November Continues

Update on puppy, 2 weeks after the attack and he is well on the way to recovery. It has been long and frustrating but the wounds have finally stopped leaking and things look so much better. Poor boy, he has been so good with all of this. Now when i get the bandages and cleaning supplies out he hides. I know he is just tired of it all but it does make it longer to get it done when I have to track him down. I did not want the pictures to be too graphic So I took a few at the correct angle.

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving with good food, good people and good health!!!!!!!

 This is my only WIP update, making fabulous progress and it really comes together amazing when you get the BS in. See you next month!!!!!!!

A month of Thankfulness

I had meant to make this post last week but unfortunately we had a bit of an issue. The Monday after we turned our clocks back my poor puppy was attacked. The animals do not understand the time change, they are used to getting up and going out. We have a system where I go out and check the front yard because of the darkness for critters, mainly skunks as we do not want a situation first thing in the morning. I did this and then I let the boys out they go around the front of the house water all the bushes and then go to an area to poop. I stay on the front porch check the hummingbird feeders and just wait for them to return so we can go in and have breakfast. My boy did not have his collar on this day, as he had a bath the night before and I had not got it back on. This is important because the tags on his collar jingle when he moves so you know where he is. I can only assume, as I did not see the incident but he must have startled the coyote that morning, it was dark, he was silent moving around and they just came upon each other. He never cried out, he never barked, no noise to alert me there was a problem. I went to see what was holding him up and as I came around the corner he was coming back and I could see blood on his neck. I grabbed him up and got him in the house checked the damage and called my vet. Oh course at 10 to 7 they were not open and the closest emergency vet was a 2 hour drive away. My vet would open in 1 hour, so I called the emergency and they walked me through some triage for him and agreed that is was okay to wait for the closer location to open. He has done well with the recovery but of course there were set backs swelling, some infection, no appetite, and stitches not holding. I am happy to say we are past the worst of it and he is no worse for wear but it was a bad week of nursing him and worry. 

I did get some stitching done and it helped me calm down during a trying time. So lets have an update with the WIP's In the last post I mentioned going to my LNS and having a fun time well I did not post pictures of what I worked on that day. I pulled out the counted canvas piece that I was gifted. I have not worked this on some time so it was nice to get it out and put some stitches in. I will show a before and after set since it has been so long since this one was a focus.

I also put time on HAED Christmas Cottage by Dona Gelsinger. This is about 1/3 of the page done. There is a load of confetti in those trees and lights as you can well imagine.

I also pulled out Death by Cross Stitch from Long Dog Sampler Finished up the boarder along the bottom of the Lion and then found a boarder for the right side of him, the stars and diamonds seem to work well with this. I got it out of the book Cross Stitch Silhouettes by Adele Welsby. And then a bit of a start on the next section. This is fun figuring out the best place for the colors I am working with.

I FFO'd the lighthouse for my daughter. Got material from Joann's that I think really set off the finished stitching, added the charms found some twine in my stash that looked like rope and I looked on the internet for some sailor knots and tied a few to add as embellishments. They may not be correctly done but they work for this situation. I will wrap it up and Christmas present is done.

Finally some Thread Porn. When I was in Virginia for our latest visit I came across some thread that was just gorgeous. A lady at one of the shops was stitching with it. She bought it off of Etsy from a couple in Australia, she gave me the shop name and I could just not resist. I came is a very short amount of time even from Oz and it is beautiful.

Happy stitching to you all. With the cooler weather I hope that you are finding a bit more stitching time. Hope to see you back with my next post.

September Heat

It has been an unbelievable beginning to September. This weekend we had 121 0n Friday, 134 on Saturday, 107 on Sunday and 96 on Monday. It has not been fun in anyway, the poor puppies were  not happy. I took them in 3 times and sprayed them with water to cool them down and make things easier Saturday, Friday and Sunday and Monday they got sprayed once in the morning and again in the early evening. We do not have air conditioning in the house and until this weekend I did not care. So as you can probably imagine I did not get any stitching in, it was too hot to even attempt it. That means this will be a pretty short update.

The weekend before last I had a BBQ for friends to celebrate the end of summer. It was fun except for the fact that I was having chest pains the whole time. I thought my hiatal hernia was flaring up, Sunday was similar so Monday I got in with my doctor and she thinks it might have been a heart condition. I do have a family history for heart attacks. I was then sent to a cardiologist and she is going to have me do a few test to see what is going on. Both doctors read me the riot act about not going to the hospital when I was feeling the chest pains.

Enough with the boo-hooing. I am going to be fine so on to the important stuff, Crafting. I have some FFO's and a couple of updates on my WIP's

I showed you the finished stitching last update and now I can share the FFO of those 4 smalls. 3 pillows and 1 wall hanging. I love the colors in these.

  

And I have some good progress on the Stoney Creek Spring Village pattern. I love these colors and the fun of the houses. 

That is it for stitching on this update with health and heat I have had limited ability to stitch and I really miss the joy that it gives me on a day to day basis.

I am doing a personal Stitch from Stash Challenge. I had signed up with a Facebook group. It was just going to be a fun thing to try to get me to look in my stash and do some of the patterns I have bought instead of buying new stuff. Well it got really discouraging. The way the moderator has set-up the rules people were getting more credit for finishing a Lizzie Kate pattern then a person who was stitching a full coverage page such as a HAED or a Atesy pattern. How is that even remotely fair. I questioned her in a private message and she said in her eyes it is a fair system. As I said it was just suppose to be a fun effort but it really struck me as crazy to say a full coverage was not as challenging as a more simple pattern such as Prairie Schooler or Lizzie Kate. I told her thanks for the chance to join but it was not my idea of fair so I left. I did not air any of my discontent on the open forum as I feel that is rude. I went in with my expectations and that was not how it came about. That is my bad, I should have researched the rules better. So I am still following the basic rules I have a budget of $25 each month for new threads, fabric or patterns and I get a credit for the amount of stitching I finish each month. It is not a scientific formula it is just a basic I stitched about this many stitches so that is about this much credit. I keep track of purchases and have a spread sheet. After 2 months of following this challenge I am at a + $21.68 I would have wished for a better result but the purchase of the Halloween table topper and fabric set me back. Plus I have bought several new over dye threads. At least I am still in the positive balance so hopefully I can stop spending and just stitch what I have. I am thinking of starting a Stitch from Stash Challenge the first of 2018 and maybe have a check in and prize give away. It could be fun but I would have to figure out how the check in would work.

All right folks that is about all there is this time. Enjoy the cooler weather, fall colors and stitching time you all can find time for!!!!!!!!!!

Eclipse Day

Well did you all have a nice Eclipse Day???? This is what I saw.........

Yep we had cloud cover until well past the eclipse time. It did not clear off until 1:30pm PST. Oh well i am sure I will see a ton of pictures all over Facebook so, come si, come sa




Now on to the stitching news. I am loving these JBW designs I have small finishes all over the place. They are adorable and quick. 3 more stitched and I hope to have them FFO'ed this week. These pictures do not show the fabric color well at all. The butterfly, basket of flowers and the leaf are all done on a hand-dyed dark blue called Herald and the umbrella is a nice light blue/green with sparkle. 18 count.

 

 And I did another small freebie from the web, not sure which blog it came from.

 In my last post I told you I was going to start a new project that day. It is a Halloween table topper. The fabric is 25 count Colmar-Carre Limegreen gingham and I am working over 2 with 3 strands of DMC Black.The pattern is from Zwiegert magazine "at home with Needlework". I chose to use limegreen because most of my Halloween decorations are green.

I also had a commissioned bag to sew for a friend. It is for a bee keeper who sells his honey at local farmers markets. Such a fun project as the fabric was cute.

Puppy is doing well and no ill effects from his resent change. He was back to running around crazy with in 2 days. You are suppose to keep them calm for a week to let the healing complete. Anyone who knows terriers will understand how hard that is. Hyper dogs.

Enjoy the end of summer and those of you with kids or who yourself are back in school be careful and study hard!!!!!!

August Updates

Wow here it is August 2nd and I am just know making a post. July just flew by and I only made the 1 post. I sure hope I have a bit more luck in August and can make more then a single.

I will start out with my finishes, a couple months ago I showed you the blanket that I was working on. It is intended as a gift for a friend at Christmas. It took longer to finish then usually because the heat we are having makes it all but impossible to have that laying on my lap. But it finally cooled off enough for me to finish it up.

I also got 2 small stitches finished and FFO-ed (Fully Finished Object) One a few days after the 4th and the other a couple days after that.The Mini Block Stitches was a pattern with charms that was given to me by a fellow stitcher, she had it in her stash but decided she would never stitch it so passed it along. We do this alot in our stitch group. The cart is a JBW design called French Cart. I had hoped to complete them by the 4th but did not. Oh well no worries, next year they will be ready.

My MPP's (multi-page projects) also have some finishes. The HEAD I have finished page 25. The DBCS (Death by Cross Stitch) I finished about 1 and 1/3 pages. I did this to complete the motif. And finally the Army Emblem I have about a page and 1/2 finished. I am working all 4 pages together so I do not have a single completed page but counting the grid you come up with my 1 1/2 page finish.

Those are all of my finishes. I have a new start. I am working Spring Village from Stoney Creek Designs. I am working it on a poly/blend table runner that I bought at Joann's one time when they were having a sale. I am using waste canvas and all of the floss will be DMC.

 

 I am currently putting a new project into the mix I will start as soon as this update is complete. It is a Halloween design and I hope to have it complete for this years decorations. I will post pictures on my next update.

I had a bit of fun with some sales items I found at Michael's. I have been looking for a summer decoration that is not 4th of July themed and this fit the bill. Everything was 70% off and I must say I did a pretty nice job of setting it up.

Finally my baby turned 1 on July 31st. And what you may ask did I think was a good present for him.......well he got neutered. I would not have done it to him but the cat was getting a bit paranoid when he walked across he room. So he got the snip. They only had Monday open for the next 3 weeks and I just said well it needs done, birthday or not. He is just fine and happy as ever now but that day he was rather subdued 

New Year First Post

So lets do a summery of 2016. Should have done this yesterday but I had a mission, I will explain more about that as we go.

2016 was the year I said I am stitching just for ME. And I was very good at sticking to this with only 3 projects for others and those were smalls. 2 birthday cards for sisters and a card for a friend going thought cancer treatment.

I had several finishes large small and in between.

I have 6 WIP's that will be rolled over into 2017. Counted canvas work Joy and Christmas Tree

Autumn Ala Round by Glendon Place, Snowmen by Joan Elliot (there are 6 of these which I am working on a single fabric, 1 is finished and the 2nd is very close) and Death by Cross Stitch

Finally Christmas Cottage by Dona Gelsinger pattern by HAED. I was so hoping to have a page finish yesterday. I had 2100 stitches to complete the page when the clock struck midnight I was about 750 short. Lots of confetti did me in. BOO........ but I did complete 6 pages in 2016 so that is a good thing.

So that was my thread work for the year. I also had sewing projects. Wallets, Owls, and a t-shirt quilt. Most of these were either sold or given as gifts.

And finally just a couple weeks ago a friend had to go in for surgery and she is having a very rough time with her health so to pick her up I made her an afghan. She is a big fan of  Bauer Ware Dishes so the colors of the yarn is as close as I could get.

All in all I had a good year. Lots of stitching, work was very busy and we had a trip to Australia for a combination of work and pleasure. Got a new puppy who is a little scamp, but a pure joy to have. I will not complain about it as I am still here with hubby and kids. What more can you ask for. Enjoy 2017 and I will see you all through out the year with updates and news.