Merry Christmas!

Well, it's 10am and I'm waiting for my 16-year-old son to get up so we can open presents (and it might be a while, because he usually goes to bed around 3am!), so I decided to bring a little Christmas cheer to one of my readers by doing the drawing for the needle minder. The winner is:

Please send your address to me at rrowe @ new.rr.com (remove the spaces) and I will get this in the mail later this week. If I don't hear from you by next Monday, I'll draw another winner. Congrats!

I was able to finish the Mill Hill Snow Globe last night, after a full day of beading. Here it is before the beads:

And finished:

The ceramic heart button isn't attached, because it is defective; it looks like the left side cracked and part of the underside is missing so the button won't lay flat. I'm going to contact Wichelt to see if they'll send a replacement; if not I'll have to buy one because my OCD won't let me  use this one!

Now I'm off to put the pie in the oven and have another cup of coffee. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

A bad case of start-itis!

I mailed the models back to Wichelt early last week, and I've been going a bit nuts trying to figure out what to stitch on for myself! I started with Miss Solar Ellipse, on Ophelia Belfast from Under the Sea Fabrics:

Then I was putting some things away and came across Vervaco's Autumn Fairy, which took me several years to find, and I decided to pull it out and finally make a start, on a piece of SW Harvest Belfast:

Finally, I put the tree up last week and put out some decorations, which include a couple of Mill Hill beaded designs, and I got an urge to start a Christmas design. That very day I had received an order from 123Stitch which included a Mill Hill kit, so I started that!

I think I'll try to stick with the snow globe and see if I can get it done by Christmas, though I still have to get the presents wrapped and get some cleaning done, so stitching time will be a bit limited.

Speaking of Christmas, I have an adorable needle minder to give away as a thank you to all who spend time reading my blog:

All you have to do is leave a comment that you'd like to be entered, and on Christmas day I'll draw a winner, and I'll mail to anywhere in the world. Then be sure to check back and contact me if you're the winner (I'll leave my email address in the post), as I might not be able to get your contact info from your profile.

Wishing everyone all the best of the holiday season!

Poison Pixies

It turns out that I do have some stitching I can share this week, as the second set of Nora Corbett models I stitched was released last week. This is Angel White Trumpet:

And White Clover:

A couple of fun facts about these: when I received them they were called Pixie Weeds, so Poison Pixies is a fun change from that, and I look forward to seeing more in the series. Also, when I sent the picture of the completed White Clover in, Nora decided that she wanted to change the Kreinik that was used in the wings. While it wasn't fun frogging all that Kreinik, it did make a big difference and the wings look much softer and prettier now. Here is how she looked before the change:

I should be able to finish the first of the next two models this week, and hopefully the second will be done by mid-December.

Wishing those in the US a wonderful Thanksgiving this Thursday, and everyone a great stitchy week!

Finally finished!

This past Saturday I celebrated finally finishing the model for Rosewood Manor! While it isn't one of the largest designs I've stitched, it was fairly intricate; I checked it over three times after I was done and found two missed back stitches the first time and two missed cross stitches the second time. The third time looked good, so today it will be on its way back to Karen.

I'm afraid I still won't have much stitching I can share for a bit, as the two Nora Corbett models are due at the end of the year. With Thanksgiving coming up, and Christmas to get ready for I'll have less stitching time than usual so I won't be doing any of my own until the models are done.

I do have a bit of "old" stitching to share, which is The Mysterious Halloween Town by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery that I finished a few years ago. I sent it in to SewMuch2Luv (on Etsy and Facebook) to have it made into a bag, and the result is just amazing:

I thought the fabric with the potion bottles would be fun with the Elixir shop, and Karen added in the candy corn fabric which goes perfectly with the buttons I added to the design. The bag is really well constructed and I am thrilled with the finished piece!

On the non-stitchy front, I recently had a couple of Nora Corbett paintings framed, and my framer did her usual outstanding job:

I love that these are so different from each other, but both make me so happy to look at.

When I picked them up I dropped off another of Nora's paintings that I recently purchased, which would have made a lovely Mirabilia design:

I can't wait to see her after the magic of framing!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Halloween Quaker progress

I spent the weekend (and part of today--oops!) working on Halloween Quaker, and was able to complete two more motifs:

I also frogged the smaller motifs and replaced them with Silk'n Colors Halloween Confetti, which I like a lot better:

I also did the finishing on the Mani di Donna ornament:

Tomorrow it's back to work on the Rosewood Manor piece; I won't finish it this week, but hoping I'll be able to next week.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

The witch is stitched

This past weekend I was able to finish the flying witch and moon in Halloween Quaker, which is about a quarter of the way done now:

I've already cheated on my "work" rotation, by taking a day and a half to stitch up this cute little design by Mani di Donna:

Now when the mood strikes me I'll take a day and finish it into an ornament.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Trying to be disciplined

Since I currently have three models needing to be completed, I'm trying a new approach--I work on a model during the week, then stitch for myself on the weekend. I've only been doing it for a week, but so far, so good!

Last week I worked on the Rosewood Manor piece, then pulled out Lila's Studio Halloween Quaker this past Saturday. I had a partial thread left from last night, so I finished it this morning and this is where I will leave off:

In other stitchy news, I was at Target a couple of weeks ago and I saw a fillable lamp. Of course, I had to buy it because I thought it would be great for keeping orts (thread remnants) in; I've been filling glass ornaments for the past several years, but you can only use so many ornaments! This lamp should hold several years worth, and it can be enjoyed year-round:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Loving Halloween Quaker!

I spent some more time on Halloween Quaker by Lila's Studio this week, as I'm having a hard time putting it down; I tell myself I can stitch one more motif, but then it's so hard not to start another one...

I've decided to try to use Silk'n Colors floss for the entire piece, except for some Silk Lame Braid, Kreinik braid and beads to add some sparkle and texture. I'm also debating using some black Wisper to stitch the spiders; I'll have to see if I have any on hand. I've pulled a bunch of SNC colors, especially ones that have great Halloween-y names: Witches Familiar, Monster Mash, All Hallow's Eve, Warlock Road, Broom-Hilda, Sleepy Hollow, Ghosts & Ghoulies and more--I'm afraid I'll run out of motifs to stitch before I can use all these great colors!

Here is where I left off last night:

I'm going to try to make myself put it away for the week and work on the Rosewood Manor piece, but we'll see if I can resist starting another motif...

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Good year for Halloween designs

Last week I received a couple of new Halloween charts that were just released, Halloween Quaker by Lila's Studio and Halloween at Hawk Run Hollow by Carriage House Samplings:

I really like both of them, but Quaker is my favorite so I started it this past weekend. The fabric is Fall Foliage by Enchanted Fabrics (now out of business) and I'm playing with the floss colors as I go:

A few weeks ago my Walmart had some fat quarters of Halloween fabrics for sale, so I picked some up to use for finishing ornaments (they also had floss on clearance for $0.10, so I might have ended up buying almost 200 skeins over the course of a few visits...):

The fabrics inspired me to pull out my Witch's Hat by JBW Designs that I stitched a year ago and finish it into an ornament:

On the "work" stitching front, I finished up the two models for Wichelt last week, so now I need to spend some time on the Rosewood Manor piece, which is probably about half done.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Butterflies!

I was very excited to wake up this morning to find that the first two Nora Corbett models that I stitched have been released, so I can finally share pictures! Nora has designed pixies based on butterflies, and the wings are so pretty; this is Miss Solar Ellipse:

And Miss Lole's Daggerwing:

I can't really choose a favorite, as I love them both!

I'm actually working on a couple more NC models right now that are a rush job; they were due on September 20th, but the original stitcher ended up not being able to do them. I received them on September 1st, finished the first one on the 8th and should finish up the second one by mid-week next week. And I already had two more waiting to go, so I guess I'll be busy for a while!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy weekend!

Eclipse trip

I didn't blog last week, as I was pretty worn out from our trip to St. Louis to see the eclipse. We drove down on Sunday and came home on Monday; even though the trip home actually went faster than the trip there, it felt longer, and over 17 hours of driving in two days tired me out pretty well for a couple of days afterwards! However, I am really glad that we went, and that I was able to experience something so amazing with my son; he just turned 16, and the time I have left with him at home feels so fleeting.

We missed the totality by a few miles, but it was worth it as we found a nice little park in downtown St. Louis to watch it from, near the Gateway Arch:

At the peak of the eclipse the outdoor lights came on and the locusts started whirring and a swelling "oooh" from the crowd made the moment truly magical. I took this picture a bit earlier (the picture I took at the peak is just a tiny dot of light):

The day before we left I was able to finish up my Book of Spells project; I finished the stitching on Friday and mounted it on the box Saturday morning. I always wish my finishing skills were a bit more polished, but I'm happy with the result:

The name is a bit hard to read, but it's Ida Kerstum--try saying it out loud...

The project even got picked as project of the week by The World of Cross Stitching magazine on FB:

Part 5 of The Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL was released the night before we left for our trip, so this past week I was able to finish as much of it as I'm going to until the next part is released:

It just keeps getting cuter--those naughty kitties have broken a jack'o'lantern!

Now I am back to work on the Rosewood Manor piece, until the next part of the SAL comes out.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

In the mood for Halloween stitching

Back-to-school registration, less humidity during the days and cooler nights--it's starting to feel just a bit like autumn, and the Halloween stitching bug has bitten me! It started with the Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL, which has now released half of the design:

Still a lot more fun things to come with this one; the next part will be released this coming weekend, but I won't be able to start it right away. My son and I will be driving to St. Louis for the solar eclipse--sure hope the weather cooperates and our eclipse glasses get here this week!

Last week my mom came to visit for my son's birthday. so of course I needed something I could do with my hands while spending time upstairs. It's getting harder and harder to stitch without the lights in my craft room, so I decided to pull out the wooden "book" box I bought last year and paint it in preparation to mount a design on it. Here is the picture I took last year:

And here is the finished box, along with my start on The Goode Huswife's The Book of Spells:

I've been working on Book of Spells for a few days now, and here it is as of last night:

The only color that I'm using from the pattern is the black; as it is a "primitive" design it is charted with a fairly muted palette. I'm going with my preferred palette of bright colors, and adding quite a bit of Kreinik for sparkle. I've had to rechart the bottom, as it was too long to fit on the box as charted, so we'll see how it turns out.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

More ghost kitties!

I don't know why these little ghost kitties are so appealing to me, but there are two more in part 4 of the Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL. This part was released Saturday afternoon, and I should be able to finish it today; there is another ghost kitty, which will be next to the little black bird, another regular ghost further down the tree, and then I just need to finish stitching the moon:

I am having so much fun with this adorable design!

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

There's a ghost kitty!

I finished up as much as I'm going to of part 3 of The Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL, and I absolutely love the little ghost kitty!

Looking forward to part 4 being released this coming weekend so I can finish up that moon (which was charted in pumpkin colors, but I changed mine to green cheese colors!).

I've also spent some time on Nora Corbett's Un Ricamo Per Rinascere, and am enjoying watching it come to life. It is amazing to me that Nora can take seven colors of floss, with no back stitching, and create detailed stone work like this:

I'm going to spend this week working on the Rosewood Manor piece, so I can work on the next SAL part guilt-free when it comes out.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

Designers helping Italy

A couple of years ago  I was lucky enough to be able to tour (and shop in!) Casa Cenina's warehouse in Italy; here is Aida, their "warehouse" cat:

Casa Cenina has brought several designers together to aid in the efforts to rebuild after the earthquake that struck a year ago; the designers have donated exclusive charts, and all of the proceeds of sales will go to the Italian Civil Protection. An especially nice feature is that the charts are available for download, so there are no shipping fees; the charts that are available (and information about the project) can be found here: Casa Cenina.

Nora Corbett is one of the designers who donated a chart, which I bought and printed out yesterday. As it hasn't been stitched yet, there is no actual photo, just Nora's pencil sketch on the front page. It looks like it is the statue of an angel, holding an urn of greenery; I picked a fabric that reminded me of a garden to stitch it on:

I'm hoping to make a small start on it this week; it's always kind of fun to see a design appear when you haven't seen an actual picture of the finished piece.

Before I start I want to finish up part 3 of The Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL, which was released this past Saturday (I nudged Deb into a bit of an early release, and she was an easy sell!). I'm hoping to finish it up today; here is where I left off last night:

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!

All caught up...

...and ready for the next part, which should be released this Sunday or next Monday; The Great Cheshire Pumpkin SAL by Tempting Tangles:

Of course I'm playing with colors, brightening it up a bit and adding some sparkle. The witch's dress and hat were stitched with Silk Lame Braid, which has a metallic woven in, and I used beads for the decorations; the beads are actually citron, to match the socks (because every good witch has to color coordinate!), but they look more gold in the picture.

I'm also using some Silk'n Colors in place of DMC; the broom bristles were stitched with one color, and the leaves with another. It's nice to get a lot of variegation without having to change colors all the time.

I'm hoping to stay up-to-date with this one, to have it done before Halloween, and in the meantime I've made a good start on a Rosewood Manor model.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!