First Finish of 2012!

It's old Jolly Jack that I finished a couple of days ago.

Next on my WIPocalypse list is Autumn Circle by SanMan Originals, a design from last year's Merry Members of the SanMan board. I don't know if this is suitable for a biscornu, but I'm thinking if it is, this will be my first.

WIPocalypse - First Full Moon Report

I'm so close to being finished with this that it hurt to put it down, but I have to get up early tomorrow. I need to get my beauty rest you know. I'll be so glad to get my fall stitching out of the way. It seems a bit funny to be looking at Halloween stuff this time of year, but here it is. Oh! And we're all still stitching away at the first full moon of 2012, prophesied to be the last year of the earth. I don't know about you, but I'm glad that so far, I'm still stitching!

My progress on Jolly Jack before WIPocalypse stitching began:

And just some berries on the around the leaves with the color in the needle on the Halloween needle minder, my signature, and the table scallops filled in with a light color, then onto another of my WIPs to finish.

Sooo... if I don't see you sooner, the next full moon of 2012 will be February 7 when I report again. Happy stitching by the light of the moon!

A New Year, A New Blog Post!

I lost my connection with my photos because of one of my guilty kitties knocking off my external hard drive onto the floor and up under my desk lower shelf, and it's a long story, but I was unaware it was even missing for some time but couldn't figure out why I had lost all my pix. I had forgotten I had my own external hard drive and thought my pix were on my husband's HD because we're networked. I told you it was a long story, so I'll stop right here. I hope your holidays were happy, but there were many whose holidays were sad. It's a tough part of the year for many, and I feel for them.

Since October, a lot has gone on, and because I thought I had also lost the software to my camera (another long story), I didn't get progress pix and stash pix taken, so I'll have to start from here, though not a lot of stitching was done because of my Dad's stroke. He's been in and out of the hospital, in and out of the nursing home, and it has been a nightmare.

I was on several exchanges this holiday seasons, and one in town with my stitch group. Although I didn't get a photo of the ornament I stitched, I have taken a pic of the one I received in the ornament exchange:

In The Stitch Specialists Yahoo group, I sent to a girl from France, and in return Niina from Finland sent to me some delicious chocolates (gone), a beautiful set of Fiskars scissors, two pieces of hand-dyed fabric, a hand-dyed skein of floss dyed locally, a Lizzie Kate chart, and best of all, a hand knitted ball ornament! Thank you, Niina, for a lovely Christmas exchange!

I had one exchange on a Yahoo group who didn't follow through with her end of the exchange and was banned from the group and reported to Tricky Traders 2, and it turns out she already had two reports against her, BUT! The Christmas spirit was alive this season, as 3 members of the same group sent me things to make up for the bad deed of the banned member. One member, Faith, sent me a gift certificate to 123 Stitch (unredeemed as yet), Lisa sent me a primitive snowman ornament snowman decals, and snowman socks - cutest I've ever seen:

Another member, Pam, sent me a ton of DMC, a musical Charlie Brown Christmas card, snowmen findings, a nice, thick huck towel for cross stitching, and a full-sized snowman stocking. Thank you, Pam. With friends like the 3 of you, who needs deadbeats?

Then, the mods of The Stitching Specialists Yahoo group exchanged gifts with one another, and these great gifts were the result:

This I bought with a gift certificate from Abi, group owner/designer in England. I'm in love with Autumn Splendor by Kustom Krafts!

Goodies from Kay in England. Good English recipes, tea towels, napkins, and a long necklace of stones.

Goodies from Marguerite, a British transplant now in Arkansas. Waterlilies silk, Bohin needles, fabric, RPTB, and Kelmscott needle minder - wonderful!

Then, from a new friend in Australia, Mel, came this wonderfully delightful full 1/2 yard of very wide Weeks Dye Works 30ct hand-dyed linen in the color Parchment, which was on my wish list. Thank you, Mel, for your friendship and for your totally unexpected generous gift out of nowhere!

But in the stitching department, this project will be my first one worked on for Measi's WIPocalypse, which can be read about in my blog's page (above tab), 2012 WIPocalypse. My list, with links for information can be found on that page.

I actually did work on some fall things which never got finished, therefore the WIPocalypse, and I will be posting more later. For now, I've had a hard day and am very tired and ready for bed.

I'm very glad to be able to blog again and share what I'm doing. Hope to see what you are all up to this new year!

Amber at the Vet

The last couple of days I've noticed that my six-year-old orange tiger, Amber, has changed her potty habits. I can always tell when she has a UTI because of her changes. Usually, it gets pretty far advanced by the time I notice. She'll find another place to pee, associating the litter pan with pain. This time, we were able to nip it in the bud, as she was only using the larger pan with the dome over it, and was just peeing on the extra part of the liner that sticks up out of the litter, and under it was a big pile of clumped litter, so I had a sneaking suspicion. It's a chronic condition for her. I took her to the vet for a urinalysis, and she only had a few drops, but our vet is an expert at extracting drops from her. She spun it down, and sure enough, at the bottom were a few bacteria, the very beginning of infection.

Amber is a very high-strung kitty (which is partly why she is so prone to UTIs), and a trip to the vet is a major upheaval in her life. She knew the moment her carrying thing came out of its hiding place in the unfinished part of the basement and immediately hid under a bed. After chasing her upstairs and down, and finally trapping her into one bedroom, after prying her from under the bed, she emerged a whipped cat, limp as a dishrag. She was as good as dead - breathing hard as though she were clinging to the vestiges of life. She came to life as I was cramming her into the carrier, and suddenly, she grew to twice her size in diameter, preventing me from getting her into the hole. I pushed and shoved, sweating like a pig after the chase, cursing all the while. I'm not sure how I finally managed to shove her in and close the door. In the car on the way, she protested loudly the entire way, and through gritted teeth, I assured her everything would be just fine and dandy.

When we got to the vet's office, she went limp again and was barely clinging to life, and I managed a couple of shots of her with my cell phone on the cat room countertop; also the picture on the wall. As you can see, she didn't have the strength to hold up her head.

We ended up with an antibiotic to clear up the infection, and a $75 bill to pay. I ditched the carrier for the trip home, and Amber rode on the console, constantly checking to see where we were. When we got close to home, she got more & more lively and leapt out of the truck when we entered the garage and went right to the door to her domain.

She has forgiven me and has been completely resurrected.

A Review

A few weeks ago, I received a surprising email from a nice person named Yiota, living in the UK, who wanted me to review one of her cross stitch kits. She's interested in getting more traffic and interest in her website and wanted me to choose a kit, which she would send to me free of any charge to open, inspect, and review on my blog. She had happened upon my blog and had decided that this would be a good medium from which to get her website better known. I poured over her site, which I never knew existed before and was delighted with the variety. I had several picked out but eventually asked my husband to help me. I had picked several artists' work charted for cross stitch, but when I showed him the one he decided on for me, he said it looked more like something I would choose to stitch, so I let Yiota know I wanted the following:

This is how the kit appeared when I turned it over to the back:

And this is what I found when I totally opened the kit and spread the contents:

The first thing I noted as a plus was that the floss was wound on numbered cards. My only kit-buying experience has been with floss that needed sorting or pre-sorted floss in strands; never already wound and ready to start stitching. A definite advantage to the cards is that, should the stitcher be short on a floss color, the instructions have a key that names the DMC colors that can be replenished should frogging take place and floss becomes in short supply. That is a definite plus for me.

While there is a piece of white aida with needle inserted, and I prefer working on evenweave or linen, it's true in this particular design that the design is solid and would not show the "blocks" of the aida that I, myself, do not care for. When I brought this up to Yiota, she replied that her company is in the process of offering the option of evenweave over aida for those who prefer stitching on that. Although I didn't want to show the chart in detail, for fear of copyright infringement (dishonest people blowing up the photo and charting it themselves); however, I did find it to be clear and easy to read, in black and white, and similar to Heaven and Earth Designs' charts. I would probably enlarge both Yiota's charts and HAED charts for my own personal preference, as I'm not young any more and do experience vision problems because of an autoimmune problem. I also appreciate that there are no fractional or half stitches; this chart is all full cross stitches.

I hope I have covered all that applies to my lovely kit. I would say that it is far superior to kits I have bought in the past. The carded floss is the single most appealing feature and most conducive to immediate stitching when received. The overall quality of contents is excellent.

Time To Blog

I don't know what has happened to my good intentions to blog regularly, but it has gone the way of my fall cleaning, washing windows, and even stitching every day! I have one finish that I took the time to photograph today, though I have other stitching to show that I have yet to take the camera to. I'm not sure what the problem is with me. I'd say spring fever, but I am enjoying the cooler temps and the beginning-to-turn leaves, and to top it off, this is the first day of fall. Yay!!! I do so love fall, but the problem is that it doesn't last that long, and then we're heading into the holidays, which is simply unbelievable. Part of my problem is that I'm so into The Stitch Specialists Yahoo group since I became a moderator, and I love my job there. It's time consuming, but it's work I love. The pay isn't so great but the comaraderie is tops. I have made some of the loveliest friends there one could ever have. The group is dedicated to specialty stitches and pulled thread work, or hardanger, and it stretches one's blah, blah comfort zone to reach out and embrace Abi Gurden's designs. Her instructions are to-die-for, and beginners who have never used anything but aida will be mastering specialty stitches on linen/evenweave before they know what hit 'em. What I have pictured here is Abi's Tree of Stitches, and though I joined late in April after the SAL was underway, I just finished mine and put the finishing beads on the last couple of days. I decided on a "busy" tree with different colored beads and a little bling with a couple colors of beads and a pastel falling of leaves in a completely different color of leaves than the rest of the tree. There are so many different versions and interpretations of each and every tree, it's fun and relaxing to see the photos section of the group. In the few months that I have been there, the group has grown from 100 members to nearly 400, and by the first anniversary, I predict we will be heading toward 500 members. Below is my own version of the wildly popular Tree of Stitches:

I have selected my fabric and a couple of fibers for the newest SAL, The Great Escape. I have also started a fall-themed design, of which I need to get a picture. I have done the August bird in OakHavenDesigns Bird SAL, but haven't yet taken a photo. I have the chart for both the owl and bird for September I have yet to start. I had great aspirations for plenty of fall stitching, but my Daddy had a stroke two weeks ago, and I've also been spending time with him, since after the hospital stay, he's now in the nursing home for physical rehab, and is not very happy about that. I visit often and stay long to help him with things that the staff is stretched to cover. My sister has also sold her house and is moving in with my Mom temporarily to help with my Dad when he comes home (wants no part of the nursing home if he improves enough to leave), and of course, I will be taking a big part of the help on myself. My Mom is 85 next month and will be hard-pressed to do it herself, having rheumatoid arthritis. Her hands are pitifully crippled, and she is all but disabled too.

If I can get myself a bit more organized with all that I have going on, I can have more to "show and tell." All you about my age remember those days in school when we had "show and tell?" I can't believe some of the things I took to school! I wonder if kids still do that. Sometimes I feel kids are missing some really good times, but I may be wrong. Even my grandkids are grown so I don't have a clue what goes on! I'll look forward to having great grands one of these days.

Now let's see if I can get my latest things together to put in a post!

Owl SAL Progress

The monthly owls by Tonia Pappan of OakHaven Designs Yahoo group. I'm all caught up with this one!

Stash, Stitches, and other things...

I've not been very good at regularly blogging, but here is a pathetic attempt to get caught up, and if I can get organized, I'll try to keep at it.

Since last time, I've done two birds on the OakHaven Designs Yahoo Group bird SAL.

And in The Stitch Specialists Yahoo group, I have caught up with the Tree of Stitches; however, I'm not too pleased with the Carrie's Autumn Leaves thread I chose for the last part. It's too much of a contrast with the muted colors of the rest of the tree. Don't you think? Now, there is the last part coming with the critters in and around the tree. It isn't too late to join in this SAL.

Also, I have joined a Chatlaine SAL in which I'll be stitching Convent's Herbal Garden. I've taken a photo of two cut of fabric that I can't decide upon. The mushroom lugana is 28ct, and the more ivory color is 32ct linen. I thought that the beads might be crowded on the 32ct, so I bought the lugana. Later I found that quite a few ladies had stitched the design on 32ct and had no problems with the beads being crowded, so all I have to do is decide. Can you help me? I have to stitch a small floral center over one thread. Here are the two fabric from which I'm trying to choose:

And for the dab of stash this past month, there are things to help me get my stitching stand in operation again, some beads for my Tree of Stitches, a Pako gadget for line magnification, some threads, platinum needles I wanted to try, and Little House Needleworks' first reproduction sampler.

Gabi's Blogoversary!!!

Gabi is a well-known person in our stitching community from Australia. Her stitching and knitting is divine! She's celebrating a blogoversary, and her loving and generous giveaway is a $100 voucher to Anita's Little Stitches, $50 of which comes directly from Gabi! Skip on over to her blog and wish her congratulations on her blogoversary!

Stitches and Stash

It's been over a month since I last was here. I do have a good excuse though. I've been very much into my new duties as a new moderator on The Stitch Specialists Yahoo group. That is the group in which Abi Gurden designs SALs of her brilliant designs. That's where the Tree of Stitches comes from, and you can see where we are, as I am now caught up:

You can even see the branch in the center of the tree where the little owl will sit, and there will be a little rabbit on the ground and yet another branch on the tree. It's not too late to join in the SAL, and we do have a lot of fun. There will be yet another SAL after this, and another, and another....

And I'm slowly getting caught up with the other two SALs I've gotten into: The bird SAL is my slowest because I had a rough start (a post below explains), and I just recently got my July owl chart, which I have not yet started, but the owls don't take long at all, and they're just so cute!

And though I swore to myself I wouldn't buy any more stash, I'm always in need of hand-dyed threads and fabrics to stitch what I have in my stash, then I saw a few charts I couldn't pass up:

I also must have Little House Needleworks' new reproduction sampler, Melicent Turner's Sampler and the threads and fabric to stitch it. I don't know when I'll get to that or any of what you see here, but that's totally beside the point!

One of my fellow mods on The Stitch Specialists has the same stitching stand as I do, and she does such lovely stitching that she insprired me to drag mine out of the abyss under the basement stairs and put it together. She directed me to a link of her setup, and I asked my son-in-law, a carpenter, to come over to see what I had and the adjustments I needed to have made to get mine up-to-speed so I can adapt it to accommodate my American Dream brand scroll rods and 30" rods I just received. I have a large clamp-on magnifier coming that he's going to attach to my stand and make a new control bar across the top; also make me a 20" set of rods. I dug around and located my needle trolley and the Perfect Stitch tool I bought from the same man who built my Grip-It Legend stitching stand, from whom I can no longer get things as they're out of business. I also have a recliner attachment to my stand which I can no longer remember how to attach, and my SIL promises me that he'll take the time to figure it out for me. I bought everything I thought I would ever need from him and so glad I did now that he's out of business. I even bought their Sit-On stand that can be carried and used anywhere. And I'm so glad I have my handy son-in-law around to fill in the gaps.

So you see... I'm still stitching, but also preoccupied and very busy learning the ropes. I'll really try to be more diligent about reporting in here, as much for myself as anyone. Yes, SusieQ, I will.