quite a post

Several things to blab about so hold onto your stitching, quilting, books, and whatever else may blow away while reading quite a post such as this one.

KIDS…

Yesterday afternoon Jose decided to make a hot pocket for himself. Apparently the plate was a bit too hot for Jose’s own good, so he elaborated in order to protect his hand on the trek to his bedroom. Well, we caught him sneaking off to his bedroom to eat. He was trying to explain himself when we wondered what that big bright blue-green thing was. Ahh, now we know.

Tonight after dinner Cameron wanted to help with the pots and pans and everything else…I think. I don’t know what he was trying to do. You figure it out. (Excuse the yellowish floor. We’re meaning to get that replaced at some point.)




PROGRESS…

I’ve made more progress on Susan’s Sweet Sampler Tin. I finished the cloud filling stitch (far right on big piece). I finished the pin cushion with the small pink button and I’m almost done with the needlebook. We could choose any stitch for the front and I stitched the cloud filling. It’s fun and pretty so why not. The baggy with the "doh-dah’s" (Susan Greening Davis term) are some items I’m going to use with this piece. My mother had these and since she’s the best mom ever she gave them to me for my project.

The stitched banding is the needlebook which I have almost done. I finally found some fabric for inside and am in the process of tacking that down and the green ribbon (in the baggy) will be weaved through those three coral rings. Those rings came with the class, but we used the buttonhole stitch to cover them. The rings, green ribbon (my choice), and needlebook are getting attached into the tin.

I’m happy with my pace on this project because it isn’t just the main focus piece, but different little pieces included with the tin. I’ve learned a few new specialty stitches so it’s been so much fun expanding my x’s :o) Susan is truly a fantastic teacher and she’s an artist as well. If she’s ever in your area or your country (‘cause she goes international baby) you should really think about signing up and attending. Annemiek knows her too and she can confirm.

FINISHED…

I am terribly excited about this little finish. Her name is Sarah and she is a product of Susan Greening Davis.

My mother bought this precious doll for me, along with the accessory kit, at our SGD tin class. I’ve had Sarah in my basket for sometime, but she’s had no accessories to adorn. For sometime now I’ve had her pictured atop my blog in that basket, but she’s had no accessories. Yesterday, I looked over at her during lunch and said no more! You will not be naked any longer, so up I went and stitched her apron. The letter “I” wasn’t included, but since there was a heart charm I thought, why not say that Sarah (really me though) cross stitch, so I added the letter “I”. I had a blast with this!

The tiny little needlebook came pre-made so I merely had to hang it from Sarah’s hand.

BUT, and I’m really proud of that BUT, this was the first tuffet/biscornu I have ever done. As Susan describes in her directions, “this is the teeniest, tiniest tuffet EVER!” All I can say is DUH!!! She wasn’t kidding. I always thought that my first biscornu would be the average size but no. I had to make the smallest thing next to a nickel. (I used a nickel for a size reference, well, b/c my last name is Nichols – hardy-har-har! – and it is that small.) I had fun, I guess you could say, since it was my first experience with something this small, but I really don’t want to try this again. LOL Next time, I’ll do one as big as my head hand.

Now that I’ve bored you and kept you from your guilty pleasures, I just want to say thanks for visiting me and leaving comments. It means soooo much that you just can’t possibly imagine how much. You are all so wonderful and fun. Thanks again!

Talk soon!

PS: Btw, I tied the apron around Sarah’s waist and changed the blog topper photo. Sarah isn’t naked anymore - Yay!!!

8 years & waving

Today marks 8 years dh and I have been a couple. It was 8 years ago today that our relationship went into high gear and was made official ~ we were a couple. We decided on June 14th we’d be monogamous and that’s just what we did. Here we are eight years later, married with two children with the possibility of more in the future. We don’t celebrate this day or make any special plans, but we do acknowledge it as I’m doing right here. (Our wedding anniversary is in July.) This photo is dh and I during our dating years. We always have fun and we laugh A LOT and this still holds true today.

This day is easy to remember because it’s also Flag Day. Our US flag waves each and everyday atop our porch and our flag waves in our hearts.

Talk soon!

PS: Please take the small survey located atop in the sidebar. Thanks!

the stitcherhood

There is something about these designs I adore. There are half a dozen new releases and free downloads on the website. Maybe it's the folksy-whimsy-primitive look these pieces posses. It appears that most are stitched on a low count fabric such as Aida, which I gave up stitching on years ago, but I would still stitch these designs and use linen instead ~ yeah, mottled linen! Perhaps vintage with some.

Anyway, go check out The Stitcherhood. Let me know what you think. I like Midnight Dip as well as many, many others.

Talk soon!

special stitches

Remember the Susan Greening Davis sweet tin class piece I had been working on, oh not too long ago? I took a small break from it for two reasons. One, I’ve been so involved in my Little House Needleworks designs and two, I’ve been psyching myself up to attempt the “dreaded” interlacing double herringbone stitch. Quite a mouthful, ugh? Photographed below is where I stopped.

And finally, below is where I am today with the interlacing double herringbone stitch in place.

I was quite proud of myself for getting this stitch complete in only one afternoon, and with a bad hand too (I’m injured, long story). I have to admit, there were a couple of people that had hell to pay in order to understand this stitch. I mean, over, under, over, under, under, over, under; UGHHHHH!!! Luckily for me, this stitch appreciated my efforts and it clicked. Of course, there was some playing around on the second interlacing pass at first, but I managed. I think it looks really nice. Besides, it is my first time on this. :D The empty column to the right of this special stitch will be filled with the cloud filling stitch. It reminds me of lattice. I’ll post more on it later.

I leave you with Mr. Funny Face. I caught him playing at the sink. When we ask Cameron, ‘show me your funny face’, these are the faces he gives us. Faces only a mother could love.

Talk soon!

stitching, movies, reading = favorite things

This is such a sweet stitch (frog attack forgotten). I have since started the border and I’m waiting to start the second flower…again. I may start on her blouse next which is done in Old Blue Jeans by CC. It will be so cute and fresh. I’ve been invited to participate by adding photos to this blog so I will be posting there soon.

I am on disc 3 of Whiteout by Ken Follett. The drama began as soon as it started and it continues to grab my attention. I especially like the Scottish accent of the reader because that connects me to the characters. The story does take place in Europe so the accent helps capture the environment. The man nearly drowning was a little hair raising and some of the language used gives a chuckle. It's all good though.

Since Jose has been out for the summer we’ve been watching a lot of movies together. We’ve seen all these movies hundreds of times before, but we’re huge fans so it never gets old or boring watching the same things over and over together. We’ve decided to watch movies that extend the trilogy, more like a series. So far we’ve watched all the Alien movies. We just got done watching all six Star Wars (I always cry at #3) and next on the agenda are the Superman movies. Awhile back it took us a month to watch all ten seasons of Friends, but we had a fabulous time together. We laughed soooo much! Next week me and my son have a movie date. Mom is going to babysit Cameron during the day so we can have an afternoon mother/son date. We’re going to see the new Star Trek movie. Can’t wait!

Talk soon!

frogs stink!

Last night I posted about the frogs attacking The Sampler Lady. Of course, I brought it upon myself by not stitching when I was more coherent, but anyway I started ripping the threads out last night and still wasn't done by morning. Today I spent the afternoon ripping more threads. The entire left side flower is officially ripped out. I had just as much stitching complete on that flower as I have done on the right side. Thankfully the frogs are done ribbitt-ing around my linen. I think the worst part of frogs is the ruined thread. Can't reuse it, for obvious reasons. The thread looks dreadful (photo above). Anyway, I'm done venting about that. Now I can start stitching again.

To make this a more pleasant return, I went to the library this evening (Jose tagged along) and checked out four books on cd. I am getting ready to cozy up in bed and listen to a story. I've never done this before so I'm a little jittery at the anticipation. The audio books I checked out are:

Watchers - Dean Koontz
The Associate - John Grisham
Whiteout - Ken Follet
The Navigator - Clive Cussler

I'm beginning with Whiteout. I also checked out two DVD movies. Rush Hour 3 ("Do you understand the words that are comin' outta my mouth??? - Chris Tucker to Jackie Chan. I love this line.) and Fried Green Tomatoes (This movie is wonderful!). Enjoy your evening. Talk soon!

LHN and a Gibbon???

I finished hand-sewing The Traveling Stitcher to the pre-finished needlecase and project keeper. The needles design gave me some trouble and I had to use my seam ripper, but all ended well. I am pleased with everything. At first I was going to sew the project keeper design on the underside of the flap, but decided not to. Mainly because the floral/coral design is only on the flap and no where else, I didn’t want to hide such a gorgeous, yet small, piece of fabric. Anyway, I sewed mine onto the biggest portion of the keeper; the backside of the pocket. This was such a fun design to stitch and I highly recommend it. I noticed on this blog that some have changed up the colors which add interest. Anyhoo, the verse on this piece stands true to me. I do bring my stitching everywhere because you never know when you’ll need it. My motto: I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

I helped my friend, Sally, finish the lid of her Susan Greening Davis basket at a recent moonlight stitching gathering at our LNS. Truly I had a lot of fun helping Sally put this together. I always learn something when I finish projects and I think Sally learned something too. :D We had fun with it! Sally did such a nice, nice thing for me. Because I helped with her basket she was kind enough to purchase me a chart as a thank you. Of course, a thank you and a hug would have done just fine by me, but Sally insisted and I wasn’t going to argue. LOL The ‘thank you’ gift was The Sampler Lady chart by LHN.

I couldn’t wait to start her. The design reminds me of myself. Weird, I know, but it just does. The over-dyed and DMC thread color scheme is so pretty, but I did exchange two over-dyes for some Gentle Arts I had on hand. They are still in the same color group though, so really there isn't much of a change. Unfortunately, after I took these photographs and put in a couple of hours of stitching I found a mistake. My mistake! I was so peeved. The left flower is off by like six stitches. I still haven’t learned my lesson. I need to quit stitching when I start dozing off at night. I guess I’ll never learn. Needless to say, the frogs attacked on this one BIG TIME. I had that flower just about done and I had to rip everything out. A big poohy there!

Lastly, Jose spent the night at mom’s Saturday and was with her for most of Sunday. In the meantime, dh and I took Cameron to the zoo to blow some of that jumpy, crazy, bent-up, baby-boy hormone steam he seems to have a lot of these days and we ended up in the Jungle Gym which is a play area for tots. He loves it there! This was the first time daddy did this with him and he was in love with the act. He screamed and cried when we needed to leave. I bet people across the way thought the zoo added a new Gibbon (Cameron’s cousins) to the exhibit. (I’ll spare you the horrifying death screams and fire spitting this child can, and did, make that afternoon upon leaving the tot area - you get the idea by Cam's cousins.)

Talk soon!

tokyo cuisine

I don’t have any stitching photos to share, but I have been stitching. I finished one Little House Needleworks design and started another, which I will post photos of once I get the chance.

More miso soup, please!

Tonight we had sushi and salmon for dinner with my mom and brother. Me and the boys love sushi and teriyaki salmon. Jose prefers teriyaki chicken though. Cameron really got into his miso soup and he loves that steamed rice. Cameron loves to look around, babble and eat. Jose loves to well, play video games and eat. Jose was very fortunate this time because he never gets to bring his games to the table.

We had a nice dinner. My dh had two large hot Sake so I had to drive us home. Jose made plans to spend the night at Nana's tonight so he left with mom after dinner. Me and the other two boys went by the local park and had a quiet evening at home. I hope to have a more stitchy post in the upcoming days. I hope you've enjoyed your evening as I have enjoyed mine.

Talk soon!

new sampler released

(A map of all the places Jane Austen lived and visited.)

OMG!!! I love samplers and by far my favorite designer is Tanya. Isn't she the best?!?! The Sampler Girl really knows how to capture history and literature and enhance it on linen with thread. Anyway, I just got word of her newly released sampler called On Travel With Jane Austen. It is amazing! Stunning is a much better word I think. Go check this sampler out and place that order...NOW!!! The motifs are sweet and the verses even sweeter. Go have a looksee!

movie preview ~ must see

You have to see this!!! Can we say E*D*W*A*R*D???