My old stitches June 27, 2013

This is what ended up happening with hubby’s project. I got a painting canvas and pasted the project to it then used some ribbon to border it and make a hanging tie for it. Other than this one, I’ve even done my other lady….

I did roughly the same things with her but added a few flowers on the corners. I love the way she came out and I did this cause I couldn’t find a frame i wanted for her or the cross and couldn’t afford to get them framed so I looked online and got creative. The lady is the sister of the one I’m working on now but That’s a different post.

I don’t have a picture of the geisha that I finished but it is completed and gifted. Next up is my stitching I’m working on now.

Keep those stitches whipping!!

eBay Fabrics September 12, 2012

I have been bidding on cross stitch magazines on eBay and stumbled upon some fabrics. I’ve never had colored fabrics before so I had to get them. I won 2 different ones and I love them both, even though they are 28 ct.

The blue/green one is actually a hand dyed, my first one!! It’s a Jubilee called  SeaMist. It’s 18 x 27 so it’s quite a bit of fabric. Here’s the hand dyed part. It looks so much more beautiful in person.

The pink one is an opalescent Jazlyn called Peach Fizz. It has little strands of gold in it so when it catches the light it looks beautiful. This one is 13 x 18 so it’s a good size but not as big as the other one.

Here is just the fabric

And here is it with a flash, so you can see the gold flecks

I love these purchases and am going to order from this lady again. She is selling her stash and I absolutely love the fabrics she has!!

Take a close look…. August 4, 2012

Do you see that little dot on the left side of the word during? Yes it is a french knot. What is so important about this french knot? Well, it’s the first one that I was able to make on my first try!! After doing 2 1/2 projects, all having french knots, I was finally able to accomplish it on my first try. I like to believe that this means my skills are improving.  🙂

Here is a close up of my masterpiece….

I know there is really nothing too special about it but I just had to share what I was able to do. Now hopefully I’m not jynxing (I have no idea if that is how you spell it) myself with all this excitement.  😉

Teaching someone to cross stitch…. July 29, 2012

Is interesting. Lol. When sis (my sister in law) was down visiting from NC on Monday I was showing her how to cross stitch. She said she had a kit at home she was going to do but got totally confused once she opened it up and looked at the chart. She said she wondered how she was going to make a little heart or a diamond in one hole; she was talking about the symbols on the chart. Lol.
So, once I explained to her that there is no way I would be doing this craft if you had to do something like that, 😛 , I pulled out my footprints and explained as much as I could to her.
My problem was that I was trying to tell her everything I knew and I think I overloaded her. Uh-oh, sorry. Lol. I had to rexplain a few things and keep it simple so I didn’t go off on another rant. Afterwards, I gave her a scroll frame I wasn’t ever going to use, because I’m loyal and addicted to me Rolaframes, and a hoop just in case. I also gave her a gold needle so she had one to use and didn’t have to use the one in the kit.
Fastforward to last night. I was doing school work, which is why I don’t blog so much anymore, grrrr, and I got a call from her asking about how to start. She said she already had her fabric in the frame and was calling to make sure she understood. We went over a few things and then she was off and going at it. I got another call about 30 minutes later asking me if it took me a while to get the hang of it cause it was taking her forever and she was getting discouraged. I told her it usually takes a while and just stick with it.
Another 30 minutes passed and she called again. She had done an uh-oh. She stitched 63 or so stitches (I guess she was stitch counting. Lol) as whole cross stitches but when she went back to look at the directions they were supposed to be halves. I told her she’s going to have to frog it and start over. That didn’t make her very happy.  😦   I told her the upside was that with half stitches it would only take her half the time. So, she is doing it all over again.
This is how much she had done that she had to frog:

I know it doesn’t look like much, but for someone doing their first project frogging the first 63 stitches you have ever done is quite discouraging. I have faith in her though. I know she can do it, and hopefully I will have some of her progress to show to encourage beginners.  😀

An awesome find!! (For those who have couches with arms) July 17, 2012

I was browsing a website that I sometimes order things from and I discovered something that some of you may find handy. http://www.lakeside.com/Stationery-%2B-Crafts/Sewing/Armchair-Sewing-Caddy/prod660168.jmp?sorted=Y&navAction=push&fm=topnav&categoryId=cat52196&navCount=0

Now, sadly for me our couches don’t have arms on them so I’m not able to use this. However, if it did I can guarantee you that it’d be hanging on there 24/7 with all of my cross stitch essentials stuffed inside!! How convenient is this?? And for the price, come on!!  🙂 While I’m not too thrilled about the print it’s something that I’d be able to get over. I just thought that I’d drop by and share this with you.

Remember, tomorrow is Wednesday which means my Hump Day Update is coming!! Super excited about it!!

Updated update schedule July 10, 2012

Wow that was a hard title to figure out. I was going to go with updated update but wasn’t sure that would sound quite right. Lol. Now, I know that today is Tuesday and it’s the first day for my twice weekly updates but I think I’m going to have to change that up. School has started up again and the classes that I’m taking right now are a bit harder than the ones in the past and I’ve got a few other things on my plate (I started Insanity today so I think I’m going to need quite a bit of downtime to recover from that every day) so I think I’m only to be doing updates once a week now.

I was trying to decide what day would be the best day to do updates and I decided on Wednesday. It’ll be my hump day update. Hehe. I think it sounds cute. So, when Wednesday comes around be looking for my updates!! Hopefully I’ll have a bit of a difference to show you every week since I get a bit more time to work on it in between updates. *fingers crossed*

My skein nemesis!! July 3, 2012

When hubby and bug were feeling a bit better I dragged them into Austin with me so I could go to the Michaels closest to us. It’s almost an hour away so the ride was part of the trip too. Lol. When we got there I found a shadowbox to put some of hubby’s stuff in for him so he could hang it on his wall. Bug and I threw it together realy quick and hubby loved it, though he has yet to hang it on his wall. I know it’ll get there one day though.  🙂

Anyhoo, I went to get some skeins for the Sleeping Beauty and the Geishas in the magazines that I picked up and found them for 35 cents each (I still need the seed beads but forgot to put them on the list so I didn’t grab any of those). That’s only 5 cents more than at our Walmart so I grabbed all of the ones that I needed, well almost. I wasn’t too suprised to find out that the braid I needed wasn’t there so I still need that one. But there was one other one that I can’t believe is still evading me!!

The braid I need

They didn’t have it at Walmart and at Michaels I found everything else EXCEPT for 3849!! They had every other color there except for that one!! Are you serious?? Oh I got so frustrated. I even dragged hubby over there to help me look for it and we still couldn’t find it. Grrr…. I can’t believe that out of all the skeins they had the only one that was sold out was the one I needed. So not happy.  >:-[

My nemesis!!

Kreativ Blogger Award

Thank you so much for the nominations!!

I’ve been out of my blogging for a bit but when I came back I found that I’d been nominated for the award by 2 different followers. I’d like to thank both of them and just let everyone know that if they aren’t following them yet they should be. http://thisisthecraftyone.wordpress.com/ and http://hannahackroyd.wordpress.com/ both nominated me for the award and I’d like to say thank you. Both of you have really good blogs. This is The Crafty One is always doing something creative and her blog almost always has something fresh and new to add to the blogosphere; Hannah Ackroyd is especially gifted because she can do so many different crafts at once. I think I’d go crazy if I were working on that many different things. Not only does she do them but she completes them too.

Now, in accepting the award I’m required to:

1. Thank and link back to the person who nominated me
2. Answer the 7 questions
3. Share 7 random facts/thoughts about myself
4. Nominate 7 worthy blogs for the Kreativ Blogger Award

Questions:

1. What’s your favorite song?  I have to say that right now it’s Kenny Chesney’s “Come Over”. The song is a song that most people will be able to follow and attach to some part of their lives. I blast that song in the car whenever I can.
2. What’s your favorite dessert?  I don’t think that I have one. I love most sweets but I have to admit that a double or triple chocolate cake is on the top of the list.
3. What do you do when you’re upset? As much as I don’t like to admit it, I probably take my frustrations out on hubby. He’s the one around me all the time so when I’m upset he knows it. But that also means that when I’m upset I can talk to him and he helps me figure out how to fix it or if I even need to be upset about it in the first place.
4. Favorite pet?  Our dog Sugar is our only pet and she’s definitely my favorite dog of all the ones I have been around. She’s so loving and lazy at the same time. When she has spurts of energy bug is usually there to play with her. And she puts up with bug thinking that she can play with her all the time, even when she sits for her tea parties sometimes. Lol
5. Do you prefer black or white? Well black fades and white stains so I’m not really sure….
6. Biggest fear?  Okay, this may sound a bit crazy but it’s waking up and finding out that all of this life that I’m living was simply a dream (that means losing both hubby and bug and everything that we have together and as a family). I know it’s not all that realistic but it scares the heck out of me. Imagine it: You’re living your life happy with everything in it and then all of a sudden you wake up the next morning and everything that you were living turns out to be a dream. Instead you’re in a position that you would’ve been in had you chosen a different path in life. I never, ever want that to happen.
7. What is your attitude mostly like?  Well I think that I’m usually mostly concerned with putting hubby and bug in front of myself. I’m very caring for other people but need me time too.  🙂

Random me

1. When I have a break from school I usually don’t work out; my schedule is based around cross stitch and housework.
2. I don’t like pie at all, not a single type of pie.
3. I have 3 different Beachbody workout programs and I haven’t fully completed a single one of them.
4. My nails are in such a sad state right now that I don’t even want to put polish on them.  😦
5. I really, really want to go on a cruise; it’s number 1 on my bucket list.
6. I have 5 sister-in-laws and no brother-in-laws.
7. I love Nature Valley Oats n Honey crunchy granola bars

Nominations

All of these blogs are ones that I love and they are all very creative and have quite a talent for what they do. Their crafts are beautiful.

1. http://ohsewtempting.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/the-gift-box-quilt-with-an-origami-photo-tutorial/
2. http://needleartsandbeyond.wordpress.com/
3. http://raventhreads.wordpress.com/
4. http://mytimestitching.wordpress.com/
5. http://notyouraveragecrochet.wordpress.com/
6. http://mrsmmakes.wordpress.com/
7. http://stephaniestitches.wordpress.com/

Updated thread stash June 27, 2012

Before I had quite a nice thread stash, but then I won the 2 ebay auctions and my stash more than tripled. I’m so happy that it’s so big because that means that I can save money on buying thread when I want to do one of the projects out of the magazines!!

Stash before….

Stash after….

Both of the pics are at a weird angle, but you can still see how much more there is now. I’m winding the thread onto plastic bobbins because most of them were on cardboard ones and I don’t like those too much; they are too flimsy and get torn easy. It’s quite a bit of work but I like seeing which threads there are.  🙂

My first ever cross stitch magazines

When we were at nanas we went to Michaels so she can pick up some things and we got there right when they were closing. As soon as we walked out of the store and they had closed the store bug tells me she has to go potty. Really?? There was a B&N across the way so we shot over there so she could go to the bathroom. Of course, once we got in there everyone had to go and look at their sections that they were interested in.

I started looking for cross stitch books but the only one I found was an Ed Hardy cross stitch patterens book and that’s not something that I would stitch so I got discouraged and bug and I wandered around the store. We ended up in the magazine section and I was able to find quite a few cross stitch magazines.

After looking through them I found 2 that had Joan Elliot patterns in them. I jumped at the chance to get them. They’re Cross Stitch Collection, 6/2012 – Issue 210 and Cross Stitch Gold, 8/2012 – Issue 31 (which is shown as issue 93 too so I’m not sure which number it is).

I am looking forward to doing the Sleeping Beauty in Gold and the Butterfly Fairy in Collection. I’m probably going to do the Geishas in Gold for my mother-in-law because she has a whole front room decorated with orientals and it’d go perfectly. I’m not going to lie, I really wanted the patter for Joan Elliot’s Summer Goddess but they didn’t have it in the issue yet and the people and B&N don’t know when they get the next issue in. I’m going to have to keep an eye out for it.

All in all, I’m so happy I picked these up and finally have some cross stitching magazines. I can honestly say that they aren’t going to be my last.  🙂