A Finish and Catching Up

I put the final stitches in "Give" by Plum Street Samplers during the first half of the Super Bowl game. I have thoroughly enjoyed stitching this piece. I just love everything about it, the design, the colors, the fibers...everything!


Give by Plum Street Samplers
Stitched on 32 ct. Chalice linen from Picture This Plus
Fibers: Belle Soie silks from Crescent Colours

Conversions, for those of you who've asked~
Attic Tea~vines
Fawn~bodies on birds, lg. nut on top left, sm. nut on bottom right
Mudpie~cluster of nuts on top right, nut on bottom left
Pumpkin Carriage~light wings on birds, crown motif
Lasagna~flowers, heart motif, flowers on vine in center
Tortoise Shell~words, initials, date, eyes on birds, inside and outside borders

Now then, the captions for the pics from Wordless Wednesday.
Sedum "Autumn Joy" starting to stick its nose out from the ground. This goes dormant during the winter but is usually one of the first things to show life in late winter/early spring.

Hannah Grace enjoying the clean afghan on the back of the couch. It's unusual for her to be up here, so I couldn't resist the photo op.

A woodpecker on the telephone pole!

My pound cake. Looks lovely, doesn't it?

After I turned it out onto the plate. Not so lovely, is it? You'll be glad to know it was absolutely delicious, though! I might have to make another one!

It's the Start of a New Week!

And I'm feeling immensely better! It's amazing what cough syrup with codeine can do for a good night's sleep! LOL I'm sure the antibiotic my doctor prescribed for my sinus infection is helping some, too. Now, if the mountain cedar would just go away, I'd be able to truly get well. I hate that stuff!

So, the Saints are going to the Super Bowl! Woohoo! So proud to see a team that's never been in the Super Bowl advance to that all important game. I hope the beat the tar out of the Colts! Honestly, the Colts have a GREAT team and Peyton Manning will no doubt be in the Hall of Fame someday, but really, it's time for some new faces in the Super Bowl. Geaux Saints!!!!

This past week was a stressful one, plus I didn't feel well, so my stitching time was minimal. I started my January ornie, "Joy", a complimentary design from Lilybet Designs. I've been working on this during my lunch/dinner time at work.


I'm stitching this on a scrap of 28 ct. Vintage Autumn Fields linen, using DMC, CCs, and GAST.

On Saturday, I worked on my SNS project, LHN's Seasonal Saltbox series. Got the main body of my house "painted" and started on the flowers in the border.


Yesterday, during the Saints v. Vikings game, I stitched on my incentive piece, "Give". My plan is to work on this at home during the evenings. I'm so close to a finish, that I've got to get it done!


In other news, my potatoes have been taken out of the box and are getting ready to plant. I've only got about 2 more weeks!! They're starting to grow eyes. The Kennebecs seem to be growing the slowest, but they're also the biggest potatoes, so maybe that's why. We have also added onion sets. I absolutely LOVE onions! We have 3 sets of 1015Y ("THE" Texas sweet yellow onion) and 2 sets of Red Burgundy, a red onion. I'm thinking of going back and getting a bunch of the white onions they had.

These are the Kennebecs. Come on babies, you can sprout!

The Reds and Purple Vikings are doing great!

The Banana Fingerlings are going like gangbusters. I even have one that reminds me of a walrus! LOL

The onions awaiting their permanent home in the garden. I've put them in a pan of dirt and then I water them about every other day.

"Give" Progress

Ended up not having much time to stitch Sunday on "Give" because I made these:


(You want one, I know. Would it help if I told you how yummy they are???)

I also had to break up this fight over the sunspot:


Since we've had such cold temps and had to fill the sunroom with plants, the kitties haven't been able to go out in the sunroom to bask in the sun. Comfortable, warm places to catch a few rays are in short supply, so Hannah improvised and created this spot. Callie decided she wanted to be in the spot, so a fight ensued. LOL

Then, I could sit down and stitch! Here's my progress:

Wordless Wednesday Follow-Up

Salsa anyone? Homemade from the remainder of our slicing tomatoes harvested before our first freeze in December. This was pretty much all I got of the batch. DH ate most of the rest of it while I was napping. I think I'm going to get a lock for the fridge and hide the key on my body! Wait! Might not be such a good hiding place! LOL

This is my Callie-love in the husband's lap. Ten years ago, you'd never have seen this. DH wasn't a cat person and Callie wasn't much of a human cat, especially humans of the male persuasion. Over the years, the two have come to a mutual understanding and Callie frequently jumps in his lap for a little love.

Part of my stash that I've weeded out. One of these days, this stuff will be for sale.

More stash that wouldn't fit in the bin. Need to organize, scan, price, and get everything uploaded to sell.

My progress on "Give" this week. I've pretty much reached the bottom on both sides. Inching ever closer to a finish!

First Wordless Wednesday of 2010

Last Stitches of 2009, First Stitches of 2010

I hope everyone's had a wonderful Christmas and New Year season. It's amazing how busy we allow ourselves to get and the unrealistic expectations we put on ourselves, not to mention the expectations put on us by others. I pray this new year is a very blessed and peaceful year for you all.

As I rang out 2009, I stitched on Plum Street Sampler's "Give". The birds now have wings, but still no eyes. I'm planning on working on this again today while watching the Cowboys try to clinch their division against the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm contemplating what part to stitch on today. Should I work on the outside border on the right? Do I work on the twining vines on both sides? Do I continue in the middle and stitch the other motifs and stuff under the bird? Decisions, decisions, decisions!



My non-blogging friend, Robin, always encourages me to start a small project on January 1st. She's so organized, she knows well in advance what she's going to stitch. Of course, she's got her whole stitching year mapped out! She's got lists of all the projects she wants to stitch, which ones are gifts, which are just for fun. She's got an itemized list of ornies to choose from for the year! (Love you, Robin!!) Me? I decide a couple of days before January 1st what I'm going to stitch and then spend an hour and a half the morning of January 1st gathering supplies! LOL Have I gotten together a list of ornaments to stitch for the year?? No! (Will I stitch from the list anyway?? Probably not. LOL) Do I have a clue what projects I want to stitch this year?? No! I'm not spontaneous in any other area of my life, except stitching! I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

Moving on.

I chose Val's Stitching Stuff's "Have a Heart" for my January 1st project. It's been sitting in my "to do" box for a couple of years. I saw it. I grabbed it. I spent the first hour of the Rose Bowl parade pulling fibers and finding fabric. Impulsive, I know, but sometimes that's just the way I roll.


I knew I wanted to stitch this on something other than the neutral color of fabric the design calls for, so I went digging through my vast stash of fabrics. (I've battling a devastating addiction to fabric, especially the hand dyed variety. Having an unemployed husband helps curb that addiction.) I have TONS of colors to choose from in both 28 ct. and 32 ct. I decided to go with an old Silkweaver fabric called "Rainkissed" in 32 ct. It's a wonderful color fabric, but I don't think they produce it anymore. :(

Now I must return to my list making. I need to write my stitching resolutions, my ornie list, and I need to dig in my WIPs basket and see what's in there that I need to finish this year. I've only been working on that basket for 2 years now! LOL I also need to weed out stash and put it up for sale. Stay tuned for that!

:o)

Let There Be Birds!

I've been stitching on PSS's "Give" the past 2 days. Here's an update of my progress.


In real life, the birds aren't as dark as they appear in the picture. Okay, the whole piece isn't as dark as in the pic! The birds aren't as big as I thought they were going to be either. For some reason, by looking at the pic on the chart, the birds appear huge, but they're not too stitching intensive and they really stitch up fairly quickly. They don't take a ton of floss either, another good thing. I'm going to start working on the wings, which are a lighter orange. I need to figure out what color to do the eyes, too. I'm thinking either the darkest part of the Tortoiseshell, which is what the border is done in, or even the darkest part of whatever that color is that the smaller nuts are stitched in. Can you tell my mind is going?!? Maybe I'll stitch one in each color and leave it just to see if anyone notices! LOL

We're expecting more SNOW today. Blech! I'm really not happy about that since I have to go to work and possibly drive home in the slop. Texas just isn't prepared for snow. We don't have snow plows and we don't have the equipment to keep the roadways clear and safe. I really would like to stay home today if it's going to snow. It's so much prettier to watch it from the inside while sipping on my mug of hot chocolate than it is to be out in it.

Until next time...keep stitching!

:o)

Give Progress

This is going to become known as my bent needle project! I somehow managed to bend one of my high-dollar My Favorite Needle needles somewhere along the way of my short time stitching on this beauty. The only thing I can thing that happened was that the needle was stuck into one of the corners of my fabric while it was still in the q-snaps. When I took the snaps off, I must've pulled the needle out or something. Who knows?!? All I know is that I'm stitching with a bent needle and y'all aren't any the wiser! LOL Here she is in all her glory, as of the end of the Cowboys vs. Eagles game where my Boyz whooped up on the birds 20-14.

How 'bout dem Cowboys?!? They're now 6-2 for the season (6 wins, 2 losses for all you non-football folks) and in sole possession of their division. Nice to see Tony smiling again and having fun playing.

"Give" is Coming Along

I have been working on Plum Street Samplers' "Give" this week. This is my piece for the incentive round on the Only One Ewe message board group. I know that some of you have requested a conversion. I'm working on a complete conversion and will post it soon, so stay tuned! I played around with the settings on this scan and the colors are much truer to the colors in real life, at least on my monitor!

In the garden, things are enjoying the cooler temps we've been having. We have 3 baby pumpkins. These aren't big carving pumpkins, but smaller baking pumpkins. My hope was to get enough to make canned pumpkin to use in baking and for our kitties. Callie, my older cat, has kidney problems. As a result, she also gets constipated and the pumpkin keeps her regular. We give it to Hannah just because she likes it.



DH transplanted the lettuce and spinach seedlings into his new garden plot. They took a beating a couple of days ago in a rain storm, but they're looking good. We're expecting more rain this weekend, so we'll have to wait and see how they fare. He also transplanted some of his cantaloupe seedlings. Don't think they'll do anything, but he's so proud the seeds sprouted at all, so into the ground they went!



Until next time...!