, I might do something like that. She's starting 25 new designs and doing the old school shaking the basket and picking a number, and I like that. I do have charts that I really want to start, some may need floss and/or fabric but most are ready to go. WIPGO might be in the cards but I'm gnashing my teeth to start stuff!

What I do know is that I will switch to winter/Christmas stitching in November. I don't know if it will be all Gingerbread or something else. I'm kind of interested in stitching Christmas charts that are just red; white or antique white fabric with red floss. I have a PDF of a Santa head that is all red floss and I found an ornament in a JCS ornament issue that is also all red stitched. I think a corner of a bookcase would look so pretty with just red stitched items🤔 stay tuned!

Onto the weather!

Last Saturday or Sunday we started getting tons of clouds from the then tropical storm Odalys. It then rained for 2 days straight. I don't think we got any Polo remnants though. I think those got eastern New Mexico and into Texas. Then Rachel decided to visit Friday and it's been off and on raining. Right now it's super windy outside. As I was typing this out, warnings kept popping up on my phone that Hurricane Rachel is near! FYI: We've never had a hurricane make landfall anywhere near AZ simply because we're not near the ocean. We're separated from the Eastern Pacific by Baja California. So I'm not sure what the weather service is going on about. 

As a native Arizonan, I'm ready for dry weather😂 However, the huge reservoirs bordering this state, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are going down due to usage, normal evaporation. Lakes nearby are nearly drying up. So it's a real concern. For that, we're grateful for all the precipitation. We may have a snowy winter too. Not me though, where I live now we might get a dusting of snow once every couple of years. I will not miss going out to find my windshield iced over and I have to scrape it! 

Well, that's it for now. I'll be back on Halloween night. I'll show where I've got to on some of my scary stitching and who knows, maybe I'll have actual FFOs to show! 

Happy stitching! See you on the 31st!👻🧡🎃