I Finished It!

Finished at 10:57pm New Year's Eve!

This is a Bucilla 'Christmas Promises' kit that I bought - along with several others - a few years ago. I think I started it this year. The only thing I'm unsure about is the fact that neither the chart nor the picture had any backstitching around the pink ruby? on the middle Magi's vase. I may go back and put some; it looks sort of unfinished to me.

But it's done! Now to start a HAED - I was going to start 'Lost In You' but I joined the SK SAL and I think I'll go ahead and start the one I chose - 'Mermaid of the Deep' because it looked easiest :D

Here's the pic - I'll be starting her sometime New Year's Day :D

She is not my usual 'thing' but my sister will love her.

Happy New Year, everyone!!!

Last Project of the Year!

I want to follow family tradition in finishing something on New Year's Eve.

We also try to start something new on New Year's Day, but I don't have any trouble with that tradition!!!

I decided to try and finish my Wise Men.

This is how they did look:

Two invisible Wise Men!

And here's how they look now:

Three! Three invisible Wise Men - bwah ha ha ha ha!

(I love the Count)

I've actually got a bit more than this done; I took that pic yesterday (with the new camera!)

I'm not sure why that crease showed up when I was being so careful, but hopefully it will iron out with no real problems... :D

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So I have four days to finish if no family difficulties crop up. Here's hoping I get more than a half hour a day to stitch!

Reasons for My Silence - Here's Lots of Pics!!!

We had no power at all for over five days!

We had a blizzard (for us)! 17 inches here and over 30 on the mountain tops! Sometimes I miss living up there but not now!

Here's some pics...

My car buried in snow:

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My broken-down snowball bush and see all the snow on the lines? It was heavy, wet snow; it fell straight down and there was no wind at all so it didn't drift. The lines were so heavy that they just snapped. Not these, but a lot! Poles fell down, and trees - tiny and huge, both! - broke and pulled down more lines. It looked like a hurricane had hit.

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My back porch on the day after it snowed. The day after this, we got a few more inches, but my camera batteries had given up the ghost by then.

The roads are still really rough - one lane for traffic because of the huge walls of ice and snow the snowplows inadvertenly made.

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I couldn't work on a big project, but I could crochet and I also made this ornamenet (by the light of an oil lamp! I thought I would go blind! I have much more respect for those stitchers who did their work by oil lamp and candle.)

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This ornament came from a little kit that I bought years and years ago. I don't remember where. I started a snowman, but I didn't finish it. Mostly, I crocheted. These are what I made:

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Three of them; two pale-brown for my SIL and my Mum, and one black for my lil' goth-chick sister.

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She opened it today and immediately stuck it on her husband:

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And declared that he was Franklin, the 'frilly' Ninja.

She's a nutcase...

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I also crocheted one more hat, for my Da:

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Here's some framing - my brother and my mother's gift. My SIL took them for me - see her reflection? lol! She didn't realize she was showing up!

I finished 'Mother's Bliss' a couple years ago, but never had it framed because one of my coworkers, when I was showing it off, grabbed it with greasy fingers and stained it. I could have died. I got most of the stains out, but one yellow spot on the right side defeated me. I probably never would have framed it, but my Mum knew I had stitched it, declared she didn't care, and demanded it. So she got it. Don't argue with the Mums!

I framed my 'Stress Reduction Kit' for my Da, but we forgot to take a pic of it. I'll try to get one later.

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My Gran really loved her 'Mothers Tree'. You can see some of her beautiful thread crochet work in the cabinet behind her. She's 84 and still does crochet or embroidery every day.

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and my nephew liked his afghan, too. He pretended he was a villian caught in Spiderman's web, lol! He's six and a definite handful!

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and... I got a new camera! I didn't really expect one - what with the economy and all - so was I ever surprised!!!

I have no real idea how to work it yet (the first pic is blurry, as you can see) but I can already tell a huge difference! Here's some pics I took of the drop spindle kit I also got (insert huge grin here) and the bag that came with it. You can see the detail of the bag even though I took the pic only a few inches away - the old camera I was using would have showed a washed out blue-brown blur. I'm so happy!

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Now I just need to learn to work the pretty thing correctly! (and the drop spindle, too)

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Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, or... a Happy Festivus?

In serious need of ironing!

But it's done!


'Mother's Tree' by Lavender & Lace
I wrote down my time but haven't added it up yet. It's 16x20 inches. (or thereabouts)
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I backstitched the 'mother of ' in order to make it fit in the frame - my gran bought some frames a few years ago and redid all her large pictures to match. She had a few left over and a relative helped me snitch one :D So it will match all her other pics, I just had to play around with the spacing. It looks slightly off-center but that's just my camera angle.
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This has been a main focus piece since October... I have no idea what to work on now... O__o Maybe Fred will get some love this year after all?
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I also made hats!

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Here's one on a (slightly too small 'cause she's bald) mannequin head.
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I made one of these for my BIL last year and this year it was requested I make several more, lol! I may have one more to go; I have to ask my Mum if my Da will wear any of these!
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Only three gifties to go! Two lil' neck scarf-things and one (gulp) knitted hat.

Progress is Progress

Here is my first scan of stitching names & dates - I split the area into thirds so it would fit my largest Q-snaps... I really need to get some expander bars someday when I remember, lol!
I am already halfway done with the second 'third'. I just need to come back and put quotation marks around 'Polly' on this, since it was a nickname and not her actual middle name.
I think it's pretty neat that Mary had Rhoda when she was in her 40's - that was rare for back then. Mary was also a full Cherokee; she had a Native American name but it's lost to history :C

This 'Mother's Tree' is for my father's mother. I'd like to do one for my own mother, but her 'mother' tree currently ends abruptly at my great-grandmother, also a full Cherokee, whose parentage is not recorded in any place we've found yet. We still have a few more places to look, though.

I'm a bit enamoured of 'Ammie', as well - a lot of places have her listed as 'Annie', but my grandmother has always said that her name was not Annie - even though some geneologists (sp?) have tried to convince us that 'Ammie' is a mistake. But my grandmother lived with her for most of her childhood, and she knows her name was 'Ammie', pronounced 'Amy'. I think it's neat to find a quirky spelling in the 1800's!

I also finished the afghan for my nephew :D

Spiderman!

First Snow!

The ground was bare when I went to sleep last night - now we have 3 inches and it's still snowing on and off!

This is what I saw when I got up this morning:

My snowball bush with real snowballs on it :D

The trees looking like lace...

The mountains gorgeous and me glad that I live halfway up instead of still at the very top (it's soo pretty up there right now but I happen to know that they already can't use the roads)

And a back porch that I most definitely will not be sitting and stitching on today! I think I'll make some hot chocolate and curl up under an afghan while I work on stitching names and dates for 'Mother's Tree'.

I always love the first snowfall :D

Hope you all have the weather you want!

Christmas Comes But Once A Year - Thank God

I forgot to post any December Goals!
these are all Christmas related.

1. Finish four 'Armor' hats (this is what my brother-in-law calls the crocheted hats with the ears and neck flaps; he thinks they look like the chain-metal that went under knights' helmets)
2. Get my sister to come and pick two for my BIL, then decide which one my Da gets & which my brother gets (this is actually a very important goal, lol!)
3. Finish a shawl for Mum or a hood if that's what she decides she wants
4. Knit a hat for my sister
5. Finish 'Mother's Tree' for my Gran
6. Finish afghan for my nephew (so very close!)
7. Make a scarf/hat set for my SIL

Not really that bad - I've already made 2 Armor hats, they just need the ends woven in. And my sister's hat is started. The shawl and 'Mother's Tree' are the only ones that may stress me out.

The Tree is Done

I finished the tree part of 'Mother's Tree' on the 29th, but I had no time for posting. This is the pic I took that day - I really hope I get a better camera for Christmas :D

I've started the names & dates now - we'll see how long that takes to finish!

Happy Thanksgiving!

To those of you who are celebrating today ~ Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Getting There...

I think I'm about 45 hours into 'Mother's Tree' now... I sort of lost count. I've been really sick for the last two weeks, which distracted me from my note-taking and also slowed me down.

The tree is now too big to completely fit on my scanner - and for some reason, my scanner is back to turning things green. I ought to buy a new one... hmm... Christmas is coming up though, isn't it? :D

Here's how it looks now - hopefully I'll still manage finishing the tree by the end of November!

Half a Tree

At 35 hours, I am halfway done with my tree:

Yay! The greens are beautiful in real life, and the letters are more visible. I love it - even if I am on my third skein of 934 XD
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Also, I bought this at a yard sale, thinking I would finish it and have a quick Christmas gift - but when I got it home and looked at it better, all the stitches are crossed in the opposite direction that I cross them. The top legs on this one go this way: / When I cross mine this way last: \

Since it would drive me crazy to finish it like that, I am giving it away. If you're in the US and want it, just send me your address. Another country, you can have it for postage. It has the fabric, needle, pattern and hoop, but there was no floss with it. It's an old EMS freebie. First to ask for it gets it.

October Goals/November Goals

Here's the goals I had for October:

1. 30 hours or half the tree on Mother's Tree - done! see scan below!

2. Finish 'Though Far Apart' - done!

3. One motif on Mary Wigham - done!

4. 100 stitches on a UFO - done! (no scan yet, I finished the pink on my third Wise Man, but I left the kit in my car XD )

5. Finish a crocheted gift (a shawl for Mum or Dad's hats) - not done I didn't like the way the shawl was looking so I pulled it out and started my nephew's afghan. It's nearly done, though!

November Goals

1. Finish the tree on Mother's Tree

2. Finish Jaden's afghan

3. Restart and possibly finish Mum's shawl

4. 100 stitches on a UFO

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5. 1 motif on Mary Wigham if I have the time.

Here's 30 hours on 'Mother's Tree' - it nearly got half the tree done; I'm quite happy with the progress. The line down the middle is the halfway point; I did a little on the right side and would have finished the left side in a few more hours (and gotten to the other colors of green). I can't wait for that!!!

What's Your Oldest WIP?

I don't know who started this meme, but I thought I'd see what I could dig up:

What's your oldest stitching work-in-progress? How many years has it been since you worked on it? How close is it to being finished? Do you think you'll ever finish it? What are some other old WIPs/UFOs that you have? Show pictures if possible!

Here's my oldest UFO:



It's called 'Our Daily Bread' and I paid a dollar for the whole kit back in... 1993, I think. This is all that was ever done. I don't have a picture of what it's supposed to look like - I don't even know for sure if I still have the chart, although I do have the fabric and floss. I'd like to finish it someday, but only if the chart is still around. It's no longer to my taste - it wasn't really to my taste when I bought it, but I had just learned to stitch and all I could find were cheap little kits.
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These two are my second oldest - they're both UFOs right now but I'd like to get at least one of them back in progress in 2010.
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'The Wave' by Dimensions:




I bought this one in 2001 I think. Could have been '02. I started cross stitching again in '01 so I think it was that year, but I started in November so who knows?! I would have it about 1/4 done if all the stitching I've done on it had been allowed to stay in, but I've pulled it all out twice and finally restarted it on a new piece of fabric. It currently looks like this:

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Amazing, huh? :D I definitely plan to finish this one. I want to get Fred done first, though.
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This is my other old UFO - 'Cluttered Country' by Jeremiah Junction. I bought this one and The Wave around the same time, so I can't actually remember which is older. I didn't keep notes on my stitching at the time. This one was supposed to be for my Mum.


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It currently looks almost like this:

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I remember that I stopped working on it when she changed her decor, but I had gotten a wee bit further than this. I think I finished the shelf and the basket. I can't quite remember. She's changed back to country stuff now - I plan to dig this one out and finish it soon. It's a surprisingly easy stitch.
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These are not - in any way! - the only UFOs that I have. Just the oldest. I'm afraid to count up how many things I actually have in-progress.
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In othere stitchy-news, I'm almost done with my nephew's Spiderman afghan, and I'm up to 28 hours on 'Mother's Tree'. I haven't scanned it though, since it sadly doesn't look that much different.

I Have No Bananas Today

But I do have a finish!



'Though Far Apart' from Just Cross Stitch Jan/Feb '09 (boy, was I off with my last guess!)
Fabric - 14ct blue
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Sorry about the picture quality; my computer has issues, which means my scanner has issues, which means the crappy camera was used. It washed out all the ecru. Those blank spots in the borders? Filled with ecru, and looks nice against the actually much darker blue fabric.
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This is my brother's Christmas present - and I showed it to my parents, and both of them said, 'Don't you think that's a bit feminine for him?'
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I thought that over. We grew up extremely rural - even when we moved, it was to somewhere else rural - and over half our schooling was done at home. So he was my buddy. My first steps were taken in order to follow him down the hall. When we played, Barbie married Optimus Prime (that's brotherly love for ya!) He may be a big, 6'5", 300+ lb tower of muscle, but - Y'know what, I don't care. I miss him, he was my best bud growing up, I had to frog the thing (if you stitch it, watch that top border. One of those colors only takes 4 stitches, not 5 like the rest) He's secretly a sentimental sap just like me, even if he does hide it by loving gory action films and football.
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He's getting the feminine cross stitch.
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I did, however, leave the really cute checkered heart button off. That would have been pushing it.

The Booger is Scanned ^__^

Here is the Booger (aka Mother's Tree - well, it's, um, green and oddly shaped? and mildly annoying; that's a lot of green!) So ever since my last post, I've been calling it the Booger. I'm such a twit :D

Here it is at 21 or 22 hours - I can't remember.

Only 8 hours to go to reach my October goal! Yay!

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'Though Far Apart' is almost done, so I'm waiting for the finish to scan or photograph it. Hopefully soon!

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I decided I'd lay out my HAED patterns to get an idea of how I'd stitch them - I may have bitten off more than I can chew:

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I find this mildly intimidating 8I

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'Poet' is not quite as scary, until I thought about all the color changes:

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Since I won't be starting them until December or January, I refuse to worry about it!

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On the crochet side of my life, I have to make four big shawls for Christmas - the pattern was a super easy one in the last issue of 'Crochet World'. My sis bought it for me; if I had been at the store, I could have just looked at the pic - that's how easy they are. Just a bit boring, since they are half a granny square. This is the first one, about halfway done:

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It does get pretty cold here (it's 43 degrees tonight, and feels colder) so the fact that these shawls are nearly ankle-length is going to be quite popular! One of them will be for my sister-in-law in Georgia; her's will only be a little past waist length.

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Happy stitching!

Halfway to a Finish and Mary's Update

I am halfway done with 'Though Far Apart', so I thought I would show it off - this one's pretty simple, so it's going really fast. I love the borders!

And here's Mary - she got a motif this month!

(oooo, alliteration!)

The white - um, half a flower pot? - is the one I stitched for this month. The green one is the one I stitched in August and never scanned. The ecru thistle-beginning is the one I started in September; I was going to finish it this month, but it takes a dark green shade of floss for the stems, and wouldn't you know it? It's the same 934 that I'm stitching 'Mother's Tree' with.

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So no way on this earth am I using the same shade of floss on Mary Wigham right now. Blech!

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As for 'Mother's Tree' actual stitching progress, I am now up to 19 hours. Maybe I'll scan the booger tomorrow...

October Goals

See? See?! I told you I'd forget to post these yesterday!
lol

Anyway, here goes:

1. 30 hours or half the tree on Mother's Tree
2. Finish 'Though Far Apart'
3. One motif on Mary Wigham
4. 100 stitches on a UFO
5. Finish a crocheted gift (a shawl for Mum or Dad's hats)

We'll see how it goes!

September's Goals Met? Eh...

I'm so late - I should have posted these yesterday!

I'm lazy!

I'm so sorry!

*weeps uncontrollably*

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okay, I'm over it :D

These were my goals for September:

1. Finish second floor balcony on 'Brinkerhoff Home' - done! yay!

2. Work on Archangel (enough for a scan) - done!

BEFORE:

and AFTER:

Not a huge amount done, but I'll take what I can get. Especially since A. He's been neglected all year, and B. That over-one is driving me nuts since I'm trying to 'smooth' it as I go. Not easy, at least not for me.

3. 100 stitches on a UFO - done! (I think)

I worked on my dolphins - also shamefully neglected this year. I'm not even sure I got 100 stitches done, but progress is progress is progress. After my holiday gifts are done, this one is becoming my focus. It won't take any time to finish.

BEFORE:

and AFTER:

I did manage to finish the darkest shade of grey.

4. 1 motif on Mary Wigham - nope. I barely got it started

5. 10 hours on L&L's 'Mother's Tree' - done! yay!

Speaking of holiday stitching, this is going to be my brother's Chirstmas present. It's 'Though Far Apart' and I think it's in June/July or July/August of Just Cross Stitch. This and Mother's Tree are going to be my new rotation until they're done. Of course, this one will be done a lot quicker :D

I'll post some October goals tomorrow unless I completely forget - which is, sadly, entirely possible.

Thanks for all the comments on Mother's Tree! I'm now 16.5 hours into it, and one skien of floss is completely gone - I'll be glad to reach the area where I can use the other shade of green!