Some framed finishes

I recently took a couple of pieces to Michael's to have them framed. I decided it was time to get my finishes out of the drawer and on my wall. So hopefully, I will have a lot of these posts to show you this year. As much as I stitch, I have very few stitched pieces displayed in my home. However one of my goals this year is to decorate my home with things we love, and my handwork fits into that overall goal. :)

Here's Paradise Lost by Plum Street Samplers.




And Home is Where My Heart Blooms by Blackbird Designs.





I'm enjoying a blissful week of spring break, at home stitching and knitting with an occasional outing during the day here and there.

Hope your week is a happy one!
Kellie

A finish and a start

I finished knitting a quick little project tonight. It's called a Monster Chunk. It's a free pattern by Rebecca Danger on Ravelry. He's stitched out of Knitcol Adifil and Cascade 220 (feet) on size 5 circulars.




I also started Christmas Garden by BBD a few days ago. I haven't made a huge amount of progress but I am enjoying every stitch. I'm thinking I will probably stitch an alphabet at the bottom like Katrina, rather than the words Christmas Garden. This is a sampler I would like to leave out all year as it doesn't "scream" Christmas, especially without the charted words. Katrina was very kind to offer to share how she stitched hers, so I hope she won't mind if I borrow her idea.




Please pardon my crappy iPhone photos. I'm too lazy to grab the real camera and in a hurry to get back to stitching CG.
Have a good week!
Happy Stitching!

Lately

Spring has sprung here in my little KY town. The flowers are blooming.






We have a new little fellow that has found us. I think he belongs to someone. He's very tame and becoming territorial which doesn't set well with the other cat members of our family. We are hoping to find his family and return him. And if not, maybe a new family that will love him. And this needs to be happening soon before I get attached to him and name him Zebulon (Zeb for short; anyone else a child of the 70s who grew up watching The Waltons? You will know where I came up with Zeb. Lol!)


On the stitching front, I've been very unfocused. I can't seem to stick to one thing lately and therefore the only thing I'm accomplishing is making a mess pulling out multiple projects and making a couple of new starts that I quickly abandoned.

I finished Small Token by Blackbird Designs for the 2012 Year of Smalls.



I started March Wordplay by With Thy Needle and Thread.



Also started Spring by Cross eyed Cricket.




I think part of my focusing problem has been because I had been working on Sarah Woodham. Somehow I lost the part of the pattern that is the over one verse. I'm sure it's around here somewhere, and it will turn up,but it is driving me insane trying to figure out where it is.

As for knitting, I don't have much to show there but I did aquire a few cute new project bags and a set of stitch markers that I love.


Sock bag from Slipped Stitch Studios on Etsy. LOVE this! Very well made and how can you resist a sick project bag with well, socks! on the fabric. :)




A couple of just as awesomely made bags from Tangerine Designs on Etsy.




Hunger Games stitch markers also by Tangerine Designs. Love this series of books, love these stitch markers, can't wait to see this movie.

I think that's all of my ramblings for today, folks!

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Happy Stitching!

Somber

My heart is breaking for all the families that lost loved ones and their homes in this week's storms.

Our little town fared better than some but did not remain unscathed.

We were hit on Wednesday by two EF-2 tornados. No lives were lost here thankfully. One of the tornados ripped through the neighborhood right next to my middle school and leveled it. We were at school when all of this moved through. We had kids in the hallways from 9:00 a.m. until after 1:00 p.m. with a couple of 15 minute reprieves. We lost power by 10:00 am. Our students were AMAZING. I am still so proud of them! They listened so well and were so patient. We are so blessed that this tornado literally "jumped" over our school. My husband and son were experiencing the same things at their respective schools. DH works at the high school; DS attends one of the elementary schools. I am very thankful for the staff at my son's school who kept him safe and tried to keep him calm. He suffers terribly from storm phobia (almost debilitatingly); it was a very long emotional day for him and I could not be there to comfort him. I was needed at my school and it was too dangerous to leave to go get him.

Had we been home, this would have been the view from our front door. This picture was taken from within our neighborhood.




But we are blessed. We have not had the destruction that others received on Friday.

We were very nervous about the storms on Friday after the events of Thursday. We knew Fridays storms were on the same path as Wednesday's but were predicted to be a lot worse. We were home this time when they hit. Thankfully it was just high winds, thunderstorms, and hail for us this time around.

I'm so thankful that my family is safe and sound... All of my family, extended family too.

My thoughts and prayers are with those who were not as fortunate.

New stash!

My Valentine's Day gift from my husband....



Some new charts and fabric to go with each, a couple of needed threads, a VB bag for knitting tools and trinkets, and a bunny needle minder.

I was waiting for the mail yesterday because I thought i should be receiving all of this. When Michael came in from the mailbox yesterday afternoon, I was disappointed that I didn't receive my order... Or so I thought. He said (and truthfully, he thought) that all we received was junk mail and he had dumped it in the trash on the way back inside. I asked him if he saw any boxes on the front porch and he said he didn't notice any. So I resigned myself that I would be waiting until later in the week. I stayed up stitching until around 1 am last night. Before going to bed, I went to make sure the front storm door was locked and flipped on the front porch light. There on the porch, in the opposite corner that our mailman normally puts boxes, sat my order. I was thrilled!!! And wide awake suddenly. After looking at everything several times, I went on to bed. But I was up early this morning putting the first stitches into CEC's Spring. Progress pics to come!

Happy Stitching!

Bloom

Finished this sweet design earlier this week. Such a fun, pretty, and quick stitch.



This is by M Designs and was in the March/April 2011 issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine. I plan to finish it as a pincushion with brown seed beads all along the edges similar to the model photo in the magazine. If only I could find the time! I don't want to stop stitching long enough to do the finishing. I don't enjoy that part as much. Lol!

Have a fun stitchy weekend!

a few finishes and a WIP

I have finished the February installment of the 2012 Year of Smalls SAL.

This is Garden of Love by Citrouille's Designs. I made a few little mistakes but not so much that I wanted to frog them and start over. And the raspberry silk thread had way too much dye in it so I didn't want any "bleeding" to show on my fabric either. (personal rant.... why is that a particular brand's red/deep pink silks always stain stitching? Is it too much to ask that when you pay approx. $7.00 a skein for silk threads that it not bleed all over your fabric?!.... rant over).

This was a cute, fun, quick stitch. I purchased the kit that Cathy of Inspired Needle put together. This was stitched on a 32 ct. fabric, 2 over 2.

I also finished a couple of knitted items.

A pair of Monkey Socks by Cookie A out of LunaBudKnits fingering weight yarn. Love this yarn!! She is a somewhat local KY dyer).

And a waffle knit dishcloth out of Knit Picks Dishie yarn (blue) and Sugar and Cream yarn (natural). This the is the first dishcloth that I have knit with Dishie, but it won't be the last. I really like this yarn.

And for my biggest Ta-Da....

I FINALLY finished Paradise Lost!!!!! I started this piece on October 29, 2009. I didn't stitch on it exclusively. Often there were very long lapses in time between stitching sessions, but I am so glad to finally have it finished. As soon as I find a good framing deal at Michael's, this little beauty is going to be framed and hung behind the living room couch. As much as I have stitched through the years, I have very few pieces framed and displayed. I am making a conscious effort to remedy that. I am starting to become more of a project stitcher rather than a process stitcher. I want to stitch things that have a place and purpose in my home decor rather than stitching whatever strikes my fancy just for the fun of stitching it, if that makes sense. :) (Excuse my wrinkles...)

After finishing Paradise Lost, I dug Sarah Woodham out of the WIP pile to start working on her diligently once again. She's another reason that I am ranting about those particular red silks.... Between the deep pink and dark red silks, parts of her are getting a pinkish cast that I do not like. I am very concerned about stitching all of the over one verse in the deep pink. I hate to spend so much time (and $$) stitching a project for it to look like it has been dipped in a pink bath. Hopefully that won't happen, but I am noticing some bleeding in other parts of the piece where I have used those two colors. I put this one back into q-snaps, even though I usually stitch in hand. I am hoping that will alleviate some of the bleeding if I do not have it in my hands as much.

A couple of knitting notes... started a February Lady Sweater out of Cascade 220. I haven't made enough progress for it to even look like a sweater as of yet. I plan to knit a bunch of Cloisonee mittens out of Cascade 220 as well. If I can master this pattern, everyone I know will be getting mittens for Christmas because they are so stinkin' cute! I'm also working on a Hitchhiker scarf which I will show on my next post and talk a little bit about it. (If you are on Ravelry, and would like to "friend" me, my username there is kellieps3).

I want to thank everyone for their kind comments and emails regarding my former principal. While she continues to be missed daily, her staff members are settling into a new normal. I have had the opportunity to visit the school in a professional capacity several times since her death, and while it still seems very surreal, everyone (staff and students) seem to be adapting.

Super Bowl Sunday... who are you rooting for? Honestly, I don't have a personal team that I hope wins. Jake does. He wants the Giants to win. So I guess I will root for the Giants since that is who he seems to want to win. Michael and Jake have big plans of watching the game this evening. I agreed to make some super bowl snack food and give them a party atmosphere. Personally, I will be taking my buffalo chicken dip and lil smokies back to my sitting room where I intend to stitch and enjoy my latest audiobook (Alone by Lisa Gardner) and later watch Downton Abbey.

Petey says, "Mom, quit your belly aching about silk thread and fix the super bowl food already..."

Have a fun week.

Happy stitching!

Kellie