Water, Sand and Snow

Hi all! Hope you're all doing fine. I came back about an hour ago from watching the Downton Abbey movie with my daughter. I enticed her with a large popcorn! I don't like going to the movies by myself! I liked it. I won't mention any parts of the movie but I was happy to see a couple questions answered and I teared up over 1 scene. Hope that means another movie further in the future for the characters.

I have progress to show, new plans (I always have new plans!), a finish/FFO, etc.

I have reached water!

Yep, that little bit of blue directly to the right of the dog on the sled is water and I'm a 

happy camper. Back story: After finishing and FFOing my last Halloween

project, I picked up Winter At Beacon House, a long time WIP. Here's the before..

The fabric is lakeside Winter Sky and shows correctly in the pic right above. I've 

extended the alphabet, filled in the missing stitches near the girls, started on the

lighthouse, and filled in the snow amongst the alphabet. The nice thing about this

design is I can jump around when I get tired of stitching the sand and snow. I am 

giving it a break though because I am now in a Christmas stitching mood!

Here's my last Halloween finish..

Ritual and Spell from the 2016 JCS Halloween issue. I made a few changes- left

off the skull vine on the bottom, and stitched my own spider web in the upper

right corner. I used my last piece of fusible web on this so I haven't finished my

other Halloween finishes.

At first, I was going to keep stitching on Beacon House but after looking at all

the new Christmas charts on the 123stitch, I've kitted up 3 projects...

I almost had all the called for flosses, with one sub. It's going on a 36ct fabric, 

mystery.

An oldie but goodie. I've made this once before. And..

Christmas Scooter. I'm using a different fabric than called for but it'll look great. 

Starting tonight, I'm stitching this one^. 

I also stashed, lol..

Scored on a stash selling FB group.

That is it. I joined Jo's Halloween blog hop at the Serendipitous

Stitcher blog so I'll be back on Halloween for that.

An upcoming plan is to stitch a Christmas pattern by Romina Petrucci,

otherwise known as Romy's Fibers, for a contest. It'll be an ornament 

I think. Sounds like fun!

Job is going well but Mr. Vertigo has made a return, unfortunately, and I missed a day at

work for that. He's been gone for the entire year and why he's returned

has me scratching my head. I try to pinpoint differences that may set it off and when it 

disappears but can't. I just have to deal with it.

Take care! See you on Halloween!

Just a funny picture of a hitchhiking bug on my windshield! Looks

like its lifting that little car..

Where's the time gone?!

Howdy! Yes, I am back with a new post! I've been AWOL for almost a month. Crazy!

How's everyone doing? I've been catching up to everyone's blog posts and seeing great things being FFO'd and stitched.

First order of business, I finally sent the magazine giveaway to Linda about two weeks ago! Sorry
about that Linda. Things were crazy last month. Also I'd like to respond to some comments from
last post. To Carol: No I didn't take a picture of the lightning strike. It is hard to get a pic of
lightning! I stood outside during one storm constantly clicking the camera button on my iPad and
caught nothing, lol. I heard shutter speed comes into play so a fancier camera works.

To Meg: Yes I added Orange RIT to my coffee dye mix to come up with that fabric color, then
popped it into the oven for a bit. And to Astrid: I have gotten used to the new job and the hours.
I cuss when the alarm goes off but after one 5 minute snooze, I get up! I also now go to bed at
9 pm or sometimes 8:30 if I'm especially tired.

I have exchange goodies to show and a finish so let's go!

Here is my finished creation that went to my exchange partner..

This is Land of Milk and Honey by Summerhouse Stitcheworks.

I attached magnets to the back of the stitched piece and hot glued some to the 

muffin tin. Some of the flowers are either hot glued in place or glued to a magnet.

Next time I'll use skinnier, flatter magnets. I am happy with how it turned out and 

Susan loved it. As usual, I forgot to take a picture of all the things I sent.

Here is what I received..

Love it all. Bag of M&Ms are gone! I love ceramic pumpkins so was glad to get that

small one in the corner. The WTN&T pattern, perfect. And everything else.

Here's a look at the stitched piece..

It's by Pineberry Lane on Carrot linen, probably from WDW. So pretty. One of

the questions for the exchange is what colors do you like and mine are always

the same-Halloween colors! I am going to have to buy that pattern now!

I also have another Halloween finish-Vlad's House..

By Lucy Beam Love In Stitches. That house, though! I had to leave off windows

on the bottom of the house because I was running out of GAST Soot. I 

figured Vlad lived in a fortified castle and it wasn't a good idea to have

windows at the bottom! The lighter gray areas of the house are WDW Pelican Grey

which I nearly ran out of but I went into some kitted projects and found a skein. 

I'm not sure how I'll finish this.

I am stitching yet another Halloween ornament but it just has a few stitches in so

no pic.

I guess that's it's. I have chicken and two bean chili going in the crock pot right now,

almost done, and in two hours an oil change for the car. As I mentioned above, the job

has become easier. I wake up at 3:45am and now have a routine going. I hate

rushing around that early in the morning! Things are done the night before so I can

get on the highway for my 30 minute commute. I don't mind it, I listen to music, see

the sunrise yet, and think! 

I'm not sure what's in store stitch wise. I'll finish the ornament and would like to

put in some work on Christmas Garden by BBD. I've seen several finishes of it

and am inspired to get going on mine.

Well, thanks for visiting! Hope you're all stitching up a storm!

Take care!

Stuff, the June edition

Hi all! Hope June is off to a great start for you all. It has finally warmed up around here, in the middle 80s. It's finally acting like regular Arizona late-spring weather.

I have Junia progress to show, my FFO'd exchange piece, new stash (again), and another FFO!

First order of business is something Robin in Virginia wanted to know about my header picture, the flowers. After some research, I've found they are called the Daisy Fleabane flower. They're from the
Aster family of flowers, not a Daisy..

They grow wild here in the spring. I can't remember if they grow here after our monsoons.

. They like dry conditions, fields. I did pick a leaf for the smell test and they do smell

like soap! For that reason, I'm guessing that's why animals won't eat them. I've never

given them much thought because they're basically just weeds. Here in the Southwest, 

wild flowers are confused with weeds. At any rate, I had to weedwack those cute

flowers. They sure brighten up a yard though. Different species of the Fleabane

are found in other areas too like Indiana.

On to stitching.

One of my refinished finishes was FFO'd today..

I really like how it turned out using the light orange cord that Carol (I think we all) 

know who Carol is!) made and I won. Cute.

I also FFO'd my exchange piece. I wished I took a better picture but here it is..

The fabric is lighter in real life, WDW Parchment. The design is 

Hurrah! Blue and Gray by Pineberry Lane. I stitched just the bottom 

portion. What is missing is the word Hurrah and a few more pinwheels like 

the one at her right arm and the diamond motifs. I'm pretty sure I

would still be stitching on it had I continued with the rest of the pattern!

I made it a hanging flat ornament with the shell rings to hang floss in, 

trimmed with the red and white twine and tied it with silk ribbon? I forgot what

that's called! The back fabric is a med brown with tiny blue and red flowers.

It is on its way to Georgia as I type. Hope she likes it.

For Junia I picked up The Merry Hart by PSS..

I really do love stitching on this. I have added the flowers to the border and a start on 

the roof. I hemmed and hawed about the fabric at the beginning but it has since grown

on me and I'm happy with it. I think I'll keep at it until it's finished.

Well, I stashed again (enter guilty grin)! I have got to stay away from those

stash selling sites on FB! But look what I found..

This has been my unicorn chart ever since a flosstuber showed it. I think I 

paid $8 for it plus postage. Here's the two other items I couldn't live without..

I just had to have the WTN&T chart on the right, love the colors on it, and

the magazine with the adorable Halloween pattern. I bought it just for that reason!

Okey doke! That's all I have. I think if I update more often with smaller posts, 

Blogger won't go haywire!

Merry Hart will stay in my qsnaps and will be finished. I'm rethinking my plans because

I'm getting a little stressed about my plans! Lol. I think from here on out, I'm just going to 

stitch on whatever catches my attention. 

Oh, I forgot! For Whine and WIP SAL on Stitch Maynia, I pulled out Dear House

by La D Da..

It's my whine piece because of all the dk blue. I have added the the blue to the 'you are

really' section. I'm nearing the halfway point on this but can only take the blue for so

long!

Alright, now I'm done. Take care and thanks for stopping in!

Happy Spring Part 2

The Spring /Easter Exchange 2019 is now over and my partner and I have received our gifts. Here is what I sent Lisa:

She likes the same designers as I do, BBD, PSS and so on. I stitched the BBD

piece which I show somewhere in my last posts. I bought the wooden box, 

painted it to match the greys in the design. I inserted the polka dot scrapbook

paper in the top and in the inside. Then finished the stitched piece on 

sticky board as Priscilla and Chelsea call it and glued it to the top. I sure hope

it holds. Then I bought her the other bits and pieces. Here's another look

at the box

It turned out nice.

This is what I received from Sandy..

I can't wait to start the design on the purple fabric. See the adorable Shepherd's 

Bush piece in the frame? Here's a closer look..

So cute. I have it on the wall with my other mini's, what I call my small

framed stitches.

FFOs. One was the exchange box and the other is this LK small..

This is Nevermore. I've really been into sewing those borders onto the 

sides of the stitched piece. Funny how I have favorites of finishing styles like

a cube finish or pin pillows, or flat ornaments. Right now it's the finish above!

I believe this is it. It's Saturday, so it's back to old WIP stitching. As mentioned

before, I plan on 19 new starts/WIPS for Maynia this year. Ten new starts

and 9 WIPs. Christmas Garden will be amongst those plus a few others that

are close to a finish. 

The weather has been flirting with the low 70s which I'm happy about.

Oh, I had to leave that 2nd job I had for health reasons. I have bad knees

and sciatica which after my work accident, is so much worse than

it was. It's been a relief to let it go. That also means more stitching time! Yay!

Take care everyone. Thanks for stopping by! I'll see you in April!

Part 2 Happy March!

If you haven't already, see Part 1 below this post.

So I've been stitching more these past couple of weeks. On Feb. 19 I started a Christmas ornament from the 2015 JCS ornament mag..

This is the PS ornament that is directly above in the picture called Winter's Eve. I can't remember the name of the fabric I'm using but it's 32ct. I'm taking part of A Year of New Starts SAL at Stitch Maynia and this was my start. Every month on the 19th we start something new.

I also have a couple FFOs. First, I finally did the ribbon ruching for All Hallows Eve by Dulaney Woods designs..

I ruched as I sewed it on instead of sewing a running stitch in the ribbon. It still took awhile and I was worried I was going to run out of ribbon! I'll tell you, it's best to have a drink nearby, preferably of the alcoholic kind! It took me about 2 and a half hours to get the ribbon on! So worth it though. Here's the back..

Love the fabric.

I'm still doing my WIP stitching once a week on older WIPs and I just stopped on Early Witches by the Primitive Hare..before..

and now..

Tituba is now done. I just have the town to stitch in below her name. Her skin color was charted for dmc black but I decided on a warm brown for her skin. I like it much better.

I am now moving onto Winter at Beacon House..

I'll stitch on this today. I have 1 over 1 birds to stitch there in the bottom left corner and a few specialty stitches in the sky around the house. I have not touched this in about 4 years! Time to get back at it.

Oh I forgot to show the other FFO!

By Notforgotten Farm. It could've been stuffed and closed up better but I like it. Here's the back..

The fabric looks like moss. Just like moss on an old headstone.

Okay, Blogger is doing its crazy thing, one more picture..

Market is upon us and while I have seen lots of charts that I want, I really do want this sampler. It has the house and fruit baskets/vases that I like in a sampler. What are you all liking from Nashville Market?

Alright, I better skedaddle! Thanks for stopping by and visiting and leaving comments. Also Welcome to new followers through Bloglovin! Stay awhile! 

Take care!