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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Just Amazing! , Giveaway Winners!, and babble

It was amazing to see all the bloggers come together in support of Cathey, better known as Pumpkin. Here's her blog http://pumpkinpatchandco.blogspot.com/ . I went to her blog and looked at her blog list and its all 'Pumpkins for Cathey'! Lol!

I, unfortunately, have experience with the evil 'C'. No, I've never had it, thank God, but I did lose both of my parents to C. My Mom died almost 24 years ago at the age of 49. I am 49! You can be sure I thought of that before I turned 49. She was so young. My dad, he died 6 years ago to lung cancer at the age of 71. I believe that attitude has a lot to do with the outcome of a battle with cancer. My mother, she just gave up and it took her in the 6 months the doc gave her. My dad, he was given the option of chemo and/or surgery but after hearing of the sizes of the tumors in both lungs, he said no and just wanted to leave the hospital and go home. He was gone in a month.

Whew. I don't know Cathey but I understand her struggle. The saying 'Mind Over Matter' comes to mind. If I can be of some help, if just to read and hear her rants of the unfairness of it all, I can do that.




I've picked the winners! Yee Haw! But first let me say that this app doesn't allow me to .....never mind!! I found where I can dress up, and make fonts large, etc. So here we go...

MYRA! You are the winner of the 4th of July package!!!! Myra loves the 4th of July, Autumn, and Halloween and has yet to meet a color she doesn't like!

Diana! She wins the main Autumn/Halloween pack and she chose Halloween!

And last but not least-Ann! Has won the package of leftovers (sounds bad but not really!) She likes Autumn and lo and behold her name was picked for the Autumn things that were left when Diana won for Halloween!

Well ladies, leave me an email with your mailing address at campbo41@q.com and after I receive some ONS goodies and finish the two items for Autumn and Halloween, I'll send it all on its way to you. By the way Myra, there isn't a stitched item to go with the 4th of July package but I think you'll like what you receive!

Thank you everyone for playing along. Wished I had consolation goodies to send to everyone! I'm thankful to you all for coming around to my blog, reading it, and leaving comments and to those who don't. When I first started blogging, many months went by without comments! But I just kept plugging on and now I have some regulars who come by. So I thank you all!

One more thing..are any of you going to stitch Paulette's (of Plum Street Samplers fame) Mystery Christmas Sampler? I am and I'm so excited! I love her designs. I've gone through all my threads and fabrics and found a 36ct vintage Lentil fabric from Lakeside. The funny thing is that the fabric I chose was kitted up with another of her designs! I have most of the threads, and I'll substitute with WDW the ones I don't have, if its possible. Here's the link
http://plumstreetsamplers.typepad.com/plum_street_samplers/2013/09/please-join-me.html to check out the details. It's going to be fun! My Ornament SAL plans are to start stitching Christmas ornaments ago this PSS mystery sampler will fit in nicely. Tomorrow Paulette will have the first part of the design over on her blog.

So, I'm going to have to ratchet up my stitching to keep up with this stitching. I've been vegetating in front of the tv some evenings. There's are some weeks where I'm not picking up the needle for 3, 4 days and that'll have to stop. Paulette is going to put up a new portion, 9 of them, every Sunday, so I'd like to keep up!

Congrats to the winners!

Take care, all!




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Pumpkins for Cathey

Happy Blogaversary, Cathey!! 

Fidgety and some finishes, etc.

Yay! The first day of Fall!

Yesterday, I was sitting in my usual spot on the couch, the stitching spot, thinking I had better get back to stitching the last giveaway item. I haven't picked up a needle for 4 days, yikes! So what did I do? I go to my bedroomslashcraftroom and start rifling through my fabric. Then I stop that and then go looking through my woolfelt looking for black because I spotted a very cute penny rug in a quilting magazine. I then drop that and think of all the small stitching that yells at me every time I walk into my bedroom, asking to be finish finished! Finally, something to settle on.



Left to right: Scary freebie that comes with the LK Very Scary Mystery Sampler (wow, I really need to get back to stitching on that!), Mardi Gras freebie by The Sampler Girl, and Ho Ho Santa by Val's Little Stuff. I spent a good amount of time with the ribbon ruching of Scary. I'm not too crazy about it. Maybe it'll grow on me. The neon cat fabric is also the backing. Remember Mardi Gras? I found these beads at a second hand store and yesterday, hot glued them on. My new best friend-the glue gun! Here's the backside of Mardi



I wanted to find a real OUT THERE fabric for the back but settled for this, yet another find at a second hand store! Ho Ho Santa, I machine sewed on the Pom poms, got to thinking I should have just had the Pom poms go around the entire thing. I'm going to sew on a hanger for it. The snowflake fabric is also the backing. It took a JABC button for the end of Santa's hat but I lost it! So I took some shiny trim, rolled it into a ball and glued it to his hat. How's that for improvisation! Don't forget to click on the pics for a better view. Folks, I now have just three smalls to finish finish, for now.

So I received my JCS 2013 Ornament issue the other day and upon seeing Vonna's cute cute finish of the acorn door-hanger, went out and bought the magazine. She was right. There are some other nice things to stitch. I only buy the magazine if I see things that I'd like to stitch and sometimes that's few and far between. Anyway, here's the magazines with my want-to-stitch markers in the JCS



At last count, there are about 20 Christmas ornaments I want to stitch. I went through my other Ornie issues also, and freebies looking for ornaments. Not sure I can stitch 'em all!

A few posts back, I mentioned some magazine stitching I wanted to do in the new year. Here's a couple






These are both from JCS. On the top picture, you can see the date of the issue...2004! This is how long it's been a want-to. The Manse has a bit of foreboding to it don't you think? Now that I'm looking at it this way, I'm wondering if those flowers are French knots. French knots and I, we don't get along! I'll have to look at the magazine to see if they are.

Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! Today, I am making myself break out the needle and get to the last giveaway item, and work on an ornament for the Ornament SAL. Usually, by this time, I have an ornament already done but not this time!

Don't forget to enter yourself for the giveaways that end on the 27th. Thanks for your comments on the last post-appreciate it! Enjoy the first day of Fall!



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Turtle Trot September

A Day Late and A Dollar Short!

A day late with my Trot post. I was too exhausted when I got home from work to take a picture and post something. I vegetated on the couch and started nodding off at 8:30 p.m.! So here's my WIP and yes, just one



I replaced a different WIP with this one. This is called Dead of Night by Funk & Weber Designs. It's on 32ct black linen with DMC. I'm nearly done but I may frog that one line on the left ghost right above the cat. It's a different color white if that's possible. The WIP that was replaced was the Navajo rug. It's on 14ct Aida using 3 strands but I used 2 and it still went through the holes roughly. So I've decided to re-do it on 32ct white linen sometime in the near future.

Don't forget to throw your name in for my giveaways! Here's the link-http://shelly-anarizonastitcher.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-little-finish-and-giveaway.html

Or just go back to the last post.

I know it's real early yet but I've been thinking of some stitching themes for 2014. I have about 2 magazine designs plus WIPs from magazines that I'd like to stitch. They're from various JCS magazines and others. For 2014 my stitching would consist of nothing but designs from magazines. I have a couple kitted up already.

Then, I have some kits, 3 to be exact, that I've held onto. They're big ones. Two that are started but not finished and one that its floss has been separated and that's it. All 3 are on Aida, however.

Thirdly, a BAP (Big A__ Project) year. I have that Christmas Sampler from BBD, a few PSS designs, and one that I'm planning on buying, the witchy sampler just out by BBD. I just got to have that one!

I would only do one of these of course!

Hope the weather is nice where you're at!



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