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!! :-)

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!! :-)

Rain, Rain - Go Away!

Dear Friends,

It was a whirlwind weekend! Even with the time changing, and the "extra" hour we were given, it was still here and gone too fast for my liking.

We have also seen nothing but rain since November showed up... ugh.

We'll begin with Halloween night, which was less thrilling than I was hoping for. I'm used to how it was when I was a kid. An entire night full of running around and collecting more candy than our little scrawny arms could hold. This being a new house we're in with a larger neighborhood than we previously lived in I was expecting to see quite a few kids. (Let's not discuss the slightly excessive amount of candy purchased in preparation for this. Suffice to say I'd rather be safe than sorry).

At approximately 7:00 PM (about 2 hours after I was expecting the little ones to start) I FINALLY had a trick-or-treater show up. I had almost given up hope. This little one was followed by a large group of parents and small children who told me that I was only the second house in 2 blocks that was giving out candy! I almost fell off my porch. We did have a few more kids trickle in through the night all of whom left my house with about 2 lbs. worth of candy a piece. Haha. Lucky kids.

I shall end my rant now.

On a happier note, I did manage to find 2 new designs to add to my stash. We'll start off with my killer Ebay find of this beauty. It's a wall hanging of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Oehlenschlager. I had never seen this pattern and doubt I ever will again.... the more I Google about it, the less I find...

It even came with the wall hangers! Not to mention a hoop, the Aida and all the thread. Ooh I'm beyond excited to start this one. The names of all the characters are spelled out below their picture and I'm debating on whether or not I want to leave it all in Danish. The pattern comes with the English spelling, but I think I like it how it was intended to be... Even my Grandmother is excited with this one. She has already requested photos of my progress along the way. She likes bloggers and doesn't even know it!! Haha.

I just had to share this photo with you. There was more bubble wrap in this package than there was anything else which gave me a nice chuckle.

The second is a pattern a coworker ordered and shared with me. It's another by Sue Hillis Designs called "Ooh, Too Tight?". I had to make a stop at Hobby Lobby this weekend to pick up a frame for Wine a Bit and I managed to get all my thread for this little cutie.

I haven't started on anything new as of yet. I'm still trucking away at my Beauty and the Beast stitch. With such a busy weekend I wasn't able to get much accomplished, but I love how the rainbow is turning out. You can't really see the sparkles in the thread from this picture, but I assure you they're stunning!

Well that appears to be all I've got for the moment. I'm still looking high and low for 3 more to join in the Around the World Blog Hop. Its a fun way to get to know our fellow bloggers a little better. :-)

Feel free to comment and follow so I can return the favor! Happy stitching!