Going To Market going away for a bit:


That's right - I have some stitching obligations now that force me to put aside Going To Market for a little while, but I am close to halfway done already so I can definately see this piece getting finished up before the end of the year!

So what's up now? Well I have some round robins I must stitch away on, 2 are here already and I started 1 last night. I actually started them out of order so I will have to switch to the right order soon. Then another one is on it's way to me shortly (the last one). So I need to get these finished up and mailed on to the next person!

I got a decent amount of homework done last night but no reading for my class. I don't think I'll get to the reading until maybe this weekend because tonight and tomorrow night I'll be finishing up our assignment due wednesday night. Then Thursday is the actual class.

This coming weekend my sister is coming to visit! I think we're going to go over to my LNS since it should be having sales (since it's closing) :( And then maybe we'll spend the evening stitching before going up to NH sunday to visit my little cousins again.

So my next picture will be an RR picture, I'm working on a Seahorse, then i have a gull to stitch I think. But the RR I should be working on is a girl that I'm supposed to modify (colorwise) to look more like me. That's why i put it off - it's work :)

A day home...

We had a busy weekend, getting things done. Friday night I cleaned a bit, really scrubbed down the stove which makes the whole kitchen look so much cleaner! Then we just relaxed the rest of the night. Saturday we watched "My Date with Drew" which was cute, not great but cute. Then we headed up to my uncle's house in NH and I took 2 of my 3 little cousins to the fabric store and then out to dinner. We got a ton of fabric for their little puppet theatre and i got them back in time to relax a bit before bed time.

Got my oil changed then too which was much needed :) Saturday night we watched "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" which was definately a good movie. So Sunday, through the snow, around noon we headed home, I had to get back home to get more stuff done so we braved it and I have all wheel drive so we had no problems. And it helped that there weren't a lot of crazy people like us driving yesterday :)

So I got my cards made that I really had to make, i still have a few more thank you cards i need to make but i got the really important one made and the baby card for someone at work. Then I did homework, which was really good and my team is now right on track with the work and making good progress. We'll definitly be done by wednesday which is great.

And today I'm working from home, it started with a headache and not wanting to drive through any possible traffic problems. So I decided to sleep in (headache) and then work from home for a few hours before getting to more homework and get all caught up on my reading assignments. Then I'd like to get to some stitching which i haven't done any of this weekend! I will post a picture later today though if my stitching does come out!

Desperate to stitch...
I have been so desperate to find some time to stitch lately that I sat in my car yesterday before class stitching while I could still see in the dimming light. That's the most I've done in days. Hopefully this weekend I will get some real stitching time though and maybe at lunch today.

Lot's going on this weekend, taking two of my little cousins to the fabric store saturday and then sewing a curtain for their puppet theatre saturday night. Lots of homework to do this weekend as each task in our assignment is due on a different day and they're all due on wednesday night. I'd like to get a start on the baby quilt sunday if I can and my Round Robin finally arrived. A group on online friends that i've made started a round robin back in 2003 or 2004 and we finished it in 2004, it's international with 6 participants. Then we decided we wanted to start a second one, so in early 2005 we sent out our second round robin, only 5 participants this time but the same group. Well things came up and so far I have only stitched on mine and one other but finally the second one showed up for me so I have to get that out as soon as possible. Then I will have 2 more and I'll have my own back probably sooner than anyone else.

Well work of course is busy so I must get to the lab and hopefully today i can get out of here around 5 to enjoy my night off - and I am definately sleeping late tomorrow!

I was pretty good last night, I actually had to work kind of late so we ordered in dinner and I read 1 more chapter for class, I think i have 2 more to read before I'm caught up for the midterm which is later this month. But i want to actually read more than that so I don't get behind. After eating dinner (of course I stuffed myself) and I wasn't feeling well, so I finally used my treadmill to just walk (usually i just run in the mornings), but I walked a mile and a half, which helped quite a bit.

Unfortunately it was short lived and I ended up feeling sick as soon as I stopped walking, that's two nights in a row after eating dinner I felt sick. So I went to bed early and felt better at 11 when I woke up again. I have no idea what it was, maybe related to the headach I felt coming on, but i took tylenol and that went away so it couldn't have been a migraine.

Anyway - I got a good hour stitching in at lunch yesterday, working on Going To Market still, and I hope to again today. I'm working on the top right corner now, trying to get the right side of the background done a bit. I love this piece!

I must be in a spending money mood - this has got to stop! After I know I spent too much money on stamp stuff (just had to have it though), I just went and spent 100 dollars on fabric! I have never ordered so much fabric offline, I'm in the fabric of the month club and usually just use that and once before I've ordered a specific piece of fabric (for Legends of the Dragons) but I just went crazy!

It all started because I have been thinking about starting a new piece, or rather - re-starting a piece I have started - I saw Blackwork Dragon stitched up on this awesome green fabric, in green - it looks so good that way, I am stitching it currently on grey with a dark blue WDW color. I won't tear mine out, but I think I want to restart and maybe I'll stitch it twice some time and finish the blue/grey one later on.

Anyway so I was at silkweaver's, ready to buy the Wandering Ivy Linen (and I only need a small 13x18 piece as it's a small piece to begin with! Then I got 36 count because I figured the blackwork would look better on that. Then I browsed, what other projects would I like to start this year -- well "Kingdom Sampler" - but my major qualm with that is I have no idea what fabric to stitch it on!

So the hunt began and I found quite a few very nice fabrics that I decided to buy and then I can decide which one to use, my favorite is Morning Dew (linen) but that's just because I like green, I'm not sure it will work for this project. I picked out some sandy colors too... Autumn Breeze Lugana I think has some pink and tan, might look like the morning sky or something. Then I saw the "weekly special" for 20% off - same color theme (called Golden Promise) so I got that too, then I went into Solos - never looked there before! And I bought 3 or so of those, different thread counts as they are small and I can play around with ornaments or small dragons on them! And of the larger solos I bought one as well. (once i got close to 100 dollars I had to get the free shipping, so I kept looking at the small solos to get up to that amount).

Craziness! No more spending money for a while! Especially since I was dyeing my own fabric for a while, it was much cheaper for these larger pieces!

So whenever these arrive I will have to do a floss toss and start getting opinions on a fabric for Kingdom Sampler - which I'm not ready to start (have NO free time) but maybe this spring ??? Will have to plan with Carol ;)

Well my group meeting last night went fine, a little over an hour and I was home before 9 to watch tv and wind floss - I'm up to 680 now I think. And at lunch time yesterday I worked on Going To Market - which I think I will break out again shortly.

Tonight I must do homework :( But maybe I will need a break and can get back to reading my new book a bit!

HAPPY DANCE!

It's Winter by Sue Hillis, started in 2004, finished in 2006.

Click for larger image

I finished that piece up Saturday night while watching some new movies. Friday night we watched serenity which we of course loved. But it was sad too - knowing that was it, no more firefly to watch. Then Saturday I spent most of the day doing homework for my class, but I got a lot done so I treated myself to a little outting at my cross stitch store - which - sadly - is closing it's doors in March. She's going to keep just the online business which is very sad for me :( So I stopped in to visit and ended up staying until closing as a few friends were there too and we all just chatted and stitched a bit.

The night ended with a nice dinner out, more homework and then stitching :)

Sunday I had a stampin up party - oh man did I spend a lot of money :) But what can you do when the demonstrator shows you a new technique (or 3) that you love and you need to buy the correct supplies. It adds up fast. But this was the time to spend the money because we earned free stamp sets for each 50 dollars we spent. It was great. So in about 1 1/2 weeks I'll have a bunch of new stuff to play with :)

I finally pulled out Going To Market again last night - no new progress to show really but a little later in the week I'll post a picture. I'm just working more on the background, trying to work on the top half of the piece as much as possible. It is amazing how quickly this piece goes along though! I love it.

Tonight I'm meeting with my group from class at school, I am not a fan of group meetings where I have to drive in during rush hour - but my group members aren't very internet savvy and the idea of meeting online to "discuss" our assignment has gone over their heads, even though that's what the professor has encouraged. So I lose an entire night when because it will add on an extra 2 hours of just driving (at least an hour and a half anyway). Well enough complaining... I'm sure I have better things to do :)

Assignment #2 for my class is now posted and I'm the "team" leader for this first assignment - so I have extra work to do this weekend to get something handed in by sunday. Then our actual assignment (which is quite large) is due in 2 weeks. Hopefully my group members will be able to handle some of the work, it's a lot of work to get done and I have a feeling I will be helping a lot.

I did get to stitch a tiny bit at lunch yesterday because the day went so well. I'm hoping the same for today so I'm headed into the lab now to see how things can go. Tonight i'm going out to dinner :) I don't anticipate a lot of stitching time this weekend with homework tomorrow and parties on sunday but we'll see...

I miss stitching! At lunch today I must stitch! I haven't stitched since sunday night and i'm feeling it now. I wound a little more floss last night but I wasn't feeling too well so I mostly just relaxed and went to bed early.

I haven't had a lunch break at work lately to stitch either but I think today is going to be a productive day and I will get to stitch for a full hour at lunch. Then I leave a little after 4 to head to class - ugg - nuff said about that!

Our second homework assignment is due in 2 weeks, it's a group assignment and it hasn't even been posted yet. My teacher is not very good about posting things at a reasonable time. But at least I'm caught up in the readings and I have only 2 chapters to read this weekend I think to stay caught up, maybe 3 to get ahead a little (by a week).

Nothing interesting going on - Floss wise I'm up to 611 wound :)

(for me:)

Winding floss - update:

I'm up to 602 on the DMC list (have every number under that wound onto bobbins) and I do own the entire collection. I am finding more duplicates than I thought so I will have to figure out what to do with those exactly as I don't think winding more bobbins is necessarily the answer, we'll see though.

I'm more than 1/4 through my collection - maybe even a third of the way since I have sporadic numbers wound from projects I've done.

February Goals:

1) Finish It's Winter
2) Continue work on Going To Market
3) Work on Peaceful Silhouette
4) Start baby quilt
5) Work on knitted hat (purple hat)

That shouldn't be too unmanageable with my schedule. Ideally I'd like to get the top half of Going To Market finished if I can get myself to focus on the background that much but I may get more of her dress finished than background as I can't tell now what I'll be in the mood to stitch :)

January Goals in review:

1) Finish Green Old Gardens [YES]
2) Start Going to Market [YES and made good progress!]
3) Work on It's Winter [YES - should be done next month!]

4) Work on purple hat (knitting) [Not really - no knitting this month :)]

It is icy out there! The roads weren't bad but our parking lot at work is crazy icy!

Last night was a nice night of relaxing, I didn't stitch, usually it'd be a night where I completely veg and just watch tv (usually once every two weeks I need a night like this), but instead I wound floss... which gives a great sense of accomplishment. I'm up into the 500's now I think in my collection, transferring them from stitch bows to wound bobbins. I wind by hand and with the knots they tend to take a while, about 3 to a 45 minute show. But I got a lot done tonight and I brought some in today in case I feel like doing more during my break.

I think it's time to see how I did on my goals for the month - i think I kept them light so i should have done quite well :)

Very close to finished on It's Winter - I'm over halfway done with the blue banner and the word Winter is now finished:


I pretty much picked this piece up when I had time this weekend, which included Friday night and Sunday night while watching Firefly - which we finished - I really love the show, I wish it was at least a full season, it's so disappointing to get to the "end" and not have it truly be an end at all! My boyfriend and I both really liked the show a lot, it had a lot of character to it.

I got my homework assignment finished pretty much. I haven't emailed it in or anything yet as it's not due until Wednesday so I'll probably do that Tuesday evening, but it's finished so I can forget about it for now. I'm also caught up on the readings so in general I'm feeling good about that.

I bought the fabric for the new quilt I will be making, I don't have the quilt completely defined in my head yet but I think I got some cute fabrics, so I will get them washed wednesday and start really planning out the quilt. It shouldn't take a lot of piecing, mostly it's applique which I will do by hand so that's what will take the most time. I bought flannels for the applique as I thought that would be best for a baby quilt.

Well - another work week is here - I must check out what's on the plate for today ...

Well can you tell things were busy yesterday? It was a great day at work, finally made some real progress on things and I think today will continue that and next week I may actually be wrapping a few things up!

Wednesday night was great, my friend came over and we mostly chatted (which I really needed) and I did get a little stitching done on It's Winter - very little. But I hope today at lunch to work more on that.

Last night I had class, my homework assignment really won't be as bad as I first thought. So my goal this weekend is to get that done on saturday, work on the website a little bit and then sunday have some time to both quilt and cross stitch if I really met my goals!

Tonight I have a trip to the mall planned on the way home, then a night of watching the first few episodes of Firefly (maybe a little stitching with that)... If I continue on It's Winter I think it would be easy to watch while stitching plain blue everywhere with no counting.

In the hopes that today will be extremely productive, I must get to it :)

A nice night - got my vacuuming done just like I wanted, so the apartment is clean now :) A big relief, then I installed the quilt designing program on my laptop and started to design some blocks for the baby quilt. On friday all i have to do is figure out the measurements and how much fabric to buy with my coupon on saturday ;)

So tonight will be a stitch night! As long as I don't have to work too late, i think i got out of here before 6 last night so I'm hopeful for tonight...

And the class really begins - we got our first homework assignment now, it's due feb 1st in the morning so I have about a week to do it. With the way my week is going it looks like most of the weekend will be spent on this assignment but hopefully it won't be too difficult, just time consuming.

Last night I worked until about 7:30 and then hit the grocery store before home, so dinner was after 9 (i got home around 8:30) and by 10 I had read 2 pages for class and fallen asleep. I did get the apartment picked up a little though.

This morning I cleaned the shower (and ran again - that's 2 days in a row :) )
Tonight I hope to leave work by 6 and get the apartment vacuumed and the bathroom cleaned maybe tomorrow morning.

Wednesday my friend is coming over to stitch - I may stitch or look through quilt magazines for a quilt design for a baby quilt I want to make soon.

Thursday is class.
Friday I hope to design the baby quilt using software my mom let me borrow. Then Saturday a trip to the quilt store will get me "started". I can wash any new fabric with the laundry over the weekend and spend the rest of the weekend working on my homework assignment and the website. Hopefully with a little bit of free time to stitch on Going To Market some more.

I do hope to stitch at lunch today, thursday and friday as well so maybe there is hope for a progress pic next monday too :)
Well another busy day is ahead of me ...

Holy Moley - it is snowing out there! It took me over 2 hours to drive into work this morning, just to turn around and head over to my doctor appt. I am not back at work at noon having gotten no work done yet! I didn't even know about this snow, I got up at 5:30 and ran, there was a little snow on the roads but nothing much so I headed out at 7 - what a surprise!

Anyhow - this weekend was nothing like I expected, friday night I got home so late that nothing happened, saturday we headed back to NY and spent they day with my family, my boyfriend went out with friends for the night and we were supposed to leave sunday morning to come back. Well that turned in to another card playing day (double pinochle with 6 players) which we couldn't stop playing, finally at 6:30 we made ourselves quit so we could be home before law and order at least!

So we drove home and I read as much as I could for my class, I am only 2 chapters behind where I wanted to be so that's not too bad right now.

Pictures - So here's an update on It's Winter by Sue Hillis - it's my at work piece until it's finished:

I know part of it is a little blurry, it was late last night and I wasn't careful putting it on the scanner.

And a small update on Going To Market:


And now I must eat some lunch and work -- luckily tonight is my one somewhat free night so I can work late, just have to hit the grocery store on the way home :)

Class - well with the second class finished, things are looking pretty good, no assignment due next week like originally planned as the assignment hasn't been decided yet. I do have a lot of reading to do however and a few programs to install so i'm ready to do the assignment when it comes.

I stitched a little on Going To Market yesterday at lunch again, worked some more on the woman's dress. Today it looks like we are going out to lunch so I won't have a stitching break but maybe tonight I can work on it a bit.

Going back home tomorrow to celebrate my parents' birthdays so tonight I have to shop on the way home real quick for gifts and then clean the apartment a bit as it's been a long time :) That way sunday when we're back I can just relax! Oh the weekend ...

Finally a little stitching in the evening. I worked on Going To Market a little yesterday, working on the woman's dress now. Today I will go back to It's Winter at lunch and this weekend I can focus on Going To Market again as long as I'm good and do homework and work on the website too.

I need to start running too... I've been bad about that, i hurt my leg falling on the ice the other day, kind of a hip and knee pain but it's feeling better now and I really should get up and run tomorrow morning and all next week.

I have high hopes for myself :) And I have a lot of work to get done before 4pm today when I head off to my second class - so I better head into the lab!

A night full of nothing - at all.
Not sure if it's good or bad but i think i needed a mental break last night, so I curled up on my couch and watched tv. No stitching or anything, didn't even get around to eating dinner.

I did work on "It's Winter" during lunch yesterday and hope to continue that today and tomorrow at lunch. I packed up some more thread to wind onto bobbins tonight in case i'm not in the mood to stitch again.. at least i can get something done. Plus I have my homework to read for class that I should do a little tonight.

I've decided to reorganize my stash (not right now) but in general. Right now I have it organized by categories kind of. I think I might change it to be alphabetical by designer, besides my dragon binder which will stay the way it is as that is my favorite to look through, but I bought 2 more binders (as mine are full) and some more paper protectors as I ran out of those a while ago. I already recently went through my stash and made sure my database was up to date so now i just have to order my database by designer then title and then find those charts and move them to new binders. Should be a fun task, maybe this weekend or the weekend after...

A late night...
Well I did get to stitch a little at lunch yesterday and I finally broke out "It's Winter" by Sue Hillis. I'd like to finish this piece up soon as it has been so close to finished for over a year and a half now. So it will be my lunch time piece and when that's finished I will start working on Peaceful Silhouette for my boyfriend again at lunch. I'm surprisingly far on that piece, I have one boat finished, that is more than 1/4 finished.

I worked late last night.. until 7 pretty much, and then with a trip to walmart I didn't get home until after 8. I did get some reading done for my class though, I have finished chapter 1 and started chapter 2. With a few more nights to go I should be able to at least start chapter 3, which is what we went over in class last week.
So it's a busy week. Tonight I hope to get home at a regular time, do some reading, watch Gilmore Girls and cross stitch. Doesn't sound impossible at least. Well busy day at work today so I must get to it...

A weekend full of stitching...

Well I pretty much stayed in this weekend and stitched while watching dvd's. I finished up season 2 of Felicity and the first 8 episodes of season 2 of ER. I also watched a few movies, all the while getting some stitching in on Going To Market, my progress so far:



It's been great fun to stitch, i'm getting a bit bored with the background so I'm going to go back to working on her dress a bit before continuing with the background but the upper right corner is finished so I know how much framing room I have on top now and I finished all around the bundles on the woman's head so I could get that backstitching done.

It's a late day - got to work at 9! Compared to my usual 7:30, if I still take a lunch/stitching break I'll be here till 6 - we'll see how the day goes. Of course leaving at 6 mean less traffic plus I have to stop at walmart on the way home so if it's later there's less crowds as well.

My professor still hasn't posted an assignment, I didn't get any work done this weekend, either on the website or school reading so hopefully this week I will get on those tasks. I wish it was still the weekend, i'm tired...

Feeling like a student again...

It's not too bad, the class was interesting, and although there is group work which I'm definately not a fan of, the bright side is that we don't have to physically meet in groups (which is a huge plus for me who works full time and part time on the side and driving into boston is just not what i want to do on the weekend) AND it's a graduate course so all the students actually want to be there so hopefully everyone will do their share of the work!

On the down side, yesterday was so busy at work that I didn't get my stitching break (didn't even get a lunch break so I ate lunch on the way to class at 3:30). Today I really do hope to stitch some more on Going To Market and this weekend I absolutely must get some stitching in between reading for this class and working on the website. Luckily there's no actual assignment yet so I just have reading.

Work is crazy right now, I have an ever growing list of things to do which is completely seperate from my normal job so what I normally do is falling way behind schedule. I do hope next week to be done with this security related stuff and work some overtime to try to catch up on my other work.

I'm so glad it's friday, even if i have to work late and bring work home with me - i get to sleep late tomorrow!!! I can't wait!

No stitching last night, but I did work a bit on Going To Market at lunch time, getting a tiny start on the background stitching. Today I hope to do some more on that at lunch time but it will be a short break since I'm leaving early today to take care of some things at school before my class at 6.

Last night I was exhausted, I just watched tv and read during commercials, didn't have the energy to pick up my stitching and I was pretty much sleeping by 10. I am really enjoying this book though (The Eyre Affair) and I hope to finish it this weekend and then get back to Crime and Punishment. Once that's finished I can start Eragon hopefully.

This weekend is nice and open besides a holiday party saturday night, so hopefully I will work on the website, get a start on my homework (ugg!), finish my book and get some stitching done... that doesn't sound too ambitious :)

Christine - an LNS is a Local Needlework Shop, it's a store nearby that has a stitch night twice a month and we have a pretty regular group of friends that go, we also get together on weekends but at the shop there's always new people stopping by and we can shop too...

Progress update on Going To Market:

I have just started the last bundle on her head and then I'll start on a little of the background before going to her dress, try to space the background out a bit. Although it is all half stitches so it might go fast. I worked on this yesterday at lunch and last night a bit. I hope today to do the same (at lunch and a bit at night).

Tomorrow I will not have a lunch break and I will not have any free evening time as I have class 6-9 (my first one) - which i'm a little nervous about but hopefully i can get everything figured out (parking/books etc) before hand to cut down on the unknowns.

Huge news at work, another fellow co-worker that I actually work pretty closely with (kind of a good mentor type) is leaving :( We found out yesterday so we're a bit in shock, this is the second person leaving that really bothers me as I was hoping to learn more from them, we have been hiring a lot lately so hopefully someone new we've hired can start to fill their shoes. So it's just a sad day today (and probably through to next week when he leaves).

Thank you everyone for all the comments, and now I have a few new blogs to read :) Green Old Gardens was actually a pattern passed down by Carol after she stitched it last year and I mentioned how much I liked it - huge thanks to her again! And now I think I found someone at work who has been inspired to stitch it next as she really loves flowers and gardens and the few specialty stitches really intrique her. Mostly there are satin stitches and long stitches so it's not a difficult piece and the diagrams are great.

Last night I spent a little time on Going To Market, working on the bundle on top of the woman's head, I have her head covering almost finished and I think 3 of her bundles are stitched. I will work on that again today at lunch and maybe tonight I can scan a picture of it in to post.

I was very good this morning and got up and ran, it's not too hard when I go to bed at 10 like I always plan on doing. So I did a short run and I feel so much better having done that. Hopefully the trend continues tomorrow :)

Now for a full day at work...

Happy Dance! I had to stay up a little later than I wanted which sacrificed my run this morning as I couldn't get up at 5:30 but I finished stitching Green Old Gardens:

Click for a larger image.

It was a good weekend, I stitched Friday night and finished up section 10 then sunday night after I got home from changing my brake pads (actually my boyfriend and uncle changed them while I passed tools back and forth), but after that we came home and I stitched up the border. Now I have 2 pieces ready to be framed (Legends of the Dragons and this one), maybe in a month or two I'll have enough money saved up to buy the frames, I think I picked out one for Legends of the Dragons already but it's a bit more expensive of a frame than I usually get, so I'll definately be doing the framing myself. I'm unsure about matting yet, I really enjoy cutting the mats but sometimes I don't like the look of them very much.

The count down to my first graduate class starts now, class is thursday night, I'll probably try to work on the website most evenings this week before then and I'll definately pull out It's Winter to bring to work tomorrow or wednesday, other than that I'll work on Going To Market. It's fun to have a good size finish so early in the year!

The last stitch night for a while...

Well with the onset of my class starting next Thursday I will now miss my twice monthly stitch night at my LNS. I'm hoping my "spring break" week will coincide with a stitch night and then I'll get one in March, otherwise it won't be until May. But it was a great night, I did some shopping (I needed that WDW Lucky and while I was looking for it I found about 6 other colors that I just "needed"). Plus I bought a few charts that caught my eye stitched up on the walls.

Then I worked on Green Old Gardens and in perfect time I finished section 7, leaving only section 10 left to stitch and the border! So that will be my focus this weekend. My weekend is filling up a bit however, probably tonight I will stitch, tomorrow I have plans with friends, then tomorrow night more stitching. Sunday I HAVE to change the breaks on my car so that means a trip to NH to use my uncle's garage (it's cold outside, you need a garage to do any car work at this time of year). And there goes the weekend!

Well it's a busy day at work so I better get to it :)

My first picture of Going To Market:


I worked on that a little a lunch yesterday and then a bit in the evening after our treadmill was fixed. Then I squeezed a little time on the website in as well!

I really like Going To Market and I may have some lunch time today to work on it but tonight I'm going back to Green Old Gardens since I can buy the missing floss for it at Stitch tonight. I'd like to finish that piece up as my first finish for 2006 before focusing more on Going To Market. Then soon I will be bringing It's Winter out of storage and to work to be my lunch time piece.

I officially got accepted in the graduate school program I had applied, and today or tomorrow I will sign up for my class that will start next week! I wonder how much of my time will be spent on homework now, with that and the website I'm a little nervous but I think I'm up to the challenge of still finding free time to stitch and maybe next month I'll go back to quilting as well, I do hope to start going to guild meetings again at least this year!

I was good last night - and I actually worked on the website for an hour and a half. Hopefully tonight I will work on it some more and finish up a few more things.

I started "Going to Market" at lunch yesterday, I hope today to work on it for another half hour today and maybe a little tonight if I get some website work done first. I really love the fabric I am using, it's only 18x18 but when I measured it it's really about 17x18.5 and on 32 count that seems like it should be enough. To be safe I started in the center and I'm working my way up so I can stitch the woman's head, then I'll work on the background which won't be very interesting but with it being mostly half stitches hopefully it won't take too long. I'll try to save the young boy for the end because he'll be the most interesting part to work on besides the woman's head.

Depending on progress today I may have a picture for tomorrow but it won't be much. Then tomorrow night is stitch night and I'll break out Green Old Gardens again to work on. I hope maybe this weekend to have time to finish that up (hopefully i'm not being too ambitious) :)

January Goals:

1) Finish Green Old Gardens
2) Start Going to Market
3) Work on It's Winter

4) Work on purple hat (knitting)

Not a lot of goals because I'd like to get into working on larger pieces. Plus I'll be starting up a class next week which will cut into stitching time for sure - and the website, that I've now pushed off into January as I avoided it completely during the holiday season - oh man!

2006 Goals:

1) Finish Green Old Gardens
2) Finish Wrapped Butterfly into pillow
3) Finish Blackwork Dragon
4) Work on Peaceful Silhouette
5) Stitch/Make ornament for my sister
6) Stitch/Make ornament for my mom
7) Finish It's Winter
8) Start/Work on Going to Market
9) Start/Work on Kingdom Sampler
10) Start a seasonal fall piece

Quilts:
1. Work on Amish Quilt (hand quilting)
2. Work on Sampler quilt (hand quilting)
3. Start a new quilt

Knitting:
1. Learn to knit socks
2. Learn to knit sweaters (try it)

Christmas Surprise 2005 (finished December 30th 2005)


And my progress on Green Old Gardens after a nice 4 day weekend:


It's nice having a decent size piece that still fits on the scanner so the pics come out better.
As you can see Green Old Gardens is coming right along, I have 2 sections left to stitch, both of which use WDW Lucky, the section on the left uses mostly Lucky so that will definately wait until Thursday. I started on the border, hopefully that will move a little faster next time I pick it up. So far this piece has been a lot of fun to stitch, all the different stitches and the flowers which I don't normally get to stitch, it really moves along.

Last night after stitching until about 5, I took a break, then around 8 I decided to start a new project :) I didn't actually start it, but it's a kit (Going to Market by Dimensions) and I wanted to trade out the fabric, so I found a great piece of 32ct fabric (i think it's called Oceantide by Silkweavers but I could be wrong), and I seperated all the kit threads, got it all organized and ready to start, maybe I'll start that at lunch today.

That's my stitching news, now to set up my goals for the year and the month...

I promise pictures tomorrow, as tonight I am just on quickly and a little later I will scan in my progress on Green Old Gardens and my ornament from last year :) As in Friday. It's been a nice relaxing day with no heat - our furnace was broken today, so we slept in - late, until almost noon - that's what happens when it's COLD.

We got some space heaters from the basement while we waited for the oil company to come fix the furnace so I spent the day in front of a heater under many blankets watching movies, snacking and doing a little more stitching :) Now I'm full on strawberries dipped in milk chocolate (that was really good) but I need to either make dinner or decide no dinner and eat something light .. decisions.

The heat is back on now, and I just finished watching "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", no stitching through this one, just a nice relaxing movie watch. I think I might read for a bit for the rest of the evening I'm not sure.

On Green Old Gardens I have finished 8 out of 10 sections, leaving the two that use WDW Lucky for after Thursday when I get it, and I started the border a little bit, I will work on that sporadically I think but until Thursday this piece might get kind of packed up, maybe with the start of another new piece, I can't finish this one up and not have another one going already to jump right into :)

I'll do my January and 2006 goals tomorrow morning when I post my progress pics !

December Goals in Review:

1) Finish Harry Potter Scarf by Christmas (family christmas is actually new year's weekend) [Finished and given]
2) Stitch penguin ornament for my sister [finished]
3) Stitch second pickle ornament for my aunt [finished]
4) Stitch another ornament (not sure what yet) [dragon -f inished]
5) Start Green Old Gardens [yup!]
6) Pick up Blackwork Dragon at some point [nope]
7) Maybe knit hat for my sister for Christmas (real christmas) [YES!]

8) Work on website again -- UGG! [not really]

[not too bad, with my knitting getting put aside i think i'll get more stitching done this month]

Some pictures!

A new start, Green Old Gardens (progress as of 12/31/05):



And some gifts I made and gave for Christmas, first the Harry Potter scarf for my cousin, all finished up with her initials:


And some tile coasters I made and gave as gifts, 4 are on a white and 4 are on a beige tile.


It's been a great weekend for stitching! I finished up my dragon ornament Friday night and I've made more progress on Green Old Gardens today, I'll scan those in to post tomorrow some time maybe since I have the day off and plan to keep on stitching :) I also hope to break out an old WIP I have laying around to bring to work Tuesday as my lunch piece so hopefully that will get finished up soon (It's Winter by Sue Hillis).

I will try to be better about pictures this year (that's my resolution) :)

Ornament almost finished , it's called Christmas Surprise 2005 and is adorable, I won't finish it up as an ornament yet but I'll save it tucked away until I have more ornaments ready to make for next year. I may even have to make this little guy again, he's such a cutie!

I'm really looking forward to tonight, nothing really planned but that's always the best :) I will wash the harry potter scarf so I can block it overnight and tomorrow and then add the tassels tomorrow when it's dry. I will finish up the ornament tonight and work on Green Old Gardens a bit and take some pictures, maybe post them tomorrow on my day off.

I started knitting a hat for myself yesterday at lunch, it's a mix of one of those fun fur type yarns with a regular yarn matching in color, I think it will be a cute hat that I can work on slowly this month while I focus on stitching more. Monday I think I will start a new cross stitch piece as well so I can have a small rotation going and never get bored... I'm thinking maybe "Going To Market" - it's a kit by Dimensions... unless I need to buy fabric for that as I am going to trade out the Aida in the kit for an evenweave or linen.

I'm so excited to be back to stitching, maybe soon I'll start hand quilting again too! Yipee!

2005 Goals in REVIEW!

Stitching:
1. Finish Winnie the Pooh for Robin [YES]
2. Start/Finish Precious Moments for Grace's quilt [YES]
3. Finish Herbal Sampler [YES]
4. Finish DD Wisdom (virtue series) [nope]
5. Finish Mystic Retreat piece by Jeanette Douglas [YES]
6. Start/Finish 2 pickle ornaments for aunt [YES]
7. Make progress on piece for Ryan [progress made]
8. Start a new project [YES a few!]
9. Finish It's Winter [nope]

Quilting:
1. Quilt and Bind Sampler Quilt [not finished]
2. Make Amish quilt for boyfriend's sister [YES]
3. Finish Herb Quilt [nope]
4. Make Pooh Wall hanging for Robin [YES]
5. Finish Teapot Quilt? [nope]

Funny how goals change throughout the year - the amish quilt took up so much time that I ended up making a different machine quilted amish quilt for my boyfriend's sister! And with the start of knitting I accomplished a lot this year.

Other pieces finished/started this year:
Started and Finished Legends of the Dragons (SAL with Carol)
Stitched 6 Ever So Littles and framed them up for gifts
Stitched 5 ornaments and made those
Stitched "the Spirit Within" and framed it
Stitched some Round Robin pieces and class pieces
Started Blackwork Dragon
Started Green Old Gardens

I hope all those that celebrated it had a very Merry Christmas! I sure loved my little 4 day vacation and I'm looking forward to another in 3 days :)

My boyfriend and I went home for the weekend, driving out friday night to hang out with my parents (I should really say evening as we left around 2 or 3 I think). We had dinner when my sister and her boyfriend arrived and a relaxing evening cleaning out my parent's liquor cabinet - luckily it wasn't very full :)

Saturday was a relax and sleep in day then head down to my boyfriend's parent's house for dinner. Sunday we did presents and then headed out to see my great grandmother and then off to my grandparent's for dinner and presents with my mom's side of the family. My parents really spoiled us this year, I got so many great gifts from everyone!

Well Christmas evening with the boyfriend's over again we started on the newly refilled liquor cabinet (not me but everyone else) and they polished off a few bottles of liquor with shots (that's between 6 people). It was a long night and an even longer morning with everyone recuperating (i felt fine).

We finally headed home around 6:30 after watching Cold Mountain (which I liked) and watched Star Wars III at home before crashing off to bed.

The best part of my vacation was yesterday, I slept late then I got to go through all the christmas presents and find places for them, enjoy them again, I got a lot of books, a couple cross stitch books (including the best of TW which is something I always wanted but would never buy myself because I don't know that i'd stitch any of them), but now I have it :) Then I went through all my cross stitch patterns and updated my database so now I know I have over 300 patterns in binders alone (so that doesn't count my kits or my patterns that don't fit in binders (like TW's). That's a little more than I thought I had but does include freebies that I intend to stitch.

Organization was the name of the game yesterday so after the cross stitch I moved on to christmas stuff, it never got put out this year, no tree or anything, just didn't have the time (or space really), so i went through and reorganized my decorations (old and new) into some new containers I bought for storage and I'm left with just a small pile that needs a box so I figure I can pick one up some place during the sales this week (friday).

Finally it was time to relax so I put dinner in the oven and got out Green Old Gardens, I collected all the floss for it and wound it on to bobbins then started stitching it. I didn't get much done on it but enough to feel like I got a start and can pick it up again no problem. Then I started working on the new Dragon Dreams ornament freebie that was up for a short time, it's a dragon with a stocking and I have the stocking almost stitched. Getting an early start for next year while I'm still in the holiday mood!

Well this is long so I won't bore anyone one any longer... just stitching updates:

Almost finished with Harry Potter Scarf - the knitting is done, now I'm sewing in the tales and then I have to do the "finishing"
Finished that hat for my sister last week and she loved it :) Forgot to take a picture :(
Started the two new cross stitch pieces yesterday - hopefully next week I'll be pulling out some WIPS to work on during lunch breaks when my knitting is on break for a month !

Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays!

Well I'm sure I won't be posting this weekend as I will be back in NY, maybe tuesday I will get back online and then I'll be back wednesday and thursday, hopefully with some stitching updates!

No knitting last night really but I'm leaving work at noon today to go home and pack and I hope I can finish up my sister's hat before we leave so I can wrap it with everything else. Then I can work on the Harry Potter scarf in the car and maybe finish that up.

I gave my uncle his Ever So Little's piece last night - he loved it, and my aunt really loved her pickle ornaments. Next year I'd like to make my aunt a sampler I found that i think she'll like, it's pretty simple so I think it will go quick, it's kind of patriotic and also a quilt theme - perfect for her.

Well I'm at work early and no one is here - and by here, I not only mean in my office but in the whole building! I'm headed to the lab to see what I can get done while it's quiet!

Wrapping is all finished!

I am officially ready for the holiday, of course we never did get our tree up and decorated, but that's what happens when you're never home for a whole day, nothing we can do about it now, we won't be home for the holidays anyway as we'll be going back to visit family tomorrow night.

I worked on knitting my sister's hat last night, I am now on the decreasing part so it will be easily finished by tomorrow some time - hopefully before we leave and I can wrap it up. Then the car trip I can spend finishing up the harry potter scarf and get it washed and blocked this weekend. The last step should go quickly, that's adding the tassels after embroidering my cousins name along the botton (never tried duplicate stitch before but i think i'll give it a try for this).

Almost done with all my holiday crafting - so now what do I do? :) Next week I will be home all day tuesday and I think I will start a new cross stitch piece - Green Old Gardens, if I have the right piece of fabric in my stash for it. Then I will break out one of my WIPS to bring to work for lunch breaks and finish up. It's Winter is close to finished so that would be a good choice (good timing too).

Well I am either taking tomorrow off or working a short day (probably just working a half day), so I better get some stuff done so I don't feel guilty doing it!

Finally some pics .. and I did even more stuff last night.

First the second set of ornaments I put together last night, they are slightly better than my first 2 which are next. These are 2 pickle ornaments for my aunt and the penguin ornament for myself (only because I matched the one I did for my sister).


And here are the first 2 ornaments I put together, the penguin for my sister and the other is for my om.


Then the 2 pieces I finally framed with my own mats (the Ever So Littles) - one for my uncle:


and one for my sister's boyfriend:


So last night I first made the coasters out of tiles that I'm giving as gifts, I took a picture but forgot to upload it so if I remember I will do that tonight. Then I put together the three ornaments in the first picture. By then it was about 8pm so I started watching some tv while knitting on my sister's hat a bit, I didn't last long, I pretty much put down my knitting by 8:30 and was asleep shortly after.

Our treadmill is having problems... which is really bad because I was doing so well getting up and running in the mornings. We used the incline for the first time the other day and it would go up but wouldn't go down. Unfortunately we haven't been able to get a hold of someone to come fix it, it's under warranty so we wont' have to pay anything but I'm we'll have to be around which we just aren't since we both work during the day. So I'm bumming about that.

I'm going to call today and maybe see if someone can come out friday, then I will either take the day off or if i can get my brother to come over for the day then I'll work. I plan on working a short day friday anyway.

Well times a racing so I better get to the lab and get some stuff done!

My internet at home is still not working.. I was not able to get my pictures up for today either! Really I should have pictures in tomorrows post, maybe even some more ornaments finished.

This past weekend was nice and relaxing, I spent it with family (little cousins). Then Sunday I finished up my christmas shopping and wrapped presents. Then I did the framing I had to do and started making ornaments.. which is a bit tricky. I started with fabric glue but that really didn't work well, the hot glue gun worked better but adding the trim around the outside looks a little messy with the glue gun. Hopefully my next couple ornaments will come out better, I have 2 finished (the ones for my mom and sister), I have 2 ornaments to make for my aunt to give to her thursday and then I have the matching penguin ornament for myself to make.

Last night I did the prep work on my tiles to make into coasters. I just had to spray a few coats of fixative on them. Then I picked out the stamp sets I'm going to use. I have 2 sets of 4 I want to make as gifts, and then I might make 4 more as a backup gift. It's pretty simple to do, I simply stamp the images on with Staz On ink. Wait for that to dry, color in the images with pastels. Stipple the edge with some brown ink and then spray a matte finish over top and let dry. I figure I can get those all finished tonight and maybe also finish making my ornaments which really don't take long.

For Christmas that will leave only the following:
Finish knitting hat for my sister
Finish the harry potter scarf (i have about 2 stripes left to go and then the tassels)

That's it - maybe even doable!

Short post -

Sorry this isn't much and no pictures - I promise tomorrow to post my pics from this weekend. Things are crazy hectic at work today and have been. I did get some crafy stuff done this weekend, including making 2 of my ornaments (only 3 or 4 to go now, some of which aren't stitched yet) :) I also framed my ever so littles pieces that are gifts and took pics so pictures definately coming.

Almost done with the harry potter scarf - 2 or 3 stripes left to go. First I need to finish a hat for my sister for christmas though since the harry potter scarf is for my extended family christmas which is actually new years day so I have another week. I think i'll go get my knitting now and take a lunch break now that i think of it.

A new hat started...

I decided last night to start a new hat for my sister for christmas. I hope to maybe finish or almost finish the harry potter scarf this weekend leaving me plenty of time to finish this hat next week. The only problem is I have to buy size 10 double pointed needles to finish it as I'm knitting it in the round on 10 1/2 circulars that will not decrease at all so just another reason to stop at joann's this weekend.

Tonight is a stitch night, I hope to finish the Silent Night ornament and maybe start the second pickle ornament. If i can get that done by sunday I will have all 4 ornaments done and maybe I can finish them up.

I was going to stop knitting after the harry potter/sister's hat were finished but there's one more hat I want to make for myself this year. I will most likely wait a little while to start it but it's purple, a mixture of plain purple yarn and a matching fun fur yarn. I got the fun fur stuff on sale and I think it will make a cute hat mixed with the other.

Tomorrow night I babysit my cousins - all 3 of the little ones. They are good kids so I'm really glad I get to see them so much, putting them to bed is another story though! We'll see how it goes. I do hope to bring my knitting and get some of that done after they're down but I don't have my hopes up as usually I just fall asleep after that whole ritual!

A night of baking cookies...

Seriously that is all I did last night. On the way home from work I went to 2 grocery stores and the liquor store to get some cognac for the greek cookies that I didn't end up making ;)

Then I spent hours rolling out dough and cutting and baking cookies, sugar and gingerbread cookies. Tonight I hope to make the greek cookies which shouldn't take all night like last night, they can't really because I have to work on the website tonight, I promised.

When to stitch.. well tomorrow night I can't knit on the harry potter scarf because i'll be at my uncle's and it's for my cousin so she can't see me knitting it ;) So maybe i'll bring my stitching. The only problem is I have the silent night ornament to finish and then the next one I was going to stitch was another pickle ornament for my aunt but I can't do that at her house ... so maybe --- I'll start something new???

I really want to start Green Old Gardens, I'm not sure I have the right fabric for it though so if I have a free minute tonight I'm going to go through my fabric and see and gather my supplies to start it. If not I always have blackwork dragon to work on.

Thursday night is stitch night too so I'll work on continue whatever I work on tomorrow. Then this weekend is packed, no stitching probably, maybe some knitting in the car rides if i'm lucky.

So my feet hurt from standing last night on cold hard tile floors, and I have plenty of work to get done... I really just want to take a nap!

A Christmas Shopping Weekend ...

Well Friday worked out really well, I got a ton of work done at home, enough so that I felt completely relaxed all weekend. Friday night I worked steadily on the Harry Potter Scarf while watching lots of ER season 1. Saturday we drove down to CT to see my sister and her boyfriend so I knitted during the car ride, then just relaxed the rest of the evening. We got some shopping done, went out to dinner. I read some more of my Lisp book (teaching myself Lisp).

Sunday we spent the day christmas shopping, we got most of the hard people on our lists finished. Not too much more to shop for now so I am stress free :) We got home around 5:30 or so and I made some more christmas cards, I made a total of 15 (5 of each design I could come up with), and that is the exact amount I needed so far. If I come up with any more designs I can send some to my local friends but I don't want to put pressure on them to send back cards, that's not the point, I just like making cards. So I'm mailing out those cards today, all but 3 or so that need addresses and input from my boyfriend (for his family). Another stress off my back :)

No stitching this weekend, although I think that will get picked up soon as my wrists have been aching from all the knitting. Plus I have to finish the ornaments soon probably next sunday I will try to do the actual finishing of the ornaments if I have fabric I like (another trip to Joann's is needed I think) :)
Alright - today should be a good work day - got up and ran (4 days last week and 1 day this week so far - not bad!)

Snow day .. work from home...

Well unlike Carol I don't get the day off completely but I am working from home so I don't have to drive through this crazy storm. It's really not the snow that bothers me, as I have all wheel drive and I drive carefully, but the other drivers scare me so I avoid storm driving, especially early in the season like this when people aren't used to it yet.

So I'm home, working - I figure I will work till 3 straight with only short breaks then I will be done for the day, and I can continue watching ER season 1 while stitching/knitting or whatever.

I worked on the harry potter scarf a little last night since I didn't get a chance at lunch time yesterday. Almost done with stripe 8. This weekend I'll be home sporadically but should have some car driving time to knit if we go down to CT to visit family a bit. I also have to finish up my christmas cards this weekend so i can mail them out monday. I have 10 done so i have about 15 more to go and I should be set (that's 3 more designs I have to come up with).

Then at some point I want to stop by home depot and pick up some tiles to make coasters out of, They come out really cool and i think they will be good christmas gifts for a few people. I know I would love a nice set of good coasters myself and real artistically made coasters can run 30 dollars generally. Plus another craft .. win win :)

A night of cooking, well I worked till 6, drove home, stopped by the grocery store, that got me home around 7. I started right out cleaning chicken and getting cooking done. Finally by 9:15 I was done with 2 large chicken parm dishes in the oven and a small eggplant parm already cooling off. Nothing else got done last night, I slept!

I did however get up and run for day 4! on the treadmill! Tomorrow might be a stay home from work/recover/work from home day as this cold seems to be getting worse again, I think I need some extra sleep and with the predicted snow tomorrow might be a good day to work from home anyway.

Possibly stitch tonight, so I could finish up the Silent Night ornament and start either the second pickle ornament or the other ornament which is still undecided! Plus I could always do some knitting as I'm going to do at lunch today. I'm now on stripe 8 of 19!

So there is a feast prepared for lunch today at work and plenty of work to be done, hopefully it's a good day!

A nice lazy night, I did get a tiny bit of knitting done but other than that I went to bed early (by 9) and got some much needed rest.

Day 3 getting up and running! And hopefully the count will just continue!

Tonight - I must cook - lots of chicken and eggplant parm for work tomorrow (i'm bringing in lunch for part of the office). I'll probably get some knitting or stitching in, and maybe some reading as I started reading my lisp book in preperation of my grad class next january. I must learn Lisp before the class starts so i'm on my way now...

and now it's lunch time..

Pictures finally:

Here are the two finished penguins:


And here's the ornament I started last night, Silent Night:

It has beads for the notes, all that's left is to stitch the words Silent Night, plus I have to add the year to all the ornaments since that's the point, maybe the names of each person as well.

So only a few more ornaments to go, hopefully today at lunch I can actually get a knitting break and work on the Harry Potter scarf.

Last night was a nice night of baking, watching a movie (Fever Pitch) and then stitching (above ornament). Then after dinner I hemmed the other pair of pants for my boyfriend for work.

Another successful morning of getting up early to run on the treadmill and get in to work early. Tonight I will spend most of my evening putting together a powerpoint presentation about the history of knitting for my fellow co-workers lunch presentation tomorrow. Every wednesday we do a brown bag lunch session and someone presents something about the program they are working or something. I offered to spice it up with a hobby presentation so I think i'm on the hook for tomorrow now but it should be fun. I'll bring in all my needles and yarn and anyone who wants to can try it out as well.

Sometimes I feel like I'm sick all the time.. this weekend it was a cold, i could tell it was coming on, that sore throat for a few days then sunday it combined with congestion which is continuing today. Luckily it hasn't been bad enough that I've had to change any plans or anything. Just an annoyance.

This weekend was pretty good otherwise, I had a stamp camp saturday and now I have a new christmas gift idea, making coasters out of tiles. Then I got my treadmill all set up before heading up to my uncle's for the night.

Sunday I watched my cousins for a bit then came home and went right out to my stitch group which was a lot of eating and stitching :) I finished the second penguin ornament so now I just have to start making ornaments and stitch 2 more ornaments, maybe 3. I meant to have pictures today but I wasn't feeling good last night and I went to bed early. Tonight I will be up baking so hopefully I'll have no choice but to take pictures :)

This morning I got up at 5:30 and ran on my treadmill! Of course I'm still sick so after about 10 minutes I had to cut it down to just walking for the rest of the half hour but I think it's a doable goal to get up 4 days a week at 5:30 to run and any evening I have free time to maybe walk too.

Work is extremely tiring since I have an on and off headache and I got up so early, I think I may leave a little early today so I can take a nap before baking for tomorrow. How productive can I really be in the next hour and 20 minutes before I plan to leave anyway??

I am not a fan of interviewing! And yet I have to interview someone in 15 min or so... ugg!

I started my penguin ornament last night at stitch, I decided to stitch him without the border so that I can make him into a round ornament instead of rectangular. Unfortunately as I was almost done (all i have left is some white to fill in and then backstitch him), i realized that he's supposed to be grey, not black, so the lighter grey outlining his elbow and such looks funny. So I decided that I will make 2 penguin ornaments, one for myself (the messed up one), and one for my sister and every year I will make us matching ornaments, unless I can get her to do an exchange or something with me every year and she stitches one for me. Then I'll make another one for my mom too. Not that i'm getting ambitious or anything now.

I do figure however that I have stitch on sunday at a friend's house so I will easily finish this penguin and maybe finish the second as well. They go so fast. I need to get them all stitched in time to make them into ornaments though too, which means buying fabric and some fun fridge or something - hopefully saturday i can make it to joann's to hit the sales :)

I will definately have some pictures on monday!

Oh and then after stitch I came home and put together my new shoe rack, then organized my closet, i'm really liking it, got all my stamping stuff put away (which needs to be out again to make the rest of my cards real soon but for now it's away, so we can put up the treadmill this weekend). Plus I have 10 cards already made so I can start sending out cards whenever.

Alright - back to preparing to interview - ugg again!

December Goals:

1) Finish Harry Potter Scarf by Christmas (family christmas is actually new year's weekend)
2) Stitch penguin ornament for my sister
3) Stitch second pickle ornament for my aunt
4) Stitch another ornament (not sure what yet)
5) Start Green Old Gardens
6) Pick up Blackwork Dragon at some point
7) Maybe knit hat for my sister for Christmas (real christmas)

8) Work on website again -- UGG!

Well I did even better yesterday than I had hoped, during work i had a slow meeting so I brought my knitting and I finished both the pink hat and the scarf for my sister. The only real knitting for christmas left is the harry potter scarf and maybe another hat for my sister.

I'm looking forward to Stitch tonight at the LNS, I have an ornament to start, although I might start it at lunch time before knitting more on the harry potter scarf. Tomorrow at lunch I will knit the harry potter scarf and see how many rows I can get done during a lunch break then I can determine how much I need to knit in the evenings if at all to get it done in time for christmas.

Hopefully today is more productive than yesterday, these meetings really mess with my day, of course i have another long meeting today too...

November Recap :

1) Add binding to Trip Around the World Quilt [YES]
2) Add signature patch to TAW Quilt [YES]

3) Knit blue purse for sister's birthday [YES]
4) Knit purple hat for christmas [YES]
5) Knit third hat for christmas [YES]
6) Start harry potter scarf for christmas [YES]
Also almost finished re-knitting the first hat for christmas!

7) Finish Stitching Wisdom (backstitching) [YES - FINISHED WHOLE PIECE]
8) Work on knotwork border [YES]
9) Stitch pickle ornament 1 [YES]
10) Start second ornament [NOT YET]
11) Start new cross stitch piece ("Did Someone Say Pie??") [NOT YET]

Not too bad! Next month I will have more website work I need to do so the goals will be lighter.

It's warm out - if you call 60 warm, which I do right now :) Last night it was 58 at 9:40 so we went for a run - it has been SO long since I went running. With our treadmill coming next weekend I've been even worse about getting motivated but last night it was very nice, only ran about a mile but better than nothing for sure!

I also spent almost two hours knitting, I have the pink hat which I'm redoing almost finished, it's at a point where I have to switch to double pointed needles and I have about 8 more rows left until it's finished, maybe today at lunch. Then I worked on my sister's scarf and I'm on the third skein of yarn which arrived in the mail yesterday along with some halloween quilting fabric that was on sale and some more yarn for socks. I will definately finish up my sister's scarf tonight at my aunt's so starting tomorrow the only real knitting I'll be doing will be on the harry potter scarf unless I make a hat for my sister for christmas as well.

I did some shopping while I got new tires put on my car yesterday, I went to Linens N Things - never been before and boy do I love that store! I did some christmas shopping, mostly just getting some ideas of things, and I bought a shoe organizer to put on my closet door so I can organize my closet a bit more (my closet is a combination clothes/crafts room so any organization helps!) Thursday night after stitch I hope to put that together and get my shoes all off the floor to see what I can now hide under my clothes where my shoes live now, maybe my stamping stuff? Who knows!

How long does it take to hem a pair of suit pants? For the first time? Well 2 hours for me :) That's how I spent my evening last night. First I had dinner all ready by the time I got home (actually I was stuck in traffic for almost 2 hours so dinner was getting cold!) Then I started on the hemming, it was finished before 9:30 at least so I had a little while to relax before going to bed at 10 with the hopes that I could actually wake up at 6 - didn't happen, got up at 6:30.

So the pair of suit pants that come unhemmed are now done, the other pair of pants are already hemmed but need to be 2" shorter - those are on the wait list for now! Tonight I think I will relax, iron out my Legends of the Dragons so I can start thinking about framing options and maybe frame my Ever So Littles pieces.

I am going to get new tires put on my car today - I figure I can get some serious knitting done during this time so I can finish the third knitted hat some time tomorrow evening, then finish the scarf for my sister by the weekend. That reminds me -- I'm still waiting for my order from Joann's to show up! I should check into that!

Legends of the Dragons - Finished!

Click for a larger pic - This took approximately 119 hours, and I stitched along with Carol. Now we are both finished and hopefully next year another dragon stitch a long will commence!

It sure was a productive few days for not being home most of the time - and allergy stricken as I have been. First on my list was to finish up Legends above, which I did on the drive to and from NY, the way out I didn't get much done as I was crammed in the middle between my brother and my cousin and not a lot of elbow room. But the way home I finally finished it up. Now it has been washed (with no running which I worried about with the hand dyed fabric and thread), and it sits in my freezer awaiting my iron and some time for me to get a frame and mat board to cut.

I did not get any other stitching done this weekend but I did finish the third knitted hat and worked a tiny bit on the harry potter scarf. Then I restarted the first hat (the pink one) which I will work on at lunch time this week:
Here is the third hat all knitted up:


Sunday we went out to the mall and bought our treadmill!!! We had to get a slightly more expensive one than planned and it's larger which I'm not thrilled about but it's ours, we couldn't fit it in the car however (since it's larger) but we are going to borrow my uncle's truck this weekend to get it so next week I can start running at home in the mornings and maybe get back in shape :)

We also picked up some new suits for my boyfriend who is working this semester, I have to hem those tonight so I spent last night cleaning off the dining room table to have room, this entailed cutting the second set of mats for my Ever So Little gifts for christmas and putting together the frames I had ordered. I also washed and ironed both Ever So Little pieces so they are all ready to be mounted. I'm not rushing on that because I have to pick up acid free brown paper for the backs of the frames still, here's a picture of the piece with the mats I just cut last night, it's just set in the frame:


A very relaxing four days, unfortunately I've had horrible allergies almost every day and today is not any better! I'll just continue to live on benadryl I guess!

So SO SO close! I worked on Legends last night as my boyfriend surprised me and was home another night instead of driving back to NY. So we watched movies and I stitched, getting the border finished up and the light green on the word Wisdom finished. That leaves one color left to finish and then I have to find some place to hide the date, now that my initials are already "hidden".

Tonight I may not have a ton of stitching time as I have to make 2 pies to bring home tomorrow. I do hope to knit a little at lunch today, yesterday I got a few rows in on hat number 3 so now I'm decreasing at least. I could probably finish the hat up at lunch today. Leaving only 1 more kids hat to do before christmas and one grown up hat and the harry potter scarf. I'm almost finished with the scarf for my sister, that shouldn't be hard to finish up.

Orders... I'm waiting on some orders now, I ordered a bit from Joann's.com, i don't even remember everything i ordered but I do remember some yarn, 1 of which I really need and the others are magic stripes yarn for socks, that will be fun to try out next year.
Yesterday my frame order came in, I got the pieces I need to frame the two triplets of Ever So Littles as gifts for christmas. I'm not sure how to put the frames together exactly, i'm hoping everything I need is included, I also ordered plexiglass and mounting board so maybe this coming weekend I can do some framing when we get back.

Next month I am definately starting a new stitch piece, I may actually start 2 because I want to stitch Green Old Gardens real soon and I want to start Going to Market (a dimensions kit that I want to trade out the fabric from). Then when Green Old Gardens is finished in 2006 I can start another :) I love finishing pieces, my boyfriend was even impressed with how Legends looks so close to do, of course he asked "When are you going to finish the boats piece for me??" HA!

Every day closer on Legends :)

I worked on Legends for an hour and a half last night, I'm halfway done backstitching the right side and then I have the top, I have all the whole stitches done in the border. Still leaving the word Wisdom for last. I realized too that I can work on this thursday during the drive home to NY as I can not work on my knitting at all since the family that I'm giving my knitting to will be around :) So I will bring Legends and then start the next ornament I want to stitch which is a little penguin out of the 2004 ornament issue of Just Cross Stitch.

We rented Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night - it sure was strange but I still liked it, made me laugh a few times. Johnny Depp is a great actor. We'll have to buy it for christmas or something, we did buy a few other movies including Robots, Sin City (which we saw, i wasn't a fan of), and another Comedy, one with Ashton Koucher (?sorry can't spell names at all!)

Anyway, I experimented with dinner a bit and made a chicken parm sub for my boyfriend, I stuck to plain chicken sub as I'm not adventerous at all, but he liked it, I made it with frozen chicked strips so it was easy too. Good to have new dinner options!

Tonight I'm on my own, I will be baking a pie to bring to work tomorrow, cleaning up a bit and maybe doing some more backstitching on Legends :) I'd like to have just the word Wisdom left for the drive to NY.

Hopefully I'll get a lunch break today so I can knit, yesterday was too packed, got a free lunch but no break to stitch and we ate during a presentation.
A nice early day - if i get a lot done I can leave by 3:30 and maybe beat SOME of the crazy traffic that will be horrible tonight!

And Carol has a happy dance! She has just finished our Stitch-A-Long. I'm not posting a picture today only because I'm very close to finishing myself so my next picture will be the finished piece. I worked on Legends yesterday for 3 hours and I have almost all the stitching in the border finished now, leaving just the backstitching up the right side and the top of wisdom. Then I'm leaving the word "Wisdom" for last.

When will I finish?? Well I was supposed to be working on the website but that's kind of fallen through the cracks lately, tonight I will probably pick up Legends again and by next weekend it will be finished for sure with a picture next monday!

I didn't really work on much else this weekend, with not feeling well and visiting my aunt and uncle in NH saturday night. I played a lot of computer games, I beat Myst all over again so that I can start Riven now and then Exile, catching up in the Myst series to the new ones, I believe both 4 and 5 are out. Myst really only took two evenings to beat but I think Riven will be more involved.

I haven't touched my knitting, i plan on working on the third hat today at lunch, if I can finish that up tomorrow then I can redo the first hat by early next week and get back to the harry potter scarf.

Oh funny story - and I almost forgot .. while driving to work today, almost here too.. I got a flat tire! What fun. Luckily it was a quick change with only 2 interruptions, one from someone offering help (but I really already had the tire almost off), and the other from a tropper who parked behind me so I wouldn't get hit, then he helped but my other tire on (I have a full spare in my trunk). So this kind of pushes me to get my new tires for winter a bit earlier than i had planned, not a bad thing really. I wonder how much this will cost me!!!

Taking a sick day today...

on the stitching front, I stitched for maybe 20 minutes at stitch last night and bought a few new charts:

Skeleton Crew by Cross Eyed Cricket
Ghastly, Ghostly Ghouls by Just Nan
Someone to watch over me by Sam Sarah Design Studio

I also got:
Signs of Winter by Bent Creek as a gift for my aunt, I'm going to get some fabric and the floss for it as well and make a little kit for her for christmas, i'm not sure what her tastes are exactly but it's cute so hopefully she'll like it.

Well just because it's a sick day doesn't mean i have no work to do, i'm going to do what I can and then maybe get some knitting done this afternoon.

The quilt is finished ... and WASHED! Wow that was nerv racking! I didn't use detergent or anything, just ran it through the hand wash cycle and the tumble dry low low cycle. Came out looking quite nice though and I have to say I will definately wash my hand quilted amish quilt if I ever finish it :)

I knitted a little on the scarf for my sister for christmas, I'm using size 16 needles which are just huge but the yarn didn't work with a tighter stitch. Today at lunch it's back to working on the hat that I started yesterday, I wish I had more yarn to double that yarn but I only have a single ball. Luckily this is for the youngest so she'll grow out of it quickest.

Stitch night tonight! I'll probably work some more on the border around Legends of the Dragons, bit by bit. Two weeks seems like forever ago when we had the last stitch - I sure am looking forward to seeing everyone!

Quilt picture coming soon...

I spent the evening yesterday whip stitching the binding onto the wedding quilt, that's done now, and now I just have to whip stitch the sleeve down and add the signature which will include their wedding information (names/date etc). Then tonight I will wash it and hope it comes out looking good :)

No stitching or knitting progress, i did however finish Alias season 4 finally last night and watched the first episode of the current season... I knew Michael Vartan left the show but it was still just as sad and i'm not really looking forward to the show anymore, we'll see, I'm a few episodes behind now but I have them saved to watch.

Today at lunch I'm going to start the third christmas hat, I can't work on the harry potter scarf tonight because it's for my cousin who I will see :) So i will work on the third hat, when that's finished, I'll redo the first hat and then those cousins will be all set for gifts. I might buy some cute bags to wrap them up in too.

Full moon tonight!

Did we have fun in Las Vegas? Well yes mostly, more so than I thought we would :) We did a little gambling at one of the off strip casino's and won a little money, I got to play at a black jack table which was real fun and won that too :) After the wedding we saw the Bellagio water show as well before heading back to the hotel and then the airport. A good experience, we may even go back some time to really enjoy Vegas :)

Zelda night again last night - much needed too. I made a nice cozy warm dinner and settled in to play Zelda. I got to a hard part though that I don't remember how to beat so I stopped and watched tv before going to bed. Tonight I hope to maybe make some christmas cards, I need to get on that as soon as possible. And for lunch today, instead of knitting since I finished the purple hat yesterday, I'm going to work on the binding on the wedding quilt, see how far I can get with that!

Back from Vegas :)

And I got some stitching done too!

First, my update on Legends of the Dragons... I worked on this a little saturday and a good amount sunday, finishing the backstitching on Wisdom and working a bit on the border:

That's 108 hours of progress.

On the plane ride out to Vegas I stitched up ornament number 1:

You can't tell but it's on a light green sparkly fabric.

Also on the plane (most of the plane rides), I worked on the harry potter scarf for my cousin for christmas :

It's a nice easy continuous knit stitch but it's a long scarf, we'll see how that goes :)

My trip was good, we were home by saturday at 10:30, went to lunch and then I went to a stamp camp to make gift tags and other things christmas style. After the Red Eye back friday night I was exhausted and slept about 13 hours or so saturday night but sunday was a good day, I got the apartment vacuumed, met my boyfriend for lunch (he's studying for finals so he's at the library most of the day), then stitched/knitted while watching movies. It was a very good weekend!

It sure was good to get home though and I'm looking forward to a nice normal week with a normal stitch night and back to knitting hats for christmas.

Status on Christmas gifts:
- 1 ornament stitched (3 more to go)
- 1 hat knitted - but I think I will reknit it thicker now that I know what i'm doing more.
- second hat almost finished, on the decreasing part at least.
- 3 scarves knitted
- harry potter scarf started
- 2 Ever So little pieces stitched, waiting to be framed and another mat cut

What's left:
- 3 more ornaments to stitch
- 1 hat to re-knit
- 1 hat to knit
- 1 hat to finish knitting (almost done)
- Harry potter scarf to finish
- mat to cut and 2 pieces to frame with mats
- Scarf to knit for sister
- Hat to knit for sister
Not too bad, hopefully I can do all this ;)

Zelda - a night just wasted a way :)

That's right, I spent last night playing zelda until almost 10pm! It was great though and I'm up to 2 stones out of 3 and then I think I get to grow older and ride my horse so it will get even better :) And bonus, I only died once last night :)

I bought shoes for the wedding, some fun ones, and a purse, so now i'm all ready clothes wise (i think i have a shawl I can wear.. wonder what the temp will be like out there...)

Then I got my hair cut, nice and short the way I like it, it's a little short in the front, getting in my eyes but it will grow out fast i'm sure. Tonight I'll get my nails done then pack and give myself a pedicure.

Hat #2 is going along great, I have 2 more inches before I start to decrease, I think I can do that at lunch today and also add the ribbon to hat #1. Then I'll have the harry potter scarf for the plane ride along with my stitching and some books.

I'm looking forward to another good day at work so I best get to it!

Hat number two started...

I have a good start now on hat number two, spending yesterday and today's lunch working on it, I have a few inches. After almost 8 inches I start the decrease. Maybe more like 7 1/2 incheas. I hope tomorrow to get to that point so I can switch to the double pointed needles and start the harry potter scarf on the circular needles. Not a huge deal to start it on the plane but I'd rather get a bit of a start now.

I worked on the website last night and wrapped up a few things, there are very few things now to fix and i am taking the rest of the week off. So tonight I must go shoe shopping for shoes for the wedding (i have nothing that matches a brown dress!) Then I might get my hair cut, and spend the rest of the evening knitting or playing Zelda (i think zelda will win though). Tomorrow i have a nail appointment to get a manicure and then i'll spend tomorrow night just packing (packing my cross stitch will be the hardest because I have a few small projects I want to start - ornaments) so getting all that together will take a while.

I found an adorable ornament I want to stitch in last years Just Cross Stitch magazine, it's a penguin, that will be for my sister, then there's 3 more that I just like, not that i have time but they're on my list now ;)

Work is going well today, making some good progress, i'd like to finish up some things by the end of tomorrow so i best get back to it!

Do I ever get to stitch??

That's what it's felt like just lately, the stupid website that was supposed to be live and done is now dragging out and I'm working on it more now than ever before! This weekend was packed, I came home with a migraine friday night so I slept, did nothing more. Saturday it was up early with a long drive to my parent's for my sister's birthday party.

I did manage to at least change my oil while home but nothing else and Sunday it was up early for a long drive back home. Then I worked on the website (shocker there really!) and then enjoyed a few hours with friends at a tupperware party. Excited to come home and stitch it turned out to be a good night to go out to dinner, and then alas - more work on the website! I want a break!!!!

I brought my knitting to work, it's time to start hat number two and also the harry potter scarf, i need these started before the plane trip on Thursday. Tonight unfortunately there will be a little more work on the website and then I plan on going through my stitching stuff and kitting up some ornaments to also stitch on the plane.

Las Vegas:
Thursday we head to Las Vegas for a wedding, this is not a trip for fun, we fly out thursday morning early, layover somewhere and then arrive early afternoon (exhausted i'm sure). Straight to the rehearsal and dinner, then probably bed. Friday we'll try to get up and enjoy Las Vegas a bit before the wedding in the evening. Then the wedding, then we leave the wedding early, change and head back to the airport. By 11:30 we will be back in the air flying over night back home, with another layover around 6am or so (with the time change who knows what time it will be/feel like).
I do however plan on getting some stitching/knitting done on both plane trips, then sleeping away most of sunday :)

Question though--- we're bringing only carryon (obviously!) -- but how do we bring razors??? My boyfriend will need to shave his face friday as he's in the wedding and it would be good to get to shave my legs (not a necessity) :) But how?? I think I'll just pack one and see what happens, I'm going to be careful about scissors and such and if it gets confiscated i'll just figure out how to buy one out there. What a pain this whole thing is!

Oh - so no pictures today as I have no progress to show on anything... and darn it i forgot to take a picture of my sister's purse before I gave that away :( I think she liked it...

Purse is finished :)

I finished the purse at Stitch last night, really just the handle was left but still i'm happy :) Then I added my initials to the back of a needlebook from Celebrations 2005. All I have to do with that now is find the felt that came in the kit and finish it as a needlebook which is quite easy. Then I can use it :) So two finishes!

Also at Stitch I splurged a little, my Mystic Sampler was framed, they are going to hang it in the shop for a while (as long as I want), and that gives me a discount on the framing which was quite a lot as I picked out a large frame but it came out amazing.

I bought the following three charts too:
Dry Turkey
Tiny Tim Turkey
Hocus Pocus

Tonight after work I will stop by joann's, buy my sister the other part of her birthday present and also buy some yarn on sale :) Then I'll make chicken soup for dinner (my first time making it but the broth is done already).
This weekend, it's home to visit family for my sister's birthday and back on Sunday to go to a tupperware party. A packed weekend... not much stitching will get done for sure :)

A long day...

I am definately ready to head home.. and then to Stitch! I'm not sure what I'll actually stitch, I think first I'll finish the purse for my sister as the purse itself is finished (as of last night) and now I just have to finish binding off the 200 stitches for the handle and attach that. Then I'll work on the backstitching for Legends of the Dragons me thinks. :)

So last night I finished the purse, the button on the front is a little off center but I'm trying not to stress about it. I also realized putting it together that the yarn really doesn't fit the style purse very well, it hangs very heavily and I could have made a very simple purse style that would have worked better, but now it's done so I'm not worrying about it. I am DEFINATELY not pulling it all out and starting over! Although I am tempted - but i'm just crazy.

I do love this bamboo yarn though, not knitting with it exactly because it splits really really easily but the feel of it is amazing. Maybe i'll order more and make a better style purse for my sister for christmas and one for myself :)

It's been an odd day at work, but i think it's time to head out now and tomorrow marks the end of the week :) Can't beat that!

Well last night I got to enjoy some knitting while watching Felicity season 1 on dvd. I'm more than halfway done with the purse for my sister, and I will work on it again today and then at my uncles tonight. The only part i'm worried about not having enough yarn for now is the handle so we'll see how things go.

I cound some great books on amazon that I want to order (both for myself and gifts for christmas as I think I will be getting quite a few people books). And also I might place an online order with Joann's, i'm not sure though, I may just go on friday (or do both).

Well i'm off to do a bunch of work and then i have an interview later this afternoon.

A lot of blogging entries yesterday - back to the norm - a short synapse of my night :)

Halloween - it was a monday - but the traffic felt like a friday! After an hour or so I got to the grocery store, which was also packed, finally I was home by 7 (i think I left work a little before 5). Then I turned in the domestic housewife, picking up, cooking, cleaning a bit (just the kitchen really). I made dinner, I cleaned dishes etc.

Finally I got to work on my quilt again, I added the binding and the sleeves, I am finished officially using my mom's machine! The quilt is ready for me to whip stitch the binding back and add a patch which I still haven't figured out how to write on.

Then what did I do ... back to cooking :) I made chicken broth for soup some night (it was supposed to be for tonight but that's not happening now - maybe friday. Next thing I know, it's 11pm! Not a single trick-or-treater!

What a halloween...

OH, it's my sister's birthday - i must go email her...

November Goals:

1) Add binding to Trip Around the World Quilt
2) Add signature patch to TAW Quilt

3) Knit blue purse for sister's birthday
4) Knit purple hat for christmas
5) Knit third hat for christmas
6) Start harry potter scarf for christmas

7) Finish Stitching Wisdom (backstitching)
8) Work on knotwork border
9) Stitch pickle ornament 1
10) Start second ornament
11) Start new cross stitch piece ("Did Someone Say Pie??")

That's a lot but hopefully it will be a good month!