Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins! Stitchy and otherwise! Here's a little freebie available here. Mine is stitched with DMC and Weeks Dye Works Trick or Treat. Bonus spider.

And now for the cutest Halloween decoration idea ever. I take no credit whatsoever for the concept. I saw the idea on the cover of a magazine some time back and decided to wing it from the picture. I have no instructions or patterns for this... just collected the materials I thought would work and assembled it. Pumpkin Kittens!

A close-up of the kittens peeking out of the pumpkin. 

And finally, everyone's favorite kitty... pumpkinized!

No pattern for that one either (as you can tell! Ha!) but at least you can tell who it's supposed to be.

Hope you're ready for trick-or-treaters... Happy Haunting!

SAL Update: The Return of Spooky Pirate Ship!

Been awhile, huh? I've been plugging away... 30 minutes a day, every day. Hoping to be finished by the end of the year.

Hard work:

Halloween Ornaments, 2013

Just completed the finishing on Mr. Wonderful's spider last night. Belinda the Bat Girl is from the JCS 2013 Halloween Special Collector's Issue and Jack-A-Rachnid is from the JCS Sept/Oct 2013 issue.

So that's my complete Halloween ornament collection. On to Christmas ornaments!

Halloween Ornaments, Part 3

From the Just Cross Stitch 2012 Halloween Special Collector's Issue:

Bonus Tiger Lily:

Hoping to get some finishing done this weekend (ha ha ha ha ha... right.) so maybe some more stitchy pics coming.

Halloween Ornaments, Part 2

From Just Cross Stitch September/October 2010

Bonus pic of my Spooky Stitcher, just because I think she's so adorable:

From JCS Sept/Oct 2011

Part 3 coming soon! 

Halloween Ornaments, Part 1

In 2008 Just Cross Stitch magazine started devoting their September/October issue to Halloween, including a collection of Halloween ornaments. As I've mentioned before, we love Halloween around here--the kid-friendly, old-fashioned version, that is. With that first issue, we started a Halloween ornament tradition to go along with our Christmas ornament tradition. Every year, Mr. Wonderful and I choose our ornaments and I stitch them. This week I decided to show off our Halloween ornaments.

Our first set of Halloween ornaments from the September/October 2008 issue of Just Cross Stitch magazine:

From the Sept/Oct 2009 issue:

More coming later this week...

Happy Halloween Stitching!

Not enough Tiger Lily

It's been a while since we had a Tiger Lily picture. I took this a few nights ago--this is my view every night at bedtime. She crawls up on my chest and settles down, a few inches from my face. I attempt to read my book by holding it either off to my left or to my right, until she decides to move to the foot of the bed and have her bath before curling up to sleep. Tyrannizing the household and supervising the stitching is a tiring business. 

Here he is!

Mr. Wonderful's Halloween ornament! This is Jack-A-Rachnid by Tempting Tangles from the Sept/Oct issue of Just Cross Stitch, stitched with DMC on mystery pale orange 36 ct.

All together now... "Ewwwww!"

A Few Fall Finishes

Well! September wasn't exactly a stellar effort blogging-wise on my part, was it? Hopefully I can make up for it in October. I finished these a few days ago and today was my first opportunity to get them photographed and posted.

This is a freebie from The Stitcherhood. As usual, I wandered off on my own as far as colors are concerned. It's stitched in Caron Wildflowers Bark (love!), and GAST Oatmeal, Onyx, and Gold Leaf, with a few JABCO buttons.

Here's a little JBW pumpkin stitched in CC's Colonial Copper. Can you find where I signed and dated it?

 

And here's another freebie from one of my favorite designers Brooke Nolan. I stitched this a couple of years ago and it's been asleep in the unfinished finishes box. Unfortunately I have no idea what the fabric is. I found it in the scrap basket at my LNS and all I know is that it's a pink/orange plaid and (I think) is 25 ct. It was perfect for this little tea party scene.

 

Right now I'm trying to finish up Mr. Wonderful's Halloween ornament--that spider posted below. And then... on to Christmas ornaments!

Happy Stitching!

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.