Monday Update: New WIP and Nov Finish

Howdy it's Monday the start of a new week. Let's see what I've been up to last week. On the 5th I posted about my last Halloween finish and said I was going to celebrate with a new start. I've showed the picture a few times (one when I purchased him and the other when I bought his fabric) but it's time to really share my new start with my readers.

When I attended the Pennsylvania retreat a stitching friend from my table was talking about this cute dragon she seen at one of the booths. I perked up because I heard the word dragon of course here is what he looked like...

I didn't like him. I explained how I'm extremely picky when it comes to dragons and this one just didn't call to me. Plus I don't like tea. So no pressure to buy him. Then she said Well that's okay did you see the other one? The Beer Dragon? What?? Take me now I must see...

I was in love! I texted a photo to my hubby. His response..Is he finished yet? I guess that means he likes him too right? Haha. I of course had to buy him. Now when to start... after finishing up my Halloween pieces it was the perfect time to celebrate with a new start...

Beer Dragon 5 Days of Progress

From Paine Free Crafts

 123,900 Total Stitches 2,800 Stitches In Now

Fabric 32ct Lambswool Jobelan Evenweave

Threads DMC 1 Thread Over One Complete X

This is my first time working on a Paine Free Crafts pattern and I'm in love. They are really easy to read. Larger font on the pages than HAED patterns. Plus the chart marks out the stitches in 5's so it's really easy to read where I need to count to next. It also doesn't seem to have as many color changes. I also found out Stanley Morrison has a WHOLE line of beautiful dragons with different drinks. I made the mistake of showing my hubby and he has demanded several others. But first I have to finish this guy up. He won't be a fast stitch that's for sure. But luckily I LOVE working on it. But after 5 days on him my needles started slowing down. So it was time to switch projects for a bit.

I got a start on the November Durene Jones design Saturday morning and was able to get it finished up last night...

(Finish #27) November 11th, 2018
November from Durene Jones Calendar
Freebie available on her FB Group
Stitched on 14ct Ecru Aida
Threads are suggested DMC
Started Nov 10th. Took 2 Days.

Can't believe there is only 1 left to do of these cuties. Another series I will miss but I just LOVE displaying them each month. 

This week will be a short week. I leave Thursday for a local stitching retreat. This one is different than the others I travel to. We stay in a church camp lodge this one is in southern Indiana. They had an insurance change and the ladies who work at the camp have to fix our food. So we get to sit and stitch all day all night and get fed! No stopping to cook!! Plus they even do our dishes. No complaining here. The cost is only $155 per person for this one. 3 Nights lodging. 8 Delicious Meals. What a deal! Our rooms are connected to the room we stitch in. So I tend to wake up. Shower. Put on new lazy comfy clothes. Head out to the stitching room. Stitch the day away. Eat when they serve us. Go to bed way way too late haha. It's fantastic. Normally I get a lot of stitching done. Plus I get to see ladies who I haven't seen in too long. I'm really looking forward to it. Plus it's IHSW (International Hermit Stitch Weekend) this weekend. So I'll definitely be joining in with that. Just at a cabin in southern Indiana instead of at my house. I will make sure to share photos don't worry. 

Hope you all have a great week! My thoughts are with California and all these horrible fires they are having. So scary to see on TV.

The People's Choice - Birthstones

First Saturday of the month is People's Choice blog fun at the wonderful Jo's blog. She gives us a one word theme and we put up a post about it. Pop over here to see what others have posted about. This month's theme is Birthstones so let's go...

I was born in May so my birthstone is Emerald. It was fun looking up the meaning and other information on it. Kind of like horoscopes and zodiac I think it's neat how most the time it really matches. It talked a lot about how it stands for fun, loving love, being a mother, and loving nature. So true for me. My son was born in April so his birthstone is Diamond but he has always loved green. It's his favorite color.

I've never really stitched anything specially about my birthstone. But I'm pretty sure I've stitching green things since it's Jeremiah's favorite color. Let's take a quick look back...

This is Elegant Squid from Ink Circles. I started it for the January challenge in 2016. We all know I love ocean related things and I thought this squid design was cute. I only have one day in on it. I'm stitching it with 501 and 504 two shades of green...

This design is from Kincavel Krosses. I started this so long ago I don't see records of it on my blog. It was before I tagged photos. Here is my progress on it according to my old records of photos though...

I'm doing it in 986 DMC green for Jeremiah. This was in 2012 so just a little bit ago haha.

Do you remember those M Design trees you could get with names in the design? I stitched Jeremiah's name in 2007...

 Just need to actually finish it sometime. Love how it turned out.

So even though I haven't stitched anything specially for Emerald I seem to stitch a lot of green.

Look at this HAED that is calling my name. There are 4 different colors available. One is purple but look at this cutie in greens...

Lil DragonZ Earth Dragon

See ya on the first Saturday next month for the next check in. The theme is Dragons. Hmm wonder if I can come up with anything for that post. 

Monday Update: Last Halloween Finish

Here we are November 5th but I stuck with one last Halloween finish for the year. The Frosted Pumpkin Halloween piece demanded to be finished before I moved on to something else. So I worked on it all week. Friday I really hoped to finish it and Oh I got so close if you follow me on Instagram. I needed only another hour probably. But we had cabin plans and I didn't want to take stitching with me this time. Saturday we had an adult Halloween party. We had a lot of fun. One last real celebration. We put up some Halloween lights on our deck...

The little lights in the front are bats. You can't tell very well. We also had lights around the tree you can't see in this photo and a big spider web over on the right. Hard to get good night time pictures. The weather was beautiful Saturday. 56 degrees and no rain finally. So we could all enjoy sitting around the fire. The pond hasn't made much progress because we've been getting a lot of rain lately. They just mostly pushed some trees and dirt around so no real update with that just yet. Sunday we packed all the decorations away and I admit it was sad. We emptied our snacks from the cabinet. Put away all the extra drinks so they wouldn't freeze. It's the end of the season. We will miss it! The family was all about in tears. We know we can't go the whole winter without going back though. We already said we will probably go down the weekend after Thanksgiving if only for just one night. We will miss it by then. It's been an amazing season. We have sure enjoyed our time in our cabin!!!

So Sunday after we got home and I picked my Halloween piece back up I was right about an hour later I had a finish to celebrate...

(Finish #26) November 4th, 2018

Halloween Spooky Sampler from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery

Stitched on 32ct Bewitched Linen

Threads are Suggested DMC and a few Weeks Dye Works

Started Aug 10th. Took me 17 Days.

This is another YOW (Year of WIPs) piece to mark off the list. I'm so happy it's finished. I really enjoying stitching it and I'm glad I have the Christmas one to look forward too now later this year. I really hope to finish it as a pillow to display. I'm really considering asking for a better sewing machine from Santa. Then I can actually FINISH the things I want to. My stupid machine just causes me too many problems.

Next I'm going to celebrate my Halloween finishes with a new start. The Beer Dragon is finally making his way onto my Q-Snaps. Can't wait to get the first x's in.

Halloween Blog Hop

The wonderful Jo from Serendipitous Stitching has done it again. She is hosting a Halloween Blog Hop. I just love participating in her fun blog hops. This one is my favorite type. You hop through the blog list and collect letters. When you finish you will have a phrase to give to Jo on her blog post check in. She is always so creative when it comes to these blog hops. So if you have found my post before her sending you here go to Jo's blog to see where to start collecting letters. If you are looking for the letter then let's get to it...

The letter you found here is F. Now head over to the next blog on the list for the next letter...

Kitten Stitching

I hope you have a Happy Halloween. I've been stitching on just Halloween themed things since the beginning of October. You can look through the rest of my blog for a few finished already but today I'm frantically working on the last one I want to get finished this year...

Here is where I am now...

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Halloween. I'll be curled up with my stitching and watching scary movies all day!

***Edited to add the end result***
From Jo's Blog...

Now, the news you have all been waiting for - the answer to the Hallowe'en Trick or Treat Mystery Phrase Blog Hop.  Thanks to all the participants; the picture posters and the commenters who hopped around, collected the letters and left nice comments.

I thought the phrase was a little easier this year but apparently some of you need to Brush up your Shakespeare - the quote comes from The Scottish Play AKA Macbeth and is spoken by the witches as part of the ingredients for their Double Double Toil and Trouble spell.

Fillet of a fenny snake

The word "fenny" meaning "of the Fens, swamplike, marshy or boggy".  Anyway, everyone managed to find all the letters and Google the meaning if they didn't already know it.

 

I didn't win but had a blast playing along.

October WIPocalypse

The 28th was time for a WIPocalypse Update. The idea of this fun blog SAL is to stitch all our WIPs before the end of the world. Our theory is to hold off the end of the world until we stitch all our projects. I feel like I really help since there is NO WAY I could ever finish all my WIPs especially since I keep adding to the list....only to help out of course. I will take one for the team you know. I like to use this SAL as an excuse to keep track of what I work on and how many days. So let's see what I've been working on since the last WIPocalypse update here...

October Snapshot -- 7 Days. I worked on this one a lot and finally got it finished. I just posted the finish in the post before this one please check it out.

Halloween Mini Vampire Face -- 2 Days. I tried working on this one while on vacation until the October Snapshot demanded to be finished up...

Durene Jones Calendar -- 3 Days. Started on finished this one up...

As you can see it was a short list this time. I stuck with the Halloween theme though. Now I have one more Halloween WIP I want to get finished up. I doubt it will be done by tomorrow though. Happy Halloween anyway! Measi also has a fun question to get us all to talk about different topics during our check in's. This month the question is: October 28 – Do you prefer to stitch on a rotation or one project at a time?

I stitch on whatever is screaming the loudest. I wouldn't call it a rotation because my project list changes drastically depending on what I feel like stitching. I couldn't do one project at a time. I would get too bored. 

I look forward to seeing everyone's post. Thanks for stopping by.

Weekend Update

It's not Monday but I'm here finally with a weekend update. I have another finish to celebrate with you that I finished up Friday night...

(Finished #25) October 26th, 2018

October Snapshot from Pine Mountain Designs

Stitched on 32ct Lambswool Evenweave

Threads are Suggested DMC
  Started Sept 29th. Took me 8 Days.

All 12 Months Finished Now Took 83 Days Total

I wanted to do this series for the Smalls SAL in 2017. They aren't as small as they should have been for that SAL. Plus with 2017 being really busy I had 3 that didn't get finished and I added them to my list of Must Finish in 2018 list. This is the last one now. As I said above the whole series took me 83 days to complete. I really enjoyed each one. Now I need to figure out how I want to finish them so I can display them each month. 

This weekend I received a fun giveaway in the mail...

Cross Stitch Angel blog had a fun giveaway for these cute Joan Elliott magazine charts. I couldn't help but enter. She also included two beautiful floss and adorable koala stickers. Thanks! I will hopefully find time to stitch these adorable charts next year for Halloween.

Saturday morning Jeremiah, Fred, and I loaded up and headed north to Michigan City, Indiana. It's about a 3 hour drive. When I get up that direction I just have to stop at my favorite LNS (local needlework store) House of Stitches. It's a fantastic store that I always LOVE stopping at. They have everything you could want and more. I had 4 projects I wanted to get fabric and threads for...

On the left is Autumn Blessing from Waxing Moon Designs. I got a sparkly piece of 28ct Crystal Mello Lugana and the pile of Weeks Dye Works for the beautiful leaves around the border. Next is Thankful Pumpkins from Lucy Beam Love in Stitches. I got a piece of 28ct Flash Lugana and the Gentle Art Sampler Threads it called for. The last one is the one my hubby is so excited about the Beer Dragon from Paine Free Crafts. I got a piece of 32ct Lambswool Jobelan since it's full coverage. I haven't kitted up the DMC for it just yet. According to hubby it must be started soon haha. Yes I said I had 4 projects Santa has the other one so you will have to wait just like I do for that one.

After the stop at the store we went to visit friends. In 2006 we met this family and we became best of friends. Our sons are best friends too. We have done so many camping trips and adventures together. They aren't friends any more now they have become family. Geocaching brought us together and we can't be more thankful for that. Bernice (the mother of the family) had a severe stroke last June and has had a very hard recovery. Now she was getting more sick and after many tests and frustration we found out she has small cell lung cancer which spread to her brain and other multiple places. She was given 2-6 months left to be with us. It hit us so hard. The world just won't be the same without this sweet woman. We decided to treat Damein (their 16 year old son and Jeremiah's best friend) for the night. We took him out to eat a delicious steak dinner. Then we got a room at a hotel with a pool. For a bit they shared the pool with a gaggle of girls but then...

They got one on one time to just be best friends. It was fantastic. Damein was able to reach out and talk about hard things. We felt like we did the right thing to have this time with him. To give him some time to feel the love we have for him. We took him home the next morning and visited with everyone a bit longer. They are dealing as anyone can with this type of news. Please keep her and her family in your thoughts/prayers.

October Smalls SAL/Finish to Report

Today is the last Friday of the month which means it's time for a Smalls SAL check in. The idea of this fun SAL is to stitch something small each month. I started a few years ago and decided to pick monthly designs to stitch all year. This year I picked the Durene Jones Calendar series. I only missed getting one month done by a day and actually it was just the finishing part. So I'm really proud of myself this year. This month seemed to fly by since I've been so busy so I just got a chance to start the October design on the 22nd. I admit I was worried I wouldn't get it finished in time for this post. But guess what...

(Finish #24) October 25th, 2018
October from Durene Jones Calendar
Freebie available on her FB Group
Stitched on 14ct Ecru Aida
Threads are suggested DMC
Started Oct 22nd. Took 4 Days.

Wohoo got it finished up yesterday. Now I'm back to working on the October Snapshot which is the last one I need to finish to complete last year's Smalls SAL pick the Pine Mountain Snapshot series. I hope to be back soon to celebrate another finish. Stay tuned.

October YOW Update

While I was gone I frantically had to update my YOW (stands for Year of WIPs) album in the Soulful Stitching Facebook group. We had to post our update by October 18th. I tried to get it posted before I left and for some reason was having all kinds of problems. Of course when you need to get something done it acts up. Luckily I got it finished before the 18th. So I could breath a sigh of relief. Now I can share with my readers too.

This is my first year joining in. I picked out 20 WIPs to put on my list. You have to finish half of them to be able to join in the drawing for prizes at the end of the year. So let's check my list...

1. August Snapshot from Pine Mountain -- Finished for the July Update
2. Cabin Fever from Mill Hill -- No progress since May
3. Camping Out from Mill Hill -- Not started wanted to finish Cabin Fever first
4. Christmas Celebration from Frosted Pumpkin -- Not started wanted to finish Halloween first
5. Christmas Jars from Dimensions Kit -- Finished two jars last year need to do two more. Not started.
6. December Snapshot from Pine Mountain -- Finished for the April Update
7. Durene Jones Calendar -- Have finished these through September. Started October yesterday. Here are the first 9 all together...

8. Halloween Sampler from Frosted Pumpkin -- Working on this one this month. Just posted my update on this project in my last post so won't post again.
9. Hold on to Hope from Heaven and Earth Designs -- Finished for the April Update
10. July Snapshot from Pine Mountain -- Finished for the April Update
11.Myrtle Beach Postcard from Erica Michael's -- No progress since April
12. Ocean of Wisdom from Erica Michael's -- Finished for April Update
13. October Snapshot from Pine Mountain -- Working on this one now. Here is where I am today...

14. September Snapshot from Pine Mountain -- Finished in September
15. Spring Bell Pull from Stoney Creek -- No progress since August
16. To the Beach from Hands on Designs -- Finished for April Update
17. Under the Sea SAL from Lakeside Needlecraft -- No Progress this year
18. Where Stitching Meets from Hands on Designs -- Not started
19. Winter Messenger from Erica Michael's -- Finished for April Update
20. You are Loved -- Finished in August

So according to my count right now for October...
Worked on 3
Not Worked on 8
Finished 2 more for a total of 9 of 20 completed

Just need to complete one more to be entered in the drawing. I will finish the Durene Jones Calendar, the October Snapshot, and hopefully the Halloween Sampler even if it's not by Halloween. I would love to finish the Christmas Celebration too but I won't start that till November. I plan on joining in next year. This has been a fun SAL to participate in.

Gifted Gorgeousness

The 15th of the month is time for a Gifted Gorgeousness Update. So here I am finally with my late entry. Go here to the wonderful Jo's blog to see what others have shared. The idea of this blog SAL is to share with everyone what we have received as gifts or are stitching as gifts for others. So let's look back and see what fits that theme since my last check in.

I got a Frosted Pumpkin Halloween piece from my sweet hubby for Christmas last year. I posted my progress last check in and this is where I was with it...

I have been working on this one to maybe finish it by Halloween which is sneaking up very fast. Here I am now with it...

That's all I've worked on that was a gift from someone. I did join in an exchange with a lady on Instagram. She finished up this beauty from Hands on Design...

From my understanding you had to buy a beautiful bag from SewMuch2Luv on Etsy to get this chart. I looked and looked and couldn't find it anywhere. So I asked Luckycatstitches if she would trade and thankfully she said Yes. I sent her another Hands on Design pattern I had finished earlier and she sent this one. Another great exchange. I'm looking forward to adding it to my WIP pile.

Where am I?

So I posted on the 9th and then I disappeared. Let me explain. Thursday the 11th Mom, Jeremiah, and I went down to spend the night at our cabin. Friends were coming Friday before hubby got off work so unfortunately luckily we got to go a night early. They showed up Friday afternoon in their HUGE camper...

Got it all parked and the rain started. Mom decided to go ahead and head home instead of staying Friday night. Hubby got there after work and we enjoyed time with our friends. Saturday we went to a fun 1812 War reenactment event that happens in a nearby town. It was our friend's first time to that type of thing and we had fun in spite of the mud everywhere. There was a TON of people and Jeremiah's new power chair did amazing through it all...

We watched the battle and then headed back to the campground. The guys all helped Bev (my step mom) with a cabinet she wanted built out of old barn beams and wood...

I seen one like it at a sale that we went to later in the week that was half the size of this one and it was $399! So we think Bev could get at least $1,000 for this one but she's not selling it. It took all 4 guys to move it. My hubby was walking on it when he was helping with the top so it was sturdy indeed. The back is an old rough sheet of metal. Looks great! Our friends headed home Sunday but guess what. We didn't have to.

Fred had the week off from work. So we were staying at the cabin all week! It was fantastic. It was also perfect timing to really help out. My dad finally got the permits all finished for getting a pond. He is so happy. It's been his dream since he was a little boy to have it own pond. Now he gets one. So the guy was ready to start the work and we were ready to help where needed...

This is the area the 1 acre pond is going. Look at all that brush and trees...

GONE! It was really neat to watch. It's not over yet. Still a lot to do. We got a ton of firewood from all the trees. Fred worked HARD on his vacation. We had a blast though! Jeremiah just couldn't believe he was watching a pond being built.

It was a long busy week. No internet at the cabin. So no blog updates. I did get a little bit of stitching squeezed in on the October Snapshot. Of course not as much as I would have liked. We had so much fun. We loved every moment. Now though we're home. There is just SO much to do. Being on vacation 2 weeks and then coming home 3 days and then leaving again for over a week. So much laundry piled up. So many things I want to share with my readers. A million TV shows I want to catch up on. Stitching I want to be doing. But I wanted to stop by for a quick update so you know where I've been. Been having a blast!! Now to just catch up.

The People Choose

The wonderful Jo has done it again. She is hosting a blog hop/blog SAL on the first Saturday of every month. Stop over to her blog to see more about it. She is posting the themes ahead of time. I will add them to the right side of my blog too. Each month will have a one word theme. We are to make a post about the word. Whatever we see fits. So far the themes picked are...

October -- Halloween

November -- Birthstones

December -- Dragons

Can't wait to see what we pick next. I think it will be fun to join in when I have a chance and I have a chance right now. So let's see what I can come up with for Halloween...

Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. I love scary movies. I love the decorations. It's just fun! So I also love Halloween stitching. But I don't do it enough. I want to change that. This month I'm trying really hard to stick to Halloween stitching for the month of October. Here is my pile of WIPs for the month...

Halloween Sampler from Frosted Pumpkin, Halloween Minis, October Snapshot, and the October Durene Jones Calendar. I had an Erica Michael Petite Halloween piece picked out but I'm just not going to get to it this year so I've took it off my list for this year. So let's see where I am on these pieces right now...

Frosted Pumpkin I have finished up the border and 3 of the blocks inside. I got a teeny amount of progress on the 2nd L block at my stitching retreat in PA recently. I'm really hoping to finish this one this month. We'll see.

Halloween Minis. I have 2 of these finished of the 8 I want to do. I am working on the Vampire Face now. I got a lot of progress while traveling to and from the retreat. I finally got the white in and started on the other colors now.

The October Snapshot is the last one of the series I need to finish up. I got a teeny start at the retreat. I literally only got the border of the first block done haha. On vacation though I got a little of the witch added too in the first section. I'm planning on working on this one for awhile now that I'm home and ready to get back to stitching full time instead of being a tourist haha.

The Durene Jones piece I haven't got started yet but I need to so it can take it's place on my shelf unit that I love making monthly displays on...

You can see 3 other Mill Hill pieces I have done on my shelf already from years past. I need to get the October Durene piece done so I can put September away.

I also wanted to share with you the gifts Astrid gave me while she was visiting us in Gettysburg...

She said she wondered if we had run out of Hershey treats yet? Of course we always will accept more chocolate and how about that cute basket!! Plus she made me this BEAUTIFUL Halloween scissor fob. How cool!!! So those definitely fit the Halloween theme and needed to be shared.

I'm off to work on the Snapshot more. I hope to have more progress to show soon.

End of Vacation

We made it home safe and sound. We had a great time but are glad to be home. 

Thanks for traveling along with us.

Vacation Day 14

Today we made it to the middle of Ohio. Ohio takes forever to get through I swear. We have 3 hours till home but just couldn't make it today. You can see Fort Wayne on this map. So close and yet so far away.

We will have 3 hours to go tomorrow. When we got tired of driving I started looking for a room on my phone. Tonight The Walking Dead comes back and Mom doesn't watch it. So we were planning for her to watch something on my laptop while we watched it if the hotel had the channel. The hotel nearby had two room suites with 2 TVs. So we gladly stopped for the night. Thankfully they had the channel we needed too. I asked the lady when we were checking in if they had AMC and she laughed and said Walking Dead Fan? Funny thing is the room is cheaper than all the other hotels and it's the size of an apartment! So now we can each watch our own TV for tonight. We ordered delicious pizza delivered to our room.

Now after this update I can get back to my stitching. I finished the white last night finally. Also finished the black on the Vampire Face too. Finally can see it better. Plus it's a lot easier to count for the next colors now that the white is in. Here is the updated photo after last night...

Vacation Day 13

We made it to DuBois, PA today. We drove through some rain. We were creative and got around all the big cities so that made mom happy. There was a Red Lobster by our hotel so that made everyone happy. Now we are settled in for the night. Back on the road tomorrow. I did get some stitching last night. I worked on the October Snapshot. Of course it's in the van so you will have to wait for a photo. I think I'm going to work on my white on white stitching tonight haha.

Vacation Day 12

Guess what I got to do today? Meet a fellow blogger...

http://astridxstitching.blogspot.com/

The lovely Astrid was willing to drive an hour to come meet us. She was just as sweet in person as she is on her blog. Mom is so confused over how us bloggers have never met but feel like we've been friends forever. She asked if I was nervous. I said No. I've known Astrid forever. Yeah I've never met her. But I know her. When we walked in the room it felt like finally seeing a friend I've had forever. We had a wonderful visit. She brought me this cute pumpkin full of chocolates and an adorable Halloween scissor fob. I packed it already but I will remember to get a picture when I unpack it. It's too cute! Thank you Astrid for thinking I'm worth driving an hour for. We had a lovely visit and a lunch by our hotel. 

Tomorrow we are starting our journey home. I'm going to go stitch for a bit.