February Goals Wrapup:

1) Finish It's Winter [YES]
2) Continue work on Going To Market [YES]
3) Work on Peaceful Silhouette [No]
4) Start baby quilt [Not really]
5) Work on knitted hat (purple hat) [No]

I did still have a productive month, just not well anticipated. I finished 1 round robin and started a second. I made a dress for my little cousin and I bought all the fabric and planned out the baby quilt I plan on making for my friend. No knitting still for february :)

Round Robin.

Well i haven't added my name and country yet but I did finish this up at lunch time yesterday:


Today at lunch I will add my name and country and then work on the other round robin piece which I will hopefully get a WIP picture of tonight.

I had hoped last night to make some thank you cards and I did get all my stamping stuff out while watching ER episodes however with all my new stamp sets I first had to cut out my stamps which is all I really accomplished. Then I found out my boyfriend's study group is coming over today to study so I picked up a little and cleaned up the kitchen and bathroom. It's wierd having people over when I'm not there, i'm very self conscious when it comes to the cleanliness and neatness of my home.

So tonight I will most likely confine myself to my bedroom when I get home as they will all still be working on a brief most likely. This makes it difficult to make cards but I really have to make at least 2 cards and preferably 3 tonight. This leaves tv with no dvd player however which means Gilmore Girls and whatever else might be on.

Something finished (although it's not cross stitch):


I had a great weekend - and I really am recovering nicely from that cold. Friday night after working kind of late I spent the time I did have reorganizing my stash in alphabetical order by designer/publisher. That took me 3 hours while I watched The Wedding Date and then House of D.

Saturday I watched Half Light and spent most of the day making the above dress for my little cousin's 2nd birthday that just passed. I hope i can give it to her soon. I also got in some cross stitch time while watching Red Eye and finished all the cross stitches in the first RR i'm working on, leaving just the backstitches.

Sunday started out with me reading Eldest a lot - I am now half way through it and loving it! Then I went over to my friend's house and stitched (started the backstitching on the RR) - I will post a picture as soon as that one is finished this week. After dinner there I got home around 8 and commenced reading Eldest until bed, completing a very productive weekend of relaxing! It was awesome.

This week looks promising as well. I hope to finish the first RR this week and continue working on the second. I have some thank you cards to make tonight hopefully. Then Wednesday I go to my uncle's and relax probably for the last time until my class is over (I'll still go to my uncle's but i'll have homework to do probably). This week is kind of a week off from homework so I'm taking full advantage.

Well back to work as I'll be here till 6 again tonight as I came in at 9 again - I really need to stop sleeping in!

Thank you everyone for the well wishes, I was out sick yesterday as my cold had definitely gotten worse and i decided rest before my midterm was best. I did manage to squeeze a little stitching time in both wednesday night with my friends and yesterday so i will post updated pictures soon (these are of the RR's i'm working on). I think I can be almost finished with one of them this weekend.

I came in late this morning (before 9 but that's pretty late) and of course i'm already feeling tired but I have a lot of work to do so hopefully if i'm busy i'll be preoccupied and forget how much i want to be in bed. I also have an appointment today at 11;30 that i've managed to miss twice so I have to try to get to that now.

This weekend is looking good, if my cold is at least as good as it is today I should have the energy to maybe sew the dress for my cousin, stitch while watching ER episodes, read a little for school and re-organize my cross stitch collection as I have been really wanting to do. The next few weekends are a little busier so it's this weekend or april at this point ;)

I do promise pictures soon...
but i think i'm getting sick again - i worked until 8 last night and when i got home i had a horrible sore throat which kept me awake most of the night because it hurt to swallow. So I did not scan in anything to post. I got my fabric from Silkweavers - I love the Wandering Ivy I ordered, and the solos. The Morning Mist or something like that doesn't have much mottling in it (if any) which was kind of disappointing but it's a nice color none the less. That was one I ordered as a possibility for Kingdom Sampler, but I also got a lot of sandy colored fabrics that might work well for that as well, especially one sandy one with some pink mixed in, if i could get the pink to line up in the sky like a sunset sky or something that might work well.

So I slept in this morning (until 8) but i'm still groggy and tired, not a good sign with my midterm tomorrow. I hope today that I can get some of my reading done at lunch time as that didn't happen again last night (i fell asleep trying).

Now it's time to try to concentrate and get some work done...

A very good weekend...

Of course things worked out nicely this weekend, I spent friday night cleaning and started sewing the curtains for my cousins. Saturday morning I pretty much just slept in and then went through my floss collection adding it to my PDA so i'd have it at the store when I was shopping through sale bins.

After my sister arrived we went over to the store and there sure was a lot of stuff on sale - I spent 30 dollars but I got upwards of 8 charts or so and then I bought some floss. A lot of charts were half off or 99cents, plus the new charts were out as well so I had to get some of those even though they were full price :)

I also got my stamping stuff from the last party - a huge amount of supplies and stamps that i can't wait to have time to enjoy. Maybe this weekend I can break them out.

Sunday morning I managed to finish the curtains for my cousins before we headed up to NH, the dress I want to make the littlest one for her birthday hasn't really been started but I did cut out the pattern.

Not a lot of crafty stuff done this weekend, no stitching anyway - but I was engrossed in my book - Eragon - and I finished it last night at 1am, now I can't wait to start Eldest but I have to force myself to hold off until at least the weekend as I have school reading to do now :)

I'll try to get some stitching pics from my RR's tonight, the Seahorse I'm stitching on one is taking shape and I started the other RR last night and worked on it at lunch today. I'm changing all the colors in that one so it took a lot of planning out.

Well of course things have been busy again - crazy busy this week, working until 6:30 on tuesday and wednesday, having to leave at 4 on thursday to go to class making thursday really busy. Then today i couldn't wake up - literally, i was SO tired and I didn't get to bed that late or anything. But i'm here now and hopefully leaving by 5, really i worked enough this week that I can leave at any time i just have to get the numerous list of things done that i had planned before i can go...

Plus i have company coming this weekend - and i have not had time to clean! So tonight I will spend any free seconds "picking up" and maybe dusting, then tomorrow I can vacuum the apartment and clean the bathroom so everything is at least presentable. I forgot I was supposed to be sewing some curtains for my little cousins as well, hopefully i can squeeze that in some time saturday or early sunday morning before we head up there.

Oh and then there's grocery shopping - we have no food, let alone for company - i must get to the store probably saturday morning as well or maybe i can write a detailed list and send my boyfriend while i clean if he's not too stressed out and busy working on his brief.

So yes things are busy - but next week - will be better?

A little valentine's day stitching...

I worked really late last night but got home around 7 so we ordered in some dinner and I got roses :) That's the first time i've ever gotten roses! Then I did some stitching on one of the RR's while we watched Cinderella Man which I really loved so I'm glad we own that now.

unfortunately I had to stay up late doing homework and tonight I will have more work to do but then the assignment will be over and I'm not the leader for the other assignments so they must be a little easier! And this weekend I am definitely going to get some stitching in on Saturday. I'd love it if i could finish up both of these RR's before the end of february, but I do have a midterm on the 23rd so maybe that's impractical.

Well back to work - and today I hope to stitch for a bit at lunch time since I missed out yesterday.

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 :)