So Much Greatness!

Hello all! This may be quite the long post.

We're still stuck with horribly cold temperatures and ice galore. Fortunately it has melted off of the roads, but everyones yards and several driveways are still a little treacherous. The poor UPS man has almost busted his rear end delivering packages to me. We won't even discuss the USPS man who has to walk up and down the streets and through everyone's yards delivering the daily mail. Happily they are still delivering which has provided me with so many lovely things!!

Stash

Thankfully I am not participating in the SFS group this half of the year or I would have failed miserably. My personal budget hasn't really "suffered" as I don't usually spend much money on myself anyway. So, thanks to ebay (the evil money-sucking place), I am now the proud owner of 3 Mirabilia patterns. And some fabric. And some embellishments. Now before you start shaking your heads, they were all DIRT cheap!!!! I almost couldn't believe it honestly.

I wound up with the entire kit for Fairy Moon (chart, Kreinik, DMC, beads and fabric) for a little under $30.00. Upon receipt I did realize that one of the DMC colors is incorrect, through no real fault of the seller. The number kind of looks like a 0 but it's a 6. Those of you who are familiar with these designs may know what I'm talking about... the font is a little funky. So I must go get one skein of floss, but $0.33 is not going to break me. Here she is in all her glory! I hope to start her this weekend. :-)

See the bright-ish pink thread... that's the culprit!

The other two charts, both with fabric, are Sleeping Beauty and Fairy Idyll. I was in LOVE with both of these charts and at $30.00 for the pair I was suckered in. I haven't received these two yet, but I'll post when I do (should be by this weekend). No more ebay for me.

 

Gifts

I was absolutely astonished when I received my gift from June at Butterfly Wings. Let me back up a little. Back in December (I think) June began stitching a lovely piece and began a contest for the first person to guess the design and designer of this piece. After much searching I finally found it and emailed her. Another follower was a bit quicker than I and found it before me. Didn't bother me as it was fun to search around and find tons of new gorgeous designs. And then I read the rest of dear June's email stating that she would be stitching gifts for the both of us! I was so very excited as I love her stitching. Well I received my package and O.M.G. Let me show you... these photos do it no justice...

The packaging was adorable!! Love the colors.

The card was so cute and so very sweet, albeit a wee bit blurry in the photo.

Inside the cutest bag (the little blue and white one) was the date book, magnetic bookmarks (I have already begun using), the heart clothespin, and the pretty ribbon (wrapped around one of June's beautiful bobbins I've been admiring).

The pincushion is stunning. So pretty and (I don't know how she knew) stitched/finished in some of my favorite colors. The little dragonfly is too stinkin' cute!! I must admit I was almost in tears. Happy ones of course. I was just struck by the amount of time and love and care went into this wonderful package of goodies. Obviously I had to send her the most mushy email I could muster up. :-) Go visit this wonderful woman if you haven't already.

  

Stitching

Are you still with me? I know it's a long one. This part will be short and sweet.

I've continued on with Beauty and the Beast all this week since I do plan on putting it away again this weekend to pick up my new Mirabilia and some other WIPs that are begging for attention.

Last night wasn't the most productive, but there is still progress to be seen.

Giveaway

Nancy at Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe has just announced another giveaway! This time it will be for a Spring, Easter, Primitive hand dyed trim bag. This woman has some amazing things. Hop on over to this post to enter.

One Unhappy Thing

If you've made it this far, I applaud you. I have one more update... MCG Textiles. The company I love and hate all at the same time. I apologize in advance for griping about them again, so you're more than welcome to skip this part. :-)

I called back at the beginning of February to find out why the fabric was wrong and why I didn't get my pearl filament. The woman I spoke with assured me she would send the filament out. She was confused about the fabric and said she would talk to someone (I don't remember who) and would get back with me. Haha. Right... so I've heard and received nothing *gasp, shock*

I finished gridding the center lines, both horizontal and vertical to send them photo evidence that they're wrong mistaken. The fabric is not evenweave, not by any stretch of the imagination. I think its about 26/27 count by 24/25 count. It would add an extra 3 inches horizontally and is about a half inch short vertically. I'm ready to tear my hair out.

I emailed them... again... on Feb. 23rd. I will be allowing them until Monday to respond. If not, I will be calling. I'm pretty sure they hate me at this point. I'm probably on some blacklist they have. Hahaha! They'll probably tell me they never received the email. UGH! I wish there was some way to complain that wouldn't result in me never getting anything I need from them again. Oh well...

Thank you for hanging on through this lengthy post!! Until next time...

ISHW-ish Weekend Update

I had a kind-of-ISHW. Saturday was nothing but stitching until my fingers were numb. :-) It was lovely. I put on Les Miserabls, the new version with Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe. When it was released in theatres on Christmas 2 years ago, I went since I was spending Christmas by myself that year. I've finally added it to my movie collection!

I'm still in the spring-y spirit with my stitching, although I must get back to my Hummers HAED soon or I'll be very sad at the lack of progress this month. It's a double edged sword I feel. Maybe that's why I haven't ever had so many WIPs all at once. Oh well. I love them all and just kind of stitch what I feel the urge to stitch at the time.

Oehlenschlager Snow White came back out to play and Lystig (aka Happy) is now finished. Backstitching and all!!! I think I will continue backstitching each character as I finish cross stitching them as opposed to leaving it all for the end like normal. I even began stitching the tree with the cute little squirrel next to him.

Beauty and the Beast has seen some MAJOR progress the last few days. I swear it's going faster than it ever has before. You can now see more of Lumiere and Cogsworth and Belle's dress and the Beast's outfit are filled in some more. I am SO happy with how this looks right now. I'm dying to finish this page!!! Though I'm not looking forward, not one tiny little bit, to making a bazillion french knots... I'll ignore that for the moment.

YAY! It was a productive weekend, even with Sunday being filled with cleaning and cleaning and laundry and cleaning and laundry and........ I think you get the picture.

I'm praying that the first half (all the embellishments & specialty threads) of my Mira, Fairy Moon, show up in my mailbox when I get home! The second half (chart and fabric) should be here tomorrow. I hope. Like I need another WIP... haha! I'll probably force myself to wait until the weekend when I have some actual time to start this one. But we'll see....

Until next time!! :-)

February TUSAL

Goodness all these monthly posting thingies are coming up right on top of one another. And yet not quite close enough to put them all in one post. :-/ That's alright you just get to hear me ramble on and on.

So it's time for the great TUSAL update again. I am honestly surprised with how many ORTs I've already accumulated in this jar, and it's finally getting colorful. Already it's starting to look so much more full than it did at the end of last year... and that was only 2 months ago!? Still on the hunt for a jar that looks less.... I don't know.... blah. I need something with character.

I've been rotating projects a little more frequently which may account for some of this. Maybe that is the ticket to keep me from buying too much more stash.

Speaking of... since I'm here I may as well tell you all about the newest stash... *sigh* I have very little self control, especially when I can find things for so cheap.

I've now added Mirabilia's Moon Fairy to my collection. In my defense, the entire thing; chart, fabric, DMC, Kreinik and beads, was right at $30. Including shipping! Seriously, how could I pass that up???

For those that have absolutely no clue what TUSAL is, or why I'm posting a picture of little thread endings in a pasta sauce jar, click on the link to the right and go find out for yourself!!

Sign up too while you're at it. :-)

Snow Days!

My long awaited snow days have arrived! I love these days! Snuggling up on the couch with my stitching has been wonderful. We would up with somewhere in the vicinity of 8-11 inches of snow, which is apparently unusual for this area. Typically there is a lot of ice which I'm not a fan of. Snow is much kinder.

My mood has brightened significantly, thank goodness. Many thanks for all of your kind comments. I decided to pull out some of my other WIPs that were bright and cheerful, not to mention a little less tedious than my HAEDs.

Beauty has seen much more progress, even more so since this photo. I finished filling in the last few stitches of the 2nd page, even those pesky pearl filaments in the rainbow. Since this photo, I've added some more stitches to Lumiere and even a wee bit on Cogsworth's face!

I even dug out my Oehlenschlager Snow White and after frogging the face not once, but twice, I have gotten Happy completed minus the backstitching. Once I remembered how to count again it went very smoothly and surprisingly quickly. He looks so cute, although kind of odd with only one eyeball. lol. Even his butterfly friend is getting there.

It's been awhile since I've gotten this one out of hiding, so last time we left off, he was here. (Screwed up face and all):

And after much stitching he's progressed to here!:

Now I always leave backstitching for last, but with this one I'm thinking about doing each one as I finish the stitching. I just really want to see this little guy finished!!!

As for now, I'm going to get back to Beauty. Until next time!! :-)

February Gifted Gorgeousness

Hello!

I hope you all enjoyed your Valentine's Day. Not much happened here. DB had to work and I'm not the biggest fan of going out to dinner when literally EVERYONE is out doing the same thing. We are planning on going out next weekend to Red Lobster since we still have an unused gift card from Christmas. Mmmm. Lobster and crab and all the other delicious little sea creatures.

So it is time for an update on our Gifted Gorgeousness SAL hosted by the dear Jo at Serendipitous Stitching. We're all stitching pieces that have either been gifted to us (all or in part) or are being stitched as gifts for someone else. It's a wonderful way to get through some of those goals we've all set out to complete this year! For more information click here.

I'm still plugging away at Hummingbird Welcome, gifted to me by my grandmother (partially finished). There has been a decent amount of progress this month, which makes me happy. I am still trying to get better at rotating projects...

The bottom half of this piece is FINISHED! Woo hoo! I even managed to figure out the stem stitch, that I've never done before, and I'm pleased with how it looks.

The top half should go much quicker as I believe the only thing left is backstitching the leaves, plus it's a bit smaller than the bottom!! I may even get this one done before my May goal. Might even wind up having this one framed as opposed to doing it myself?! Ya never know.

Until next time. :-)

Falling Behind

I'm sorry I suck this week. I was planning on posting a review on my new thread organizer this past Monday which I totally failed at. I didn't manage to get my threads switched over like I wanted to. Honestly I've just had a crappy week, and don't feel like doing anything or for that matter being around anyone...

It did brighten my spirits, however, to see Jacquie back from her hospital confinement. Bionic leg and all! If you missed that she's home, go give her some more love. Lord knows we can all use it sometimes. :-)

That being said, I have been very lax at commenting on new posts. I have been reading them and checking out all the lovely new things going on. I'll be back out of my slump soon and back to bombarding you all with notes!

There's been a little progress on Hummers since my last update. Being in a bum mood doesn't bode well for my stitching. :-/ I think I may pull my Snow White wall hanging back out of hiding this weekend and frog the screw-up so I can get some more done. Possibly a change of project, one that's not so tedious, will bring my happy back from hiding.

I shall leave you all with a progress photo.

Until next time :-)

February YOTA

It's YOTA time again! I'm a wee bit late-ish, depending on your time zone that is.

For those that don't know what I'm talking about, check it out/sign up here. It's hosted by Pull The Other Thread and is a very (thank God) relaxed SAL. Each month we post before and after pics of the progress on our UFOs, or in my case our WIPs, since that's really all I have at the moment. Folks are obviously encouraged to post each month, but coming and going as the months roll by is allowed too.

So this is where Hummingbird Welcome left off last month. Mind you I'm only doing the backstitching and a few details. My Grandma sent me this one years ago and, since I began stitching again, have only recently pulled it out of it's hiding spot to complete it.

And this is how far I have progressed.

Not really a ton, but I'm happy with it. The backstitching on the purple flowers is all finished, and I've begun the leaves at the bottom of the piece. It is hard to tell unless you zoom in on the pictures. Hoping to have a bunch more done in February as I am trying to get this one completed by May to have framed for my birthday.

That's all for the moment folks! Until next time. :-)

Grumpy Owl Restart & Other Stuff

Again I want to thank you all for your help in deciding what to do with Grumpy Owl. I finally have some real progress to show you! Yay! I'm stitching this on 32-count 1 over 1. Surprisingly it's going rather quickly for having such tiny little holes.

I am LOVING the colors so far. The fabric looks perfect, I honestly wasn't too sure about it when I originally purchased it. Granted I loved the fabric, just wasn't sure how the design would look against it. The photo on the left is a little more accurate in color.

Straying away from kits and actually being able to put some of my own creativity into the project is proving addictive. Joining Blogger and being able to see everyone else's takes on different projects/patterns has really been an inspiration.

Don't worry, my Disney kits will be making their appearance again soon. I haven't forgotten about them.

More good news. My floss organizer came in early! I picked it up this afternoon and will be posting a review on Monday after I get some time to really use it and see how much I like it. I have very high hopes for this little bugger.

Confession time. I bought another pattern. There is no hope for me. Lol. A little back-story first. When I first joined Blogger, I was looking around at tons of other posts and had seen THIS post from Suz at Crafty Weasel. Its parts of the Wee Beasties collection by Terrence Nolan. I found the designs so cool, which is high praise for someone who detests bugs. Thus began my search for these elusive patterns. Much to my dismay I found that they are OOP. :-(

Ebay to the rescue! I managed to find one, Common Green Darner, that I bid on and won for a very decent price. It will take a little while before I can start stitching this one since I have none of the thread I need. It calls for lots of Kreinik which I've never stitched with.

If any of you find one of these and don't want it yourself, I would appreciate a heads up. :-)

Just a Quickie

Wanted to pop in quickly to say how much I appreciate all of your help on deciding what to do with Grumpy Owl.

And the consensus seems to be ditch the background. I'm so not complaining. I frogged the 200+ stitches and have begun stitching Mr. Owl. Goodness I LOVE stitching with all the bright colors!! I've been so used to the dull grey/green/blue in Hummers, so this is a welcome change. Don't get me wrong, Hummers is gorgeous, but we all need several WIPs to keep us amused. (At least that's what I tell myself)

I promise to post photos of his owly goodness very soon! Thank you all again. :-) You really are all the best.

Help?!

I am in dire need of any/all of your advice. I started Grumpy Owl, well a few stitches anyway.

You've all heard me say that the background thread blends in with the color of the fabric. Soooo. Should I even bother stitching it? Or should I just stitch the owl? I'm torn and I'm so used to following these charts to the letter that I am paranoid about making a mistake. Or just making it look hideous. On the other hand, stitching the background may just be redundant. Ugh I have no idea.

Here's the fabric with the stitches that I've already done. (Don't worry, I can't see them either, LOL)

And here's the picture of the owl.

I value all of your opinions very much. I'm pretty sure you've all figured out you're not going to offend me... Tell me whatever you think!! PLEASE AND THANK YOU ALL!! :-)

I'm A Little Hermit

Short, but not quite stout. Lol

Anyway, I'm horrible at following along with the actual IHSW since my weekend plans are either brimming with too much to do or are non-existent. Somehow the weekends of freedom never fall when the hermit weekend is "planned". Well, I suppose I shouldn't say I had no plans as I did want to stitch to my heart's content. Which is exactly what I was privileged to do. DB is gone again for another training, leaving me and the pooches to do as we please.

Other Things

Little Giz, my Chihuahua, didn't leave the comfort of his blanket fort except to eat and, very rarely, venture out into the cold for a potty break. He hates this weather, just like his mommy.

The GSD on the other hand, likes nothing more than staying outside to watch stalk the squirrels in the trees. They have fun with him and throw things down in a futile attempt at knocking him out. Their aim is getting better by the week which is slightly terrifying...

I finally got to watch The Judge this weekend! I've been dying to see this one as I missed it when it was in theatres. I'll spare you the details, but if you're at all interested, check it out here. I loved it!

Stitchy Stuff

First up are my new stash items. I know, I know, I don't need anything else. But I wanted them and I couldn't beat the sale price (plus free shipping). So I've added Pinocchio (12x16) and Cinderella (12x16) along with a vignette of Pinocchio to my collection. :-) You can see them all on my rapidly expanding stash page.

I FINISHED A PAGE! Probably should have started off with this little tidbit of information. Lol. Hummers is officially one page down. We shall refrain from discussing how many are left. Kinda still looks small when you see the entire piece of empty fabric below my square of color, but I love how this one is turning out. Tons and tons of confetti so far, but as I looked through some of the other pages I was pleased to find that not every page will be this tedious.

Also, Jan 28-31 was the first official update for A New Stitchy Start 2015 SAL. Everyone posted their January progress and there are some fantastic projects going on! Go check it out!!!

Grumpy Owl has seen a few more stitches added to the background, not too terribly exciting yet. Stitching one color does go a bit faster so maybe I'll make it to the actual owl (aka the fun part) before too long. No photo of this one. It's quite boring so far.

I was in huge need of a needleminder, but wasn't really looking forward to shelling out $10+ (plus shipping) for one. So off to Hobby Lobby I went for supplies. Found some seriously strong magnets that are plated so they won't leave any funk on my fabric. It took my picky self forever to figure out what I wanted to use for the top. After much deliberation, I decided on this. My all time favorite Disney movie! Plus this little "book" was the perfect size.

Ooo, one more good thing. I found a $25 gift card I totally forgot I had! So I finally decided to order this little trinket. A, hopefully, very handy floss organizer.

I am getting a little tired of using index cards to hold my threads. Plus it's not exactly the most time efficient method. They don't carry it in store, but shipping to the store for pickup doesn't require I pay the shipping charges. Which I'm totally okay with. As of the moment pickup looks to be scheduled for Feb. 9. We can always hope it'll show up sooner though.

Annoyed Ramblings

I did get my fabric for Fantasia (yay), but much to my dismay when I went to start gridding it somehow didn't seem to be quite right. Yet again (boo). From my calculations it's 25-count, however when I called (forget email) MCG they told me they don't even make 25-count. Only the 28-count. I have NO idea what's going on. Ugh. Plus I never received my pearl filament. I'm guessing somehow while I was busy bitching asking about my fabric, they forgot about the filament.  Because, ya know, adding fuel to my fire is obviously amusing. :-( At least I have 8 other kits to borrow it from! Hahaha.

That's all I've got to ramble on about for the moment. Until next time!!