April

How is your April going so far? 

I'm happy that the snow is almost gone here. (Or actually might already be gone. It's been raining all day and it's possible that finished off the last of the snow, if I bothered to get up and go look.) I hope it's awhile before we have another winter as snowy and dismal as this last one has been. :(

It wasn't a good winter for our bees either, as one of our hives died off. They almost made it but it was just too cold for them in the end. (He thinks they starved to death huddling in one area to stay warm because the other part of the hive was loaded with honey still.) The other hive is still active...for the moment. *crosses fingers* 

It's always a crapshoot if they are going to make it through the winter here so a 50% die off isn't all bad. Could be 100%, right? Replacing a whole hive is quite expensive. Buying live bees isn't cheap!

(I don't know where I got that Oprah gif, it's been so long, but it cracks me up EVERY SINGLE TIME.)

I stay focused last month and, GASP!, actually did manage to 'finish finish' everything I've stitched so far this year. It's a Christmas miracle come early, I tell you! :)

 

Gosh, I love this little L*K pattern! I changed his eyes from black to blue though because I think I like my leprechaun better that way. :)

These are from two different L*K patterns: Flora McSamples 2014 stocking booklet and a Merry Bright booklet. I only did the ones I really liked and I took the top border from another stocking to use on the cardinal one in place of the one charted. 

This was my first time in gluing the cording around the edge. I usually sew it on but, man, is that tedious trying to do it in a non-obvious way when using a two color cording. I think the glue worked out pretty good though. These little buggers are a lot of work to finish! You have to interface them, sew them, make the cording by hand, sew/glue the cording on, iron at every step to keep them nice, etc. It's no wonder I put finishing off for so long. lol

Backing fabrics.

Surprisingly, all of them are right side out. (I usually manage to sew ONE wrong.)

A L*K kit. Not my favorite because I TOTALLY did not pay attention to the size of this before I purchased it and it's quite.....large. Like box of Kleenex large. My bad. I shouldn't have assumed it was small. /shrug

This one came with the lovely seasonal fabric/jingle bells. I'm not sure I LOVE the jingles on the bottom though. I followed the sample but I might take those off come Christmas when I put this out.

What company is this? Crap. I think it's Waxing Moon Designs. Quick little chart, just begging to be cube-ified with that square design. :)

This was the companion piece to the Bacon pillow I did for Valentine's Day. There are four patterns in this L*K Bacon Bits booklet but two bacon themed pieces are enough for me. :)

(I love how quickly these little patterns go but at some point I really need to get back to the two large pieces I have going already. One of them is a nice Plum Street Sampler piece that only needs a border!)

I'd like to say all this stitching is paring down my stash a bit but...........sometimes a little Nashville market shopping happens, eh? I WANTED to buy at least four times this much so I consider it a victory I *only* got four things. :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

My last name is Irish McIrishy so I always look forward to St. Patty's and tucking into a corned beef dinner. Any holiday that comes with good food is a good holiday to celebrate, right? 

(I also had my one Shamrock Shake for the year yesterday but I'm prettttttttty sure that has nothing to do with being Irish. lol)

I only have the one little stitchy done up for the holiday though. :(

At least, not until I finish up the items in my 'in progress pile'....

 I HAVE DONE SO MANY NEW PIECES LATELY! LOOK AT THEM ALL!!!!!!!!!

THERE ARE SEVEN THERE. SEVEN.

 I haven't been knitting lately so I keep blazing through these little charts like WOAH. I'm trying to be good and 'finish-finish' them at the same time so they just don't hang around either. I need to get busy cord-making, ribbon-making and stuffing now and this new batch will be DONE.

Also, this happened for Valentine's Day last month:

I can't say that the husband is really 'into' having his own cross stitch piece gifted to him but I thought it was cute. :)

February

Out with the old....

And in with the new...

Who knew I had so many stitches for Valentine's? I was pleasantly surprised when I went digging to switch out my little basket here!

They might have to stay in there for quite some time though because I really have nothing for spring time smalls. Not sure how that happened either (I don't hate rabbits?!? Or spring flowers?!?) but I might have to buckle down and get some finishing done if I want to keep up with this basket this year. :)

I am perpetually out of sync with the seasons with my projects though.

Case in point I *just* finished this little guy I started last Thanksgiving. 

Well, I'm all set for NEXT Thanksgiving, I guess.  It really was delusional of me to think I would get it done for last year, seeing as I started it just a few days before the holiday. This is only the second biscornu I've done, which is a shame because they are super easy to do.

(Designer is Barbara Ana, which you could probably guess because she has a distinctive look.)

Getting anything done the last few weeks has been difficult as there has been a literal plague hitting my house. We got a bad batch of cat food (I believe) and ALL FOUR CATS were violently ill in turn for days at a time. It was disgusting but, thankfully, they all seem to have come through it okay. (I think it helped that I mix two foods together so they didn't eat a full portion of whatever one was tainted.)

Then we went to see Fleetwood Mac, which was amazing - until I came down with the flu about 48 hours later. Dirty, dirty public places! UGH! I should have covered myself in Purell every time I touched a handrail. My bad. :(

I promptly gave it to the husband, of course, but at least he was about 4 days behind me so we didn't both have a high fever at the SAME time. That would have been real bad with both of us flat-out in bed at the same time. Heh. 

Man though, when does the nagging cough end? It's been almost two weeks now and I'm still sipping the prescription cough medicine like it's a crack pipe. *cough*cough*cough* So annoying. 

On the upside, you can't catch the flu twice............right? God, PLEASE TELL ME you can't catch it twice. :(

Hats, hats, hats....

What do you when the weather is mean and bitterly cold? Knit hats!

I'm up to two so far for the month. 

 Because nothing says winter like..............lobsters?!?

These are ROCK lobsters, from Maine. (No joke - the pattern writer is from Maine.) I like the colors and always adore doing some Fair Isle so this one was a winner. Husband loves it, so no complaints there. :)

This a free pattern called 'Graham'.  (And much more navy than this uploaded pic shows. Why does this photo look so different on Blogger than when looking at it in my computer files? Hmmm.) 

It's just your basic hipster, slouchy hat. I like these because I can fit them on my head even when I have my (voluminous) hair up, as I usually do in winter. (My spiral curls are DRIED the eff out and frizzy in this weather and blowing it straight is even WORSE. Can't win. Sigh.) Even if I look like a fool when I do that because the hat sticks out and is all lumpy and bumpy.

They probably would have looked better ON someone but there is no one here atm for that. I feel like I used to use my Monkee as a model but I tried that and the results were...

Not good? 

 Oh well. He tried. I'll have to find another job for him. :)