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!