Pretty in Pink!

I hope everyone has been enjoying their weekend.  I am excited that it is Oscar Sunday today, I just love watching the awards show and red carpet.  My favorite picks are still Moneyball and Brad Pitt, my fingers are crossed!  But I think that the Artist with that cute little dog will be hard to beat!

My past week has been busy with work so I have not had as much time for stitching as I would have liked, but I have done a little more on Elizabeth Hancock.  I finished the lady and one doggie, although a lot of frogging was involved!  As you can see I decided to go with pretty in pink.....

First, I decided to do her face and hands over one thinking it would give better depth, but that didn't work and started frogging.  Frogging is a pain in general as we all know...but frogging over one!?  ugh!  So then, I stitched her as charted but the color of her skin was white!  She soooo desperately needed a tan!  LOL  So, more frogging!  Then I decided to use the good-ol' stand-by dmc 951 for her face, and gave her blue-grey eyes and a pouty pink lip.  I left the white at the collar and on her hands so it looks like gloves.  As they say the third time is a charm! :D

Another accomplishment for me this weekend was getting organized!  I have been stash binge-ing lately ~~more like out of control!~~, so there have been piles of charts, fabrics and threads all over.  So I sorted it all out and kit-ted them all up.  I have plenty lined up................

See, I told you... out of control!  But so happy to have it all sorted out and ready to go!
The one on the right is just fabric and thread pulled... I am planning to do a Vierlander sampler but trying to pick out a color.  I am thinking of going traditional, black or dark brown...have any of you done a Vierlander and what color did you use?

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend!  I think I will be switching it up for today and do some more on Mary Wigham while enjoying the Oscars.   I just caught a classic on TV now, Singin' in the Rain...certainly miles of smiles with that movie! :)))

Have a great week!  Happy stitchings!! xxxxxxx

IHSW ~ Weekend Update

Happy Tuesday everyone!  I had planned to do my post last night but I was so busy stitching and just couldn't put it down!  I was fortunate to have a long weekend with the holiday so it was quite productive stitching-wise.  I hope that many of you were able to enjoy a long weekend too.  I dedicated the time to Elizabeth Hancock and am happy with how far I have gotten...

I just love all these STARS! 

Next I will be working on the lady and the house at the top.  I am contemplating making the house pink ~ I have that John Mellancamp song 'Pink Houses' running around in my head ~ and have the lady in a red dress.  Hmmmm, we will see :D

It is TUSAL time again, so here is my new pic for the new moon day.........

And Nicola is having a pet photo competition for funny positions our pets sleep in... so here is a pic of my Gigi and yes her eyes are open because it is just impossible to sneak up on her and take her pic!  She always hears the camera.  So maybe this pic won't count but for now it is the best one that I have to share. 

It is great to see some new followers on my blog, thanks so much for visiting me!  I will be visiting you soon if I haven't already.  Thanks for all the great comments and support from everyone. 

Have a FANTASTIC week!  Happy stitching!  xxxxxxxx

Happy IHSW Weekend!

The weekend is here again! :D

I am so happy to say that my overdyed threads arrived yesterday and YES!! they match the others for my Elizabeth Hancock!  And, of course, I had to pick up a couple of new colors... Barn Door and Bunny Honey.  Not sure if it was the colors or the names that sold me on those... maybe both!

So now I can get busy again on Elizabeth Hancock in perfect time since it is the second IHSW ~~International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, and a long one at that for me with the holiday on Monday!  I hope you will be enjoying a long weekend too!  For those of you who may have not heard of IHSW, it is the third weekend of each month to take time to stitch, stitch, stitch!  Just click on the icon in the right border to join in if you like ---->>

I hope you will all join me with a stitchy and hermitting weekend.  Gigi is all ready.... for hermitting anyway!

I also want to thank everyone for their great comments and for my new friends who are following, it is wonderful to be part of this online community.  I am glad to have found you all!

Happy weekend and happy stitching to you all!!  xxxxxxxxxxx

Lessons Learned

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!   I had a looooong weekend since I had a few days off from work and was excited to get started on Elizabeth Hancock.  However, it didn't go exactly as I originally planned. 

In my last post I had the bright idea to do Elizabeth over one on 32 ct.   HA! That didn't last long at all!  I started that way and within minutes had an instant headache.  I realized quickly that I was not ready to deal with such a BIG project on an over one with 32 ct, tooooo toooooo small!  (lesson #1)  So I will save that over one plan for some smaller projects for practicing.  So once I got past this point, I was rolling along over two and really enjoying myself......love the verse and the star pattern.

I went with the overdyed floss substitutions which are not that close to the silks as used in the model photos but I am liking the differences...

Then came a problem... after rolling along on the verse I ran out of thread!!, leaving the verse unfinished.  Hmmm?  I continued onto to the next color and kept going and realized I was almost out of the color for the vine now too!   Double Hmmmm??

After going from the pattern, to the list, to the threads, to the pattern, what I did finally realize is that the pattern was originally created with Belle Soie with a conversion for cotton floss.  The problem is that Belle Soie is a 12 ply thread and CC and WDW is only 6 ply so you need double the amount listed in the pattern!! which is unfortunately not what I received in my 'floss pack' from the shop.   I had to order another 12 skeins of floss and will hope the colorations will work with what I already have.  So, from now on I will double check and triple check all my materials BEFORE starting (lesson #2!).

What I did get some belle soie for is Sarah Elizabeth Brooke, which will be next in line :D  I have seen this recently finished by some blogging buddies and fell in LOVE!

And the silks are just so beautiful and soft, these colors have such an amazing sheen to them..... I especially love the poison apple, rosebud, and vanilla pudding!  It is going to be hard to resist starting this one now! 

On Saturday I also got my stitching pouches from Faye.  Love them so much, they will be perfect for carrying around my projects....(it looks like those belle soie colors coordinate SO well :))

Isn't the bird pull the cutest!?!   so Sweet!

  ......be sure to check out her designs on her blog, Carolina Stitcher, she does such beautiful work!

It has been great visiting all of your blogs and seeing all of your WIPs.  Thanks so much for all of your comments and visiting and listening! 

I wish you all a fantastic week! and....

..... filled with love, friendship, CHOCOLATE!, and happy stitchings!  xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maple Sugaring and Mail Call

Hello everyone!  I hope your week is off to a great start. :)

Today, I got the opportunity to learn how to tap a tree to make maple syrup!  My friend Lori and her family have been tapping their own trees for years now and since it is that time of year I got a lesson on the process. 

Basically, it requires a spile which is a kind of a spigot for channeling the sap from the tree to collect into the bucket.  The bucket is hooked onto the tree so that the sap will drip when at the right temperature from the spile into the bucket. 

You would think that the sap would be all sticky, but really it is like clear, sweet water.  Once all the sap is collected it is boiled down to make pure maple syrup! 

What a fun idea to do in your own backyard!  To learn more about maple sugaring at home check out my friend's website Tap My Trees.  There is lots of great info on the site about what type of trees can be tapped and details about the process from beginning to end. 

AND, I have a big HOORAY! to shout out.... Elizabeth Hancock has finally arrived in the mail!!

I am so thrilled to finally get a look at everything, although it seems I was not sent enough thread.  I am already thinking about diving into my own stash for a different play on the color.  And I think I will try this one over one since even on 32 ct it will be almost 16" wide on over two!  So I believe this will be a perfect over one project. 

I have the rest of the week off from work -WOOHOO!- I am going to NYC Wednesday night for a rocking show, and then I will be ready to just stitch and stitch and stitch into the weekend! 
Enjoy your week :)   Happy Stitching!!  xxxxxxxxxx

Flower Power!

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!  The Big day of the Big game is finally here! 

As many of you know from my last post I had a fun-filled day yesterday.  So, I want to share some of my flower pictures from my trip to the New York Botanical Garden with you.  Next to stitching, one of my favorite hobbies is photography, and especially of flowers.  It was wonderful to see such stunning COLOR! at this Caribbean flower exhibit... the perfect thing to brighten up this winter. 

Enid A. Haupt Conservatory
A World of Plants

Pom-Pom Tree

Angel Trumpet

Inside the Angel Trumpet
Doesn't it remind you of a Starfruit?

There was even a bush flowering outside.... perhaps with the warm spell we are having it thought it was spring and time to blossom!

And I found a pussy willow tree too... I always loved petting those when I was little...

I hope you enjoyed all of the colors and that they brightened your day too! 

Enjoy the Big Game everyone!  And your Sunday too! 
Happy Stitching!!  xxxxxxxxxxxx

A Little Love

TGIF!!  Happy Friday everyone!  The weekend is here again.  I loved reading all of your comments on my last post, thanks so much! 

With Valentine's Day approaching and seeing so many lovely romantic heart patterns being stitched by my fellow bloggers I was inspired to make a little something too.  I decided to stitch up a freebie pattern from The Workbasket that I found through a post on Darla's blog that I thought would be the cutest quick stitch....   a sweet little Valentine.

Heart freebie from the Workbasket
Ecru DMC on Flourish Rose paper

AND, yesterday, I was happy to receive a package in the mail.... noooo, not Elizabeth Hancock, she is still in transit!..... but I did get the Beautiful sampler box that I ordered from Marly's blog Samplers and Santas that she made!!  I am so glad I got the larger oval size... it will be PERFECT to store some of my stash and threads inside.  And the detail of the sampler print is amazing.  I just love it!!!

So that is my short and sweet update :)   I hope to get some stitching done this weekend, but it is a busy weekend coming up!  On Saturday I am going to the New York Botanical Gardens for the Caribbean flower exhibit followed by a trip to Long Island for my cousin's baby's first birthday party!  So stitching will most likely have to wait until Sunday.  By then I hope to have a few pics of some pretty flowers to share with you and maybe Elmo too!  LOL

I wish you all a wonderful weekend filled with miles of smiles :))))))
and Happy Stitching too!! xxxxxxxxxxxx