Happy 2012!

Happy New Year to everyone, and best wishes for 2012!

My 2011 stitching quite literally ended in mid-stitch. Phil called to tell me he'd been side-swiped on the interstate so I dropped everything. Luckily, he'd been able to get his car back under control and wasn't hurt in the accident. The guy who hit him had rolled his SUV, landed on all four tires, and for some utterly insane reason kept going. We're just very thankful the only damage was to Phil's car.

Anyway, here is my progress on Christmas is Forever...
I am so close to finishing! I only have a little of the blue in the top motif, four more letters, and the border left to stitch. This will definitely be my first WIPocolypse project! (Which for me will basically be The Great 2011 Crazy January Challenge Do-Over of 2012!)

And speaking of the CJC, I've been doing some catching up on my blog reading and see it is in full swing for 2012. At my pace I can only allow myself to participate once every three years! I do hope to sneak in a few new starts in the months to come, but for the most part my stitching will be WIPs, WIPs, and more WIPs! I have at least four baskets full of them, although I think most might be considered UFOs. I'll just dub them WIPUFOs and that way I can quit scratching my head about the difference between the two and get on with the stitching! Woohoo!

A couple more pictures before I go...

We have most of the deck finished on the house, and they've started hanging the siding. They've also started hanging the drywall inside which is super exciting! The rooms are starting to look like rooms! Phil and I got down with our DIY bad self's on Sunday and sound insulated the downstairs bedrooms and bathrooms. I don't think we could have picked a more perfect way to start the new year than working on a project like that together. And Phil couldn't have put it more aptly: It's his house, but it's going to be our home.

So Happy 2012! Let's live every week like it's Shark Week!

Season of Growth Progress

Won't be much longer 'til this one goes in the Fuppie Box!

Acorn Hill Cont.

Here's a quick pic to show my progress on Acorn Hill. As you can see, I've been working on the house. The roof was done by blending two different colors and I think it turned out pretty nifty.

Acorn Hill Progress

Finally had a chance to sit down and work on Acorn Hill a little tonight, but all I kept thinking about was how I need to start working on some Christmas projects. It's been pretty cold here lately so it may just be time to pack up the fall stitching and pull out my winter projects.

I Found My Thrill...

...on Acorn Hill!

One House Short of a Finish

Still plugging away on Season of Plenty. It'll almost be a shame to finish this one, I'm enjoying it so much. I'll have to go through my stash and see what other Little House Needleworks fall-ish patterns I might have.

One more week until Thanksgiving! Can you believe it? And I'm so happy I'll be able to celebrate it in my own home!

Thanks for visiting! I'll be back tomorrow with a finish!

Quick Progress Post

Whew! Cutting it close tonight to get my post in before midnight, so here's a quick pic of my progress on Season of Plenty. Shouldn't be too long before this one goes in the Fuppie Box!

The Sigh Heard 'Round the World

I thought I'd made some decent progress on Season Of Plenty tonight. And then I realized I'd used the wrong color green for the top part. Siiiiigggghhh! I sat there for a good 15 minutes contemplating ripping it all out and re-stitching it, but ultimately decided no one would ever know. Until I posted it on my blog of course, but then I know you guys will never tell, right? Mum's the word!

Daughter Sarah came for dinner and a movie tonight, so son Evan whipped up a delicious chicken curry. I'm glad he has the patience to follow one of those multi-stage recipes, otherwise we'd be eating one dish casseroles every night. He even made flatbread which I had to eat hot out of pan to the point where I was burning my fingers, but I swear that's when it's best!

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!

Bordering on a Finish

Been plugging away on Perched on a Pumpkin whenever I have a spare minute or two. I waffled back and forth with the one thread/two threads dilemna before finally deciding to go with two. It got a little crowded in places but I think it works well on this particular piece. Anyhoosie, all I have left is the border and this one can go in the win column! Woohoo!

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...

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!)

Finally!

Woohoo! I put the last white stitch in the house this afternoon! I'm so ready to move on to something that actually requires some counting! Luckily, I have plenty more little bits and pieces to finish on this one.

This weekend was the local Water Festival in Three Rivers. I was hoping they'd have a Tilt-a-Whirl which was my favorite ride growing up, but no such luck. I don't know if I would have paid $4 for a ride anyway. We visited the farmer's market and got some bread and home brewed root beer but that's about all that piqued my interest. I swear, I'm turning into such an old fart! A cheap one at that!

I hope everyone had a nice Father's Day weekend! We smoked a pork roast and made pulled pork sandwiches which we ate with cabbage, corn on the cob, and a most excellent orzo salad. Yum! (I'd post a picture if I had one, but y'all would just hate me, haha!)

A Better White

The consensus here was that the Shaker White looked better on the house than the Oatmeal. (Although if you ask me, the Shaker White looks far more oatmealier than the Oatmeal does. Go figure.)

Here's a quick pic of my progress:

I hope everyone had a chance to relax with some stitching this weekend! We've been having quite a bit of rain here but managed to sneak in some grillin' out at the lake Saturday evening. Poor little me who doesn't like brats had to make do with a steak... darn!

Someone in Kalamazoo won a $36 million lottery jackpot on Saturday. I had a momentary glimmer of hope because I'd given my daughter a dollar we'd found while shopping and told her to blow it on a lotto ticket. Alas, she hadn't bought one so there went my early retirement. And new car. And beach bungalow with a cozy stitching room. And stash. Lots of stash. It was mine in my head for about 30 seconds, though!

Thanks for visiting! I'll be back soon with another Winter Wonderland progress pic!

Awww Fuuuuuuudge!!!

I decided I needed some easy peasy mindless stitching to do tonight while I watched Bridget Jones's Diary. One needs to give a movie such as BJD one's full attention. Obviously. So I pulled a skein of thread out of my bag and commenced to filling in the white part of the house. Two hours later I had this:


Ten seconds after that I realized there were two different colors of white thread in my bag and I'd pulled out the wrong one. I can't decide whether to frog it or just continue using the wrong color. What do you think?

It's chilly here in my little candlelit hovel and I need my warm blankie so, as Bridget Jones would say, I'm off to Bedfordshire!