Halloween exchanges and general stitchy updates

Above is my exchange I sent out to Kim M. through the HOE blog for the Halloween exchange. It is Prarie Schooler from the Trick or Treat chart. I love this little ornament. You may remember I stitched the bigger design off of the chart for myself, and in the bigger version the cat has on a little skeleton costume.  And looking back at my blog I don't think I ever posted a picture of that finish, i'll have to remember to do that next week, I loved this design.

And this is what I recieved from the Halloween exchange from Becky. It is a Nicole Farrauto "Petite Halloween Sampler" from the JCS Halloween 2014 issue. I love the black cat in the pumpkin patch!  

And my progress on Mirabilia's Santa. Almost there, his coat/cuffs look alot better this week, and I have been working on filling in his mittens and beard with all that white. Next will be his face and all that beading (but that's the fun part it makes it look so sparkly!)

And my own little Christmas ornament from JCS, by Ink Circles. Coming along but slowly. 

We are still moving houses this week. This weekend we moved 10 truckfulls of stuff from one house to the other. It was a lot of hard work, and I am so sore today. My back and arms are killing me! It is so exciting seeing everything come together in the new house, Also overwhelming though the amount of stuff we still have to move!

By the time i'm unpacked it will be Christmas

This week is our official move week, we should get the keys to our new house Wednesday or Thursday. I normally go all out decorating for Fall/Autumn but this year with everything still in boxes none of my fall stitches got to see the light of day. Fall is definately my favorite time of year so I am hoping to at least be unpacked enough so I don't miss my favorite holiday Halloween. Yes, yes I have seperate decorations/stitching for Autumn vs. Halloween--their not the same to me and I love both of them! Above is my progress on Ink Circle's "Stained Glass Holly", For an ornament this one has been slow going. The black took me a long time to do, so I am hoping filling in the colors now will go quicker.

And here is Santa again. Still stitching, and stitching and then there will be beading and by that time I may be very very old.....no just kidding, I only started this one this year, but it feels like it is taking forever. Solid stitching and lots of colors, but a beautiful design none the less. I am just an impatient stitcher.

I'll leave you with a cute little poem I found this week:

I like Winter,

Spring is nice,

Lets skip Summer,

And have Fall twice!

Transition

I apparently am in no mood for fall this year. I managed to get my Prairie Schooler Autumn peice about 75% done before I got distracted by Christmas. So it was on to this lovely little ornament, "Stained Glass Holly" by Ink circle designs. Apparently the large Santa peice i've been working on all year is not enough Christmas for me. Progress on Mirabilia Santa is slow now, because it is a lot of confetti stitching and filling in. Blech!

This was a pretty biscornu I received from Kim through the HOE blog. She angel stitched it for me, and I love it. Blue is my favorite color so it was just a perfect choice. 

Here is me with our current foster dog Miss "Lil bits". She goes back tomorrow to the shelter to find her forever family. I know she will be adopted quickly as she is just a pup, and so tiny and so cute. She likes to snuggle on the couch behind my neck while I stitch/watch tv. It is so hard every time to give them back though, I always feel a little sad. We have fostered 10 dogs so far through a local rescue and through the Humane society, and every single one of them we loved. The only thing that makes it better is knowing there is another dog out there we can help. 

I feel like a lot of my life is in transition this month. We are in the process of buying a new house, which will be great for our family, but I love the house we are moving from. It is just too small for our family (1 bathroom for 5 people just doesn't cut it!). I have owned this house for ten years now and feel like our family has grown up in it. Now all of our stuff is in boxes and we have been painting/cleaning/prepping the house to move out of it. I feel a little unsettled by all of it though, excited but unsettled.

Last days of summer....

I don't know why my pictures look so blurry, it is frustrating the heck out of me! But I figured if I waited to straighten it out, my next post would be in December! Whew, babies keep you busy! Girls are back in school and loving it so far, my oldest is in junior high this year which just seems impossible. 

My newest stitch is above, Prairie Schooler "Autumn Leaves". I love the colors in it. It doesn't yet feel like fall here, we have had massive monsoon storms come through this month, so it has been nice to see the rain again.

This is my snails progress on Mirabilia Santa. My goal is to have him off to the framers by October. As you can see I have started on all the grey/white in his beard and finished off the holly behind his head. His face will be the last thing I do, as I am making some changes to the colors. I do love the collage maker I found on line, it is fun to see the before/afters!

Father's Day

We had a wonderful father's day today. We made a special father's day breakfast and the girl's made homemade cards, and we got the chance to just spend some summertime together. I hope all of you out there had a great day spent with the one's you love too. One of my favorite things about dad's is how different their roles are today, than they were even 20 years ago. My dad was such a nice guy and truly a great dad, but my parents had a very old style arrangement where he worked, and my mom stayed home to raise the children/cook/clean. I love seeing how much more my husband and other dads do nowadays without even thinking twice about it. (Honestly I can say he has changed more diapers than I have). We were blessed that both of us could take three months off of work to care for Calvin, and I am grateful that it's becoming more common for dad's to take time off for the birth of their children. I feel so grateful every day for the amazing dad's in my life. 

Here is my progress on Mirabilia's Santa. I have started finally on the fourth quarter. When I made my working copy of the chart I divided it up into 4 sections. Made it a little more manageable to work on. And now that I am in the final section I feel like the end is in sight. Next is all the white in his beard/hat and all the beading. At least there is not too much back-stitching to do. 

I have also been working on Calvin's sampler this week. I am soooo close to being done. I really love this one, and can't wait to hang it above his crib. He still sleeps in his bassinet now by our bed, but lately he has taken to scooting himself sideways when he wakes up and then he gets stuck. Poor baby! 

And this is us enjoying some summertime. He went swimming in grandpa's pool for the first time yesterday. He actually didn't seem to mind the water at all. Both of my girl's are little mermaids, they swim like fish! I am hoping Calvin will be the same way. Me? Not so much, I never really learned to hold my breath underwater, and hate getting water in my nose.

The heat is on!

So I was at Hobby Lobby this week, and they already have fall decorations out! It feels too early, especially when I don't consider it truly summer until school lets out. Though fall is my favorite season, I also hate when stores put out there decorations months in advance! On that note, I'll show off some Halloween themed stitching (have to have time to frame it!), my PS Trick of Treat. I thought I would get it done this week, and just need to finish the witch/back stitching on it. I love it and can't wait to have it out for my Halloween decorating.

Back to summertime, I finished up my Bent Creak eagle, but when I went to frame him (well not really frame I just stuck him in a wooden hoop) he looked to small. So I added some letters off another chart to the design and love how it turned out. You can't really see it in the photo, but I had used a scrap piece of fabric to stitch on, and it has some smudges on it. So I have an opinion question of everyone, to wash or not to wash? I used WDW/DMC for all of him, and they say they are colorfast, but I would really hate to see those dark blues or reds bleed. I'm left with the toss up of leaving it "dirty" or risking ruining the whole thing. What would you do?

And this is my stash enhancement for the week. You know how much I love a good "find" right? Well I am not against searching Craigslist for cross stitch stuff, and have made some really good finds on it. This week, I got 4 pieces of linen + 2 even-weaves still in packages +6 Crescent color threads + 4 WDW skiens + some DMC. From the labels on the linen they would have been about $70, and at $2 a skein for thread would have been about $20, and I bought it all for $21 bucks! Yes sometimes it's more about the thrill of a good deal! Though I stitch enough that saving money on linen really helps. I rarely buy fabric for a specific project I like to be able to just see what I have already.

Still going to Weight Watchers, I just got my 4 week key chain and charm today. I have lost 12 pounds already, which is better than I would done on my own, but it's hard not to want all the weight gone RIGHT NOW. I am impatient, and know I didn't get here overnight (heck the baby weight took 9 months to pile on and I had more to lose before the pregnancy). I keep telling myself the slower it comes off the easier it will be to keep it off. Plus it really is a lifestyle change of being healthier.

Schools out for Summer!

My girls were both so happy for the last week of school.  Me as a mom, looking ahead to eight long weeks of bored children cooped up inside from the summer heat, who play together the first two hours of the day but spend the next ten hours fighting like, well like sisters.....sigh it's gonna be a long summer! I love the extra time with the girls and normally we do at least one fun summer vacation and a few weekend road trips/camping trips. But with the new baby I'm not sure how much we will get to do this summer. 

Above is my start on Prairie Schooler's "Trick or Treat", stitched on 28 ct WDW Guacamole linen. I love the color, so fitting for a Halloween piece. I think I am only going to stitch this part of the design, since the trick or treaters are my favorite part, so this one should be done soon. I want to stitch the cat's skeleton in glow in the dark white thread (my favorite thread for ghosts/skeletons and anything else Halloween). 

And below is my Pinterest project of the week (one of only a handful that actually got finished). I made this out of stakes from Home Depot and some wooden stars from Jo-Anns. My patient husband helped me with the eye-hooks for the bottom. I love how it turned out. I don't have my summer seasonal wall put together on the inside of our house yet, but at least the outside of our house looks patriotic!

Dogs

They say dogs don't have the emotional intelligence to hold a grudge, but I don't think that is true. I trade off on which dog I take running with me, because if I take both they think it is the Idatrod sled race. This morning I took our border collie, and left the shepherd at home. The shepherd is actually a better companion in that she is older/calmer and runs more my pace. The border collie has no use for the word heel, and can shave a full minute off my pace. But now since we got home from said run, the shepherd has taken every opportunity to nip and growl at the border collie. They will work it out I'm sure, but in the mean time it is pretty funny. Above is our sweet poodle Zeppelin, who never gets to go on runs with me due to his short little legs. Yes he is a mutt, we think mixed with schnauzer, but we'll never know. I do love his beard when he is all groomed. We got all of our dogs from the pound or rescue, he was on doggie death row at the pound. He had pushed his little nose up against the cage so much we had made it bleed, and the pound couldn't adopt a white dog with a bloody muzzle I guess (well they sold him to us and we have loved him ever since).

Not much stitching progress this week, but I did manage to buy new stash. This is of course Prairie Schooler's "Trick or Treat". I love the 3 little trick or treaters at the bottom and think I may only sew that part of it. Is it too early to start stitching for Halloween?

And this is one of the new threads  I got, WDW "beehive" I thought it perfect for sewing a little bumble bee with, so I went right to Pinterest to search for a free chart. You can find this one on crossstitch.about.com, or under my Pinterest profile bluestarstitchr. I am debating whether to do his wings in white or continue on with the beehive thread. 

Mothers are Amazing

"Of all the gifts life has to offer, a loving mother is the greatest of them all"

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day. I was blessed to spend mine with my children and my own mother. 

This was my new start of the week. Remember I posted this a few weeks back? It was my reward for losing 10 pounds, and now I finally got to start it. It is a Cricket Collection chart, I love their pumpkins. I kitted it all up, and hand dyed my fabric for it and then it sat waiting for me to "earn" it for nine whole weeks.

 That's right it took me nine weeks to lost 10 pounds. While I am proud of my progress, I have decided to step up my weight loss efforts. My ultimate goal is to lose 100 pounds before Calvin turns 1 year old. I have already lost 60 pounds of that (I lost 40 pounds before leaving the hospital after having him which was mostly water weight). So to help me along I have joined weight watchers. Yesterday was my first weigh in after joining, and I have already lost 3.4 pounds. Not much, but way better than I was doing on my own. So wish me luck and health and willpower! I know a lot of other bloggers are also on weight loss journeys, some even doing Weight Watchers like me, so it's nice to know I am not alone in this. 

Here is a picture of our Mother's Day lunch. The girls made cards for my mother, and we got her some pretty pink "mums" for the occasion. Though I read somewhere that white carnations are the traditional mother's day flower. My DH also got me a beautiful bracelet with the children's birthstones and names engraved on it. I love it!

On a sadder note my mother-in-law passed away two days before Mother's Day, and three days after her 60th birthday. She had a long battle with cancer, but still was so active and full of love even in the last weeks of her illness. She was such a light in our family's lives. I have only been a part of my husband's family for a few years now, and I know how sad I am over her passing, I can't imagine the grief they are going through. I am so sad Calvin only got to know her for a few months of his life, and that he won't have his own memories of her. She was truly every good thing you could ever say about a grandmother, and everything a mother aspires to be.

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, Love leaves a memory no one can steal."

"If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever"

Peep Peep

"Easter Peep" With Thy Needle and Thread Designs

Just finished this last week. I was thinking the whole time I was stitching this that I was going to use the two fabrics above to finish it into a pillow. But today when I pulled them out and put them against Mr. Peep I realized that the tulips in the stitching are more of an orangey-red vs. the pink of the tulips on the fabric. So now I am left with the dilemma of "how much is this going to bother me if my tulips don't match?"

And this is my weeks progress on Mirabilia's Santa. It has been a little bit since I posted an update photo on this one, and it looks like a lot of progress in the photo, but I feel like I am falling behind on getting this one done. It is for a friend of mine, in barter for tutoring my daughter in math. If it was for me I wouldn't care how long it took done, but I feel like I am under a deadline since it is for someone else. 

What I am Reading This Week: The God of Small Things, The Bookstore (why is this book taking me so long!), and I just started "Savannah Blues"

What I am Watching This Week: Hope Springs (I liked this more than I thought I would), The Awakening, Dexter, Robot and Frank (I loved this movie! definitely one of my new favorites), also Frozen and the new Tinkerbell movie with my girls.

Hoppy Easter!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter today, filled with the blessings of family. We had a great time here, I love that my kids are still small enough to enjoy a good egg hunt!

I'll warn you now this post has a bunch of pictures....

 In honor of the holiday I thought I would show some pictures from my spring wall in my kitchen. (I re-decorate this wall with seasonal appropriate stitches a few times a year). Above is my Easter project for this week. With Thy Needle And Thread's "Easter Peep". I came pretty close to finishing it in one week too. 

This is a Lizzie Kate I received in an exchange. I love the blue trim on it.

This is a Bent Creek I stitched myself. I *think* it was called "Flowers", I know it was a zipper kit though. I changed Mr. Bunny from a brown bunny to white.

This was another exchange, I think this is a Trilogy design, I love the pink ric rac she used for the trim on the pillow.

Two more exchanges, I don't know the names of either of these, but love the colors on both of them.

A Bent Creek "Hip Hop" done by me a few years back (I painted the frame too though it's hard to see the flower in this photo).

This one my husband found for me in an antique store in Kentucky. It was stitched in 1996, but I think the design still looks pretty modern. 

Bent Creek "Are you my Mother" stitched by me last year.

Bent Creek "Uber-Egg"

And my two girls with our bunny Gypsy (poor bunny was annoyed to be out in the heat she's still shedding her winter coat!) 

And my own sweetest little bunny Calvin....he doesn't look to thrilled with his ears either!

Miles Ran this Year: 120.2 miles

What I am Reading: The Bookstore

What I am Watching: The Devil's Backbone, The Five Year Engagement, Dexter, Columbiana

5 more WIP's out of my basket!

I don't know why the above photo is cropping out the edges, maybe it's too long? I managed to finish a whopping FIVE projects this week, of course most of them needed just a few stitches to be done, but it is a relief to have them out of my stitching basket! The above is a Lizzie Kate Spring string. All I had to do on this one was give Mr. Bunny and Ms.Bird their eyes. 

       

This little Prairie Schooler took a bit more work, I had to fill in the hen and chicks, and finish some of the grass up. It only took me one evening of stitching to finish it up.

Another Prairie Schooler, all these little chicks needed were eyes and legs. I dread finishing this as an egg shaped ornie, I have done one in the past and it was so frustrating, a bit above my finishing skill level.

I have high hopes to have this made into a pillow before the end of the month. Lizzie Kate flip-it for April.

So now that I have cleared so many projects out of my basket I went and did something really crazy! I ordered a Heaven and Earth designs chart that is 90 pages long! Guess how many stitches?556,250  I calculated that if I stitched one square a day (100 stitches) it would take me six years to finish this. I am a little intimidated to even start it, and I am still waiting for my fabric to come in though. 

What I am Watching: Les Miserables, Hello, I Must be Going (very cute film about living at home divorced in your 30's), Hitchcock, and still Dexter

What I am Reading: The Bookstore

Miles Ran this Year: 116.62 miles (I have slowed down a bit as it gets warmer outside)

Out with the old!

Mirabilia's "Santa"

I'll warn you now this post has a bunch of pictures! I have decided to have a mini-Wipocolypse this month (am I spelling that right? I can only hope), and dig out all my smalls to finish. I found about ten, and finished 3 already this week while continuing to work on the above Santa. Luckily for me most of them had just a few stitches I needed to finish them, why did I ever put them away if I was so close to done with them? Probably because I am so easily distracted by something new to stitch....so here is my goals for this month....

Before

After

This one was Cricket Collection "Be Ye Thankful", the small acorn on the back of the chart. I only had the leaves to finish and the small flowers above the squirrels. And I successfully finished this one already, now to pack it away for Autumn.

Bent Creek "Eagle"

This is another Bent Creek, from the Land That I Love chart. All I had to do on this one was add the olive branch (well and he still needs an eyeball but that will take 2 seconds to stitch on) so I am counting this as a finish!

Bent Creek "Quaker Star"

Bent Creek "Quaker Star" Finally got the strand of WDW Navy I needed to finish, and stitched the eagle in the middle. I really like this one, and am excited to have it hung up for the 4th of July.

Glad Tidings..this one has been stalled for 2 Christmas' now. All I need to do is add the buttons and stitch the leaves. Though I think I am going to switch the leaves for something else, I want to do cardinals there, I just have to find the right size to fit.

This is Prairie Schooler of course. All I have to do on the top one is finish 4 little chicks wings, and the bottom one just needs filling in also. So close!

I don't think I ever posted this start on my blog. I was on a blogging hiatus when I stitched this one up. All it needs now is the cat tails under the M and some back-stitching and i'll have another project to be ready for display in the fall.

Two Lizzie Kate littles, I think the carrot is off of the May flip it, and obviously the bunny is from the April flip-it. All the bunny needs is his paws outlined, and the carrot just needs more dirt. 

 And yet another Bent Creek (gosh I stitch a lot of their stuff!) "Brown Dog" I am out of the brown I used to stitch him in, so I have to wait until it arrives in the mail to complete his cute little face. I also ordered "White Cat" to go along with this one, I think they will look cute sitting next to each other.

Tomorrow is my first day back at work (sniff sniff) wish me luck, or at least that I don't turn around and drive home before I make it in!

Miles Ran this Year: 108.86

Books Read: The Bookstore, finished Ms. Perrigrine's home for Peculiar Children

What I am Watching: Dexter (working through the seasons on Netflix), The Sessions (interesting movie with Helen Hunt), Fat Sick and nearly Dead, and Hereafter