Autumn Tree Finished

Today is starting off good for me. I finished Renee's fabric for the SBSRR. I picked Autumn because it is my favorite time of the year. I love the everything about fall from the changing colors of the trees to the crisp nights. Anyways, this little pattern was rather quick for me to stitch up. I started on it Monday evening and worked on it yesterday and then did the backstitching this morning. I think it turned out pretty cute! :)



Now, I am off to stitch on Fortunate Traveler for a bit! :)

Teaching Stitching

Last night my neighbor and her daughter were over visiting when Nan asked me if I would teach her how to cross stitch. She recently quit her job to stay at home full time with Dayza and decided she needs a hobby. We looked and found a very basic pattern for her to try and stitch. She picked out a little strawberry pattern that is only 20 by 20. When she left last night she had everything she needed to start working on it. That is the beauty of stash!

At lunchtime when I saw Nan she showed me that she had it finished and already went to Wal-Mart to buy some more Aida and floss! The strawberry looked really cute, too! I thought it was funny when Nan said that she made a small mistake and I didn't even notice it. In a little while she is coming over to look at my patterns for another one to stitch....Maybe I helped create another stitching addict. :)

I must be doing something right with my Christmas Cactus because it has some flowers on it! It only has about 10 flowers but that is doing great for me. It did have a few more but kitties attacked it one night when we were asleep. That is why he is on my craft table right now because the kitties know better than to get near the table.

November/December Goals

November Goals:

1. Mail my SBSRR fabric to Laurie.
**Sent and received.
2. Finish Lottery Exchange.
**It is finished and ready to mail.
3. Finish Unicorn and Fairy Magic.
**Finished all the stitching and most of the beads, waiting on a order of MH Crystal Treasures.
4. Work on ABC Bears.
**I finished up 2 and a half letters this month! Yeah!
5. Work on Collecting Shells.
**Worked on it for a couple of days and made some good progress.
6. Start on small gifts to family and friends for Christmas.
**Most of them are stitched up just waiting on some Kreinik VFB #4(again).
7. Have a great birthday
**Yep survived this birthday. :)
**I also finished Jo's Fabric for her RR

Yeah! I made all my goals this month and I even have a few days to spare.

December Goals:
1. Start and finish Renee's RR fabric.
2. Mail Jo's RR fabric to Renee.
3. Mail SB Lottery Exchange to the lucky winner.
4 Finish my Mom's birthday present and mail.
5. Finish Christmas presents to family and friends.
6. Finish Unicorn and Fairy Magic. (if the beads arrive in time)
7. Work on ABC Bears.
8. Work on Fortunate Traveler.
9 Start on Melissa's present for the SB Birthday Exchange.
10 Dye fabric for Woodland Faerie SAL in Jan.

I don't know if I will get all these goals accomplished or not but I am going to give it my best try. :)

Our Christmas Tree

We spent this afternoon putting up our Christmas tree. I thought we had a tree skirt but when we dug everything out of the closet I couldn't find it or the tinsel. Oh well, I am sure I will have to pick those up next time I go to the store. The kitties didn't even wait till we finished with the tree before trying to bat the ornaments down. My animals work together on destroying the tree every year. The cats are so nice to bat the balls down to the floor where the puppies are waiting for their turn at playing with them.

What To Do When The Power Goes Out

When I woke up this morning and went to put some water on the stove for my cup of hot cocoa (that is my coffee...lol) the power went out in the neighborhood. Needless to say it was a morning for the kids to play outside while I attempted to clean the house with the power out. The power was out for three hours this morning so when I realized that Mike and the kids had been outside for a long time I went to go see what they were doing. This is what my husband and my kids do when the power is out:

(from L to R: Mac, his best friend, and Allie)
They build a wagon!

( from L to R: Mac and his friend)

Happy Thanksgiving

I am glad that Thanksgiving only comes once a year! I was up at 5:00 am putting the turkey in the oven to cook and of course the rest of the time was spent getting the other stuff ready. Everything was finally ready around 11:30 am and believe me everyone was ready to eat. It was delicious! The best part is I don't have to cook anymore today.

Tomorrow afternoon will be spent rearranging the front room for the Christmas tree. I dread putting the tree up because the animals attack the tree whenever they can! Our tree looks good for maybe one day and then it slowly gets stripped of the ornaments. We have an artificial tree so they pretty much leave the tree itself alone. Sorry no real trees for us, we like to be able to breathe! All of us have severe allergies to pine trees and believe me it is not a pretty sight.

I haven't stitched much in the past few days since we have been getting ready for Thanksgiving and then on top of that I had to hem some suit pants for a friends dads' wedding on Saturday. That was a task in itself because whenever I am sewing something for someone I get extremely nervous that I am going to mess up so I end up taking twice as long as it would if I were doing it for someone in my family. On top of all that it was a white suit so I was worried about getting it dirty. I finished up around 9:30 last night with it all and was pleased with the results and so was my friend. Whew! Glad that is done.

I did work on FT yesterday at work I ran out of 420 for the border but I picked some up while I was doing some last minute shopping last night so I will be able to work on it later this afternoon.

SB Question of the Week

Today's "Stitching Blogger's Question" was suggested by Kimberly and is:

Do you always sign your projects? If not, why? If so, do you use your first name, initials or what?

When I first started stitching I would sign everything with the month and year. However, for the last couple of years I haven't been dating them. I have never used my initials because the letters I think my initials aren't pretty to stitch. I have been trying out different ways to stitch my first name but I haven't found a style I would like to use.

Last week I started stitching The fortunate Traveler by TW. I had planned on working on it last weekend but with having to take Kitty to the vet on Saturday threw a big wrench in my stitching plans. I tried to post this pic yesterday but for some reason it wasn't letting me.


I want to thank everyone for their concern over Kitty. I have never ever had to make that choice and I hope I don't ever have to again. I know it was for the best but I still can't help how bad I feel. Allie is taking it the worst. Kitty was her cat and now Allie has problems sleeping all night. The two would sleep together every night.

I guess the man upstairs new what was going on because that had to be the reason I was meant to find the little kitten. She is still quite wild but she is starting to put weight on her body. She has started to play with the other kitties and sleep with them which is a big relief to me. Hopefully, she will get to the point where she doesn't run and hide at every noise in the house.

Rest Well Kitty

You found your way to us as a stray and you became one of the family. It broke my heart to have to make the decision to let you go play in kitty heaven. I hope you and Jazzy are having fun now that you two are together again. I hope you have fun chasing birds and mice across fields because you deserve it. You will be missed by all of us very much and I don't think I am going to know what to do for awhile without your demanding attitude underneath my feet. We love you and are going to miss you.

Rest in Piece my kitty

Kitty
1/2001-11/2005

Ocean Blue

Yesterday I went out to the craft store to see if my beads for Unicorn and Fairy Magic was in but I was a little depressed to find out that they were not here yet so I didn't purchase much of anything except for some DMC floss I needed and some Mill Hill seed beads. After that was the usually hair pulling trip to Wal-Mart. When I got home I found out that Krissy was spending the night at a friends' house and Mac had a friend coming over to spend the night. There went my evening of calmness. I had wanted to start working on Renee's RR but I had to scratch that idea with the boys here tonight.

Instead of stitching I decided to dye some more fabric. I am planning on stitching Deepest Love by Mirabilia in January and I wanted the fabric to look like the ocean. I used the color Royal Blue to dye the fabric. I am not sure if I just like it or if I really like yet. lol

This week I was trying to work on Collecting Shells. It didn't go so well. I made some progress on it but my heart just isn't in this particular piece anymore. So what did I do to make myself feel better? I started stitching on The fortunate Traveler by TW. I am stitching it on 28 count white evenweave fabric. I haven't made enough progress to post a picture of it yet. All that I have been working on is the border around the dragon scene. I will be working on this one tonight since I just found out that Mac's friend will be here again tonight.

Here is the fabby:

SB Question of the week

Today's "Stitching Blogger's Question" was suggested by Kimberly and Lili and is:

How do you feel about staying totally true to a pattern? Do you feel that you have to rip out stitches to fix a mistake or do you feel it's acceptable to incorporate a mistake into the design?

I generally stitch according to the pattern, however, if it is a tiny mistake (a couple of stitches or so) I will adjust the pattern to make it like it isn't a mistake. Now if it is a big mistake, I will either rip it all out and start over or if it is way too big I will start the pattern all over from the beginning.

Happy Birthday to Me!

It's official I am thirty-something! So far (knock on wood) I have been having a great day. I have been lazy all morning and plan to stay that way the rest of the day. We don't have anything big planned tonight since it is a school night for the kids. Mike is cooking dinner (he won't tell me what) and then of course cake and ice cream. I hope our fire extinguisher works! :) After that I am going to watch and torture Mike watching 9 to 5 with Dolly Parton.

Thank you everyone for your warm birthday wishes and now I am off to be even lazier!

Christmas Spider Web

This weekend I worked on finishing some small ornaments. I stitched this freebie from San-Man Originals. I stitched this for Dayza next door. I know she is gonna love it because Mac and her go looking for bugs together. I stitched it on 32 count Belfast linen that I had left over from SBSRR. I the DMC colors of black and 898. I used Kreinik Blending filaments for the gold and silver. For the green (008) I used Kreinik Very Fine Braid #4.

Here is the front:

Here's the back:

Unicorn Ornie

I also finished this one up last night. I am keeping this one for me. :)

Birthday Presents

Today, the mail lady brought me a package from Renee for the SBBE. What better time with my new camera! :D Renee sent me a birthday card with 3 postcards. I love the post cards! They are so pretty and will go nice along with the others I have in my little collection. She also sent me a small tin of German chocolate. Yummy..they won't last long!

This is what was in the wrapped present!


Isn't this so cute?! I love everything about it. Renee did an awesome job on this for me. It already has a special home in my curio cabinet.

Here is the back of the pillow. The colors are so pretty! Thank you Renee, you are the bestest! :D