May WIPocolypse Report & A Happy Dance

Another month has sped by and it's time for my May WIPocolypse update! We saw the beginnings of my VoHRH Block 4 last month, and this month we get to see if finished!

I'm going to have to restitch the goat-dog-animal on the right because he blends in with the fence too much. I'm using the Vikki Clayton HDF conversion and sometimes the colors need a little tweaking.

Here is a shot of the whole sha-bang so far. I'm 1/3 of the way done now!

Back in March, Phil treated me to a trip to House of Stitches in LaPorte, IN. I'd bought the Winter, Autumn, and Summer charts from Blackbird Designs and wanted to find just the right linen to stitch them on. I chose a lovely piece of 36-count linen in Lentil from Lakeside Linens, and we also picked out the fibers for all three patterns. Phil got to learn about dye lots and why, if I thought I needed more than one skein of a certain color, I should buy them all at the same time. The shop ladies had a lot of fun with him being there, that's for sure!

I got started on stitching Winter right away, but being a 36-count linen I had my usual dilemma of whether to use two ply of thread or one. I did some sample stitching in both and everyone I showed it to said to go with two ply. I wasn't convinced that was what I wanted to do, thinking the stitches would look a too crowded and that maybe I should go with one ply for a more delicate look. A month later I still hadn't made up my mind! This was a project I'd been foaming at the mouth to stitch, and it had become a cat mat! (Doesn't matter where you hide it, they'll find it!)

When May rolled around I knew I needed to shake the cat hair off the linen and make a decision once and for all, otherwise all those carefully selected fibers were in danger of finding their way into other project bags. I'm stitching with two ply since that is what everyone agreed looked best. I worked on it for a bit last night and so far I'm loving it. Here's my progress so far (you can see the letter P still stitched with one ply.)

That's all the stitching I have to share this month. We've been super busy with last minute details on Phil's house. He'll be closing this month so we're plenty excited!

I'm looking forward to checking out everyone's progress for May! I hope I wasn't the only bad girl who started a new project!

Their Song... Framed!

I have been horribly remiss in sharing my Mother's Day gift with everyone! My sweet (and totally generous!) children had Their Song framed for me! I'm positively thrilled with how it turned out! The last time I had something professionally framed was back in a year that began with 19... so it's been a while! They couldn't have picked a more perfect gift for me!

Happy Dancing to Their Song

Their Song
by Blackbird Designs
stitched on 28 ct. Apple Brown Bindy by R&R Reproductions
with WDW fibers
Yes! It is finally done! I had to look back through my blog archives to see when I started this one and I discovered it was my first new start of 2009. Now it gets to be my third finish for 2011. I'd have to do some more checking but I believe this is also my third Blackbird Designs finish. I only wish I'd discovered them sooner as the prices for some of the out of print charts are more than I can afford. I'll keep hoping to find a deal on Ebay!

Next in the Q-Snaps will be my Village of Hawk Run Hollow. I got the first willow tree done on Block 2 easy peasy, but for some reason I'm going cross eyed with the second one. I'm having so much trouble I'm starting to doubt I stitched the first one correctly! But if it is wrong I'm not about to restitch that thing! So why do I keep looking for a mistake? It's like some sort of stitchy psychosis!

Still no sign of spring here. We're stuck in an infinite loop of snow, melt, refreeze, snow, melt, refreeze. My daughter took this picture of a cedar waxwing in a tree near her apartment trying to eat the frozen berries.


We've been refilling our feeder daily, trying to keep up with the appetites of our local sparrows and cardinals. It was getting a little expensive so we started feeding them the bulk sunflower seeds from the grocery store instead of the fancy cherry-flavored blend. Luckily our guys are not picky eaters. In fact, I've noticed quite a few more finches than we had before and they are some of my favorites, along with the little chickadees.

Today is Thursday and that means it's spaghetti night! (Missy, if you read this, I still use the sauce recipe you sent me so many years ago!) I must be getting ready for a second hiberation or something because my appetite has been out of control this last week. A sure sign that winter isn't over yet... darn!

Thank you all for stopping by! Here's hoping you have your own finish to report soon!

For Lack of Some Moss

I worked on Their Song over the weekend but it remains unfinished for the time being. That single length of WDW Moss is all I have left and it isn't going to be enough. When I bought the fibers for this chart I didn't realize I would need two skeins of Moss and Havana. Luckily I had the Havana in my stash so I was able to finish up all of those bits. And I could swear I'd bought some Moss knowing I was going to need it, but I couldn't find it in any of the usual places. Today might be the day I actually do some organizing around here!

We've been thrown face first back into winter here in SW Michigan. Yesterday started with snow, which then turned to snow and sleet, which then turned to rain and ice. We're back to snow today and it's a mess out there. There are reportedly 85,000 homes in the area without power. I know ours went out at some point during the night because all the digital clocks were flashing this morning. I am counting my blessings because this old house gets pretty darn cold when the furnace isn't running.

Have y'all checked out the new releases from the Nashville market? ABC Stitch has a nice list of them here. My wishy-wanty list has been growing over the last couple of days!

Hope everyone is staying warm, especially if you're in the midst of this latest wintry mess! Thanks for stopping by!

Their Song Progress

I pulled Their Song out of my UFO basket on Friday and immediately discovered why I stopped working on it. Somewhere among the leaves and cherries was a mistake. It turned out to be one of those things that fudging would only make worse, so I did some frogging and restitching and now everything is as right as rain. My goal over the weekend was to get the tree and blackbird finished which I happlily accomplished except for the cherry stems which are backstitched. I don't know about you guys but backstitching? I need to be in the right mood for it!

Since Monday was Valentine's Day I celebrated by stitching some of the red bits. I am officially on the second page now and was thinking I'd finish this up by the end of the week. I know that sounds crazy for slow stitchin' me but anything's possible!

We've had temps above freezing this week and the snow is melting everywhere. We can finally see over the mountains of snow at the foot of the driveway when we're backing out! Is spring arriving early this year?

It's a Finish!

Witch Hazel

from Tis Hallowe'en by Blackbird Designs

Witch Hazel

As proof that I still stitch...
I was hoping to finish this little stocking tonight but as usual I overestimated the speed at which I stitch. I am a pokey little puppy. With way too many distractions. But I did finish my leafy labor today so that's one big job I can cross off my to do list. Our weather is supposed to be cold and rainy the next couple of days so I'm happy we got it done while it was still relatively nice outside. Tomorrow we'll be back to unpacking boxes and looking for things like the remote for the DVD player and my crock pot. Cold rainy weather demands that something be cooked in a crock pot!

I'm off to Bedfordshire! Good night and may God bless!

Happy Dancing on a Pumpkin

Perched on a Pumpkin
Blue Ribbon Designs
Stitched with DMC on 36-count Summer Khaki linen
I finished the border the other night while watching The Shawshank Redemption (which is easily one of my top ten favorite movies), so this guy now resides in the Fuppie Box. I'll have my sewing machine back in my possession in a couple of weeks so I'm hoping to get a couple of projects finished finished before Halloween.

I've had the Halloween stocking booklet from Blackbird Designs in my stash for a while so I think it's about time to pick one to stitch. I've looked through it a few times already and out of the 13 designs there's probably 12 I want to do. Suffice to say, it's going to be a hard choice!


House projects continue. We got the shelves cut and installed in the bathroom. At last! That was one of those projects which kept getting put off so it feels really good to finally have it done. All it lacks now is some trim work and that room will be complete. Oh, and a toilet paper holder that I like and is what I would call 'reasonably priced'. It's really hard to justify spending $21 for this particular item.

Here they are in all their glory:


And this is what lurks behind the wall:


We built this little cubby so we could conveniently pull electric lines and duct work to the second floor. The only heat up there was from it rising through grates in the floor which apparently was how it was done back in the day. I'm sure it kept it acceptably warm for most people but I can just imagine how hard it would be to crawl out from under the covers on cold mornings. This Southerner likes it warm and cozy so when we replaced the furnace we went ahead and installed duct work and vents upstairs. (And that, dear readers, is a horror story for another day!)

Thanks for stopping by! Have a happy Monday!

A Sorta Finish

I have A Wish For You finished except for the personalization. Our family doesn't have a single birthday or anniversary in March. There's been no significant events unless you count my gall bladder surgery in 1986 and I don't think that's very sampler worthy. I'll set this one on the back burner for now until I have a Eureka! moment.

You may notice I made a couple of changes. I decided to make the bunny white(ish) instead of brown because our little bunster, Alice, is white(ish). I also left the letter off the door because a) I didn't like it or b) I had the darn thing stitched before I noticed I'd made a mistake and didn't want to re-do it. Take your pick!

My son pointed out to me that I forgot to give the bunny an eye. I can't tell you how many times I've done that with eyes. You'd think I'd learn!

Last night I started one of the Halloween ornaments from Just Cross Stitch. There were several I wanted to stitch so I did a 'random drawing' and here's our winner:This is Boo Bunny from The Victoria Sampler. I do love me some bunnies! I don't think I'll be stitching many bats this Halloween after our recent close encounter with the beasties! (Although, the next time I'm being chased around the house by a bat I hope to have enough sense to just run outside.)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day weekend! I'm a summer person so I hate to say goodbye to long, warm days. Of course, we have fall stitching to look forward to so I can take comfort in that.

Thanks for stopping by!

Vase and Vine

I'm zipping right along on A Wish For You! The vase has been re-stitched in it's proper place, and it's viney vegetation is almost complete. I'll get the leaves (or are they flowers?) stitched next and then it might be time to tackle the over one verse. Better double up on the ginkgo biloba and get my frog swatter out before I do!

We've had a couple of days in the 70s here with the temps dipping into the 40s at night. Time to rediscover the oven! I made a cozy chicken and wild rice casserole for dinner the other night, and this morning we had blueberry muffins. (If I ever wrote a book it's title would have to be "Eat Eat Eat", although I don't expect Julia Roberts to be too enthusiastic about playing the role of the main character after I sell the movie rights!) (Have you ever wondered who would play you in a movie??)

Quite pleased with the Rangers performance the past few days. They played a four game series against the Twins and won three out of the four. I was able to watch two of the games on TV which was doubly nice since they were home games and I got to see my beloved Ballpark at Arlington! Triply nice if you consider I spent the duration of both games working on my stitching! My version of bliss!

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by to visit!

Two Steps Forward

This is all I have to show for a weekend of stitching. Two steps. The rest of what I did falls under the heading of "Three Steps Back". Yep. The dreaded Frog came to visit me Saturday. He quietly hopped in and hid until I had finished the entire vase on the right hand side and had started on the green vine. I could tell something wasn't quite right when I picked it up again on Sunday. I looked at the chart, looked at my stitching, looked at the chart, looked at my stitching, back and forth for a good ten minutes before... Oh %@#$! Everything was four stitches too high because I hadn't finished the very bottom part of the house before working my way over to the vase. (Because, hey, I wanted some brainless stitching to do while I watched The Gladiator. Russell Crowe... what can I say?)

I had intended to finish the windows on the house but the two threads I have for the frame and panes (Onion Skin and Harvest Basket) are so close together in color that instead of a window it just looked like a beige rectangle. So along with the vase and vine, the one window I filled in was de-stitched last night. I managed to keep my grumbling to a minimum and hopefully I'll be back to making some progress on this piece tonight.

I must warn you, however: the where-abouts of the Frog are unknown (cue foreboding music).

Housework

The walls are complete!

Cloudy day today with rain threatening. I really should get those windows done!

Brick and Brittle

It's been slow but steady stitching on A Wish For You. I'm loving this checkerboard house! The red is Old Brick, so perfectly varigated and bricky looking. And who wouldn't want to fill the gaps in between with Peanut Brittle?!

I'm off to get my hair cut! I made it a point to tell them I only needed an appointment for a trim. It reduces the chance that I'll come home with cute bangs and pink highlights.

Have a great day, y'all!

The Weekend Report

I had such a pleasant weekend!

It started Saturday morning with a trip to LaPorte, IN for the Midwest Stash Exchange at House of Stitches. It's about an hour and a half drive for me but well worth the trip. I saw so much I wanted to buy but had to exercise some restraint. It'd be a long walk back to Three Rivers if I spent my gas and toll money on stash! One gal had some great bargains on Shepherd's Bush kits, but the one item I kept picking up and putting back down was The Riddle by The Drawn Thread, all kitted up with fabric and silks. I tried my best to justify it as a 'house expense' but in the end I had to pass. I wish I'd had the sense to get her name and email address! I'll be crying myself to sleep over that one for a while!

Got back home around 2:00 and after a quick trip to the grocery store we went out to the lake to grill burgers and putt around on the pontoon boat. Anyone else have the feeling we're in for an early fall? Maybe it's just all the back to school ads I keep seeing, but I feel like summer's almost over and I need to spend as much time outside and eat as much potato salad as I can.

Sunday was a lazy day, doing a few chores and taking care of paperwork. We made Tex-Mex rice for dinner and had it with leftover taco meat and fixin's from Friday's dinner. Deee-lish! I would have sat outside on the front porch to eat it but we seem to have attracted every cat in the neighborhood this past week. We'd been putting a little bowl of kitty krunchies out for a stray and it didn't take long for the news to spread. I had three of them lined up and waiting for breakfast this morning at 6:00 AM!

I found some time to stitch Sunday evening and got a little more done on A Wish For You. It finally dawned on me to stitch all the windows and the door so I wouldn't make any mistakes with the checkerboard part (hopefully). Why didn't I think of that before?


It's back to the drywall and sweating through my undergarments today. What a pretty picture that must paint! There's no AC upstairs and it's stiffling hot in the closet we're working on. I'll be soooo happy when we get it finished.

Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend and had time for some stitching and potato salad!

Sweet Popcorn in a Bag!

(The title of my post is something we heard being shouted by a vendor selling kettle korn at the Ballpark in Arlington. We now use it as a sort of expletive as in, "Sweet popcorn in a bag! It's hot today!") (Yeah, we're weird.)

Not much progress to report on A Wish For You but I have an excuse! We took a break from all things 'house-renovation-y' and visited the Shipshewana Flea Market in Indiana. What a fun place to spend a day! I wish I'd taken my camera! (Because what this blog needs is more evidence of my lack of photography skillz, right!?!)


I've used some of our purchases from Yoder's Meat and Cheese Company to prop up my q-snaps for the picture. I could easily spend my monthly grocery budget there on cheese alone! And yes, that's a bag of kettle korn, or "crack-korn" as Edgar likes to call it. It is addictive, that's for certain! We had ourselves a Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving type of dinner last night, feasting on cheese and crackers, and kettle korn. Not sure what we'll have tonight but I know it'll involve cheese!

Don't even mention the Rangers to me! They blew a 6-1 lead over the Yankees last night, losing 7-6. I'm sure the neighbors must have heard me yelling at the TV and wondered what was going on! (And true story... my daughter woke me up at 2am one night in TX to tell me there was a roach in her room. The neighbors must have thought some horrible crime was being committed because after 15 minutes of us screaming while we tried to kill the damn thing there came a knock at the door. All I can say is some folks don't have much of a sense of humor at 2am! Maybe they were just trying to politely ignore that I was dressed in Hawaiian luau print boxer shorts and had monkey slippers on my feet!)

Oy! Half the day is gone and all I've managed to accomplish is measuring for shelves in the bathroom. Does that even count as work?

I think it's time for a snack...

Two New Projects

A heartfelt thank you to everyone for the sweet comments on my Winter Wonderland finish! It's so nice to hear from folks who stop by my little corner of the webbernet!

As promised, I started A Wish For You. I started with the easy peasy part of the checkerboard house but I'm going to have to start being careful because some of it looks a bit tricksy when you get around the windows and door. It might behoove me to pop over to the library tomorrow and make a working copy of the chart. I can just see me getting off by one set of squares and then spending three days scratching my head trying to find the mistake. Anyhoosie, here's how she's lookin' after last night's stitchin':


I also have another DIY project in the works. This time it's an upstairs closet that needed some 'revision'. The sheetrock on the walls was about 1/4" thick and full of holes. I swear, the stuff they used was more like cardboard than sheetrock. And when I say holes I don't mean nail holes. These were more like somebody put their fist through the wall. Again and again.


I'd never be happy with just patching the stuff and hoping it looked okay, so out it all came.


We're taking the opportunity to put in some insulation while we can. The only insulation in this house is in the attic, and I know this is just a closet but the way I look at it is every little bit helps, especially up here in the frozen north. I'd hate to not make the extra effort to do it and then regret it later on.


In closing, my work gloves (yes, I know they're actually garden gloves but I like them because they're thicker than the cloth ones but not as thick as the heavy duty leathery type) would like to offer a round of applause to all of my bloggy friends, commenters, followers, stitchers, and DIY'ers!

Hooray! And thanks for stopping by!

Happy Dancing in a Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland
Blackbird Designs
Fabric: 30 ct. Dark Chino linen from R&R Reproductions
Fibers: Weeks Dye Works & Gentle Arts
I'm happy to report that Winter Wonderland is finally finished! At least I hope it is! Twice I've thought I was done only to find a few stitches I missed. Chances are there's one or two more!

Next project in my to do pile? Another BBD! I've had A Wish For You kitted up and waiting in the wings for almost as long as I've been working on Winter Wonderland. I can't wait to get started!

Almost There!

All that's left to stitch are the bits and pieces in this corner and I'll be finished with Winter Wonderland! I swear someone's going to have to super glue me to the chair first because I'm just not gettin'er done! I must have an acute case of finish phobia! Is there a cure??

Whoa!

That's what I said when I pulled Winter Wonderland out of the q-snaps to take a progress picture. I've only been able to stitch a little bit here and a little bit there, but goodness! It's growing! I had to stand on a bucket of drywall mud (everyone has a 5 gallon bucket of mud in their kitchen, right?) in order to fit it all in the picture. And while I was up there I had to do a little jig because I'm just soooo excited to be this close to finishing!

In other news, Michigan is now home to it's very own oil spill. An estimated one million gallons of crude oil seeped into the Kalamazoo River from a broken pipeline that is almost as old as I am (don't ask!) and is now on it's way to Lake Michigan.

Booms have been set up to contain the spill ...
and critters are getting baths...
Let's all hope they're able to clean this mess up soon!

I've totally lost my bloggy momentum so here's a quick progress pic of Winter Wonderland. I'm fairly confident I'll finish it this year so I went ahead and stitched 2010 for the date. Just hope I didn't jinx myself! Does the '2' look a little big to you? I goofed and made it one stitch too tall. I need to have at least one mistake, right? So I'll leave it in and avoid the dreaded double jinx!

Gonna go watch the end of the Rangers game. They're playing Detroit so we have it on a local channel. One of the many things I miss about Texas is being able to catch a Rangers game on TV. I don't follow them as close as I used to but they're still my team! Heck, one of my very first cross stitch projects was the Texas Rangers logo! (It's changed a lot since then!)