Another July ORT Report

Even though there were two New Moons in July I was able to create a massive pile of ORTs in my jar. It didn't even matter that I've been doing quite a bit of over-one stitching, which usually results in spindly ORTs. Just look at all these thread ends! I am thinking the unbearably hot weather has a lot to do with more stitching time. It's nice to sit and stitch inside with air conditioning!

My ORT jar is pictured here with a little project I started on a short road trip to Kansas City. You know how much I like Autumn/Halloween designs. I cannot resist crows and pumpkins! It's not finished but it is close. I'm still trying to decide if I want to stitch a little border around the design. Your thoughts?

Next up, we have had some Totally Useless Stitch A Long donations for the giveaway!

Bronny, of Bronny's Bits, sent us a sweet little scissor fob, two quilted coasters and a few skeins of DMC. Notice that woolly bit to strap the sheepie to your scissors? Cute! Thanks Bronny!

Then Maria, of Between The Stitches, sent a Lizzie*Kate Snippet and some nice fabric to stitch it on. I hope nobody minds if I end up stitching this design real quick before it goes on to the winner, if I can squeeze it in? I promise to use my own fabric! LOL Thank you, Queenie!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Surprising Someone Soon

Presenting the rest of my drunken Sunday finishing orgy fun. Here is a little ornament I've stitched just because. Cutest kitty cat ever! I adore Bent Creek. I stuffed with poly-fil so it wouldn't weigh too much.

Design ~ Flair "Smile"

Designer ~ Bent Creek

Fabric ~ 28 count Daffycat-dyed purple scrap*

Fiber ~ DMC 

*Scrap meaning, "I'm too lazy to try and figure out what the heck I stitched this on!"

Best of all, this little cutie is going to be sent to someone that reads this blog! I will be mailing this out as soon as I can ~ so be watching that mailbox ~ it might be you!

This RAK went to Parsley of Seasons Of My Mind!

You all seemed to like my ladybug scissors, and I had many questions about them. They came as a set pictured here. The scissors, very handy tweezers and the little plastic ladybug is a thread cutter you can attach with self-adhesive pad. I've done a little searching and The Nordic Needle looks to have a good price.

TUSAL'ers don't forget the 2nd July New Moon is this Saturday, the 30th! Speaking of the TUSAL, I have a few donations to post about. I haven't forgotten. Maybe this Saturday!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Christmas in July

As promised in my last post, some of my finishing results. Lisa, of Hockey Mom Stitchin' Hobby, has let me know she has received my offering for our Ornament Swap. I stitched this little cutie one over one!

Design ~ The Holly Berry Sampler

Designer ~ Bent Creek

Fabric ~ 28 count tea-dyed Monaco

Fiber ~ DMC 

I was caught out right after I kitted this one up. I thought I had until the end of August! No, I'd only just started stitching when I realized it was due the end of July. *mild panic* Starting a one over one project with less than a month to finish was quite scary for me, the Queen of Slow Stitching. Thank goodness, I made it.  

I just love finishing edges with ribbon and beads. The wine I guzzled that day really helped me loosen up and be random with the spacing. I'm prescribing wine every time from now on! This edging is super easy, just tack the ribbon in place with a bead. Curl and loop and go crazy with it. The ribbon hides the seam and the bead hides the tacking stitch. Don't be even and precise ~ you want it to look wild!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Mayhem

I made a mess on Sunday! I had two small ornaments to finish. This involved pulling out the bins of fabric, trim, stuffing and interfacing.

I took over the kitchen table with sewing stuff. 

I took over the counter top with the ironing stuff. I like to iron craft things on my washable white craft towels instead of the ironing board.

It was glorious mayhem! I was having so much fun I opened a bottle of sweet red wine, poured it in a pitcher, added a can of tropical fruit and some ginger ale. This is tasty over ice in a fancy wineglass.

In fact, it was so tasty I drank the whole pitcher all by myself! Whoops! No, the ornaments came out just fine. All that alcohol only helped me loosen up my creativity! The ornaments are being mailed to their new owners so I will show them to you very soon.

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

A Happy 4th ~ Ort Report

I am a little late with my TUSAL this time around. Rick & I have been on a mini-holiday from home and work. It was so nice to get away even if only for very a short time. We saw a movie (Transformers) at Warren Theatre in Moore, Oklahoma. It was lovely ~ we had the balcony seats where waiters come to your seats to serve food and drinks. Nice! In addition to beer & popcorn, I had a "yoda" which was slightly green and tasted like liquid Jolly Ranchers & vodka ~ LOL! We spent the night in Bricktown in Oklahoma City. Our room had a big whirlpool tub and a wonderful view of the baseball park. Dinner was at Crabtown, across the street from our hotel. Their catfish was heavenly. I even got to do a little stitching and stashing. Here is my ORT jar with my pretty new ladybug scissors: 

As you can see from the ORT Report photo, I didn't have much left to stitch on my WIP. I finished it up when we got home and sewed it into a cute pillow, just in time for the 4th of July holiday. The alphabet was charted with random letters in the darker brown. I changed them around to my initials, SDB. I was able to find the perfect fabric in my stash ~ always a plus!

Design ~ Happy Flag Flag Day

Designer ~ The Trilogy

Fabric ~ 32 count tea dyed Jobelan scrap

Fiber ~ DMC

Today I am kitting up for the next exchange in the Ornament Swap. This is going to be a really fun design to stitch. Will stitching Christmas stuff will make me feel cooler? I hope so. It's still sweltering hot. Blech.

TUSALer's don't forget ~ July has two New Moons! The next one is Saturday, July 30th.

 Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

Two Weeks

Yes, it's been two weeks since I've updated my blog. Shame on me! My apologies, life gets in the way. I figured I'd better give you all an update before I lose all my readers!

First up is Happy Flag Flag Day. Still working on it. Should have been finished by now. (Re-read the quip above about life getting in the way and insert here.) Correction to last post about this design: I'm an idiot! This is NOT a Bent Creek design ~ it is a Trilogy design. I know, same difference but it needed to be said!

Still fun to stitch even if those stripes are a booger and a half. The Fourth of July is coming up quick ~ will I finish? Stay tuned!

This cute teapot appeared at my door. Wow! An RAK from Lindsay of Caring Stitcher. Isn't it cute? It's teeny ~ maybe four inches tall. I adore it to pieces. Thank you, Lindsay!

Then, these adorable little scissors came from Kim of Sense and Stitchability as a donation to the Totally Useless giveaway. I'm very excited things are still trickling in! Thank you, Kim!

Other than stitching, what else have I been up to?

*Melting. Oklahoma has been hot. With very little rain. I was worried already about this coming summer. The entire United States was covered in blizzards all winter. Then we all had horrible rain/flooding/tornadoes in the spring. What else could one expect but dreadful summer temperatures and drought this season? I just want some decent weather, dammit!

*Playing Dog Chef. Sheba took quite a while to recover from her tummy upset. She was able to eat nothing except brown rice, yogurt and cottage cheese for a long time. She is fully recovered now and is happily eating dog kibble again. She lost a lot of weight but it looks good on her as she was a bit of a porker anyway!

*Shopping. Rick went out of town and I went crazy. Suddenly tired of wearing ratty old tshirts and faded jeans I took myself out and bought clothes. I came home and threw away nearly everything in my closet. I will admit to saving a couple of ratty things for dirty jobs like painting! This is actually a REALLY BIG THING for me. I hate clothes shopping with a passion.

*Crying. I attended the funeral of my friends 27 day old grandson who died in a tragic accident. Funerals are never fun but this one was especially sad. This is now on the "definitely never want to do ever again" list.

*Planning. I want to go away. I really don't care where, just away. I need a vacation! Really, really bad.

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

A Start, A Quirk and A Plug

With all the patriotic holidays clustered in these few weeks I was drawn to this design for my new start:

It's Bent Creek's Happy Flag Flag Day. I just love sampler designs with a small image and an alphabet. And Bent Creek has a lot of this type. Not much stitched yet ~ I was thwarted in my starting by a printer that was out of ink. I always copy my chart so I can scribble on it, make color changes and mark stitches. It's not even funny how I couldn't get goin' without that working copy! To my credit, I was finally able start stitching before getting that copy made but I feel ever so much better with a scrap chart I can trash!

Did this cure my startitis? Nope. Afraid not! I do have an exchange coming up for the Ornament Swap and I am sorting Christmas designs to see what is calling to be stitched for Lisa. Woot ~ another new start and I can't wait!

Off topic, I've discovered a new blogger at News from Nunnery Farm. It's not cross stitch or crafting but Leanne has enough funny animal stories to keep me enthralled. Such as ones about little Dave here, photo shamelessly stolen from her blog:

If you visit be sure to tell Leanne who sent you!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

No More Dreams

I finished Dandy Dreams last night. It was really sad to end ~ this was such a fun design to stitch! I used the recommended DMC and my own hand-dyed fabric. I'm very pleased with this finish!

Design ~ Dandy Dreams

Designer ~ Silver Creek Samplers

Fabric ~ 32 Count Tea-Stained Lugana

Fiber ~ DMC

Tentatively planning a pillow finish-finish for this piece. I guess I need to go fabric shopping next! The colors are classic so I'm thinking a matching fabric should be easy to find. Those could be famous last words, right?

Not much else going on here. I've been trying to decide what I want to start next ~ like twenty or so are already calling. It's official, I have startitus. Dandy Dreams is a side effect and I nearly started another project several times while stitching it but was able to resist. Maybe I will pull out one of my long-term projects and put in some stitches. I might just pull out a few new ones and start them all!

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox 

One For Me and One For You

Here is the one for me:

This darling ornament is from Karen of Karen's Handiwork. Every month Karen stitches two identical Christmas ornaments. One is for her own tree and the other is an "exchange" gift for one of her followers. I adore Bent Creek designs and Karen's finishing is just lovely. Jealous, aren't you? Well, you might be chosen next ~ but only if you are one of her followers, right? You know what to do!

Here is the one for you:

Design ~ Woodland Joy

Designer ~ Something In Common

Fabric ~ 32 count Daffycat-dyed I Can't Remember Fabric

Fiber ~ DMC as charted

Well ~ actually for Angela of Hooked on Stitches! This was for our Ornament Swap group. It's Angela's turn to receive so keep an eye out to see what everyone stitched for her! I used my new favorite edging technique on this one, ribbon and beads and the red-checked fabric is the backing. I did use brown thread for the eyes because the white French Knots as charted kinda made them look like zombie owls! I know I saved Woodland Joy from Something In Common's website years ago. It was a freebie. The site is gone now ~ so sad.

Because I get a lot of, "Oh, your stitching is so perfect. I could never be as good as you!" comments and emails ~ I must show you this next photo:



ROFLMAO This is the border part of Angela's ornament. The left hand one is correct. The right side one is WRONG! Because ~ I can't follow directions. I gathered up all my supplies, printed off the chart and merrily started stitching. In fact, I actually took this to work with me when we had a heavy snowstorm and I knew it would be a long, boring day. Once I finished the border, something kept bugging me. It just didn't look right. What is wrong? Oh, the instructions say ONE thread and I used TWO. *sigh* PLUS I stitched the inner backstitched border green and it's supposed to be red. *sigh* I really, really can't follow directions! And even once again, I forgot to stitch "Daffycat" at the bottom. See? Not so perfect. You just can't see my pile of scrap starts, nor do I always show off those bits I toss angrily into the trash...

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox

June ORT Report

It's that time again! I've already seen a few TUSAL posts in my reader, showing off those lovely ORTs! At least I think ORTs are pretty, anyway. Whee! It is so nice to show off a goodly amount of threads this time ~ along with a few sprigs of Lavender from my garden. Most of these ORTs are from Dandy Dreams but a few are from an exchange that I will share soon.

ORT? TUSAL? What's going on, you ask? Join us in the Totally Useless Stitch A Long. Grab an empty jar and fill it with your thread ends (or Old Ratty Threads,) then post a photo of your jar on (or near) the New Moon. It's too late to enter for the big giveaway but it is loads of fun, I promise. LOL

Many thanks to those in the SAL that are adding a link to my blog in your posts. I heart you so much.

Mouse? Calling sweet Mouse! I can't comment on your blog! I really, really want to but your blog is broken. Please see my last post. Can you fix it? Pretty please? And to those suggesting I just use the name/URL option ~ that feature isn't always there. There are quite a few others I have emailed as well. Please everyone, check your blog! Although some may be able to comment ~ others can not.

Thank you for visiting my blog today!

xox