plugging along

No pictures today! I've been working on Follow Me, and I even put a few stitches on Cougar. That had me thinking. Cougar has been a UFO for at least 5 years, possibly more. When I was putting the stitches in, it felt different than what I remember. I do believe that when I bought cougar, it was really close to the time I started using Linen/evenweaves rather than aida. Probably not the best project to start on for a linen novice. It was also my first time in a real LNS. (which sadly is no more.) I'm much more confident on the linen now and really feel I can get this thing done so long as I keep working at it.

I also used to tape the edges. Cougar is all taped up and I'm cringing at it hahah. I stopped doing that ages ago!

Since I made the goal of no new stash (must.. resist..maybe something for my birthday? that's OK right? RIGHT?) and no finishing this year, I am getting a rather neat pile of rolled up stitching. For some reason I think that is really cool and I like looking at it when I open the drawer. I never thought I'd be the type to have finishes laying around, but here I am!

Well I better wrap this up, I'm taking Mom out to go for a bit of clothes shopping. Oh yeah, I totally have a rant about that. Why do clothing places think that the heavier you weigh, the taller you must be? And I mean this is from stores that make their money from clothes meant for larger women, so they should KNOW their clientele. 20 years ago when I bought pants, I was considered regular height. Now I have to shop in petites and I'm still 5'5" tall. That's not petite. I didn't suddenly shrink. rabblerabblerabble!

Take care!

Paladin finish!

Yay Paladin is finally done. On Thursday I was super stoked to work on him thanks to everyone's motivation! Friday was a bust, thanks to MINECRAFT. I had full intention to work on it but Tim logged in earlier than he normally does and we ended up playing til I had work. Work was a full 6 hours packed with back to back clients. Then I came home and played MINECRAFT again til after 1am. Really cuts into stitching time so I don't recommend getting it hahah.

This morning I finished up the last bits I had. And would you believe I stitched and frogged the top part of his head 3 times? I did. I also made the mistake of watching/listening to NY INK on TLC and there was this really happy story about this girl who got implants in her ears that enable her to hear after 29 years of being deaf and I ended up crying through that. I'm a total sap.

I guess I should show paladin eh?

don't mind the cat butt

Happy Dance!

Another weekend flew by

and I feel like I've accomplished nothing. For stitching anyway. I did do a lot of cleaning and laundry and spent a lot of time with my mom. I also got sucked into playing Minecraft for hours on end. What's fun about Minecraft is that you can make things with cross stitch patterns! My friend and I made this Pony from a pattern I found:

On to the updates! Paladin is really close to being done, and I keep waffling on working on it! mm waffles.

And I did a teeny bit more on Follow Me

That's about it for now. Hopefully by next update I'll have that darn dragon DONE! :)

Follow me

I started Follow Me by Primitive Needle today. I couldn't stand having it in my to-do drawer any longer, not with my new Hardwicke Manor hoops sitting idle and that really yummy Belle Soie fiber sitting there. It is amazing to work with, and so soft. Too bad the stuff is like 7 dollars a skein. Wayy too expensive for this gal, if I had to use more than one colour, that is. I'm using the same fabric I'm doing Paladin on, Stormy Gray 28 count evenweave. I figured since it was supposed to be like a tombstone, it should be on a gray fabric. :)

I actually meant to save this project for October, but yeah. I'm glad I'm doing it now haha. Who knows, I might just stash it away til then now that I have gotten my new start fix in! That is the 8.5 inch hoop there. I'm really glad I bought them. They feel so nice!

Weezi wasn't ready for his close up apparently. Either that or the Ott-Lite was too bright for him haha.

I hope everyone is having a great Caturday! :)

I wanna be the very BEST

Well remember all those Pokepatterns I found? I stitched up Umbreon!

Isn't it cute? That's one down, 3 more to go! Next up are Flareon, Evee, and Espeon.

I have a gripe with Michaels. You see, I was there the other day, and their thread section left a lot to be desired. I ended up having Tim order the rest of the thread that was needed to finish his pokemon because they were out of like all the colours I went there for. Grrr.

I also got my Hardwicke Manor Hoops, and I lubs them. I'm also very impressed with Traditional Stitches. They're based in Alberta (yay Canada) and Janice answered my questions I had about the hoops in a very timely manner, AND shipped them within 24 hours of ordering. She also packaged them very nicely. Overall I won't hesitate to do business again with her. As for the hoops, I got the 6 inch (5/16 width) and the 8.5" and 10" (5/8 width). The 10 is for cougar pretty much once I've dug her out of the craft storage.

I haven't been neglecting paladin!

In retrospect, I should have sucked it up and found where I made the error, because trying to work around it is driving me crazy (very short drive...). I'll be glad once it's done.

That's about it! Happy Stitching :)

Weekend!

It's my weekend, yaaay. We had a bit of a snowfall overnight, which I can now enjoy. When I have to drive in it, I'm a complete mess anxiety-wise.

My vehicle is hiding behind our Christmas tree. I like having a potted one like that, we can bring it in during the holidays, and put it out for the birds to play in the rest of the year!

Here is my progress on paladin. Pre-Tudors. I'll be watching that all day while I stitch haha.

So here is the website to all the pokemon patterns. I had my friend pick out three that he liked. Espeon, Evee, and Umbreon. I'll be stitching up those three for him, and he picked out one more that he's going to attempt to stitch himself! That's right, he's going to learn to stitch! When I'm finished and ready to mail them to him, I'll also be sending fabric, the threads, needle, and hoop to get him started on his project. I also have a small DMC kit (very small) that I got from signing up for some cross stitch club they had a few years back to help teach other people to stitch that I'll send along as well.

I am a horrible teacher, but he's a smart cookie so I'm sure it won't be that hard. :D Once the snow clears a bit I'll head down to Michaels to pick up the supplies I need for the three four!


I hope everyone is having a great day. :)

I'm pretty awesome

I was fooling around with blogspot settings the other day and disabled the comments link. Thankfully my friend Amanda emailed me about it lol. Whoops!

Still chugging along on paladin, but no pics just yet. I am a bit off on the pattern but I'm working around it. :)

I found a bunch of pokemon patterns (uh oh) and I know who is perfect for them. Which then led me to search for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic patterns.

I'm in trouble.

Late Night STITCHING like a boss.

I had no time to stitch today after taking Mom out to her doctor's appointment, then took her to Costco and Shoppers Home Health and everywhere else she wanted to go. I did get Chinese food for lunch! omnomnom.

When I said getting Paladin halfway done the other day would be a stretch? Well it was. I finally hit the halfway mark just now.

This is what a dragon's butt looks like.

I'm off the mark somewhere in the pattern, but I'll just fudge my way through it because I am NOT going to look for where I made a mistake. I tried looking, I really did. I gave up and decided I can fix it somewhere else in the pattern rather than fret about it. Tomorrow (or I guess technically later today..) I'll start on page two.

That is it for now. I'm going back to watching my friend play Fallout New Vegas! :)

It was ~magic~

On Saturday I took over some of my finishes to my favourite client to look at. She really makes me feel like a superhero stitcher. How can you not feel proud of your work when she's gushing over every little stitch! I love it.
Afterwards we moved into her living room, and I spotted her embroidery hoop. I picked it up and immediately fell in love. It was obviously old, and very very very well used. The wood was warm and smooth and so inviting to touch. (MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER, PEOPLE. (Only room for mine in this gutter haha)) This is something that only years of use would accomplish. It felt ~magical~

It was at that moment, with flashes to my plastic hoops and Qsnaps at home, that I didn't feel right using them.

I have decided that for my birthday this year, I am going to get a Hardwicke Manor Hoop, and maybe one day after years of use, my hoop will feel just as magical. :)

I also think that it's time to bring out an old BAP/UFO. All this talk about it has me wanting to work on it again. It's Cougar by Sue Coleman, picture seen here:

He's so pretty, but so BIG. I feel overwhelmed by him.

That's how far I got. I'm really starting to feel motivated though to work on him again, so I think that once I am done Paladin, I'll get this guy out and into the TOP DRAWER (used for projects that take longer, where Paladin is now). Second drawer is used for my smaller projects.

That is it for now my friends. Time to grab some food, put on the Tudors, and get stitching! :)

Buzzzzz... a finish!

Buzzzz finished up super fast, or the fact I worked on him all day yesterday into the wee hours of the morning. I love the little buttons. It does look washed out, but I blame my phone. Sometimes it takes really great pictures, other times it does not. Anyway, here is Buzzzz by Bent Creek!

It's back to work on Paladin. When I last left the dragon back in November, he looked like this:

I've gotten a bit done already today while watching the Tudors.

I'm hoping to get a real big chunk of this done today. Aim is half the dragon done, but that might be a bit of a stretch! I hope everyone is having a great day. :)

Finish for Ham

Finally got Ham's stitch done today, hurray! I really like Lilac by WDW, so pretty!

I'll get a little frame for it. I'm sure she'll love it. :) I also got started on Buzzzz by Bent Creek. Been itching to make that for weeks now haha.

I'm using African Daisy 28 count jobelan and I love the colour! Good choice for Buzzzz I think. :D I'm missing Oatmeal thread so I'm going to have to find a suitable replacement in my stash for it. Also, here is my "work" drawer

I think after Buzzzz I'll continue on with Paladin. He's starting to turn into a UFO and I can't have that!

This is going to be LONG. (That's what she said)

I have a lot to say today! I haven't done much stitching as I'd have liked. Dec 31st started out like any other day, I felt fine except for a bit of a tummy ache. I went to work and about halfway through my night ache gets worse. Of course I'm with a client. Something is definitely not right so I tell the client I have to go and race out of there. I call the office and tell them I feel really sick and booked the rest of the night off. Just as I get home the barfing starts. BLAH I tell you! I call the office again and say hey, I'm throwing up and everything that goes with it (BM, chills, etc). I had to book off Jan 1st too, which is a stat holiday, which means I have to go get a doctor's note for it. Great.

Jan 1st I don't feel much better but at least the throwing up has stopped, but I attribute that to not eating or drinking anything. I find a walk in clinic open and go get my note. I hate going to the doctor. It always takes like an hour to see them, for 5 mins of their time. My head is aching, my back is aching. Everything is aching and I'm hungry but too scared to eat! Monday I felt much better, but I still had the headache and a really bad back ache.

Tuesday I feel almost like myself again. Mom and I went out in the morning to do some errands. I had to fax in my sick note, go to the bank, and then we went shopping. I had to take back to Michaels some ribbon I bought. It was supposed to be on sale, but I ended up paying full price for it (who really pays full price for ribbon. Full price was 7 dollars!) I get my money back on those and pick up a couple plaint brushes I forgot to get when I bought the ribbon. I basically got this stupid idea that I need to make Pikachu christmas ornaments, so I have all the materials now to do it!

We went to Petsmart and it was really hard to resist the urge to buy Emma a pink jacket. THEY WERE ON SALE OK. I don't know how I managed to leave the store without one. I did, however, make a hefty purchase there. Have you guys heard of the FURminator deshedding tool? It claims to reduce the amount of hair your pets shed. I wasn't going to buy it, but the fact I have little white dog hair on EVERYTHING (even in MY HAIR) gave me pause to look at this a little closer. I watched the video demonstration (hopefully with my mouth closed, I can't remember) and turned the package over and over in my hand. This brush is 60 dollars. That's a lot of money. And cross stitch things I could be buying. I did have some Christmas monies leftover. Well I bought the dumb thing, took it home and tried it out on the dog. And..

a lot of hair came off my dog. You have to be careful not to scrape your pet, but she seemed to like how it felt, and all this hair was coming off of her. Since she's a small dog, I didn't have to spend much time combing through. I left it at that. Wasn't til a few hours later when I was in my chair with her beside me that I noticed when I pet her, no hair was coming out. This is unheard of. I've tried different combs and brushes before, but it always felt like a never ending battle. I could brush and brush brush all day and still she'd be shedding all over the place an hour later.

At this point I am super excited and decided my next best idea would be to chase down the cats. Weezi was ok with the combing and it did the same job on him, lots of hair came off, minimal shedding later. Koneko on the other hand, wasn't going to have any of this so I've resorted to catching him off guard and getting in a few swipes here and there when he's not looking.

My friend in AUS has been streaming Deus Ex: Human Revolution for me while I was sick/trying to stitch. The game is over (what a great game, too.) and I am completely in love with Adam Jensen now. Here are pictures of my new Husband to Be

Just look at that glare. /swoon

Don't mind the half cyborg thing. He's really sensitive under all that bioengineering. Excuse me I think I need a moment. Why yes, Adam, I'll run away with you.

Ok!  He's streaming Fallout New Vegas for me now which is pretty good too, but it doesn't really have a main character with a lot of personality. I like the story though.

Oh yeah, and I managed to take a picture of Ham, the 24 year old cat!

He's really scruffy looking haha. After I took the picture he got up to beg for treats. What a guy. He doesn't work for free, apparently!

And to remind myself I don't need any new cross stitch things this year, I went through my emails with all my purchases last year. I spent 480 dollars on Stash last year before shipping. shipping takes that total up to 528 eeek. I should do 2010 too, but not right now. I don't want to see how much I spent then lol.

Hopefully the rest of my year is better than the start of it!