Stitching Rotation Updates and More

Camera has reappeared! So are you prepared for the pictures?

The flowers I got for Mother's Day were starting to look bad (the real ones anyway), so I don't have a picture of those. Instead you can all the petals I've harvested from them.


I'm going to dry them out and use them for air freshener, incense, etc. And these are the flowers The Boy made.


He loves his arts and crafts! This week he had a project on lobsters. He had to draw or make a model and write at least 4 sentences about the lobster (facts of). He did the bare minimum on the sentences because he wanted to work on this more:


And hubby only helped a little. He was so excited about taking it to school today, that he woke up early. Which was not a problem with me, since it seems I have steroid insomnia now (see previous post as to why). The boy has got some talent in the arts (in this mother's opinion). He has decided he wants to learn how to draw properly this summer. We are NOT going to refuse him that. In fact he has been behaving exceptionally well in school, so that he can get his own special pencils, paper, and how-to book when school ends. Which is only in 2 weeks.
He has also decided that he is going to jump off the diving board this summer. I guess we had better get our pool tags. I guess I had better around to getting a swimsuit this year...eek.


On to the pretty-pretties...

I've gotten some 10 hour blocks on a few more projects. Here is the wXSw SAL:


The "October Box":

I'm thinking the light blue is washed out in the fabric. I may go back later and backstitch the words there with a darker blue. We'll see.

And the new start, "Renaissance Bookmark" by Teresa Wentzler (a TW Designworks freebie). I'm using the recommended threads on 28ct Country French Chantilly.


The Boy's blanket square was supposed to come before the bookmark in the rotation, but when I started to work on a square, i found the blanket needed to be washed first. It seems he had wrapped himself up in it to eat breakfast and had spilt some. So I switched the two in rotation for this round.

I've also added BoINK. I'll be stitching it on 30ct Antique Ivory Evenweave and using Vikki Clayton Silks. I wanted my colors to be close to the Book of Kells (as close as a computer monitor will let me get), so I went with: yellow/gold - Lemon Drops 4201, black - Basic Black 5300 (not shown in the photo), red - OMG Red 1141, violet - Ultra Violet 2121, green - Isle Green 3213, orange - Terra Potta 4321, light blue - Mermaid Blue 2315, and dark blue - Yonder Blue 2221.

I'm really looking forward to this one so much that I broke my own "no more than 5 or 6 projects in the rotation" rule because I want this for myself. I don't even feel bad about it! Who knows, I may even end up changing more of the colors as I go. I am going to do the Project Challenge again, but buying fibers for this may end up on the exception list.

And last, but not least, I received an envelope from England for the ILCS Embellishment Exchange (we send our partner $5 worth of embellishments).

I got lots of flower buttons in wood, clear red, various shades of pink (my favorite!), some plum colored Mill Hill beads, red/white checked ribbon, and some more tiny buttons in various shapes and primary colors. Thank you Lou! Hopefully mine will arrive at your house in the next couple of days.

TAST week 8 - Fly stitch

Woo hoo!!! I caught up with the weeks!
This weeks stitch is the fly stitch. I've just done the basics again, but I can see the possibilities are endless.

I also wanted to share one of the things my mom brought back with her from grandma's.

As you can see it is stained (don't know what with) and someone has even already started working on it.

However my grandma doesn't know who so it was probably one of my aunts. Mom found it in a drawer that had 45 year old fabric.

As the piece is stamped with the pattern, I won't be washing it until I finish it. Now why mention it here?
What a great way to use the new stitches I'm learning!

A RR, a finish, and a present

I've gotten this month's RR piece finished, for Dana.


Quite honestly, it took my son a couple of hours to pick which flowers to stitch for Dana's piece (he liked them all). In the end, with the help of his sister, he chose June, since that is when his birthday is. He has been a great help in picking out the patterns to stitch each month as I'm liking everything and having trouble deciding.

Next up is my very first finish of 2007!

It is "Peppermint Nick" by Jeanette Rees of Jemini Designs, from JCS 2006 Christmas Ornaments. On 28 ct. Ice Blue Alma, with DMC regular and rayon thread, and WDW thread.
After I get him cleaned, pressed and made into an ornament, he'll have a fuzzy scark and will be holding a candy cane. This is the ornament my daughter has picked for this year's tree.
This makes nine projects finished in my 25 project challenge.

And lastly, the reason the challenge has been easy, I recieved a package from Diane at PALS for the Month color exchange. February's colors were pink and red with a theme of hearts and Valentine's Day. And Diane sent me a package of finishing stuff...mostly.

What you see is:
• fabric with red and pink hearts
• red and white tulle
• 4 skiens of DMC (white, 304,349, B5200)
• finishing cord in sparkly red and sparkley white
• package of size 26 needles
• heart-shaped key ring (I have one like this in purple, but I LOVE the blue)
• bookmark
• notepad with magnets


Did I miss anything?


I just hope Leigh likes what I got for her.


Recently, my mom dropped off some 'craft stash' which she got from my grandmother, who is cleaning out her house. She brought several different stacks of material, including some she remembers her sisters wearing when the were 6 or so (shall we just say the fabric is over 50 years old), as well as some very brightly colored yarn, dolls heads, and I don't know how many yards of a yellow and brown wool. Also, some prestamped doilies to be embroidered. Unfortunatly, they are stained and I don't want to attemt to clean them, as the stamping will wash off, until I can finish them.
I have some friends that I'm going to let have first dibs on what I'm not going to keep, and then I'm thinking of post pictures here to see if anyone else will use it.

Inanity and responses and stash

First the inanity. I actually laughed at this...
Industry money may bias drink studies

Well...DUH!


And the responses:
Rachel: No worries! I got the comments all sorted out.

Meari:
Someone on one of the yahoo groups reported what she received in her first batch of beads from the European Cross Stitch Company Bead Collectors Club.
Delicas-1 Tube Gold, 1 Tube Green, 1 Tube Lilac, 1 Tube turquoise, and 1 Tube Cobalt, and a Mixture of 2 colors of Swavorski bicones in Light Sapphire and Cobalt.
My own finances are the ONLY thing keeping me from breaking the project challenge. Well that and the amount of beads my mom has. If I ever want to get creative,I'll go by her place first. I wonder if she can get delicas wholesale too?
As for keeping track of the floss colors, I'm parking them in the next spot they are used in the 10 space column (parking method). And I double check the color to the symbol when I pick one up to start stitching with it. I'm considering gridding after I'm done with this page, to help with the counting over (150 to the left, 300 up...opps miscount!)

Michele: Yes, the sampler is going very fast. I was actually surprised how far I had gotten on it after I really looked at it after the 10 hr block. Of course, working with the silks is an absolute joy too!


And lastly the stash! I received this from Deb for PALS January color exchange. There was another DMC color too (820), but I had put everything away before I took the picture, and I just realized as I was inserting the picture that I forgot to pull it back out.

libhita

The food was GOOOOOOOOOOD!

The Yuletide season has been good and busy. I spent all last week baking; I lost track of how much after 6 Poppyseed/Nut rolls and all the cookies. The Spritz cookies didn't turn out great, as I broke the cookie press half way through the batch, and cut circles with the rest of the dough. My mom and I are arguing oer whose cookie press it is; she says it's mine and I let her borrow it. I can't remember if I bought it for her as a present or if I bought it for me and gave it to her when her's died, or if I let her borrow it. Doesn't matter; it still needs replacing. Hopefully I can order just the part that it broken instead of getting a whole new one. But then again, some of the newer models look nifty!

I was right earlier, we were only able to get one present each for the four of us, but luckily Sata-Grandma sent over bags of presents for the kids (and a couple for me and J too). She filled up my trunk and backseat with presents, and there is still more under her tree. She's visiting her and her hubby's parents this Christmas, so there will be Christmas in January at her house. There was some presents that she wants to see the kids faces when they open them.

I, personnally, didn't get a whole lot of stuff, and only one stash item, which I bought for myself. It was JCS 2006 Christmas Ornaments issue. As it is part of my exception list AND bought with gift money (my bonus from work), I have not broken the challenge. Other stuff I got:
-2nd season of Stargate-SG1 (I gave hubby the 3rd season; we co-ordinated on this)
-kitchen gadgets (silicon cupcake pan, bread pan, and cookie mats, a NICE chef knife, adjustable spoon measures, color co-ordinated cutting boards to avoid cross contaminating)
-a chocolate vanilla mocha bath set (I have a feelign the kids will end up with the bubble bath, as there is no tub in my bathroom, but the shower gel and spongey thing is mine!)
-Lavender eye pillow
-book on Celtic History: from pre-history to the Norman invasions
-a local cookbook that hubby's aunt helped put together. bonus here is there are several recipes of hubby's grandma in here, as well as lots of passed down german recipes
-couple of decorative baskets with potporri (amazingly matches my bathrooms. that was coincidence)
-chip&dip set

Much of this was "addressed" to both me and hubby; mostly everything that can be used in the kitchen, as we both COOK.

Last Friday we had my family and friends over for Yule; the spread was glorious, if I do say so myself. Turkey with sausage stuffing (we would have had goose, but couldn't find one big enough), warm german potatoe salad, latkes, carrots in beer, broccoli, clover rolls, and honey oatmeal bread. With all the baking, I'm glad I stole..um, I mean, borrowed my mom's new KitchenAid mixer. It won't be stollen until I tell her that I'm not giving it back. Besides, she won't miss it until she goes to make cookies next Christmas, right?

MY SHAMPOO SHOCKED ME!!!!!

I'm not kidding! I was in the shower about to wash my hair, and noticed I was out of shampoo and conditioner. So I reached under the sink and pulled out 2 new bottles, that I got last time Beauty Brands has a liter sale. Poured some of the shampoo into my hand, and as soon as it touched...zzzzt. "How odd" I thought, but just passed it off as being really cold and washed my hair. Poured the conditioner in my hand, and as soon as it touched....ZZZT. OK, I jumped at that point, and said "WTF!". It hurt! SO I decide to read the bottle, to see if I can figure out what is going on, and it says, "Contains Quadramine ComplexTM, an exclusive blend of positively charged, low molecular weight and size proteins. I think this means I'm going to get shocked every time I wash my hair! Oh wait, it also says apply directly to hair. LOL

I wonder how funny it would be if I switched this out with my daughter's shampoo?

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Stephanie's RR piece arrived this week. A very cute little christmas piece. My son, as usual, thought it was for him. But after reminding him that twelve women were working on these, and one of the things was a blanket for him, he said, "That means I can help too!" As my mom brought me up to never turn down the willing help of a child, I'm letting him pick out what pattern to do on each RR piece. It really is adorable when T sits down with a pattern book, oohing and awwwing over everythwhich(WHich reminds me; I need to hunt down his "treasure room" and see if he has absconded with any of my WIPs) After he picked the pattern, I started pulling thread. You know I still don't have all of the regular DMC line! Or Kreinik. Off to the store today.

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On the same BB that the Bakers Dozen is on, we have a Wednesday wishes. Where everyone can pick one stash item they would like or need. A couple months (?) ago, Julie requested purple Aida to make this:


As I had a couple good size pieces in my stash, I sent one to her. How do I know that is what she wanted to make? Because I apparently sent enough to make two and she gave one to me! I love it! Of course T saw the candy corn button on it and declared that there was candy inside, but didn't want to open it because it was pretty. (Have I mentioned T is 4?) This one was rescued before it ended up in his "treasure room". Right now, it's sitting on his table in the living room, until I get a chance to sneak it to work. Although hubby is trying to figure out out to mount it to the wall next to my broom.