Purple Potter!

This 14ct lovely is on its way to me!!!!!!

I cashed a gift certificate from my dear neighbor Knittykitty over at ABC Stitch.

It is for a soon-to-be Halloween type design. Not sure which. Just had to have it. Once I play with stitch on it I may need to order a bigger cut.

Isn't it absolutely gorgeous?
Too bad it isn't available in any higher counts.....

not so productive

I stitched for many hours last night on the Bookmark Exchange for the Flossmom forum(during yeah Heroes!, and beyond) to come to a conclusion. I just don't like the design. So having found another "back up" design I am going to cut yet another piece of fabric and restart. Later, maybe during Craft Night, I will spend the 3 or so hours frogging the first two starts. Mustn't waste valuable fabric!
So back to the drawing board. Another floss toss... Then start stitching again. But I think I will stick with the grey Monaco I was using.

A little this and that

Well I have been on, I swear. We can watch those YouTube videos now! Hello, enough old cartoons and drum solos to last for hours of enjoyment.
I am still sorting out the activation with Roadrunner. And seems that I can't comment on Blogger, it sort of hiccups, but, I can zoom around the internet now!

Let's see, in crafty news, I have done:

A little shopping for my flosskid Poppy. :)

Knitted all the parts for a baby sweater, as of now it isn't assembled. I need a little help from my neighbor Knittykitty.

Knitted, ripped out completely, restarted, ripped out a row, and now pausing the matching baby blanket. Seems I am goofing the purling somehow and I just don't trust myself to try it later at night. Maybe I can squeeze some time during the day. *cough, yeah! Maybe!

I have received the name to send to for the exchange going on at EMS. It's an exchange to start your Christmas stitching. Sounded like fun, especially since I can just buy stuff and send than stitch....

Started cross stitching the piece I wanted to do for the bookmark exchange. I made the mistake of starting it on 14ct aida, and simply put I hate it. So I will still do the same design I had started, just on another piece of fabric. I haven't decided yet which type or color fabric, just that it'll be at least a 28ct piece.
No pics yet, just seem to be eating camera batteries lately.....


Oh and wish me luck. I am job shadowing on Thursday morning. Not a clue what to wear just yet.

Cross Stitching 101

This is day two of Cross stitching 101.
I sat four of the 5 kids down yesterday at the kitchen table for a cross stitching lesson. We started right from the beginning. Explained aida, how to hold the needle, and so on. By about the time I was showing them how to make the X's, I had one lose interest. A little while later my daughter was all done. (She has an ongoing project all her own. Sort of a freestyle embroidery I guess is the best way to describe it.)
It was two left, and they were really getting the hang of it. :)
I created a pattern for them. At first I thought of making a simple flower pattern so they could make it for their moms, but the favorite flowers of the moms were too different from each other. So instead I tried to make something they could get in to. And that was "cool" for boys and girls. The answer was a Yin-Yang symbol.
The two have finished the symbol and moved on to wanting to make a border and background. I left that part for them to decide.
I think, if I can get their okays, I will post a pic or two of their works tomorrow.

Oh yeah and I will post mine too. I picked up the started one and am now doing a little simple border around it. I was thinking maybe giving it to the boys so they can make it into a card or something. Not sure yet. Could be a cute little ornie or something. It's been so odd stitching on aida. I don't like it so much anymore now that I have played around with higher counts and fancy colors.
We had a hard rain the day before. The humidity had lifted so I had a couple of loads of clothes on the line.So it was nice to sit under a tree in the yard and stitch with the breeze and fresh air. It totally made my day.

Thank you Tracy!

See? Another picture!
MAIL!!!!!!!!! Thank you Tracy. I received a lovely envelope filled with goodies. I love those little note pads, always use them. Fabric- can never go wrong on that one! A card, *thank you*! And an angel. I have never seen those before and what's really cool about that is that I can use it over and over. Won't the kids be jealous!
Thank you Tracy, you didn't have to, but I love it all! :)
**Dancing carrot*
And to anyone reading this- hop on over to Tracy's blog and wish her a happy belated wedding anniversary!
Happy Anniversary Tracy and Dan!!!!!!

exchange update, whoops!

Here it is! Dorothy received her hand dyed piece from me in the mail. She let me know it had arrived and I forgot to post the final picture here! Duh!
The marbling isn't what I had hoped it would be. But it's not too bad for a first try I guess. I was trying to be careful not to go too dark.
The details: 15" x 18" piece of 32 count linen by Charles Craft.

Stash Fairy cometh

Tracy had a visit from the stash fairy! I sent her some items I have had my eye on for her for some time. A pattern booklet by Stoney Creek, a big piece of white Monaco and a Valerie Pfeiffer hummingbird pattern.
And yes I forgot to take a picture of the present(s) before I sent them. I have been doing that a lot lately! They were wrapped all together in sparkley tissue paper too, so she wouldn't know what was inside until the absolute last minute. :)

Fun Friday

Firstly, thank you (enabler) Jamie, it's true - some of the best things are at others' blogs!

So before this goes off to its new home (my Mother-in-law's); here's a pic of a HD. I nearly forgot to take it!

I have taken a pic of the fabric I dyed too, after I ironed it, and then promptly folded it to tuck away clean and safe. Wasn't that smart? *sigh. Next time, pic before the fold.
And speaking of fabric. I ordered from Silkweaver on the 13th. Payment (paypal) went through the 16th. Still no fabric, so I'd say it's a definite to send what I made. Oh I hope she likes it. The ends aren't finished off like they would be from Silkweaver. Still too chicken (and busy) to mess around with my fear of the sewing machine.

And what is the typical/preferred size of a biscornu? I have made a pattern and need to decide what count to stitch on. This is my first bicornu. Anyone?
*************
And on a completely different topic. I had a 4 foot wide and maybe 3 foot high snowbank directly behind my van in the driveway. So much so my van stuck out and took up more room than usual in the driveway. In one day, the snowbank is no more. But the yard is under some serious water. Canoe anyone?

and it 's......

And this is the teaser. I dyed a piece of linen for the exchange. It took waaay longer than I thought it would. Not so much the dying, I was well prepared with everything I needed. See what I did? I used a clean kitty litter bucket, inside the kitchen sink that was filled part way with soapy water. It made for great fast clean up by dunking in my hands real quick as I needed to. Plus I covered the counter with plastic shopping bags, just in case. That way I could play with the fabric and have a peek at it over/on the bags.
The time consuming part was the ironing it when all was said and done. *ugh. I was ironing in a bit of a rush-I had to get ready for a Drs appointment. No worries I made it on time.

Dye! Fabric, Dye!

If I can get comfortable with the whole process, I may just try this next.

Got Stash?

I do!
The mail didn't make here through the storm Saturday (Grr, no excuse! It's Maine!)
SO- today I ventured out to my very crammed mailbox! There were three (four actually, but my prescription doesn't count) puffy envelopes.
My order from Needlework Plus arrived with the Estaz threads I have wanting for a couple years now, and the DMC rayons I ordered. Thank you Jenna for the recommendation! (My first ever order through that company and I have to say the owner's communication is excellent!)
From 123 Stitch my back ordered emerald cabochon hearts (they are little treasure type things) arrived with the correct sized white Monaco. Oh my word, the fabric is huge!

And.... grab your paper towels! My Hand dyed Fabric Exchange item arrived all the way from Val in England. It's purple! And it gorgeous. I don't know how she managed to marble it as she did. I couldn't have asked for anything better. (yikes, hope mine is up to that level! But I ordered a piece from Silkweaver as back up, so it should help take the pressure off me a smidge.) My picture doesn't do it justice. Makes it more grey then its true color. If you could see it in person! Wow.Thank you Val it's beautiful!

What's that? What Fabric Exchange? Well I forgot to mention it! Hee hee. Over at the Linabear forum we are having a hand dyed fabric exchange. I was the organizer, which is very fun btw. We were to dye a piece of fabric 13"x18" or larger of 28ct or higher count fabric. The send out date is the first of April. So- wish me luck!

Order number two

arrived today. The Monacos are quite nice. I like the colors. But there was a small error. They had sent all of the fabrics in the 18x30 size, and I had ordered all but the white in that size. So with a quick (very friendly) phone call they confirmed the mistake, apologized, and said the correct size would be sent out with the backordered emerald I had ordered. And that the smaller cut could be kept! Wow! Now that's some great service!