I didn't get a whole lot of stitching done last night but she is slowly coming alive. I am stitching her on 28 count Charles Craft Monaco evenweave fabric that I hand dyed using tan Rit dye. It is all Carol's fault. :) I really didn't stitch on anything other than white fabric until I started reading her blog. She has some of the most beautiful fabric that I have ever seen! Then after seeing Renee's and Christine's hand dye jobs I decided to try it myself. I found that I really like to dye my own fabrics. It makes me feel more like an artist.


The kids are back to their normal school routine. Krissy is waiting for her clarinet to be delivered from the music store in Jackson. She is excited and I am stocking up on cotton balls! Allie is getting all geared up for her VIVA/ARTS class. Mac has not got into trouble (yet) at school. He did bring home his first spelling test and got a 102%.

Things have been hectic at work lately. My boss finally clued me in as to what is going on and it is definitely a good thing. I can't say too much because nothing is definite and I don't want to jinx myself. :) Hopefully, I will find out for sure in the next couple of weeks but until then I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Progress At Last

Yippie! I made progress on Collecting Shells and no mistakes this time. I will stitch on Collecting Shells until I get to the backstitching and then set it aside for a little while and work on something else.



I have signed up for a couple of exchanges and another round robin on Becky's Board. I am in the Halloween Exchange which is moderated by Jo, the Birthday Exchange is moderated by Nicki, and a Round Robin moderated by Renee. I think these will keep me busy for awhile! I have already begun my stitching for the Halloween exchange but it isn't final until I get my person's name(should be in the next day or two) and make sure they will like the design.

Back To School!

Tomorrow is the first day of school for the kids. Whoo hoo for me. I will get some peace and quiet even if it is only a few short hours. I spent most of the afternoon at Open House for my son's second grade class. The teacher he got this year is a good teacher. Allie had her when she was in second grade and we didn't have any problems with her. Allie got the same teacher as Krissy had last year. Her teacher is also a good teacher. In case you are wondering, the school allows for the parents to choose their child's teacher. You get to choose 5 teachers and they will try to place them in the class you choose first. We have always gotten the teacher that we have choose as number one. My kids have had all the same teachers for every grade so far. This year Krissy gets to switch classes so I don't get to choose her teachers anymore.

Since Geisha got ruined I have had a hard time getting motivated to start stitching again. I did manage to get some stitching in on Collecting Shells this morning at work. I was going to work on Geisha for the next 2 weeks but since she is gone I am not for sure what I will work on. Maybe I will start TW's Woodland Faerie, I do have some fabric I dyed Golden Yellow that it would look great on. It is something to think about but hopefully tomorrow afternoon before the kids get out of school I can make a run to the craft store. Since I will already be there I might just have to browse around the patterns and see what treasures I can find.

Count Down Has Begun....

The countdown has begun! The kids have one week(Aug 5) until they return to school. Whoo hoo! This however, means I have been doing a lot of back to school shopping and since I have two girls that means we have had to endure a fashion show every night of their new clothes. I find it hard to believe that they are going to be in 6th, a 5th, and a 2nd grade.

I have been stitching on Collecting Shells this week. I got her face stitched and working on her hair right now. However, I can not decided if I like the colors of the hair of not. As it is right now it looks awful funny or at least I think it does. I would have put up a picture but my camera has decided to go on strike.

I started using a rotation about a month or so ago and I am not for sure if I like it or not. I am getting about the same amount of work done but I feel like I haven't accomplished anything. Before I started using a rotation I had 2 categories for my stitching......Stitching and Backstitching. I would work on a piece in 2 separate phases but I didn't place a time limit or goal for my self. I guess that was kind of a rotation itself. I don't know if I will stay with the rotation or not but you can be sure that I won't quit stitching!

Starting Collecting Shells

This weeks' rotations schedule was to work on and finish SBRR. I knew that I would so I planned to stitch on ABC Bears as the back up. I managed to stitch almost 4 letters for a grand total of six letters stitched this month. My original goal for the month of July was to stitch 8 letters( 4 letters each week), however after stitching for 2 weeks regularly I decided that my goal of four letters per week was pushing myself to hard. So for next month I will lower my goal to 3 letters per week.

Today I am starting a new pattern that I got from my kids. It is called Collecting Shells by Nancy Cole. The finished size will be 12" x 16 1/4". I am stitching it on tan evenweave fabric. I dyed the fabric myself using Tan dye from Rit Dye. This pattern has a lot of 1/2 stitches so I will have to double check my work often to make sure I get it right other than that I don't foresee a whole lot of trouble...but you never know!

Anniversary Gift

Today is a happy dance day for me! Today Mike and I have been married for 12 years.( A whole dozen!) It does not seem that long but yet there are times when it does seem like that long. Anyways my kids surprised me with a gift this morning. They bought me this pattern called Collecting Shells by Nancy Cole. I had seen this one before and had made a comment that I really liked it because the little girl reminded me of myself when I was that age. Since we did not live near the ocean I did not get to hunt for sea shells but instead I would look for clam shells at the lake. This now gives me a good reason to make a re-supply run to the craft store and by more stuff.

I have finally picked out the theme for my RR. I have chosen dragons from the 2004 Generosity/Elemental Series from Dragon Dreams. My post date is not until September 1 but I have a feeling I will be done well in advance. I am really excited about doing this RR.