Yep Back Already

 My arm was twisted into joining two SALs so I just had to stop by and twist other arms too.

Look at this beautiful pattern...

If you join the Facebook group you can download the pattern. You get entered into drawings for Cherry Hill patterns every Friday when you post progress and if you FFO before Feb 13th you get 3 patterns. How fun. She has others patterns that are just adorable too. I have decided to stitch mine on black...

The pretty purple is going to be my letters. Pink instead of white. Green and Red that fit bright enough. I've always wanted to stitch a piece on black so I figured this is a good time to do it. 

Then Tangled Threads and Things is doing a blackwork SAL...

So I decided to join in with that too...

Now I need to get busy stitching!!! I am just so happy to be in love with my stitching time again. Now to work in working out too haha.

Monday Update

Lots to talk about so grab a cup of your favorite drink and let's do this...

Wednesday I got busy on my April Fairy stitching. I was able to finish her up on Friday...

Of course she is splashing in a rain puddle because it's April right? Friday here in Northern Indiana we had a very interesting weather day...

3 inches of wet heavy snow. It was gone by Saturday but sure amazing to have such a heavy snow in April.

Lately one of Indiana's stitching stores has been showing a lot of photos selling things online. Which is just mean haha. This store is in Bloomington called Fancy Works and was the one who was going to host the March retreat I was going to attend. She posted these two photos one day and I really wanted them...

They are both Hinzeit charts and came with all the charms. They were $10 each. I got to looking and these are both really hard to find. I didn't buy them right away because we all know I don't need more projects! After waiting several days I went back to just see if they had sold and they hadn't. So I took it as a sign that they were meant to come to me. My reasoning Jeremiah LOVES patriotic things and I also have the perfect fabric to finish these two pieces into pillows and display proudly. So I did my part to support the economy and one of the great Indiana stitching stores.

Friday I got started on the Colorful Critters SAL the next SAL from Stitchonomy. I love animals and bright colors so this one will be fun. On Saturday I had finished up Part 1 and 2...

Pattern # 1 - Arctia Caja

The garden tiger moth (Arctia caja) is named after its tiger-like pattern on its wings. They are a warning to predators that though it may not have fangs, it is very poisonous! The tiger moth also has the cutest caterpillar which are often referred to as “Woolly Bears” due to their fuzzy appearance! (From Stitchonomy Just Found it Interesting and Thought you Might)

Pattern 2 - Campsosternus Auratus

The Jewel Click Beetle (Campsosternus Auratus) is an agile little beetle that can jump back up after it’s been toppled. To do this they literally ‘snap’ their spine producing a violent ‘click’ – hence the name! It also uses this noisy trick to scare of predators. (Again from Stitchonomy) 

So far these are fun and so bright and lovely to stitch. Part 3 was just released. It's a beautiful dragonfly.  So hopefully I will get it stitched later. I'm going to try to stitch on this one every other day or something so I don't just skip all my other WIPs to work on it like I did with the plants. We'll see.

Sunday I was open to stitch on whatever I wanted and that's when I made the changes I posted in my last post. So Beer Dragon demanded to be worked on. I added 254 more stitches and it's just so hard to put this one down that's okay though I love feeling in love with a piece...

Remember this is what this cutie will look like...

It was a lot of confetti so slower but still a blast to work on.

We were supposed to be leaving Thursday for our vacation to Vegas for Jeremiah's birthday. Unfortunately with everything going on we moved our trip. Hopefully we will be going in September. So instead we are going to our happy place our cabin. We are going down Thursday. At least he gets to be at one of his favorite places for his birthday. We have a lot of movies to watch and yes I'm packing some stitching too.

I hope everyone has a great week. Hope we all find a lot of stitching time. Be safe and stay healthy.

Finish and New SAL

First I have a finish to announce...

(Finish #38) November 6th

  November from Sand, Sea and Cross Stitch Book

Stitched on 14ct White Aida Fabric

Threads are Suggested DMC

Started Nov 4th. Took 3 Days.

  8 Hours and 15 Minutes Start to Finished.

 

I can't believe there is only one of these left to do. Next up is my Lizzie Kate monthly piece. 

 

I also wanted to share with everyone a new SAL I heard about...

 from Stitchonomy

Starting November 23rd one part of a 27 part pattern will be released and sent to your email each day.

The finished pattern will be a collage of tiny snowflakes!

Stitch Count is 75 x 75 

Suggested Threads are 6 different blue threads and white. 

You can sign up here 

Must be before November 22nd

 

Yes I'm joining in. I'm using 36ct Silkweaver Solo Molino. It's a beautiful blue hand dyed. I think the DMC shows up nicely on it. We'll see.

Blog Fun

I thought I would make a quick post to share all the fun blog things I will be joining in on this year.

On the 1st Saturday of each month Jo is hosting the People's Choice SAL. You can go to Jo's Blog to post your link up if you join in. Each month will have a theme and you make a post with whatever you feel comes to your mind for that theme. Right now the upcoming themes are...

January -- New Starts

February -- Hearts

More Coming Soon

On the 15th of each month Jo is again hosting the Gifted Gorgeousness SAL. You can go here to sign up. Jo will post a link up on the 15th if you would like to join in you can just link up. The idea of this SAL is to share all things you have either received as a gift or are stitching as a gift for others.

International Hermit Stitch Weekend or also known as IHSW is the 3rd full weekend of the month. The link up for this one is now located on a Facebook group and the Wonderful Jo posts a blog link up on her blog for the bloggers who don't Facebook too. The idea of this SAL is to warn your family grab your stitching and stitch the weekend away. Post your before and after progress to show how much you were able to get done. Great excuse to avoid chores...for just one weekend a month.

On the last Friday of each month Mary's Thread is hosting the 2019 Smalls SAL. She has taken over for Heather who started this wonderful SAL. The idea for this SAL is stitch up something small each month and maybe even get it finished off. Then at the end of the year you will have 12 finished finishes. I use this one as an excuse to stitch up a small monthly design all year to display to represent the months throughout the year. This year I'm doing two sets. One for me and one for my mom. I'm trying to do them in the month they are for and keep up which we all know is the real challenge for me.

On the last Sunday of each month is WIPocalypse on Measi's Blog. Go here to sign up. The idea for this SAL is to finish all our WIPs before the Apocalypse. I think the more we have the more it holds it off. I've noticed a lot of different ways of participating in this one. Some people pick a list of 19 projects for 2019. I use this as an excuse to keep track of how many days I've spent working on what WIPs. I have 71 WIPs in my tubs waiting to be stitched. My goal as always is to finish as many as I can throughout the year. I tend to add new ones throughout the year to make sure the number never gets to Zero just to be safe.

I'm also participating in Soulful Stitching Facebook group's year long challenge called YOW which stands for Year of WIPs. There are some rules but basically you pick more than 18 projects. Post a photo of the starting progress by Jan 18th. There are some goals throughout the year like you get entered in a drawing if you finish 3 by April and 6 by July. At the end Dec 18th if you have done everything correct and finished more than half of what you picked you get entered into more drawings. It's a great push to finish up some WIPs that you want finished. Last year was my first year joining in. I finished 12 of 20 I picked out.

The only other thing I can think of is the wonderful Jo (who as you can tell is a pretty awesome blogger to follow) also tends to post really fun blog hops on her blog throughout the year. She will post information about them before it's time to join in. I would definitely suggest watching her blog if you don't already. They are always so much fun to participate in.

So any fun blog SALs that I missed? Please share if you have a different one. I love blogging. I started blogging in 2005 and here in 2007. I write my blog like I'm writing a letter to a friend that stitches. If you read it Thank you. I love all the great comments. I count many of you as real friends even though we've never met. We are a great community.

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.

Longest Day SAL

Yesterday I joined Jo in a fun SAL called the Longest Day SAL to celebrate the longest day of the year with the arrival of Summer. She worked on beautiful WIPs. I thought that would be fun. Then I noticed a stack of things I wanted to start. What better excuse to start them then a fun SAL. So I decided to do new starts and spend an hour on each one before starting the next one. I warned my family. I warned my couch. I was totally lazy haha. So let's see what my day looked like...

9am -- Here we go. 1st Start...

Refuse to Sink

Hands on Design - To the Beach #9

Starting Point - Bottom Left

10am -- 2nd Start

Flock Together

Hands on Design - To the Beach #3

Starting Point - Left Side 

11am -- 3rd Start (with break to take dog out...Izzy didn't get the memo about not needing me haha)

On Beach Time

Hands on Design - To the Beach #5

Starting Point - Bottom Left

12pm -- Lunch Break

1pm -- 4th Start

Stars in the Sky

Hands on Design - To the Beach #6

Starting Point - Top Left

2pm -- 5th Start

Grab Life

Hands on Design - To the Beach #8

Starting Point - Top Left

3pm -- 6th Start

Oh Whale

Hands on Design - To the Beach #1

Starting Point - Bottom Left

4pm -- 7th Start

Mill Hill Kit -- Snowy Owl Snowman by Jim Shore

Starting Point - Center. I don't know why Mill Hill kits I've noticed take a lot longer. Weird.

 

5pm -- Dinner Break

6pm -- 8th Start

Mill Hill Kit -- Best Friend Santa by Jim Shore

Starting Point - Center

7pm -- 9th Start

2013 PALs Limited Edition Hands on Design 

(Last one of the set of 4 so far. I finished the other 3 already.)

Starting Point - Bottom Left of Top Panel

8pm -- 10th Start

Mill Hill Kit -- Sea Turtle

Starting Point - Center

9pm -- 11th Start

Mill Hill Kit -- Evergreen Snowman by Jim Shore

Starting Point - Center. Ice cream called my name and I only got a half hour on this one haha.

So 11 new starts. I really enjoyed my day. I have to admit it was really hard to stop at the hour mark. I really wanted to keep working on each one. I was already told (by mom haha) that Flock Together must be worked on and finished soon. She really likes that one. I also know there are a few of the To the Beach pieces I don't own. Need to fix that of course. Thanks Jo for the fun reason to be completely lazy and get a ton of stitching worked into one day.