A Long-Neglected Fairy

After finishing the mermaid piece and last month's small, I decided my daughter's "M" fairy deserved some attention.

(Terrible phone pic, I'm sorry!)  I really like how the over-one skin is turning out, although it feels like it takes forEVER.  I also decided to do the partial stitches in the wings as over-one instead of half or quarter stitches.  Crazy, I know.

Progress on Something New

Here is my progress on Nora Corbett's "Letters from Nora - M" fairy.  I started this earlier this month at Celebrations.

I'm stitching this on 28-ct. Wood Violet jobelan, and yes, I did get crazy and decide to do the skin over-one.  :/  I just didn't like the look of all the partial stitches otherwise...

It just followed me home --

-- can I keep it?

On Saturday, DH told me to get OUT of the house for a while, and he took care of Maura. Well, of course my first stop was at the LNS...and one of Nora Corbett's fairy alphabet letters just jumped into my hands!! I already have a birth sampler picked out, but what little girl wouldn't love a fairy with her initial in her room? Especially when she gets older and might not want her birth sampler on display.
After the LNS, I stopped at Barnes & Noble and read a bunch of books but bought nothing....then I went to Wal-Mart (oh-so-glamourous, I know!) and bought some more baby toys - the one thing we didn't really buy before her arrival. I know she is too little to play with them yet, but she spends so much time just looking around -- and so much of our house is boringly beige!!! So I decided we needed toys, if only for the bright colors. LOL We now have a neat little mirror, a tummy mat, and some rattles and doo-dads. Enough for now!

Motherhood is going pretty well so far. I'm tired, but that's to be expected, and Maura seems to be growing and thriving. I'm dreading next month, when I have to leave her at the daycare center. Partly because she's my baby, and partly because the sleeping/night-time feeding/getting ready for the day routine could be hellish on all three of us. *sigh* Ah well. Thankfully, she knows nothing of all this. If only her dad and I could rest so peacefully.....

Making Peace with Beads

Today I worked on MOtDB for a while...not sure what inspired that, but hey, why fight it??? My "need to bead" won out, as you can see...I added just a few! I hate wrestling with the invisible beading thread, but the results are worth it. And I've also given up on getting all the beads on the piece exactly where the pattern shows they "should" be. The darned things are SO tightly packed, and on 32-ct. fabric they just don't fit. So I'm guesstimating and putting the beads on as they fit best. Giving up my perfectionist tendencies actually feels good.... LOL

Crazy, Lazy Weekend

Ugh, why can't I ever have a couple days to just relax?!?!?

Just before lunch on Friday, my husband called and told me he was on his way to the ER with "really terrible stomach pains." When I didn't hear from him again, I called down to the hospital around 2 -- thinking by then he'd be in a room, right? WRONG. I didn't get any real answers until about 5:30, when he finally called me as they were discharging him. Have I mentioned that hospitals suck? Yeah. As for what was wrong with him....he got hit by a really nasty flu bug. And after 6 hours in a triage room with nothing to drink, he was weak and completely dehydrated. When he got home, he pretty much passed out in his recliner. I ran to the grocery store for "sick groceries," and poured Gatorade down his throat whenever he was conscious enough to swallow. He's better now, but it was definitely a weekend to sit around the house and do nothing....

...so I stitched. And I stitched and I stitched. Because stitching is silent and non-intrusive to sleeping sick people. First I worked on the Mermaids.

And then I pulled this teddy bear kit out of the work basket. I can't decide if I really LIKE this little guy, but I hate to toss it at this point. It could make a cute pillow to give as a gift....I have plenty of friends who are still having kids, and it never hurts to have potential baby gifts on hand...

Things are looking....swishy.

I wanted to work on the Mermaids this weekend, and was evidently obsessed with metallics....I worked all the way down to the "S" curve of L's tail! (For some reason, I love getting down to the very bottom of a design. Then I'll work my way up...)

Also, here is the little freebie I'm doing. It is about 4 inches square. It is from Cyberstitchers.com, and I think the designer is Jodi Watson/The Golden Hoop? Anyway, I love both the design and the sentiment.

Starting off 2008 with a plan...or goals, at least

Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you all so much for dropping by throughout the year -- your comments and kind words are always appreciated.

Without further ado, let's get to the monthly recap.
DECEMBER GOALS:
1) Keep working on the Mermaids. Yep.
2) Finish the "Worst Enemy" dragon, so he can be entered in the Silkweaver Showcase. Done!
3) Make a trip to the LNS to have the baby gift framed. I'm waiting on a few special-ordered items, and I need some invisible thread for beading, so hopefully I can kill a couple birds with one stone and not have to tempt myself TOO many times! Check - both the baby gift and my sister's Christmas gift were framed AND picked up, and I got the invisible thread.
4) Lay out and start stitching on the next Neighborhood RR square. No. Sadly, I still haven't received anything for this round of the RR. Right now, there's no way I'll be able to mail anything on January 15.

JANUARY GOALS:
1) Mermaids.
2) Neighborhood Round Robin -- assuming something arrives?
3) Work on/finish the freebie design I started last month.
4) Possibly start a new small something-or-other.

Looking back at 2007, I really didn't get as much finished this year as I'd hoped. The wedding projects -- especially the Celtic knotwork piece -- really consumed my stitching time. Looking at my Project Challenges in the sidebar here, I think I finished about a dozen projects, starting with the "Fairy & the Swan" piece. Not TOO bad, but I'd like to have a few more finishes this year. Stitching has to be fun, though, and that's the important thing!

As far as "New Year's resolutions" go....my big "life" goal is to be more organized. As in, I won't let 3 months worth of bank statements pile up before I reconcile my checking account. And I've already downloaded some software to record and chart my blood sugar readings. Stitching-wise, I want to finish the Mermaids this year. Here they are, after some New Year's stitching.

Pics, pics, pics!

Here you go...the results of a weekend spent at home next to the heater....

1) Finished - baby gift for my friend's new son.

This came out smaller than I'd thought -- it is only about 4"x6". But it will still make a nice gift for the little guy!

2) My "Worst Enemy" dragon. I finished the first line of the quote, and a bit more of the green plus some backstitching.

3) Finally, the Return of the Mermaids!
I made some progress on the right-hand mermaid's tail...and I *blush* cut out the line of beads I added months ago. I've decided I'd rather use invisible beading thread instead of matching DMC colors, which is what I did when I started.

Alright, I'm off to spend the rest of my Sunday night working on an "impulse project"...I felt the urge to do something Christmas-y tonight, so I started the Santa ornament designed by Knotted Tree in this year's JCS Ornie issue. He's very cute!

Lonely Weekend

I've lost my DH to computer games this weekend -- he plays City of Heroes, and evidently this weekend is some kind of "double experience points" event. I must admit, he isn't a stereotypical cave-dwelling, Dorito-munching, Mt. Dew-swilling gamer....and I don't really begrudge him his playing time. Besides, work has been a bit stressful for him lately, and his classes this semester aren't incredibly engaging, so taking the weekend to blow off some steam is probably a good thing for him. And it gives me some time to stitch, watch MY movies, and get a bit of cleaning done around the house!

This morning I put in Pirates of the Caribbean and stitched on the mermaids (appropriately, I think!). Here they are, complete with the spattering of premature beads....
(The beads are on the left side of the left-hand mermaid.) I actually got quite a bit done, mostly on the tail of the larger right-hand girl.

Tonight I broke down and started something new, too.....Cricket Collection's "Old Books" sampler. After a floss toss on a couple different pieces of fabric, I finally settled on a Silkweaver solo that I've had for ages. I think I got it on eBay back when I was looking for a fabric to stitch Butternut Road's "Once Upon a Time" on, but decided this one was too splotchy - it kind of reminds me of an Appaloosa pony. It does, however, work with the bright colors of the Cricket design. I've changed a few colors -- most out of necessity -- and I'm using hand-dyeds where I didn't have the called-for DMC. I didn't make a lot of progress yet, but I'll try to share a pic in a day or 2!

Quickie Picture Post

As promised!

Here are the mermaids. I was going full-steam on L's (L is the smaller one) tail, but I got bored....so I switched back over to E's body. And then back and forth a few more times, so it looks like I haven't made much progress..... *pout*


And tonight when I came home, I was feeling inspired to start something new (and small!). So I dug out my Shepherd's Bush "Father Yule" booklet, and started on the second monochromatic square. When this one is done, it will read "Good Yule," I'm going to piece it together with the little santa square I finished a few months back to make a pretty wallhanging.


However, I'll have to leave this one for a while, since I'm out of DMC 815! Time for a run to the craft store..... (or more likely, Wal-Mart -- fewer temptations!)

Weekend Accomplishments

I finished the little pillow Saturday morning - I'm pretty pleased with it, overall. If you look closely at the left side, you can see that the top piece is a little bit bigger than the bottom one, but Mom will love it no matter what. I can't complain too much, since I didn't exactly "measure" anything after the strips were attached to the stitched front piece...hehehe. And I love the way the corners make it look like a nine-patch quilt square!


Today I worked a bit on Mermaids of the Deep Blue. It was an absolutely gorgeous day today, so I just couldn't stitch ALL day....I weeded the front garden and then DH and I took the dog to the beach for a while. And of course we had to watch the season premiere of The Amazing Race! (It is our one "must see" guilty TV pleasure.)

Here are is my progress on the girls.


This week I'm planning to start the little "Sisters" pattern I have from Homespun Elegance, too.

Finally, on Friday I sent an email to Barbara Peterson of Something in Common. I absolutely loved stitching her little Woodland Sampler pattern, and I just wanted to say "thank you". I attached a pic of my finished piece as well. Well, she replied!! It made me happy to know that she took the time to read and respond to me, a lowly little stitcher. She also mentioned that she rarely gets feedback from stitchers. So I'm going to encourage you, my readers, to contact YOUR favorite designers and let them know that we appreciate what they give us!!