almost done with part 2

I've been able to get some work done on Alpha Menagerie. Aoife has been taking pretty good naps the last day or so now that she has settled down into a routine. As a result, I feel like I've actually made some progress. That's good for me! I need to start back on Toccata Two in the evenings and on weekends. I figure I'm almost half way finished and I'd like to get the stitching stand put away.

But what to start on next? I have the new loose feathers ready to go but I really don't feel like working on it right now. But it is on the smaller side and I bet a good week of train rides and I'd be finished. I just need to go purchase the box at Hobby Lobby. And just yesterday I received in the mail from Elegant Stitch two charts that I had ordered back in September, The Celtic Band Sampler and the Hunt Sampler both by Homespun Samplar. I'm going to do the Hunt Sampler in different shades of fall colors. This is an idea I borrowed from a fellow blogger, Mindi. Hers turned out so pretty. And I want to convert the Celtic Band Sampler into variegated floss from the original DMC. And of course I still have a couple of WIPS I need to get on with, most notably my Marquoir ABC and St. Reatham. How sad, I haven't worked on Marquoir since the spring and I dated it 2007! It's so pretty and I'm half way done with the piece - I found a photo just this morning of if and wondered what happened to that mojo.

Aoife continued to be a joy! But I have to admit, I had forgotten about a few puppy things. Like those teeth! Yikes! They are like needles. So we are working on her bite inhibition. With mixed results I might add. She still seems to think I arm she is personal chew toy. My other two pugs are still I'm sure, secretly hoping she will just go away. :-) Molly and I are coming up on four years together early next month. And because both my pugs are so good with their toys, I still have her first ones which are now four years old. And as you can imagine, over the past four years, their collection has just continued to grow in size. Now Aoife has discovered the joys of the toy box. By the end of every evening, it looks like my floor is breeding toys. Here is Aoife and Clancy last night. It's hard to pick her out! She is having a blast here and as I write this is sitting on lap sound asleep. :-)

Settling in

Aoife is settling in well. Clancy has learned to play a little more gently and the two of them have not slowed down since. Molly just watches. :-) I'm not making much progress on Alpha Menagerie. The only time I can work on it is when the puppy is asleep. If she sees me working on it she makes a beeline for me and wants to play with whatever I have in my hand be it a chart, thread or linen. :-) And I'm happy to play with her instead, her puppyness will be so brief I want to enjoy it. I hope to be finished with the third band by the end of the weekend - I'm almost halfway finished with it now.

Clancy and Aoife take a nap.

And the little princess herself. :-)

It's a girl! :-)

Yesterday I picked out the little girl (Beanie) from the pug litter. I have named her Aoife (pronounced E-fa). It's a Gaelic name to match my other Irish pug names. :-) It was down between Beanie and Southpaw as they were the two pugs of the five that were more interested in playing with me rather than the other pugs. After watching the final two interact with me, each other and the other three pugs, it was apparent that Southpaw was the dominate puppy of the bunch and the most aggressive puppy in a litter doesn't always make the best agility dog because agility is a team effort and sometimes they tend to be headstrong. So Beanie was the pug for me. And to tell the truth, I am very glad that this is the case. She is a sweetie! She is outgoing, brave and very clever and I know everyone will get tired of looking at photos of her.

Clancy and Molly are doing well with the change in our household. Clancy wants to play but he's still a little rough but he's getting used to being gentle. But it's not like Aoife really cares. She has been chasing him around the house and the yard since we got home yesterday afternoon. She is already climbing up and down the doggie stairs to get to the couch and get back down when she wants to play with Clancy.

As you can imagine, there was not a lot of stitching going on. I'm working on the third row of Alpha Menagerie. I fell asleep on the ride into the office this morning. While Aoife is a little angel, the first couple of nights away from mom and her litter mates is hard on a baby and she was restless and needed comfort from me.

Friday! :-)

I haven't made much progress on Alpha Menagerie. The last couple of evenings I've been busy doing other things and I've been working from home the last couple of days so no train rides for stitching. Hopefully I'll get some stitching in tomorrow. I'd like to start making progress on the third band on this section.

Sunday will be all about the new puppy! I can't wait. Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.

Puppy time!

Here is my progress on Alpha Menagerie. Almost finished with row one. I'm glad I started back on it. It will be great to have another project further along.

I was sent photos of the litter of pug puppies that I'm selecting my new pug from.


Presenting:

Beaner - this little girl (she is the runt) is only 3.3 lbs. and my current favorite just reading about their personalities and looking at their photos. I know I said I wanted a boy, but this little runt is really tugging at me. :-)
This is PJ, my first choice if I go with a boy after all. He is over 5 lbs already! A really big boy.
This is Nacho, the other really big boy of the group. This is Seven, she is named for a big white seven on her chest. She is 4 lbs. And lastly, Southpaw, named for his white toes. Such a cutie, he is on hold because his weight has been going up and down and the rescue wants to keep an eye on him for a while. But I love that white paw.

See how hard my job is? How do you pick just one? I'm really torn between Beaner and PJ. I've decided that if it's a girl, I'm thinking she will be Maeve and of course if it's a boy, Fionn.

Simple Harvest Finis

Simple Harvest from With Needle & Thread by Blackbird Designs

28 count Silkweavers Marine Blue Linen

Needle Necessities overdyed floss - Snoqualmie Falls

I finished Simpler Harvest into a standing piece yesterday. I'll give it to my sister next Monday on her birthday. Hopefully this will get her off my back for a while.

I really didn't do a lot of stitching over the weekend - I'm kinda bored with it all right now. I did manage to put some work into Toccata II yesterday. I'm about half way done with this piece. For the train ride this week I started back on Sheepish Designs Alpha series, working on Sheepish Menagerie. I figure I need to get some things in progress finished just in case I quit cross stitching for a while. That would be bad because the last time I stopped stitching for a while it was almost 20 years before I got back to it. No progress photo because all I did was one letter. Tomorrow for sure.

I did my new puppy shopping Saturday. Wow, did I spend the money. But I'm sure little Finn will appreciate it. :-) I stopped in at Joann Fabrics and found the cutest little black tree to hang my Halloween ornaments from. Now I need to stitch some more - the two did last year look a little lonely on the tree.

While I was trying to take photos of my finish yesterday, guess who jumped into the photo - Mr. Clancy. Such a ham!

no picture today

I finished up my alphabet (still can't remember the name of the piece) from BBD's book With Needle and Thread on the ride into work this morning. And I tried to take a nice picture. That Marine Blue is impossible to photograph indoors so I'll take a picture after I done the finishing work. I don't think it's so large that I can do a stand up with it. I'll finish it off like a pin keep but add a back piece and make it stand up. It should be pretty. I don't know what I'm going to start on next. I'm bored with everything I have in progress right now. And I'm not feeling very inspired by my stash. When I look at other blogs, I like what everyone else is doing right now a lot more than what I'm doing. Maybe it's time to work on some quilts to break things up. I'm sure shopping for new stuff would help a bit but funds are very tight now and I'm picking up my puppy next Saturday and I'll need a ton of new puppy stuff so that is where my spare money this week is going. I'll go shopping tomorrow for that. :-) I love new puppy shopping. I'm probably due to take a drive out to my LNS but it's an hour each way and I really don't need anything. I just want everything. :-)


Have a great weekend! It's going to be beautiful here in Northern Illinois both days and I hope you have the same where ever you are.

progress on alphabet

Here is my progress on the Blackbird Designs piece I'm working on. You'll just have to take my work on how pretty the marine blue linen and thread is since I'm finding it impossible to take a good indoor photo of it. :-) Half way done. I'll finish up by the weekend and hopefully get it framed since my sister's birthday is the week after next.

How pretty is this? It's not mine (DARN) but my friend Kelly's. I met Kelly at work many, many months ago when she spotted my stitching sitting on my desk at work. She stopped by to ask if she could see it as she is a stitcher herself. We've been sisters in stitching ever since. I'm pretty sure I enabled her to start this Long Dog piece, Beauty Spotte. Now she has enabled me because I want to buy the companion piece, Sonne Spotte. :-) What goes around comes around I guess!

I received several wonderful comments about the puppy photo I posted on Monday with a couple of comments about the little tiny puppy second from the right. You guessed it, she is the runt. At the time the puppies were born she was only 2 oz. compared with her siblings 4 oz. Poor baby! If I wasn't hoping to do agility with my new pup, I would sweep this little thing up in a heartbeat. But I'm concerned that the rigors of agility and training would be too much for her as she very sick several weeks ago and was rushed to the vet. But all is well now but I don't want to risk her health in any way. Isn't she a darling? This photo was from around 4 weeks ago and she is obviously triple in size now. I pick up my new baby on the 13th - I can't wait! I'll take lots of pictures of all the babies and share.

Sampler of Stitches MNO / PQR

Sampler of Stitches - MNO / PQR - The Drawn Thread

Recommended 30 count linen

Recommended NPI Silks

I finished up PQR last night leaving the queen stitch quilt for last. I don't know why I think I hate that stitch because I always end up enjoying it. :-) Like all the others, these two charts worked up super quick and I love how they are all looking together. Only three more to go!


I started a small project from the Blackbird Designs book, With Needle and Thread. I'm using a really pretty Silkweavers 28 count called Marine Blue. I'm using the coolest Needle Necessities overdyed floss called Snoqualmie Falls - it's dark marine blue, dark green and dark mauve. Needle Necessities is sadly going out of business so a couple a weeks ago I picked up about 15 skeins of my favorite colors. Anyway, this will be a birthday gift for my sister. She as been really bugging me for about a year now to give her something. Personally I think that's very rude but she just keeps at it. So hopefully this will shut her up for a while. :-) I was going to make a mattress type pincushion out of it, but I think it will finish too big for that so I might end up putting it in a small frame. I'll have a photo tomorrow for sure when I have more than just a couple of letters complete. I should be finished by the end of the week for sure. I'm not sure what I want to start next/finish up. I'm not really enjoying working on Quaker Samplings from CHS but I really want it finished. So maybe I'll work on that for a couple of days and start the new Blackbird Designs Loose Feather. I'm already to go with that one.

Sampler of Stitches MNO finis

I finished up with the Sampler of Stitches MNO yesterday afternoon. The two new patterns were waiting for me when I got home from Pug Dog Nationals on Thursday. I should finish up with PQR tonight. Super fast as always and as always, filled with mistakes and really bad diagrams. I actually gave up on one of the Q stitches and just did it my way. To bad about that because I love Drawn Thread patterns.
As mentioned above, I attended Pug Dog Nationals last week in Harrisburg PA. It was Molly's final trial and Clancy's first AKC trial. Molly went out the way she came in a year ago - running around the ring like a fool. :-) At least I wasn't expecting anything different from her. Clancy did really well for his first trial. Except for his weave poles, he did great. He finished two of the three runs and I was very pleased overall with how he did. His best run of the day was his Jumpers with Weaves course. Sometimes I can't believe how fast that little guy is. He was rocking that course. The only problem area was his weaves. I really thought he knew them better but it really showed me we need to practice much more on the entry. His next trial is in six weeks and we will put in a lot of practice before then.

And in other breaking news - it's a boy!

One of these five beautiful pug puppies is mine. I want a male and three of the pups are just that. And I even get first pick! By looking at the photo, my two favorites are the one on the far right and the big one in the middle. My local Pug rescue got a phone call on August 13th from a woman who wanted to surrender both parents and all the day old puppies to rescue. They are seven weeks old today and I should be able to take mine home in three weeks or so. To keep the Irish theme going, he'll be called Finn McCool. Molly Malone and Clancy O'Shea will no doubt be thrilled they are getting a baby brother. :-)

Off to PA

Here is my progress on Toccata II. It's coming along nicely.

Tonight I'm starting the drive to Harrisburg, PA to attend Pug Dog Nationals. Yesterday my friends and I decided we wanted to get a jump on the 12 hour drive. The trial itself takes place on Wednesday. The temps are predicted to be in the upper 80's. Not exactly pug weather but my two do ok in the heat.

Wish us luck! :-)

slow progress

I'm so spoiled by being used to just quickly moving along with projects that when I get one (or two) that takes longer or seems to take longer, I get impatient. Such is the case with Toccata II and Quaker Samplings. I am making progress but it's slow. :-)
No stitching tonight - I'm going on a dinner cruise with some friends and I'm staying downtown. So no stitching tomorrow am either. Good thing the weekend is coming so I can get some real work done! :-)

a tale of two projects

It's been a while since I had two separate projects for evening and day. I had rather gotten used to working on one until it's completed. I love working on Toccata II but then I always love working on Drawn Thread pieces. I'm not enjoying Quaker Study as much - I'm not really in the mood to be working on such a piece. But I'll keep at it as least for the rest of the week and hopefully by then I'll be so far along I'll just want to keep at it.
Next week I'm on vacation but I'll be spending much of it on the road to Harrisburg PA attending Pug Dog Nationals with my two pugs and some friends and their two pugs. We will only be there for one day completing in the agility trial so it's two days on the road. It's Molly's last trial and Clancy's first AKC trial. I need to find a piece to stitch on in the car. I'm hoping I'll get some inspiration from some of the charts in my stash but to tell the truth I don't have many and I doubt if my order from Drema with my new Loose Feathers and the two new Drawn Thread pieces will come in time. What to do what to do??

Autumn Silhouette finis

Autumn Silhouette by Blackbird Designs

Recommended 30 count R&R Linen

Recommended Weeks Dye Works fiber - Swampwater

I finished up Autumn Silhouette and made a pillow with it on Sunday. I think my autumn couch is complete! :-) This was a super quick stitch and I'm very happy with how it looks.

My fully kitted stack is getting very lean so I put Toccata II on a scroll frame and gave it a start Sunday evening. I had to substitute a couple of NPIs but they are in the same color family as the recommended silks and I'm sure it will turn out just fine. Since it's on a 18" scroll, I won't be able to work on this on the train so it's going to be a strictly evening project. I can already tell it's going to be pretty when it's done. I love the Drawn Thread! I have already ordered the next two charts for the Sampler of Stitches; MNO and PQR. Drema says they will be out this week. I can hardly wait.

As for my train project, I picked up Quaker Samplings from Carriage House Samplings. This project is on a Lakeside Linens 36 count using two different NPIs. Boy is it ever hard to do 36 count on the train. The fabric is dark, the lighting on the train sucks and the movement all make it very difficult to see. I don't know how long I'll have the patience to work on this.

Quaker Hornbook Finis

Quaker Hornbook by With My Needle

unknown 32 count linen - stitched over one

Milady's Teal by Crescent Colors

I finished up my Quaker Hornbook last night and even had time to put it into hornbook form! :-) This was a group project that Ellen Chester from With My Needle made available to members of the Internet group, Legacy Embroiderers Guild earlier in the year and it included the pattern and the wooden hornbook. I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Here is my progress on Autumn Silhouette - it's another quickie and I'm sure I'll be finished by Sunday. Right now the plan is to make one more fall pillow. And speaking of pillows, thank you so much for your kind comments on Trix or Treat! I purchased the fringe at Hobby Lobby. They have a great selection of trims and fabrics and I'll be visiting them soon so I can pick out finishing stuff for Autumn Silhouette.

Since I'm moving along quickly with my projects, I took some time to go through my stash to see what jumped out for attention. I'm getting low on fully kitted projects! I guess that is a nice place to be but it's certainly not as much fun when I don't have a big box full. :-) I think I need to fix this and go shopping. :-)

Trix or Treat Finis

Trix or Treat from Blackbird Designs from the booklet Trix or Treat

32 count linen - solo from Silkweavers

Recommended fibers

I finished up Trix or Treat on Saturday and even managed to put it into pillow form. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I now have two fall/Halloween pillows. :-)
I'm working on a couple of projects right now. First I worked on a project that I had started while I was a member of the local ANG (American Needlepoint Guild). It's a folding ort box designed by Marilyn Owen. The two top right pieces are finished. I still need to finish off the other three.
On Sunday I started work on the Quaker Hornbook piece from With My Needle. I went with the over one piece on 32 count not because I had a big urge to do an over one piece but because I didn't have a light colored piece of 36 count linen. :-) It's really small and I'm only working on it at night because it's too hard to see over one on the moving train. I should be finished with this piece by the end of the week.
And lastly, for the train this week, I started Autumn Silhouette, Loose Feathers #10 from Blackbird Designs. I love the colors!

TGIF

Here is my progress on Trix or Treat - it's really moving along fast and it's a pretty small piece so I should finish up tomorrow and be able to make the pillow on Sunday. I'm feeling like starting another autumn piece so maybe I'll start Autumn Silhouette from Blackbird Designs. It's a Loose Feather design from 2004. It's one of my favorites and I've been sitting on it for almost a year now waiting for an autumn mood. :-) And it looks really quick and that will help satisfy my urges for new starts.


Have a great weekend!

Alpha Birds Finis

Alpha Birds from Sheepish Designs (part 1 of 3)

32 count Wichelt Latte Linen

Recommended NPI Silks

I finished up Alpha Birds on the way home yesterday. Rather than start part two - Alpha Menagerie, I decided to work on a Halloween piece I've had kitted up since last year. I didn't have a chance to get to before Halloween and then I didn't feel much like working on a seasonal piece after it's season. :-) Here is my progress on Trix or Treat from the booklet of the same name by Blackbird Designs. I'm using a Silkweavers solo I purchased special for it. I think it's a cool looking linen and I think it looks great. I'll turn this into a pillow for my couch when I'm done.

St. Reatham update

My goal over the long weekend was to finish up the two top borders on St. Reatham and I did manage to get both in. I'm not really sure where I'm going next. My thought is to work on all the smaller motifs along the top edge and work on the animal on the top right. Then I'll start on the three huge motifs that make up the middle section. I'm so happy with how my fabric and silk choices are turning out. I love Silkweaver's Golden Promise for this piece with the Mermaid Blue silks from Hand Dyed Fibers.


I was hoping to finish up Alpha Birds but I spent more time goofing off than I did stitching. :-) And I didn't any quilting in either. Next long weekend for sure - which for me is in three weeks. :-)

Nothing to show

I have nothing to show today - I didn't get much done on Alpha Birds and today is St. Reatham Thursday and for the first time in two or three weeks I remembered to toss it into my bag. :-)

Tomorrow is the start of a four day weekend for me as it's Labor Day on Monday. The company I work for tosses in an extra day tomorrow. Yeah! Four days off. No major plans but the weather will be spectacular - in the low 80's all four days with no rain in sight. Over the weekend I would like to finish Alpha Bird and get in a couple of days on SR. And maybe work on a quilt or two as I currently have four in progress and one more cut out. And a couple I need to machine quilt.

I'm testing out a new title for my blog as part of my blog renewal plan. I never liked what I was calling it and on the day I put it together more than a year ago I was in a hurry and didn't give it much thought. I'm still waiting for my new Adobe software to arrive and I can't wait for it to come so I can start fiddling with the overall look of things. I have many ideas. :-)

Enjoy your weekend!

cool new tool

I received an email from DMC Corp this morning talking about a new tool they have online. It turns your digital photos into cross stitch charts. While I'm not a huge fan this sort of lifelike stitching designs, there might be a point when I would want to incorporate one of my pugs into a design. I already have ideas of using digital photo software that can turn photos into other things using special effects. I'd love a cartoon-like picture of my pugs. I then could use this site to turn it into a chart. :-) Pretty cool huh?

This is a picture of the cross stitch I generated from one of my favorite photos of Miss Molly. It uses 33 different DMC colors - you can select from three different levels of thread amounts - this picture is the highest level. There is a fee of course but you can preview your chart/photo before spending the money. Prices start at 6.00 EU and $7.50 US Dollar.

Here is the link to the Amelie Paris site. And a link to the DMC-USA site which has some other details.

No progress photo today of Alpha Birds - I forgot my camera! But in any case I didn't have much to show - I napped on the train home last night and barely put in a stitch last night.