SBQ of the Week and PIF

Today's SBQ was suggested by Danielle and is:

What company produces your favorite hand-dyed fabric? Are there any companies whose hand-dyed fabric you do not like? If so, why?

I dye most of my own fabrics so I guess I could call it Dawn's Fabrics...lol. When I do buy fabrics I really don't have a preference as long as I love the color. :)

I was able to work on ATFE yesterday. I wanted to get all the scarecrow done so that next week I could start on the backstitching but it didn't work out that way.



The other night when I picked up Mac's prescription I had something totally unexpected happen to me. We have been having some problems with the insurance company so when I went to pay for his prescription the co-pay was more than I had anticipated and I didn't bring enough cash. I told them that I would be back in the morning to pick it up. However, as I was walking away this gentleman came up to me and handed me Mac's prescription. He had paid for it! I was stunned!

I tried to get his name so I could repay him but he insisted that it wasn't necessary. He then told me I could repay him by "Paying it Forward". So, I am going to do as he wished by Paying it Forward.

Since a lot of other stitchers are doing this I am going to do mine just a little different. I will make 5 homemade gifts to send out to different stitchers. If you would like to receive one of these please let me know either by a comment or an email to me at msgal28atgmail.com. If I don't get enough people to sign up I will then draw names from the addresses that I already have and send them out that way. I expect nothing in return but the satisfaction of knowing I put a smile on somebody's face.

**I still have one spot left to fill on the Pay it Forward...come on and sign up! :)**

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Renee would be coming for a visit. She will be arriving here tomorrow night! I am so excited!! I am not sure how much stitching I will get done during that time. I also won't be on the net much either so if you do send me an email don't be worried if I don't answer back until late next week.

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Trip to the ER

I had a very long day and night yesterday. First of all, I have had a head cold for the past few days so I haven't felt the greatest. On top of that the little girl I watch during the day was running a fever most of yesterday. It wasn't a high fever just a low grade one but it was enough to make her clingy all day long. I had planned on stitching that evening but my son had different plans.

We hadn't been home for more than 30 minutes when Mac was playing with the dog's Frisbee and somehow got something in his eye. As soon as I tried to flush his eye out he starting screaming like I had poured acid in his eye. So, now I had to get him calmed down and keep him from rubbing his eye and still try to see what was in his eye. I couldn't see anything but his eye was pure red, too. I had Mike look at his eye and he found a bump on the white of his eye so we decided to head to the Emergency Room.

Emergency Room waiting is enough to drive any sane person insane! I am not kidding when I say we were there from 6 pm until 11 pm!! Agghhh! I would really like to know why does it take forever to be seen in the ER?

Anyways, when Mac was finally seen they had to numb his eye which caused Mac to scream because it burned his eye at first. After that they put some kind of medicine in his eye that turned it florescent yellow. Then they had to use a black light to look at his eye. It was freaky looking! He looked like a zombie with those glow in the dark yellow eyes! Of course Mac being the boy he is thought it was cool...lol.

The final conclusion was that he scraped his eye right across the pupil and iris. The bump Mike saw they "think" is just a bunch of blood vessels bunched up. They didn't think it was anything to be real concerned about but I still should take him to the eye doctor and have it checked out. They went ahead and prescribed him some ointment to put in his eye and finally let us go around 11:00 pm. I still had to get his medicine filled since they wanted me to put it in his eye as soon as we got home. That put us home around 11:30 pm!

I really didn't think Mac would want to go to school today but he wanted to go this morning. I personally think it was to brag to the other kids about his visit to the ER.

As you can probably guess I didn't get to work on my stitching last night. So, I am going to work on ATFE for a little while today and then work on Footprints later this evening.

Footprints Update

I had yesterday's post all ready to go when all of a sudden the computer crashed. Grrr...I was ready to click on save, too! Anyways, to sum it up, we didn't do a lot this weekend because it was cold and rainy. So, I had lots of time to stitch on Footprints. Here was my progress up till Sunday night.



And here is my progress from yesterday.



Today I will be stitching on A Time For Everything SAL with Becky.

SBQ of the Week

Today's SBQ is:

Have you had a happy dance yet this year? If so, tell us about it! (Or just point to the entry that talks about it.) If not, when do you predict it will be?

I have had 2 finishes this year. My first finish is technically only a half of a happy dance since I haven't finished the finishing. My second finish has to remain a secret until my partner receives it for the Winter Wonderland Exchange(WWE) on the SBEBB.

I had a wonderfully peaceful and relaxing day yesterday. I had no kids to watch from 8 am until 3:30 pm! I took this time to get caught up on some sewing and finished my partner's piece for the WWE. I might add that I am extremely pleased with how it looks, too. :) After having such a good morning I treated myself to one of those rare and precious things in my house called a nap.

We have no plans for this weekend because we could get some more bad weather. We were lucky last storm and didn't lose our power and I am keeping my fingers crossed that we don't lose power with this storm either. If we do lose power, we are lucky enough to be able to to to FIL's house since he has a wood stove.

The thought of a bad snow storm would bring most people's spirits down but not me! The only reason it doesn't is I know that I will get some good stitching done. :) Although, I am not sure if I will get a lot done this weekend since, Krissy, my 13 yr old has decided to try cross stitching again. I can already feel the migraine coming on!

I have been teaching Krissy since she was 5 or 6 but she doesn't have the patience for it. Her main problem is her threads get tangled causing lots of knots. In a normal house, this wouldn't be a major crisis but my house isn't normal! Krissy is a perfectionist. Which means this could end up with Krissy crying and locking herself in her room for hours. The joys of having a teenager! :)

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Stay safe and warm!

Busy, Busy

It has been a few days since my last post but I have been busy! Friday night I got my hair cut. It wasn't just a little trim either I got 15 inches cut off! For a long time I had been thinking about cutting my hair and going back to my natural hair color. Well, I finally did it and now my hair is short and brown. I love the haircut but I'm still not to sure about my natural hair color after all I had red hair for the last 16 years.

Saturday was extremely busy with Allie's birthday. We ended up having 3 extra kids that night. Which I might add, that won't happen again. I didn't have any problems from the girls but Mac and his friend were being typical 7 and 8 year old boys...annoying and ornery!! On top of all that, the weather started to get bad. Mostly it rained all day long but it was cold which meant the kids had to stay inside the house.

I was woke up Sunday morning to a thin layer of ice. The kids went up the hill in the backyard and slid down on whatever they could use for a sled. All that fun ended when it started to rain again. Mike had to to and check on FIL and make sure he still had power because there were reports of power outages in that area. This of course, mean I was alone with 6 children ages 7-13! By the time Mike got back I felt like Goldie Hawn in Overboard where she was sitting in the corner rocking and the kids were throwing grapes at her....lol. Okay maybe not THAT bad but I was ready to pull my hair out. :)

My only silver lining was on Monday I was going to have the whole house to myself for several hours. My kids didn't have the day off for MLK and the kids I babysit were staying at home with their mom. One look outside Monday morning let me know that I wasn't going to get a day to myself! Over the night we had about 1/4 inch of ice.

I haven't done a lot of stitching in the past few days but I did find time here and there to put a few stitches in Footprints by TW.



Yesterday was my first day to stitch on A Time For Everything SAL with Becky in a long time! I was really excited to start stitching on it again.



I'm not sure if I am going to get any stitching done today as it hasn't been a great day so far. This morning when Mike went to take me to work he discovered something wrong with the clutch in the truck so we were going to have to take the car. No big deal other than it had a layer of ice on it. The doors were frozen shut so I was helping Mike pour water on it when I slipped on the porch and fell. I know it looked hilarious since I ended up dumping the pitcher of water all over myself! Believe me not a great way to start the day!

I'm Such A Flake

Since I decided to go ahead and stitch another pattern I can show you what it looks like. :) I got this pattern from my LNS is a booklet of freebies I was given. It is from Stitchy Kitty and is called I'm Such a Flake. All I have left to do is attach the carrot nose.



The next time I stitch this one I will be sure to use a darker fabric.

A Happy Dance (Somewhat)

I finished my first piece for the year last night. It didn't exactly go as I had planned so its not much of a HD right now. My first problem that I ran into was the color of fabric I used at first. The colors of the design are kind of light and I used an oatmeal colored fabric....what was I thinking! I only got about 20 stitches in before I realized that the fabric was too light. No biggie, I have done that hundreds of times.

The brick wall that I ran into was the fabric I have for the design didn't look so great once it was finished and laying on it. So now I either have to stitch something else or go in search of some fabric that looks better. I have opted for stitching something else. So last night at 11pm, I was matching flosses to the fabric for a new pattern.

It's going to be a busy weekend for us. Allie turns 12 tomorrow. I can't believe that she is almost a teenager! Allie is planning on having a couple of girls spend the night. I am not sure if it will happen because we are expecting some nasty weather this weekend. Right now they are forecasting about an inch of ice between Sat and Sun.

Personally I love the winter time. When I was growing up in Iowa we used to get a lot of snow which meant a lot of snow days for the kids and parents. On those days, my brother and I would go out and have snowball fights usually with me losing and then when we got cold we would run into the house and get warmed by the wood burning stove while drinking hot chocolate. Ah, childhood memories. :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Happy Stitching!!

SBQ of the Week

Do you dream of running your own LNS/ONS? If so, tell us about your dream. If not, tell us about your cross stitch dream… maybe you dream of designing, dyeing your own floss or fabric, etc.

I had to smile at this week's questions because I am constantly pointing out places that would be "perfect" for a cross stitch shop. Here is where is gets a little silly...it would be LNS and a pet shop all in one. I wouldn't have anything exotic just normal kittens and puppies.

I want the atomosphere to be relaxed and fun. I have been to some LNS that are quite stuffy and that makes me uncomfortable. I would also like for it to be somewhat kid friendly. I don't have much of a problem now, but when the kids were younger I always dreaded taking them with to the LNS. It's a dream. lol

I didn't get any fabric dyeing done last night. I forgot to buy some rubber gloves. Bummer! I did get some fabric cut for some other patterns. Yep, the tape measure showed up...in my daughters' room of all places.

I did squeeze in some time to stitch on WF. I didn't get a lot done. I worked on the border on the right side. It's going slow but slow is better than nothing at all!

Christine-I hope you get to stitch on her again soon!

Good News

I was sitting here this morning feeling blah when I got the most uplifting news. My best friend will be coming to visit for a few days at the end of Janurary. I am beyond excited! This of course means we will be going stash shopping. :)

As for stitching, I didn't get any done last night. I was going to cut some fabric for some patterns I have picked out when I couldn't find my mearuring tape. I spent about 30 minutes looking for it when I decided to give up on it. I am sure it will show up...somewhere...sometime. lol

I am hoping to dye some linen tonight. It has been awhile since I have done some fabric dyeing plus my stash pile of dyed fabrics is getting low. If I have time after that I am going to work on WF.

Woodland Faerie Update

We had a pretty nice weekend. Mike had the whole weekend off work. This is the first time in about 2 months he has had more than one day a week off! We didn't do anything Friday night, so I played around with the camera. I am still having a few problems with it but I did manage to get at least one photo that I could post. :)



It is hard to believe that I have been working on this Woodland Faerie for a year now! I am pleased with she looks on the fabric.

A Shocking Present

Last week while talking to my brother, he asked if I would like to have his old (it is only about a year old) digital camera. I told him that I would like it but I didn't give it much thought. I love my brother to death but most of the time when asks if I would like something it never shows up. So later that day, when I got an email from my brother telling me that he had mailed the camera to me I still wasn't going to hold my breath.

When I got home Wednesday night there was a small package waiting for me from my brother. I can not put in words at how shocked I was that my brother actually sent something he said he was going to send! That is when I looked at the handwriting and realized that it was his girlfriends' handwriting. So now I get to tease him that he actually didn't mail it! :)

In the package, he sent some stuff for Mike and the camera. Here is where the "Townsend Luck" begins. My brother had already told me he couldn't find the software for the camera. No biggie I could get that with no problem. What I didn't think about was the cable for the camera. At first Mike thought he had one in his pile of computer stuff. Nope, no such luck. So now I have to make a run to the store to get that.

I did get the software installed and borrowed a cord from a friend and played around for a little while. My balloon burst when I transferred the pictures to the computer and realized that the bottom part of the pictures were either cut off or had a solid color running across the bottom. Grrr..now I have to uninstall and reinstall the program or at least I hope that works! Not my idea of fun. By the time this happened it was late so I just went to bed.

I was really hoping to have some pictures to share with you today but it looks like it will be sometime next week.

New Exchanges

I hope everyone had a good New Year's Eve and Day. We had a nice night. We stayed at home with the kids. Allie had a friend spend the night with her. Everyone stayed up to midnight and celebrated with hot chocolate with marshmallows.

New Year's Day was pretty calm. Allie went to spend the night with her friend. Mike and Mac played their games. Krissy was content to have the bedroom to herself for a day so she could listen to music and read her books. That left me free to stitch for awhile. I worked on WF and got a good chunk of page 3 done.

In the past few days I have gotten my names for the Winter Wonderland Exchange on the SBEBB and the Birthday Exchange on The Robin's Nest. I have been looking in my patterns. I think I have the Winter Exchange pattern picked out but I have to order some threads. Since I haven't had to special order anything from my LNS, I am not sure how long it will take. So to be prepared I have a back up pattern picked out and and kitted up ready to stitch.

The Birthday exchange isn't due until December but one can't start too early...or can you? Anyways, while I won't start the actually stitching I am on the look out for the perfect pattern.

I finally made a linen run last weekend. I was a good girl and didn't go overboard. (only because hubby was with me) I bought a 1/2 yard of 32 count oyster linen. That should be enough to keep me busy for awhile.