A bad bad blogger am I.

Well, folks, I have been busy. (And cheating on my blog with Facebook.) Yes. I have been bad.

You can see by visiting my finishes blog that I have found time to stitch little things here and there. I have been good and finished up a few that have languished, namely my firefighter gear picture. That one is due to get framed and go to the fire station here in town.

I would like to brag about this lovely birthday package that I received from Srinity in Finland. It was filled with lots of little goodies, not the least of which was this fabulous padded wall hanging of BC Christmas Row. I've wanted this pattern for myself and it's even better when someone else stitches it and finishes it up so neatly for me. The chocolate she sent is heavenly and the scissors are pink and blue...perfect for me! I am now 35 and I cannot believe where the years have gone.


I didn't get pictures of my larger WIPs or the Maidens of the Sea project because my camera battery was blinking red, but I do have a couple smaller ones to show:
Triton's Treasures by The Stitching Parlor
Beach Cottage by Country Cottage Needleworks



Lavender Blossom Biscornu by The Sweetheart Tree

I've got another 7 or 8 on the q-snaps, various sizes of projects, but those will have to be shown on another day. I am desperately trying to finish up some of the charts that I have on hand, because I truly love so many of the charts that are available in my JCS magazines and Gift of Stitching online and freebies that I simply must start those at some point and leave off buying so many other patterns unless they are absolute must haves.

For now, I will leave you with a couple pictures of dahlias that I took when my son and I did a volkswalk in Canby, OR this past September. I'm actually amazed that my camera took a picture as good as these.

A giveaway...

Sandra is giving away the Traveling Stitcher pattern on her blog. Still time to enter and plenty of time to view her lovely stitching...

Gotcher dancin' shoes on???

Yep, she's finished and she's beautiful!!! I am so pleased and it's very hard not to plug in another Celtic Lady in her place. I finished her a couple of days ago and was waiting for a little sunshine to take a good picture. Sadly sunshine can't make up for a fuddy duddy digital camera so this is the best pic you'll get. Don't know when I'll get her framed, but she's done.

Replacing her on the L&L q-snap is Song of Christmas. I've had this one around since '06 (gulp!) and the biggest thing that's kept me from working on it is the darn Rainbow Gallery wispy and metallic braidy threads. They're awful to work with on 32 ct. fabric. I think they would do just fine on 28 ct. or larger, but not on 32 ct. The last few nights I have forced myself to work on the larger sections of these threads and I am pleased to say that I've knocked out a lot of those stitches. I don't think these pics show that very well.

And for your viewing and hopefully enabling pleasure are a couple other progress pics on some other larger WIPs. You'll see LHN's Heart of America and my mystery piece...any guesses yet?

I also started Midsummer Night Designs' In Memory from the August 2008 issue of JCS. I am doing this one for a friend of mine whose mother is terminally ill. I will only be doing the bottom half of it. It feels a little morbid to start it before her mother actually passes away, but I would like to have it mostly complete so that all that is needed is the date. I am certain that this will mean a lot to my friend.

Classes are going well. It's not too hectic right now. I stitch here and there on my smaller projects but I don't have the patience to either photograph or post any pics of those. Suffice to say that I'm plugging away.

I've been trying to catch up on reading blogs, but I've been lazy this go-round and haven't been commenting much. I'm amazed and awed by all of the exchange pieces that have been going back and forth. I've been so busy that exchanges are difficult to commit to right now. But I drool over all of the beautiful work that you ladies do.

This was the first week of school for my boys and they had a good time. They're thrilled for the weekend, though, because that means time for video games and unstructured play. I don't think you ever outgrow that need to be master of your own time for awhile.

Next weekend will be fun because it is the OR/WA Stitching GTG held at a lady's house in the Portland area. It happens every other month but I have only made it to one at the beginning of the year. This month I deliberately planned ahead and requested the weekend off of work. Sure, I could just as easily stitch by myself at home, but there is something to be said for being surrounded by other ladies who are engaged in the same activity as yourself. All of the ladies are for the most part strangers to me, but I have found value in stretching beyond my circle of acquaintances and turning strangers into new friends.

I hope fall is bringing plenty of time for stitching for all of you.

Seeking to sell...

Please check out my charts for sale...

Charts for Sale

I am in need of some threads, so I'd like to get some money in my paypal account. If you're interested, please email. I'll update that post as needed.

Almost at a big happy dance...

...but fell short. I'm excrutiatingly close to being done with Celtic Spring. Put a bunch of time into beading her this last week and I was hoping to have a pic of that finish before I posted again. However, it didn't happen...perhaps next post. Once she is done, I will focus my UFO energy on Song of Christmas, another L&L chart. I'd love to see IT done by Christmas, but don't actually see it happening.

I do however have a new start to show off. I started LHN's Heart of America. I'm stitching it on a 28ct. linen that I dyed myself. I was really good and did a bunch of the border stitching on the bottom to make sure that I was set up well.

I have stitched quite a bit on With My Needle's Maidens of the Sea. This pic is a few days old and is only a portion of what I have done. But I thought the mermaids were quite lovely and, though I dislike stitching over-one, the tent stitch over-one is not too bad. I am very eager to have this piece done and I am anticipating a relatively easy finish since a lot of it appears to be whip-stitching. We'll see if I am correct.

I don't think I posted about the lovely little surprise that Kathy A. sent me. She saw these on my wish list and shipped them off to me. It was very nice of her and I've paid the kindness forward this week.

And here is another new start. It's a teaser, for I won't tell you which pattern it is. I'm stitching it on another one of my self-dyed fabrics and I'm using Carrie's Creation threads. This is the bottom of it. See if you can guess. I know at least one of you out there is stitching it.

Anyway, that's it for me. We are having a garage sale on Saturday...mostly kids' stuff but lots to sort and organize. Hopefully, it will be a profitable day for us. I start school on the 31st and I've gotten a jump on a huge paper that will be due during the term by choosing my topic and gathering journal articles. I'm hoping the jumpstart will offset the inevitable procrastination later. :) Hope you all are having a fun stitchy summer.

Finals week...finally done

Yay! What are supposed to be the hardest two semesters of the program are now officially done. I now get my three hard-earned weeks of summer and glad am I!! And I just have to brag a little...I got 96% on my Pathophysiology final and 100% on my Med-Surg Nursing final!!!! I was SOOOO pumped up after seeing that. (Granted the instructor threw out 3 of the 70 questions on the Med-Surg final, so I don't know if I missed those or not, but YAY ME!!!) Don't know how I did on the Psych Nursing final, but I'm figuring it was a B.

I'm sad today as we just sent our boys off to scout camp for a week. This is only the second week that we have been away from the boys in 10 years. The last time was when we went on a cruise and left them at home with my mother-in-law. But today, we actually sent THEM away and it was much harder than I thought it would be to let go. Especially since I know my youngest (who turns 10 tomorrow) was a bit sad and anxious about going to camp. It is just SO HARD to relinquish them into the care of someone else and I feel a bit guilty about not going to camp with them. I guess I will have to stitch and blog to keep my mind off of it all.

I've gotten less stitching done this past couple weeks or three or four...since I last posted, but I do have some finishes. I was good last month and did manage to complete some of my smaller WIPs. Here was my list at the beginning of the month:

MCC "The Girls"

JN "When Barnabee met Bella"

Mirabilia "Halloween Fairy"

MND "Immortal Bloom"

CCN "Dragonfly"

CCN "Holly and Ivy"

SB "Potter's Shed"

BC "Baby Globe"

WMN "Maidens of the Sea"

Quilt Square 3

Quilt Square 4

and this is where it stands now:

CCN "Dragonfly"

SB "Potter's Shed"

WMN "Maidens of the Sea"

Quilt Square 3

Quilt Square 4

Not bad! I finished up 6 WIPs last month! I also put some stitches in on Maidens of the Sea and Dragonfly. Just not enough to finish them yet. And, of course, I started four more with the onset of the new month. But they are considerably smaller than several of those that I finished last month. So it won't be hard to whittle down the list again.

I've also been very good and worked on my Celtic Spring a bit and also the backstitching on my firefighting gear picture. With Celtic Spring, I am down to the beading!!! I have been doing a little of that each night for the past couple of nights. While I had big ambitions to have it finished earlier this year, but obviously I ran a little behind schedule.

As usual, my stitching is on my journal of finishes blog, but I wanted to show off my biscornu from last month. It is Just Nan's When Barnabee Met Bella and it is SO beautiful in real life. I was very pleased with this finish.

I also have this finish from Midsummer Night Dreams. It is Immortal Bloom. I changed the hair color but otherwise stitched it with the recommended CC threads.

I also want to show you this finish of one of my past stitchings. I was pretty pleased how this turned out! Can't wait to display it for Halloween. The truth is I really am not very good or very fast at turning my stitching into "finished" items. That is not where my talent lies, so it takes me forEVER to get it done.

Halloween Fairy is done!

Here is my lovely Halloween Fairy! I am VERY pleased with her looks and pleasantly surprised at how quickly she stitched up, all things considered.

I also wanted to share with you these lovely squares with you. Karen D. made these squares for me in the Patriotic F&S round this summer. This is a fairly new chart and I had been eyeing it for myself. Thankfully, Karen saved me and stitched it up so I don't have to!!

I have been so busy stitching and studying that I have sorely neglected blog reading in general. Please forgive me. I will catch up soon. In the meanwhile, keep on stitching...

On a mission...

Like the hangover after a night of too much wine, I've had the guilty feeling of too many WIPs hanging over my head. I had a huge bout of startitis a couple of weeks ago followed by a weak will in the face of Needlecraft Corner's clearance sale. Did I mention I finally buckled and signed on to Chatelaine's Caribbean Mystery XII? (At least that one will take me a little while to acquire the threads and doodads for it.)

I'm tired of accusing stares from WIP shelf and I'm gonna do something about it. I vowed that this month I would work on only current WIPs (with the exception of one project that I must start for a friend's wedding on August 1.) So far, I have finished one small and made considerable progress on another, my Halloween Fairy. She has only the right wing to go. I even got the beading completed, so she's really an easy finish.

This is my work so far on my biscornu for July. It could've easily (and appropriately) been the American Star Biscornu that I got in my stash hall, but I decided to tackle Barnabee and Bella. So far so good, though I must count very carefully.

Here is the complete lineup of smalls:

1. MCC "The Girls"
2. JN "When Barnabee met Bella"
3. Mirabilia "Halloween Fairy"
4. MND "Immortal Bloom"
5. CCN "Dragonfly"
6. CCN "Holly and Ivy"
7. SB "Potter's Shed"
8. BC "Baby Globe"
9. WMN "Maidens of the Sea"
10. Quilt Square 3
11. Quilt Square 4

My large goal for the month is, of course, to finish the gold metallic and the beading on my Celtic Spring. I really got going on her this last week and finished the cotton DMC stitches in her skirt. Doesn't she look great? I love this pattern and can't wait for the finish.

Next month, I've vowed to fill all the empty q-snaps with Christmas projects and work on my Song of Christmas BAP. Then, in September, I will return to my regularly scheduled willy-nilly project starting and also allow myself to put Shores of Hawk Run Hollow in as a starter.

By the way, here are the Patriotic squares that I stitched for Karen D. in Arizona. I saw that she had received them, so I'm assuming it is OK to post them here. The design is a Prairie Grove Peddler freebie that I received from an ONS. I really liked stitching it and plan to do it for myself at some point.

Here are my boys at Silver Falls State Park where we camped on the 2nd. Just one night, but it was a good night and we had s'mores. I don't know about you, but camping for me is really just an excuse to have s'mores. :) Hope everyone had a good 4th of July. I got to stitch a little with the ladies and gentleman at Acorns and Threads yesterday during the Saturday Stitch gettogether. I could have spent the time stitching at home just as easily, but you know, there's just something about being surrounded by needles being happily plied to fabric. Plus, these ladies and the one gentleman are always good company even though I never get to go often enough to really get to know them.

Where have I been?

Well, not here obviously. I have been stitching, stitching, stitching. I've been stitching in class. Two of my classes, to be exact. I stitch and take notes and overall, it works pretty well. I'm an audio-visual type learner so as long as I'm hearing what I'm seeing (and both of these instructors use power-point), I do pretty well. So it goes, a couple stitches, a couple notes, a couple stitches, a couple notes...and so on. Makes me happy and it's working well so far. I've also been stitching at work when it gets slow in the middle of the night. Since I have to be sitting at the desk and there's not much else to do, I might as well be productive in some fashion, right?

You can see on my other blog all of the recent finishes...all of them smalls. Here's the address so please have a look: http://smstitchinjournal.blogspot.com/. I haven't been in the mood to really pick up any of my bigger WIPs. I do plan to do so tonight, when I'm done posting here, though. I'll work on Celtic Spring and watch an older version of The Other Boleyn Girl. I watched The Visitor the other night and found that to be a pretty good movie.

I've updated my Wishes and Trades blog and you'll find that link to the side.

To keep this post from being entirely pictureless, I've taken a couple shots of some recent starts. I've been suffering from start-itis like you would not believe. I'm limited only by the number of Q-snaps that I own, which are not near enough to what I would like. So here are Immortal Bloom by Midsummer Night Designs, Dragonfly by CCN, Maidens of the Sea by With My Needle and a progress pic of Mirabilia's Halloween Fairy.

I have also finished all of the stitching for my PIFs and plan to sit and do the finishing this week. It will be wonderful to get them out to the ladies after waiting a whole year to get them completed. I am obviously an ADD procrastinating stitcher. I got my Patriotic F&S doen and mailed out last week, so hopefully will be able to show those squares next week sometime.

School is going well this semester. I just completed my Med-surg I clinicals. I was on a neurology floor at a local hospital and I enjoyed it very much. I love talking to the patients and getting to spend some time with them. It was exhausting work, though. I find that the biggest paradox in nursing is the expectation that the nurse should meet all of the patient's needs but the reality that s/he simply can't meet all of every patient's needs in one shift when she is taking care of multiple patients. It is a neverending balancing act and it is emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting. But...I LOVE IT! Now I am in my mental health rotation and I find that fascinating as well, although a little slower paced because all we do is talk to the patients. No real hands-on skills. I enjoy it, though.

The coursework is a little easier this term because there is a lot of review for me. We are taking Pathophysiology, Physiological Nursing and Mental Health Nursing. It's nice not to have to kill myself studying all of the time because I'm drawing on the last 7 years of continuing education. Also, there are not that many papers and projects this term.

Well that pretty much updates you on my school and stitching. I pick up a stash package at the post office tomorrow, so I'll plan to give you a pic of that later this week. Thanks for coming by and hope your stitching is fruitful this week!

First attempt at dyeing fabric...

So, I finally got brave enough to dye some fabric this weekend. It was actually easier than I expected. I used the RIT dyes: cocoa brown, tan, and taupe. Here are the pieces that turned out well.
I have another 5 or 6 that have to have the color taken out of them and re-dyed because there were a few grains of red or yellow dye that were not dissolved to make brown and they made little splashes of color all over my otherwise lovely fabric. Hopefully that will do the trick.

Stitching is slow. Nothing to show right now. I finished one small the other day, but have no pics. That's okay, though, if I just save 'em up for one big post a month, everyone thinks I've been stitching like crazy. :)

Stuff to show off...

First off, let me show off the lovely squares I received from Carolyn L. for the spring F&S round. Her squares perfectly speak of spring for me. I love to see the spring robins hopping about. Of course, since I have no lawn (just weeds) they never come into my yard for their worms, but the neighbors all get them.

I'll also show off the squares I sent to her. They were a Faby Reilly freebie that I stitched because I was in a St. Patty's day mood.

An update on my other WIPs. The BC Baby Globe for my friend Kelly's soon-to-arrive little girl. My May biscornu is Buzzing Around Biscornu by Barbara Ana Designs.

Here's also the HIH Happy Home Home Day,

the JN Boo Needlebook,

and a newer start, Mirabilia's Halloween Fairy.

I have added a couple finishes to my finish blog. You can see them there.

On my week off, I did get some stitching done, but this past week was pretty much all school. This semester I am in class or clinical all day on every week day but Thursday. On top of that, I am working 2 nights a week at the ED. After another 5 weeks, I get my Fridays back. But still, I am just exhausted already. I was too tired last night to even stitch. That's tired.

I did have my first 8 hour clinical this last week and it really was better than I expected. I know a lot of the skills already, but I just don't know the rules of this new nursing game yet. If I knew the rules and understood the culture better, I would not be so nervous. I'm sure everyone out there has had similar experiences. I know it will get better. My biggest obstacle is my own insecurity and anxiety. Anyway, I can't wait for the end of this semester because I will have THREE WHOLE WEEKS OFF!!!! My postings will be few and far between, of course, but I'll be checking in here and there.

Yay!!! Finals are over!!!

Now it's a week of whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it...

OK, not really, but a girl can dream, right?!?

Don't know my grades for sure, but they're in the B+ to A range, so I'm pretty darn pleased with myself. I have made quite a few friends in my cohort and that has been a real blessing. Thursday night after all was said and done, our cohort went on a "pub crawl" down Alberta St in Portland.

OK...I felt a little old. While it was nice to visit with my fellow students outside of classes, I am not much for the pub scene or the drinking. My libations consisted of a single Shirley Temple (grenadine syrup and 7up) and I was exhausted from the sheer number of people by 9:30. I think I went home around 10pm.

If you want to see what I've finished up latelyon the stitching front, I've updated my stitching journal blog. It looks like I just ripped through a bunch of them, but really I put the final stitches in on several different small projects. A few of them had been hanging around for awhile, so it was nice to have the stitching complete. Other than that, here's an update on my Celtic Spring. Put a few hours in her one night last week. It felt good. She's so close, really...

I'm awaiting the news that my Stitching Blogger Birthday girlfriend has received her gift before I can post a pic of that. My F&S Spring squares will go out on Monday, the deadline as always and then I just have the PIFs to finish and mail.

No pics to show...

...just a little update. Finals are next week and the main headache is Pharmacology. I thought I knew the drugs pretty well, but in the eleventh hour, I feel like I know nothing. 158 drugs that we had to memorize! Ugh! Whatever will be, I guess.

I have had a little time to stitch. Finished up my gift for the SBBC and just realized that I had posted my "mailed" post over on the HOE board. Had to quickly go and delete that post and put it on the right board. Doh! Also have stitched on a couple other things. I definitely have some progress to show, but the uploading of photos is too much time for me to take today.

I have to confess that after my post saying that I didn't have ANY interest at all in Facebook or Myspace, I went and signed up on Facebook "just for the heck of it." Michele was the first to find me and suddenly I was finding lots of people that I knew or have known or have lost touch with or have just met. It IS addicting. Now was not a good time to start up with it. So now you know I'm there, come find me or at least try to find me. I'm not always on, but I do check in. Just like here.

Oh, and I'll try to get some stitchy pics up next week. Thursday is the last final and then I'm FREEEEEE!!!

(For a week.)

So much for up-to-date...

...yep that lasted about 12 hours...then it was back to business as usual. My papers are done, though. We'll see how they turned out when I get my grades back. Only 3 more weeks until the end of this semester. Woohoo!

Of course all that blog reading that I did do fueled a big round of start-itis...mostly for small projects. Here are some new starts...

I do have to mention that the Bent Creek Baby Globe chart is riddled with errors. Half of the symbols used in the charts are not the symbols used in the key. Thank goodness that 1) It is not a huge chart where these errors would spell death to the project and 2) I am now an experienced enough stitcher to be able to figure it out and/or substitute colors and not have nightmares of being ostracized by the stitching/designing community for "stitching outside the lines". LOL.

I also spent a couple hours the other night stitching a little on Celtic Spring. I had forgotten how addicting it can be to stitch on her. I put a fair amount of gold into her skirt swirls and treated myself by allowing myself to digress and work on some of the purples, too.

And remember my sob story about how I had not left myself enough room on the bottom of Quaker Christmas and so I was thoroughly discouraged and had decided to give it up and start over. And I was going to take the part that I was mostly done with and make it into the top of a tin...well, here it is. It is a belated birthday present for my best friend, Amber. It's not the greatest finishing job, as I do not have the skills of those like Vonna or Becky or Carol or Sally or Staci or Margaret or...good heavens, most of the beautiful stitching bloggers out there. I am pretty well pleased with the results, though, and I'm pretty sure she'll overlook the not-so-perfect points. Here also is a picture of the restart which will be stitched over one (and is therefore guaranteed to take a few years) on a 25ct. antique white linen with the same Crescent Colours of before (Steamed Broccoli, Cupid and Sassy Brass.) Also a little aside here, I always wondered why there were random letters and numbers scattered throughout the sampler. I thought it was silly. I didn't realize that it was all of the rest of the alphabet and numbers that were not used in the words or the date. Duh! It truly is an alphabet sampler... Like I said, silly me!

I also have a couple WIP updates for your viewing pleasure. SB Potter's Shed and L*K Love My Cat have had a few stitches put in them recently.

Well, anyhoo, I'm up-to-date now on what I can show off. Have a blessed Easter weekend.

A different kind of happy dance...

...I am now UP TO DATE on my blog reading!!!!! I read them, commented on some, laughed, drooled, envied and plotted on how and when to increase my stash!!! I am just so pleased with myself. Oh and here is a non-stitchy blog that you should read just because she tells it like it is so well...

To boot, the sun is shining here, the kids are outside laughing and I heard BIRDS twittering. My fat old cat is snoozing beside me and I have fruit salad, rice krispy treats and fresh banana bread in my house.

***POP*** The sound of my happy bubble burstin' because I was supposed to be working on 3 papers that are due this week, one of them tomorrow......

Ahhh...how quickly we can ignore our regrets...I'll write my papers later...the now is for enjoying!