Good Work Day..
I'm having a very good work day, making a lot of progress on things and I may not finish tomorrow but I will definitely finish by Friday which I think will be great. I'm just about to pass my last hurtle and then it's just finishing the documentation and code after that (once the concepts are done).

Last night again I did not stitch - because my new computer came! I haven't decided if I'm sticking with Vista yet or not. Unfortunately I can not VPN into work which is a very big strike against using it for now. And I can't get my Codecs to work to watch dvds on my laptop but I'm slowly working on it. I'm sure I'll play with it some more at my uncle's house tonight. Right now I have it retrieving the files I backed up onto my work computer from my crashed computer so I can have all my personal files back.

Oh and I played a little Zelda last night - I beat the second dungeon!!

Zelda night :) - no stitching.

Well last night I had to go grocery shopping and then cook all the diet food for the week. That went fine, was done around 7:30 or 8 I think. Then I played about an hour of zelda - beating the mini boss in the Goron dungeon (second dungeon). I'm up to about 12 hours into the game now.

Then I finished the book I was reading (a mini book really) before going to bed so no stitching at all. Tonight I'm hoping to have my new laptop so there will be some computer playing going on, probably no stitching. Wednesday at my aunt's I hope to break out my Leanne's quilt block 6 and maybe make some progress.. we'll see!

Barnabee Update...


This weekend was a family weekend. I didn't get to stitch Friday night as I'd hoped because we ended up out shopping until 9 just about and we bought a new Wii game - Elebits which I stayed up playing until about 1am. Saturday my family all came over, we played Wii, we played cards, we ate lots of food. It was another late night (till 1:30am). Sunday after saying goodbye to the last of the family still around, we decided to stay in and watch shows and stitch. So I got a few hours in on Barnabee while watching the rest of season 1 of the 4400 and Arrested Development.

I adapted the bunny band just a bit. When I purchased the chart I purchased the chart packs for Part I and III but not Part II for two reasons. Firstly I generally don't mind roosters but this one was a little oddly colored as far as roosters go for me and secondly I had decided to stitch on 32ct and I thought the rooster charm was too large when you increased the count since it's already a large charm. So I modified the row a bit so I don't have to worry about a charm at all for that section.

That was my night - unfortunately all that stitching started bothering my neck and i ended up with a tension headache that I now still have. I need just a few more hours of sleep :(

Surprise last night...

I came home last night to find my fiance had been cleaning for a good part of the day! I was in utter shock! I mean really cleaning, organizing things, going through piles of paperwork, cleaning the kitchen (scrubbing the stove!) Everything. And he wasn't stopping. So I got right to work cleaning the bathroom (scrubbing the shower) and that's all I had to do last night.

All that's left is to dust and vacuum and he swears to me he's doing that today. No big deal if he does or not because that will take about an hour and I've decided to work from home today with the yucky weather so I don't have all that time lost to driving.

No stitching last night though, I wasn't feeling well after dinner and just worked until about 10 before going to bed. I'm borrowing a laptop from work and evidently having a computer again means I'm on email all night and getting things done for people real time (we have a california office so 9pm is only 6pm for them and they are still working).

Progress pics on Monday as i'm sure i'll be able to pick up Barnabee tonight and maybe Peaceful Silhouette on Sunday!

Goal met - just updated...

Well I was going to have my March goal for Peaceful Silhouette to be to to finish all the light stitching (sky and upper part of water) but I finished that last night as you can see above. All I have left is the darker stitching in the bottom right. I hope this month to finish all that if not the whole piece - I am really psyched with this piece lately and really loving it! Even with all that tweeding :)

So last night I stitched through 3 episodes of Gilmore Girls (saved on DVR at my aunt's) before heading off to bed. I also got some reading done for work so it was a very productive night.

Tonight I have to clean clean clean - no stitching :( But the more cleaning I do tonight the less I'll have to do tomorrow night and maybe i can get some stitching done since tomorrow is Barnabee night!

March Goals (i've been lax on goals, i'm getting back into it now :) )

1) Finish Part II of Barnabee and start Part III
2) Finish Leanne's block 6
3) Piece Leanne's block 9
4) Start applique on Leanne's block 7
5) Finish all half stitching on Peaceful Silhouette
6) Make baby quilt for mom's friend

I think that's enough for March, we'll see how it goes :) I'd like to have Peaceful Silhouette finished in April and Barnabee as well. Then it will be a month of starting new pieces!

Peaceful Silhouette last night. I really like sticking to this piece and see it come along. I'll post another progress picture tomorrow. I worked on the sky last night and finished all but the last tweeded color in the sky. Then I'll move down to the lighter part of the water (which will finish quickly) and lastly the dark part of the water. It's so much fun to see this piece come along!

Besides stitching (I only stitched 2 hours last night), I went through my patterns last night and pulled a few that I really want to start soon.

The piece I want to stitch for my aunt for Christmas is this one:
America The Beautiful by Rosewood Manner
Then for myself I'd really like to start Random Thoughts by Drawn Thread
And possibly for my fiance's step mother for christmas: Winter Wonderland by Little House Needleworks

Those are the ones I actually pulled out of my stash. As soon as I finish up Peaceful Silhouette I will start on one of those (probably America the Beautiful). Then I think after Barnabee is done I'd like to get Lady Scarlet - another one just for me :)

Peaceful Silhouette Weekend Progress...

I really think I'll have the sky finished soon, I've gotten it down to almost a single color left in the center after I finish the white and one other color.

Unfortunately the water will take a while. It is all half stitches but it's very dense. And then there's the backstitching.. ho hum :)

Anyway - no stitching last night at all. I got a new book for work and I spent the evening reading it and then just sleeping. All well.

Barnabee progress!

I got to stitch on Barnabee friday night after all had settled down with the computer issues. I made about 1/3 progress on Part II which is great. The over one stitching took a little while and those yellow star stitches are a lot of fun!!

Then the rest of the weekend my stitching was devoted to Peaceful Silhouette- progress pic tomorrow - but i made some great progress! I think I can finish up all the sky stitching very soon, leaving just the water in the bottom right. I really will finish this in time for my fiance's graduation!

Otherwise I didn't do much this weekend, I ordered a new laptop, to arrive hopefully by March 9th, I'm currently recovering the data on my old laptops hard drive and then i'll try to repair that one and give it to my mom. Sunday I changed my oil since it was nice and warm out - must remember to update my car blog about that :)

Anyway, that was my last free weekend for a while but it was lots of fun relaxing with my fiance and basically watching all of House Season 2 :)

Computer problems...

Well I was going to work from home today (Actually I did) but after a few hours my good old reliable laptop died on me! Just dead, no hard drive error or anything. It will take some debugging but it will have to wait until next week when I can bring my hard drive into work and try to recover the data.

Anyway, we have multiple computers, so I'm using my fiance's laptop (have all day) and getting by... but I just ordered a new laptop. I've been thinking about doing it for a long while now and this just finally gave me the kick i needed. It's a dell and it has a much better video card so I can play all the games I used to play on my gaming computer (which I no longer enjoy lugging around) :) I can't wait for it to arrive - probably a few weeks but still!

Anyway. I plan to get some Barnabee time in tonight even though it's late. This is going to be a *hopefully* crafty weekend as we have no plans at all! But boy do I have sewing plans :)

No stitching no pics, last night was a blah night, i was tired and just layed around watching House and went to bed early. The good news in I finally got up early and got in early again, maybe I can keep this up and get back on schedule - so I won't be leaving work at 6 or later anymore and I can have my evenings back.

Well if I want to leave at an earlier time I need to get some stuff done... :)

Pictures from this weekend!
Here is the dress I made to be Dora's Fairy Tale dress for my 3 yr old cousin. This took about 8-10 hours with the zipper taking a full hour!
And here is the finished wall hanging for my coworker. I really love the fabric in the border and the backing (I didn't take a picture of the backing). I gave this to her yesterday at work.

Last night I did a little embroidery on Leanne's block 6. I really want to do the applique on block 7 but I'm trying to be good and finish 6 first. This coming weekend I think I'll piece block 9 - for some reason they sent block 9 instead of 8 so I have to wait until next month for 8 - all well. Then I hope to make some serious progress on the pieced blocks and maybe get caught up again. Oh why can't it be the weekend already???

Barnabee Week 3 progress:

That's where I got on Barnabee Friday night. Part I is pretty much finished (except for part of the border) and I'm ready to start Part II this week - probably Friday night again with how things are going this week.

I had a great weekend, lots of sewing - more pictures to come tomorrow for sure. Saturday I cleaned the apartment and then started the princess dress for my 3 yr old cousin (her birthday is actually today). Then I settled in for the evening and worked on the website!
Sunday I finished the dress and did some hand stitching (tacking the mohair onto the dress and all) and then Finished the winnie the pooh sampler for my coworker. Then I made that into a wallhanging (another picture for tomorrow) and finished the binding and everything. A very productive weekend.

Today its back to work and tonight I have to work on the website some more. I really can't wait until next weekend, another weekend with no plans and I'm going to try to keep it that way again if I can!

My poor fiance who was sick last friday is still sick - all weekend. He stuck to the couch and so far I haven't gotten sick - i hope it stays that way!

Back from Vacation and other things...

I got a little stitching done this past week, focusing strictly on Peaceful Silhouette and finishing the dock to the right (it's a little cut off on the scan). Now I just have all the sky and water to finish. I'm going to work on this a bit at lunch today as well hopefully.

So it was a long week. And now it's friday. We went on vacation up to NH to snowboard Sun-Tues. We didn't stay Tuesday but left in the morning because my great grandmother passed away. So we drove back to NY for Tues-Thur and stayed with my parents. So during that nice huge storm we were driving in and out of town for the funeral.

But we got back last night, and all is well....except now my fiance has the flu. He came down with it last night. Ruining his plans to go snowboarding with my uncle today, poor guy is home on the couch. I'm working today, probably a quiet day and I'll be leaving around 4:30 to head to Joann's and get fabric to sew this weekend. Maybe I'll have some pictures monday of my project (for one of my cousins).

Oh and Barnabee was neglected this week. I hope to work on him tonight if my fiance is up for watching some movies after I get home. So hopefully a progress pic of that monday as well...

On vacation... be back wednesday... i'll be in the mountains snowboarding - or sitting in the hotel room stitching because i'm not good at snowboarding and it's cold outside :)

No stitching, I was lazy last night and just watched tv. I had to work late again (gosh I hope not tonight!) and got to my aunt's just in time for dinner. Then we caught up on the last 2 gilmore girls (since I showed up at 11 last week). I pretty much was zonked after that and my Leanne's block 6 didn't even see the light of day.. um.. night.. whatever.

Tonight stitch was canceled but i think i'm going to go home at a normal time (umm... 5 maybe?), run, eat dinner and then settle in to work on ... umm... something, not sure what yet ;)

Oh man i can't wait for the weekend....

Barnabee Week 2
This is about 2 more hours of progress - my second week on the Barnabee SAL. I finished band 3, stitched band 4 and 5 and did a little of both 6 and 7 (the worms and the bee) because i couldn't resist those little guys! Next week will be two little blue birds and another row of flowers and probably some more border. I love this piece, always have and it's so much fun to stitch, even when it feels like the snails will never end, they do :)

So that was my night. Tonight I will work on Leanne's Quilt block 6 and Thursday at stitch I will continue with Leanne's block 6. I'm hoping tomorrow to stitch on Peaceful Silhouette at lunch time and I need to start bringing that home to stitch in the evenings, I just want to finish block 6 first (always something :) )

3 more days until my mini vacation. Too bad I won't be stitching much on my "vacation" as we'll be too busy snowboarding but maybe I'll get a little embroidery done or something small. I still have to finish Pooh bear too :)

Okay no barnabee last night .. this whole planned night of stitching rarely works out for me :) Last night we ended up going out to dinner with a friend of mine from high school who was driving through on her way back to Maine. So I didn't get home until almost 10pm - no stitching.

But tonight there will definitely be stitching! Probably Barnabee, and then I have to make sure I have all the threads I need for my Leanne's Quilt embroidery for wednesday at my aunt's house. I'd like to finish this block this month so I think I'm going to stick to embroidering this block a bit more than I have been so by the weekend of the 17th it will be done and I'll be onto the next one (block 7).

I've decided it's time to sew another princess dress.. almost. One of my cousins is about to turn 3 , she's a princess girl, I made her a dress for her 2nd birthday but it isn't poofy enough and princess enough so it's not her favorite. I'm going to see her this weekend and find out what her favorite princess is and if i make her a dress if she'll wear it this time :) Then the 17th when I'm home alone I can sew the dress! We'll see :)

Barnabee's Quest SAL - started on Friday...


The problem with friday stitching for me is that I don't get to show the picture until Monday because I'm too lazy to use my scanner at home. I will stitch on Barnabee on Monday nights so progress pics will be on Tuesdays. I had a blast starting this one, I have wanted to stitch this since I moved out here in 2004 and bought it (around July time I think). Then I stitched the bee skep in the wrong place - UGG so I ripped it out and stitched everything else you see. Then saturday morning when I got up I restitched the bee skep - just so I'd be where I should have been friday night :) Any tonight I will continue working on this one.

The rest of the weekend I didn't get as much done as I had hoped. I did a lot of shopping on saturday (but luckily did not spend a lot). Then wound some floss saturday night. Sunday I packed up my stamping stuff into boxes so that clears some room in my closet. I'm not going to pack it such that i can't get to it but it's in boxes (3 large boxes) and I don't see getting into stamping until the summer anyway with everything else I have going on. So if we move in May I'm prepared already.

Then after getting the food cooked for the week and everything else done I got a littel bit of time to work on Leanne's Quilt block 6 - not enough to show but that will be my Tuesday night project so I will show a picture wednesday hopefully. I still have to finish the winnie the pooh - soon - no reason to rush since I can't finish it this weekend anyway but next weekend (the 17th) will be my quilting weekend - my fiance will be away ice fishing and i will be quilting away!

This is a long one - i'm going to go post on my other blogs now :)

Yippee .. and Pooh and Piglet are just about finished :)
That's right - last night at stitch I finished up all the backstitching. All I have left is to add the name and date and finish into a wall hanging. I hope this weekend will be enough time.

So I didn't start Barnabee's Quest last night - but I plan to start it tonight if I can ever get out of work and get home to start it! I think Monday nights will be my barnabee night but tonight in celebration of Imbolc I will be starting a new piece. Now if only i could get out of work while it's still light outside!