So not ready

for heading back to work tomorrow.  Its been great staying up til wee hours in the morning and waking up later and later.  Even though I did have to login and work last week, I was still able to sleep in and then just work in my jammies if I wanted (and did most of the time :P)

I gifted myself a new chart (kitted up and all) on New Years.  Carriage House Samplings’ A Quaker Study,  Fabric is Spice by Colorscapes (36ct) using NPI 224 & 226

I was originally going to use a limited edition CC thread, cant remember the color but it was a very variegated green-blue with the same fabric.  Ive been having internal arguments over that combo for quite a while and finally decided to go with solid colors and use the same tone on tone that was used on the model.  Fellow stitchers and gals at A&T, so helpful when it comes to fabric & floss tossing!

Now for a pic of letters K & N on the wall of their new home

Niece N wants to color the mat around her picture.  Ive asked her to wait and we will take the mat out for her to color and put it back in when she is done.  That way she can be part of her present :)

Small Happy Dance – The sky is complete on Tanglewood! 

I also have only outline x’s to complete on the branches.  Page 2 is almost complete and then its on to the bottom of the chart.

Thank you for all your wonderful comments :)

Christmas goes on and on

Today marks the third day of Christmas for us.  Christmas eve had us at the in-laws, having a wonderful feast and opening presents.  P’s Halo army grew by 3 warthogs (ATV of some sort) and DL got an RC helicopter, legos and books.

Christmas had us at our house where the Halo army grew a bit more and was able to see who their antagonist was (something in purple), an armory full of nerf weapons & ammo, another RC helicopter, and a Lego NXT (robot).  I am shocked to share that the nerf warfare and helicopters have won over legos/Halo and the NXT!  The boys love shooting against the window on the front door (suction darts) and the duo of chaos love chasing after the darts.

Christmas evening had D & me on Max to the Blazer game against the Nuggets.  While Im not a sports person, Brandon Roy and team put on a great show.  We won :o)  Only downer of the night was a person who missed getting off the train on the way home and pulled the emergency door release thinking it would let him off.  What it did was get us stuck for over 1/2 hr and lots of cranky people.

Today has me and the boys feasting over at my sisters house as well as sharing of the last presents.  The Letters have been framed and wrapped, ready for unveiling.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.

Presenting

Nora’s Letter K!

yes, stitching is finally finished!

List of changes

The K was stitched using CC Jelly Roll and bs CC Nighty Nite, beads used Mill Hill 02077

Beads used on the garland are 03005 (in place of 02001) and called for 42027

Everything else was as charted.

Now on to bed!

She likes walking in the dew

or thats what the pattern tells me  :o)

 

The beading is about 1/2 complete and I have a week + before I need to have it framed and wrapped!

I have a few other updates as well

Bethlehem 2.0 (stitching for my sister)

Renaissance Angel

And a new start Ink Circle’s Mother Maya

Watching Iron Chef America

can be a dangerous thing.  Battle Egg Nog was last night and all it took was for me to see Egg Nog french toast and I was off to the store.  Made it for me and the boys this morning and what a hit!

I continued the cooking theme this morning and made 3 batches of cookies (over 150).  German Chocolate, Chinese Almond and Sprits. (all recipes can be found in Taste of Home Baking cookbook)

Ive been working more on Nora’s Letter K this week.

Update on Renaissance Angel.  I commented that I was going all over the place with this one.  Added the satin stitches on the side and the red x’s towards the bottom to help with the counting.  Hope Ive got the numbering correct before I really get stated on the other parts of the sides.  Wouldnt be fun to rip out.

Taking a break on cookie baking, Will maybe get some refrigerated cookies started so they can be baked next weekend.

D completed our Christmas present, 1/2 of our closet – the hanging side.  We’ve been using our closet area for folded clothes, his in a dresser and mine in wire bins, and all the hanging stuff had taken over the boy’s closets.  Now all of our hanging stuff is in our closet, gave the boys a big chunk of space back.  We also have a long shelf for all our shoes so they arent al over the place.  A nice new place for the duo of chaos to find hiding places :op

The next 1/2 we will hopefully get towards the end of the month for our Anniversary present :o)

With the change to the closet areas, we are taking the time to thin the piles down.  Nice things are going to the school district’s Clothes Closet for kids k-12.  I have a better feeling donating them there than to Goodwill and hope someone can/will use them.

Thanks for stopping by

Time to relax

I had a good week and a day off.  While some days were a bit bothersome (I logged into work) and Thursday was down right long, I think Ive recovered enough to work three whole days.  Cant wait til Friday and another day off!

I love this time of year – manly for the time off I try and schedule.  Starting Thanksgiving week, then all Fridays in December and the last week of the year.  Helps make my holiday prep a bit smoother and easier to deal with.

This weekend I found the 3m thing-a-majigs to hang up lights on the house.  My fingers are crossed that Friday keeps the promise of being at least non-rainy so I can get them up.  No tree this year due to the duo of chaos.  No one will be home during the days to keep them off the tree.  So I hope I can still hang lights.

Stitchy stuff

I was able to spend some of my time off stitching.

Nora’s Letter K – not much was added to this project (bad me) but I have a reason

Meet my new project Renaissance Angel

Most of what you see was stitched Friday & Sat with a small bit added last night.  So far its been fun and quick to stitch.

Now Tanglewood – I was able to add a bit to this thx to Tuesday at A&T was Ink Circle/Drawn Thread night

Well, back to adding a bit more to K while watching D play Assassins Creed II and watching Celtic Women on OPB. 

Thanks for stopping by

I got updates

I was able to drag myself out of the house today for some needed shopping.  Some for normal weekly needs and most of the Thanksgiving feast.

I scored in finding the Andes mints at the dollar store.  I snagged 5 boxes to make the Andes Mint Cookies Suzie shared.  P cant wait to get cooking on these.

Now on to the Stitchy updates!

Tanglewood – When in doubt this project gets pulled out and x’s added.  Ive been adding more to branch outlines lately

Mine All Mine – Not much added here except to presents

LHN’s Neighborhood – Pulled this out and was able to add a small number this week.  Anything is something right?

Nora’s Letter K  - This Im trying to get completed for Christmas this year.  Have the stole (evergreens?) completed, minus beading) and started on the faerie.  Was getting hard finding large areas to stitch on the train last week.

As I have the next week off, I hope to get most of the confetti of K completed.  Heck it would be wonderful to get this project completed this week!

Thank you for stopping by :o)

Another finish for 2009

Meet my version of Nora’s Letter N

And a close-up of the fairy

My color changes – the original colors are on the left and any changes I made are after the dash.

I used Coats Metallic to stitch the beading.  As the fabric is very sparkly I thought it would blend nicely and it wasnt too bad to work with.  Im thinking of using the same for beading on K & R

Will wait until tomorrow to worry about what WIP will pop out next :op

Thanks for stopping by

Brain cramps

Who knew picking out names for kitties could be so exhausting?  We have one picked for the girl (and you all have to wait to find out) but the boy is giving us fits.  Mainly cause we just cant agree.  She can be such a lady, at times.  He however has fire ants in his pants most of the time.

And they’ve taken over my office chair!

I was able to work a bit last night on Nora’s Letter N and got some beading done. 

 

Watched Year One while stitching.  Just cant get in to the funny-ha-ha’s of this one.

And here is what Ive completed so far on Three Gables.

  

I love the fabric I was able to snag for this project.

Thanks to Kellie and Jackie for their info on Valdani threads.  Now to wait for the chart, pick out my fabric and order the threads – 6 strands.

Feeding the tweet addiction…

Trying to find other ways to get my tweets while at work and wouldnt you know it?  Nintendo DSi with its wonderful built in web browser will hook me into Twitter so I can get tweets!

My cell will work – if its not hooked up to my work computer.  Which I need to do to sync and charge.  But for some reason the damn thing has a devil of a time accessing the web when hooked up (stupid Tilt).

On the stitching front I actually pulled out Nora’s Letter N and worked on more of the back stitching.  Would love (LOVE) to have it completed within the next week or so.  All I have left to do is back stitch and beads.  No pics yet as not all of the back stitching can really been seen.

Nora’s Letter R got it’s frog pulled during lunch today, where I put up with more ribbing about my old time hobby.  My thoughts?  Whatever!  It releases stress and for me thats worth any ribbing I get!!

Weekend updates

Had a good stitchy weekend.  Met friends at A&T for the usual Saturday summer stitch group then decided to join another friend at the Washington County fair.  Went from hot with some wind to hot with no wind as we were inside.  This was my first time at this county’s fair and I wish I would have stopped in earlier (as in last year) as the number of cross stitch entries was abysmal!  I dont think there were 20 entries.  So I will be trying to remember next year, June, we are going to pester the gals in the shop and see if we cant get more submissions! 

I recall all the submissions I saw at the fair (neighboring county) growing up and I guess I was intimidated by memories and didnt think anything I do could stand up.  So much for that!

On to items Ive been working on…

Cirque des Carreaux – I worked a bit on this over the weekend.  The dark fabric is making my eyes buggy :o)

Nora’s Letter R – Ive been working on this throughout the week, when I had the energy (darn heat wave!).  Found a nasty frog while stitching at the fair (bugger!), so its thread pulling time…

Weekend Update

Its been a very stitchy weekend for me.  Started Nora’s Letter R Thursday evening and here is where Im at as of tonight.

This has been a very fast stitch for me.

The only other project Ive worked on in the past week is Dragon of Fire by Dragon Dreams

I love how this one is looking on the orange fabric I picked out.

I would love to work on Tanglewood but with how hot its been (and going to get) and how damn high maintenance the thread is (think about sweating hands and it bleeds) I just cant bear to bring it out.  So it will be placed on hold until cooler weather comes again.

Tuesday is supposed to be Ink Circles night at A&T but its also due to be 101 deg that day.  Not sure if I can make it to the show before I melt!  I may stay home and work on Diamonds or Growth Rings to keep with the theme :o)

Hope others have a cooler week

Over a week

Since my last post!  Good lord!

Im blaming the weather (its been HOT and will be getting HOTTER!) and Ive been insane busy at work which just drains me from wanting to do much of anything.

I started another project, Nora’s R and this one is Mine :op. 

I changed colors (of course) and will have pics later in the weekend.

Whew needed a rest :p

One blog post a week aint bad, is it?  Oh well, Im not going to worry much about it :op

Had a b-day party for P last Saturday.  5, 12 year olds (4 boys 1 girl)running around the house and then going to the local amusement park, Oaks Park and let them loose.  Well, not really loose, D followed them while I tagged along with DL.  THEN D had a grand idea of letting the kids choose a carnival prize to bring home.  Can you guess what we brought home?  Yup, 5 weapons and one animal.  So while we waited for the parents to show up, the kids had a d&d style fight in the yard with the girl taking away abilities or healing as needed.

I have become addicted to twitter.  Dont know if that is sad or not.  Ive tried to circumvent the “blocked for your protection” crap at work but they found my work around and blocked it. bummer.  Yes I still have my phone but I cant keep tabs on the cross stitch or PAX searches Im watching.  So

I have been stitching. Bits and pieces here and there

Nora’s Letter K – Added more to the garland

Tanglewood – added more to the outside of a lower branch and sky

Dragon of Fire – bits here and there

CDD – Had to completely start over.  Had an issue with the fabric on the first start.  This version is much darker and I think works better with the thread.

Until next week?

Post Weekend Stitch Updates

Got the camera out and pictures taken.  Not all of these were worked on during the weekend, some only got a pass during the week.

Nora’s Letter K – finished the pink of the K this morning and have the green of the garland 2/3’s done.

Tangelwood – working on pg 3, need to get back to page 2 and finish the peacock and sky for another mini HD

LHN Neighborhood – Added more to the border and windows

LHN Needle worker – only added to the small alphabet and not even that much

La D Da’s Quaker Alphabet – mini hd as I completed the alphabet this weekend :o)

Post-weekend updates

Ive so needed to post stitchy updates!  I spent most of today figuring out the VC silks for Mary Wigham sampler.  I worked off the color conversion Katrina created and shown on Mel’s blog.

Here is my list

Im still working on the fabric.  This project will have to wait a while.

This weekend’s main project has been La-D-Da’s Quaker Alphabet

It was last shown as

And I was able to charge through this weekend and add a bunch.

Here are other projects that have actually seen the light of the sun :)

Growth Rings

Nora’s Letter K

Tanglewood

Thanks for visiting!

Weekend updates

Got to spend Friday sitting my sister’s kids, we watched movies, ate pizza & ice cream and had a great time.

Other than that it was a laid back, not getting much done and stitch a bit here-there weekend.

Stitchy stuff

Growth Rings – Floss came in Friday and I picked it up Sat.  Fabric is called Rock Quarry and colors are Emerald & Nefertiti by Caron Wildflowers

 

Already had some frogs settle in *sigh

Nora’s Letter ‘K’ – I really love the color I chose for the K on this project.  It looks great with the fabric and after seeing said niece this weekend the colors will pass with flying colors :oP