Hakuna Matata

AHHH! Yay! I have a finish! The first of, hopefully several, for 2015!

Let me back track a little. I finally received the two brown thread colors I was missing for The Lion King. Aaaaaaand apparently I miscounted the pearl filament (aka the evil sparkly thread) so I was just a little short on what I needed to finish. Oops. I did, once again, email MCG but I really wanted to finish this one. So I stole two strands from another kit to use for this one.

I stayed up WAY later than I should have to get this thing done, but I couldn't help myself. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and I was sprinting towards it. At about 3 am I crossed the finish line (told you it was really late, lol).

Please pardon the stray dog hairs I probably missed... the pooches like to "help" 

I love the finished product, however the backstitching tried to test my patience. Oh my goodness there were such tiny tiny tiny little stitches. Simba is so adorable and Rafiki looks fantastic! The overall look was more than worth it. I have also found out that I suck at french knots. I'll have to do a lot more practice before I finish Beauty and the Beast. There are hundreds of little knots on that one!

This one probably won't be framed for a little while so I'll update on that at a later date.

Grumpy Owl is ready to be kitted up now that The Lion King is done. I love the fabric I got from 123Stitch.com. It's a 32-count linen, which in my weirdness I forgot was a real linen and not evenweave. I know, I know it says linen right in the title... I'm a dork. Oddly enough it actually isn't that uneven.

The color is amazing, the photo doesn't really do it much justice. It's a more peachy color that seems to go pretty well with all the floss so far. I was surprised by some of the floss colors but I can't wait to see how they all look when they're stitched!! First I must spend my time bobbinating all this floss.

Time for an MCG update..... I emailed MCG again (as you skimmed read a minute ago) about the evil sparkly thread. What did I receive in response? Well, exactly that. A response. I was shocked since I still haven't heard anything about the fabric for Fantasia. They told me they never received the email and asked that I resend it. I forwarded the original message. No reply. Sent a new message with the same content in case there was a problem with the first one. Again, no reply. So I responded to the one they apparently did receive asking if they saw anything. No reply. I was almost in tears I was so beyond frustrated. Can't do anything about it today since it's the weekend. If I have no response by Monday afternoon, I'll be hunting down a phone number to call instead.

I suppose I bring this upon myself since I keep purchasing these kits, but they're the ONLY ones who make them. No other company has Disney patterns/charts/kits that compare to Thomas Kinkade's work. He was a crazy talented artist and these pieces are what got me into stitching again after so many years. Ugh.

I do want to thank you all for your kind and spirit boosting comments. They all make my day every time!

The Final Countdown

Dear Friends,

We're still winding down from our Christmas extravaganza. I'm postponing taking down the tree until the New Year. Maybe by then I'll have mustered up the courage to pack away all the decorations.

I've had the hardest time not starting my HAED piece. I wasn't expecting to have everything ready so quickly and I'm not the world's most patient person. I have been, rather anxiously, counting down the days (okay and hours) until I can begin my new stitches.

Instead, for a little variety, I pulled The Lion King back out of hiding. Apparently I forgot to email MCG Textiles to inform them of the missing thread several months ago (oh how I procrastinate) so I decided to get that taken care of the other day. Unfortunately, due to my lack of promptness, they are closed until January 5 and we all know they'll be bombarded with emails upon their return. Hopefully I'll have my floss by the end of January. :-(

In the meantime, I've been stitching every other possible color left. As per usual, I've left the sparkly thread until last since it's a *insert your own rude word here* to stitch with. And, as luck would have it, that's all that needs to be done until the missing floss arrives.

DB and I decided, against our better judgement, to tackle our spare bedroom (aka the black hole) this weekend. Surprisingly we were able to clean and organize it fairly quickly without much hassle. Just a few long hours of our time. (The main reason my weekend stitching was so lax)

Beauty and the Beast moved forward by a whole whopping few stitches. I didn't get a photo, but honestly there's just not much to update.

HAED extended their sale until midnight on 1/1/15. I had decided against purchasing the Storykeep I posted the other day, and then they extended their sale. I now have 2 new patterns. :-)

 Storykeep - The Effects of Caffeine - Randal Spangler

QS - Grumpy Owl - Annya Kai

Grumpy Owl will be for my mom. She loves owls and this one was just too cute to pass up.

That's all for now my dears. I'll be here... counting down the moments until 2015!

Stitchy Start

Hello dear friends,

As I type this, I'm sitting in my hotel room in St. Louis, MO. Waiting rather impatiently for our training to begin in about 2.5 hours. I arrived at about 11 PM last night, after a boring 3 hour drive. Did I mention that was after a full day of work? Ugh. I like driving, but goodness I was toast.

I have several things to share this morning. First, I decided to join with Tammy at I Want To Do One More Stitch on a new blog. A New Stitchy Start SAL 2015. All those joining are planning to start a larger project this coming year and will be posting progress along the way! I'm still debating on which project to use although I've been considering using the one I've already designated for Jo's SAL. Oh decisions. Anyway, please go talk to Tammy if you'd like to join in this endeavor. It promises 12 months of fun!!

I have Christmas tree pictures! Okay so this isn't actually our only tree. We are planning on buying a real tree, but in order to keep it from turning brown before Christmas I've put off getting one quite yet. This cute little tree has been my DB's for several years and when it became mine (did you like the subtle way I totally stole his tree? haha) I decided to put ornaments and lights on it. Last year this was our only tree as we went to visit his family on Christmas. There wasn't really much of a point in putting up a huge tree we wouldn't use.

Without further ado:

Onto the stitching.

There was a slight bit of stitching done last night, and as I pulled out The Lion King - for the first time in months - I realized that I, somehow, missed posting progress on this one! Shame on me. :-)

We started out here as of 6/19/14:

I took a photo before I continued last night. When I say I forgot to post, believe me, it's been a LONG time. So sometime between then and now, I made it to here:

TONS of progress!! I have no idea how I missed this?!

After stitching last night, we are now here. Not a ton of progress last night. But something is better than nothing!

Now for my frustrations. I now remember why I put this thing down to begin with. I'm missing floss!! Of course all the colors I'm missing are the ones to finish the lions and the rock. Ugh. I'm debating on making a stop at a craft store around here after training tonight. It's really bugging me not to have everything I need.

That's all I've got for you! Only 2 hours 10 minutes of mulling around my hotel room. Please feel free to comment/follow! I love having new bloggers to stalk follow. :-)