Something different!

It's me again, just 6 days after my last post! 

So I like the ideas of choosing the color for the frame of my pretty Christmas card in the last post. Astrid sealed the deal noting the little bit of red in the artwork. I agree, a red frame would pull out the red on the candy cane. Thanks ladies!

I'll show you progress on Wicked Night. I think on the last post I said Wicked Ride but it's Night. Anyway, Mr Headless and his steed are taking shape...

Designed by The Primitive Hare. His arm is shown holding onto the rein, his shoulder and his leg on the other side of the horse. It's looking pretty good.

So last night after I got home from work, I took my plastic bin full of charts and went through them. That's a dangerous thing for me to do because I'm like oh I want to start that, I want to start this, and so on! At any rate, I found radar stitching as in on my radar to stitch.

Let's take a look at them. Picture heavy and click on the pics to see them better. First up is...

S.A.'s Steamer Trunk, from the 2022 Christmas/Winter issue of PNPS magazine. I have the trunk and the fabric and floss that came in the trunk from Theresa Venette. That might take 3 days of stitching. I would FFO that just like the model.

I'm a fan of Val's Stuff Halloween designs. I'm waiting on the GAST Old Purple Paint for the giant cat. Adorable!

Now here's a chart that I've never seen before. I would like to make this stocking for my daughter

for her birthday. I would have to send it out to be FFO'd by someone as I've never sewed a stocking together.

Next...

You might know of my love of all things Christmas Carol! I wished I had printed out this PDF in color. Someone in a FB group I'm in made this into a long sampler by moving over the bottom portion. I'm too chicken to do that! So stocking it will be!

Witch Home. It would take me 3 hours tops to stitch this. I should, then I'd have 3 finishes to show for Stitch from Stash, haha.

 

An old chart book, I want to stitch the top piece with the words but just the Believe. I'll stitch the scene with Santa with the trees and the elf and keep Believe directly below. It'll have a rounded top. I may use 32ct fabric because at full size it comes out to 4 5/8" x 11 3/8" on 32. It's cute!

And I have had this pattern since 2016! Love the colors used on this one.

I'm getting that Christmas stitching itch but for something bigger than an ornament. In 36ct, it works out to a little over 7" x 4". The designer has an Etsy shop.

From the Little Stitcher, another Legends for Halloween design. I stitched one other called the Banshee already. I have cube plans for these. I think she has 1 more Legends design. I'll have to go check it out.

I'll continue the others on the next post. My phone has been acting up lately; might be time for another!

Nothing much going on here. The tropical storm Hilary didn't do much of anything but left it soupy here. Imagine Bride of Frankenstein with her hair left loose, that's how I looked! Haha.

Time to get lunch going. Thanks for your comments, I always appreciate it. I'm off to read any new blog posts from us sticklers. I still enjoy blogging!

Take care, see you soon!

All Things Stitchy

Well, it's the middle of August (seriously?), so I thought I'd post a newsy kind of post. I do have stitching!

Alrighty. Carol asked if we hang around in the AC here in AZ. Yes, we do! Haha! I feel for the people who live in the hotter areas here like along the Colorado River on the western border, the deserts south of me. Elevations differ heavily here. I live at 5100ft elevation and Phoenix is at 1,000+ I believe. The drive back to home from Phoenix is usually an ear-popping excursion, and vice versa. You need AC in the car, in the house, and at work. The temps have dropped though in the last 2 weeks because of our monsoons. In the last couple of days it's been soupy and we can blame it on Hurricane Hilary or by now she's Tropical Storm Hilary. We've had thick cloud cover as she moves north through Baja California but today the clouds are looking different! I think we're catching the outside bands of Hilary now. The worst of it will go through southern California and those people have my thoughts and prayers for sure! 

Let's talk stitching!

I joined up with Stitch from Stash 2017-23 again for this 2nd half of 2023. I ended July with a balance of $58. I gave myself a monthly budget of $20 plus I had 3 finishes in July and the credits were $38. This month is another matter!!

Haha!

I have 2 finishes so far...this one is Bee in Your Bonnet

designer is Summerhouse Stitche Workes. It was a WIP for at least 4 years. I stitched 1 over 2 on 32ct. Once again, I had white DMC issues with the very light honeycomb you can barely see. So I did a bit of frogging and used the right white to match the other 2 honeycombs. That bee skep is all Algerian eyelets which wasn't bad at all! I tend to build mountains out of mole hills! 

I'm so glad to get some of these old bigger WIPs finished. 

One more finish was a start last week and it took about 4 or 5 hours to stitch...

Salt of the Earth by Lucy Beam. Last weekend I was going through my stash and I saw this and decided to start it. I bought it as a kit last year from the website. It came with the 40ct white linen and 2 little buttons for the salt. I don't know if the kit is in stock. The designer says the little frame on the model can be found at Hobby Lobby. I now have 18 finishes on the year.

Now this start was something that was yelling at me to start! Over on Becky Nolan's FB group, this woman posted her finish and framed piece and I couldn't purchase the PDF fast enough! Here's her framed piece with her permission..

I had the perfect piece of fabric for this but didn't have the 2 floss for it so ka-ching! Here's how the chart model looks like ...

Please excuse the lamp reflecting on the left. I had to take a picture of the PDF on my iPad which is dumb because..well that's a story for another time...here's my start...

I'm not sure of the name but it's from the Atomic Ranch fabric line, 36ct using 2 skeins of GAST Cucumber and 1 of Purple Haze. It's funny how a pattern that you've seen doesn't stir up excitement until you see it stitched! I'm framing mine like hers and will hang it on the wall of the next place I live. I think we can all agree that we're a bit crazy for cross stitch!

Hmm, what's next? 

Oh, my regular stitching for the month. Roseannah Tindale 1840 is a start for summer camp on IG. She's on 32ct vintage country mocha using Flower threads. I mostly stitched in that left side border and then a little of the letters...

IRL, the border shows up better than my picture. The border is the first page of the graph. She might turn out to be a big girl! We'll see.

And here's Wicked Ride by The Primitive Hare...

I'm stitching this for a challenge and I count stitches that I make each week. Fun fact: an ancestor of mine in the late 1600s in Rhode Island is named Ichabod! 

Next up is a non-stitchy question...

This is a Christmas card that I bought from Country Sampler in Wisconsin. I thought it was pretty and that I could frame it for the season. I'm having a bit of trouble deciding on what color I should paint my frame. Click on the pic to see it better. A red matching the red in the candy cane or white or a rich green that matches her beautiful dress? It's just a pretty card. Leave your opinion in the comments.

Linda and Lee, I hope you've gotten your packages by now. Enjoy!

And that, my friends, is all she wrote. I did all my laundry for the new work week on Friday so I get to stitch all day today! I am getting things in the house together for a yard sale, or the 2nd hand store, or just trash. Moving is still on the cards within a year or two so I'm just getting a head start on organizing things. My craft room/bedroom is going to give me heartburn because of my books and all my cross stitch i.e fabric, pincushions, stash, cubes etc. I'm seeing lots of plastic totes in my future!

Take care and stitch a lot! See you soon🙋🏻‍♀️

Winners and Finishes

Greetings from a rumbly central Arizona, I can hear some thunder. Our monsoon season has started and the landscape is greening up. So our temps have definitely gone down. It hasn't rained a lot like previous years though but we'll take whatever we can get. I can't wait for September when it begins to cool off some.

So I have some finishes and plans, plus the winners of the chart giveaway. Let's do this!

My first finish and it's a doozy, I love it! Wicked Alphabet by The Primitive Needle....

I'm not sure of the fabric used, it's 36ct, but I used the called for floss. I made this my focus piece for the last week. It doesn't show up good but the witch is GAST Dried Thyme green and it looks great. 

My 2nd finish is Snow Birds from the JCS ornament issue 2013....

Very pretty and dainty looking. It's on 32ct pearl grey linen.

3rd and final finish for July is Holly Jolly Tree Co by HOD...

The fabric is 32ct linen, Molly by Grace Notes with DMC floss. This project was for cross stitch camp on Instagram. 

My stitching plans are finishing A Bee in Your Bonnet by Summerhouse Stitche Workes..

I just need to put on the big girl panties and stitch the eyelets in in the bee skep🤦🏻‍♀️ stitching this will take care of 2 separate SALs.

I planned on not joining summer stitching camp for the August task but changed my mind. For August it's stitch something you've never done or used. So thanks to Brenda and the Serial Starter, I am stitching one of the Tindale sisters sampler using the Ginnie Thompson Flower thread which I've never used...

So wish me luck on this! We all know I won't be finished in 1 month! This scratches my new start itch though.

Next!

Haha! Wicked Night by The Primitive Hare. It's for the Halloween Stitching Challenge fb group. Calls for 30ct, I'm using 40 to shrink it down to size. I think I can finish this in August.

What I'm not doing is my personal ornament SAL. I have 5, really 7 if I count the other 2 from different year JCS issues, and I'm happy with that. I just need to FFO them....

So once again, I'm stitching on 3 projects for August with a good chance of cutting that down to 2 if I can finish Bee right away. Wish me luck!

Alright, who is/are the winner or winners of the giveaway? 

Lee and Linda!! They're the only ones to put in for the giveaway. 

Lee, you've won the 2 charts you were interested in, the Tulip kit and Weeds Make Haste. Email me at azcampis@yahoo.com to leave your mailing address. I don't think I have it.

And..

Linda has won the remaining charts. Let me know if you'll take them all. I have an address for you at Jackson, CA. I also have 2 pieces of 14ct Aida, would you like them? I think they're white or antique white. Just let me know.

Congratulations, ladies and thank you for helping me find homes for those charts!

I think that's it. I was kind of long-winded on this post. I have laundry to get to; back to work tomorrow!

See you soon!

This and That

Hello everyone! Hope you're staying cool! Here in Arizona, we are roasting. Take a look at the temp here the other day😳

I have never ever seen it get this hot here before! It's miserable. As everyone likes to say though..

 

It's a dry heat but it's just hot. Phoenix hit 118 yesterday. It's been an odd weather year this year. Mother Nature has gone crazy.

I want to say thanks for your words of comfort on the loss of my Bubba. He will always be missed.

Let's see what I've been stitching on. I'm rotating on 3 projects, nothing is finished yet but getting close on one..

Here's my #crossstitchcamp project on Instagram. I bought this straight from their website. It comes with the cotton fabric, twine and bells. It's on a Grace Notes fabric, a newish dyer. It'll be finished before the others.

I have progress on Wicked Alphabet by the Primitive Needle...

See the witch taking shape at the bottom? Squeal!! This is another one I think I can finish before the end of the month. 

And now here's Snow Birds..

Birds is doing double duty for 2 SALs, on a leftover 32ct pearl gray linen, using DMCs. It's a pretty design.

For August and September, I'm doing another challenge on a Facebook Halloween group. All the projects are to be taken from the JCS special Halloween magazines. This one is for August...

Designer is the Primitive Hare, and is in the Fall 2011 Halloween issue. Instead of 30ct I'm using 36 to shrink this down some. 

For September is a WIP from the 2020 issue...

All Hallows Night.

This month will be the last in the cross stitch camp on IG. Sometimes I feel my stitching attention is all over the place and I have to dial it down! I'm still committed to finishing WIPs and will always have one to stitch per month.

And look what I did, I actually FFO'd something!

Another cube. Please hold...I had to go through my blog for the name of this pattern. It's Salem by The Bluebird Needleworks. She has an Etsy shop. I had the whole piece together but just needed the right fabric for the side and back...

Isn't that pretty? A perfect Fall fabric. I found it at Hobby Lobby. Sometimes there's no rhyme or reason for the things I do, lol. In June, I took the cube to Joanne's with me for fabric and all I bought was a prepackaged fat quarter of fall-ish fabric, got home and realized it's not enough for the piece that wraps around the sides! Here are more pictures of my cube...

My ribbons on the side match the moon and the light colored house. I was at a loss for what to top it off with so I just pinned that black and orange gauzy polka dot ribbon with the cream colored skinny ribbon. If I run across something perfect, I'll replace what's on there now. I just love to do cubes. They don't sit right on the table, I stick raised rubber dots from Amazon on the bottom. 

Now you've reached a giveaway. Just looking for new homes for these charts. Same rules as usual- be a follower, be in the US for mailing. If more than 1 person wants a chart, I'll draw names for that chart. I'll leave this up until July 29 midnight AZ time. 

Here they are:

#1

#2

Shakespeare Peddler

#3

#4

#5

Comes with a needle, silks, and 35ct linen

#6

#7

#8

Shakespeare's Peddler

All graphs are unmarked. Good luck! In your comment just add the #'s you're interested in.

That's it. I will plug along on all the above WIPs and hope for finishes before August arrives. I can't believe we're coming in to August already!

Take care, stay cool if you're hot like us out here!

See you soon🙋🏻‍♀️

The Gamut

Happy Saturday! Hope you're all doing fine. This post will be about emotions that run the full range: happy, sad, horrifying, scary, amazed, and glad with a good dose of setting things in motion. So let's go!

Housework first..

Linda and Jackie have hopefully been sent their prizes for winning the contest a couple of weeks ago. Ladies, let me know if you haven't.

Apologies are due Carol and Lee. I went to the place on blogger to fix a few things and discovered that your comments were not being published with Carol's considered spam! Argh! I think I have fixed the issue. Sorry, ladies.

Guess what? I have another huge finish and that is Song of the Seasons by LHN, a mystery sampler released in 2013. So happy this is finished!! It is filled with mistakes, lol. I also seem to have added to the height of this by 2 stitches! I also lost the patterns a couple separate times, not to mention 'borrowing' floss from the kit for something else. At any rate, here it is and it's very pretty!

I love it! Remember I considered leaving the bottom portion off? Well I'm glad I kept it. Now I've seen this stitched in many different fabrics or the houses stitched in blue overdye floss. It was beautiful! I love red houses so I'm quite happy with my houses. 

So I've kind of kept to my stitching plans. Instead of a Christmas ornament from the 2013 JCS ornament issue, I instead stitched another for the camp on Instagram, from the 2004 issue. From BBD, this is their 2004 ornament...

The linen is called Molly, 32ct and is from a dyer I'd never heard of. It might be something Notes, I tried to find the bag it was in. As for camp, I'm not sure I'll join in for the next 2 challenges but we'll see.

Along the way I had a hankering for a new start so I pulled out Noel Sampler by WTN&T..

That is all I've stitched. I'm not sure of the fabric but it's 36ct. 

And here's progress on the Mighty Acorn...

I've reached the house so I'm more than halfway done. By Blackbird Designs. 

So I've kept to my plans with the big finish and Mighty Acorn. I stopped posting on the SALs I was with when I was in Facebook jail and that continues. I didn't have a summer start on solstice day because I was determined to finish Song of the Seasons.

Alright, here comes non-stitchy news!

Yes, a bear, a black bear! And not far from where I live. In fact, he/she was caught wandering around a neighborhood not far from this shopping center, my neighborhood. That was a little scary! My head is on a swivel everytime I leave in the morning for work. He crossed a highway and sauntered back into a creek and back into the mountains. The only wild animals I've ever seen around my house were javelinas, skunks, roadrunners, coyotes, and raccoons.

However, about a week later from the above sighting, a man was mauled south of us in the pines by a large black bear. He lost his life. The bear was killed by a neighbor who had a gun. I'll spare you the grisly details. The man was building a home and was sitting down drinking his coffee when the bear walked up behind him and grabbed him. Just horrifying. I'm now spooked to go hiking.

On the sad spectrum which still stings and is very emotional, I lost one of my cats..

My big orange cat Bubba. I came home from work last week of May to find him dead. He'd had some health issues, diabetes being one of them and he was on medication so it was a shock. I cried that whole evening. I couldn't find a box big enough to put him in. I had him cremated and he now resides on the fireplace mantel. It's never easy and I still have Mama who is 15 and Momo is 14. It's still hard to talk about Bubba.

Let's go on to happier stuff. I finally got in to see a lawyer about the family home. When my dad died, I was supposed to put the his assets (the house) in probate. I didn't. Instead my daughter and I moved in, and I paid off the mortgage and started paying property tax. Needless to say, we have to go through probate before we can sell the house. I'm going to have the lawyer do all this because I can do probate on my own but I don't want to mess things up. It'll be 6-9 months I'm hoping, to settle things. I feel better now because I've put the whole thing in motion. It had been taking up a lot of space in my head. Since my brothers and I have a good relationship, it should go well.

And what was I amazed about?!

Ringo Starr!! The Beatle! 

He's on tour with a lot of other well-known musicians and they made a stop here in my town of 48,000 people. I asked my daughter to come with. Wow! A lot of great music from the 70s, 80s. I sang aloud with all of it and my daughter couldn't help but tap her foot to the music. Mind you, she's 28! I walked around humming Yellow Submarine for days on end, haha! It was great, the tickets were not bad. Here's a pic with Ringo in the middle, click on the picture to see better...

He's right below the pianist on top. Ringo has dark clothing on. One of the best times of my life. I'm so glad I got to see a Beatle. That might be a good tombstone epitaph..I Got To See A Beatle! Haha.

Here's my daughter on the left and myself on the right

So much fun!!

And that's all she wrote.

It's been an odd June. Our temps have been in the 80s and not the high 90s as it usually gets. We're hoping we get our monsoon season but the weather people think it might be pretty mild. I'm hoping for a very boring July with no surprises but maybe happy surprises!

Happy Independence Day to my fellow Americans!! Happy stitching to everyone! 

See you soon!