Really in the Groove Now!

In so many more ways than one.  We have our daily school routine down, we have our days off mostly figured out, and "Blackstone" is really coming along.

Now, why do things have to change?  Kiddos are both done with school and I am desperately searching out things for them to do without breaking the bank.  Stuff to do with them and grandparents but not daddy during the week, but keeping them ready for the weekend and not exhausted.

I have a few have-to's such as swim lessons.  Then some indoor play centers that have areas geared towards each age group.  We had a really cool new putt putt golf place open and we are surrounded by all kinds of touristy stuff we have yet to make memories at.  I am also looking for a therapeutic riding center for at least my daughter, but my son too to go to all year long.  i have been searching for coupons and liking everything on Facebook to get special deals.  I hate doing that but I hate to pay full price.  LOL

My Mill Hill frame just arrived at my LNS so that excites me.  I am picking it up this weekend along with some notions.  I am heading out to the other side of Colorado for the 4th of July.  I am hoping my parents still have a sewing machine so I can finish a project into a pillow.  That would make 2 Christmas gifts done.  I really need to kick it into gear for that holiday.  I am so far behind what I usually have done.  Sigh

Onto actual stitching.

"Blackstone Fantasy Garden" close-up 05/21/2013

"Blackstone Fantasy Garden" Full View 05/21/2013

I have now rolled that all up so I can start on the bottom half now.  It is moving much faster now that I do the outline first and then go back and fill in.  I am about a quarter of the way done.  I say quarter because all those empty spaces still have blackwork needing to be filled in.  I will get going on that after I finish all of the cross stitching.  I haven't been doing my rotation at all.  So far I have not needed a break, but I can see one coming.  Right now it is my escape so I can keep some sanity.

One of my new favorite pics.  My son "graduated" pre-school today.  He is such a ham!

Healthy Stitching!

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...

Jumping (sort of) into the Deep End

So to continue from last week.  I opened my chart and heaved a huge defeated sigh.  So much work for me to do to get ready to stitch.  I was hoping I could find the center without too many problems.  But it was not to be.  So copies made and taped together.  My excitement grows as it comes together until I see this.

Chart copies taped together to show final product

 But then I saw this:

Chart and dishwasher the same size

But I folded the chart to the area around the center and got myself seated and comfortable with the lap stand and frame.  I was ready to stitch.  Then, before I could put needle to fabric, I had an attack of the "I don't Know's".

Getting all settled in

I don't know how to count when stitching over 2 to actually start as the center has no cross stitches.  I went to my favorite resource: my stitching group.  They helped calm me down and get started.  (Double all counts when starting)

"Blackstone Fantasy Garden" progress 03/26/2013

 I only stitched on it for a day, but I am getting more and more comfortable with the over 2 stitching.  I am enjoying the crap out of this project!  Unfortunately I can only stitch on it during the day because I need a lot of light.  But I get excited every time I get to pick it up and stitch.

Another unfortunate incident is that the lap stand does not extend high enough for my height.  Not a whole lot of options out there to help with this.  I only found 1 extender and it looked confusing and was going to cost more than $30.  So I talked to my lovely FIL, and he is already working on making me something way better and useful for a lot less.  So hopefully I will have a great lap stand shortly.  I will get pictures up as soon as it is done!

So I leave you with a picture that cements the reason for our move - Family.

Papa and his kiddos

A Ball of Happy, Scared, and Excited!

At the end of last week I was finally able to order myself a scroll frame and lap stand so i could branch back out into large projects.  I was really hoping to be able to get one from a craft store but I needed bigger than 21 inches.  So Amazon.com to the rescue.  I knew I did not want to have to sew my fabric to a strip on the scroll frame.  I liked the split dowel idea.  This may come back to haunt me, but I went with this version and this lap stand.  I didn't want to spend too much, but also wanted to be able to do multiple projects if needed.
The package was delivered yesterday while we were out shopping.  After dinner I was finally able to get my hands on it and start assembling.  I will let the pictures do the talking.

The beginning: Fabric in Dowels

Keep the directions close!

Dowels on Spreader bars

Starting to roll the fabric

All rolled; working on tension

Calling in the big guns to help assemble the lap stand.

Standing back and letting him work

Taking shape

Figuring out the purpose of the set screw

Ta Da!

All of this just so I could stitch Blackstone Fantasy Garden by Tracy Horner.  I fell in love with this chart when she first revealed it.  I finally received it as a gift last Christmas.  I am making the choice to jump into stitching on linen and stitching over 2 and I am so scared to start.  Now that I can I am afraid to begin.  I need to research some tutorials on how to do this.  But this piece, this piece is for me and a wall in my home.  I am going to pay good money to have it framed so that I can display it.

Now that I have the fabric, the floss, the frame, and the stand all that is left is the courage to jump in to either sink or swim.

Please feel free to leave comments.  Any and all are appreciated.

Hello from Colorado!!!!!!

Wow, what a crazy ride it has been!!!!!  We made it at about 1pm on March 7th, my birthday.  But the work week did not end there.  We then had to unload the truck and van into the house and then head to our storage unit.  Only to find that it was not what we had reserved.  Moving to another location and the great unload began.  But with faulty information the night ended disastrously at a little before 8pm.  The next morning more unloading into the house cause the storage unit was too small for our needs.  Then back to the unit to finally unload my precious entertainment center(a full wall unit weighing about 1,000 lbs) and my bedroom furniture and the last of the boxes.  Cleaned out the truck and returned it right at 5.

 Saturday was the laziest day ever.  A week of working full time way more than we have in a long time led to everyone napping most of the day.  It was supposed to be a blizzard day anyway.  We didn't get as much as places north of us did which was good cause shopping needed to be done before school started Monday. 

So Sunday we were off and running....I was exhausted.  Haven't had to shop or drive in these crowds in a long time.  Looks like hubby will still be doing the majority of grocery shopping.

Monday was the dreaded first day in a new school.  My oldest was really acting out with the stress of the move, but I think more so the new school.  I spent all day Monday hoping to pick up a happy girl.  She was reserved but relieved when we picked her up.  It took her most of the afternoon, but right around dinner time she opened up and spilled all the good news.  Big sigh of relief.

That leads us to today, Tuesday.  She was more than happy to get up and get going.  So much indeed that she had a good 40 minute wait before we had to leave.  We decided yesterday that we can drop her at the trail in back of the school and she could walk up alone, and then meet me at the same place after school.  My child, who formerly hated and merely tolerated school as something she had to get through, took off running.  She forgot her lunch, came back, and ran off again with the biggest smile I have ever seen.  She was excited to see new friends and learn more math.  Her words said it all, "no more meanies".  Just what I was hoping for.

Hubby got an extra week off before starting the new job which has made moving our stuff into an existing household somewhat easier.  It has given him time to decompress and stop the stressing.  Also a little mini vacation with his family.  Something we did not know we needed but are so appreciative of.

Fog covered mountains out the back window

3/12/13

Icy Fog out the back door 3/12/13

View from my stitching spot 3/12/13

 

I think we are getting back into a routine.  Not our old one but a new one.  Still needs tweaking, but emotionally I think we have all leveled out.

But because we are trying to integrate more stuff than originally thought, I have not accomplished any stitching.  At All.  How sad, huh?  But just a little more and then I can hopefully finish "Faith".  I did pull out my project and get set up in a chair so when I am ready I can just sit, stitch, and look at mountains.


                                                               Life is good right now.