Three Cool Pugs, Me and the Great Labrador Experiment

day three into the plan

2012-01-26T09:09:00.002-06:00

and I'm still stitching! I've managed to stitch everyday which kinda is the long term goal. And I'm enjoying it. I was getting into bad routine where I was just channel surfing all evening long. And I really don't even like what's on TV! This is much better. And I've been stitching on the train and not sleeping. I sure can feel that though, I'm much more tired during the day but I'm sure I'll get used to it again.

a new plan

2012-01-24T10:40:00.010-06:00

I've picked up Frederick again from Carriage House Samplings (do they have a new blog or website? I still have the jewelery one bookmarked with no new stitchy stuff on it). I started him in May of 2010. Wow. I'm almost regretting putting Frederick and Frederika on the same piece of linen. Only time will tell how it will look finished. I'll have to make the same adjustment I made on Frederika on the top row of the bottom border. It was designed to be folkartie off by one row but that sort of thing drives me crazy so I fixed it - this one is off also and I'll have to adjust it too. I'll also need to decide if I should make the boxes inside the border the same as Frederika. There is a slight difference in the colors - I'm not sure if it would look better in the same color style or have it different as charted.

I've also come up with a stitching plan for the time being. I looked back over my past two years of finishes and tried to figure out why my stitching came to an abrupt halt. It was a combination of a couple of things but mostly two - my bought my house and second I noticed a real drop off in stitching hours as soon as I started working on my families Christmas gifts for 2010. I don't do so well when I "have" to do something. I think I totally lost focus when I was faced with months of "have" to do. I did take breaks between each one but they were short and in the end I almost didn't finish the gifts I had started to drag my feet so much. So I'm hoping the new plan will get me back in the groove. I haven't purchased much new stuff in over a year now. But rather than go shopping for new and improved I'm going to shop my stash. I have dozens and dozens of charts, hundreds of skeins of floss and more linen than I can count. Plus at least a dozen plus (I didn't even count) of started or totally kitted projects.

So here it goes - I'm going to work on a random WIP until it's finished. Or if I get totally bored and really am faced with not stitching or moving away from boredom for a while by stitching something different, pick up a kitted project that requires no new purchases. But I'm going to try not to start something kitted until I get at least two or three WIPs finished. That's the plan away. :-)

I've made a change to my blog - all part of the new plan. I'm planning on putting a nice photo mosaic on the top banner but so far I've been struggling with getting it to look right.

Last weekend was the first anniversary of meeting Isibeal. I can't believe it's been a year! And we are still trying to figure out our relationship. Both of us think we are in charge! We are restarting agility in a month. We lost so much time with my move and her being in a cast for two months. We are basically back to the beginning. The other in my class are already starting to trial. We most likely won't until late fall/early winter. That is if all goes well.
Here she is the day I picked her up from O'Hare on behalf of my sister.

And her beautiful self last weekend.

Joy finis

2012-01-23T11:38:00.002-06:00

Joy - design by Blackbird Designs

recommended silk floss and linen

I finished up Joy last night. And tossed Frederic in my bag for the train this week. As in the past couple of months, stitching on the train is hard because all I want to do is sleep! Maybe I need vitamins. I never used to have this trouble. :-)

Nothing new on the home front. Just working on the house with my limited time and resources. I'm hoping for a nice income tax check to at least help me get my bedroom redone started. I've been finding time to quilt on the weekends and I have several tops completed to share in the next week. I'm loving the French General lines and completed two tops while on vacation over Christmas. I purchased the latest and it's on my table ready to be cut up.

I finally registered Isabelle with the AKC - her official name is: Isibeal Siofra. In Gaelic I've read that siofra means changeling. It really fits. :-)

Have a great week!

finis finis finis!

2011-12-20T11:21:00.009-06:00

Those of you who have been reading my blog for over a year have seen these needlepoints before. But now they are finally finished!

My family has a tradition of taking turns making each other plus the parents a gift each year for Christmas. Last year was my year and I needlepointed designs from Laura J. Perin. The plan had been for me to have my box maker make me a flattish square box about 3 inches deep to fit each piece. But time got away from me and I never got the boxes ordered so I had to give my gifts with the promise of a box to come in the following year. My oldest brother who is a carpenter of course heard me say this and after Christmas came over to look at the box that was the original inspiration for my idea. My five sided dower box that I put a Quarter design in the year before. He told me he wanted to do the boxes for his year (this Christmas) and I told him my idea and showed him the photo of what I was thinking. He asked to take my dower box so he could check out how it was made and left. I knew he was making progress as he mentioned it a couple of times during the year but didn't think to ask to see the boxes. Three weeks ago he showed up at my door with five boxes. Five dower boxes. Five boxes that didn't fit any of the needlepoints.

In total guy fashion he didn't hear a word I said. He just duplicated the five sided dower box five times. Leaving me to figure out how to make my needlepoints not suck in them.

I decided I had to have mats cut for them but knew right away the finished product would look like the needlepoint and boxes had no real relationship to each other. And it would be my needlepoint and not the box that would suffer most. So I emailed Jill Rensel in desperation knowing if anyone would turn a sow's ear into silk it would be her. And she pretty much pulled off a Christmas miracle. I think they look great and they two piece look like they belong together.

Birds of a Feather finis

2011-12-15T08:50:00.002-06:00

Birds of a Feather - design by With Thy Needle and Thread

Stitched on 36 count French Vanilla

Overdyed Cotton Floss

yeah! I started this bad boy back in May. It NEVER takes me this long to finish a piece. Of course I did have life pop in now and again. :-) Bought a house, rehabbed a house, moved into said house. Dog issues and more dog issues. But she is finally done. I recently started a relationship with Jill Rensel (she did a couple of mats for me - look for the reveal next week) and I want to start getting to my back log of 100's of pieces framed now that I have somewhere to hang them. I think this will be the first piece I send her as it's the first piece I finished while in my new home. I need to date it yet so I'll always remember this year (like I could forget!).

I started on the Blackbird Designs ornament, Joy, from this years JCS Ornament issue using the silks. I bought the little kit that Drema put together. This is the first time I've used the Belle Soie Silk floss and to be perfectly honest, I wish I had not purchased them. They are divine! But I really can't forward them right now and now I want want to use them. Bad move. :-)

Have a great weekend!

closer

2011-12-13T14:04:00.002-06:00

Working on the last bits now. Just a couple of days to go.

getting closer

2011-12-06T08:56:00.006-06:00

I had actual thoughts of finishing this last weekend. :-) Well I was going great until Saturday morning when I went out to my garage to get in the car and drive to the grocery store for a few things. Dead. As in like a doorknob. With no warnings either. Sometimes when your battery is dying a slow death you have some sort of idea. Nothing until I tried to start the car. So I called my sister for a jump and she showed up about a half hour later with a new battery. She really is my super hero these days. She called her husband and told him and he instructed her to just go buy me a new one. So no car until him came several hours later with my nephew to put in the new one. But by then the day was shot. My sister hung around then for several hours and helped me put up my Christmas tree. It's Isabelle proof being fake and so far she hasn't shown the slightest interest in it so I think I'm ok. But the good ornaments are close to the top just in case she thinks they would make good chew toys.

Clancy and Aoife showing off how nice their first Christmas tree is in their new home.

So stay tuned for later in the week for hopefully a finis for the first time in months!

Part one Finis

2011-11-23T11:31:00.004-06:00

I finished up Part One this week and I've decided to finish this one up before I start a Christmas piece. It should go quickly and I already have a good start.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Isabelle says thanks!

2011-11-11T17:19:00.002-06:00

Isabelle had the last bits of bandage and as long as she doesn't mess with her foot too much, she doesn't have to wear her cone any more! Almost seven weeks. We have work left, I have to massage her foot and leg everyday to break down the scar tissue and she needs to do some exercises a couple times a week but for the most part this little adventure is over.

Thanks for all your warm wishes along the way.

Have a great weekend.

part two finis!

2011-11-07T14:14:00.003-06:00

I finished up Part Two of the Birds of a Feather mystery. Yeah so what happened to Part One? As you can see I'm still working on it. :-) I'll finish that up before I start on Part Three. But I'm sure I'll put it aside to work on some Christmas stitching. I need a ton more ornaments to fill up my tree so I'm going to focus on that for now. And maybe a pillow or two. I had out all my fall/Halloween pillows and I just love them. So I want to do the same for winter/Christmas.

By the Full Moon finis

2011-10-26T08:27:00.003-05:00

By the Full Moon

Design by Ink Circles

32 count Ametrine by Silkweavers

I finished up By the Full Moon last night. How about that - stitching at night! :-) I LOVE this little piece and I can't wait to ornamentize it this weekend.

Jack O Lantern

Design by Casey Buonaugurino Designs

32 count hand dyed linen

I also stitched this little guy last weekend - cute and I'm going to finish it round rather than square like charted. I might add a little more dye to the background to make it a bit more orange. It came out a little lighter than I wanted but I didn't want to wait to start stitching. I figure I can just use a spray bottle and spray it on.

I started on this little guy this morning on the train ride into the office - Halloween Spot Motif Shoe by Prairie Moon. I'm doing mine on purple rather than the light green, well because I didn't have any light green linen. :-) This should be all that I get to this year but in case I have time I have two Blackbird Designs Halloween Stockings ready to stitch.

I did purchase this years JCS Halloween edition and nothing jumped out as a "have to stitch". I was hoping for a couple of non-square designs as that is pretty much all I have right now. My tree is going to look kinda boring. :-)

something new

2011-10-24T13:40:00.003-05:00

As I mentioned last week, I've been feeling like working on something fall/Halloween related. So I picked out several Halloween smalls to work on. This is actually the second I've completed/ started over the past few days. I finished one already but forgot to take a picture. Hopefully I can finish it and get it on my spooky tree before next Monday. This one if from a past issue of Just Cross Stitch's Halloween issue from Tracey Horner of Ink Circles on a piece of Silkweaver. I love it. :-) And it's been a great change and I hope to get one more stitched before I sit down and finish the small stash I have from the last couple of years.

Aoife (e-fa) says thanks for all the warm words. She is still basking in the glow. And so am I. We didn't make the draw for the next trial in the area so we have nothing upcoming until November 25th. I kinda wanted to strike again quickly after her success. But we will continue to practice, practice, practice!

Yeah Aoife!

2011-10-18T12:11:00.005-05:00

Two years in the making - Aoife's first Novice Standard Qualifying score and it was a first place with 100 points! We still have a long way to go before she is at the excellent level and I'm sure it might be several more months before she earns another one, but at least she is on the road.

Not to be outdone, Clancy qualified each day in Novice Jumpers with Weavers Preferred. :-)

Isabelle had her first physical therapy appointment last Friday and her outlook is excellent! She will still be in the splint for at least two weeks and for two weeks after a soft bandage so that means the cone for another four weeks at least. We are also going back to the office every Friday for the next six weeks ($$$) for laser treatments and physical therapy. In just two and a half weeks in the splint the muscles on the right side of her body are already larger and her left leg is getting smaller.

But the vet cleared her some freedom during the day when I can keep an eye on her. She spent her first free afternoon sleeping on the couch with the other girls. And she can also go back to obedience class. :-) We lost our space in agility class and will have to restart at some point in late winter. It is always tough to find beginners classes in my area as the really good agility instructors only like to give advanced classes. But I'm hoping I can get her as far as an intermediate class on my own. I have trained three other dogs in agility and do know the beginnings at this point. :-)

feeling fall

2011-10-13T10:40:00.004-05:00

While the progress is adding up on this piece I'm really thinking I want to push it aside for a fall piece. Even a couple of fall/Halloween ornaments would be cool. I haven't purchased the JCS Halloween issue yet and I'm wondering if it's worth it this year? Of course by the time it would show up I'd only have a week or so to stitch. :-) I should have thought of this a couple of weeks ago. :-)

Isabelle is doing super! I had her stitches pulled on Tuesday and the surgeon thinks she is doing great. Almost full range of motion where her ligaments and tendons were cut. He didn't think she would need to be in the splint for the full six weeks but is going to let the rehab vet make the final call. Our first evaluation is tomorrow at TOPS. The place is super expensive but they are the very best in the area. I'm hoping I can stop restricting her activity level somewhat so she can spend more time out of her crate. I'm sure that would make her happy also.

Then on Saturday and Sunday Aoife and Clancy have an agility trial. Our first since a terrible trial in early July. I had just closed on my house and was under a huge amount of stress and we truly sucked. I should have known this would be the case and just passed on the trial but there was always a chance that I would not get the house and I didn't want to spend the weekend knowing one of my favorite trials was happening and I was not there. Wish us luck - especially Aoife. After two years I'm still trying to earn her first novice standard qualifying score and if I don't see some movement there soon I'm going to pull her from agility and focus on Clancy who is doing a bit better at trials. I only have so much money these days and I have to put my money where I can get results and Clancy is closer to his MaCH that Aoife is for sure.

Momentum lost

2011-10-11T08:51:00.002-05:00

I was just starting to feel like I was getting my groove back when I found a monster of a counting error. I had been just living with all the others but this was a half a row mistake. And one I could not ignore. So frog, frog, frog. I don't know about you, but when this happens I tend to walk away for a while. Picked her up again yesterday and got past the frogged part.

Isabelle is starting to feel better and she is having her stitches removed today. Hopefully today I'll get some sort of estimate on how much longer she needs to be splinted. She also has an appointment with a physical therapist on Friday to start a treatment plan. Cross your fingers that we don't have to go the full six weeks. She is miserable in the crate.

long weekend

2011-10-03T12:11:00.002-05:00

I didn't get much cross stitching done over the weekend - actually none. :-) Any progress I made was on the train this morning. I did sew some curtains for my front room bow window and I cut out some fabric for a valance that I'm making for the dining room. That was good progress given everything else I had going on.

It was a long weekend taking care of Isabelle. The poor baby is in pain and can't understand why I won't let her play anyway. I'm supposed to keep her on a leash when I let her outside but that proved impossible because she is so strong and determined and just pulls my arms off. The best I've managed is to keep her from launching herself off the deck. She still tries to run but usually stops short when she realizes just how much it hurts. It's going to be a long month.

Poor Isabelle or a tale of how stupid I can be

2011-09-30T17:00:00.008-05:00

On Wednesday some time during the afternoon Isabelle got her paws (literally) on my brand new food processor blade. It had been sitting on a shelf in the kitchen and she somehow knocked it down. She proceeded to play with it (the vet and I could tell from all the tiny cuts on her paws) and eventually sliced open an artery in her left foot where the paw meets the leg - what I would call her wrist if she were human. I can only assume at some point she got tired of batting it around or it started to hurt and she left it alone but on it's side with the blades up in the air. Then she must have stepped on it hard and the blade cut across her paw, back over her wrist and back up her leg a couple of inches. She almost died from the blood loss. I got home from work a little after 6:00pm and I knew something was wrong before I even got out of my car - Iz didn't meet me at the gate. That was only the first clue - the rest of the night was a nightmare. There was blood on the deck as I walked into the house, in the kitchen it was everywhere and I called for her and she came staggering out of the living room barely conscience. By one of the happy circumstances in life my sister was in the driveway having brought me dinner and was waiting for me. I ran outside and got her and the three of us were off to the emergency vet seconds later. I live very close to an excellent emergency vet that is open 24/7/365 that also has a blood bank. She ended up with a blood transfusion and surgery to repair the artery, ligaments, tendons and muscles that were sliced - she has stitches three layers deep! Iz is splinted and the vet needs me to confine her to a crate for the time she is splinted, four to six weeks. My poor baby! I feel so awful. That blade should never have been sitting on a shelf. I've since gone through the entire house and didn't find any other hazards but of course the damage is done.

I really didn't notice just how much blood there was in the house but my sister did. She was on the phone in minutes calling people to come and start to clean - she told me later she didn't want me to come home to that if Iz died. I of course had to leave Isabelle - the transfusion took hours and they couldn't do the surgery until she was stable. I didn't even know if she would going to make it until the vet called me at 11;00pm. So I got home about a hour and a half after the cleaning had started. And was still shocked by the blood. It was everywhere. My sister wouldn't let me go into the bathroom - apparently she must have settled in there at some point for a long time. Throughout the house there was blood on the walls, of course furniture and the curtains. By the time I went to bed at midnight the worst of it was taken care of and I and I was to go to bed with the great news that Iz would make it.

I was able to pick Isabelle up from the vet at 10:00am yesterday. She's very uncomfortable and hates the cone and crate. I have a better cone coming early next week called a BiteNot and she is in the super sized crate that a friend gave me a month ago when she was cleaning out her house so Iz can turn around and get in and out without much trouble. The pugs are leaving her alone for the most part and I've been working from home. She gets potty breaks every couple of hours but no toys and no excitement. Hard to do with a 10 month old lab puppy. It's going to be a long six weeks. Once her splint comes off she will need to be evaluated for the possibility of more surgery but physical therapy will be a must.

The pugs rallying around Isabelle.

So all the bedroom plans are off for now. The fund is gone to pay to fix my baby. Money well spent and it's not like the bedroom is going anywhere.

a happy surprise

2011-09-28T13:29:00.004-05:00

I've moved onto the tree portion of Birds of a Feather. My counting is all over the place! You can sure tell how distracted I was when I started it. But no big deal - I'll just work around the miscounting and no one will ever be the wiser.

Thanks so much for your kind remarks about my new house. I'm having a blast and all I want to do is stay home and work more. :-) And work on quilts, and pictures and painting....

On Monday I received in the mail a most unexpected bonus. Some how my mortgage company double payed my home owners insurance and I received a refund of almost $1,000! That's the drywall, insulation, new sub floor and paint for my bedroom! I can start the tear down this weekend! That is so much earlier than the January date I was hoping for. Of course I have to clean out the room now. I ended up putting everything that wouldn't fit into the other two bedrooms into the main bedroom the day I moved in (it was against my better judgement but I let it happen anyway). Not being able to move into the "real" bedroom put all my plans for the other two rooms into chaos. My bedroom is 13 x 18, what will be my sewing room is 12 x 8 and what will be the spare room is 8 x 9. You can see how not being able to set up my bedroom in the what is huge compared to the other two rooms set up a domino effect on storage. Everything extra that should have a home in the two spare rooms ended up in the main bedroom and my bed and dresser is totally taking up all the space in the sewing room. I call it the room of bed. :-) So really before I start to gut the bedroom I have to move everything that is currently there and move it to the garage. And I need to make space for that too! I have somehow filled up a two car garage that is totally full with all my extra stuff and holiday things and only one car. ;-) So it will take at least one weekend maybe two just to get ready to start the tear down. So some of the money will be used for floor to ceiling shelves in the gargage so I can stack things much more orderly. Right now to get to one box in the gargage I have to move ten. I hate that.

A long weekend ahead of me.... It needs to be empty before I start tearing out the ceiling - there is blown insulation in the attic above and it's all going to come down on my head and everything else the second I start. What a mess it's going to be! But I'm so glad it's going to happen sooner than later!

getting to the new normal

2011-09-26T10:07:00.017-05:00

I'm finally finding my new normal. I've been in the house a month now and yesterday I actually got my sewing space together finally (new curtains and slip covers soon!) and I stitched when the day's work was done. Here is my progress on Birds of a Feather. Back to the border. I don't want that left when the guts of the piece are done. I'd never go back to the rest! :-)

I took a bunch of photos of the house yesterday complete with shots of the dogs throughout.

I have a long living room and this is what is looks like from the front door. I divided it into two sections - one the tv area and one what I'm calling a book reading area. I need to recover / slipcover the 1980's colored green chairs to the right still but they were a bargain at a garage sale two weekends ago - $22.00 for the pair and just what I was looking for in front of the bow window.

This was the main bathroom before I got my hands on it. It was a mess and I took it down to the studs. New everything. I'm actually still working on it - I still have to put down some trim and finish sealing the tile floor I put down. The bath is small. On the someday wish list is knocking out a wall to make the bathroom bigger.

Here it is now. Chocolate brown and white. I love it.

My dining room is right next to the living room and is open to the kitchen. In fact all the living room, dining room and kitchen are open to each other. It was one of the things I liked most about the house. Here is my china cabinet with some of my depression era glass.

One of my brothers made me a corner cabinet several years ago. I pulled down some cabinets in the kitchen that overlooked the dining space and I lost all my glassware storage. So I made a bar out of my cabinet! I'm so happy with how it turned out. It stores all my bar ware, wine and liquor.

The kitchen area is really low on storage so I put in a pantry in the laundry room. This is still a work in progress - I have another cabinet to buy and install on top of the one shown and I need to add a couple of shelves to the actual laundry space. But I found another space to show off my quilts! They are everywhere. I'm so happy that I finally have space to live with more than one or two at a time.

A shot looking into my kitchen from the dining room - one of two rooms that still needs a ton of work. But the money has dried up and I have much more pressing issues to deal with as I find more money. The kitchen works and I put in all new stainless appliances - there is an peninsula of cabinets and counter top on the other side. I'm planning on putting in a slate tile back splash in the coming weeks and as soon as I have finished doing the outside of the house, I will start to redo the kitchen - a couple of years down the road at least.

This was before looking into the kitchen island area and dining room.

Now after. :-)

The front hall before.

The front hall after (Isabelle is looking out the screen door hoping one of the neighborhood kids comes over to play with her - they come over almost everyday after I get home from work and several times during the weekends). I've haven't touched the front door yet accept to replace the screens on the screen door and Isabelle proof it. :-) I'm replacing the doors shortly and didn't want to waste the time or money to make it look better. If I can't get to it before Thanksgiving, I'll paint the door a nice bright white and get rid of the nasty flat grey color (which by the way is the same color of the siding outside - I can't wait to make it a nice light almond/yellow color with green shutters).

Looking into the house from the front door before.

After. One of my best garage sale finds of the summer. A cabinet made from old barn wood. It was being used as a tv cabinet and has the type of doors that slide into the unit to get out of the way. The plan is to remove those type of hinges and put on the type that just open wide - I'll add shelves and put quilts on the doors to display them and put them on the shelves.

No photos of the bedrooms yet. I ran out of money before I could do over my bedroom. There is a crawl space and there was standing water in it when I bought the place. I've put in a sump pump and drain tile so it's now all nice and dry. The bedroom however is where the crawl access is (in master closet). There was a ton of mold in the room and I had to rip up the floor and I need still to replace all the drywall - walls and ceiling and all the windows in both the bedroom and the adjoining bathroom. And as noted earlier I'm out of cash. So this means I'm sleeping in the larger of the two remaining bedrooms - one is going to be my sewing room and the smaller of the two, my spare room. I'm hoping to start on the bedroom in January or so.

Have a great week!

be it ever so humble

2011-09-06T11:24:00.006-05:00

Last Friday was officially move in day and the truck and movers were at my parents house nice and early. They were gone from my house by 1:00pm and I spent the rest of the day settling in.

It's been several long days for the dogs and by Sunday they were all pooped out. Iz is enjoying a nap on the couch.

I now have a doggy door the all four of the dogs come and go as they please. Molly was enjoying the last bit of sun on the deck Saturday.

Clancy and Aoife were enjoying the early morning sun on Sunday.

Even Hunter got to come over and visit and play!

still here!

2011-08-24T11:15:00.004-05:00

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. I hardy feels like a couple of weeks as gone by - days even - heck, hours even! I haven't had time at night to stitch and my train rides are for catching up on sleep. My daily schedule goes something like this: alarm goes off at 4:30am, feed and water dogs and get ready for work. Leave house at 5:50am to make 6:13am train downtown. 7:40am arrive at work. 3:55pm leave office for 4:13pm train. Walk in door of parents house at 5:30pm. Feed dogs and change clothes - 5:45pm leave for my house. Work, work, work - leave 9:00pmish for parents house. 9:30pm go to bed to do it all again the next day. The weekends only vary by a bit. Get up at 6:00am - leave by 7:00am for house to work, work, work. Leave around 6:oopm or so to pack more. 9:30pm - go to bed.

I'm still busy getting my house ready to move into. All the walls are painted with the notable exception of my bedroom and master bath. There was a leak in the roof (from a poorly installed satellite dish) and mold in the drywall as a result. That means the room needs to be re-drywalled and taped. Oh and I pulled up the moldy carpet also so I need a new floor. And that takes money and I'm out of money.

So I'll be moving into my sewing room for the time being. It's a smallish room but my bed just might fit. :-) I don't know what I'll do with my dresser and other things. So the plan right now is to move in next Friday! After almost two months of painting, pulling, replacing, fixing, fencing and generally being a slave to the house, I'll be moving in. I have two major tasks to finish before September 2nd - finish main bathroom - it was gutted to the studs three weeks ago and dog proof the deck. The pugs can get through the railing and the lab can jump over the railing. It's going to be a challenge because all my ideas cost somewhere around $300. And as mentioned before I'm pretty much out of cash and credit. And I so want it to at least look nice. I spend a lot of time on the deck and I'm not looking forward to seeing an eyesore every time I go outside.

My new fence is great and the dogs love being able to come and go at will. At least they can when I can keep an eye on them. All four dogs tested the deck withing hours of the fence going up. Clancy and Aoife can get through no problem and within minutes of the yard being dog proof I let Isabelle outside and she put her paws on the railing and turned around and looked at me as if to say, hey, I can go over! Na, na, na, na, na. It's a major problem still.

Once I finally move the fun will just be starting. I have a ton of sewing to do - curtains and pillows and such. I can't wait for that. I actually thought I was going to have time last weekend but some family help showed up and they helped me do some tasks that I couldn't manage on my own so I put the machine away. So look for photos in the coming weeks. Before and after - I can't believe the difference. I'm really proud of what I've accomplished.

Stitching for a change

2011-07-27T10:45:00.003-05:00

Despite the fact that I haven't put a needle to thread in weeks, I still drag my stitching bag with me everyday on the train to and from work. The last couple of days, I've even stitched! I put down the border that is Part I of Birds of a Feather and got started on Part II. I enjoy stitching letters and they do fly so I'm hoping that feeling progress will compel me to continue to work on this piece. Especially now that I have some where to hang it.

Every night when I get home from work I load a couple of dogs into the car and drive to my new house to work on it. I have completed two rooms with paint, new switch plates and the like and scrubbed them within an inch of their lives. :-) I'm happy with how they turned out. For now they are starting to fill up with boxes as I bring over a couple every time I drive over and so does my dad. At the rate I'm going all I'll need to move on moving day will be the last couple of boxes of things that I couldn't live without and my furniture.

This week the center of house is having a couple of beams in the underside of the house jacked up and replaced. Over the decades the medal had deteriorated by water dripping on them from the bathroom and laundry room and the center of the house was sagging a bit. And of course I noticed. :-) Then I can start to gut the floors and drywall in the bathroom and laundry room. When I have a new bathroom in place and the laundry room straightened out I can move in all the way. I'll have to live with the kitchen the way it is for the time being because I have other things to replace/repair that are more urgent - like new bedroom windows. But I will give it fresh paint and new fixtures and lights.

I'll post photos soon of some of the before and after - after I move in furniture and hang pictures and the like.

It's mine!

2011-07-16T20:46:00.002-05:00

I closed on my house Tuesday. I felt like the attorneys, closers and agents should have said "congratulations, we regret to inform you it's all yours." :-) It's been a stressful process and I haven't had much time to do anything but stuff that involved the close. The reality is the hard part starts now and that's fixing up my fixer upper. First on my list is get into the crawl space and fix the moisture problem and get my fence for the dogs installed. Then I can work on the bathrooms and kitchen with a goal on moving in before Labor Day.

House woes again

2011-06-13T13:22:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the crappy photo - my camera ran out of juice and I had to use my phone. :-) I'm not making as much progress on my mystery as I would like. Duh, maybe I need to stitch to make progress? LOL! I spent three days in NY last week on business and I spent the rest of the week catching up on work and sleep. I should be getting the next installment in the mail any day and I was hoping to be done with part one before the part two came out.

I'm about 24 to 48 hours away from loosing the house - again. The seller has turned out to be uncooperative as can be. I needed to get in last weekend to start work on the FHA changes and they would not give me permission. So now I'm down to one weekend. And I still don't have "official" (written letter) from them for this coming weekend. The sellers agent says he can't contact him at all but what is funny about that is my sister drove by the house on Saturday and they were there and I drove by on Sunday to chat with a neighbor and they were there also. So much for that. But I did have one good piece of news, the sellers agent said he would take down the fence during the week so I won't have to do to take care of that piece of the FHA requirements. That little piece of help might turn out to be the difference in getting the house and not getting it.

Stay tuned - never a dull moment here. :-)

lovely colors

2011-06-02T10:10:00.002-05:00

I managed to stitch on the train yesterday and this morning! Miracle of miracles. :-) My eyes are getting older - I am having a hard time seeing the 36 count with the motion of the train. I have to be really careful I don't skip or add a thread when counting. I guess it's time for glasses that aren't cheaters.

Bank of American has given me until June 30th to close on the house. We think the seller is moving this week and might actually be already gone. My agent is trying to confirm this. I plan on going into the house at some point Saturday or Sunday with my brother who is going to help me make the repairs. We thought it a good idea to look first so we are ready to go the weekend after with all the tools and suppies we need for the repairs in hand. I'd love to close around the 20th. That would give me several days to clean and paint before moving on the 25th and 26th. :-) This might really happen. :-)

new start

2011-06-01T13:50:00.003-05:00

Here is my new start - the With Thy Needle and Thread mystery. I'm doing mine on Silkweavers 36 count French Vanilla. When I went to pull it out of the bag just now to take a photo I was startled on how little I had completed. It felt like I stitched all long weekend. But I the reality was closer to I picked it up a lot but didn't spend much time stitching. I got a lot of packing completed and that feels good. I have a lot more to go though.

Happy Birthday finis

2011-05-27T08:21:00.006-05:00

Happy Birthday - design by Blackbird Designs

32 count Silkweaver's Purely Primitive

Recommended overdyed floss

I finished up Happy Birthday yesterday. Almost half way! Next up Swan Lake. I really like that one. It's a good thing I'm taking a little break however, I pulled my floss for it last night and was missing a couple. Need to call Drema. :-)

Those of you in the US enjoy your long weekend! I have no plans except to play with the dogs and a little lawn work here at my parents house. I'm hoping to get to the new house at some point on Sunday so I can get a time estimate from one of my brothers on how long the repairs will take. Then I can safely book how much time I need with my realtor as he needs to be there while I'm there.

so close!

2011-05-26T11:54:00.002-05:00

I'll finish up Happy Birthday on my way home from work tonight. Yeah! They a new start for me.

I don't mean to sound so negative about the seller (and thanks for the nice supportive comments! you guys are great). But I do see things from such a different side. When the banks were giving away mortgages without proper checks at 110% percent of the hugely inflated property values I walked away. I didn't drink the coolaid. I waited and saved and waited more. And I finally can buy a home the right way. So while I really feel for this family who is loosing their home, where were the people they trusted telling them maybe this was not such a good idea? I'm not responsible for their bad choices. I'm actually part of the solution for them and for the market in general.

But I did hear some hopefully good news - the seller is planning on moving next week and I should be able to get in the house and make the changes I needed to make before the FHA Inspector comes back. Cross your fingers that the place doesn't get trash on the sellers way out. It's always something. :-(

where does the time go?

2011-05-25T11:35:00.003-05:00

I'm almost finished with Happy Birthday. As soon as it's off my hoop and ironed, I'm going to put it away for a little bit and start on the three part mystery from With Thy Needle and Thread. I'm all ready to start. But I think it's smart to at least finish the block I'm working from Anniversaries from the Heart.

I'm still working my house in Gurnee and it's been so up and down I can't stand it. Late last week I received notice that Bank of America said my offer was the correct amount and miracle of miracles on Monday they approved my short sale! Not two hours after finishing my happy dance I received a call from my agent. The seller is despondent over losing his house (which by the way he has been living in for three years without making a mortgage payment) and has decided not to make the five fixes that FHA has required before they will approve my loan that he agreed to do five weeks ago (shame on my agent for not getting it in writing). So now I'm back to scrambling. I have asked if the seller will clear out for one weekend day so I can go in and make the fixes myself so I can get my loan. They are small - so small as to be ridiculous - but they must be made. I figure they will cost less than $100 for all five and take only a day. Mostly scraping some pealing paint and some repainting of the outside window trims and deck. One bathtub handle needs to be replaced and two electrical outlets need to be switched to GFI outlets. The fence in the backyard needs a few boards replaced. That is it! But FHA is holding all the cards and I don't have enough money for a down payment to go with a conventional loan. I haven't heard anything yet and once again I'm being held hostage and no idea what is going to happen. I just want a house! How hard can this be? And the reality is I'm helping the seller out by doing the short sale - he is avoiding a foreclosure which will be reflected on his credit for 10 years! The short sale falls off after 3 or 4 years. And he won't be evicted - he can move out in an orderly fashion. If you had small children like he has, what would you do? I just don't get it.

a good weekend

2011-05-10T13:48:00.005-05:00

I started to work on Happy Birthday this week. I was totally going to put this aside and work on a WIP but when I went to pull out my stack of WIPs I discovered that I had packed them! And now since I'm not moving best case until mid-July, I think I need to find what box they are in and pull them out. I really need a change for a couple of weeks.

The pugs and I had a great agility trial. Once again our Q (qualifying) rate was low and it totally doesn't really represent how good Clancy and Aoife are doing. Clancy went 1 for 6 for the weekend and it was just really small things keeping us out of the money. His excellent jumpers runs are amazing and he is really into the game. Aoife has only been doing Jumpers for the past few trials because I still can't get her to focus on a standard course and there is no point in paying to have her run around and bark at me but she too is running great, super fast jumper courses.

Here is Aoife poising with her first place Open Jumpers ribbon which was also enough for her Open Jumpers title. She is now in Excellent A Jumpers and is running the same jumpers courses that Clancy is.

Clancy qualified in Excellent B Jumpers on Saturday with an 8th place finish. Good for a pug but not his best time of the weekend. He dropped the triple on Friday and Sunday and either finish would have placed him in at least 6th place which is amazing when it's all said and done for a pug.

Next weekend we have another trial and then I'm taking a bit of a break to save some money for the move. Or at least I'm still hoping I will have a move planned. It's all in the hands of Bank of America at this point. That's the sellers lender. I only gave them 60 days to decide whether or not to approve the short sale to me. My attorney advised 90 days but I didn't want to lose the entire summer in case they ultimately voted against me. The stress is getting to me. I so want to move now! :-) And then I can be really broke but it's a good broke as it's for my house and making it just the way I want it.

Farm House finis

2011-05-05T08:47:00.005-05:00

Farm House - design by Blackbird Designs

36 count Silkweavers Purely Primitive

recommended overdyed cotton floss

Another one bites the dust! I so wanted to work on something else (I'm really bored with this color palette) but I didn't have time last night to pull something else together. I should have just grabbed one of my many WIPS but I didn't think of that either until just now. :-)

windows!

2011-04-28T07:52:00.004-05:00

I have a door and windows! Yeah!

And what is the big deal you ask? For those of you who are newcomers to my blog, you might think this as very normal. But those of you who have been visiting for years, know that me not stitching on a regular basis is not the norm. But I'm making progress. :-) And I love to get back to my usual rate of finishes. Especially now that I might have a house to put them in.

I picked some spring flowers yesterday from my garden. Is there anything better than this?

sunny weekend!

2011-04-25T08:12:00.003-05:00

Northern Illinois had a sunny warm weekend for a change and the pugs, lab and I enjoyed every second of it we could. So I didn't at much stitching in as I wanted to but I did get some in! All that is left on Farm House is the house and it's a big one. I'd love to have this puppy in the can by Friday but that's wishful thinking on my part. :-)

Have a great week!

making progress

2011-04-21T10:51:00.004-05:00

I've made some progress the past couple of days on Farm House. I haven't managed to stay awake on the train ride into work but have managed to stitch on the way home. I'm hoping now that's is light (or almost so) when I leave the house in the morning, soon I'll be staying awake on the way in also. :-) It would be good to get back into the swing of things. I think when I finish this block I'm going to take a break for this piece and work on something else. Maybe a small finish will motivate me to work more on my stitching. And I have so many to choose from. :-) It will be fun just to look though my stash.

Not much news on the house front. The sellers now have a contract from me and I'm hoping for short sale approval from their bank within the next 60 days. That's pushing it but I don't want to be held hostage by them and I'm thinking more houses will come on the market starting in the summer. Cross your fingers for me. I originally didn't want to go the short sale route because not many are approved. But it was just too good of a house not to take the chance. Walking into a house with $30,000 of equity in this market is worth the try. :-)

snow?!?!

2011-04-18T08:15:00.004-05:00

Spring snow is always so startling. Especially when I had no idea it was coming. We got about an inch and a half and the only one who seems to be enjoying it is Isabelle. :-) I did get some stitching in but not as much as I had planned. I found home improvement books to be far more interesting. I've been going to Home Depot and looking at the books and if I like them, buying a used copy on Amazon (some for just pennies). I had a ton show up on Saturday and spent hours looking at how to re-wire, trim and tile.

Isabelle is getting so big! Here she is with Aoife taking a nap. She is now double the size of the pugs. They just run under her when she is in the way. :-) Isabelle is five months old this week and I expect her to continue to grow for at least through the end of the year. At this point I'm hoping I end up with a 24 inch agility lab rather than a 20 inch one. There are far less dogs in the larger class and fewer border collies.

Have a great week!

house buying pain

2011-04-15T14:17:00.006-05:00

Is buying a house ever hard! At least 20 times (or at least that is what it feels like) the deal felt like it was going to go bad and something happened and it was saved. But now I'm in a holding pattern again. The seller needs to make some repairs for my FHA Loan to happen but it's a short sale and the bottom line is they don't have to do anything if they don't want to. If they don't make the repairs I have to walk away. But in the meantime, I've had to pull my financing deal (I locked in 4.75% and had to let it go) and I won't be closing in April. At the rate I'm going not even in May. The stress is killing me. And I started to pack in anticipation of moving at the end of April so half my craft stuff is packed while the other half is not. I'm living in box land. So between the stress at work and at home I haven't been stitching. I'm starting to miss it. I have no plans for this coming weekend and I'm hoping to get some time into some of my projects.

The pugs are doing great with agility. Clancy has earned three Qs (one of them a third place in Excellent B Jumpers) in the last couple of trials and Aoife got a first place last weekend in Open Jumpers. A bit of a break until May and we go at it hard again.

Here is a photo I took yesterday of little Isabelle. She is huge! And she is living on my coffee table. No matter how many times I tell her no or off, she gets right back on. It's driving me crazy.

I got the house!

2011-03-30T14:44:00.003-05:00

If all goes well I will be officially become a home owner on April 28th. :-) This is the most money I have ever spent for my dogs. :-) They will love the big yard and I can finally get a doggy door!

not much stitching going on

2011-03-29T15:16:00.007-05:00

Life has gotten in the way of stitching these days. Between the dogs (with the puppy being a particular time suck), agility and looking for a house, I haven't had a lot of time left over. But here is my progress on Farm House by BBD little as it is.

I made my first offer on a house the Sunday before last. I didn't get it as the seller accepted a cash offer. However, I got a call last night from my agent saying the cash offer fell through so I'm back in the running. I'm finding the entire process to be quite stressful. :-) But I should know something by the end of the week.

I had a three day agility trial with the pugs last weekend. We went 0 for 12. :-( I was so bummed. I've been working so hard over the winter to sort out some kinks but we are still not quite there. I have another this weekend and next weekend and I'm hoping for better results. Thanks for stopping by!

well color me stupid

2011-03-14T13:40:00.006-05:00

So last Thursday I started on Farm House the next Anniversary of the Heart series. And got a lot done in just one train ride I thought. On the way home I picked it up again totally meaning to keep my momentum going. Then I noticed that I started this piece one block short on the left. I would have to pick out what I've done and start over. Bummer! I so didn't feel like doing that then and in any case, I wanted to have the chart from the one above just to make sure they lined up correctly before I start again, I just put it aside and napped on the way home. This loomed over me all weekend. So much so that I didn't open my stitching bag. So this morning I remembered that I still needed to check the first chart to line every thing up and I tossed it in my bag. The start of daylight savings always messes with me so I just slept on the train into Chicago and never even looked at it. When I got to work I made a quick copy of the top of Farm House and the bottom of Snow Garden so I could tape them together so I could see exactly where I needed to start.

So what did I see when I lined everything up? That I didn't mess up! The lovely BBD ladies made the left hand edge almost the same in both charts and I wasn't off after all. :-) Yeah for this. But I did lose an entire weekend of stitching. Bummer for that.

I started my house quest in earnest this weekend. How distressing and depressing it turned out to be. What I can really afford right now are short sales and bank owned homes. At least half of the ones I looked at where unlivable in their present state. The people living in them either striped them bare before moving or just gave up on doing anything even remotely resembling maintenance. I actually went into one place (that I had high hopes for) that had two feet of water in the basement! The other half needed major work like roofs and windows and things like that and I don't want to start out my home ownership adventure doing that.

So I'll pull ten more or so and go out again this weekend. I'm really sad that I might not be able to have a yard after all. If none of the older homes in the area work I might have to start looking at townhouses. They are newer and for the most part in good repair but very, very few have yards and fences for the dogs. Or another option is to start to look in Wisconsin for houses. But that will add an hour a day to an already almost three and a half hour a day commute. I don't like either option very much at all.

Pink Hill Manor finis

2011-03-09T12:39:00.005-06:00

Pink Hill Manor - design by Blackbird Designs
32 count Purely Primitive by Silkweavers
Recommended overdyed floss

I finished up Pink Hill Manor on the way home from work yesterday. I'm a third of the way complete with Anniversaries of the heart! I'll start the next one this evening or in the morning. Isabelle and I have puppy class tonight and she will come home tired so I might be able to stitch without her trying to eat my hoop. :-)

a great weekend

2011-03-07T13:42:00.005-06:00

The pugs had a great agility weekend. Aoife got two second place finishes in Novice FAST and her Novice Fast title and Clancy got his first ever Excellent Standard Q! And since he is still in the A class, it was first place! I uploaded a bunch of youtube videos from the trial - the link to my page is on the left side of my blog. Aoife didn't run nearly as well as Clancy did - she was her usual crazy self. On Saturday the only thing that kept Clancy from Qing was dropping the top bar of the triple jump. Broke my heart for him both times because he gives everything he has to the moment and was so awesome on both courses.

I didn't have time to stitch - I stayed the weekend by the trial site at a hotel and played with friends on Saturday.

But I did have time on the train! I'm getting close to the end of this one. Hopefully this week. In fact tonight I'll toss in the next chart with the floss just in case I'm closer than I think I am.

I made some progress

2011-03-01T11:44:00.006-06:00

Took the train in this morning and look! I stitched! :-) This should go quickly now that this house is done. This is one of my favorites from Anniversaries of the Heart.

I finally a picture of Isabelle where her eyes aren't glowing. It's so hard to take nice photos of black dogs. Between her color and the fact that she almost never stops moving, it's been tough. :-) I really need to get a good photo of her with the pugs. Then you can see just how much bigger she has grown.

I'm very saddened by the loss of Lisa Roswell and I wish her family well during this time. She was one of my favorite newer designers and she will be missed.

Georgie

2011-02-28T08:43:00.007-06:00

I had a question last week regarding the fabric around my embroidery hoop. I've seen it called many things, I always call them my hoop huggers. I put one around everything I'm working on whether I'm using a hoop or q-snap. They are super simple to make. This one pictured started out as a 6 inch strip of fabric. I measured the hoop around the outside and multiplied that amount by 2.5. I cut a length of quilting fabric to that measurement six inches wide. I turned under the edges on both sides to make a nice clean edge, stitched up the two ends together to make a continuous piece of fabric and put 1/4 inch elastic under the long edges to gather it and make it stretchy. I like mine wide enough to tuck the extra linen into it while I'm stitching. It does keep the linen nice and clean and every so often I just pop the covers into the wash.

I have seen them on sale on the internet but unfortunately I don't have those links anymore or I would share them.

Just to clear up any confusion I do live with four pugs. :-) But I only own three. Georgie officially belongs to my mom who I live with. When I move out in a couple of months Georgie will remain behind but don't worry, he won't be alone. He will be living with Lily the big yellow lab that also belongs to my mom. In the event that something happens to my mom, I will happily take Georgie at that time to live with me.

back on puppy patrol

2011-02-25T09:42:00.004-06:00

Now that I'm back on puppy patrol, I don't have as much time to stitch at night as I did the days Izzy wasn't around. But as I've said before, any progress is progress! :-)

No plans for the weekend except the International Kennel Club Dog Show in Chicago (need to buy puppy stuff!) and dinner with friends. Hopefully the rest of the time will be spent stitching and playing the pugs and lab.

I had a great suggestion for my blog name - three cool pugs, me & the lab experiment. I love it. :-)

Have a great weekend!

all I can do is smile today :-)

2011-02-22T10:19:00.007-06:00

Loving my progress on Pink Hill Manor. My dye lot of Jacky Brown isn't as pink as the photo and it's a nice color.

Thanks so much for all your kind words regarding the return of Izzy! I'm still pinching myself. I got a call last night from my BIL and they just couldn't take the chaos of two puppies anymore. The two puppies were not playing well together at all and were total terrors when they tried. Izzy who had totally bonded to me didn't want much to do with them and they thought her offstandish and not very affectionate. Hunter was preoccupied with playing with Izzy and in turn ignored them. While the puppies were with me I crated trained them so they would sleep in crates at night giving them a break. But my sister and BIL are not fans of crating so they let them roam around at night. They would disrupt the household in the middle of the night with their antics and no one was sleeping. All good for me it turns out. :-)

When I got her home Izzy ran around with the pugs and greeted each one. The pugs were like, where've you been Iz? Georgie was especially happy to see her. She didn't stop waging her tail until we went to bed and she fell asleep.

She is bigger than all of them!

I'm one happy camper. And I am here to tell you, it really is easier with only one puppy. Breakfast was so easy without Hunter around. I think most things will be easier with just the one. I'm so glad I get to find out.

Now I really need to find a new name for my blog. :-)

She's back!! :-)

2011-02-21T21:53:00.001-06:00

And all mine now and forever. :-)

it's almost a house

2011-02-21T08:24:00.002-06:00

I stitched over the weekend! Miracle of Miracles. :-) I didn't have as much time as I had planned. I kept getting distracted by this pile of dust and this pile of laundry, oh, look there is a dust bunny! And before I knew it, it was Sunday afternoon and I finally sat down. But the house is nice and clean.

No train ride today - I'm working from home. So there is a good two hours less that will get stitched today. :-( But the extra two hours sleep I got this morning sure was nice.

a great start

2011-02-18T09:45:00.004-06:00

I had a really good start to Pink Hill Manor. Almost the entire border complete in just two train rides? I wish they were all so constructive. But the seasons are changing and it's almost light for the morning train and light for the evening train and that really helps keep me awake. Who knew I was half bear? I'm coming out of hibernation! LOL!

Have a great weekend! The pugs and I are going to do our best for the same. Most of the snow is gone now and all that is left is a yard full of mud and dog poo. I know what part of my weekend will involve. Yuck.

A Wish For You finis (for now anyway)

2011-02-17T10:48:00.004-06:00

A Wish For You - design by Blackbird Designs

32 count Purely Primitive by Silkweavers

Recommended overdyed cotton floss

I finished up A Wish For You on the train ride into work this morning! Yeah! I got another couple funky dye lots of some colors so my windows look totally hosed. I need to just stop stitching when this happens and pull something else out of my stash rather than complain when the piece is completed. I plan on adding a different saying that continues throughout the entire piece ala House of Hawk Run Hollow. I just need to find something of suitable lenght that I like. Once the last two charts come out I'll see just how much space I have to work with. I'd like to do 2 over 2 but I'll make 1 over 1 work if I really like something that is longish.

I'll get started on Pink Hill Manor on the way home from work tonight. This is aonther one where I love the chart but not so much the colors. But I'm just not up to changing it around right now. I just want to stitch and not re-design. :-)

back to it

2011-02-16T11:28:00.003-06:00

I've been trying to find time to start stitching again. Enough feeling sorry for myself already! :-) I'd love to get this piece finished over the weekend and since I don't have any plans, if I just plant myself on the couch and ignore my Facebook page, I might actually do it.

I've starting house shopping! Prices in the area where I live and want to buy have finally come down to reasonable prices and with interest rates where they are I think I can finally do it and still eat. And that means the pugs eat! So it works for everybody.

Izzy is doing fine and my sister and brother-in-law love her very much. I just worry they won't have time for her like I would have nor have the skill set to train a high drive dog. But I'm sure it will all work out. I'm going to hold off on my lab puppy search until I'm in my new place. I'd love to have a puppy more of less potty trained before I move but I don't want to complicate my life even more right now.

She's gone :-(

2011-02-11T09:17:00.004-06:00

I came home from work yesterday to find the house emtpy of labs. I miss Izzy already. But I know she will be fine - my sister is kind even if my brother-in-law is isn't.

I'm still here :-)

2011-02-08T13:08:00.009-06:00

As you can see not a lot has been stitched in the last two weeks. Mostly because of the following photos. It's still full blown puppy time at my house. :-) So between the puppies, a blizzard and jury duty last week, I haven't had much time to stitch. And whenever I try, one or both of the puppies wants to eat my project. Not good.

But here are some random shots from the last couple of weeks. The aftermath of the blizzard. I missed the snow of '99 as I was living in LA at the time and I was only 5 years old for the snow of '67 and I don't remember much. But this will will linger in my mind for years to come. 20+ inches of snow is a lot. It's hard to tell from the photo just how much snow is in the backyard because of all the blowing and it's also hard packed and the dogs are running on top of at least 12 or so inches. Over the course of the storm I had to go outside every couple of hours to keep shoveling snow away from the door because it would have been five or six feet high if I didn't and we would not have been able to get out at all. This is Hunter, Izzy and Georgie running and playing. Hunter loves it, Izzy and the pugs not so much.

Hunter playing while it was still snowing. I had to shovel a path for the pugs.

I don't let Hunter on the couch but every time I turn my back this seems to happen. That's Molly with him.

Izzy loves to go back to bed after she goes outside - every time she comes back in she runs right to the bed and snuggles in. She is not much for the cold and snow.

See what I mean about turning my back? Hunter, Aoife, Izzy, Molly and Clancy all taking a nap. When Izzy came two and a half weeks ago, she was smaller than my smallest pug, Aoife. Now she is bigger than the biggest, Georgie.

Molly and Izzy taking a nap. Yes, Izzy is special and she gets to sleep on the couch.

I have all but begged my sister and brother-in-law let me keep Izzy. My sister is willing but my bil won't. They have no clue what they are taking on. Maybe if they had been able to train Hunter to do anything I would not be so adamant that they are making a mistake but that 5 month old lab is out of control and they are clueless as to what to do. Now they are going to ruin another. And my bil has stage 4 colon cancer and is in no condition to take on another puppy and my sister isn't up to the job either as she is sick with an autoimmune disease. I told them it was stupid idea before Ken got sick but now it's asinine and borders on insane.

I love that little puppy so much. It hurts just to think about her leaving but I expect one day this week I'll come home from work and she will be gone. No good deed goes unpunished for sure. :-(

a wild week

2011-01-24T11:22:00.011-06:00

It's been a wild couple of days at my place. Last week my brother-in-law had some pretty intense surgery that was very unexpected. He originally was supposed to go in on Wednesday but the surgery was stopped midway through after the docs realized that it would be much more complected then they first thought and rescheduled him for Friday. So I picked up my sister's 16 week old yellow lab, Hunter. Such a sweetie! The pugs even like him despite his larger than life size. :-) My sister needs to be at the hospital as much as she can and not worrying about Hunter was a huge relief for her.

Sweet Hunter.

Hunter and Georgie deciding what to play with next.

Then just to really complicate things more, the OTHER lab puppy my sister and brother-in-law purchased a month ago was scheduled to arrive into town last Saturday and once again I was pressed into service. Meet 9 week old Trixe (I've been calling her Izzy, short for Isabelle).

She is the sweetest thing ever. I'm secretly hoping she will be just too much for my sister and brother-in-law, with his very long recovery before him, to deal with and she will get to stay with me forever. :-) Yeah, I know, it's just wishful thinking as my sister stopped by last night to meet her and also fell in love. As it is, it will just kill me to give them both up after three or four more weeks. I think one little black lab is perfect payment for all my trouble. :-)

Izzy would make a wonderful agility dog. At nine weeks old she is just a tad smaller than the pugs. By next week, she will be larger then all of them.

So not a quilt or stitching piece was worked on since mid-last week. I just don't have time with all the chasing after puppies I have to do. :-)

Sewing Bird Pinkeep finis x 2!

2011-01-18T13:49:00.007-06:00

Sewing Bird Pinkeep - design by Country Stitches

32 count Purely Primitive by Silkweavers

Assorted over-dyed cotton floss

I finished up my two little Sewing Bird Pinkeeps over the long weekend. These are going to live with my niece and niece-in-law. They were intended to be Christmas presents but I got behind and didn't finish the stitching until the day after Christmas. After that I was in no hurry. :-)

Here is my progress on A Wish For You. I've almost finished the house. I thought for sure I was going to get this chart finished over the weekend but I ended up working on a quilt top. But I didn't get that finished either. But I got in lots of nice naps with the pugs and that was as good. :-)

finally a new start

2011-01-12T14:03:00.003-06:00

I finally got started on the fourth BBD piece to the Anniversaries of the Heart collection - A Wish For You. I wish I could say it was because I was in the Alps skiing or on the beaches in Cancun but in truth I was in Gurnee, IL on my butt watching TV and eating bonbons. :-) This one won't go as fast as the last one did - that is one big honking house! Shades of Houses of Hawk Run Hollow all over again. I love the colors of this one and I love to stitch houses so it at least will be fun.

Thanks for stopping by and hanging in while I figure things out. I am reading all the blogs I can but not taking much time to say hi. There is some great stuff being stitch right now.

Bonus finis

2011-01-05T12:48:00.003-06:00

Anniversaries of the Heart Bonus #1 - design by Blackbird Designs

32 count Purely Primitive by Silkweavers

Recommended overdyed floss

I finished up the first bonus pattern on the way into work this morning. It did go super quick but I'm looking forward to moving on. I really didn't care of the colors on this piece but I love the ones on the next one - A Wish For You. I'm hoping to start on the way home but I'm feeling pretty tired so who knows if I'll be able to stay awake. :-)

so close!

2011-01-04T15:29:00.003-06:00

As you can see, I only have a bit to go on block #3. I should have stitched more over the time off but I just didn't feel the stitching bug in me. I had a great agility trial with the pugs. Both got a qualifying score and the other runs we just one little thing away from a ribbon. They are both getting so good! I was a very happy pug handler. :-)

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T20:15:00.004-06:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Three - ops, Four Cool Pugs and me!

a lost weekend

2010-12-20T15:34:00.002-06:00

A week ago I really thought I would have this block completed by today but a bad case of food poisoning on Thursday pretty much ended that idea. I was on my back for a solid 24 hours with the rest of the weekend a loss. I have never been so sick in my life! Stitching was the last thing on my mind. But hopefully with a couple days working from home this week I'll and being able to find more stitching time and I'll start to make some progress. My dye lots of my overdyed floss are off compared to the chart. I not really happy with the colors (it's the alphabet I don't care for) but I also just want to move forward. So that's the plan. This piece will be so large that I'm sure it will end up fitting in nicely. Or at least that is what I'm telling myself. :-)

Have a great week!

Valentine Rose finis

2010-12-16T09:52:00.005-06:00

Valentine Rose design by Blackbird Designs

32 count Purely Primitive from Silkweavers

Recommended Overdyed floss

I love that these are as fast as I thought they would be. :-) Given how little time I seem to have these days to stitch I'm working through them pretty quickly. As you can see with the piece, the changes I made were to the vase, I made it longer to fill in the bottom and I added a stem of flowers on the left. This covers up where the personalization is supposed to be nicely I think.

Here is the start to the bonus pattern #1 (what a boring name). This one is going to fly! I'm losing track of where the publication of the charts is at. Maybe through September? That would leave three more plus the bonus pattern #2. I wonder if I can get caught up before the last one comes out. That would be sweet. :-)

so close and a big thank you :-)

2010-12-14T12:26:00.004-06:00

I'm so close to finishing up Valentine Rose I can taste it. :-) Just that little bit on the house and it's finished. I have the chart and floss to start the next section and most likely will tonight on the way home from work.

The pugs and I had a good four day trial. Our overall Q rate (we ended up 1 for 16) does not show how good we really were. Day one was shaky but it got better from there. Clancy made each and every contact for a total of 12! And his tables were perfect! That has never happened before. Clancy's only Q was in Excellent B Jumpers and it was amazing. I love that pug. :-)

Aoife was 50/50 in terms of excellent versus bad pug. :-) Her jumpers runs were almost all Qs but her standard runs.... She got picked up four times out of four. We still need lots of work.

When I got home I had a wonderful surprise waiting for me! A box of Christmas goodies from Edgar! How cool is this? He even included some treats for the pugs. Edgar those cherries are to die for and what can I say about the white chocolate?? And I can't wait to try the jam. Huge thanks to you and Rico. You guys are the best. :-) That is Clancy checking everything out as I unpacked it.

I don't often chat much about Georgie my fourth cool pug and I never chat about Lily the lab that also inhabits my life. But here they both are keeping each other warm during this cold streak. They can be found like this most days. :-)

oh so close

2010-12-07T10:35:00.005-06:00

I'm almost ready to start the last step of Valentine Rose - filling in the bricks on the house. But I won't have much time for the next week to finish. Tomorrow I have dinner with friends so no stitching time there. On Thursday to Sunday I'll be attending my big agility trial of the year in Milwaukee - Hounds for the Holidays and I'm staying this year in Milwaukee rather than driving home each day. I'll bring the stitching along but I'm sure I won't have the time or energy as lots of friends will be there.

Wish me and the pugs luck - we have been working really hard and I'm hoping for a couple of Qs. Especially for my wild child girl pug, Aoife. :-)

busy weekend

2010-12-06T11:02:00.004-06:00

I got a lot stitched in on Valentine Rose over the weekend. All that is left now is the big honking house. I did make a couple of changes - I made the vase longer to cover the personalization and I added the flower on the left of the short vase. I like how it turned out. I also changed the funky "S" on the door. I never like how it looked in past pieces so I figured why not change it for this one? :-)

Have a great week!

Snow Garden finis

2010-12-03T11:36:00.004-06:00

Snow Garden - design by Blackbird Designs

32 count Purely Primitive linen from Silkweavers

Recommended overdyed floss

I did finish up my Snow Garden on the way home from work last night with time to spare. And got a start on Valentine Rose this morning. :-) I'm happy with the two extra keys I stitched in. It was easy to remove the initials on this piece but it won't be so easy on some of the others. But I'll work at it and I'm sure I'll come up with something I like.

I took a photo of the entire piece of linen. Wow, I have a way to go!

Here is the start of Valentine Rose. Not sure if I will work on it much over the weekend. I'd rather get some more done of my silk glove project.

Have a great weekend!

almost

2010-12-02T11:52:00.003-06:00

Just a few more stitches to place and I'm finished with the first part of Anniversaries of the Heart. I'm going to find a couple more keys to stitch in rather than the personalization recommended. In fact that is the plan for all the charts to the series. I'll pick out something from another chart in the series or something that relates and stitch that rather than the initials of others.

Hopefully I'll start on February's chart tomorrow. :-)

a great long weekend

2010-11-29T10:30:00.002-06:00

I had a great long weekend. Lot's of cooking, eating and crafting! I only worked on two project but feel good about both. I picked things that I can't take on the train with me and that have been laying around for a while.

The first is my Goldwork Glove project. This is the restart of the project. I started back in the early spring but was so unhappy with how it was looking I pulled everything out and put it away. I was chatting with a friend a couple of weeks ago and she sent me some links to videos on long and short stitches and it gave me the urge to try this again. First I pulled the linen from the scroll frame I had it on and put it on my set of evertight stretcher bars. I got this tip from one of the websites I had visited last week and I thought I would give it a go. And it worked beautifully! With the evertights I can get the linen really nice and tight. Then I had to find the frame clamp for my Needlework System 4 stand. I figured it would be with the stand but it wasn't. Took me over two hours to find the little bugger! I was so mad at myself. Why didn't I store it with my stitching things? No I put it in a closet on a shelf with my unused linens. Go figure. :-) But finally after three or so hours of prep, I was ready to stitch. And I think it looks ok. I there is still a lot of room for improvement but I can live with what I ended up with. The silk is very forgiving. I ended the day with the first half of lesson one finished.

Then I pulled out the little hooked rug I started back in the spring. I only had the background to fill it and I worked on it Saturday and Sunday until I was finished. I'll make this guy into a pillow like the other small rugs I did. I have one more pillow to go and then I'll start to look for a bigger rug design to work on.

That's all for now. It's back to working on my BBD project. If I can stay awake on the train that is. :-)

Enjoy the week!

half way

2010-11-22T10:31:00.003-06:00

I've managed to make it half way with Snow Garden. I've decided not to personalize each block as recommended in the series of patterns. I'm just going to add motifs or little sayings where I need to fill in space. Notice the linen is enclosed in the brand new wooden hoop. I LOVE it! It really does hold onto the linen and it's as tight as a drum. On Wednesday I will get myself to Joanns so I can purchase the twill tape to bind the bottom hoop. That will make it even easier to get it drum tight.

Aoife had a crappy agility trial. There were a couple of small highlights but for the most part she was in it for herself and not the team. :-)

Enjoy your week!

Friday at long last

2010-11-19T09:04:00.003-06:00

I'm super happy with the progress I'm making with Snow Garden. I really enjoy working BBD pieces. I don't think I'll have much time this weekend however for stitching. I have a two day agility trial with Aoife and I'm always wiped out when I get home at night. And I need to start getting ready for Thanksgiving. I can get some cleaning done this weekend and that will get me a little ahead for next week.

Have a great weekend!

I'm still stitching!

2010-11-18T11:01:00.004-06:00

Believe it or not, I'm actually still stitching! Yeah for me. :-) Thanks for all the great comments about my choice of linen - Purely Primitive. I think it's going to work out great even though it might not be the best for the first block of this piece. Of course IRL the color of the linen is brighter and the fibers do show up better. It's just my crappy picture taking skills not making it look nice.

I've been doing a bit of shopping - like I actually have money. :-) I did finally purchase the four of the chair series from Cat's Whiskers from the shop in Western Australia. It's called La Roseraie. I hated not having all of the series. It should be here next week but I'm thinking I most likely won't get to it for a while as I only purchased the chart and not any of the supplies. I figured why pay shipping from the other side world for the same stuff I can get here?

My friend Kelly also turned me onto some really nice hoops and after seeing hers in person I had to have a couple. They are the ones from Hardwicke Manor - wooden and made in Germany with the heavy duty brass hardware. - I purchased a 6" one and an 8" one. I'll take the extra step of binding them before I start to use them. I can't wait to get them in the mail. I also resurrected my Floral Glove Needlecase project from the bottom of my craft closet. It's the one designed by Tricia Wilson Nguyen of Thistle Threads. I had such a hard time with the opening stitches that I pulled everything I had done because it looked like crap and walked away from it. That was beginning of the year maybe? Well Kelly helped me find some really great online tutorials as well as some videos of the long and short stitch that I needed and I'm going to give it a go again. Wish me luck. :-)

a new start

2010-11-16T09:08:00.005-06:00

My linen came yesterday for Anniversaries of the Heart and I have no will power. I've been wanting to start on this piece since the first chart came out and then only thing that was keeping from it was the $50.00 fat half of linen I needed so I could do them all on one piece. I also knew when I finally took the plunge, I would cave in right away. And I did. :-) Here is the start of Snow Garden. I'm stitching mine on 32 count Purely Primitive - my favorite Silkweavers color. All my fibers came in the mail also so I'm good for supplies for the first four charts and the bonus. These are going to go quickly. I have really missed doing my BBD projects.

:-(

2010-11-15T13:08:00.003-06:00

I was hoping to have a couple more squares done by today but I only managed to stitch on Sunday evening. But still no linen yet from the Silkweaver distributors. I should have all the fiber I need though to complete the first row of Anniversaries of the Heart in the mail today. It would actually be a good thing if I didn't get the new linen for a couple more days. I'd love to finish more of this piece.

Have a good week!

back to some old stuff

2010-11-11T08:36:00.002-06:00

While I'm waiting for the linen to come for my BBD project I thought I would do some cross stitching. I went through all my lined up projects and then of course the several unfinished projects reared their ugly heads. So I figured I'd just work on something that is in progress rather than started yet another something that I would just drop when my linen arrived.

So here is the return of my IsaV Marquior - I haven't worked on it since February. I'm using 35 count WDW linen in Havana with Vikki Clayton silks in Imperialosity and Bewooded. I started this puppy in February of 2009. Yikes. And I have a lot to go.

Toad in a Puddle finis

2010-11-09T07:52:00.002-06:00

Toad in a Puddle - design by Laura J. Perin

24 count congress cloth

#8 pearl cottons

It's finished! Yeah, it's amazing what finding the flow and having good light can do for a project. ;-) I now have five of six of my counted needlepoint designs completed. I'm going to take a little break and do some cross stitching. Or maybe finished the rug pillow that I started in the early spring. I need to pick up the ornament edition of Just Cross Stitch magazine. I was at my local JoAnn Fabrics on Sunday and they didn't have it. I'll try the book store this weekend. I'd like to stitch a couple for my ornament tree. I didn't get many done last year and of the ones that I did stitch I never made them into actual ornaments. Just ran out of time.

oh so close

2010-11-08T10:57:00.003-06:00

Super close to being done with this. :-) I finally found a flow with the cream border. I followed the instructions. :-) LJP said it's much easier to do the border if you stitch in the diamonds first. Well duh, I did that on the second border and it went twice as fast as the first one. I really should read the entire packet of instructions before I get started.

I finally ordered a big honking piece of 32 count linen for the Anniversary of the Heart piece from BBD. I really hope it comes today or tomorrow so I can start on it. I really need to get back to stitching. I also bought a really nice standing OTT lamp. I had a table model and it died several months ago - I had no idea how much I missed that puppy until I tried to stitch in my favorite chair at night without it. So hopefully I'll be back with the flow in no time at all.

On Saturday I completed one of my HUGE running goals for the year. I ran and finished the Hot Chocolate 15k. For those of you not big into metrics, that is 9.3 miles. :-) And I ran it with an 11:45 pace. For me that is lightening fast. Now I think I'm going to tackle a half marathon. I've done several in the past but none in the past eight years. My bestest running buddy is doing the New Orleans marathon in mid-February and suggested I go with her and do the half. That is plenty of time to get trained for it (13 weeks) and I'm thinking about it.

Have a great week! Hopefully I'll have a finis this week to share.

not yet

2010-11-01T12:47:00.002-05:00

But closer to a finis! I didn't put a stitch in last week. So much for my plans to get going on the last one of my Christmas gifts this week. I had it with me everyday on the train but napping was the plan for the commute. This is a fairly hard border also compared with the others. You really have to keep an eye on the canvas and the chart while stitching. So if I was feeling even a bit sleepy I wasn't up to all the close work of counting. Hopefully this week will be different. :-)

happy happy

2010-10-25T11:17:00.004-05:00

I got a lot done over the weekend with Toad in a Puddle. I'm liking this one more as it progresses. The next (and last) is a similar colorway and I wish I would have changed it up a bit. But I've decided that I'm going to start on the next one as soon as I finish this one. Hopefully by the weekend.

Have a great week!

progress :-)

2010-10-21T12:45:00.003-05:00

I'm making fast work of Toad in a Puddle. I went through my stash last night and really would like to get to a couple of them. :-) But I have to get though these canvas pieces first. I was going to make them all a box lid but I never ordered the wood boxes with my guy and I'm sure it's too late now to get them before the holidays. So now I need to come up with a back up plan. They all finish around 7 inches square. I guess I could frame them all but how boring is that? Sudberry House makes a wooden box that just might work but I need to get on it. And with a total cost of over $350.00! Ouch.

ABC Pinkeep finis

2010-10-20T10:30:00.001-05:00

I finally finished up ABC Pinkeep. I purchased a cute pin set from Just Another Button Company. My sister will love it. :-)

Now to make one for me!

a new start

2010-10-19T12:59:00.004-05:00

I started on the fifth of my six required Christmas gifts for the year. It's called Toad in a Puddle and like the others designed by Laura J. Perin. It occurred to me just this morning if some of my problem in getting myself to stitch is because of have these "HAVE TO" stitch projects hanging over my head. I stitch for my own pleasure and have never done well with any sort of project that I HAVE to complete within a deadline. It will be interesting to see what happens when I get that last one finished. I wonder if I become interested in stitching again. :-) On one hand it's good information to have. On the other hand I would have to have wasted so much time on dragging my feet because of the needlepoint designs.

Have a great week!

ABC Pinkeep finis

2010-10-12T11:21:00.003-05:00

ABC Pinkeep - design by With Needle and Thread

recommended 25 count flax linen over one

Various overdyed floss

My sister's birthday is in a couple of days so I had to quick get something together. ABC Pinkeep stitched up really quickly - just four or so hours work maybe? Now I need to finish it off. I have the cute little oil can just the model and I'll do it that way. :-) I think I'll make one for myself while I'm at it.

Yes, it's me!

2010-10-06T09:03:00.002-05:00

I've never gone so long before without an update. Life is really busy and I have been barely stitching. When I have time and the inclination, I have been working on Frederick from CHS. As you can see I'm stitching him under his pretty wife Fredericka. I've had this in my commuting bag since I finished the tiny BBD Halloween ornament I did last month.

Things are really crazy right now. A couple of weeks ago I was at Pug Dog Nationals in Ohio. The pugs did well but no ribbons. They were however, the fastest pugs there. :-) That was nice. The I was in NYC for a few days with work. All I had time to do was visit the American Folk Art Museum. I have to admit I was a little disappointed. Not in the museum itself but by how little stuff there was! I wanted so much more to see. It's only five or six really small floors of work. What they had however was really nice.

I have new responsibility at work and the timing of this new responsibilities coincided with a dramatic upturn of the volume of work with my regular job. Most days I don't know if I'm coming or going. The stress is unbelievable and most days rather than stitching on the way home from work, I sleep. I also am sleeping on the way in. The one thing I'm trying hard not to stop is my running so I feel like I'm tired all the time. I'm starting to feel very burned out. I really don't know how people live like this for years. And I know some that do. I know I can't. I miss stitching but all I seem to want to do when I do get home from work is sit and do nothing. I guess this will pass at some point, I mean, how much pointless TV can I really watch? :-)

Until I get my schedule worked out, you all have fun and be safe! I'll check in when I can and hopefully have wonderful stuff to share.

Autumn Stars finis

2010-09-10T11:02:00.002-05:00

Autumn Stars - Design by Blackbird Designs
36 count Silkweavers Dark Tan
Recommended overdyed floss

I finished up my little Halloween ornament on the way home from work yesterday. I have a few that I did last year that needed to be finished. I'd love to get around to it in the next few weeks. But I have some travel coming up. Ohio next week and then a trip to NYC on business the week after. So much to do and so little time. :-)

Have a great weekend!

not much going on

2010-09-09T13:47:00.003-05:00

I haven't much felt like stitching lately, cross stitching or needlepointing. Don't feel like quilting or doing many of the other things that usually please me to do. I've been lazy, seeming to spend countless hours sitting on my patootie watching tv, reading magazines or playing computer games. I did manage to start on BBD Autumn Stars and in a week of train rides this is all I've managed to do.

Some of the lack of stitching on the train is because I don't feel like stitching but also because I'm so darn tired. I'm up to running around 18 miles a week now and three days of it need to happen before I go to work. So that means getting up at 4:00am or so. So I sleep on the train. :-) I'm also taking a yoga class a couple times a week and I've been trying to step up my home practice. That is taking time away from crafting also.

And agility is taking up a fair amount of time in my evenings too! I couldn't do much at all in the months of July and August because it just was way to hot for the pugs. Now it's cooler and we have a big trial coming up so I've been working them every evening. Next week we are driving to Mason Ohio for Pug Dog Nationals. It will have a one day agility trial on Wednesday - pugs only! It's always a blast and I would like to show well.

So there you have it - I'm lazy, busy, tired and bored with stitching. :-)

I've had a koi pond for over ten years now. About five years ago I purchased my first lotus plant. It finally blossomed! First time ever. The fragrance was amazing. It lasted for several days and the petals dropped off but I'm still left with the pretty bright yellow seed pod. Hopefully next year I will get a couple blooms.

Hide N' Seek finis

2010-09-01T07:37:00.003-05:00

Hide N' Seek - design by Laura J. Perin

24 count congress cloth

#8 Pearl Cotton

Four down and two to go! I finished up with Hide N' Seek on the way home from work yesterday and for the first time this year I'm on track. The plan was one every two months. Today I should start on number 5 but I'm not sure if that's what I really want to do. I'm thinking something fallish. I have the chart for the BBD designs Halloween house that they published last year that I'm dying to get to. Also I still have several Halloween ornaments that I want to get to. Not sure at this point where my hands will go. :-)

almost :-)

2010-08-31T10:51:00.004-05:00

Just a bit of border to go and I'm finished with Hide N' Seek. And I should be able to do it on the way home from work. If I don't fall asleep that is. :-)

so much for finishing

2010-08-30T11:04:00.003-05:00

I really was hoping to finish this puppy off by last night. But I never put a stitch in! On Friday I went to yoga class and once I got home just vegged. On Saturday I did complete a five mile run but I find that after such a long run that last thing I want to do is sit down and stitch. So I ran errands most of the day and then just vegged for the rest of the day. On Sunday I did an early morning yoga class and came home and vegged (see a pattern here?) for the rest of the day. Well most of it anyway, the agility pugs and I had a private agility lesson. That was fun. But it was hot and when I got home I just.... vegged. :-)

But I made great progress this morning on the way to work and hopefully I will really be finished in the next day or so. ;-)

2010-08-26T13:08:00.002-05:00

I'm over half way finished with the little blocks. I haven't had much stitching time the last couple of days. Agility class on Tuesday and sleeping on the train has pretty much taken away my time from Hide N' Seek. But I'm still hoping to have this piece finished by Sunday evening. The only plans I have for Saturday are a 5 mile run and taking half of the pugs to get their nails trimmed. And yoga class on Sunday. :-) Other than that the weekend is all free.

more blocks

2010-08-24T09:45:00.001-05:00

Things are really moving along with Hide N' Seek. I'm actually thinking I could have it done be the weekend is over. :-) How about that! :-)

a new start

2010-08-23T08:45:00.006-05:00

For a weekend change of pace, I stitched. :-) How about that for different? I didn't get as much done on Hide N' Seek as I was planning because I started Scott Lee, a design by the late Jean Hilton. I thought I would post a photo after each step. Of course I came up with this idea after I finished the first step so I don't have a true before photo. ;-)

All the pretty colors! When I was repacking the thread, I dropped one of the balls of DMC and didn't notice. But Georgie did. I found it the next day in one big tangled mess so I need to buy a new one. That darn Georgie. :-)

Step one completed.

Step two completed. I'll only be able to work on this at home - it's big - 13 x 20 and much to large to bring anywhere.

Have a great week!

yeah - it's friday!

2010-08-20T08:21:00.002-05:00

I've started work on the twenty or so blocks that surround the center. These go quick and I'm hoping to get some in this weekend. I would also like to start quilting again - yesterday I received in the mail month 8 of the block of the month quilt and at last count I have only completed three so far. I hate being so far behind!

Have a great weekend. The pugs and I are planning on doing the same.

center finished

2010-08-18T09:09:00.002-05:00

I finished off the center portion of Hide N Seek. These colors are so fun! Next is the black and yellow border that I'm working on now and then 20 smaller blocks using the bright colors around that. The one small black border and I'm finished. I knew this was going to go quick. :-)

bright!

2010-08-17T09:19:00.003-05:00

These colors are popping! Just wait until I had the black contrast borders. They will fly off the canvas. :-)

Thanks for all your kind words yesterday regarding my 5k finish. :-) You all made my day.

Cherry Hearts finis

2010-08-16T10:40:00.005-05:00

Cherry Hearts - design by Shepherd's Bush

32 count unknown linen by Silkweavers

Recommended silk threads

I finished up Cherry Hearts on Sunday. Yeah! It feels good to have a cross stitch finish. I have not had one since oh, maybe April -May? In any case it feels like forever. But as soon as I put the last stitch in to hold the ribbon in place I moved back to my charted canvas work. I'd like to be finished with the remaining three by the end of September. I have a couple of fall/Halloween projects (some ornaments and a BBD Halloween house from last year) that I want to do but would like these out of the way first.

And speaking of counted canvas, here is number four - Hide 'n Seek by Laura J. Perin. This is the odd ball of the group. It's similar in that it's a quilt design build around a variegated pearl cotton but the similarity stops there. This one is like a big scrap quilt and it's very, very bright! Have you ever seem me stitch with orange? And bright yellow? Wait until I get the pink in there! It's really fun already and will go very quickly.

I ran my first official 5k in eight years on Saturday! And my niece Dana ran with me (she is on the left). Or at least most of it. I slowed down at about 1.5 miles into the race and she wanted to set a PR so I told her to leave me in the dust. :-) I finished in 37 minutes with a 12 minute pace. Which was my goal for this race. I was surprised I made my goal - at race time it was already in the 80's with about 98% humidity. It was so hot!! I took a small walk break even. I can't wait for the next 5k - I'll shave a little more time off toward my goal of a 30 minute 5k.

getting closer

2010-08-12T10:41:00.004-05:00

I'm working on the last border on Cherry Heart! Yeah. :-) I've been lazy for the better part of two months now. I sure hope this ends soon because I've got a ton of stash I want to get to.

I'm planning on starting another LJP charted needlepoint as soon as Cherry Heart is complete. I went through the three I have left and I really hated one of the color combos that I picked out. It was so boring and flat. So I went online and picked out three more variegated #8 pearls as options. All three are shades of blues and greens and hopefully one will work. They would be replacing a kinda drab multi green skein that I picked out with mostly solid blues. It just doesn't look right to me.

Today I completed my Couch to 5k program. :-) I'm now can run a 5k from start to finish. Now I'm working on just getting more time on my legs. Then I'll start a 10k program in a couple of weeks. After that it's simple - just start running longer on Saturday's until I can run a half marathon (13.1 miles). But I have plenty of time for that - I don't plan on doing a half until next spring. Now if the extra 10 pounds was just go away as easy as it was to start running again. ;-)

not much done

2010-08-09T09:04:00.002-05:00

I haven't made much progress with Cherry Heart. Last week I had several work commitments in the evening so no stitching there and over the weekend I never even glanced at it. It was an odd weekend, I felt super busy but really didn't do anything. :-) Ever have that sort of weekend?

I'm working on the borders now so what I have left should be quick. Then it's back to my Christmas gifts.

Have a great week! Hopefully it's cooler where you live. It's a humid oven here in Northern Illinois.

heart is done

2010-08-03T09:47:00.001-05:00

I finished up the heart last night and have started on the first of three borders. The colors are very soft and I'm really happy to took a small break from my needlepoint projects.

August already?

2010-08-02T13:21:00.003-05:00

I spent the weekend doing really tough yard work. Digging and carrying and axing out tree stumps. I had no energy at night to even stitch. :-) But I'm still making good progress with Cherry Hearts. This will make a cute little pillow I'm thinking.

Have a great week!

new start

2010-07-30T09:44:00.003-05:00

Here is my new start - Cherry Heart from Shepherd's Bush. I did a quick look at my stash and I didn't feel like tossing through my fibers and linens last night. Then I remembered that I have another stash of prepacked kits and things that I have already kitted up. Cherry Heart jumped right out. It's small and quick and will be a nice break from the counted needlepoint.

Have a great weekend.

Margie

Cluster of Lilies finis

2010-07-28T07:31:00.002-05:00

Cluster of Lilies - design by Laura J. Perin

24 count congress cloth

Various #8 DMC floss

I finished up Cluster of Lilies on my way home from work last night. Three down three to go! Yeah, half way. :-)

I really want to take a break but these are working so well I'm feeling like I should continue to go with this. I'm working from home today so I'll have a little more time tonight to look at my stash and make the call. I kinda want to do some cross stitch. Stay tuned!

almost!

2010-07-27T10:02:00.004-05:00

Just the dark green border to go and I'm finished with Cluster of Lilies. I'd like to take a break before starting number four and am eyeing the new BBD series as a start. But I need the big piece of linen and I really don't want to spend $50 on it right now. I've got a lot of other expenses right now and that seems a little out of line for what I should be spending on my stitching.

I did receive a small gift check award from work a couple of weeks ago and I put the money toward a new project. :-) Have you ever seen this?

It's called Scott Lee and it's a teaching piece that Jean Hilton designed before she died. It's a counted needlepoint piece. My friend Kelly had wanted to do it for some time and she found a shop that was selling them. So I got one too. :-) My supplies should be here by the end of the week. I'll only be able to do this at home though as it's 13 x 20 inches and way to big for the train.

I've done a ton of Jean Hilton pieces and this one is going to be fun! A challenge but fun!