Exciting Times!

What a great month December is turning out to be. Bill proposed to me Saturday night and presented me with a gorgeous engagement ring. We have not set a date yet, but we are both very happy!

Cheese had his winter concert tonight. I made him pose for several pictures because he doesn't get to dress up too often.Tomorrow I have the day off and my mom and I are going shopping. I hope to get most of the rest of my shopping done so I can enjoy the season. Tomorrow also is the anniversary of the death of my best friend Lori. I always take the day off and do something fun and try to remember the fun times I had with Lori and what a great spirit she had. Godspeed, my friend.

Hug your loved ones and enjoy your family and friends each and every time you see them.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

LHN Holly & Berries

I don't think I've ever enjoyed stitching a design as much as I've enjoyed this one. From start to finish I loved every single stitch. The design is from Little House Needleworks and is called Holly & Berries. It is stitched over 2 on Summer Khaki linen using the DMC called for in the pattern. The only change I made was to outline using the darkest green instead of the brown.

I think I will eventually finish it into a cube to sit on the mantle. I stitched this on one corner of a large piece of linen and I'm seriously considering stitching it 2 more times for Christmas gifts. I'm going to stitch something else that hopefully won't take too long and let this finish sit for a week or so.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Kristin tagged me to share 6 things about me.The rules are as following:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

Six random things about me.....hmmm.....
1. I count everything - steps, poles, cars, people - but not consciously.
2. I'm in charge of a million dollar project at work.
3. I would love to be a librarian.
4. My favorite TV show is Monk.
5. I would rather not go to a function than be late.
6. It makes me very happy and relaxed if I know all of the shoes in the house are sitting nicely together in pairs.

If you haven't posted your random facts - consider yourself tagged!

I made this cute little floss tag as a thank you for a friend of mine. The flower came from LHN's Nature's Beauty but I did change the floss colors. I'm having a great time with my new Crop-a-dile. I just wish I could find some book rings in different colors.
Yesterday I started Holly and Berries by LHN and I'm loving every stitch. Maybe I'll have a progress picture soon.

Thanks for visiting!

Time Flies

Oh my, here it is the beginning of November and I still haven't posted 1st day of school pictures. I've already removed them from my camera, so I'll have to post them another time - I'm too lazy to post from the desktop computer. :-)


There has been stitching - lots of it - but I can't show most of it. We do a 12 Days of Christmas Exchange over at CSC and I can't show my stitching until my pal opens her presents. Let me just say that I am thrilled with the things I've completed and I can't wait until my pal sees them.

I can show a picture of the ornament I made for the Christmas ornament exchange. It was my first time sewing in a shape other than square or rectangle. It is not equal on both sides, but I still think it looks ok. I hope my pal likes it. The pattern is from the 2008 JCS Ornament Issue and is by Sue Hillis.

For the first time, Cheese decided he wanted to go trick or treating with a group of friends without me. I was ok with that because it was a good group of kids. Here's a pic of him and one of the boys before they left the house. Cheese is the "Scream Reaper" - he actually had a pump that pumped fake blood through his mask. He loved it!

Last week Cheese's new bed was delivered. It's huge! It's a full sized captain's bed with a storage cabinet underneath that is removeable. He decided he wants to change bedrooms so for the past few weekends I've been stripping wallpaper and scraping paint off the trim. My brother is so kind to skim coat the walls for me to prep them for paint. Cheese chose a very dark green with a lighter shade for one of the walls. There's still quite a bit more work to do and I have to choose carpet and schedule it to be installed. I'm hoping to have everything complete and moved in before Thanksgiving. I'm going to tackle the upstairs hallway next.

Thanks for visiting and catching up with us!

Labor Day Finish

Little House Needleworks

Necessities Sampler

Stitched over 2 on Confederate Grey Linen

This was a really fun stitch, as are all LHN pieces. I'm not thrilled with my fabric selection, but I threw some fabric in my bag on the way to Splash Lagoon earlier in August so I had to work with what I brought. I would like to mount this on the top of a box or basket, if I can find one the right size.

We're off in about an hour for a picnic at my parents' house. School starts tomorrow and Cheese is not impressed. He's happy that he can finally wear his school clothes and shoes, but not happy about the actual school part. We went up last night to put his things in his locker and do a walkthrough of the first day. He seems pretty confident about finding his classes, but it will be hard for me to stay in my office and not peek into the hallway to see how things are going. With all the construction that happened in the building over the summer, I'm sure I'll be occupied with other things, but my thoughts will be with him all day.

Stay tuned for a first day of school picture tomorrow!

Slowing Down

Work is so crazy right now. I'm waiting for other people to finish their jobs before I can do mine and it's stressful. Unfortunately I'll have to put in some hours this weekend since school starts Tuesday.

But this evening, it's cold and it's rainy. Cheese is with his dad and Bill is at football practice. The cats and I have the house to ourselves. They are napping - I'm doing a little of this

and this

I'll be back tomorrow. :-)

My First Award

My dear friend Velda nominated me for a blog award. Thank you so much Velda!

I am supposed to pass this award on to 7 other blogs, however, I think all the blogs I read have been nominated recently. I'm going to save this and pass it out to my friends at a later date. We have a great blog community of stitchers!

Happy Birthday, Cheese

11 years ago today, I was in the hospital waiting for Cheese to arrive. We didn't want to know the gender, but I had a feeling I was carrying a boy. I was instantly in love with my son and have had so much fun with him. He has taught me so much throughout these 11 years. Here are a few of my favorite photos of him.

1 year old

Kindergarten Graduation

Age 7 with Champ

August 15, 2008

ready to leave for Boy Scout camp

I love you with every fiber of my being, Birthday Boy.

LHN Moon and Stars Finish

Moon and Stars

Little House Needleworks

32 count Pewter Lugana over 2 threads

colors as charted

I'm so happy to finish this! I started it at the beginning of July after a long stitching slump. It's really lovely and will look wonderful on the stitching shelf after it is framed.

In other news - I'm on vacation until August 11! I'm picking up Cheese from Boy Scout camp tomorrow night and we'll have a whole week to goof off and have fun. I'm so looking forward to spending time with my main man.

Thanks for visiting!

Finished Ornament

This is the completed ornament for the Christmas in July exchange. I'm pleased with the way it turned out. It is a design by Nikkie Leeman at Country Cottage Needleworks that is found in the August 2008 JCS Christmas Ornament Preview magazine.

I stitched over one on 28 count Mushroom Lugana using DMC 869, 3362, white Marlitt, Dark Blue from The Dye Shop, and Kreinik Very Fine Braid 002. I love the way the finished product sparkles, but I'm not eager to stitch over 1 with Kreinik again. I do hope my pal likes it!

Weekend Laziness

I spent this weekend doing next to nothing because I've done something to my back. I had grand plans of finishing the painting in Cheese's room, but it wasn't to be. I have been stitching an ornament for an exchange on one of the message boards. It's not finished yet and I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing. My pal is such a talented stitcher and I afraid my stitching pales in comparison to hers. I gave it my best shot though and stitched this piece from JCS Ornament preview magazine. It is CCN's Silver and Blue, although mine is gold and blue over one on 28 count linen. I will finish it into a little pillow with complimentary blue fabric on the back. I'll post more photos when it is finished - this is just a quick snap with the wrong lens on the camera.

Cheese is away at Boy Scout camp until Friday, so I'm adding cat pictures for fill. :-) The first one is Star, Shadow's mom, lounging on the running board of my car. She was born under our porch last May and she isn't too tame. She will let us pet her and feed her of course. We did capture her and had her spayed at the vet. Now she's one of our outdoor cats and keeps the mice away. The second is Shadow, of course. Isn't he getting big?

Sister's Choice

In Richards's latest stand-alone Shenandoah Album saga, childless Kendra Taylor and husband Isaac accept an offer from Kendra's younger sister—single mom Jamie—to conceive and carry a child for them. The sisters have recently inherited money from their father, so it's no hassle for architect-in-training Jamie, who is not quite 30, to come with her daughters, Alison and Hannah, to live in nearby Toms Brook, Va. Pregnant Jamie can be on-site while the house that Jamie designs for Kendra and Isaac is built—on Isaac's family property in the Shenandoah River Valley—by the extraordinarily handsome Cash Rosslyn. For her part, Kendra keeps tabs on Jamie, whose misspent youth had previously estranged the sisters, as Jamie carries Kendra's family's future. Cash's grandmother Grace, meanwhile, has plans for Cash and Jamie, and Grace's love of quilting, and especially her own touching love story from another era, draws these women of different generations together. Richards should've included a special pull-out hanky insert, but readers looking for positive resolutions won't be disappointed.

I really enjoyed this book. It is quite long and I was reading in every spare moment I had - I just didn't want to put it down. Jamie is the kind of mom I want to be, but I identified more with Kendra and her constant worrying. Book #32 for 2008!

****Edited to add: I just found out that this is the latest book in a series. I hate it when I read out of order! All books have a little bit about quilting in them and I'm excited to read the others. Check out the author's website at www.emilierichards.com.

Home Run!

Cheese hit his first career home run Saturday at the first All Star game. We pulled out a win during an extra inning. It was a great game - all the boys have come so far this year. We lost last night's game after an amazing comeback that fell short. 3rd game is Wednesday against the team we beat Saturday. Switching sports tonight for a soccer game. I don't know how he does it - I'm exhausted just watching!

Moon and Stars WIP

I spent the 4th of July weekend on the couch with a nasty summer cold. I'm not much for sitting and doing nothing, so I stitched on Moon and Stars from LHN. I'm a little further now and hope to finish this up this month to add to the shelf in the dining room.

I'll also share a partial picture of the plate rail in my dining room that I will eventually fill with needlework. This rail/shelf is along 2 walls of the dining room. Oh yeah, I sewed the curtains for the dining room this weekend too, but need to get weights for the corners so it will be straight across the top. (The candles really don't belong there, but I was using the table and that's the only place I could think to put them so Shadow wouldn't eat them.)

Jump Start

I thought I would get the blog rolling again with a picture of our newest addition - Shadow.

Shadow and a brother and sister were born in our garage in April and we decided to keep one of the kittens. Cheese chose this one because he looks like a previous Shadow that escaped from the house and was hit by a car.

We are enjoying him, but Libby (our 6 year old cat) is not too fond of him yet. I'm sure they will get along eventually.

I'll also share a picture of Cheese on his last day at the Elementary school. He'll be starting 6th grade in the Fall at the Middle/High School Building. Time really flies!

Feathered Friends

A finish on the stitching front from Heart In Hand. These seasonal birds from the Wee Ones series are just too cute. I'm not loving the bee charm in the summer square, but I guess it's ok.

Please excuse the crooked scan. :-)

It's really not rocket science!

I did it. I finished my first sock. Here it is, in YarnHarlot (my link button is not working - grrrr. http://www.yarnharlot.ca/) fashion, in the snow.
The whole sock:
Close-up of the heel:

Why do I compare knitting a sock to rocket science? I didn't really know what I was doing, so at the beginning it seemed to be really difficult. I knew how to knit and purl - that's it. I did not (still don't really) know how to read a knitting pattern. I have never finished a knitting project. I have a few scarves of various lengths in bags around the house, but I don't know how to cast off or bind off, so I can't finish them. I'm sure I could find directions on the Internet, but I'm really not interested in scarves - I'm interested in socks.

Two years ago (yes, I'm admitting that) I found directions online for knitting socks. Directions - not a pattern. (They can be found here http://www.cometosilver.com/socks/, if anyone is interested.) So two years ago, I cast on this sock, ripped it out, cast on, ripped it out, cast on....you get the idea. I couldn't get the hang of stitching with 4 DPNs. Finally I got it and completed about an inch of ribbing. It wasn't fun, so I put it away.

A few weeks ago, my mom and I visited a yarn shop. A real yarn shop. And I fell in love with the possibilities and all the sock yarn. But, I hadn't completed a sock yet, so I told myself I would not buy sock yarn until I was sure I could knit a sock. I finished this sock in 3 days. Technically 2 years and 3 days, but who's counting?

I'm very proud of this sock. It's not perfect and sadly it doesn't fit anyone's foot at my house, but it's a sock. This is my first attempt and I was aiming for something that was sock-like. My results are better than sock-like - this really is a sock that could be worn by a small person. I've amazed myself.

Yes, this sock will stay singular, because of the size issue. I'm thinking of hanging it on my wall though, as a reminder to take chances and expect the best.

I Won!

This is old news in a way, but I won a SuperBowl pool at work. $400! I've saved it, thinking hard about what to spend it on. Of course there are bills, savings, something for Cheese (he wants an X Box), but everyone keeps telling me to spend it on myself. Well, I've decided to take my to-be-framed pile to the framer and finally be able to display my work the way I would like to.

I have a plate rail that goes along 2 walls in my dining room. Since plates really aren't my thing, I want to fill the rail with framed cross stitch pieces. I'll be sure to take pictures after I have a few things displayed. I'm so excited!

Love These Birds

It's a blustery day here in Western NY, so I've been stitching and trying to stay warm. I'm working on Heart In Hand's Wee Ones - the seasonal series - and I'm stitching them all on one piece of fabric. I love these little guys so much! I'm hoping to finish at least one if not both of the others during the Stitchathon this week at Cross Stitch Crazy.