Archive for » 2009 «

Sep
16
X Marks the Weekend!
Sue

It’s that time! That wonderful glorious time of the year when five fantastic friends head off to a lovely house in the mountains of West Virginia to ignore diets, have pillow fights in their PJs, giggle, gab and knit, purl and make Xs! (Ok, maybe not have pillow fights, but you never know!)

Once a year, Kat’s parents graciously allow us to partake of their lovely home in WVa. Kat, Catherine, Debbie, Cindy and I then pack up our stuff and akin to college road trips, we giggle our way there and haul our stuff inside — again, just like moving into your dorm! Then we set up stands, lights, etc. and get super comfy!

It’s an all-girl all-crafty weekend and it’s all ours! It’s totally fun and it totally rocks! It’s amazing how well we all get along — no bickering, fighting, one-upmanship or anything petty goes on — it’s relaxing and fun!

I’ll be bringing two projects with me. My newly acquired handsome boy, Decko and Chatelaine’s Misty Morning Vineyard.

One of our traditions is to make s’mores… and Catherine’s famous Belgian waffles! Drooling yet?

Have I mention that I’m excited? *bounce bounce*

Category: friends, stitching  150 Comments
Jul
15
They’re twins… mostly…
Sue

This week Heaven and Earth Designs is having their largest sale of the year (30%!) in celebration of Michele’s birthday. I took this as the perfect opportunity to take my girls shopping for the chart they want me to stitch for them. (With the full understanding that it will take a while to do so, especially since I will have to stitch both of them at the same time!) The shopping experience was different with each girl. Alpha, the first born of the girls, doesn’t much care for slow-paced shopping AND she knew exactly which artist she wanted and after about 20 minutes had narrowed it down to two charts. After another 5 minutes, she was done and two days later, she’s still quite set on it. Beta, born 7 minutes and one push later, thoroughly enjoys the shopping process and she and I spent multiple hours over several days browsing through just about every artist on the site. Her “final” list was much longer and it took us hours to narrow down it down to three. Now she starts stressing. Ok, she can do without the one. Whew – we’re down to two. Um um… which one?! They’re both her favorite color. They both make her do that *big sigh* thing. But, finally… after another hour or so, she has a winner!

So, here we have Alpha’s choice and here we have Beta’s choice. A huge difference in color schemes and topics (serpents versus roses), but they both ended up choosing the same artist!

My girls are twins — just not identical ones, which, for anyone who has met them, is crystal clear! After finishing the AMAP “M” and “L” for their rooms, I’ll start on these. With the complete contrast in colors, I’ll have quite the variety!

P.S. I also grabbed two charts for me! ;)

Category: family, stitching  43 Comments
Jul
07
Now that it’s summer…
Sue

I suppose I can’t claim I’m spring cleaning anymore, eh? While the purging of stuff is still going on, it is most definitely summer around here!

Paula, oh Paaaauuuulllllaaaaa! I have something to show you, dahlink! Here are the first ten rows across the first page of “Fragile!” It’s 800 Xs stitched 1 x 1 on some 27 count white stuff I had in my stash. It’s mostly sparkly Xs which I stitched with two strands of GlissenGloss 000 because Kreinik and I do not get along. (You can give it a click to see a more up close look and if you see that missed X rest assured that I’ve already filled it in!) This chart is totally girly and I do have to take a bit of a break from it, so I’ll be meandering over to visit my Bubble Telescope or maybe Chameleon for a bit and see how one of them do for a while.

I do have another stitchy picture to show you! This is from Ingrid Keuchel’s “Words Around a Theme” series. I’ve chosen “Peace” and I am stitching it in my most favorite variegated silk ever “Monet” from Colourstreams. It’s a fast stitch and I highly recommend her charts, they look great and she has tons of themes! I love her dancers and may just have to do one of those for my beautiful ballerina someday soon!

I don’t post about my twin dragonettes very often, but I am immensely proud of them. They have both been saving their money for months and months in order to each buy a Nintendo DS and this is the month. Within two weeks of eachother they both made their goal. I had told them early on that if they saved up enough money that I would spring for skins and screen protectors and cases. One daughter will soon be pretty in pink and the other has a cutesy gothic-anime girl on hers. There will be no problem telling their white DSes apart! I am looking forward to playing Animal Crossing with them. I picked up two used cartridges to go with my cartridge so we can have three different towns (with three separate home fruit trees of course) and visit eachother. It will be their first DS wifi experience and I can’t wait to see their reaction. For those of you who see my Twitter updates on Facebook, you’ll know that I’ve been grumping about catching fish in Animal Crossing DS as of late. *mumbles* Catching bugs is much easier! Then there’s trying to shoot the alien spaceship down. I’ve not managed that one yet…

Category: family, games, general, stitching  106 Comments
Apr
15
Spring Cleaning
Sue

It’s Spring! *peers at the thermometer* Well, ok, so maybe not here. But it’s spring somewhere! My apologies to all my friends for the kerplunk of my blog. I figured while it was down that I’d ditch some legacy flab hanging around and spiff things up a bit! So please kick the walls, poke the buttons and let me know if any springs or other things go wonky on you so I can fix ‘em right away!

While my blog has been taking a break, I haven’t! I’ve got a few stitching pictures for you. First up us the finished second page of Sampler Cove’s Spanish Rouge. I’m not sure how long I will be able to stand the half letters to the right of that page before I will have to finish them up. *fidgets* You can see a picture of the finished product here and if you want a drool-fest Diane is sure to please! Have I mentioned that Maestro, the kitten who now has quite the pudgy kitten belly, can be sound asleep under the sofa but as soon as I so much as pick up my stitching, is wide awake and ready to chase my floss as it goes in and out of the fabric. *sigh* He’s not ripped anything yet, but he has slowed down my stitching!

Speaking of Maestro, during February’s HAED Freebie SAL, he knocked my glass of water on to my Day Dreaming Fairy. I missed that month’s SAL and neglected to notice that the water had caused the dye to run on the fabric (it’s a Silkweaver hand-dyed solo) until the March SAL when I had to soak the whole thing to get the water marks out. So, I missed two SALs and had some ground to make up. Here is where I am now – I finally got some Xs into her hair. The picture turned out dark and yup, those are hoop marks. QSnaps and I are beyond peace talks. I have found some really nice German wooden hoops and am not going back!

Next up is a big red eye! Jasmine paints the best eyes in my opinion. And these are red! I meandered my way down to a knobby dragon scale because I was itching to see how it stitched up. The charting is amazing in that it captures the subtle shading on the dragon’s hide and the reflections in the eyes are just totally amazing. Whenever I get this piece out, I always stare at it for a while because it’s mesmerizing.

Next up is the first HAED chart I purchased: Christophe Vacher’s Sacred Hour. It’s a study in shades of brown and I find it very soothing. One of my goals for this year is to complete the top row of pages. I have 2 1/2 more to go. They are the large print sized ones, so I may just manage it. Somewhere within the column I am stitching, there is a face. I can’t see it in the chart, but there should be one there. It’s really subtle. I may just have to tear myself away from my latest start/addiction (see what I’m stitching up there? :D ) and get back to my browns.

Last picture, I promise!! This one is for you, Sonya! I was doing really really well. I had all the blue done down the left side of all of the first page and nearly all the grey. That is until I found out that I can’t seem to count to ten. *mumble* (At what point do my blonde moments become senior blonde moments?) I ended up frogging nearly 200 stitches which was all of the grey and a good portion of the blue. But I will not be deterred! The Two Fluffy Kitties will be back in my hoop very soon!

That’s it for this post. There will be a Chameleon update next time!

Category: blonde, family, friends, general, pets, stitching  187 Comments
Feb
09
Kitten: 2 Frogs: 0
Sue

First I have to confess that Twitter has made me quite the slack at blogging. Of course this does absolutely no good for all those friends and family who don’t use Twitter, so I really look like a total slacker. I do have my Twitter updates shipped over to my Facebook page, so if you’re following me on Facebook, then you can see my Twitter updates.

The kitten (who is now looking more lanky and feline-like rather than like a ball of fluff), was taking quite the interest in alpha daughter’s pair of pet dwarf African frogs. (They’re tiny things that live in their own ecosystem and stay in water.)  So we decided to move their small aquatic world up into the room where her gerbils are to keep him away from them. (The doors are kept shut.) A few days after this move, Scott and I heard a loud thud and just thought it was the girls making their normal crashing and thud-ing sounds. As it turns out, one of the girls had accidentally locked the kitten in, you guessed it, the gerbil and frog room. He hopped right up on the dresser and knocked over the frogs’ small aquatic world. We had thought he had eaten them until alpha daughter discovered two flat dried up frog bodies that had hopped under the bathroom door to escape the frog-chasing kitten. Fortunately, she isn’t mad at the kitten. She is, however, quite sad that her first ever pets of her own are dead. Now she wants a turtle or a snake; preferably a snake. *sigh*

I’ve done a little bit of stitching since last time, including this bit which I’m going to leave as a mystery for my favorite girls to ponder a guess at. It is a HAED chart (and a full size one at that). It is an active artist and an active chart.  It is also an artist whose work I have drooled over but have never stitched… until now. She has been with HAED for several years, too! This is the middle of the chart and it’s part of a face.

Next up is my new start for the 5th weekend retired artist/chart SAL. I’ve been wanting to start this chart for a while and have tagged this as my guilt-free start for 2009. It’s Linda Ravenscroft’s “Serendipity.” While I’m not sure what is serendipitous about the scene, I love it anyway. I know I’ll be stitching this more often than every 5th weekend. There is something about Linda’s work that I find amazing. I have her “Mask of Colors” going around as a round robin. But other than that, I don’t have any of her other work in progress. I will be getting to part of the tattoo on her arm really soon. It’s next on the top right of my stitching!

My next stitchy picture isn’t all that exciting to see. It’s a square of sparkle and two shades of really pale grey. It’s QS Day Dreaming Fairy by Zindy Nielsen which is the piece I’ve chosen for the 2009 HAED Freebie SAL. I was torn on what to choose because stitching all these neutral colors will drive me bats, but it’s a new artist for me and she’s pretty. She is due to come out this coming weekend for some stitching although maybe I will pull her out a bit earlier.

Speaking of 2009, I’ve made two stitching goals for this year on the HAED front. One is to finish the QS I just mentioned above, and the other is to finish the top row of pages in Christophe Vacher’s Sacred Hour.  I’ve got about 2 1/2 large print pages to go and somewhere in those pages is a face! This was the first HAED chart I ever bought and it is the one I love most of all.

Category: doh!, family, friends, pets, stitching  11 Comments