Let's Play Tag

I have been tagged by Michelle- I'm A Little Teapot. Through blogging I have found out that Michelle is originally from Kansas, where I live. When she come back to Kansas, she shops at my LNS. Now I can hardly wait until the next time she is back to meet her in person.

Now I am supposed to come up with 7 facts about myself. There is one fact that Michelle used that I am going to have to repeat.

1. I love chocolate. Don't necessarily have to have it every day, but must have frequently. Otherwise I would be the size of a large barn. Caramel and peanut butter run a close second and third.

2. I hate to drive. Have always disliked driving. Near the end of my working career, I was driving about 50 percent of my work time. That was another good reason to retire. However, don't mind driving across town to the LNS to help out there.

3. I am afraid of all kinds of birds or animals with feathers. Cannot go to zoos or exhibits that have birds running around not contained or in cages. It totally freaks me out.

4. My college degree is in Home Ec-Retailing. Never really used that degree. Worked for the government for 32 years. Now use some of that training when helping at the LNS.

5. Big sports fan. Never played much of anything, but love to watch on TV and in person. Favorites are College Football, College Basketball, Major League Baseball and NASCAR.

6. My dad stepped on my thumb when I was less than 2 years old and broke it. I was riding a horse with him and he got off to open a gate and the horse spooked and my dad tried to grab me off the horse and dropped me and stepped on my thumb and broke it. Had to switch which thumb I sucked.

7. Had two eye surgeries before I was 5 to correct some muscle issues. Has never bothered me in my stitching.

This was really hard to do. I am tagging the following 7 people. Hopefully, these have not been tagged recently. It will be great fun if you can play along and tell us 7 things about you.

1. Meg - Committed Stitcher

2. Michelle - X Marks My Spot

3. Dawn - Tea Time

4. Sarah - Stitching at Home

5. Kajsa - Kajsa's Stitching & More

6. Mary Ann - Just Stitching

7. Hazel - Quietly Stitching

Another day has gone by and I have not done a report on my weekend stitch retreat. Maybe I can get pictures taken of my purchase and the projects and get them downloaded tomorrow and then write a post tomorrow. It might end up being a rather long one. A few stories to tell and several pictures. Maybe I will make it 2 installments. Also am still not caught up on the blog reading and everyone just keeps posting more. I may never get caught up. Now I understand the comments from many of you about getting behind on reading. Last night my significant other and I did a kitten rescue and have that story to tell with pictures.

Tomorrow is the afternoon stitch therapy at the LNS. Just found out that the birthday lady from last night got sick in the night and has been sick all day, so she will not be able to have therapy tomorrow. We will miss her and I know she is upset to think she is going to have to miss it. Get well Joann.

Off to try to get some stitching done. Too many phone calls, etc. today and have not gotten much done.

Smile Awards

I have been honored by Vonna with the You Make Me Smile Award. My hope when I started blogging was to give others a look into the many things that I stitch. And now to find out that I have made someone smile is a bonus. Since I have only been doing this a short time, I will try to pass this award on to those bloggers that I have found and very much enjoy reading and seeing a glimpse into their lives and stitching world. Again thank you Vonna for making this award to me.

Julie - Weathered Barn
Mindi - What's Up With Wyora?
Jane - Jane's Jots
Katrina - The Needle's Promise
Wanda - WB Stitches
Kajsa - Kajsa's Stitching and More
Margie - From Cotton to Silk Dreams
Carol - Garden of Stitches
Michelle - I'm A Little Teapot
Donna - DaisyGirl Stitching

The rule is that you must pass this award on to 10 people that make you smile. I am sure some of those I have tagged have been tagged before. However, I am sure that you can find another 10 people that make you smile. Some of those that I have tagged are in the VOHRH SAL with me, others are blogs that I read every time they post. Carol is so good about posting that I find it hard to end the day without reading a post from her. And Margie has those darn cute puppy pictures. I left off another one that has really cute puppy pictures. Hannah has this darling terror puppy. (That is her name for the puppy).

I just returned from a cross stitch retreat in Oklahoma on Sunday and am trying to catch up on the 97 e-mails and 38 blogs that were waiting on me. Still have 27 blogs to read that are in my Google reader. That does not include those that I hit once or twice a week that are not in my reader. I read 14 last night after I got home and have read 7 so far today. The list of e-mails is done to about 20 unread. It sure does not pay to get behind. Cannot imagine what it will be like when I am gone to Branson for a week in November. Ugh!!!!

Tonight our Monday Night Stitch Therapy group at the LNS had a birthday party for one of the ladies in the group. She does not have much family so our group is her family and she is such a special lady, we try to help make her birthday special. I baked a cake and everyone brought cards for her. She so enjoyed it and we wanted to honor her on her birthday. Happy Birthday Joann.

Later this week, I will post some photos and tell you about our adventure at the cross stitch retreat, and there were many adventures. Not sure that I can share them all. The gals I went with may draw the line on some of the things. After all, the first day I wore a t-shirt that said "What Happens with the Girlfriends Stays with the Girlfriends". They keep reminding me of that.

Off to get a little more stitching done. Will be doing a couple more posts later in the week.

Happy stitching!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Block Update and Misc.

There has been some progress on Block 2 - VOHRH. One stained glass window is in and the base of one of the trees is in. The bottom of the tree looks like some kind of evil hand that should be a part of some Halloween decoration. It sure seems like this should go faster, but I keep plugging away at it. Have already run into a couple of snags. When ordering the silk for this block, I missed one color. You will notice the blank spaces on the front steps of the church, that is the missing color. Also I have run out of the dark green that is the grass behind the fence. The LNS will get them ordered for me along with other colors for the next few blocks. It won't be long before I have them all. However I seem to use a lot of thread to I might have to have more than one skein of more of the colors than I originally thought.

In discussions with others in the Village SAL, we might extend the month of October to include the month of November. I think we are all feeling the push to get some Christmas stitching done along with those that are participating in exchanges that are due soon. We also have a new member to add to our SAL - Kajsa. is joining us. She and Wanda are just joining us and do not have block one done, so our delay on block 2 will allow them to catch up with the rest of us. I should not say the rest of us because I am a long way from being done with block 2.

Has anyone figured out how to squeeze more stitching into a day? It seems like I cannot get enough done. Still have been working on a Christmas present and design model for The Sunflower Seed. This afternoon I pulled the thread for the last of the Christmas stitching. As usual I am missing one color. It never fails that you think you have every color and then you pull them and come up one short.

Yesterday (Saturday) was the day we traveled to where my dad lives (about a 2 1/2 hour drive to attend a Cousin's Reunion. This is the fourth year we have had it. My dad was the next to the youngest of nine in his family. He is 87 and the only remaining one. A few years ago several of my cousins decided that we needed to hold a reunion every year in order to keep in touch now that all the brothers and sisters were gone. There were 30 grandchildren (1st cousins) in the family. Yesterday, there were 13 of the 22 surviving cousins in attendance. We had a wonderful time visiting and eating. What else to families do? My dad really enjoys having everyone around him. Both of my sisters, my niece and my great nephew were there also. Plans were made to meet again next year. I was able to do some stitching on the drive down and back. However, it is difficult to get much done when the dog is laying in your lap too. She loves to go for rides, but has to be in my lap most of the time. Got home in time to watch my college team play on TV. It was at home and I sold my ticket so I could go to the reunion. I had missed the last two because of games and one cousin told me I was about to be excommunicated from the family. I have already looked at the schedule for next year and we don't have a home game, so I will be safe for another year.

This week promises to be a very busy one, but also one I am looking forward to. Monday I meet some people that I used to work with for lunch. My job required me to travel and work with people in various parts of the state. Some are coming to town tomorrow for a meeting, so I will meet them for lunch and catch up on things. Monday evening is one of my weekly stitch therapy sessions at the LNS. Tuesday has me working at the LNS and needing to prepare a dessert for my monthly church ladies meeting on Wednesday. Wednesday I will miss the afternoon stitch therapy session to attend the church meeting. Thursday, I and 2 of stitching buddies go to Oklahoma City for a stitching retreat sponsored by Heartland Needleworks. It is held at a church camp west of Oklahoma City. We have not attended this one before. I have attended lots of Stitch Camps so will be interested to see how this one is. We will be meeting my youngest sister that lives in Missouri at the retreat. She met us at Silver Needle's Camp Wannasew last year. We always have a great time. I can hardly wait. Need to finish working on my stitch projects to take along. That is more important than the clothes I need to pack. This retreat continues through approximately Sunday noon. I am not driving, so hopefully I can get some stitching done on the ride to and from. However, I do help navigate so will be keeping a watchful eye in areas that are new to us all.

As usual, I have been wordier than I had planned. Hope my long posts do not bore you. Thanks to all that stop by. The comments are great. Everyone have a great week and I will try to take some pictures at the retreat for my next post.

Keep those needles blazing.

Finish Line

Hot off the needle is my latest finish. Actually put in the last stitch about 30 minutes ago. The picture is not very good. It was difficult to get a good photo. This is sort of my own design using several designs. I took 4 designs from The Workbasket-Quaker Odds and Evens. They are actually 2 different patterns, one being the even months and one being the odd months.

One day the owner of LNS and I were discussing how we could put more than one of the designs together into one big piece. There were only 4 designs that were the same size. Each of the ones I used were 65x65 stitches. The designs in order left to right, top to bottom are January, June, October and November.

Quaker Squares

The Workbasket

28ct Mulberry Cashel

Needle Necessities -170 - Mauna Loa

Each design had a place for the year and initials worked into the design. I didn't want my initials on it four times, so I incorporated the initials of my 2 sisters and my only niece. The stitching of this piece was not without incident. When I was about half done with the fourth square, I begun to realize that one 20-yard skein of NN was not going to be enough. So had the LNS order me another skein. When it came, it looked almost like a different color. I even tried using it and it was way too dark. I decided I was going to have to contact another shop, etc. to see if I could get some more thread. About that same time was when I started hearing the reports about Needle Necessities going out of business. Ended up calling an order into Nordic Needle for 2 skeins plus others too. (Now trying to horde NN floss). When I received them they were a perfect match to what I had been stitching with. That was a relief!!!!!!! Who would have thought it would take more than 20 yards to stitch that piece. Neither I or the LNS thought it would. We have learned a big lesson.

Over the weekend, I had another finish in my Christmas stitching. No picture until after gifts are given. This makes 2 of 4 done. The frame has been ordered. I also have done some rethinking of what I am doing for one of the presents. Changed my mind on one of the gifts. Went to my stash of WIPs and found a piece I had started for one of the persons a couple of years ago. Didn't get it done in time for that particular gift, so now I will get it done as a Christmas gift. Taking care of two issues at once, a gift done and a WIP out of the mix.

The VOHRH SAL has grown by one in the last few days. Welcome Wanda!! Marie P. has a list of those in our SAL on her blog side bar. ( I have not figured out how to do links within my post yet. I will leave that for another time.) Am making some progress on my Block 2, but put it aside the last day and a half to finish the Quaker thing. Maybe a picture later in the week.

Last weekend was a fairly productive stitching weekend considering that I had a football game that took up a lot of Saturday. Fairly good game, just not the end result I wanted. Boo!! Hoo!! Not sure how much stitching this weekend because I am going to a cousins reunion at my dad's place about 2 1/2 hours away. There will be some in car stitch time, but don't get a lot done when there is a dog on my lap too. More about the reunion in the next post.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is afternoon stitch therapy session at the LNS and then I work there on Thursday. So many temptation when you spend all day around all this stuff. LOL!!

Looks like I still have a little time to stitch before going to bed. Hope everyone is having a good week and thanks to all the stop by and for the very nice comments.

Keep on stitching!!!!!

VOHRH Block 2 Progress

The month started on Monday and therefore I was able to start Block 2 of VOHRH. It is hard to see my progress at the bottom. I thought this was the best picture of the ones I took. The fence is almost complete. The church name is in with part of the background. I found that on things like this if I put the lettering, etc. in first and then stitch around them it works better. This is especially true when using white. Seems like I have spent a lot of time, but it does not look like a whole lot of progress. If this design were stitched solid, it would contain over 105,000 stitches. Those of you that have finished it have achieved a great accomplishment.

Tomorrow looks like it might be a good stitching day. Not much on the agenda. Have to make a pan of brownies for the football tailgate on Saturday. It is a match between the arch-rivals in the state. It should be a real dog fight. The game takes up a lot of the day so there won't be much stitching on Saturday. Before the new month began, I spent time stitching on the Christmas presents and the design model for The Sunflower Seed. Need to do some ripping on the design model. Decided to make some color changes because the first ones chosen did not show up as expected. The second of 4 Christmas presents is a little over half done. Today I took the completed one to the framer.

With the news that Needle Necessities is going out of business, I have been try to find skeins of my favorite colors to add to my stash. Rumors had been flying for a couple of months that they were having problems. My local LNS had just started carrying some of the colors. I have been lucky enough to find quite a few of the colors I was wanting. However, I think the supply out there is dwindling.

Thanks to all for the comments regarding the completion of Block 1. I was pleased with the way it looks. In the last few days, I have found several new blogs. There are many wonderful stitchers out there. Both in what and how they stitch and the person they are. It is a wonderful world of stitching friends out there.

Keep on stitching.

TA-DA!!!!! Village-Block 1

I finished Block 1 of VOHRH earlier this evening. What a relief to get this first one done. Even though there may be more stitching in the next few blocks, I think it will go faster than this one. Too many color changes and tie-offs between letters and leaves. I really like the way it looks and stitching with Vikki Clayton silks is wonderful. Better than any other silks I have stitched with.

Since I am done with Block 1 before the 1st of October, I will spend some extra time on other stitching. including the Sunflower Seed design model, Christmas present #2 and other WIPs. I picked of "Best of Blessing" by Hands to Work and put in several stitches. Have not done anything on it for several weeks. Tomorrow is my Wednesday afternoon stitch therapy session at the LNS. Probably will stitch on my Quaker Odds and Evens Sampler. I am on the last motif for this design. Would like to count it as a completed project soon.

Monday night was my other stitch therapy session. We had a few good laughs. We always have such a good time stitching together. I recently heard an advertisement on TV showing little kids laughing saying that laughter adds 8 years to your life. We decided we need to laugh a lot to add all the extra years we can, in order to get all the stitching done that we want to in our lifetime. Went to the shop early, on Monday afternoon to help out some. Had worked on Saturday and was busy the entire time and did not get everything done that I usually get done. Business has been especially good the last week or so, that we needed to order a lot of stuff to restock. That is a good thing. I love being able to help out.

It is getting late and I have a couple blogs to read before I head off to bed. Carol, I always have to read yours everyday or the day is not complete. I got behind in reading blogs when I was gone to NY and I hate to get behind. I love to travel, but don't like to be in catch up mode when I get back.

Later, Stitching Friends.

Village Progress and Other Stitching

Now that I have my magnifier light back, I have been able to stitch on VOHRH. Here is the progress I have made. I really enjoy stitching on it, but it seems like slow going. One of the gals in my Monday night stitch group is almost half done with hers on 36-ct. Her comment was that "there is a lot going on in that little stream." And there is. You do a lot of color changes combined with some solid stitching for the stream and the grass.

The plan was to stitch one block a month, but I am not sure that I am going to be able to keep up with the plan. I started Block 1 on August 16th, but then went 12 days without my light, so now I figure that I have until the end of September to finish this block. The rest of my SAL mates on this project were starting September 1st, so that gets us all on about the same rotation. A couple of them already have their block done.

Last night I did have a finish on a Christmas present. No pictures until after Christmas, since most of the people I am stitching for read my blog regularly. Am pleased I have one done and ready for framing. Now only 3 more to do. I got a little start on one of them last night. It should be a quick stitch, but we say that about a lot of things that don't turn out that way.

Still am working on a design model for The Sunflower Seed. Try to rotate my stitching between the VOHRH, Christmas Presents and the design model. Never boring that way. Worked at LNS last Thursday. Was busy most of the day so did not get any stitching done there. However, there were lots of football games over the weekend so I stitched and watched/listened. Most of Saturday was taken up going to Kansas State football game. Was able to stitch a few stitches on the ride over.

So far this week have been doing preparation for hosting my church ladies circle on Wednesday. Making BBQ beef sandwiches and pineapple angel food cake dessert. Another lady is making a couple of salads. It is a nice little group and they always enjoy getting together for our lesson and we are an eating group, so always have to have food. Such fun. Also have some more wonderful Colorado peaches that I must work up into something. Seems like there is always something to take me away for my stitching.

Thanks to all that stop by an visit and leave comments. Recently, I have been doing a lot of reading, but not always commenting. I need to get better at that. I know how much I enjoy the comments I receive, should remember that when reading other blogs.

Hope everyone is having a good stitching week.