First Day of Fall...

...yesterday. Yep, I'm a day late in celebrating the arrival of my favorite season, but I have a good reason in that Mr. Wonderful has been doing his first midterms for his Masters this weekend and has been in sole and undisputed possession of the computer. I've been in 100% fetch & carry mode, keeping him fed and caffeined. While he's been doing that, I've started his Halloween ornament, Jack-A-Rachnid by Tempting Tangles from the Sept/Oct issue of Just Cross Stitch.

As you can see from the model, it's stitched on a pale yellow fabric. I chose to use very pale orange--peach, I suppose--and I really like how it's looking so far. If that picture is a little too much for you, here's something to make you feel better.

On Friday I baked some Cinnamon Scones--for medicinal purposes, of course--to help us get through a long weekend of writing, writing, writing. It's a rare treat for us, as we generally do try to behave ourselves. Sort of. Most of the time. Anyway, here's something weird: Tiger Lily is always interested in what we're eating, but not in eating it herself. She just wants to sniff what we've got, and then she's happy. Saturday she wanted a sniff of my strawberry jam-slathered scone and nearly took a bite of it, so I broke off a teeny tiny little piece (no jam) and put it on the floor... and she devoured it!  

We have a scone-eating cat.

That's your daily dose of weird.
                                         

A VIP

A Very Important Project. This is my square for a quilt being made for a fellow stitcher who recently lost her husband to a brief and devastating illness. He was an outdoorsman who loved nature and hiking in the woods, and I wanted to choose a design that reflected that enjoyment. I also wanted something masculine. I was really pleased to find this free chart.

This is Spirit Bear, stitched on 28 ct. evenweave using DMC 3781. The requirements for the quilt were white evenweave and no over-dyed threads, so this was something very different from what I usually stitch. In fact, it made me realize that I never stitch on white as I had to buy some just for this project! I like a very full look to my stitches so I used three strands of floss, and went through two skeins and a smidge of another to complete this project (in case you're contemplating stitching this design).  

Big Mail Day for Tiger Lily!

Oooh boy! Today was a big day at our house. Tiger Lily received a package of home-grown catnip from Miss Mardell in New York!

The first order of business is wallowing all over it, all around it, all over the immediate surrounding area.

At some point, her mind clears enough to realize that not only does her package smell heavenly, it has heavenly stuff inside it!

 

And then her mission is to get her package open!

She has spent the afternoon in a happy catnip fog. Kinda similar to when you get chocolate cake or new stash. What a good day.

Thank you, Miss Mardell!
Love, Tiger Lily

A Tribute to the Stitchy Supervisor

Here's a little freebie finish from Stitchy Kitty. If you're a dog person, there's a "Woof Spoken Here" freebie there, too. I did a little make-over on the kitty face to make her look a bit more like our Tiger Lily, including her beauty spot to the left of her nose. 

 

Pretty stinkin' cute, huh? It's stitched in Gentle Art's Mistletoe and Crescent Colors Cerise (I can't stop using it!) and Blooming Crocus. The border is stitched in Caron's Wildflowers-Tiffany Rose. I haven't stitched with Wildflowers in a long time, probably because I don't have much of it, but as I was stitching I was thinking, "I love this stuff... why don't I have more of it?"

You know what that means.

Stash shopping.

Oh yeah.

Meet Belinda the Bat Girl!

I guess she's technically not finished since I haven't cut her out, but that's going to take a steadier hand than I have today. Besides, I was too impatient to wait to show her off! This is Belinda the Bat Witch by Brooke Nolan, from the 2013 Just Cross Stitch Halloween Special Issue. I did some editing and turned her into The Bat Girl. She's my Halloween ornament for this year.

That purple bit down on the right is part of her little bat friend. The rest of him is beaded, but I haven't decided what, if anything, to do with him. In the design, he is perched on her broom. Since I didn't make her broom, I was thinking I might tack him to her head at a jaunty angle like a fascinator. Still thinking...

Every time I stitch one of these little Brooke Nolan figures I am reminded of what a fun stitch they are. Well, except Belinda's cape. I wouldn't recommend stitching large areas of perforated paper with Kreinik #8. Hard on the fingers.

But look at these cute shoes!

Mr. Wonderful has chosen his Halloween ornament for this year and it's that spider by Tempting Tangles in the Sept/Oct issue of Just Cross Stitch. I think it's an awesome design, but it does make my skin crawl. Any ideas on how I can stitch it without actually looking at it?

A Public Apology

To Tiger Lily. We finished up her ear drops and I have to say she was a perfect lady throughout the entire ordeal. Actually, it wasn't an ordeal at all. I had fussed on this blog about dreading two weeks of ear drops so I think it's only fair to admit here that she proved me wrong. Through 28 doses of medicine, she never hid from us, never hissed at us, and never fought us. She growled at us a couple of times but who wouldn't? I held her (no towel necessary) and Mr. Wonderful put in her drops. Then she got a treat. No problem at all. What a sweet girl.

Also, stash. New fabric arrived from the Picture This Plus July sale. Top to bottom: (kitty paws), Shale, Highland, Pewter--all 28 ct. Cashel linen.

 

 

I've finally moved on to my Halloween stitching! Hope to have a finish to show off this weekend.

 

Happy Stitching!



SAL Update: More Sails

Well, I was moving along pretty well and then August arrived and progress came to a screeching halt. I was really hoping to have that mast finished, but no.

Mr. Wonderful starts graduate school at the end of the month and that will be a whole new kind of crazy. Yay.

It's coming...

Summer is winding down and fall is on the way! Fall and winter are my favorite seasons, but I'm a little wary of what might be in store for us this year on the East Coast. Our spring was wet and cold, and this summer has been very mild--only a week or so with temperatures in the 90's, but quite a few days we didn't even reach 80. I've actually been able to open the windows a few times. Does this mean we'll get walloped with blizzards this winter? Nobody knows, but I do know that fall cannot get here fast enough for me!

How about a pumpkin?

This is JBW's French Country Pumpkin stitched with Crescent Colors Colonial Copper. I have one more project I need to whip out and then I can start on Halloween! Stay tuned!

Barn Swallow

Finished with Button Up Birdies 8! Here's the Barn Swallow. Most of this one is supposed to be stitched in GAST Presidential Blue, but I wanted my little Swallow to be much darker, so I used GAST Midnight.

I only have four birds left, but I've got a few other things I need to stitch up first before I move on to Button Up Birdies 9. I'm having a fit to start my Halloween stitching!

Happy Stitching!

Bird Nerd

It's been forever since I've had a bird finish to show, but I'm determined to get all of them stitched before more new ones come out! This one is #13 for me--five more to go.

Now, I have to explain this one a bit. If you've seen the leaflet (Victoria Sampler, Button Up Birdies 8) you'll know that this little guy doesn't look much like the stitched model. The orioles I've seen here on the East Coast are black and orange with a black hood, so I did some research and discovered the model is a Bullock's Oriole, common to the Western United States. I wanted to stitch the kind we have here, so I gave him a make-over and turned him into a Baltimore Oriole.

I'm also happy to report that Tiger Lily has bounced back from her vet visit and resumed her duties as Stitchy Supervisor.

The Ear Drops Adventure is going pretty well so far, but she has a very sharp learning curve so I'm not hopeful that will last. Fortunately, we only have to do it 26 more times.

Oh, the indignity!

Annual check-up and shots today, which went fine as always, but she has a little ear infection so she had to get her ears cleaned and have drops in one of them. She behaved herself (actually I think it's paralysis from sheer terror rather than good behavior), but she was mad. Oh, was she mad.

This is "We Must Go Home--NOW" face.

I make this face myself sometimes, so I totally understand. Poor thing. Poor us. If you're awake around 6 a.m. Eastern time tomorrow morning, give a little thought to two people shut up in a bathroom with an angry kitty cat, trying to put drops in her ear. The vet said, "You might want to have a helper."

Um. Yeah.

Christmas in July

July is over and we're on the downhill slide toward Christmas! Unlike most stitchers, I don't have a ton of Christmas designs in my stash, but I do seem to have accumulated a dozen or so  small, ornament-sized designs. I had intended to work through them this year, stitching one per month. The reason you haven't seen any Christmas finishes this year is because this is my first. {sigh} Maybe I'll try again next year. Anyway, here's a Lizzie Kate freebie found here. As you can see, I've fiddled with mine a bit. It's stitched in GAST Buckeye Scarlet (my favorite red!) and good ol' DMC ecru.  The snowflake I added to the mug is from some random book in my little stitchy library, and the cookies are JABCO.

Mmmm... cookies.

Almost finished with another Button Up Birdie (#13!) and hope to have that posted soon.
Happy Stitching!

All that waiting...

...on the royal baby was so tiring.

Woodland Babies Finished!

Just finished the last Woodland Baby (Victoria Sampler), a little fawn. This one is in the 2012 Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornament issue.

And here's the whole family.

I think they'll be living in the finishes box for a while, as I just can't make up my mind about how I want to finish them. I could make little round ornaments out of them, but I also thought a wintery wall hanging would be really pretty. But for now, I'm just enjoying the small triumph of having finished this series. Yay, me!

Now then, what next... ?

New Family Member!

Tiger Lily has a new cousin!

You can see her here. I hear she's learning the ropes of helping with stitching.

Stitchy Happiness

There are lots of great things about having stitching as a hobby, and one of them is how happy I can be made by small things, like a magazine. Perhaps I'm simple-minded, but it sure makes me easier to live with when I can get all excited about the annual Just Cross Stitch Halloween Special Issue and remain unmoved by designer shoes and bags. Just ask Mr. Wonderful.

I love Halloween. I don't love the gory, bloody, body-parts-strewn-everywhere direction it seems to have taken in recent years. The Halloween I love is the Halloween from my childhood: fat pumpkins, smiley black cats, and cute little ghosts. Halloween is one of my favorite subjects to stitch and the appearance of Halloween stitchy magazines every summer is an event at my house, so when I called my LNS this morning and discovered they had just received their shipment of the JCS Halloween Special Issue, I was off and running. What was I supposed to be doing? Cleaning the house. Did I clean the house? No. Do I feel guilty? Maybe a teensy bit, but it goes away when I'm flipping through my new magazines.

I also picked up the floss and fabric for our next SAL... but the design is still a secret!

Pretty, huh? The fabric is 32 ct. Blue Spruce. If you're getting in the mood for Halloween stitching, too, check out the Stitchy Cousin's newly posted freebie finish here. How cool is that?!

SAL Update: Miss Witchy Face

No update last month, what with computer problems and all kinds of nonsense, but I have a little progress to show this month. Most of the witchy figurehead is done.

I think I'll finish the bow of the ship and then go back to working on masts and sails.

The deadline--October--is creeping up on me. Must. stitch. faster. Or if not faster, more. This is the largest piece I've ever done, and surprisingly, I haven't gotten tired of it. But I'm already looking forward to our next SAL, which will remain super secret until this one is finished. Hint: more spooky!

Itty Bitty Baby Bunny

Six done, one to go! Here's the baby bunny from Victoria Sampler's Woodland Babies series.

When I finish the last baby, I'll be getting back to Victoria Sampler's Button Up Birdie series.  I was close to finishing that series, having stitched 12 of the 14 birds... and then they published four more birds! So now I have six of those left. I wonder if I can get them stitched before any more are added. I wonder if there will be any more Woodland Babies. I wonder if there will be a baby skunk (how cute would that be?). I wonder why I'm blathering away on my blog when I should be stitching on Skeleton Crew. I wonder if I can finish that on time... 

Independence Day

(Brooke's Books Spirit of America Angel)

Summer Stuff

Just back from a week's vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine, with lots of hiking in Acadia National Park. Spectacular. A few pictures coming soon.

We rolled in at 1 a.m. Saturday morning after a four-hour flight delay due to weather, but I actually managed to get a little finishing done when I regained conciousness.

Here's a little freebie from The Little Stitcher. It's stitched on 28 ct. dirty Cashel linen with DMC Color Variations.

And here's my little summer freebie (posted below) finished.

So. I have a functioning computer, a new camera, I'm back from vacation, and I have some time to stitch. Stand by to be astounded.