First Snow

We got our first snow of the season today. Is there anything prettier in the winter than cardinals in the snow? Nope. 

Well, I did think of something prettier than cardinals in the snow.

"Yes, I'm beautiful. Thank you. Yes, just one more please, then I have to take a nap."

Can you believe that little pose? Such a princess.

Snowball Wreath

A non-stitchy finish to show off. I saw a snowball wreath somewhere a while back that was made with cotton balls and thought it was pretty for winter, so when I ran across bags of sparkly (!) pom-poms in various sizes at AC Moore I decided to make one. I used a styrofoam wreath form and a glue gun and whipped it up in about 20 minutes. 

I wish we had a little sunshine today so the sparkliness would show up. This was the best I could do.

This would make a very quick, inexpensive Christmas gift that could be used all winter. Bring on the snow!

Thankful Turkey

A little Thanksgiving freebie found here. 

Stitched with DMC and Caron Wildflowers in Fiesta. I think Wildflowers is my favorite fiber now. I love that stuff. 

Back to decorating for Christmas! 

Happy Thanksgiving

Chickadees!

I love Chickadees. Small, chubby, busy, with that cheerful little buzzing chatter. Birds are usually beautiful rather than cute, but on the adorableness scale, I think Chickadees are right up there with the impossibly cute Tufted Titmouse. If you've been following my blog, you know I've slowly been stitching up all the Button Up Birdies from Victoria Sampler. There were twelve, and I was almost done with them, and then they released four more. {sigh} I've been busy with other projects, but I finally have another one to show off. Here's #13 (for me). 

If you've seen the design, you'll notice I've changed the colors (shocking for you, I know). The original has blue and red mittens, and red berries. I wanted a softer look, so I used my favorite pink (CC Cerise) and green (GAST Green Apple) for the mittens and some blue-ish beads to resemble Juniper berries.

As always, my work was closely monitored for quality.

And here's a sweet little ornament I picked up yesterday.

There were lots of different bird ornaments--including a gorgeous Red Bellied Woodpecker I was having a fit for--but I behaved myself and only bought one. 

For now.

Goodies!

We should never outgrow goodies. Today is cool and damp and grey... in other words, perfect stitchy weather. I've been playing in my sewing room and have a new sewing basket to show off. I've been wanting a new one for a long time, and stumbled upon this one at Jo-Ann Fabrics yesterday. Bonus: it was 40% off! 

Isn't this fun?

Too cute, right? Also, stash goodies for an upcoming Christmas project. It'll be a while before I have this one finished and ready to show, but even the supplies are fun! The sparklier, the better.

Gloomy outside, bright and festive inside. Just an ordinary old Saturday afternoon... the best kind.

Happy Stitching!

Happy Veterans Day

Thank you to all veterans, and especially to my favorite veteran, Mr. Wonderful.

This is Hero Quaker by San-Man Originals, a freebie which can be found here. 

Fox Finishing

Spending the week doing some major reorganization in my sewing room, getting ready for a long, cozy winter of stitching, stitching, stitching. Hopefully. Anyway, I stitched this little guy a long time ago and he's been in a small frame since then. Never have been carried away with the frame, so I decided to unframe him and finish him instead. I already had all my finishing stuff strewn all over the floor (reorganizing!) so I just whipped it out in a few minutes. I like him better now. 

Okay, back to work.

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