A Little Stash and a Little Surprise

Well, I've got a little stash to share with you today. First is a chart I've always wanted but was leery to buy. I've always been overly cautious when it comes to art to cross stitch conversions. But I have seen this one stitched up and its fantastic! My very good friend Beth gave this to me as a present when we met up on Saturday for lunch. Thank you Beth! What a lovely pressie! I definately have to stitch this piece in the near future. I plan to stitch it over on on 25count.






Next... two of my Silkweaver hand dyed arrived today. The one on the left is Precious Metals 32ct Jazlyn. One of two colours I ordered as a possible for Mirabilia's Christmas Elf Fairy. The second piece for CEF hasn't arrived and its Wandering Ivy on 32ct Lugana. The funky green piece on the right is Jungle Boogie, which I ordered "just because". I thought there was a little more yellow in it, but its still a fun piece of fabric. I have no clue what I'm going to stitch on it!!!



I also received in the mail the last installment of the Just Cross Stitch Retro Ornament Round Robin. I look forward to stitching it as soon as I get some other stuff done! My final parcel tonight, yes I was quite shocked to get three! Was two more small models for Great Bear Canada. These ones are a total surprise! I had no idea they were on their way, I just hope they aren't needed for Nashville in February. There is just no way I can get that done, maybe if I didn't work full time it would be possible, but I do. I'm waiting to find out what sort of deadline there is on these pieces.

Now I did have a new start tonight, the first of two treat bags for the February Blahs exchange over at Needle and Thread BB. I'm having fun with hand dyed fabric and overdyed silks! Hopefully when I'm done the stitching I'll be able to turn them into the treat bags I picture in my mind. I'll of course put together a tutorial over at my webpage.

Speaking of my webpage, if you've tried to visit it lately... you'll have noticed I exceeded my bandwith for the month. Well thank you to my Webmistress I've got some more bandwidth and we're up and running again! I'm also going to make an effort to use Blogger to share photos with you instead of putting all my progress pictures up at my webspace.

Model HD! And a Little TW

Well I finally finished the second of two models for Great Bear Canada. That's why its been so quiet for the last week. I've been stitching like mad to get the piece finished since its for February's Nashville Market! But its done, the pressure if off and the piece is in the mail, expresspost.


Sooooo... tonight I indulged myself by joining the Teresa Wentzler SAL at the TWBB! More than three years ago I started Celestial Dragon on the drive back home from Knoxville, Tennessee on New Year's day. I got the top left hand corner outlined but that was it. I put CD away after getting home from that trip, and its been tucked away... until today. I'm hoping to take part in this TW SAL every Monday. That is until something else takes my fancy... or a new model stitching job shows up in my P.O. Box!

tomorrow I start stitching on two treat bags for an exchange over at Needle and Thread BB.

Model Stitching Away

Well I've been model stitching away here! I really need to catch up since I barely stitched last week. My migraine seems to be behaving today, it threatened to come back after lunch but it didn't "come forward".

While I've been sitting here stitching I've been mentally going through all those projects from my craft room screaming to be stitched. Oh to be a lady of leisure! Sigh, maybe we'll win the 6/49 or Super7 this week...

Last night, I had a great night... I barely stitched all day, we were quite busy doing domestic and family stuff. The reason last night was great... I scored my first goal during our playoff game at soccer!

I totally skipped out on the Celtic Banner SAL yesterday. I had so little stitching time that it wasn't even worth pulling out of the ole' stitching basket.

I hope all you Canadians who qualified went and did your civic duty tonight and voted!

Gosh this is so scattered tonight, I know there was something else I wanted to blog about but I can't remember.

Ways To Avoid Stitching

Well I don't know what was wrong with me today! But it felt like I was doing everything to avoid stitching... Model stitching today.

This morning I finished the beading for my beaded brooch for Guild in February. I'm quite thrilled with the results of this project, as its a first for me. I'm hoping that its obvious, that its a wave??? This could be quite an addictive activity.


After I finished this brooch I was a good girl and stitched for awhile. But then, it was nap time... I pretty much napped all afternoon. I felt a wee bit of a headache coming on, so I thought it would be best to sleep before it hit. It never hit, perhaps a 2 hour nap helped.


After I got up I proceeded to start putting together a fleece rag quilt. It was a kit I picked up at Joanne's Fabrics the last time I was in Tennessee. It was a real steal, you can't even buy this much fabric for $9.99! This picture isn't the best, but its a real funky rag quilt in fun colours!

I got part of the way through my quilt when Todd got home, I made us dinner. I sat down to stitch some more, but then decided to make Chocolate Chip cookies! While batches baked I started to finish off my rag quilt.

Finally now, after midnight I'm sitting down and stitching. I probably won't get a lot of stitching done on Sunday, we've got a busy day ahead of us! Sunday evening I have a play-off soccer game! Stitching wise, tomorrow is Celtic Banner SAL day... I might just skip it for this week and work on my model. I'd like to get that finished up so I can focus on my own stuff, and I have an exchange coming up, and need to stitch two treat bags.

Slow Stitching Week, SBQ, A Ornament HD

Well this past stitching week has been the pits I have to say. I've been plagued with an on and off migraine since last Saturday. The end result? Not a lot of time online, and not a lot of stitching got done.

At this point I should be at least half way done on that last model for Great Bear Canada... I've barely got a start on it. Which means I'll really need to boogie on it next week!

On Tuesday night at Guild I started a really cool project which I'll try to finish this weekend and share with you here. Its a lovely beaded brooch that will go in the goodie bags we'll be giving at the Regional EAC meeting we'll be holding later this year. I think I managed to get quite creative with mine. I think I could of sat there and finished it that night, but we had freezing rain, so I had to leave early.

I also got a lovely little bonus that night. Before guild I hung out at Christin's since we go to the meeting together. I brought all my recent stash acquisitions to show off. She surprised me with Judy O'Dell's Box Finishing Book! So I now have three Judy O'Dell books for my collection! But at the rate life is going lately I probably won't have the time for a finishing spree until March Break.

This weekend on the Needle and Thread BB it is the Freebie SAL. Between manageable moments with my migraine on Friday (stayed home sick from work, I was in no state to drive after a horrible night's sleep and a bad migraine) I started a small prairie Schooler Freebie I got from Knowledge and Needle. So I've killed two birds with one stone, I stitched a freebie and an ornament. Its stitched on 32ct Platinum Lugana, the design called for DMC but I swapped them all out for various overdyed threads I had. All the colours except the blues are from a Loose Threads GAST pack my friend Christin gave me. I'm happy to send this freebie chart along to the first person that sends me an e-mail at tkd_chick@hotmail.com . Jenna was the first to e-mail me so the chart is hers!

Now for this week's SBQ...

Q: Have you had a happy dance yet this year? If so, tell us about it! (Or just point to the entry that talks about it.) If not, when do you predict it will be?

A: Yes, I finished that Dinky-Dyes Freebie! Its all in a past blog entry.

Celtic Banner SAL and All The Stash is Here!

Sorry you didn't get your promised progress report last night! I was just soo tired, I couldn't be bothered to get the camera out. Honestly, I didn't get too much done, a short length of the border that's it. I'm starting to worry that perhaps I left too much fabric at the top? I hope not!!!









And here is the results of my Christmas Holiday madness shopping!



I bought : Mirabilia's Christmas Elf Fairy, M Designs Letters E&F, How to Cube It (by Elegant stitch), Christmas Ornaments and The Flat Fold (by Judy O'Dell). My last stash purchase won't be here for a couple of weeks, and that's my Christmas Elf Fairy Fabric!!

My first model is off in the mail today! I've got a very slow start on the second, I think this one may actually stitch up faster??? Though it is the same over-all size. I can't wait to get this finished. I need to get an ornament for January stitched and I have my partners for the February Blahs Exchange over at Needle and Thread BB so I have two treat bags to get stitched up!

Tonight I had a good chat on the phone with one of the designers I stitch for, she's asked me how my stitching schedule looks like for February/March. I've told her its all clear (it always is for her!!!) and I even got my choice of assignment! It sounds pretty darned cool too, right up my alley. I can't wait to see what she's come up with this time!

Tomorrow night, I won't get much stitching done, its Guild night. For a change I'm actually taking part in one of the program classes, a beaded brooch.

Well I think its time to pack it in for the night.

A Model HD, a Bad Clickie Finger, and SAL day

As you all know I've been searching for the perfect sparklie fabric for Mirabilia's Christmas Elf Fairy. Well the kit arrived in the mail on Friday. Boy now that I see those vibrant hand dyed fibers and beads I really want to stitch her! I've been fighting the new start urge, especially with model stitching to be done for February's Nashville Market.

What really saved me from starting CEF was the fact that she HAS TO BE stitched on sparklie hand dyed fabric. So after looking at various fabric dying companies websites I settled on purchasing 3 small cuts of 32 ct fabric from Silkweaver's Reflections line. I'm torn between either Wandering Ivy or Precious Metals, so I ordered both. I also added in a third piece in Jungle Boogie just because I've always wanted that colour! So when they get here I'll do some floss tosses to share with you. That's when I'll have to fight the true temptation to start CEF.

I should of started working on Celtic Banner this morning when I sat down to start my stitching for the day. But I only had a couple of more rows to stitch on one of the two models for Great Bear Canada. So I sat down and finished the first model by 1:30 today! So that's a second 2006 happy dance for me! As usual I can't share until the design is released which should be in February at the Nashville Market. At this year's market there will be three new models there stitched by me. One for Dragon Dreams, and if you read Jennifer's newsletter you might be able to guess which one it was... There will be two models there for Great Bear Canada.

Model stitching is a nice way to keep stitching but not have to buy stash. Also you don't have to figure out how to finish it or if you ever will! My bag of finished, unfinished projects is starting to get out of control!!!

So for the rest of the evening (except when I go play indoor soccer) will be spent working on that Celtic Banner border! As usual there will be an updated picture here before I go to bed tonight.