Celebrate the Finishes!

I have my 2nd finish of 2013!  This is "Petunia" unframed.

"Petunia" Completed 4/24/2013

"Petunia" close-up

Still waiting for the frame to get to my LNS.  I am so proud of her!  Not sure I will do another beading one although this was very fun.  I really hurt my back being hunched over to do the beading.  Also had a bunch of trouble with threading those itty bitty eye holes.  But I'll take a break and see how I feel after.

Still waiting on my fabric order to get here.  Got an email today letting me know all my fabric is in and they need money.  Tomorrow I will Paypal them.  Then next payday will be getting some fabric from my LNS.  And after that I just figured out I will need to get to my LNS and order specialty threads.  Also some stuff for a spring exchange.

Until then I will get back to "Horse Pals", "Faith", and "Blackstone" for now.

The snow from earlier this week is gone and we have sunshine again.  So far I have not heard the dreaded S word on the weather section so I am hoping we will have nothing but beautiful sunshine for awhile.

Saturday we are celebrating my daughter's 8th birthday.  Pizza dinner followed by cake (if I can get Walmart to do it in a day - Ooops!) and presents.  Her actual birthday is Monday.  She is so excited.  I hope she has a blast.  Now off to plan that blast.


that's all for now...healthy stitching!

Switching It Up

So frustrated with myself.  I miscounted on "Blackstone" and now I need to frog.  Looks like just a little bit so I am happy for small favors.  In the picture it is the left hand side, all the way down.  Ugh.

"Blackstone"  4/16/2013

  But I needed a change and decided to get my butt moving on "Petunia".  It was a tough start last night, but I pushed through it and finished all the crosses.  Started the back stitching and completed that early this afternoon.  Then I jumped into beading.  And I am loving it.  Except for the seriously small eye in the beading needle.  I am almost done with the first set of beads.

"Petunia" 4/17/2013

This might just finish itself rather quickly.  Then I will head over to my LNS and order the frame and ta da!  One Christmas present done.

 I am currently waiting for my fabric order to arrive from Stitches N Things.  Then I will figure out what to put into the rotation next.  Also depends on my mood when picking.

Today was a perfect stitching day.  Snow fell all day with a potential to turn into a blizzard tonight.  We went from small flakes to fat flakes.  It truly felt like a Christmas snow.  Everything was so magical looking and feeling.  The only thing missing was a real fire snapping and popping in the background.  You can't see it very well in the pictures but it was snowing fat flakes when I took them.

View from my stitching nest

The back deck

Otherwise, it seems different day, same stuff happening.  We are way into our schedule and preparing for all the end of school year craziness.  Still no word of anything happening with the Texas house.  I am gonna go nuts soon, I think.  I am so looking forward to house hunting and setting up a house of my own.

But for now I must wait - for a change in season, scenery, and the future.

Settling In

So the weather has just been nuts, huh?  I am looking forward to a Colorado summer and my kiddos are asking the Magic 8 ball for snow.  I am just happy with a little bit of daily sunshine.

We survived a slightly thrown together Easter and family photo shoot last weekend.  I think it is finally sinking in for the kiddos this is permanent.  I am slowly adjusting to having hubby at work again.  He has been home every night for dinner.  It has been a long time since his arrival has been this consistent.  My in-laws and I are slowly getting use to the new day to day.  They have decided to put Torryn into preschool and covering the cost til we can get financially back on our feet.  He is looking forward to next week.  It'll be really good for him.

I have a useable lap stand and have even tried it out.

 My FIL had to make 2 extensions before we got it right.  I am keeping all the "wrong" ones for when I sit in a different place.

  Still trying to figure out how to make it work for me 100%.  It really slows me down and the 2 handed method is showing me my left hand is apparently not connected to my brain?

I also ordered some counting pins on Etsy.  Her shop is here. So light weight and 2 great lengths to choose from.  I ordered late night, it was shipped the next morning.  I even got a coupon for my next visit!

So some action shots.  These are the shorter ones that I have mainly been using.

In this case I am marking where I stitch to and am liking them for that job.  Now these are the longer ones which I originally thought was what I wanted.

They are also super lightweight, but really hard to stitch around.  I have relegated them to marking long lines of stitching.

I am glad that these came up in conversation right before I started stitching over 2 on linen.  The short lengths I have done took a lot of time because of all the recounting I had to do.  Now I count once, mark it, and can happily stitch without worry of too many or not enough stitches.  I didn't get a lot done this last week.  The frogs came for about 3 dogs.  I think I was just too tired, both mentally and emotionally, and every stitch I put in I had to then remove.  But the sun has come out and the frogs seem to be gone for now at least.  Last night I had to roll the fabric down so that I could start a really long stretch of stitching.  That was an adventure all it's own, but I think I got it.

This week at some point I need to run by my LNS to get some things for an exchange and some smaller needles.  I am thinking that might help with how small these holes are.  But onto the progress.

I am stitching with variegated threads from Carrie's.  This is Seaweed.  I am having a bit of trouble with it as I am not sure how to go about making the long stretches of color to look good together.  So far I have been able to stitch with the threads being the same color next to each other.  Now that I am getting to the really long stretches I know that won't work.  Do I just end one color and start up with the color on the next thread that is the closest?  We will have to see how it goes.

Until next week...