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.

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!

Another update

I'm still slowly making progress on the Art Nouveau Sampler.

6/21/14

close up of the ornament

6/22/14 top border

Art Nouveau Sampler

Last week I didn't pick up a needle.  Not once.

I finished a couple of books though.  I have one more that I pre-ordered that is still waiting in the car for me.  I'll crack it open during lunch tomorrow.

Last weekend, I wanted to finish the bottom left corner of Art Nouveau Sampler.  This is as far as I got.

Then the books.

Yesterday, I pulled Art Nouveau off my q-snaps and put HAED's Nightshade on.  That lasted over night.  

Before:  

After:

So I did make pretty good progress for a few hours work.

Art Nouveau went back on this afternoon though.  Don't know what it is, but I was ready for some more beading.  Today, I finished the corner and the specialty stitches along the bottom and started beading more grapes.

I'm going to see how much further I get before I call it a night.

Later!

Finishes, framed and a WIP pic

I decided yesterday afternoon to pull some frames down, pull the finishes out that I bought those frames for and get my frame on!

I managed three.

This is One Hundred Years by Lizzie Kate

This is Petit Sampler I stitched with the Sticklounge group.

and the final mystery sampler also through Sticklounge

I've still got a couple I want to frame but they'll probably have to wait till next weekend unless baseball gets rained out.  We're supposed to have a game tomorrow night to make up one that was rained out but since it is raining right now, it's hard to tell.

Finally, here's my update of Chatelaine's Art Nouveau Sampler.  I wasn't certain about some of my conversions in the leaves but I think they work well together.  Any thoughts??

Now, I'm going to go listen to rain hit the windows and do some beading so I can finish the flowers and move the q-snaps.

Later!

Baseball!

Baseball started a couple of weeks ago and holy cow does it suck up time between games and practices.  When we have games, DS#2 plays at 6 but has to be there at 5:45 to warm up and DS#1 plays at 8:30 and doesn't get done until 9:30.  We don't get home until after 10!!  Thankfully, school got out last week so at least they don't have to pretend to be learning anything the day after those late games. 

I hope everyone is going to have a great Memorial Day weekend!  I realize that not everyone who reads my little blog is an American but I hope you all have a great weekend!  I'm taking the boys to my mom's tomorrow.  They're going to stay with her all week since school is out but camp hasn't started yet.  We get the added bonus of picking out our new puppy tomorrow afternoon.  Yay!

Last time I posted, I was working on FOF 79.  I made some really nice progress while she was out.

Then, I was naughty and pulled out my kit for a new start.  It took me all Saturday evening to get my fabric cut and put a basic grid in so I could figure out where the corner was to start.  But by Sunday, I'd made some pretty nice progress

Yesterday, I had added some bling and there are a lot of beads in this one.

The little bit of pink you see in this picture is the first flower.  I'm almost done with those pink flowers and hope to get the rest of it stitched tonight which means I need to get off this infernal computer!!

Later!