Just HAD To Do It!!!

Just had to start something new. It is a disease that I cannot seem to shake. However, before getting into that, here is a picture of completed Spring Snapperland. Made a promise to myself that I would not start anything new until this was done. Sewed on the last button about 5 on Friday and by 7, I was stitching on a new project.

Spring Snapperland

by Bent Creek

28-ct Smokey Pearl Cashel

Recommended WDW and GAST fibers

The new start was "A Quaker Christmas" from ByGone Stitches. This is my progress so far. It is a fun stitch and I love stitching with the Belle Soie. The Belle Soie colors are Cranberry, Butterscotch and Enchanted Forest. I think I am going to have problems putting this one down.

A Quaker Christmas

by ByGone Stitches

28-ct Picture This Plus Ale Cashel

Crescent Colours Belle Soie

Last night I even picked up my Village of Hawk Run Hallow and put in about 4 needles full of thread. I think that it has been idle for about 6 weeks. Going to try to spend a little more time with it, even though it is going to be hard to lay down Quaker Christmas. Need to get more done on VoHRH, so I can move onto a block that does not have as much solid stitching as the last 2 blocks I have done.

Well, I and the other ladies of the church survived our Taco dinner fundraiser yesterday. As best we can estimate, we served between 110 and 120 people. I had made 18 pounds of hamburger into taco meat. One other lady made homemade taco shells to the tune of 230 and there was not one left. We got lots of good compliments on our efforts and we will probably be making this an annual thing as long as all of us are able to do the work. It helped raise funds for our mission projects.

Saturday night I ended up with a big surprise, an impromptu stitching night. When I talked to the owner of the LNS on Saturday afternoon, she invited me to her house for stitching. Her husband works out of state and is only home every other weekend. She was tired of stitching alone in the evenings. Before things were all said and done, several of those that attend our Monday night stitch therapy session at the LNS, were there for a little stitch-in. As usual, we had a great time. We love spending time with each other. In fact, we are planning a sleep-over at a local B&B for the Monday night stitchers in a couple of weeks. We will be the only ones at the B&B. It should be a riot. There should be pictures to post after it is over. We decided that Saturday night was a trial run. Our Monday night group has about 10-12 members and that is about the right size for the shop and also for our overnight. The LNS is small and any more people would not fit into the alloted space we have as our stitching circle.

Last Tuesday, as I was doing some cooking of stuff for the taco dinner, I felt something on the side of my stomach area. Upon further investigation, I found a tick attached to my body. I promptly pulled him off and disposed of him. Hit the resulting mark with hydrogen peroxide and later antibiotic ointment. However as the week went on, the spot got redder and was very itchy (and still is). Finally, several of my friends convinced me I should have it looked at. So yesterday on the way home from the church dinner, we stopped at a "Minor Med" type clinic and I saw the doctor on duty. He said it did not look infected, but to put heat on it 2-3 times a day for 20 minutes to drive out any tick residue that might still be there and to continue with the antibiotic ointment. Take benedryl for the itching. Doesn't really stop the itching that much. The more I think about it the more it itches. Hopefully things will improve in a day or so.

Bingo update. Played bingo on Wednesday with my friend as planned. She won one game at $250. I did not win. However, I needed B9 or B13 for $300. But that is not the end of the story. The bingo hall is part of an Indian casino, so she said we needed to play a little "Kaching, Kaching" on the slot machines. She pretty much plays $0.25 ones and I am the big spender at the nickel ones. I found one I liked and put in $5. Closed out with $10. Went to find Sharon and she had about $100 in credits built up on her machine. Played that all off and we were about ready to go and walked by a machine that I had thought about playing. While I was digging out my money, she threw a $5 at me and said play with this. She said "My mother always told me that borrowed money was lucky money". So I did. Not long after that I won one of the jackpots -- 1000 nickels or $50. Continued to play and had about $100 in credits on the machine. She told me to keep playing, since the only thing we had to get home for was me to open the LNS at 10:00 AM the next morning. In the end, I cashed out 1600 nickels or $80. So I ended up winning enough to cover the cost of my bingo, the money I had invested earlier in the slots, with some left over to by stitching stuff. LOL!!! Just had a phone call from Sharon (bingo friend), she wants to go play again this Wednesday. Had to decline because I had promised one of my stitching friends that I would take her to Wednesday afternoon stitch therapy. Hard choices-- stitching or bingo. Usually stitching wins out.

Thanks to all that stop by and leave comments. I am so far behind in reading blogs that I am not sure I will ever catch up. Keep many of my favorites in Google Reader and try to read many others. Have not had a chance to read any outside Google Reader for about 2 weeks. Sorry guys! I know that you all are doing some wonderful things, but reading and commenting takes away from stitching. Keep up the good work and maybe I can make it around to all of you.

Off to do a little stitching, then put heat on my tick bite and later to sleep land. Have a good week and keep those needles flying.

Finish....Start..... Finish.....Almost Finish

Here we go again. It has been a while since my last post. Hope that my regular readers have not given up on me. I keep trying to blog more often, but cannot seem to make myself do it. Lots of other things going on and don't want to sacrifice stitching time for blogging. Other times, I don't think I have anything worth posting. I really do lead a very boring life.

Last Tuesday during the day, I finished my part of the Shop Hop Sampler. There are 6 motifs and a border bringing them all together. Each of the 5 shops in the Hop group design one part of the sampler and this year they each have a wild card piece to make up the 6 motifs. The border is designed by the LNS -The Sunflower Seed/Anita. I took it by the LNS after I church ladies group meeting Wednesday afternoon. She will be doing the back stitch, lettering and beads on it. Friday when I saw it, the back stitching and letter was done. Beading still to be done. Anita said she expects to take it to the framer on Tuesday. This is such an awesome design. For those in the area that will be participating in the Shop Hop, I think you will be amazed. I will post a picture once it is displayed in the shop.

With the shop hop sampler complete, I just had to start something else. Been trying to be very good at keeping my attention deficit and startitis in check, but I rewarded myself with a small start. Then I finished it last night. TA...DA

French County - Dog

Designer - JBW

28-ct R&R Creek Bed Brown

GAST Sable

The GAST Sable I used was really old stuff. It was from a 10-yd skein that I probably bought when GAST was first available. Although it is available in 10-yd skeins, you do not see it in many shops in anything but the 5-yd skeins. There was not very much color change and the color was way different than the Sable I see now most of the time. This design did help me use up some old thread.

Now for the almost finish. Sometime during the week, I finished the 4th block of Spring Snapperland. On to working on the border and it is about half done. Late this afternoon I had to frog the word "flowers" because it was one stitch off. It is back in and more too. I am getting anxious to get this piece done, and I think that probably contributed to my mistake. We want to use this as a shop model during the Shop Hop. Need to finish and get framed by the first of May. Should finish the rest of the border this week. Still snaps to be added to each block and the border along with a bee and lady bug button. Actually, this piece has been a fun stitch, but has drug on too long.

Even though I have many WIPs, I am making plans for other projects to take the place of these that I am completing. My only niece, Megan, is having her second child in July and they know it is a boy. I let her pick out the sampler for her first one and she has done the same for the second one. I tried to cut and paste a picture of it into my blog from our e-mail that she decided on it, but It would not work. Guess I will have to do a link to the designer or to the Hoffman web site to get a picture here. It is a design by Bobby G Designs named Precious Baby. Click on the link shown above. Hope it takes you to the right place. Still technology challenged at times. Several of my stitching friends think I am nuts since it is a lot of solid stitching. Most of the yellow background is half crosses, so that part should go fast. Megan wanted a design that included lots of details. Most of them out there now have only name and date. The first one I did for her had name, date, weight, length, time, doctor and hospital. She would have been happy for me to the the first one again. I would have done it again had she been having a girl. That design had changes in design motifs and colors for boy and girl. It is a very old Designs by Gloria and Pat. If I remember right the copyright on it is 1989.

The other project I have in the planning stages is "A Quaker Christmas" by By Gone Stitches. I just love that piece and have been itching to do it. I have the pattern, but had been trying to decide on fiber and fabric. Now I have that done. Will be using 28-ct Ale Cashel from Picture This Plus. This is a new color they released at Nashville Market. The fiber will be Crescent Colours Belle Soie Cranberry, Butterscotch and Enchanted Forest. I have the Cranberry and Butterscotch, but am waiting on the Enchanted Forest to come from Crescent Colours. The LNS ordered the 11 skeins I need directly from Crescent Colours so I could get them all from the same dye lot. We have noticed that there can be significant differences between dye lots. When I get both the fabric and fiber together, I will post a picture. I think it is going to be an awesome project.

It seems that I did get quite a bit of stitching done last week, but it was a rather busy one. Church ladies group meeting on Wednesday, worked at LNS on Thursday and had dinner guest that night and watched KSU basketball game in the NCAA tournament. Friday went out for the evening with two other couples. Saturday was spent on the road most of the day. My father still raises cattle at the age of almost 88. Which also means that we butcher some of them each year. Had to go pick up my half of beef from the processor and since we were only about 40 miles from where my dad lives, we went on down there. Spent a few hours with him. My step mother had fixed liver for lunch and I don't eat that so we went somewhere else to eat and then went with my dad out to the farm to see his latest project. Someone is building this HUGE pond for him in one of the pastures. He is making plans to fence it off from the cattle and stocking it with fish, plus fixing it up so he can use water from it to water his tomato and melon patch. For as long as I can remember, he has raised watermelon and cantaloupe. Some years better than others. Most of which he just gives away. It was great to hear him making all these plans at his age. Pretty ambitious ones.

This week I will be busy making preparations for making Tacos for a fundraiser dinner at the church on Sunday. Probably be providing taco dinners for about 100 people. Have already been browning the ground beef taken from my meat stash that I get every year when we butcher. This year my portion of the critter yielded over 70 pounds of hamburger. I have plenty to share with this worthwhile project. Also planning to go play bingo at one of the nearby Indian casinos with one of my friends. We used to play all the time, but the bingo hall we went to closed a little of a year ago. We have not played at the casino since last June. Fun!!! Fun!!!

Thanks to everyone that visits my little space in the blog world. Hopefully you are not bored by my ramblings and that you don't get frustrated when I go long periods without posting. I will try to do better, but I promise nothing. I would rather stitch than spend the time putting the pictures, etc. together for a blog. Most of the time blogs are boring without a few pictures. Your comments are very much anticipated and appreciated.

It's time to close this down and get back to stitching before hitting the hay. Hope everyone had a great and blessed Easter weekend. Take care and keep those needles moving.

Missing in Action

My how time flies when you are having fun. It has been almost 2 weeks since I last posted. I guess I have lost my blogging mojo. As I have said before, it seems to take me forever to do the pictures, upload and compose the post. So I have just not made the time to do it over the last week or so. I would rather be doing something else, like maybe stitching. I will try to do better in the future, but there are not guarantees. Actually, I have been keeping up with the reading of other blogs, but have been lazy about even commenting on them. Sometimes, I see what everyone is stitching and feel like I need to stitch faster to keep up with all the other stitching going on. You all are an inspiration to me.

Before my last post Michelle awarded me the "Best Blogging Buddies Award". Thank you, Michelle, the feeling is mutual. More about Michelle a little later. My instructions were to make the same award to four more blogging buddies. All the many blogs I read are my buddies, but i am going to narrow it down to four. Please don't be offended if you are left off this time.

I tag the following Tina, Ranae, Michele, and Julie. Sorry if any of you have been tagged before. Don't feel obligated to tag others. Just wanted to single out a few of you as my buddies. Julie is the person that got me started with this blogging thing.

Back to Michelle that tagged me. She lives in another state from my LNS, but her parents live in my city so she has shopped both in person and by long distance at the LNS. About 2 weeks ago when I was at the LNS for Monday night stitch therapy, I answered the phone. The person on the other end was inquiring about tuck pillows. Turns out it was Michelle. We had commented back and forth on each other's blogs, but had never talked person to person. It was great to actually put a voice to a name. She does come back and visit her parents now and then. I can hardly wait until she makes her next visit. I am sure we will be meeting in person. It was so great to talk with her after we discovered were talking to one of our blogging buddies.

Now to stitching progress. I completed another block of Spring Snapperland and have started the final block. Making good progress. It is easy to stitch on when I am at the LNS for stitch therapy or on my day to work when things are slow. We had a day of crappy weather on the Thursday that I worked a week or so ago and I got some done after doing some shop related work.

Block 1

Spring Snapperland

Block 4

Spring Sanpperland

Those orange things are carrots. LOL!!

Entire Snapperland

Still working on Shop Hop Sampler. I have started the 5th of the 6 blocks of the design. As mentioned before, we made some color changes and I had to frog some work. It looks so much better with the changes we made. VoHRH has not been touched for another couple of weeks. Now that I have taken some time off from it, I think going back to it will be easier. Tonight for a little break decided to put in a few stitches in Quaker Samplings I. In doing so, I found an error and had to frog out "K,L, M". Wasn't much of a way to compensate for my counting error. I would not have been happy with it otherwise. Now I can make a fresh start on those letters.

Here's the completed baby afghan for the grandson of one of my stitching friends. The baby arrived a week ago, so I will deliver to the grandmother on Monday night at stitching.

Lots of babies around. The owner of the LNS became a grandmother on Wednesday. I just happened to be at the shop helping her with something else when she got the call. That was very convenient. It allowed her to head out and be there when the little one arrived. A little girl, her first. My only niece is having a baby in July and they were to find out what it was this week. She called me last night to let me know she is having her second boy. She picked out the sampler for the first one, so we have been e-mailing back and forth regarding the design for this one. I think we have it figured out. Now to find time to get it done. I am starting out early enough that I should have it ready for the name by July. Have to order the pattern, but should have it in a week or so.

Here's hoping you are finding lots of time to stitch. I know a lot of you are getting winter weather, even when spring should be just around the corner. We got a dusting of snow yesterday, too. I am so ready for spring. Thanks for stopping by, reading and commenting. I will try not to whine so much next time and not wait so long between posts. Better think about hitting the hay since we get one less hour of sleep and/or stitching time tonight.

Happy Stitching !!!!!!!!!!!!