Category Archives: Stitching

January's "goal" progress report

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Terri | Comments Off

I don’t think I set any monthly goals and I don’t know if I’m going to. I think what I’d rather do is just post progress reports for myself on my goals for this year. So here’s where I am so far:

1. Actual Stitching

What I want: Mirabilia Summer Queen – I’m already stitching this and it has to be finished and framed by mid-May in order to be entered into the fair. I’m thinking I may stitch on this every Saturday and Sunday as well as devoting a full week to it. The rest of the items I’ll stitch on Monday – Friday.

Where I am: I have faithfully stitched on Summer Queen every Saturday and Sunday, plus 1 week (this past week). I’m pleased with my progress so far.

What I want: Carriage House Houses of Hawk Run Hollow – It will satisfy more than one ‘requirement’ for my rotation. There are 12 blocks and I am going to attempt to stitch one a month. I have a yard size piece of 40 ct Vintage Maple Sugar already in my stash, and I have been collecting the NPIs over the past year for this design and the Village. Just need to measure twice, cut once, surge and go!(Fortunately, the other two HRH designs have not tempted me, but I hear there’s an autumnal design in the works and I may be in B.I.G. trouble when it comes out.)

Where I am: I started this design but switched to Vintage Sand Dune. Since Kathy announced Autumn of Hawk Run Hollow is going to be on Sand Dune, I’m really glad I did. I don’t know if I am too ambitious, or if my preparing my fabric put me behind, but I didn’t get the first block finished.

What I want: Glory Bee Flying Monkies – new and small. I want to put this over my desk at work so I can just point to it 🙂

Where I am: I finished this and it’s sitting on my desk right this second. I purchased fabric and fibers for finishing yesterday and it’s going in the mail today to be finished off! Woohoo! This stitching slot will be filled by Home of a Needleworker, Too!

What I want: With My Needle Quaker Needlework Treasures – this has been around for over a year (I think even over 2!) and will fall into the ‘smalls’ category. I will decide whether or not to attempt the actual finishing once I get all the stitching done. I may just ‘farm’ it out. I do have everything for all the parts, etc., kitted.

Where I am: I made such great progress on this project this month. I am going to start looking for someone to finish it for me. I’ll first contact the sweet lady who’s doing the work on Flying Monkeys to see if she’s interested. If I happen to finish the stitching on this design during February, I’ll probably be slotting in another already started “necessities” project. If I don’t have one, then I’ll be starting a new one from my stash, that’s already kitted.

2. Framing –

What I want: Most of the designs I would like to see framed this year will be going on a ‘sampler wall’ in my bedroom. I am aiming for at least 6 designs.

Where I am: I have Token of Love ready to go to the framers, I’m just waiting on them to have a sale.

3. Stash Enhancement – I have myself on a stitching budget. I am going to try really, really hard to not purchase anything but we all know how that usually goes 😆 so I’m budgeting. I have tons of fabric, so really can’t see myself buying any of that in the future and am going to try to stitch as much from my stash as possible. One thing that has worked for me in the past is to trade for things. I may try that when I start on #4 below.

Where I am: I knew going in this one was going to be hard on me. I’m doing better than I thought I would though. I did make some purchases, but when it came to kitting a new design, I switched fibers to make sure I could stitch as much as possible from my stash. I think in future months, I’m going to list everything I buy so I can see just how *bad* I’m being 😉

4. Stash Downsizing – I am going to be thinning out my stash. I have some fibers to get rid of (anyone need to purchase the complete set of Vikki Clayton silks for HoHRH?) and I even want to sell some of my fabric. I know I have some duplicates in charts to weed through, plus my tastes have changed over the past 30+ years. I’ll be doing a lot of eBaying (user name is mcbcpsdca) and will post here when new stuff is going up and may even post things for trade before putting them up on eBay.

Where I am: I suppose stitching from my stash falls into this category somewhat. I did pass my Flying Monkeys on to another stitcher for a cup of coffee! 😆 I have started pulling things and listing them on my blog and linking to them on my photopage.

So that’s where I am. I need to post a photo of Summer Queen (was too tired to drag the camera out last night) and a before picture of Home of a Needleworker, and post the fiber changes I’m making. I can’t believe it’s Monday already. Saturday was spent up north stitching with friends all day, and Sunday was errand day. I really don’t like weekends like this past one because I feel like I don’t get any downtime, even though I’m spending all day Saturday stitching.

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Posted in Carriage House Samplings, Framing, Goals, Mirabilia, Stitching, With My Needle

What I'm stitching next~

Posted on January 30, 2010 by Terri | 1 comment

Wow, thank you for your comments. It’s so nice to know I have a little audience. I really wasn’t expecting anyone to weigh in and now that you have, I wish that I had put it out there as a giveaway! I will next time since I have so many things I want to stitch and it’s always hard for me to decide.

I took all the designs with me to my Saturday Stitch-in. I also took a lot of light colored fabrics and almost all my GAST and WDW since I am trying so hard to stitch from my stash. So, since *we* have decided upon Home of a Needleworker (too!) I was able to *match* all the fibers, but ended up buying the blue for the house because I was afraid I wouldn’t have enough of the blue I had in my stash. I will post my fiber/fabric conversion on Monday 🙂

In puppy news, Harley Quinn made her second *kill* today. We feed finches just outside our patio and she is always darting out the door scarring them off. Today she caught one and was kind enough to leave feathers and the head strewn all over the house for her daddy to find. I’m so glad I wasn’t here!

I have several errands that must be run tomorrow so I have no idea how much stitching time I’ll get in. I didn’t stitch as much today as usually do. There was a whole love of laughing though, and browsing through the shop. I purchased a new set of 11″ q-snaps, the latest SANQ, and 1 Crescent Colors.

Oh, and before I forget! Kathy has posted the fiber list for Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow on her blog 🙂

1 Comment

Posted in Puppies, Stitching

What to stitch next?

Posted on January 29, 2010 by Terri | 6 comments

I don’t know what I did but yesterday late in the afternoon at work my right wrist started bothering me. By the time I left I could barely use my right hand to drive home. It was hurting me so much by the time I got home I seriously contemplated taking some of Kahuna’s ‘left over’ oxicodone. Needless to say we didn’t make it out to town to pick up the puppies’ new clothes. Plus, I couldn’t find my brace so didn’t sleep all that well last night because it bothered me when I turned in certain positions. So this morning I’m pooped and very much glad it’s Friday. It’s still bothering me, but not near as much. In fact, I haven’t taken any sort of pain killer.

Anyway since it hurt to move, I didn’t stitch. I thought about trying it but was worried the constant, repetitive motion might make it worse since I don’t know what I did to hurt it.

Instead, I dug around in my stash looking at smallish patterns for my new project, while watching Vampire Diaries. Here’s what I’ve narrowed it down to:

Chessie & Me – Love Liberty

Katidid – Come Gather

Little House Needleworks – Home of a Needleworker (too!)

Little House Needleworks – Necessities Sampler

Sheepish Designs – Eagle

Little By Little – Black Heart Samplar

Lilybet – Spots

Ewe and Eye and Friends – Primitive Sheep

Blackbird Designs – Grand Old Flag

I had 3x this many pulled when I first began going through them! 😆

Now, which one should I stitch?

6 Comments

Posted in Injury, Stitching

Things are not as they seem

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Terri | 1 comment

First, my post below about us going to the superbowl….our team, not us personally 😉

I hate it when I have expectations about something and they don’t pan out.

I just knew I was going to get a ton of stitching done this week but that hasn’t happened. Work has been crazy. My hours were increased this week and I’m back to working full time. While I know I’m going to enjoy the money, I really hate losing those 2 hours a day to stitch. Doesn’t that just figure that I finally get my stitching mojo back and now I lose stitching time. When I have been stitching, I keep getting interrupted.

As to work I can’t figure out how those 2 extra hours are helping me. I’m spending tons of time waiting on stuff to download and process, etc., and not getting any substantive work done…or at least that’s how I feel. I will say moving to the larger desk has helped. I now have more desktop to sprawl over, and let me tell you I’m taking advantage of it! 😉

Tonight we’re taking the puppies out to the weekly street market. They get a hotdog, love the socialization, always get lots of attention, and did I mention they get a hotdog. In the summertime they get ice cream too. Tonight they’re getting new clothes. We’ve had a new harness made for Harley Quinn, and a martingale (same fabric, different color) for Jasper. We’re celebrating that he’s officially ours. I got the paperwork back from the rescue society on Tuesday 😀

I wish I had a stitching picture to share, but nope…I’m too lazy/tired to drag the camera out! 😆 I need to dig through my stash this weekend and figure out what I’m going to put in “Flying Monkeys'” stitchy spot. I’ve got a stitchalong on Saturday and I’ll take FM with me, and then I’m sending it out for finishing…which reminds me, I need to answer an email about that.

Ciao.

1 Comment

Posted in Stitching, Work

Rain, rain, go away

Posted on January 23, 2010 by Terri | 6 comments

We’re all a little stir crazy around here. It’s been raining non-stop for 5 days. We’ve even made national news, it’s been so wet! That being said, the angry ocean is so beautiful these days. I feel like standing on the beach, arms raised to the sky, and screaming as loud as I can. Great picture, huh! 😆 It’s 43 degrees right this minute and the sun is trying to shine. There are still some rain cells off our coast but hopefully they’ll stay away the rest of the weekend. We could use a break. I know it’s supposed to start back up again on Monday, but it would be nice to have a clear weekend.

Work

I was told yesterday that some changes needed to be done and was actually asked for my input. After our office discussion it was decided that I’m to be moved back to full-time and to take back over more of the work that has been outsourced. (This is a trial run and I have no idea how long it will last, but I’m hoping ‘forever.’) I have been kept dangerously out of the loop since we outsourced our dictation because I haven’t been seeing everything. I have been blessed with a very good memory but in the past month there’s been a lot of “I don’t know” and “I haven’t seen it” coming out of my mouth. That’s not a good thing when you’re in charge of calendaring and following up on deadlines for the Court – not to mention it drives me nuts if I have to say that. So I’m going in to work today to do some rearranging at my desk to make it easier for me to take over those additional duties. We’re also bringing in a once-a-week person to do our filing and work on our notebooks. Thank goodness!

Kahuna

He has a half-marathon scheduled for tomorrow. In addition to the rain we’ve been having this week, he also has a small ‘injury’ he’s dealing with. Something is bothering his calf and now he’s not sure he’s going to race tomorrow. He’s going to attempt a half hour run today to see how it’s doing. I think he’s been overtraining for the half-ironman (he’s running twice a day on most days), but he doesn’t think so. Whatever it is, I hope it clears up soon, since I know it’s bothering him.

Stitching

I am in love with HOHRH. I’ve seen several stitchers mention on their blogs that it was a ‘fun stitch’ but really had no idea what they meant by that until I started stitching it. I got off to a slow start since at the last minute I decided to put my name in the first block and it took some stitching and unstitching several times to get it where it is right now, and I’m still not completely happy with it! 😆 I’ve left off the date since I don’t know if I can get it done by the end of the year, but am thinking maybe I should have put it in there for more incentive to have it done. Anyway, I may go back and adjust my name later. I’m sad that I’m putting it away today for Summer Queen, but she does have a deadline. I’ll be stitching on her for 9 days this go-around.

The photo is a little darker that normal on my screen, but you can see the vintage look of the fabric really well.

Houses of Hawk Run Hollow

6 Comments

Posted in Carriage House Samplings, Family, HOHRH, Stitching, Work

Free days aren't really

Posted on January 18, 2010 by Terri | 3 comments

I have a love/hate relationship with extra days off work.

I hate that I only have 4 days to do 5 days work in, and add on to that the fact that my days are still only 6 hours long and I feel like I’m required to put in 8 hours of work, well, let’s just say that it makes me look all the more forward to the next weekend. Since today is a no-pay day for me, I hate it for that reason as well. I know I could use vacation time, but I’m saving it for my surgery recovery.

I love that I get an extra day for a weekend because I’m not rushed to get all my ‘chores’ done so I can sit to stitch, read, play with the puppies, watch stoopid stuff on TV. I normally don’t have a ton of laundry because I do a load every night after work, but when I know I have a long weekend, I’ll put it off (I have no idea why my brain works this way) so today will be spent climbing Mt. Washmore (or rather getting to the bottom of the laundry barrel). I have an extra day to do the grocery shopping. I have an extra day to read/stitch. I have an extra day to actually rest.

Today is an extra good extra day off because it’s raining. We have some huge water headed our way. People here do NOT know how to drive in the sprinkle, much less in the rain 😉 I’ll stay home (unless Kahuna drags me out to a movie or something).

Today is a good day because I’m starting a new stitching project. It was hard for me to actually stitch on Summer Queen yesterday and not start HOHRH 😀

So, before I get on to HOHRH, here’s my latest progress on Summer Queen.

Oh, and a word to the wise (which sometimes I’m not). When I pulled out my fabric to cut this morning I discovered 2 things. It was no longer a full yard (I cannot for the life of me remember when I cut it much less what I cut it for) and I had 2 pieces of 40 ct Vintage Sand Dune bagged and tagged already for HOHRH and VOHRH! This is what happens when you go on a mega-long stitching hiatus and have way too much stash. All I could think after my discovery was thank goodness I had the Sand Dune because I would have been one upset stitchy person if I didn’t have fabric like I thought I did.

3 Comments

Posted in Carriage House Samplings, HOHRH, Mirabilia, Stitching, Work

Quaker Needlework Treasures Update

Posted on January 17, 2010 by Terri | Comments Off

Here’s as far as I got last week. I’m going to have to go back and frog the ’06’ out of the main piece 😆

Last night was full of football goodness by way of my Saints! Woo to the Hoo!!!

Today Kahuna’s team plays…the Cowboys. Yuk. He’s a Saints fan too and doesn’t know what he’s going to do if they end up playing each other. I know what he better do, and that’s all I’m going to say about that 😉

I made my floss tags for HOHRH last night and ‘loaded up’ the NPIs for the first house. I even made my working copy of the house I’m starting with — the upper left house. I’m SO excited! I still need to cut and serge my fabric but will tackle that in the morning.

More Summer Queen stitching today and maybe even a new progress picture tonight.

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Posted in Football, HOHRH, Mirabilia, Stitching, With My Needle

Unexpected pleasures

Posted on January 16, 2010 by Terri | Comments Off

I’ve had a very good all around week.

Work

Received a memo that I will definitely be doing mostly work for atty J! Woohoo! I was also told yesterday that I could move my stuff to the ‘big desk’ which means more spreading out room for me. I think it also means that someone else is going to be brought in. The case settled on Thursday, which means the attorneys are back in the office. Late yesterday afternoon head attorney said he wanted to close the office on Monday so I’m getting an unexpected three-day weekend!

Puppies

Have caught them several times snuggled up to each other 🙂

Stitching

I spent the better part of the past week working on Needlework Treasures. While it did stitch up faster than I thought, and I was further along that I remembered, it didn’t get finished this week. I’ll post a picture later, when I put it away and pull out Summer Queen.

I don’t know how much stitching I’ll get done on Summer Queen this weekend because I have been bitten by the stash bug. Not the buying one, the organizing one. I have been trying to post my stash on the picture portion of my webpage. As of right this minute, this is how far I’ve gotten. Oh my! What a mistake this has been. I have forgotten more than remembered what I have. It’s almost like being turned loose in a stitching shop. Part of me is tempted to see how long I could stitch without ever spending another dime…but what would be the fun in that. I’m almost embarrassed by how much I have, though.

One design I’ve come across that I have forgotten was Industrious Ladies. Such a beautiful thing.

As I’ve been going through it, I’ve pulled out more stuff to sell. I think instead of posting all of it on the page tab above, I’m going to list what I can on my webpage. I’ll post updates here.

I’m really looking foward to my day off on Monday since I’ll be starting Houses of Hawk Run Hollow. I have the supplies to make up some thread drops and creating those is also going to put a dent in my Summer Queen stitching. I’m not too worried about that though, since the next week will be devoted strictly to stitching on her.

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Posted in 4Sale, Carriage House Samplings, HOHRH, Mirabilia, Puppies, With My Needle, Work

What's new?

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Terri | Comments Off

My needle has been smokin’ this week. I’m thinking I may even finish the stitching part of Quaker Needlework Treasures by Friday (don’t hold me to that though).

I am a multi-tasking stitcher. 😉 I tend to think about stitching while I’m stitching and watching TV. The thinking I’m doing though is on a stitchy matter usually not associated with what I’m currently stitching on 😆

Last night’s stitchy thought (while watching The Biggest Loser) was what designer did I have in my stash whose designs I’ve never stitched. While there are many – and they were all floating through my head – I think the two I’m most looking forward to ‘trying out’ are Chessie & Me and Carriage House Samplings. I have several of their designs but have never stitched any. I also like Moira Blackburn’s designs but can’t remember if I have any in my stash or not.

What about you? Who do you want to give a try?

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Posted in Stitching

Happy dancing

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Terri | Comments Off

Kahuna
Today marks 28 years since Kahuna stood on the yellow bootprints at MCRD. It’s rather hard for me to believe that we’ve been married as long as we have, and that he’s been a Marine for this long. While it hasn’t always been easy, being a military wife, I wouldn’t give up a day of it. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of anything in my life, than being his wife.

Work
It’s so nice to be at work and have peace and quiet. The attorneys are in trial and I’m slowing getting caught up. I can already tell the difference just after one day. I have grand plans of having the filing, supply ordering, and medical records updates all done by the time trial is over.

Puppies
They continue to bond. Both are camera shy though so I don’t have pictures of some of their cutest moments. I do have these tho:

Watching mom type

Just hanging out

Stitching
I have my first 2010 finish! I met with Melissa and Darla this past Saturday for an impromptu stitch-together. Thursday and Friday were rough at work and I needed some ‘me’ time and what better way to recharge than hanging out with your BSF (best stitchy friends). Since I was too pooped to stitch those nights, and was so close to finishing, I continued to work on Flying Monkeys and am thrilled to say that I finished it (I love that bat button!). I’m currently making arrangements to have it finished.

Flying Monkeys

When I got home Saturday night I immediately picked up Summer Queen and worked on her throughout the rest of the weekend when Kahuna and I weren’t out running errands.