Peacock Cypher

Here is my progress on Peacock Cypher. I've been working on Cypher this week and now that I've finished this panel it is back to Tapestry, for a while. Cypher is a lot of fun to stitch and the specialty stitches keep it interesting. Wouldn't you know, I can do those stitches...no problem; but I'll bet I frogged parts of the over-one stitches three times?! No beads yet and the beads are gorgeous too. I especially enjoy beading so I'll treat myself with them at the end.

And hey, no figuring out the cipher and telling. Against the rules. There is a curse, you know...

***This post imported from my other blog***

Stash Saturday

On Saturday we went to Tulsa for the opening game of the Tulsa Talons (Arena Football.) I know, I don't seem the type to like football and I don't....I like Arena Football; I guess I'm an indoor kind of girl! I do like my air conditioning. *grin* The Talons won 69 to 13 against the Amarillo Dusters...woot! We were thrilled our team won but it was a bit of a boring game since the Dusters were quite out of our class. The Talons were Arena Cup Champions last year and yes, I was there! Next game next weekend...

Anyhoo...before the game Rick took me to the LNS's to pick up some things I'll need soon...um...someday; let's be realistic! All of this stash is for planned projects like the Sweetheart Tree charts I bought several weeks ago and for the peacock chart I won on eBay last week. Yes, I bought another peacock...Ooo, it's Just Nan's Peacock Majesty. And it is retired and I couldn't resist! The Peacock SAL is too enabling!

Oh, dear. More beads! Some Weeks Dye Works threads. DMC Perle cotton #12. Krienik very fine braid and some lovely 28 count teal green linen...for the new peacock.

I have been stitching but I'm posting my progress at the SAL so join me there to see it!

I'm green...

My friend Tracy recently returned from holiday in Ireland. She has a lovely post about her trip...here. She also has the most beautiful photos of her trip (on her main page.)


I wanna go!

Books, not stitching

From Lindsay...

Look at the list of (100) books below. Bold the ones you’ve read. Italicize the ones you want to read. Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in. (Movies don’t count.)

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25 . Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Daffy's first peacock

I was at my parent's house earlier ths week and remembered to take a photo of this. Here is my very first peacock, circa 1985. That's how far back my love of stitching peacocks goes! If I remember correctly this was only my second cross stitch project. I have no idea who the designer is...

***This post imported from my other blog***

Emma's pinkeep

My floss kid Emma has received the little pinkeep I made her for her birthday. It was cloudy and stormy the day I took these photos so the colors are a bit off. Here is the front:

Here is the back:
Emma, I hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Eyes!

Here is the latest photo of my WIP Peacock Tapestry. It has eyes! Peacock feather eyes, that is. It doesn't seem like much progress from my last photo but with all the blends and color changes it goes slower. There is some blending filament being used in the area I am in and now it sparkles! I was a little thrilled to use some of the brighter colors after all the earth tones in the grass and tree.

It looks like I started the complete opposite than Shannon. I got the border laid out and began stitching at the bottom right. That will be fun...you can watch her PT fill in from the top while mine fills from the bottom. I love Shannon's grid lines. That must make things so much easier. I was too excited to start stitching to lay out a grid.

I'm putting PT aside for a short while to work on Peacock Cypher. I'll try to get a photo of that project up when I have some progress worth showing.

Happy Easter to everyone!

***This post imported from my other blog***

Beads!

I spent a bit of my stitching time last week to organize my Mill Hill beads. I even got my label maker out and labeled them all. Aren't they pretty? I happened on quite a few packages (like- 30!) on clearance sale at Michael's. I'm sad Michael's will no longer carry them; Hobby Lobby has a very limited selection...I guess I'll have to go to the LNS more often. Yippee! See? There is a bright side to every situation.

Yay! Some pressies arrived!

I haven't been able to show any progress photos of late because I've been stitching gifts. Today, I have word that two packages have arrived at their new homes! This first set is a mattress pincushion I stitched for Rachael. Go see her blog; her photos are much better!

This one is a fob I stitched for Barb in Austraila. Barb doesn't have a blog but you can see some of her lovely work here. The design is from Mouseloft; one of my favorites!
Both Rachael and Barb are my flosskids. They keep me shopping and are such lovely friends to have. I still have other pressies in the mail and waiting to be sent! I can't wait to show those to you as well.

I have been busy on Peacock Tapestry this week. I need to take a new progress picture as I have really made good headway. I'm going to set it aside soon to have a go on Peacock Cypher. I'm hoping to get both of these and the counting sheep finished this year. Hum, that might be a leap of faith statement but I can dream a little!

The Peacock stitch-a-long

Well, I finally did it...created the SAL blog for peacocks. Oh, that's actually for people stitching peacocks not...you know what I mean! Come for a visit here. Join us if you want!

For some reason I cannot resist peacock designs! I love them and have more than I'll ever be able to stitch but they still end up in my stash...

MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE

More Birthday pressies have arrived in the mail today! Woohoo! Better late than never...this first from Jessie, hence the title of this post. Isn't this the greatest t-shirt? I LOVE Finding Nemo...and the shirt is green, my favorite color. A perfect birthday present...thank you, kiddo!

This is what came from Joan & Bob in London. A cute birthday card, a Border Collie calendar, Earl Grey tea, some Scottish recipes and an article about Stratford-upon-Avon. I was surprised to read the RSC is closed for renovation so they are performing at the Courtyard Theatre until 2010! Ah, to be in the UK...how can you be homesick for some place that isn't really home? Thank you's to Joan and Bob and co. Gosh, it's days past and I'm still celebrating!!!

40!

I'm 40 today! Happy Birthday to me!

Am I a grown-up yet?

Birthday Surprise!

Look what I found in my mailbox! Ta-da!
A wonderful birthday pressie! It came from Rachael! This is a tea towel featuring the area Rachael lives in, some neat threads and a silly birthday greeting card. I love the towel; Rachael knows how much I love England. The threads are fun...Six Strand Sweets: Cookie dough and a DMC fiber I've never seen before...and such yummy colors! Thank you, Rachael! You are a dear to remember my birthday. What an awesome surprise!

Yes, I'm 40 tomorrow! How did I get so OLD??? Rick and I will go to Edmond tomorrow to visit my family and perhaps go out to eat at Chelinos. YUM! I love Mexican food; I could eat it every day! In celebration of my birthday I have three days off work! Yippee!

Some bad news. Rick's friend, Harold, had an accident on his motorcycle yesterday. He scuffed up his bike, broke his scapula and a rib. I'm just thankful he walked away! Rick wasn't with him having spent the afternoon with me. It makes me a nervous wreck when Rick rides...