What do you do on the last day of the year?

Wish everyone a Happy New Year?

Recap the last year?

Plan for the next one?

Actually I thought I’d just mention a couple of recent starts that I’ll be working on in the new year.

Joy by Stitcheree!

 

 

I started this for the LNS exchange.  Maybe next year. J  I’ve also made a small start on Stitcheree’s Merry & Bright.  No pictures until I decide whether I started in the right spot.

Mal from the Sprite Stitch forum

 

This was meant to be in honor of Firefly’s 10^th anniversary.  That and I just like it.

Beinvenue by Jardin Prive

 

 

My daughter says she likes sheep.  What other reason could I need?

There’s also the sailboat picture I started for my brother, the By the Bay Fall SAL and the Christmas Mystery SAL by The Little Shop Around the Corner.  All of which will provide me hours of entertainment and in no way keep me from starting something new at the drop of a needle.

Happy stitching World.

Happy New Year!

WIPocalypse - December

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas.

WIPocalypse projects didn’t see too much activity this month.  On the Ballroom picture I filled in a few stitches along the edge and added a little dark brown.

 

On Do Not Disturb I finished the light green on the flip flops. (I know – WOWJ)

 

Mythical Dragon sort of fell by the wayside, but these things will happen.

In the end, no matter how far I didn’t get, everything is farther than it was.  How can you not like that?

I’m thinking of signing up for the sequel.  Next year I’ll just focus on Do Not Disturb.  In between all the other distractions that is!

Happy stitching World.

So Much Cuteness!!!

I received my exchange ornament from Shannon at A Bit of This and That.  Just look at that little gingerbread man!  And the search is on to find the perfect cross stitch pieces to go with that fabric.  Thanks Shannon, I love it all.

Speaking of love and little and cute, this is the ornament I brought home from the LNS exchange.

 

It was made by the shop owner.  Lucky me!!  I didn’t finish the piece I was going to take. (Something to look forward to I guessJ)  But the piece I did take still made it the biggest one there.  Talk about tiny!  Amazing work.

Hope everyone has a great stitching week.

Happy stitching World.

WIPocalypse November

It makes perfect sense right?  I finally make a copy of Do Not Disturb so I can mark off where I am on the sand and what do I work on – the flip flops!

 

Kind of nice though.  It has more color.  And I know where I am with the sand now too. J

Happy stitching World.

IHSW November

Be still my heart!  I think I finally found a reason for not finishing something.  It’s for those times when I’m working on something I can’t show, like my exchange pieces.  Then I pull it out, work on it and TA-DA.

So; a head, a tail, some orange (what else) and a circle and a half later, I give you, (TA-DA) the Retro Cat.  Or, as he’s known around here at the moment, the Robo Cat.

 

It’s the eyes, or lack of.

 Now actually, since I get carried away with these things, while I can’t show you two of the exchange pieces I’m working on there is another.  I signed up to do an ornament and cookie exchange at my LNS next month.  Still haven’t picked out what cookies to make yet, but there’s a pattern!  I decided on Stitcheree’s latest pattern, Joy.  Here’s my humble beginning.

 

So I have stitching and turkey and cookie making to look forward to this week.  The LNS exchange may not be until next month, but I’m never going to pick a recipe without testing right?  Anyway, I hope you all have a great week and a Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it this week.

Happy stitching World.

WIPocalypse October

To prove I know it’s not Monday anymore, J let me start by saying:

         HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Also, I hope everyone in the Northeast made it through Sandy ok.

Now for stitching.  I took out Don Not Disturb and put a few more stitches on that over the weekend.

 

 I was thinking of switching colors just to help it look different.  What I settled for was finishing the light sand color.  At least in the first 20 rows. J  Plenty more fun to come.  Right after I stop looking at all the pretty Christmas patterns.

Happy stitching World.

Ready for anything?

Hardly.  But I have been having fun with the cute, free (Thank You!) patterns from Stitcheree.  Last week I finished Silly Snowquake.  I use Charles Craft 14 count Polar Blue aida. (Another thing I’ve taken a liking to.)

 

 

This week I finished Creepy Hollow.  I did this one on DMC 14count marbled aida.  The fabric is actually greenish but the floss is 317, so they balance out.

 

 

Now hopefully this weekend I’ll spend some time with at least one of my sadly neglected WIPocalypse pieces.  Then I’ll be ready for Monday. J

Happy stitching World.

Make A Long October

As part of Pull the Other Thread’s Make A Long, I give you my first ever attempt at using matboard:

This is the Lizzie Kate Santa I finished a little while back. He’s taped onto a piece of matboard that I padded with some quilt batting. For the back I taped some Christmas fabric to a piece of white cardboard. Then I added the ribbon and taped the two together. Double sided tape is my friend!! The only thing I need to do differently next time is to measure and cut both the boards at the same time. J

I love places that sell things for $1.00. Like the little wood frames at Michaels. The 4x6 frame was the perfect touch for the penguins I made for my BD’s birthday earlier this week. My first thought was to paint the frame purple. But I pulled out some blue paints first and went with this one instead.

 

 I actually had two stitching finishes this week!  The penguins, designed by Maria Diaz, and Silly Snowquake by Erynne at Stitcheree!.  I’m keeping than one in reserve for next week though, so I have time to make it into an ornament.

Have a great IHSW!

Happy stitching World.

WIPocalypse September

Not a lot of WIPocalypse progress but a great stitching month.  Earlier in the month I finished Betty and a couple of days ago I finished my Sunset Oval.

 

I’ve made progress on the Retro Cat.

 

Last month I wanted to test out this DMC color variation shade (4124) and see if it made a good pumpkin shade.  I think it did. J

 

 

The piece is by Glory Bee and is called Pumpkin Man. (catchy title)

Now that Halloween is taken care of it’s time to think about Christmas.  Kate at Momuboocrea Island has very kindly included me in her exchange.  So we’re going to do our 2^nd annual Santa exchange.  Unlike her, I haven’t picked the pattern yet, but I do have some ideas.

And then I can always work on my WIPocalypse pieces too.

Happy stitching World.

IHSW : Monday - A Different Shade of Orange

Another weekend in the history books. Did I do as much stitching as I wanted? No, nothing new there. Still there is some progress to report.

I got out the Retro Cat picture again and made a little progress on the chair.

 

With a little luck (or effort) I’ll get more done soon.

For my birthday I received a copy of World of Cross Stitching #193. I was attracted to the lilies on the cover by Leslie Teare and the picture of the coast line by Ursula Michael. But I really hit the stitching jackpot when I saw the design library for the month! It was done by Lucie Heaton and called Paradise Found. There are 40 designs and I want to do nearly all of them! So the first one I decided to start was what I’m calling a sunset oval with all these nifty shades of (wait for it J) orange!

 

I might end up thinking I should have done one of the blue ones in the set first. But I can always do a Christmas picture for variety.

Happy Stitching World!

A Weekend Finish!

Zombie Betty was reanimated Sunday night and given a new lease on life.

 

I did the background in one strand and left out the white.  A mixture of curiosity as to how it would look and laziness.  In the interest of public disclosure, I also changed the face color.  My tweaks aside, I give it 5 stars and declare it another great pattern by Dork Stitch.

Happy stitching World.

WIPocalypse August - Part 2

My serial starting ways were in remission this month (for the most part).  I did of course find enough other things to distract myself with to make sure I didn’t get too far with the Summer Ball.

 

 

The good thing is when I make it through the confetti in this little section I’ll be into blocks of longer lines.  Those are much better for my sense of progress. J

 Happy stitching World.

IHSW Monday

Not bad!  I filled in the face on Betty.  Little weird at the moment but its coming along nicely I think.

Happy stitching World!

IHSW - Friday night

It’s time for this month’s International Hermitage and Stitch Weekend.  I have great stitching plans, as always.  All that remains to be seen is how much stitching time I actually get.

To get the weekend off to a good start, I thought I’d just show off some recent progress. J

First – Betty - she has hair!!

Next I want to fill in her face.

Last month I decided as one of my many starts to do a Christmas piece.  Of course the idea was to finish it in July, which didn’t happen. So I turned it into my Olympic stitching and managed to finish it last Sunday.  It being Lizzie Kate’s 2009: Santa “I’ll get my elves on that!”

All I need to do is turn it into – something.  I’m thinking flat fold but I’ve come across two different ways to do that (so far).  Good thing there’s still time to decide.

Here’s to a great weekend!

Happy stitching World.

WIPocalypse August Part 1

Stunning things would happen to this – if I worked on it more. J

That might be considered a side effect of starting too many things.  But I’m pretty sure there’s no cure for that except to just keep stitching!

Happy stitching World!

Waiting for Christmas SAL

Near the end of June, Heather (It's geek to me) mentioned a SAL she joined that I had to get in on.  It’s called Waiting for Christmas and is hosted by Manuela at  le crocette di manu.  She designed the pieces that are being done.  The first piece is a really nice tree with the words Silent Night worked in.  I decided to do mine with some Canon Wildflowers from my stash.  Just my luck I’m using the perfect color, evergreen, on something else.  So I went with the next choice, abalone.  Hey, don’t laugh (too much) it actually works fairly well.

 Being much too fascinated with starting things, I’m not as far along as most of the other people.  Check the blog and you’ll see some nice pictures of their finishes.  With those for inspiration I want to finish mine in August and get started on the next piece.

Happy stitching World.

A little bit of Betty

I finished the top section of Betty’s hair this week.  I like the color so I’ll try to finish it before moving on to the next color.

 Betty should be a good project for me during the Olympics.  It’s only the first day though and I’m finding it very distracting. (The games that is) I thought the opening ceremony was great.

So good luck to all the athletes and all the stitchers’ with their challenges over the next weeks.

Happy stitching World.

IHSW Colors

Hope everyone had a good stitching weekend.

I managed three basic colors:

Orange –

Yellow –

And pink –

The pink may not have changed much but really there’s more than before.

I don’t say this often enough but thanks for all your nice comments.  Much appreciated!

There were two comments I wanted to reply to:

Julie: Sorry, tiger stripes would clash with the cat.  Besides its already orange and blue. J

Dork Stitch: Josie and the Pussycats!! If you still need reference material I can hook you up. J

Until next time,

Happy stitching World.

Orange and Yellow

Orange and yellow: two colors that can remind you of summer.  Colors that can stand out in a crowd.

For instance: my Retro Cat picture.  Someday the little gray cat sitting in the chair may draw your attention.  Right now what you notice is orange.  It’s coming along well enough though so who am I to argue.

Yellow: bright, bubbly and blonde.  This patch of sunshine is going to grow up to be the blonde hair of Betty as designed by Dork Stitch. (see her post here) Theoretically I should have started with Archie, but it turns out his hair is the same color as the chair above.  So I might wait on that one.  J

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately.  A portion of it anyway.  I’ll be back on Monday after a nice IHSW.  I may even manage to work in another color. Pink anyone?

Happy stitching World.

July WIPocalypse

Welcome to the first month of the last half of the year.  June ended much as it began, with my wandering eye looking at things to start rather than continue.  I am pleased with the progress I did make.  On the Ballroom picture I have finished the mirror over the fireplace and moved on to the wall.  Look – dark green! J

 More sand and flip flops to show on Do Not Disturb.

 So now onward to see what the next month has in store.

Happy stitching World.

IHSW - June

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  In between the dull ordinary things that take up too much time, I got in some stitching and a little extra fun.

Stitching wise I finished the blue on the Retro Cat down to the top of the chair.  I managed to rein in my excitement and only do 2 rows on top and two on the arm.  Have to pace myself with that bright orange, Ha.

Also, I have a finish to report!  It’s another Dork Stitch sprite, the Black Widow from the Avengers.

Sweet right?!  Another great pattern.  I may have to see that movie yet. J  I did recently get a chance to see The Hunger Games and will have to start on those sprites soon.

The Black Widow had to be done in honor of my other weekend activity.  Denver’s first (judging from the turnout I’d say annual) Comic Con!!  It was held downtown at the convention center so they were really going all out.  The Dealer’s Room was fun to walk around in.  I took a picture of this Tardis that was on display and of Colin Ferguson (Eureka) signing autographs.  I love that show and he’s the reason why. J

The only thing the coming week seems to be promising is heat. Joy. Just have to keep the fan on and my trusty water bottle close at hand.

Happy stitching World.

Short, sweet and a little late

Don’t you just love good intentions?  They’re as cute as days of the week and as slippery.  I got a case of start-itis after my last WIPocalypse post, and while trying to fight that off (except for Fragile) didn’t work on much of anything.  Certainly not every day.  I did get the Ball room picture out and managed to get it back to, and a tiny bit beyond where it was before.

So my goal for June is to just keep stitching. J Hope you all have a great month with your WIPocalypse projects.

Happy stitching World

June: New Start, New Sprite

It’s June so it must be time to start something new right?  Too Late, I’m 11 whole stitches in so there’s no going back now.  Succumbing at long last to the recent HAED sale, I bought a storykeep pattern called Fragile by Kirstin Mills.  The cutest little pink dragon, though it won’t be quite as little because mine is being done on 16 count instead of 25.  I’ll do my best to make sure it takes me awhile but I think it will be fun.

I finished another sprite!  Truth be told I actually started this awhile back but finally decided to stop messing around and get it done.  It’s William Hartnell, or to be more precise, the First Doctor.  I don’t quite remember where we found the pattern, sorry.  I’ll update that later.  But the inspiration for the patterns is here and worth a look.

That’s all for now.  More on Monday (or Tuesday) when it’s WIPocalypse update time.

Happy stitching World.

Splash of another color

Ok, I made it through the building which apparently does show up in the picture. J  I couldn’t wait any longer to do something besides blue so I found some other spots to start on.  That blotch of orange is the chair arm.  The light purple is a design in the wallpaper. I think it’s meant to be wallpaper.  The new colors certainly give it a different look.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and a great week ahead.

 Happy stitching World.

IHSW May and more mail

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  Mine was good even though I went off to the comic shop on Saturday instead of posting about my mail like I should have.  Thanks to some odd rules of the US postal service, Topcho thought her first package she sent for our bookmark exchange might have gone astray.  So she very kindly (and quickly) made up more, which arrived last week.  Three more cool bookmarks and a sweet little keychain.  Plus some very nice extras, including a magazine full of patterns to add to my longer than life to do list.  Thank you Topcho for all your hard work!  Speaking of things to add to your to do list, be sure to check out Topcho’s blog (here) for her tutorial on using textile medium on paper napkins for cross stitch.  As the lucky recipient of two bookmarks I can tell you the results are very nice.

Despite its many side effects: tangling, knotting (especially right after dangling to prevent that) and possible fraying, I like using longer than recommended pieces of floss.  I get more done when I tell myself “I’ll just do one thread.”  Of course it also still never goes as far as I think it will, but not surprise there right?  Babbling aside, I’ve finished the short blue side down to the chair top.  I feel I should point out the shape of the building that’s now visible.  It gets filled in with 791 so right now I’m not sure how well that will show up in real life let alone pictures.  So next plan (this week anyway) is to fill in the building and bring the other side down to match.  Then the chair!

Happy stitching World.

A finish (and more blue)

There’s joy in my little corner of stitchville tonight.  I’ve finished the Mini Mystery SAL hosted by Manka. (See her blog here.)  Her design was a Hungarian Folk Art motif.  My thanks to her for the great design.  It was a lot of fun and hopefully she will share more with us in the future.

More joy? Nah, just more blue.  But every stitch brings you that much closer to the last one right!  I was reading on another blog the definition of a “screaming rotation”.  That’s when you work on something until something else screams louder.  I’m thinking that explains why I started working on the wider portion of blue instead of finishing the little section on the left.  It was just screaming louder. J

Happy Mother’s Day tomorrow to everyone in the U.S.  And a happy day to everyone else too!!  We all deserve it.

Happy stitching World.

May WIPocalypse, Mini Mystery SAL and more.

First up: May WIPocalypse.  A small but steady advance on Do Not Disturb.  I’ve decided (once again) to try to focus on this project.  It’s worked for the first five days of the month so who knows what could happen!

Manka is hosting a mini mystery SAL on her blog. (Here)  After taking forever to pick out colors I can happily report that I’ve completed the first part.  I’m looking forward to finishing and trying again with different colors.

Now for that other thing I keep mentioning – the Retro Cat.  Progress! I’ve finished the widest portion of blue and made it down to the break for the building.  Such excitement. J  All I have to do now is make sure I have enough 792 to finish the whole section.  I know, it’s always something.

Happy stitching World.

Nothing

That’s what I have to report. Or, to use my catchphrase “nothing picture worthy”.

Still, it’s a nice day out.  The beginning of a new week and nearly the beginning of a new month.  Lot’s to look forward to.  More blue on the Retro CatJ.  The WIPocalypse update is next weekend.  And to keep all of that company I’ve joined a mini mystery SAL which should be fun.  (More details here)

So I plan to have a great week.  I hope you all do too!!

Happy stitching World.

IHSW A Blue Monday

I’ll keep this short so I can get busy reading all the other posts. J

I made more progress on the sky.  Two more stars!  Only four more rows of blue until the break for the building.  Which calls for ta-da! a different shade of blue.  We’ll see how much farther I get by the end of the week.  I may have to start on the purple in the next section.  Of course if I really want some variety I can always work on my WIPocalypse projects. J

Happy stitching World.