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. :)

December

One last post for 2014!

It's been a busy two weeks. Been using my time off from work to declutter, clean, organize, sort, pack up or throw away basically half the decorations and other items in the house. (I even cleaned through my birthday on the 21st! RAWRRR!) Many many boxes have been filled for good will and countless trash bags and other items have made their way off to the trash heap. Hasn't been much fun, to be honest, because it's been SO MUCH work (almost like moving) but it was very needed. I've felt for a long while that I have entirely too much 'stuff'. You go through a grieving of sorts as you bin it but then a few days later you realize you don't notice it's gone at all. And if that sounds drastic - it is............but it's also not. I still have PLENTY of stuff left! :)

(Psst. There is stuff to be given away at the end of this.)

 

It's too bad I live in too rural an area for a yard sale because I could have a FABULOUS one in the spring with the stuff currently living in boxes downstairs. Ah well. If that's the price I have to 'pay' for living on an off-the-beaten path itty-bitty slip of  a street that's hard to find even when you are looking for it, so be it. It's also quite nice when you can go hours and hours without even seeing a neighbor's car drive by. :)

So. Didn't get much knitting done for Christmas or anything else for that matter with all that going on. 

A pair of socks from November were finished and I washed/blocked the wad of blanket squares that I had finished in the last few months. (Counted this morning and I now have 82 squares completed. I think at least another 48 will be needed to make a good sized blanket. 48. *sigh*)

A new hat for Christmas.......well.......it's in progress. The lobsters are growing a little each day.

The tree finally made it up - on Christmas Eve. Better late than never, eh? 

Very nice to have it up after taking last year 'off' because KITTENS.

Said cats were nice enough to *cough* get us a present this year. (Which I generously paid for. And shopped for.)

Huh. Cheeky little buggers!

After that massive decluttering/cleaning I wasn't much in the mood for all the decorations to be put out so I kept it to the basics: stockings, various holiday candle holders, lighted pine garland on the staircase, etc. 

And I changed up my little 'stitchy' basket with a winter theme that should last until spring. :)

I thinned out my cross stitch patterns as well and have a big stack of them to give away if someone wishes to pay for the shipping on them. There is a bit of everything in there from Bent Creek, Lizze Kate, The Drawn Thread, Cricket Collection, etc. 

 There are also a bunch of Shepherd Bush patterns *without* the kit materials they originally came with. 

I've gone through each one very careful to make sure they are in order and no pages are missing, etc. It would probably be like $10.50 for a priority mailer in the US, international....I'm not sure. I would need your address to figure it but I do enough 2-3 ounce overseas packages to know it would probably be upwards of $20-25. 

You must take the whole thing though. I'd rather stab myself in the eye than have to piecemeal it, sorry! Leave a comment if you want them, if more than one person does I'll just randomly pick a name after a week or so.

Ok, I think that's it for 2014! Have a happy new year everyone! 

Bit somber here, I'm afraid, as my husband's uncle just passed this week. He had been battling cancer for a number of years and it had recently traveled to his brain. It seemed like he would have more time but he started to slip away on Christmas day. I feel so bad for his cousins who have now lost both their parents and all their remaining grandparents within the last four years. Starting the new year with a funeral means you've already gotten the worst part of 2015 out of the way, right? :(

October.

 Yay! An update! I keep meaning to do this and meaning to do this but it never seems to happen. Grrr! I lost a bit of time there in September due to a vacation week and - even more importantly - a BRAND NEW COMPUTER. I am no longer computing like it's 2006, people! 

My old computer actually wasn't in terrible shape, aside from being nervous of a hardware meltdown happening at any time because, you know, that stuff wasn't built to last forever and 7-8 years is asking a bit much of it. *ahem* The bigger issue was that more and more things weren't working with Windows Vista now that it's no longer supported so, rather than upgrade an old computer, we just got a new one! (A Windows 7 machine though because, MAN!, have I heard horrible no good things about Windows 8.) I was dreading moving everything over but apparently things have changed a LOT since I last bought one of these dang machines and it was actually pretty easy. *blink*

ANYWAY. I'm in a good mood today (mostly) because tomorrow is the Stitches East show and I looooooooooooooooooovveeeeeeeeeeeee the Stitches East show. And now it's here and I'm excited, even though I haven't been knitting much lately. I did so much knitting over the summer that I decided to take a break from it for a little while and get more stitching done. 

Turns out when you work on stitching a little bit each day (or most days) you actually FINISH THINGS UP. I know, right? It's miraculous.

These finishes here are the L*K Song of Spring kit , the rabbity 'small' that comes with that and the 2nd part of the BBD Honeybee Hill. (I haven't had occasion to use that sparkly green linen before and I quite like it here with Mr. Rabbit. )

I finished another piece as well but that may/may not be a gift so I don't want to post it and I have a big Plum Street piece 'in progress' that I am plugging along on. I can't go to the SE show without something on the needles though so stitching progress might be halted for a bit while I get my sock knitting on. :)

Relatedly, that new iPhone x-stitch app making the rounds is quite brilliant. An online/device accessible detailed accounting of everything in your stash?  YOU KNOW I had to snap that up immediately because I *LOVE* a good spreadsheeting, organizing, finger snapping, alphabetizing project. 

I went through pretty much everything I have pattern wise, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap and.......

Honestly, it's not AS BAD as I thought it was going to be! Of the 315 patterns I own, about 75-80 have already been stitched. Now, that is still more than I can probably REALISTICALLY finish in the years I have left to me (or have left in my eyesight/hand dexterity). And it doesn't take into account that I own 14 years of the JCS ornament issues which, well, have a lot of stuff in them. But. It's STILL not as bad as I thought. I would have guessed I had no less than 500 patterns to get to, so, yay? Buy more? ;)

(Also not counted: the patterns I have given away over the years. I gave away a GIANT stack of used Shepherd's Bush/misc. patterns at some point, a fact I am a little bitter about, to be honest, because REASONS. Things did not turn out well on that one. *sigh*)

After the patterns were done, I did my hand dyed threads but not my DMC. (Because I own ALL OF IT so I don't need a stinking list for that. ) All of the info is in that mysterious Cloud thingy now  and I can open it up on my phone or Mini so I have NO EXCUSES not to keep up on it. The app is really great and I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone with Apple devices and a wish to have an easily searchable database of their stash.

OH well. I probably had a million other things to say but this will do for now, right? :)

BTW - those little guys at the top are the new Mummy beads I posted on Etsy/my site this week. Cuties! :)

September

I am a bad, bad blogger because I seem to have missed a post for August. And most of July. Whoops? There was no way I wasn't going to get on here and talk about my (truly) beloved Woodstock Fair that is held on Labor Day weekend and the fact that I...

WON BEST IN SHOW for knitting again. Woooooooo! 

I LOVE THAT WHEN THAT HAPPENS, I'll admit it. I only enter stuff in that I think is better than average, which means I don't enter in stuff every year, but I'm still surprised this year by my win because, man, there were SO MANY great handcrafts this year in all departments, not just the knitting one. It was a great year for the contests and I loved spending my time pouring through all the contest barns (three).

My Fruit Stripe socks also did well. :)

I have no idea what it means to have a Superintendents Award (they were new this year) but I'll take it! THE MORE RIBBONS, THE BETTER.

So very good year for my knitting. I registered the mittens when they were barely started *gulp* and quite literally didn't finish them until the night BEFORE I had to drop them off. Heh. Luckily, I'm quite familiar with mitten construction/Fair Isle colorwork so I didn't hit any road bumps along the way with anything. 

Unlike a champion animal, both of these guys will be put to work this winter and get a lot of use. (The last pair of Best in Show mittens have since gone on to put in time shoveling snow and actually getting DIRTY and quite roughed up.) No rest for the woolies come winter, no matter what they win. :)

I won't bore anyone with endless pictures of sheep, bunnies, chickens, etc. I have folders full of them but, honestly, they don't change at all from year to year. The above photo is my first attempt to try a panoramic shot with my iPhone, atop the hill where the tractors/old timey machines live. Because of the hills, you only get about 1/3 of the fair in there though. What a gloriously beautiful evening though! The weather was perfect!

I've never entered in any cross stitching but I'm thinking about it for next year because the theme for next year is 'America the Beautiful' and I do love a patriotic stitch. You have to get prior authorization to submit into the theme contest though so I'm still mulling over ideas and researching it. (If you have a favorite good sized, somewhat primitive/sampler-ish, good contrast patriotic design that comes to mind, please feel free to share.)

There has been a lot of knitting in general this summer for me. (Along with a lot of reading.)

 There's been a scarf finish, in this wonderfully nubby and WOOLY, sheepy Icelandic yarn.

 More socks, with varying success. I couldn't hate the purpley ones MORE if I tried. I've tried to use that yarn (which is expensive but will remain nameless) several times for several projects over a great number of years and it's never worked in any capacity for some reason. Doesn't work for these socks either but I didn't have the balls to just throw them out. Sigh.

 More work on squares for the Neverending Scrap Yarn Blanket. (Plus another batch in my bag that need to be blocked.)

I think I need a small break from it though before I start something else. As soon as we came home from the fair I drug out my stitching and put this to bed:

Honey Bee Hill by BBD. I only had a bit in the left corner to do so it was an easy finish. I do love my bee patterns. :)

Also, this happened this weekend:

A customer packaged returned to me. Look closely at the date though. *ahem*

Now THAT'S a first for me. WHERE HAS IT BEEN ALL THIS TIME?

Think about THAT next time you are complaining about a slow package. COULD BE WORSE.

Like, a WHOLE YEAR worse! Ha!

*waves*

 Oh, dear. Just not into this blogging 'thing' lately, I'm afraid. :(

Can't say it's for any particular reason either, other than general 'winter has gone on MUCH MUCH TOO LONG now' malaise that is probably affecting almost all of us in the northern hemisphere. Busy with work, yes, as always, but things are moving along as normal otherwise. 

Figured I should get in here before TOO much time goes by and I forget how to do it all together. Plus, I had a stack of  this hanging around that I'd like to put away:

Blogging or no blogging, I still pile finished things up to be photographed. It's like they aren't TRULY done unless their existence has been logged online in some fashion. That's a little sad, I think. I mean we DID 'exist' in our pre-online lives, didn't we? (And you can just shush if you are reading this and too young to have ever had a chance at a pre-online life, ok? We do not like young whippersnappers poking at our older selves. lol) 

Thanks to some tv-binge-watching (both seasons of House of Cards in EIGHT days! Eight!) I've actually been plugging right along on a bunch of things. Most of the individual photos I went for came out cringe-inducing awful though. Grrrrr. I only managed to take a decent picture of my newest pillow finishes:

Sadly, I did not put these 'together' in time for the holiday this year but I did finish STITCHING them in time. That has to count for.............something? I could only dig up two other appropriate smalls for this holiday so I figured it well past time I did a few more. The heart pattern is from a designer I saw on Etsy and the other two are freebies from The Primitive Hare. Used random scraps of linen and bits and bobs of lace and what not that I could scrounge out of my craft closet. 

I'll have to retake the photos of Most Hated Socks Ever and my L*K stockings. :)

I'm going to end this with another clover pic. A day late, of course, but I have a sweet spot for this holiday. For one, it's ridiculously easy to celebrate (wear green!) and comes with really tasty food and, two, I just plain ole like the color green. We need more fun, color-based holidays! :)

Hmm.

Well, I guess I'm not going to update here any more than I did last year (roughly twice a month....in a good month) if *THIS* month has been an indicator. Ha! 

Though it has to be said: Winter is not my favorite time of the year. It certainly is pretty with the snow and all but, man, is it gloomy, gloomy, gloomy at times. Last year I didn't feel it so much but this year is not as good. I have some potted hyacinth bulbs popping up now in my living room and I don't know if it makes it better or worse. It makes the contrast between deep winter and spring so much worse somehow. lol (I'll take it though. I have them in pink and purple and I do love the flash of bright color.)

One thing I would like to do this year is read more. I started off SO GOOD last year with that but it dropped off in the summer...because of life....CANDY CRUSH obsession (ugh ugh ugh)........definitely didn't finish on a high note in regards to reading. I have SO MANY books downloaded or on the shelf here. It's not all about the numbers, of course, but there's no doubt it's better time spent than ANOTHER HOUR of Candy Crush gaming (UGH!!!!!!!!!!). 

The first book I read this year was The Hobbit. A re-read after I realized I could NOT remember how it ended *and* couldn't tell how much was new and what was original in the 2nd movie that we saw over break. (Otherwise known as, I have officially read too many books (thousands) and am starting to forget even the ones I've read more than once. Getting older is not being kind to my memory. *sigh*)

Interesting fact: I still have the Tolkien gift set that was gifted to me when I was 12-ish. AND it's in pretty good shape. (That would be 30 years ago. *ahem*) The husband had his OWN set of Tolkien books when I met him at age 19 and I've always read HIS copies instead of mine. Because I'm evil like that. Ha! (His are really rough now.) I think we need to upgrade to digital copies though because the pages are seriously yellowed and dry. I'll still keep these forever though. They certainly aren't for everybody (I actually hated them when I first got them - not much in there for a pre-teen girl, you know?) but I know I will still enjoy reading them again every so often.

First finished knit of 2014............sort of. I did MOST of it in 2013. Actually, I think the only bit I did in 2014 was the bind off and blocking. Heh. 

It's just a simple drop stitch scarf. (Truly. SERIOUSLY simple.) Why work so hard when the yarn is this pretty, right? I'm content to let the yarn do the heavy lifting here. (It's a Mini Mochi yarn. The tags are long gone but I THINK it's called 'Autumn Rainbow'?)  It's single ply and slubby so I'm slightly worried about the yarn breaking if any of the yarnovers 'catch' on something I'm wearing (like a zipper, etc.) but I'll think of something if/when disaster strikes.

Also finished another Flora McSample stocking. Just one left to stitch up on these guys! (In progress.) Fingers crossed I manage to turn these into actual stockings before next Christmas. I really like these and will be sad if they get stuffed into the drawer for too long. :(

The 'kittens' turned 7 months old earlier this month. 

Well, maybe not so much kitten-y any more. Almost full grown with their adult coats coming in like gangbusters, is more like it. I really need to get a picture of them jumping around in the snow. I still let them out on the deck for a few minutes when it's sunny out and they both LOVE snow. Eating it, digging in it, etc. They are like big, fluffy snow bunnies out there. :)

Not so much loved: the thorough combing they have to get when the snow melts and they dry off. They HATES that part. (Bitey little creatures, they are! A handful of treats afterwards soothes all though.)

Yes, please.

To a new year, that is. :)

Like many, many others I've seen - I don't think 2013 was the best year ever. 

Still here in one piece though so I can't complain too much. 

Onward to 2014!

Oh, that might be a little unfair though because the holidays were quite nice 'round these parts and I've enjoyed the break. A nice finish to the year is appreciated after the depressing grind of the middle parts, yes?

I tried to put up my little 'Charlie Brown' tree in place of the 'missing' large one. Yeah. Someone kept knocking it over and trying to chew the electrical wires to the lights so that only lasted a few days before I packed it away again. So I was not wrong in my assessment of Fitz's abilities to behave with a tree - any tree. PLAYAS GOTTA PLAY.

 I kept the twinkly lights up in my picture window so at least we had that. (They must come down now though because he was caught trying to chew the light bulbs today. Grrr.) I did manage to put up most of my stitchy ornaments still. (See above.) I usually have a garland going around the banister and downnnnnn the stairs - works nicely for pinning ornaments it turns out. On the other side of that part of the bannister, I had my wee knitted stockings and sweaters up...

Turns out as long as I have a tiny bit of twinkly lights and my handmade ornaments up somewhere in the house, I don't miss the tree all that much. (I still want one again next year though.)

Oh, in lieu of any major gift giving this year, we decided to upgrade our phones so all pictures are brought to you via my smashing new iPhone. That newest version has quite a lovely little camera on it, doesn't it? Sooooooooo much better than my 3+ years old last iPhone. (The camera on that was laughable. And I haven't had a speck of space left on it in monthssssss to do any updates or add music, etc. And goodbye waiting a full minute for apps to open up!)  It served me well but I'm quite glad to move on from it. :)

So what did I do with my break? Gosh, a whole lot of nothing. IT WAS LOVELY. 

I finished one book. Just one.(Art history book. Boring to 99.9% of people, I'm sure.)

Started/finished one ornament. Just one. 

(L*K stocking design. Called for threads, random linen that I don't quite love but it will do and I added my own mini buttons. The linen has blotches of pink, blue and brown on it and it's origins are TOTALLY unknown. Anyone?)

Ha! That might be it. (I also finished a scarf just last night that I started last summer but it's still damp and can't be photographed in all it's glory yet. He will have to get his time in the sun, so to speak, in the next post.) Oh! I did catch up on three months worth of Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair magazines that were 'piling up' on my iPad. And I rewatched Series 4 of Downton Abbey because the hubby never caught it on the first go round. (Yikes. Did not love that Christmas special though. *snooooooze* Just me? Anyone?) And, course, there were lots of kitty snuggles and endless mugs of hot tea. :)

This week has been less of a break though because I've doing some New Year's cleaning and getting set up for 2014 with my business. Just really tossing things about and giving everything a good scrub. Took me 3 days to finish upstairs and now I get to start on downstairs. (Bleh.) Some things, like the linen cabinet, were an epic disaster. So glad they are all sorted out again. (I don't have to cringe anymore every time I go in there for a hand towel or a new set of sheets. Bless!) Back to work this weekend though. All good things must end at some point.... maybe? Or is that a really depressing view of things? Heh.

Oh! I have to post the hubby's last woven scarf as well. Another one I would have liked to keep for myself, for sure. The colors are ridiculously off in this photo but it's already gone on to someone else as a gift so it will have to do.

This one is all Paton's wool in a sock weight. The warp (length) is the gray yarn in the fringe and the weft (left to right) is the top most yarn in this pile from March 2012:

God love him for using up more of my yarn stash. It brings a tear to the eye, it does. *sniff*

I could - conceivably - get to the end of it now before old age. IMAGINE THAT. 

I just need a solution for my cross stitch stash now. :)

Little bit of everything.

I've had a couple people ask if I'm still making beads, because I haven't posted any really on the blog in a while. The answer: DEFINITELY YES. I've been working on a ton of them behind the scenes. (Pictured above is the pile of beads made over the weekend that I had to string and ship out yesterday. Have another pile to make over the next few days too.) Having said that though, I'm not super happy about making them anymore so I don't really feel like blogging about it. My left hand hurts when I make beads, my left shoulder is starting to hurt now........things are breaking down and I'm taking more and more Advil as time goes on to get through a torching session. A repetitive hand motion hour after hour, day after day, for over a decade? It's inevitable, I guess, that your body won't put up with that at some point. (And NOTHING hurts the tendons/joints in my hand like the bead work does.) I'm in limbo at the moment over it What to do, right? I could cut the work back but with the amount of taxes I pay as a self-employed person - income, sales tax, business property taxes, also, accountant to handle taxes, etc. - at some point cutting back is just flat out stupid and a waste of time. I still LIKE the beads so there is that. Heh.

Anyhoo. Moving on. 

I finished my big piece for Halloween! :)

How great is this pumpkin? I should have posted a pic of him in my Cathey post too! I love the way the colors work together, it has great depth. 

And how about this crazy, toothy grin? The reason he is so crazy looking is..........

TOO MANY TREATS. 

I mean - look at all those candy corns in there! He's not crazy - he's high on sugar!

So happy to have this done. It's a Bird of a Feather design that I purchased in 2003, along with the linen that it called for (which isn't made anymore, but there are good substitutes). Any design I have put away WITH the linen it needs always make me sad when it sits and sits and sits, waiting to be finished. (I actually wrote shits and shits at first by accident..........WHAT COULD THAT MEAN? Whoops.) It's a crazy design and probably (definitely) not for everyone but I like the kookiness of it. I did the belly part first to get the worst part of the design over with and the rest of it was pretty simple from then on. 

How would you tackle that belly? I'm always interested in how people approach certain things. I did all the periwinkle FIRST, leaving 'holes' for the other things. So I had to count very very very carefully to make sure the 'holes' were all situated correctly, but it made for easy-peasy candy corn stitching after the fact because then I could just hop from one candy to another, anchoring the thread(s) to the already done periwinkle as I went.

I have to say though, the pattern was pure MISERY to work off of. It was teeny TINY. I had to scan and enlarge it, color a lot of it in with colored pencils and it was still hard to see. (THIS is the piece that had me scrambling for new eyeglasses!) Did not relish that part of it.

Next up is the Lizzie Kate Mystery Christmas sampler (and maybe some ornies!). I really like doing the Halloween one last year so I signed up for this one too. I like the colors as is but some of them seem a little too light as I'm doing the actual pattern. I think I"m going to have to go back and switch out the Parchment, at the very least. My snowflakes with it are totally disappearing into nothingness. :( 

I kinda miss that there are no beads or charms with it too. I've got a TON of Mill Hill beads though so that will be easy enough to add if I want at the end.

Annnnnndddd......I guess that's it for now. Except for a Fitz pic. 

The 'babies' turned 4 months on Sunday. Getting soooooooooooo big!!!