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!

For the love of orange

Good afternoon everyone! Can it really be September?! Almost 3 and a half months left in the year, crazy! I think my part of AZ got the memo that's it's September; I had to put on long sweatpants and socks this morning when I woke up! Right now it's only 80 degrees out. All of the last week, it's been in the 90s. Just yucky.

So enough of weather. I wanted to post something now because a later post would be long. Ready, set, Go!

Yes, indeed! I started my Halloween stitching on the 1st and now have 2 finishes, a near

finish and a WIP..

Vlad's House by Lucy Beam WIP on the left and the finished Witchy Kitty on the

right. I am missing some floss for Vlad's. I don't have the overdyes for the house

so I need to root around in my stash for substitutes. The fabric was a last minute

dye job when I was coffee dyeing another fabric; I threw in some orange RIT 

into the coffee water and voila! a perfect Halloween color. Witchy Kitty is a 

little on the big side. I'll make her into a pillow. 

PSS on the left and Goody Trask 1692 on the right. I just finished the grassy hill

on the Salem Village just a little bit ago, slogged through that after slogging

through the black on the judge at right! I still have parts of the wagon, the judge, and another

branch of the tree to stitch and it's done! I love how it's looking. Goody Trask is from one of 

the JCS special Halloween issues. 

I'll have Salem Village done this week. Since I have all of this month and October to

stitch Halloween, I'll be back with more WIPs and new starts.

I am finally getting somewhere with my exchange stitching. I am finished stitching 

but wasn't sure what to make it into. Take a look at what I'm doing...

A la Priscilla! I was going with a box finish but found this old muffin tin I picked up

at a second hand shop last year. I went to Hob Lob yesterday and picked up the flower

picks and now I'm not sure how to go about attaching the ribbon bow and picks to the

top portion of the tin. The stitched piece will be at the bottom. I went to Priscilla's 

blog and took screen shots of a few of her identical finishes. She does have 1 on

a muffin tin. I have til the 30th to get everything together to send my partner. I am

gathering bits and pieces to add to her box. Stay tuned!

Anyone else excited about the Downton Abbey movie?! I am. My daughter

doesn't know it yet but she's coming with me!

Thanks for the well wishes on my new job. I am going into the 3rd week there and

am exhausted! I wake up very early to drive the 30 minutes go a neighboring town

where my job is at. I stand for 8 hours and with my knee, feet, and back 

problems, I end up very sore. It will be worth it though for the better ability

to take care of my bills and actually have a life! I'm counting down those 9 

years when I can retire. 

I also have a little stash too..

The two charts from Stash Unload and the fabric from Dixiesamplar's

fabric sale in FB. If you look closely you'll see its 46ct! Lol. I was so

excited to see one of her fabrics not snatched up, I did the Me Please and realized later what I bought! 

Oh well. Teri's fabrics are gorgeous and they feel wonderful. Yon have to stalk her

FB fabric page to be able to get one of them. Lesson learned.

Alrighty, that is it. Hope you're all doing well and stitching it up. I've had some recent new followers on Bloglovin so Welcome! For the inquiring minds about my header picture, that

is where I live with a storm moving through.

Take care! 

Dancing Happy!!!

Hi all! Hope the weather is fine where you're at. I thought I would poke my head in here and share a few things.

I have 3 finishes!! Yes, 3 in almost as many days. First one is The Merry Hart by PSS..

Love it! I just love that huge red flower. I think my fabric is Platnum 35ct that I

coffee dyed. I used mostly CCW floss with a couple DMC subs. Here are a couple of

other angles..

On the last post I mentioned feeling stressful over the amount of 'planned' stitching

I had. I chucked those plans and just picked up whatever made more noise. There's something

to be said for being a monogamous stitcher!

Next up is Promise Me by Lizzie Kate..

This is to be a Christmas gift to my daughter. It's on a 32ct linen, mystery, with WDW

floss. I wanted to put 'mom' and the date somewhere on this but I just couldn't get

it right. It looked horrible. I usually don't sign my stuff anyway. When it's framed I'll 

put something on the back with my name and date on it

My next finish happened just last night..

Early Witches by The Primitive Hare, on 30 or 32ct French vanilla linen with DMC.

I coffee dyed this too. I put in a marathon stitching session the last couple days!

A WIP since 2014, love it. Tituba has a black kettle that she is carrying and Marie

Leveau is carrying a voodoo doll with a bunch of pins sticking out of it. I added a few

more! Lol. Here's another pic..

I think you can see the pins. At first I thought she was holding a chicken. That would be

appropriate too!

Those are my 3 finishes! 

I also deconstructed a previous finish..

By Country Cottage Needleworks. I hot glued that thick store bought cording to the sides; 

never again. You can see where I started ripping it off. I had to puck off all the glue. Here is

how it looks now..

I'm not sure I have enough fabric on the sides to work with but I'm thinking of 

turning this into a table topper. Sew on matching fabric on the sides and then bind it. Hmm.

We'll see.

That's it. I just wanted to show my finishes. I will probably take some time to read 

and do some woolfelt appliqué. 

Thanks for visiting. Hope you all have a good week!

Happy Spring!

Hi all! I thought I would get in one last post for March. Spring has definitely sprung here. My header photo is my back yard which is covered in those little purple flowers. It's really pretty.

This post may run into Part 2, so let's get a move on.

First up are my old WIP progress: Winter at Beacon House..

I filled in the sand/snow between the brown dog and the boy with the light blue hat 

and installed 1 over 1 bird at the lower left tree. 

Promise Me by LK, before:

After:

Pretty good progress I would say

Next is Christmas Garden by BBD:

No before picture because all I stitched was the beginnings of the red flowers at the left.

I have 2 finishes. First is Do You See What I See by Shelly Auen:

I love it! I believe I started this for last year's Maynia.

Next one is Snow Day by Sisters & Best Friends:

On a piece of Babbling Brook jobelan, I believe. I saw this stitched up at another blog called 

Black flies and Snow flies and commented on how cute he was. The blogger Lisa

offered to send me the pattern! So I took up her offer and here he is. I searched for this pattern

which is a freebie but I still could not find it. If anyone would like to stitch him, let me know, I'll send

this freebie to you. Go check out Lisa's blog. Thanks again, Lisa!

Ok, 1 more picture before Blogger goes nuts! On Stitch Maynia there's a SAL I'm

taking part in, new starts in 2019 on the 19th of each month. Here's 

my new start-Night Moves Trumpeter Swans..

I have the lower swan going in. The swans themselves are 5 different DMC greys

plus white! That is several hours of stitching! Whew. Swans will be a WIP for Maynia 

because I'm joining this year again!

Onto Part 2. Over there are FFOs and exchange goodies. See you there!