Always Thankful Finished and Turtle Trot

(Finish #19 for 2015) November 9th

Always Thankful by Erica Michaels

40ct silk gauze

My first ever 40ct silk gauze piece!!

Used suggested DMC

Started Oct 29, 2015. Took 8 Days.

I got it finished!!! Loved every stitch. Today is also the 10th which means it's Turtle Trot Time! I had added Always Thankful to my Turtle Trot list so I get to take that off now. The only other pieces I worked on since Oct 10th was my HAED Hope at the stitching retreat and I started another Christmas Pals Ornaments by Dimensions yesterday. I only have 2 left to do till I can mark it off too. Hopefully now that it's Fall my Turtle Stitching time will grow. 

Monday Update

Stitching update first. I got the background finished. Now I'm doing the border. It's finished on the left hand side so you can see what it will look like. Love how it just gives it a little finished edge. Not much longer now at all.

I'm working on setting up my Crazy January Challenge new starts. I have officially decided to do the full 31 new starts. Now the getting them ready part begins. I'm also going to join the Smalls SAL next year. I have a cute little monthly series I want to do for that one. So slowly but surely it will all come together. Sure getting excited about the new starts though.

I'm linking up with the Monday Stitchery Party. Pop on over and see what everyone has been working on lately.


For those here for the stitching I'm done with that part. Now onto my fun geocaching weekend...

It was in a little town in way southern Indiana called Santa Claus. We headed down early so we could do some shopping. They had this adorable Christmas store that had at least 4 million different ornaments. I found 3 that had to follow me home and a few other cute things that I of course couldn't live without. Then we waited for our friends to show up. We stayed at Santa's Lodge and it was all decked out Christmas...

Too cute. Friday evening we went over to the campground and attended an evening event. We got to see some friends we don't see very often so that was really nice. Saturday we spent the day out geocaching. We went over to Evansville, IN. My favorite cache was at Willard Library...

I guess it's the oldest library in Indiana and it's reported to be haunted. The gentleman working there we talked to said his personal experience was if they push in all the chairs at night and lock up, when they open in the morning the chairs will all be pushed back out. Very beautiful....old...place. We really enjoyed touring it. We ended up with maybe 12 caches for the day but we really enjoyed ourselves...

That's my hubby Fred and me right by the Ohio River. It was such a fun day. We went back to the campground to another 2 events too on Saturday. The night one we sat around a campfire. It was perfect. Since we shared the room with 3 friends we had a fun slumber party and really enjoyed getting to know one another better. It was a fantastic mini vacation.

Getting Closer

I've been busy but I'm getting closer and closer to a finish slowly haha. I thought I would stop in and share my latest progress. Just the last part of filling in the background to go on my Always Thankful by Erica Michaels. Then there are a few lines of backstitched border.

Tomorrow Fred (hubby) has the day off work. We are going down to Southern Indiana to a cute town called Santa Claus. I haven't been there in forever and a half so I'm really looking forward to it. We are going to a geocaching event. If you case you haven't heard of geocaching it's basically a high tech treasure hunt type of game. You play with a handheld GPS unit and find hidden things. When you find them you sign your name on the logbook and get a point. We have been to so many fantastic places and met countless people because of this hobby. They are having a large event which is basically a gathering for people who enjoy geocaching. Several of our group of friends will be there. One of my closer friends said something about going and we said why not. What a fun excuse to get away and enjoy our weekend. I know it will be a great time. Jeremiah is going to stay home with Grandma and have a fun weekend full of Xbox. Hope everyone reading this has a great weekend as well.

Always Thankful Update

I've got 3 days worth of work into Always Thankful now. The 2nd day I finished the words and the motifs at the bottom. Now I get to fill in the background. It takes more time since there is a lot more stitching but I LOVE how it is making everything stand out better. Also all the counting is done so it's fun to just mindless finish the piece off. After I fill it all in there is a backstitch type of border and it will be complete. Still loving it!

We had a very nice Halloween. Fred (hubby), Jeremiah (son) and me went down to visit my Dad's side. They purchased a very nice woods property and they have made into a campground for family members. We are having Jeremiah's big 18th bday party there in April. We helped cut down some trees and pile up the wood for the fire pit. Better to get it out of the way now when we have time. My grandparents got an adorable little cabin and they are getting it all fixed up. It will be perfect for them to join in the fun too. It was a very nice visit. I also gave my Grandmother and Step Mom their bead birds I had finished earlier. They both loved them! It's always fun to give stitching as a gift but of course makes it extra better when they appreciate the work you put into it.


I'm also linking up to the Monday Stitchery Link Party. It's a wonderful place to share our love of needle and thread hobbies. Stop on over and see what lovely things people have been working on this past week.

Always Thankful Day 1 Progress

I spent yesterday working on Always Thankful by Erica Michaels. Here is where I got...

I finally got it to be bigger than the dime haha. It's still so tiny. I just LOVE it. I already added 4 more of her charts to my wish list. She did these too cute seasonal pieces. It does give my eyes a work out but I'm really enjoyed it a lot over all. It really goes fast! I do have to be careful so I don't have to frog. Frogging this is very difficult I learned. So I'm being extra careful with counting.

Life: Our neighbors across the road moved out of their house. We heard rumors they were going to be tearing the house down and building another one in a different spot on the property. Yesterday we heard all this noise outside...

It was really neat we could watch it get tore down. Here's what it looks like this morning...

Just a pile of debris being put into dumpsters. Jeremiah sure enjoyed watching the chaos. We won't appreciate the noise for awhile but it's going to be neat to watch a new home be built. Our neighbors behind us put their house up for sale. It's scary because we share a driveway and the house is right in our backyard but we haven't had a good relationship with these people for a long time. So hopefully we will actually get along with the new neighbors!

Tomorrow is Halloween. I will be joining in a Halloween Blog Hop so make sure to pop over for that. We are going down to my dad's to help him cut wood. I'm looking forward to it.

Always Thankful

So yesterday I wasn't clear enough with my new start Always Thankful. It's done on 40ct gauze. It seems more stiff but the holes are actually really easy to see. The idea is to stitch it over 1 with 1 thread. The finished pieces are very tiny and adorable. Since it's so little you just do a half stitch instead of the whole X because it wouldn't fit to do the whole thing on this material.

Evidently at one point I thought it would be fun to try so I bought Always Thankful and it just sat there. I was nervous to try it. When I attended the PALs Retreat the designer Erica Michaels was setup. I was glancing over the gorgeous little tiny pieces and realized who it was. She had two ocean related pieces so of course I had to get them. I asked some questions and it finally made sense. Still made me nervous but it at least made sense to me finally haha. Last night I got a start so I could share the details better...

So the whole design finished is going to be 2.9 inches high and 2.3 inches wide. But there is 115 stitches high by 93 stitches wide. The tiny T is 14 across and 13 high and yet it's still smaller than a dime.

I'm excited to say I loved it. It's not near as hard as I was worried it would be. I probably won't be very fast after each little part I just sit there and stare at how tiny it is haha.

Let's Be Wicked Finish

(18) October 28th

Let's Be Wicked by Ursula Michael

Fabric 28ct Lavender Evenweave

Used Suggested DMC Threads

Started for CJC Jan 14, 2015. Took 7 Days.

Another CJC start finished. That makes 6 of the 15 now. I should have known better to pick so many large projects haha. I'm already throwing around ideas for the 2016 CJC and I'm even considering doing 31 instead of 15 since I'm totally insane. I just keep thinking about how much fun I had starting the new 15. We'll see though. There is still time to reconsider.

Since I have this finished I'm allowing myself to start something new (like I need another project on the go haha). I said something in my last post about being nervous to stitch on 40ct. I'm going to do just that. Here is the project...

It's called Always Thankful from Erica Michaels. I've had it in my stash forever since I have no idea where it came from. I was just nervous to start. After hearing advice from the designer and several ladies at PALs I can't wait to try it. So cross your fingers (or your stitches) for me please. I bought two more 40ct patterns so hopefully I don't hate it haha.