Long Overdue Update -- Part 2

No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. It seems like when I have computer time, I would rather spend my time on Facebook playing games, etc. Still need to figure out a 12-step program for those of us that have become addicted to Facebook. My last few experiences with Blogger have not been that great so it does not help me get back into blogging very fast. A couple of people that I have met through blogging have just given up doing it. At this point, I am not going to give it up, but I am going to be a very infrequent poster. When I started this over 3 years ago, I really had fun with it and now it has become work. Maybe with a semi-retired state, I can get my blogging mojo back. Bear with me during this time. I will keep you updated on happening, but some time the news may be old news. As is some of the information near the end of this post.

Beginning shortly after the 1st of the year, I started work on the 2010 Shop Hop Sampler. It was not something that I could show until after the Shop Hop was held. It was the 1st weekend of May. The Hop involves 5 LNS in the area, including The Sunflower Seed where I work. In this year's design, each of the other 4 shops did the individual motifs and Anita at The Sunflower Seed did the extensive border. We added several Just Another Button Company buttons to the sampler to liven it up.

30-ct R&R Cafe Kona

GAST thread

My youngest nephew graduated from high school in mid-May and I stitched this for him. He is a lot younger than my other nephew and niece and I was not sure that he really would want something that his aunt stitched for him. So I just asked him and he said "yes" like he thought I was stupid that I even had to ask. The colors used were his school colors of Red and Pewter Gray.

The Graduate

by The Sunflower Seed

DMC thread

I still am working on several BAPs and have finished two design model for The Sunflower Seed. Those photos will come later. Here is a progress picture of Quaker Gone Spooky. That tree is taking forever. Actually I have done quite a bit of work on this since the photo was taken. The fence on the bottom right is done. A couple of the off white Quaker motifs are done and just this morning I finished the tree. I almost feel like the project is done now that the tree is done.

Quaker Gone Spooky

by Michelle Ink Designs

30-ct R&R Lucky Penny

Thread Gather and

Belle Soie Silks

Have you seen the new design by ByGone Stitches "One Nation"? I am such a sucker for patriotic designs that when I saw it I fell in love with it. Here is a photo of the design (taken from Stitching Pretty web site). You can probably tell where I am headed with this. Yes, I have started it. Sometime before Memorial Day I started this and have gotten a small amount done.

I started looking through my stash for fabric and found some Picture This Plus Shale that I had ordered a yard of for another project. After cutting the piece for the other project, the remaining piece was just the right size for One Nation. Go figure. It was meant to be. The color shown in the picture is far from representative of the actual color. The color is a gray color. In the photo, it looks like a muddy color. I am using DMC threads because I knew it would be a long-term project and was not sure that I would buy enough of the overdyes in the same dye lot to finish it a couple of years down the road.

One Nation

by ByGone Stitches

28-ct Shale by PTP

In the last week, I have finished a Blackbird Designs little stocking that I started over a year ago. That photo will be in my next post. My Jenny Bean Halloween sampler is back from the framer also. It looks awesome. Photo to follow in the next post.

Along with all the stitching, I am still doing some crocheting. Am up to about 35 potholders crocheted and have not yet kept one for myself. Here is another pink baby afghan that I made for Anita's new granddaughter. Baby was born last Tuesday June 29th. Over the weekend I started another baby afghan for a baby due in September. Using a new pattern and had a few difficulties, but have it figured out now.

WARNING--Most of the rest of this stuff is old news.

In mid-March I attended the Heartland Stitch-In at Excelsior Springs, Missouri, north of Kansas City. This was the 17th year this camp has been put on by the Heartland Stitch Counters Society. I have only attended 4 times now. The stitch-in was held in a new place this year. Always before it had been held in Parkville, Missouri. I, for one, liked the old place better. One one good feature of this place was that you only had to go outside if you wanted to visit the mini-shop that was in another small building. When you see the next photo, you will understand why that was a good feature. Beginning before noon on Saturday and until Sunday morning it snowed. This was what it looked like Sunday morning. I think we ended up with 4-6 inches of snow on the 3rd weekend of March. During the weekend, I was able to meet 3 members of my Kansas Stitchers Yahoo group in person. It is so great to put faces with names you read online. Shown below are Laura Landis and Mary Lou Griswold. Mary Lou is the one on the right with her wrist in a cast. About 3 weeks before the stitch-in she broke her wrist in several places and has all kinds of metal in her wrist. She still came to camp and had a great time even if she could not stitch.

The designer for the stitch-in was Ellen Chester of With My Needle with her teaching design "Fruit of the Vine Sampler Huswif". Wonderful design. It is always hard for me to work on the piece during one of those classes. I am a very slow stitcher and I feel really rushed to keep up with everything, so I just did a sample of all of the special stitches on a doodle cloth. I think there are 28 specialty stitches on the design. Here is a photo of the project taken from the With My Needle website.
During the weekend of the Stitch-in the 1st and 2nd rounds of the NCAA Basketball tournament were being held. My school, Kansas State University was playing in Oklahoma City. I had my little Acer laptop and was keeping track online. (They had Wi-fi available. Cool). Before the game on Saturday night Morris called me to say that my basketball buddy had called wondering if I wanted to go to the Sweet 16 in Salt Lake City the next week if KSU won. That was a rather dumb question. Of course, I wanted to go. It had been 22 years since KSU had gotten that far and I was there that time when they did it. The rest of the story is that KSU won and we were headed to Salt Lake City. Fun trip. Meant picking my friend up at 3:00AM to make the 1 hour drive to Manhattan to the airport to meet the KSU Alumni Charter Flight.

On Thursday night KSU played a double overtime game against Xavier and won. See scoreboard photo.

On Saturday, they played Butler and we all know how that ended. Butler won and went on to the Final Four and made quite a run. We had a great time and are looking forward to another good year next year and maybe we can go that far or farther two years in a row.

Upon arriving home from Salt Lake City, I found several e-mails from some very close family friends that their mother was gravely ill. Before I had a chance to deal with that, I received a call from my brother-in-law that the family had called to say that Alyce had lost her battle and was gone to heaven to join her husband and my mom. I know it was a joyous reunion for them, but it was sure hard on those of us left here. I had known Alyce and her husband, Chuck all of my life. They were like a second set of parents. Growing up we did a lot of things together as families. After my mom's passing, Alyce always remembered us on birthdays and holidays, I know trying to fill the void left by the loss of my mom. Morris and I traveled to Beaver Lake, Arkansas, where they had retired to in 1980, for the services. Then on to Wichita for burial beside her beloved husband Chuck. Alyce we miss you.

Our little Monday night stitch group invaded the Sage Inn at Dover again the second weekend of April. A great time was had by all. Not sure how much stitching go done. Lots of laughing, eating and generally enjoying every one's company. Each time we get together, I keep a list of some of the more interesting quotes and include them here. This time it was so long ago, that I am having trouble making sense of them. However, one quote I will include is Jan--- "I am all out of adjustment" and the response -- Anita-"Everything Normal". Sorry Jan, I had to do it.

Below is a picture of everyone, including the Jack and Josie, the B&B dogs.

This is getting rather long, but I need to do an update on my rescue dog, Dottie. About a month ago, I took her in to be spayed. Nothing unusual about that, but when they got in there found that she had a uterine infection. It was a good thing that I took her in when I did. The vet tech told me that in another week or so, I would have had a very sick dog and might have lost her. She is doing good. We have slimmed her down a bit. Sure wish I could do that to myself. She is my shadow around the house and loves to go for rides in the car. She has a few bad habits that we need to work on, but that will come in time.

Thanks for bearing with me on this long post. This is what happens when I don't do this very often. I have had the pictures for this loaded over a week, but just did not get to doing the narrative. I worked 3 days last week while Anita was away with her new granddaughter. I guess I should not call it work, because I enjoy it, but it limits the time for stitching, etc. As I said at the beginning, don't expect a blog very often, but I will keep doing it ever so often. Thanks to all my reader and commenters, you make this worth doing. Until next time................Happy Stitching!!!!!!!!!

Long Overdue Update -- Part 1

OK, I promised an update over the weekend. Obviously, that did not happen. I will get to that story shortly. It has been really hard to get back into blogging. Seems like I might have a mental block, so bear with me on this one. Maybe I can break through and keep it up weekly or so. I was able to get blogger to upload my pictures last night with plans to do the narrative today sometime. Because so much has been happening I am going to break down into at least 2 parts. Otherwise you would be reading a novel, and I know that you do not want to read that much.

Late Breaking News!!!

We have a new addition to the family. Not sure whether I ever mentioned the little Boston Terrier that used run lose in our neighborhood over a year ago. She was just a puppy and her owners were living with their parents temporarily and she was always running away with a Doberman puppy. We would catch her and take her home all the time. Late last summer they moved away. Took her with them. I was always worried that she would get hit on the road or attack by coyotes. At one time, I mentioned to the father that lives there that I would take her if they ever did not want her. A week ago, he showed up at my door asking if I was still interested in Dottie. Told him I would talk to Morris and get back to them. Well, on Saturday evening Jenny brought her by. We talked for awhile and I said I would take her. Dottie is a not quite 3-yr old Boston Terrier. Jenny said she had papers, but had not been able to find them. She does not look like my Boston Terrier totally. She has the Boston Terrier black and white markings, but more of a Pug body. I am thinking that kind of cross would be called a "Bug"

DOTTIE

Things have gone rather smoothly. They tended to leave her outside or in an unfinished basement all by herself, so they were not sure how well house broken she was. We have not had any problems with that. She is crated at night. Muffin, my Boston, has her bluff in on her. She still rules the roost. Took her to my vet this morning. Got all her shots updated and a physical. She did not mind that at all. Muffin likes riding to the vet, but when we go in she gets very nervous. Found out tonight she might have a little fear of thunderstorms. She had to lay on my stitching couch right next to me.

Now back to the update of things going on for the last couple of months. There are a couple of Sunflower Seed designs that she released at market that I stitched and have not shown here. The first one was stitched last fall, but she held it for release at market.

Be Wise

30-ct R&R Kansas City Blend

GAST Threads (I think)

The second Sunflower Seed design, I stitched 2 of the smaller pieces, Anita stitched 2, and another person stitched the model containing them all. We both do not like to stitch thing twice, so this was a group project. I stitched the Spring and Summer Bouquets at the bottom.

Seasonal Bouquet

30-ct R&R Apple Brown Bindy

DMC thread

Actually, I have had a finish of my own projects. I started Jenny Bean Halloween Sampler as my January 1st project for one of my Yahoo groups. She is done and waiting on the frame. I did it on 28-ct instead of 40-ct like the model was stitched on. I did use the Limited Edition GAST thread pack, but had to get more of the black(Nightmare/Black Crow). Loved stitching this. It was a really fun stitch.

Jenny Bean Halloween Sampler

by Shakespeare's Peddler

28-ct R&R DK Cappuccino

Limited Edition GAST Threads

Lots of things have been going on during the past few months that helped to take away my time to do stitching and blogging. I think in my last post I was getting ready to work at the shop several straight days while Anita was gone to market. Right after she got back, we got a call from South Dakota that Morris's last remaining uncle had passed. The weather was OK for traveling, but the temperature up there was frigid. The morning of the funeral it was 15 below and the high that day was 15.

After we got back from there, my niece had her little baby girl on March 2nd. A couple posts back you will find the pink afghan that I made for her. This photo was taken just hours after she was born.

Lauren Kathryn Elnora

Her second and third names are for her great-grandmothers. The "Kathryn" was part of my mom's name. We went to see her the weekend after she was born. I got to babysit while Mom, Dad and Nana ran some errands. Mom works in the town where I live, so I have offered to babysit some if needed. However, she able to take her to work with her until she is 6 months old or until there is a problem. Below are the receiving blankets that I made for her. Several years ago, I got into making these from 1 1/4 yards of flannel. My niece loves them because they are bigger than the receiving blankets you buy. My sister requested the pink ones since this one was a girl and the other ones she had were for the boys.

The day after Lauren was born, a gal in Morris's office that I am friends with had a baby boy. So I crocheted this afghan and made 2 receiving blankets for her. She and her husband are Kansas State grads and big fans as I am, I had to incorporate purple into everything. Finding yarn with purple and still look babyish and not girlish was hard.

Baby Afghan

2 Receiving Blankets

Since I spent many miles in a car for the trip to South Dakota and the lighting in South Dakota for stitching is not the best, I managed to finish another prayer shawl for the church. Have another one started.

Prayer Shawl

Also have been making more potholders. Both my sisters and my niece have received one. I had enough made up to give one to each of my Monday Night Stitch Group on our Spring Retreat. More about that on my next installment of the update. At the time this picture was taken I had made 21 potholders. As of today, I have made 5 more. My sister found me some leftover yarn somewhere and

There is a lot more to cover, but blogger has been giving me problems with formatting. Either it puts in too many lines between things or it will not let me center thing. Then after awhile it decides to center all the text and I don't want it that way. I figure I should get this posted before it blows up entirely. It deleted one photo, but I was able to recover it from the autosave copy.

Again, I want to thank all of my followers for bearing with me during my time off. I am not even going to promise to do better, because I would not want to break a promise. your comments and encouraging words are very much appreciated. Another thing that might help my blogging and blog reading is if I could stay away from Facebook. Whoever invented that was not a stitcher. It is addictive. Maybe someone should start a 12-step program for Facebook addicts.

Part 2 should be up in a few days. Will try to cover the 2 stitch retreats I have gone to, my trip to the NCAA West Regionals and the Shop Hop among other things.

Happy Stitching to All !!!!!!

PS--Dottie is laying on a big floor pillow snoring away!!!

What The H*** Happened?????

What the H*** happened to March and April? It seems that one day it was the last of February and the next thing I know it is May 1st. Maybe I should just say that I took a hiatis from blogging. However, it just seems like I never had time to get it done. My apologies to all my followers and I hope you all will stick with me. Hopefully things will slow down I almost feel like I need to re-introduce myself.

Last night (Thursday night) was going to be the beginning of my first attempt at blogging in over 2 months. Today (Friday), I was going to be working at the LNS--The Sunflower Seed, so I thought I would have some time to work on my blog. Was going to upload my photos and then do the narrative today at the shop. After numerous attempts, blogger would not let me upload pictures. I guess after such a long time without doing it, blogger decided what was one more day.

Here is a partial list of things that have gone on in the last 2 months.

2 Out of State funerals

New great niece

2 Stitching Retreats

Traveled to the NCAA West Regionals

Shop Hop

Trip to Vera Bradley and Brighton Jewelry Stores

My plan is to hit the highlights of the last two months. It might mean that I have to do it in more than one part. Posting at least one part is on the agenda for this weekend.

Another unfortunate thing that has impeded by blogging is my addiction to Facebook and its games. Bejeweled Blitz is rather addictive as some of my Facebook friends have found out. Hey, Wanda you are ahead of me now.

Along with doing a blog this weekend, I may be acquiring another Boston Terrier. It is a long story. Will give an update by the end of the weekend.

Wish me luck with blogger uploading photos.

Also, I thank all my followers that have stayed with me during my hiatis. I do appreciate your kind encouraging words. Hang in there, I will try to stay off Facebook long enough to blog and still have some stitching time.

Happy Stitching!!!!!!

Yes, I Know!!!!

This is a phrase that I use often when my local stitching friends say "you have not done an update to your blog". My response is always "yes, I know". No real excuses, just too lazy or would rather stitch or mess on Facebook. I loaded the pictures for this a couple of days ago and they were actually taken over a week ago. More evidence of my procrastination of doing a blog update.

My last stitching Christmas present is finally completed and was given to the lucky recipient last week. It is LHN-Under the Prairie Moon done on 30-ct. R&R Irish Creme with the called for Belle Soie silk. Frame is Pecan Pearls from East Side Moulding.

I did have a small finish. It is a Primitive Betty freebie off her blog. Done on a left over piece of Irish Creme with my beloved Belle Soie Cranberry and Noir. Had hoped I would take time and make it into a little hanging pillow. Did not happen. Maybe by next Valentine's Day.

There has been some progress on the Shakespeare's Peddler Jenny Been Halloween sampler my STO Yahoo Group January 1st start. It is on 28-ct R&R Lt. Cappuccino with the limited edition GAST threads. Since this photo was taken the house has been completed, the border has been completed to both corners, alphabet is complete except for "Z" and the tree trunk and limbs are in. I have changed the color on the tree. It looked too green and then with green leaves I did not like the way it looked. I used Maple Syrup for the tree. Photo next time. Maybe done or almost done.

The progress on my Quaker SAL with my Kansas Stitchers Yahoo Group is hard to determine. I am still working on this craggy old tree. It is beginning to look like weeping branches of a tree. Haven't worked on this since the photo was taken. I am ready to work on another part of this design. Still have quite a bit more tree before I can get to some other part of it. Just a reminder, it is being done on 30-ct R&R Lucky Penny with a variety of silks. The tree thread is Thread Gather Silk 'n Colors Mississippi Mud and the pattern tells you to stitch thing up and down. That continues to be a challenge.
Other stitching is the sampler for the Shop Hop that The Sunflower Seed will be a part of in late April and early May. It has several little designs with a neat border. I have one little design done, a part of another design and about half of the border. Will be alternating back and forth among these 3 projects.

The crochet bug continues to bite me, so I have been doing some crocheting too. This is a baby afghan for my niece who is to have a girl at the end of February. Or so we thought. I had a text message from her a day or two ago saying it would probably be March 3 or 4th. I guess she is not done yet. Decided it had to be pink, because this is her first girl after 2 boys. (The color in my photos sometimes has a yellow cast. I think that is from taking pictures late at night in my basement.) My mother over the years used up her leftover yarn to make these neat diagonal potholders, but I never learned how to make them. She has been gone almost 14 years and the ones I have are wearing out. So in discussion with some of my stitching friends, I figured out how to make them and have gone crazy making them. Here are 6 I have made and there are 2 more since this photo was taken. Sometimes the combinations are not great, but they make great potholders.

Yesterday was my normal day to work at The Sunflower Seed, but this week my working days have been extended. Anita left this morning for the Nashville Cash and Carry Market, so I am taking care of the shop until she returns on Tuesday. Also have Betsy, the shop dog, at my house too. Looking forward to all the goodies that Anita will bring back, as well as, hearing that she sold out of all the designs she released at market.

There you go girls a blog update. Thanks to all who visit and bear with me during my lapses in blogging. You visits and comments are appreciated.

Happy Stitching.

Some Progress

With all the snow that we have had, I have been staying home stitching a lot more. Last week, beginning on Wednesday, we got another 4.4 inches of snow. So far this year we have had 25.9 inches and the average for an entire winter season is 20. We are way ahead. This time there was lots of wind like around Christmas. After the snow quit, the wind continued to blow sending wind chills waayy below zero. The schools were closed for at least 2 days, along with many offices and businesses. Various activities around town were cancelled. Since I don't like going out in the stuff or driving on snow-packed streets, etc., I have been home quite a lot. My car has been out of the garage 2 times since December 23rd. Lots of time for stitching and othe little jobs around the house. Have to admit that I have spent a lot of time on the computer playing games, doing Facebook and Yahoo groups.

On January 1st, I started two different projects as a part of SALs in 2 different Yahoo groups. Jenny Bean Halloween Sampler by Shakespeare Peddler was the January 1st SAL for my STO Yahoo group.

Jenny Been Halloween Sampler

by Shakespeare Peddler

28-ct R&R Lt. Cappuccino

GAST Limited Edition Thread Pak

My Kansas Stitchers Yahoo group was doing Quaker Christmas by ByGone Stitches as a January 1st SAL. Since I have already stitched QC, they allowed me to use another quaker design for the SAL. I am doing Quaker Gone Spooky by Michelle Ink Designs. My start does not look like much. You will not be able to tell that what I have stitched is part of a craggy tree in a cemetery. It is stitched with Thread Gatherer's Silk 'n Colors Mississippi Mud. The instructions were to stitch it up and down instead of back and forth across like I normally stitch. It has been rather difficult to do that since one is so used to doing it the other way. Had some counting issues and had to frog out about 80 stitches. I told someone that stitching up and down is kinda like stitching in a foreign language.

Quaker Gone Spooky

by Michelle Ink Designs

30-ct R&R Lucky Penny

Various Silk Threads

I will be doing some substituting on threads when I get to some other parts of the design. The tree is the called for Mississippi Mud from Thread Gatherer.

Here is my progress on the Retreat Sampler design by The Sunflower Seed. This is the project I started on Christmas Day since we were snowed in and did not travel as planned for the holidays. The photo makes it look like one of the houses is leaning, but it really is not. The first person across the bottom is me. I made a little change in the color of the dress to my beloved purple. The color is a little more purple than it was charted for. This has been something really fun to stitch. It is being stitched on 30-ct R&R Antique Cotton with DMC and Anchor floss.The final thing that I have been rotating through during my snowed in day is LHN "Under The Prairie Moon". Since this photo was taken, I have finished this. That was accomplished about 4:30PM today. Will get it pressed and take in for framing tomorrow on my way home from the dentist. Ugh!! Hopefully I will remember to take a picture before I leave it to be framed.

Under The Prairie Moom

by Little House Needleworks

30-ct R&R Irish Creme

Belle Soie Silks called for

One other thing that I have been playing with is using up some leftover yarn to make crocheted potholders that when you are done, are diagonal. I have 2 done and one more started. Will include pictures later. Some of them might be fairly ugly due to the combination of miscellaneous yarns. My mom used to make them all the time and I was getting to the point that I was needing some. Now I have it all figured out, I will be making more. The church kitchen is very much in need of some good potholders. Several may find there way there.

Off to get some stitching done probably on the Spooky design. Watched my basketball team win tonight and was not able to settle down enough to stitch while watching. Now I need to get busy. Thanks to all who stopped by and those who commented. It is always fun to hear from everyone. Stay warm and out of the snow, if that is what you have in your area.

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