Lots and Lots of Green..

I've been caught in the cross-stitch fever this past couple of months. To be specific, the Teresa Wentzler cross-stitch fever. You know I stitched her Unicorn piece throughout the last fall, followed by a quick stich of hers - You Were Hatched.. Now I'm working on her Woodland Faerie piece. You can see the entire design here.

I'm really enjoying it. Lots of green to combat all the white snow outside my window. Here is a pic of where I was on Friday last week (2/26/11).

The top section of this picture constitutes 1/6 of the overall design. Let me tell you, that flowery border section is not fun! It's the most fiddly bits of stitching I've ever done. But it is so worth it in the end.

Of all the different greens you see in this shot, you wouldn't expect me to be coming up short on any one of them. However, I'm currently 1 strand of floss away from needing a new skein of 522. I can't believe I went through an entire skein of that already! Yeesh! Good thing green is my neutral ;)

I'm hoping I'll be able to get all the 'boring' green bits done before the snows disappear for the year. Then I'll have all the interesting animals and flowers on the bottom of the design to work on throughout the spring...we'll see how successful I am. Especially considering spring and summer seem to be my season to work on quilts....I know, I'm crazy. Winter is supposed to be quilting season! Who knows...

Another Happy Dance

I finished another Teresa Wentzler design last week. This is called You Were Hatched... and was a limited release in 2000. Unfortunately, I missed it back then, but thanks to a wonderful online friend that loaned the chart to me, I was able to stitch one for myself :)

I started this on 1/16/11 and finished it on 1/27/11. I plan to finish it as an ornament for our tree next Christmas. I stitched it on a scrap of hand dyed linen I found in my fabric drawer. I am NOT a fan of linen after this project. It wasn't so much the different size fabric threads that bothered me, but the lack of oomph in the fabric. I had to really watch my tension while stitching on it to make sure I didn't distort the fabric.

We are finally dug out of the blizzard of 2011. DH, The Insane Gardener and I spent about 8 hours total digging out our driveway, our elderly neighbors driveway and a few neighbors sidewalks. In fact, DH is back out there again cleaning up what the road crews just threw back onto the sidewalks....the neighbors all call DH the crazy snowman. In fact, a couple of them are blaming the blizzard on him, as he just loves playing with his snowblower so much...too funny :)

An Honest to Goodness Happy Dance!

I haven't had a happy dance in so long, I'm not sure I remember how it goes!




I finished Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn this week and I just love it! It's a very muted piece in terms of color, especially since it's on a black fabric. I expected it to "pop" more than it does. It just goes to show you that Teresa knows what she's doing ;)

DH helped me with the photography this time, I hope it's better than my attempts have been.

It's Been A While - Again...

I know it's been a while since my last post. The only excuse I have this time is the Holidays...they just fill up the calendar so quickly!

But I have been working on something in between all the Christmas events. I've gotten Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn to the point where I can start working on the unicorn itself! I left the unicorn for last as an incentive for me to get it finished. I got the entire lower right-hand side of the piece done in the last 2 weeks.

The picture is a bit blurry, but I'm not the photographer in the house, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.


The next shot is of my cousin Jennifer opening gifts with my nephew Grayson. He is 6 months old in this picture and it appears he isn't very impressed with his gift! LOL Maybe next year will be a better year for him.. (He did go home with some toys, don't worry)...

This next shot is one of my other nephew Kendrick at Thanksgiving this year. He is 2 1/2 years old and this is the first time he had seen Rudolph and he was enthralled :) Oh, and those socks? Kendrick's absolute favorite thing that day. He insisted that he wear them all day - and they had to be OUTSIDE his pants, so he could see them, of course!

This last shot I took last night. I had to include it as it is just so cute. The men in my life, sacked out and snoring together. DH doesn't know I took this picture, and Felix was so tired, he didn't even turn his head at the flash. I think it is just waaaay too cute.

I realize I haven't been posting very much lately. Things in the personal world have been a little crazy for me lately, and I seem to be going for days without working on any of my projects. Thankfully, the personal world has settled down a bit and I've been able to focus on the Christmas season.

DH and I have become friendly with a couple of new neighbors that moved into our neighborhood this past fall. One is a stay at home mom with 2 little ones and a husband that works away from home all week. The other is a young couple that are seriously into horses.

We've had the young couple over for dinner a couple of times, as well as gone out to their parent's farm to watch them train their horses. I'm really considering taking riding lessons. I've loved horses since I was a teenager (what teenage girl doesn't love horses?) but have never had the opportunity to be near them. There is even the possibility of my being able to work on the farm to pay for the lessons. How awesome - considering I don't have a job yet! I've been putting it off a little bit, as I'm learning that I'm very nervous around the huge beasts. I'm used to Pips and our 4 kitties....if they step on you or kick you, it's not a big deal! The plan is for me to continue to go out there with our new friends and get comfortable with the horses, then start working sometime in the spring or summer. And then the riding lessons start :) Yay!!

Ok, I should make this stitching related in some way...I've told you that I've been trying to teach myself how to knit while I'm on this work 'vacation'....I think I'm doing pretty well :) I found a pattern for a circular afghan in a book in the library - One skein Wonders, I think - and thought it would make a lovely tree skirt. Only problem was, I had never used dpn's. I didn't even own any. So, I haunted Etsy for a couple of days, coerced DH into letting me buy a set and waited for them to show up in the mail. When they finally did, I took off. And ripped it out. And started again. And ripped it out. And started again. This is how far I've gotten on the third attempt.

I'm a little further along in the pattern than this picture shows now - and things are going along much smoother than they did in the beginning. This has actually become my go-to project when I'm watching something on TV that DH likes and I don't....I don't think it'll be finished before this year's season is over, but I'm pretty sure I'll have it done before winter is over. My only concern now is if the circular needles are long enough. I'm starting to cram stitches around it and I'm only at the half-way point...eek!

Another thing I made recently is a new pincushion. I like these little cushions for use when I'm stitching in front of the TV. They work great when I'm working on my english paper piecing projects. I gave away my last one to a young girl that wanted to learn how to sew at our quilt bee last month, so I spent a couple of evenings getting a new one made up for me. This one is about twice as big as my last one, but I like that size - you can't lose it down the side of the chair when it's bigger!

The front...

The back...

The last thing I wanted to show you is this little working wall I put together a couple of months ago. I've got a large design wall that takes up an entire wall in my sewing room, but I wanted a small one near my sewing machine, somehow I thought that would be more convenient.

DH had some odd insulation bits in the garage, so I absconded with one about the size I wanted and took it upstairs. I wrapped it in a piece of fabric I had and pinned the edges down. Then I took a few pieces of heavy duty double-sided tape and stuck it to the wall. It's working out pretty well!

And here you can see it in my sewing corner. It's pretty convenient.

Again, I'm sorry I've been so absent lately. I'm hoping things will settle down with the new year and get more normal. We'll see...

Halloween Quilt closeups

I was reminded that I haven't posted here recently, so I thought I'd show you some closeups of the Halloween quilt I've been working on. It's still in the quilting stage, but it's getting there..

Here is a closeup of the mitered border - not too shabby...

Below are shots of the embroidered blocks in the quilt...

I've been spending a lot of time knitting on the afghan, lately, too. No pics of that yet... The snow is supposed to arrive tomorrow, so the time to snuggle up and get to work on a project is definitely arrived!

A Quick Update

We've been dealing with a lot of wind the last few days. The good news is we no longer have any leaves in our yard and our trees are leafless, so no more falling in the yard. The bad news is we had a couple of shingles fly off the kitchen roof yesterday. Thank God I have handy cousins that don't mind coming over to help us. DH and I are deathly afraid of heights. I swear if we ever buy another house, it will have to be a one story.

I've been working on the quilting of my Halloween quilt for the last couple of weeks. I don't think it will be finished with the binding on it by Sunday night, but I can at least hang it in the hallway for the day and finish it after the holiday. I'll show you how it looks when I get it done.

Everyone is coming over for trick or treating on Sunday. We're having a spaghetti dinner to give everyone the strength to make it through the evening. After dinner, DSis and DBiL are taking Nephew #1 out for his first real trick or treating excursion. Mom and Nephew #2 are staying with DH and I to hand out candy to the 300 kids we usually see each year. We go through a lot of candy!!! And there usually aren't any leftovers :( Not that I need to eat them - LOL

One last thing I want to share. I found this video on Deb's blog and fell in love! This kid is amazing!!! Enjoy :)