Getting closer!

I've been making some pretty good progress since I've been on vacation from work for the last week.  I forgot to take a picture whrn I moved the qsnaps this afternoon but I think you can see the progress.

Progress

Here's another week's progress.  Im hoping since I've made ot through Santa and the toys progress picks up a bit.

Santa!

Santa is gradually making his appearance!  

Here Comes Santa!

I've made some pretty good progress this week on my tree skirt which is saying something since this has been a WIP since 2007. 

Before:

With Flash

Without flash.  Love how the windows of the buildings seem to glow!

Here's to hoping I can continue with this one for a bit longer.  I would really like to see this one finished before the end of the year.

Finish!!

The beading is done!  This is probably one of my fastest Chatelaine stitches at just under a month 11/3/14-12/1/14

Next, I think I'm going to tackle one of my oldest WIPs and see if I can't get it closer to finished too.  It's a Dimensions tree skirt "Here Comes Santa."  I think I had it out last December.  Here's the last picture I took.

I remember buying this since it was on clearance and my kids were little.  I need to finish it before my kids are all grown up!

So Close!

Since we had a four day weekend, I've managed to stitch my little heart out.

Friday night 11/28

Last night, 11/30

I got the center and one corner beaded last night.  Today, I've discovered that one of the bicones is wrong but that's easily fixable.  I'm hoping tonight I can fix the boo boo and get the rest of the beads on.

Until then...

Three weeks

I'm still stitching away on Embroidered Elegance 4.  Last weekend, I made it around the second corner.  

With the long holiday weekend, I'm really hoping to finish all the stitching by the time I return to work Monday.  

We're staying at home this weekend.  I've got the turkey defrosted in the fridge.  I just need to brine it tonight and get started on my salads and deserts.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Two weeks

It's only been two weeks but EE4 has been growing by leaps and bounds!

Here's the last time you saw it on 11/9/14

There wasn't a lot of progress during the week, last week, but here is 

11/15/14

and  11/16/14

Last night I did stitch the outer border on the right corner and get everything stitched inside of it except for all the tiny little jessica stitches.  I'm working on those.

Until next time!

Another new start!

Welcome to my new followers!

Last Monday, after I got to work, I printed off the chart for Embroidered Elegance 4.  This one has a pretty simple color scheme and I'm really enjoying it.  I've converted the charted silks to HDF like usual and so far so good.

Here are some pics from last week.

11/4/14

11/6/14

11/9/14

It's kind of hard to believe that it's already as big as it is and I only started a week ago.

I've been looking at some of my current WIPs and I'm debating about cropping one of my HAEDs and I'd like some input (just in case I'm crazy you know!)

The specific WIP is Faces of Faery 79.  I'm in the middle of the top row and am thinking about just stitching the top row or so of this one.  Or, I may just stitch to the bottom of her face.  I don't know.  Any thoughts?

Here's where she is now 

and here's the whole charted picture.

I guess I've just decided I don't know what the gray thing is next to the bird skull and I don't really care for it.  If I crop at the bottom of this row of pages, it looks like I get the bottom of her nose.  Help me decide!!

Later!

5 Little Pumpkins

Last week I told you I had started 5 Little Pumpkins.   On Wednesday I finished band 1 and realized how spoiled I've been using Delicas.  This chart calls for Mill Hill beads and the're is a big difference! 

10/29/14

  

Thursday my youngest said he didn't feel good so we stayed home.  It took me all day to get this part pf the poem stitched then it took me until Sunday afternoon to finish the pumpkins.   

11/2/14

While I was downstairs doing laundry yesterday, I did some stash diving to see if I could find anything to tempt my mojo.   I came up with Chatelaine's Embroidered Elegance 4.  My kit even had fabric in it that just needed to be zigzagged.  

Unfortunately,  the ink in my printer was dry so I couldn't print the chart.  So, I brought Romantic Rose Garden back out.  Unfortunately all I did last night was thread my needle.   Today at work I started the eyelets in the south arch in the middle.  I probably finish that bit then switch to my new start.   Here's hoping a new start works!

Later!

Freebie finish

I didn't think the freebie from Chatelaine's Art Nouveau Sampler would take long to stitch up and it didn't disappoint.  I finished all the beading Saturday afternoon.

For whatever reason, Martina didn't list what the crystals were supposed to be around the center, so I just did a little stash diving and came up with these.  I think they look just fine.

Sunday, I pulled out a chart I've had since 2009.  It's called 5 Little Pumpkins by The Cat's Whiskers.

I've converted to HDF silks and pulled a piece of what I think was 32ct HDF linen.  When I counted my stitches per inch, I got 34 so it shrank a little in the drying process.  I started out with a black hand dyed then realized that with all the black in the chart, it wouldn't work.  A stash dive gave me a slightly varigated fabric that kind of reminds me of Belfast Cobblestone.  I'm getting close to being done with the trees at the top.  Pictures to come this weekend.

Later!

Finish!

This weekend, we took a mini family vacation.  We didn't go far.  Just to the other end of the state.  We live in Nebraska so the other end of the state took about 6 hours.  We left Friday morning on our way to Scottsbluff, NE.  On our way, we saw some large landmarks.

Courthouse and Jailhouse Rocks

Chimney Rock

and Scott's Bluff

During our trek, I discovered that yes, I can stitch over one in a moving vehicle.  So I finished Art Nouveau Sampler on Saturday!

and started the freebie that Martina included with the chart.

As you can tell from this picture, I also had an attack of the frogs.

Now, I'm off to fix what I had to frog and move on.

Later!

Yellow flowers

Last week's stitching has been kind of slow.  I've been sidetracked by a couple of books.  I think there were a total of three I've finished and another one I'm in the middle of.  Sometimes I regret taking that speed reading class in seventh grade.  ;)

Last night I did get the flowers stitched and beaded before I started on the stem and leaves.

Tonight, I'm hoping to finish the stem and leaves and move onto my name and the date.  Thankfully the letters for those are not as large as the other letters of the pattern.  Thank you Martina!

Are you tired of Art Nouveau yet?

My Art Nouveau Sampler is still out and making pretty good progress.   The picture is from this morning after I added the delicas to the center ornament.  Im starting the last ornament shortly and hope to get it pretty close to done yet tonight.  

Football is done for this year.  The boys ended up 3-2 for the season.  Considering how much bigger the teams they were playing against, they did very well.  Anyway, I'll have more stitching time now that I won't be spending nearly as much time in the car.

Football has taken over...

I don't know if I would get more stitching done if I were home every night or if sitting in the car watching my oldest practice football is more productive.  Thankfully we have a game today, in a couple of hours, and one next weekend.  There are three more practices thrown in next week for good measure.  If we play the championships, I'm sure there will be more practices, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This week, I'm still stitching on my Art Nouveau Sampler and I've closed the border which matched.  Yay!

I took this picture when I moved my qsnaps.  I have finished the stitching in the border.

Just for fun, here's one of my new stitching buddies.

I guess technically there are two of them in that picture, but you can see the orange one best.  This is Spice (orange) and Oreo (black) from a little of kittens our neighbor's cat had in our garage.  They're about 4 months old and have been living inside with us for almost a month.  There are two more of them along with the two adult cats.  My DH says I'm turning into the crazy cat lady.  Maybe so.  But I do love waking up to a purring pile of fuzz in the morning.

Art Nouveau update

Just a quick update tonight as it's getting late and I'm headed to bed.

Art Nouveau Sampler after another week of stitching.

Loneliness of Autumn

I only lasted a week with Autumn. I think it may be all the color changes or just the fact I needed a break from the over one I've been doing. 

I've rotated back to Chatelaine's Art Nouveau Sampler.

Until next week!

Lust, The Master and Loneliness

My title sounds like some kinky book title.  lol.  However, it's just my stitching this month.

I did manage to keep Lust moving a couple more days.  Then, during one of my breaks at work, I just couldn't take any more red...or shades of red.  Here's where she is now.

Since The Master was all frogged and ready to go, I put him on the q-snaps and stitched with gray.  I just wasn't feeling him quite yet.  So here's where is now.  I made it across the width of the page.

Lovethythread.com has some gorgeous new charts from the artist Leonid Afremov.  I have The Loneliness of Autumn and it started screaming at me.  So, I went through my floss boxes and pulled what I had.  The following weekend, I stopped and bought the remaining floss.  Late last Saturday night, I put the first few stitches in and put lots more around my oldest DS's football game.  Here's what it looked like last night.

So far confetti hasn't been too bad but the back is going to be a mess!

Later!

September 2 update

Lust is still out and will be for a little while.  This is progress over the last week.  I've found the bottom of the page and I'm probably 3/4 across page 19 in this picture.

The Master did get frogged so there's just an expanse of blank fabric waiting for me to restart.

Page finish!

Last night while I was waiting for my DS1 to come home, I finished page 18/42 of Lust!!  Yay!

I haven't managed to start the next page.  Yet.  I have been debating whether to start the next page or not.  While I was going through my bag of WIPs, I came across The Master by Tilton Crafts.  I didn't get very far when I had it out last.  So, I decided to frog what I did have done and begin again with tent stitch.  I've decided with HAEDs and the like the only way I'm going to be able to stitch through my stash is to tent them.  So, I'll probably have an update for The Master soon.  

Later!

Flamin'

Lust has been out this week.  I haven't gotten as much as I would have liked since there was a new book that was delivered and just life in general.  But, I have managed to finish the first flame in these two pages and I've made pretty good progress on the other three.

Before:  

After:

Later!

Time flies...

I'm still not sure where July went, but since we've made to August, I'll just have to deal with it.

We've gotten super busy again.  Football practice started last week with full pads for Saturday's practice.  We have practice today, tomorrow, Thursday and Saturday.  I've also scheduled an oil change during practice Saturday morning while I'm in town.  

I've still not been stitching as much as I would like but I'm slowly making progress on Chatelaine's Romantic Rose Garden.  I finally finished another page Saturday.

Here's where I was on July 28

August 9

I put Lust back on the qsnaps Saturday night then haven't touched her.  Too busy!

7/20 update

Wow!  Time flies!  Baseball tournaments, a couple of birthdays, a new puppy and some stitching is all in the last month somewhere.

Looking back at my last post, I had just started the alphabet on the Art Nouveau Sampler.  With stress at work I didn't make a whole lot of progress.  BUT on July 3, I had a job interview and they offered me the job on the spot.  I gave my two week notice to my then employer on July 7 and used 8 days of vacation as part of my two weeks.  Wednesday of that week, we had the roof of our house replaced so I would have been home anyway as the roofer had questions he needed answered and my being home made that process way easier than lots of phone calls or texting pictures.

Monday last week, I started the new job.  The change in atmosphere has been huge!  My boss is happy I'm there and have a clue of what needs to be done.  Since that interview my stitchy bug came back and I've got some updates.

Art Nouveau Sampler

I decided to take a break from just alphabet for a bit.

This last week has been a SAL week on a BB I belong to.  I didn't make a huge amount of progress on my FoF 79 but every bit is good.

I pulled out my Romantic Rose Garden Mandala a little bit ago so it can get some love to so look for an update next week.

My last bit of news is the new member of our family.  On June 27 Koda, an almost 8 week old German Shepherd became a member of our family.

She is definitely keeping us on our toes!