My date with Clint Eastwood and a little stitching

Hi all! I hope all is well where you are at. It is sleeting outside as I type. It's been the weirdest weather this winter. Snowing more than usual, black ice last week which set off accidents and cars sliding off roadway, day before yesterday it rained all day. Over tomorrow and Monday, 6 to 10 inches of snow forecast which is rare. A normal winter for us is 5 to 6 inches for an entire winter! I have a 3 day weekend so I will remain at home and off the streets!

Oh, I'm sure you're wondering about my date with Mr. Eastwood! I'm in the middle of a series of his Spaghetti westerns and watching the second one. After this will be the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, my favorite of all of them.

I am going into my 4th week of no stitching, well hardly any stitching really. My arm is feeling much better. Last night I put in an hour of stitching before bed and it felt fine.

Here is a new start for the Easter/Spring Exchange. My partner loves the same designers I do so it was easy to pick a project for her. This is Floral Sewing Box..

I still have to stitch in the bottom border. I started this last week and picked it up again last night. It should go fast. I will finish this on a square box like the model, wood or paper mâché. My exchange package is to be mailed on or before March 20th, so I have time to FFO this and gather all the other goodies that I like to add. 

Almost two weeks ago I decided to see how my arm felt with a little stitching so I grabbed Song of The Seasons by LHN..

Here is how it looked before..

Some pretty good progress, right? My arm did bug me a little so I quit. This WIP is part of my planned stitching for a week which has been shot to heck because of my arm. The called for fabric is WDW Straw which I just love. It's a favorite of mine right up there with Lakeside Vintage Examplar linen and vintage mocha.

The last thing I wanted to show you is a chart that I fell in love with after a woman on one of the FB groups I'm with finished it. I commented that I went to eBay and found two charts and they were snatched up within 30 minutes. This other commenter personal messengers me and says would I like to borrow her chart! I was like Yesss! Last week it arrived and here it is..

Designed by Blue Whale Designs. It matches the style of the Pamela Dervarits design that I FFO'd into a flanged pillow two or three posts before this one. I love the tall Santa. Just like ol Clint! Haha. 

So I will keep stitching on the exchange piece, and maybe pick up another weekly WIP while taking small breaks. I pretty much quit watching Flosstube because the hankering to stitch was too much and now have a queue of 25 videos to watch! 

I have some good news but I will share that next time.

Take care and thanks for visiting! Stay safe and warm:) 

Side note: I apologize for any misspellings and/or punctuation mistakes because as I type the screen moves up and down so I'm basically typing blindly! Bye! 

Woebegone!

Hi all! Here I am again, posting on the Blogger page. I uninstalled the Blogger app and now can't reinstall! Haha. My iPad is almost 6 years old and can't update no more because there is not much storage left. I have gotten rid of a lot of apps like games, email apps, etc to open up some storage but it's not happening. I'm glad I can do it this way.

It's been a week the past week. I've had some pain in my right arm, the stitching arm, and finally went to the doc. I have tennis elbow! I'm looking at 6 weeks at no stitching, and trying to use my left arm at work. I think I developed it at work and stitching is exacerbating it. I haven't stitched in 4 days and it's not going well!

So instead of pouting, I have FFO'd a few things. First is one of the monthly Birthday Cakes designed by Brooke's Books:

The cakes are free but I haven't been able to find them on her site. I stupidly down loaded the last 3 of the year, October-December and didn't get all the others. I'm almost certain they can be found at Craftsy. Maybe you've heard of Craftsy? Anyway, I finished stitching it in November and kept forgetting to post about. I also forgot to add the beads to the cake, just regular 11 seed beads so I added those before the FFO. I like how it turned out. The trim is a store bought cord that I received in an exchange package. Here is the back..

Oop, here we go with the center margin. I'm not sure how to change that. I used that homespun for the back.

Next up, from the Dept. of Reworked Finishes..

I'm pretty sure this is a Threadwork Primitives design. I first finished this 3 or 4 years ago, maybe longer. It was a hanging pillow with ribbon hangers and patriotic fabric for the back! I didn't like it so I took it all apart and cut it with narrower margins from the stitching. The fabric at the bottom is also on the back. I used the cream colored fabric ribbon at the bottom there, made a bow and sewed on the white button with the jabco chocolate kiss button. I like it much better!

Next one is from Notforgotten Farm, can't remember the name of the pattern though..

I haven't FFO'd it yet because I want your opinion. Should I darken this more? I already gave it another coffee bath and a bake. The model on the chart shows hers much more darker, like she used WWD Straw linen. It was also finished like a tombstone and that's what I tried to do. I made up some new cuss words sewing the curves! Anybody know of a better way to sew curves like those? I wished I had taken a picture of the back fabric. You know how old old headstones in damp humid areas have moss growing all over them? Well I used a batik fabric for the back and if mimics moss. I show it next time.

After I coffee bathed the tombstone, just for fun, I added red and yellow RIT due to the bowl and threw in this little piece of linen and then baked it..

I love it! I'm sure something Halloween will look good on here.

Well, Blogger is acting up. I better get. Although I'm not a you know what, I just want to say it's 62 degrees here, door is wide open! I know a lot of you are dealing with those frozen temps. Hope you stay warm and safe. 

Take care!

A few changes, abbreviated

Greetings from chilled and blustery north central Arizona. I'm staying in. The short time I went out I began sneezing and I have what feels like a sinus headache. It's my day off.

I have some bad news, well, for me. It's nothing horrible, it's just that my iPad is giving me drama. I just typed out a whole blog post and the app I use will not publish. I'm here on the Blogger posting page and trying it this way! I will try to put pictures on here too. Be sure to click on the pictures to make them big! Dang it, I liked the big pictures using the app. Oh well.

Let's start! Below are two of the old WIPs I have stitched since the 5th of January..

Promise Me by Lizzie Kate. If you go to the last post, you'll see how it looked before. Next is A Bee In Your Bonnet. I was able to stitch on this for 4 days before I lost the floss! Yeah, lost the floss! 

Yesterday, I picked up Song of The Seasons by LHN. Not enough stitches to warrant a pic.

In between those two WIPs above, I started and/or finished two items. A Valentine's Stocking, freebie from Plum Street Samplers at her blog..

And the other is Thistles and Spells by Stacy Nash

Last picture I'll put up is of these paper mâché boxes I found at a charity shop..

I haven't been able to find these at the local craft stores. $1.43 for the whole set! Barb, my Brenda Gervais piece will fit on the one next to it. I just need to decide on a finish for the box.

Stay tuned!

Blogger is having its way with my post!

Right now, I have a HP laptop that is on the blink but it will be cheaper to fix than buying a new

iPad! My iPad has been giving me grief so I think it may be the beginning

of the end:/

Short posts like this may be what I'll have to do. I had a whole lot more to say too! Haha.

Take care everyone! Thanks for your comments as I always read them!

This is the end, my only friend, the end

Quick, the lyrics in my title are from what song? And from what band or singer? Be the first to guess correctly, leave your guess in comments below, and I'll send you a little something. No hints this time! Oh, and be sure to leave a working email. Good luck! Google is your friend!

We're coming to the end of 2018 and I have a year ending update like I always do. I have been hermitting this weekend as we're dealing with a cold snap in these here parts. Yesterday, Phoenix was actually colder than many locations on the east coast! According to the weather guys, this happens every couple or three years. When my daughter and I were in New Orleans in February of 2016, Terri from Phoenix who comments on this blog, said it was pretty cold with high temps in the 50s. By Phoenix standards, that is cold. Here, our lows are stuck in the teens. So I bought groceries Friday after work and only left the house yesterday to go check mail. 

Let's get started!

As usual, here's progress on Christmas Garden by BBD..

I have made my way into the middle section! I took it out of the snaps to take this picture and decided I needed a break! So I'm stitching on something else for these last couple of days. I will pick Garden back up sometime in January for its week long stitching.

Here are 6 old WIPs, along with Garden, that I will stitch once a week starting Jan. 1..

Poor thing, I only stitched that much and never went back to it! I need to do a better job of centering as I will be getting a little close on that right border. I've seen this finished with the bottom portion left off but I will stitch the whole thing...Next...

Promise Me by LK. This was a Crazy January start that I never went back to. It will be for my daughter. 

Early Witches by the Primitive Hare. I'm pretty sure this will be a 2019 finish. Next..

Those of you who have followed me for awhile should recognize this project. It's a Praiseworthy Stitches design in the Jan/Feb 2011 JCS magazine. It's a biggie. I have a big lap stand that I found at a second hand store for $8 and I'll use it for WaBH ^. I also have a bigger qsnap that this might fit on too so I'll have to check. I still have all the floss for this in that baggie. I like Praiseworthy Stitches but they like specialty stitches a lot and I avoid them like the plague. This design has a few specialty stitches but it's not bad. I'm determined to get to the halfway point on this.

And last but not least is A Bee in Your Bonnett by Summerhouse Stitchworkes..

Here is what the model looks like. I don't have the chart anymore. It's way too pretty to abandon.

So that's my WIP plans for the first 4 months of 2019. I say 4 months because I just might, might, do Maynia in May again! All new starts again, every day maybe. I was watching a flosstuber who was talking about Maynia and that she hates to see all her stash sitting on the shelf not being stitched and I agree. Who knows, I may decide that stitching on my WIPs is more fun than new starts. It's a vicious cycle!

I stashed again but these don't count because they're Christmas presents to myself!

Would you just look at this Goode Huswife design! I saw that and I jumped right on it. It's from her etsy site. At $16 it's more than I usually spend on a brand new chart but it's a beauty and I will definitely start that in 2019. On the right is this Barbara Ana Halloween design that I've been pining away for. Chart only $4 new on a FB destash group. They average out to $10 per chart. It feels better thinking of it that way!

So I had 21 finishes for the year! I had small, medium, and large for me, finishes. Here are 4 of the bigger ones..

and the tribal rooster..

The tribal rooster is shiny because I didn't take him out of the portfolio that I keep for my finishes. I would really like to have these all framed. My portfolio is full of other framed wannabees too! They'll have to get in line. That is a goal for 2019, to get things framed that deserve to be. 

I had a recent finish that I never showed..

From a Hands On Design freebie. It'll be a pillow.

I had another FFO..

Another flange pillow using Vonna's video tutorial. Thanks Vonna. It's such an adorable design and fits right in with the prim Christmas style that I like. I used the red and white twine for the bow and picks up the red door of the tiny house and those red stitches under Vixen.

Here's my 2019 reading pile!

I have already begun the top book and I'm halfway through it. The Windhaven Plantation series are old and published around the 70s maybe, following descendants from an immigrant from France who established a plantation in Alabama. It's fiction. There are several books, 14 of them and the one above is number 10. The next one I'll have to find as I don't have it. This makes it the 3rd rereading of the series.

I like historical fiction and the middle two thinner books are set in historical times. The Beekeeper's Apprentice is the first of a series about a young lady who befriends Sherlock Holmes in his retirement and he becomes her reluctant 'teacher' in investigating. I like anything Sherlock Homes! The Tea Planters Wife is a mystery where things are not as they seem. She learns things about her husband while living with him on his tea plantation in the Indies. Sounds interesting.

And of course the Outlander. Diana Gabaldon has said that 2019 could be when the next book is published so I'm rereading them and A Breath of Snow and Ashes is next. It takes me more than a month to read these thick books. It never used to be this way! I read a page and then get drowsy!

So that's it for the update. We had a Merry Christmas, hope you had one too. My brothers couldn't make it, one was sick and the other was having some minor car troubles. So I went to my daughter's place and had Christmas there. She loved the Grinch ornaments I made her and the bunting. Her style is the Farnhouse look so the bunting fit in perfectly. She has watched the newer Grinch 20-some odd times since Thanksgiving! Told you she loves the Grinch! Here's a picture of my granddog Hunter dressed for the occasion..

He's such a ham! You can put all sorts of stuff on this dog and nothing bothers him!

Well, I believe this is it, the End. I want to thank you all for riding along with me the entire year. I am going to try my best next year to show up more here on the blog. No SALs for me in 2019 since I'm such a failure at them. I have joined some SALs that are listed in Stitch Maynia and they are stuff like stitch on something with words or that are a certain color. Pretty doable. I am doing the usual 2 exchanges with Dixiesamplar that I like, the Easter/Spring and the fall/Halloween ones. Maybe throw another in with the destash group whose admin likes to do exchanges. We'll see!

Here's wishing you all a healthy, happy, stitchy and just a Happy New Year!

Happy Blogaversary!

Yes, it's my 8th year of blogging! Well, yesterday it was! Unfortunately, I had to shelve my blogaversary giveaway plans. Sorry about that but I do have a birthday coming up soon and maybe I'll do something for that. This birthday is freaking me out. I'm turning 55. There was only one other birthday where I wasn't feeling it and that was my 30th. I'm pretty sure life will go on after 55 but for now I will just...freak out!

I thought I would start out responding to comments:

Jessica said that Mill Hill kits make her nervous! Well, in looking at mine that I mentioned last post, I'm confused about all the beads that are needed and that they're all mixed together! I hope I'm easy on the perforated paper too.

Honeybee, I will get to stitch these upcoming days as I have a 5 day weekend and I only work 

  Wednesday night at my 2nd job during those 5 days. So I'm pretty excited about that.

Denise Brown, I hope you see this. I wasn't sure if you wanted the giveaway fabric from the last post. If you did, it's yours. Let me know in a comment below.

I spent the whole afternoon today running the glue gun and the sewing machine and just came out for air. It's too dark to do anymore crafting anyway. It's 6:37pm as I type. I have FFO's to show, some stash, an upcoming project, and a frog visit. Here we go:

Progress and reverse progress on Christmas Garden! Frog came to visit..

I had to rip out the green vine and the flowers there on the right because I had miscounted up at that last rose bud where I turned the corner. I assume it's a rose bud. It took me a couple hours to take it all out! What you see is the re-stitched vine. Had a bit of progress on the flowers and leaves that are to the right of the deer. You know, in looking at what I have on Christmas Garden right now, I could just finish the flowers and vine and that gold border and call it a day! A stand alone sampler! Nah, I have to do the whole thing. I'll get started back to stitching on it tonight or tomorrow.

Remember the Grinch ornaments I was making for my daughter for Christmas? They're done!

I was waiting on batting to finish the last 2. I use cotton batting on both sides. I love how they turned out! In the older animated the Grinch, the announcer, whom it so happens is Boris Karloff, describes the Grinch as Stink Stank Stunk. I found the red and white twine in Joanne's (might've been Hob Lob) and bought the grinch fabric on etsy. I cut the fabric so I could center the characters in the middle on the back. Love my glue gun! Sharon/Daffycat, thank you for designing this freebie. I knew when I saw it that I had to stitch up several for my daughter. If you're interested in this freebie, go to Daffycat blog and scroll down to find it. I think she showed it on her blog the earlier part of this year. She will email you a copy.

Stash! 

I bought the Quaker House Samplers from a destashing group on FB. I'm more interested in the top design with the Quaker motifs. On the left, I saw someone on Stitch Maynia had stitched Baaah Humbug up and I had to have it! Calico Confectionary is on etsy but I swear I bought the PDF from an etsy needlework shop. My memory really stinks sometimes. 

Then just today I received this fabric for this chart..

The fabric is Ice Goddess by Fabrics by Stephanie. On FB, a stitcher showed her progress of the swans on that fabric. Here is what hers' looks like..

Isn't that beautiful? I did a search for the chart and found one at the House of Stitches. I forgot how much the chart was, something like $11 or $13. You can bet I will be starting this sometime next year! 

Since I was running the sewing machine, thought I would flange-pillow a finish I had. Put on Vonna's video tutorial and only got so far before it got just too dark to work anymore..even with two lights on!

Tomorrow I will finish this. Next time you'll see it in better light.

While I was watching Vonna, I took apart a pillow that I FFO'd a couple or 3 years ago...

Yes, I pull threads on the linen for straighter sewing and finishing. I used that awful polyfil on this back before Vonna mentioned the polyloft that is so much better, trust me. I think this might be a Threadwork Primitives design. I'll stuff it with the good stuff and I might flange-pillow it too.

I think that's all I had! I still have a just a little gift buying yet to do. My brothers are headed this way Christmas morning. We're pretty informal when it comes to Christmas. We snack throughout the day. This year we're having pork chili and chicken green chili tamales with fruit salad and Russian Tea cakes or as I call them Mexican Wedding cookies. These cookies have lots of names. You may know of them,  the dough is mixed with chopped pecans, baked, and then rolled in powdered sugar a couple times. Delicious! Can't wait!

Take care everyone! Wishing you a very..

and Happy Holidays to all!!

A Post!

I had no idea for a title so we're just gonna run with it!

How are you all doing? Fine I hope. Here we are, 10 days away from Christmas, unbelievable! I have a few things to show-progress, exchange goodies, new stash, and more. So let's go...

Back in November, I finished Trick or Treat before Thanksgiving. The few days between then and the end of that month I picked up Do You See What I See by Shelly Auen. As some or most of you know, that Christmas carol is my favorite. So here's the before..

And now the after..

I got the whole tree in with the snow on the branches. What remains is snow on the ground, a girl and deer that are looking at the star. I have decided that I'm going to stitch everything that has the lyrics to the carol on it! That should be fun.

On December 1st, Christmas Garden was fished out of the WIP tub and put on the snaps. Here's the before..

And the after..

Not bad, huh? I'm not stitching on the days that I work my 2nd job (too exhausted to even stitch) but stitch the other days. I said I wanted to have this top portion done by the end of this month and I think I'll get it. I still don't like the fabric but oh well. This sampler is 15 1/2" across; biggest project I've ever stitched! I know people have done various things to the bottom. I think Barb/Wicked Stitcher just added an alphabet but I didn't check to be sure. I'll figure something out when I get there which may be way in the depths of 2019! I'll keep stitching on this and onto the first week of January. The second week will be another old WIP that gets its turn on the snaps. The end of this month I'll have pictures of the old WIPs up that I will stitch a week each in the new year. 

Last week my exchange partner and I received our goodies for Christmas. She lives in Pennsylvania. Here is what I sent Jona..

Yep, I FFO'd Kringle's Coal into a flat ornament. I also added chocolate, the PS cards, floss cards, and the necklace. Amazingly, the box I packed reached her in 3 days!

Jona sent all this to me..

I already ate a small bag of Lindor truffles up as of this picture! I'm pretty excited to stitch up one of the LK sled patterns. The ornaments are on the tree. Thanks, Jona. Exchanges are so much fun.

New stash!

After seeing so many people doing the Mill Hill kits, I thought What the Heck! I will too. The pear is so pretty and sparkly. Many moons ago I used stitch the Mill Hill buttons and bead kits. The Lucy Beam patterns were bought during Black Friday and the PS cards were bought from a resale group. 

Is anyone familiar with Long Dog samplers? I like her designs but they're so large. Take a look at what is being released soon..

A sampler devoted to dogs chasing squirrels! So beautiful, I'm thinking of picking it up. I have cats but I do have a granddog named Hunter. Lots of motifs on this design such as crowns, and it has an old English vibe to it. Stay tuned!

Last Saturday, I made Christmas Tree bunting from a tutorial from Bloglovin. I made this one for a coworker who is a horse ranch manager, hence the red horseshoe tree at one end..

Took me just an hour or so to cut, sew, stuff, and attach to the fabric ribbon. I have to make one for my daughter and one for me. They look cute hung up.

You have now arrived to a couple giveaways! No this is not the blogaversary giveaway. That'll happen next week! I have two items to giveaway. The fabric I was sent by mistake from a seller instead of the 32ct that I like. The chart from an online seller as an extra, appreciative all the same, that I know I won't stitch. See below..

The words say Life is a Treat as sweet as can be cause I live on a branch in a cupcake tree. (I would love to live in a cupcake tree full of red velvet cupcakes). Chart is from Raise the Roof.

The fabric is a 28ct Cameo Rose cashel linen 6" x 12"

The usual rule applies-be a follower either through Bloglovin or Google blogs. I will mail to anywhere in the world. In comments below, let me know which you are interested in or if you are interested in both. I will draw names for each item. Contest ends December 21st 2018 at 9pm Arizona time. 

So for the rest of this month I will continue with Christmas Garden. I'll be back on the 22nd with the giveaway surprise and winners of the fabric and chart. But use this post for the fabric and chart giveaway.

After Christmas I'll have my year-end update with all the usual stuff I talk about! That means 3 posts for this month.

Gotta go. I have to get ready for a work Christmas party tonight. Take care and thanks for stopping in!