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) :)