Christmas Debrief

Hello fellow stitchers! 

I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday break.  I pretty much collapsed after my pre-Christmas crafting frenzy and have been pretty quiet for the most part, although now we are into January I am officially smack dab in the middle of the Crazy January Challenge.  But before I start sharing my January projects, I figured it would be a good idea to officially wrap up 2015 since I never got around to actually posting anything the past two weeks.  (I did think about it, just never actually DID it....)

Warning in advance, this post will probably get long and picture heavy.

The Christmas ornaments were a big hit with my mom and brother at least.  Dad and Grandma still need to get theirs, so I don't know that reaction yet.  Here's what Love Potions ended up looking like (gifted to Mom):

I told her they were "lotion and potion" bottles since my mother makes her own lotions.  It's a bit of an inside joke in our family.  My cousin thought they were old-fashioned light bulbs up until right before I finished the project (since he was privy to the crafting process). 

My Americana-obsessed brother was very happy with Stars and Stripes, despite my worry that it was a little too small. 

Cookies for Santa for my dad turned out great, and I think this is my favorite Mill Hill of the year (although love potions is a close second because it used many of my favorite colors).  There's just something about this that is so festive. 

And my last Christmas finish was Floral Watering Can for my grandma.  I was really excited to see this one come out as part of Mill Hill's spring release last year, but yikes was it a more complicated pattern than I realized!  Never again will I leave a project like this to the last minute (if I can help it). 

I mentioned in a previous post that I made made (non-stitchy) ornaments for my coworkers, here's how my flurry of snowmen turned out:

Does anyone know if there's an official term for a group of snowmen?  If not, I think a flurry of snowmen should be made official.  These are two pieces of felt blanket stitched together by my wonderful long suffering mother on her sewing machine, with hand tied ribbon scarves and acrylic painted faces by me.  Each snowman also has two buttons, taken from my great-grandmother's vintage button collection.  My mom agreed to part with a few of the buttons from her grandmother's collection, and I think it gives these an extra special touch.  My coworkers loved the ornaments, and some even more so after I told them about the buttons. 

So that is what I gave for Christmas.  Here's what I got. 

My exchange partner apparently had to replace my ornament because the original was damaged by the post office (grrrrr!) but on Christmas Eve I got the most adorable snowman ornament in the mail:

Perfect actually because we didn't decorate until Christmas Eve this year.  I'm not sure who the designer is, but maybe Bent Creek or The Trilogy?  I don't know why, but lately I just adore snowmen so much, so this was a perfect little gift for me.  I think it's my favorite of all the exchange pieces I've gotten this past year. 

I also got my first scroll frame to try out, and a little traveling Ott Light from my mom, both were a huge surprise and I'm super excited to use them.  Then from my cousin I got a large full size floor stand Ott light, which I never expected to get because they are very expensive.  I'm super excited to use it, although it's been set up, I haven't had a chance to use it yet because I haven't found the perfect spot (near an outlet) to set it yet.  Perhaps when we get around to taking down the tree. 

Another cousin gave me this Disney Classic Cross Stitch kit that (I think) is a Barnes & Noble exclusive because she knows how much I like Disney.  Honestly, some of the patterns in here look a little weird to me, probably because they are mostly based on whole stitch/pixel artwork, but I am really excited about the Sleeping Beauty Castle pattern from Disneyland. 

 
That pretty much wraps up Christmas.  So going wrap up for the rest of the year?  Well, since this post is getting quite long, I think I'll save that for another post for tomorrow.

Almost there!

We're in the final countdown to Christmas; are you ready?

I was able to get some progress done on my ornaments, although not as much as I wanted.  I need like 4 more days added to my weekend. *sigh*  In the end, I decided that my final to "maybe" projects that I was hoping to get done before Christmas will absolutely not get finished before the holiday.  So I've decided to save those two for next year and find an alternative small present to send to my aunt and uncle. 

I did finish-finish up my Holiday Stamp project, so that was ready in time to be sent off to my exchange partner:

So that left me free to focus on starting what will now be the last gift stitching project for the year.  This is Floral Watering Can by Mill Hill. 
 

I will be finishing it up as an ornament as a present for my paternal grandmother who loves gardening and flowers.  When we were younger and her garden was much bigger every trip my brother and I would tail her around the garden in the morning helping her water the plants with her beat up green plastic watering can.  I had a babysitting job Saturday night so I made some decent progress on this start after the kids went to sleep for the night. 

I was able to finishing the beading on Love Potions and attach the backing paper and bead hanger in preparation for it's "finish-finishing".  Now I just have to cut it out. 

I decided not to do the bead swags that were charted because I didn't really like them and didn't think they added much to the design, but I think they look oka without it.  Luckily the heart treasure covered up the giant green space left when I took out the "No 9" as charted, so overall I'm liking how it looks. 

I also finished the same steps on Stars and Stripes.  I'm really pleased with how this turned out.  The beading totally makes this one.  I made a few boo boos on the placement of blue and yellow in the lower left corner of the star that I had to improvise a bit to fix, but hopefully it doesn't look too bad. 

If there's one thing I'm disappointed in with this one it is that it is rather small, even for a Mill Hill kit.  It was originally intended to be a pin, so I guess that's why.  But I think the recipient will hopefully not mind the smaller size.  This was my favorite of the Americana kits I could find, and he is very patriotic.  I just need to cut this one out and it will be done as well.


All of the stitching and backstitching has been done on Cookies for Santa.  I'm a little disappointed that the photo washed out the light green "sprinkles" stitching on the white star cookie, but I'm hoping once the beads are on it will stand out more.  Next up for this one is adding previously mentioned beads and then cutting and backing and hanging. 

This weekend I also made some progress on the 11 fleece blankets I'm tying for gifts this year.  Which leaves me with a pillowcase, an apron, two batches of soap, two batches of lotion, and 13 felt snowman ornaments to finish before 7 days are up.  But this weekend I also completed 2 sewing projects that I can't show yet in the very chance case the recipient reads this blog.  I was extremely proud of myself since I have extremely rudimentary skills and my mom is such a good seamstress I always feel embarrassed asking for help because my sewing always looks childish at best. 

Anyway, I'm very proud of this project, which will be extremely useful (I hope) once the cold weather hits full force.  We haven't had more than a half dozen nights or so that have been cold here in Mississippi yet, but since this is only my second winter here I'm not sure what's typical yet. 

Funny side note about cold in Mississippi and cats:

Last winter Brownie took to "burrowing", which is what I called it when he wanted under the covers with me so he could snuggle up closer to my body warmth.  I tend to "cocoon" myself when sleeping in the winter and seal myself up so no cold air can reach my body, but when Brownie burrowed in, I would usually leave the end of the blanket by my face untucked so he could crawl out when he was done with being under the blankets. 

Well, last night I was woken up by him pawing and nipping at my hand... which was wrapped in my blankets.  Apparently he either burrowed in while I was sleeping or I let him in and didn't remember it at all during the night.  It took my sleep deprived brain about 5 minutes to realize he was trying to get my attention because he was trapped under the blankets. 

Christmas Countdown Progress Update

Most of my time these days is spent frantically trying to finish as many Christmas presents as possible before the looming deadline.  Which of course means that my Mill Hill stitching has been coming along.  So here's a quick look at my most recent updates. 

First off, I finished Holiday Stamp for my partner exchange:

I'll be finish-finishing it hopefully this weekend.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out; the petite seed beads are perfect for the scale of it.  I think the regular size Mill HIll beads would dwarf the design too much, but they fit perfectly here.

I also got the stitching all done on Love Potions:

I left the "No. 9" off the green bottle on the right, so I'm hoping it won't stick out because it's the one with the least amount of beading.  This will be hopefully be beaded by the end of the weekend, along with Stars and Stripes which I showed in my last update. 

I've also gotten quite far on Cookies for Santa now:

No longer just a green blob in the middle.  Just a bit more white to go, then backstitching and beading next for this one, again hopefully done by Monday.  Notice a pattern?  Then it's just 3 more kits to start and finish by the end of next week and *phew*, the Christmas stitching will be D. O. N. E., done.

Of course, then there are about 17 other projects I need to finish before the holiday that aren't stitching.  *sigh*

Mill Hill kits everywhere!

To my US readers, I hope that you all had a good Thanksgiving with lots of good food and good company.  And for everyone, happy first part of December!

I must admit, December is one of my favorite months, and Christmas is probably one of my favorite holidays.  I just love the ambiance of love that (usually) surrounds this holiday.  Around here I'm falling behind on production schedule of Christmas gifts though, so things are about to get crazy!  But here's what's been happening on the stitching front. 

Before Thanksgiving I managed up a finish on my band for the Antique Band Sampler project in my latest sampler Round Robin. 

Sorry for the black smudges, but I bled out my last name and city for security purposes, for what it's worth on the internet anyway.   I didn't really enjoy working on this one much, sampler bands just aren't my thing I guess.  But I am excited to see what project comes next. 

The day after Thanksgiving my cousin and I sat down and had a huge marathon of all 6 Star Wars movies back to back.  It took 14 hours, but was a good excuse to get a good chunk of stitching done.  The cross stitching and backstitch is all done on Holiday Stamp:

And as you can see, I'm starting to bead too.  I like that this kit came with all petite seed beads.  Not sure why, but those are my favorite.  Soon it will be ready to go to my exchange partner. 

Speaking of Friday again, since one of my gift recipients who is normally home had to work on Friday, I pulled out Love Potion, which will be for her, while she was at work.  I got a good part of the stitching on this one done, and now it looks like this:

I also pulled out Stars and Stripes just to change things up a bit.  This one is the smallest, so it had the least amount of stitching to be done.  I hadn't worked on this one since last year's January challenge, but now it's done and ready for beads. 

I didn't have Holiday Stamp with me to finish during my last stitching session, so I pulled out what will be the next kit to work on.  This one is called Cookies for Santa:

Not much to see yet, just a green blob.  I love the design of this one, but it will probably go slower than the others because it has a LOT of color changes and detail stitching.  But at least it seems to have more minimal beading than some of the other designs, so that will help. 

So other than these WIPs that leaves 1 more kit to start and finish before Christmas, 2 more I would like to start and finish (but it's okay if I don't), and 11 fleece lap blankets to fringe and tie in the next two weeks.  Plus a secret project that's a present for another family member that needs to be finished and ordered ASAP.  Whew!  I'm going to be BUSY!!!!

Vaction Stitching

Well, I'm back from a vacation last week, and managed to snag a bit of stitching while I was in the airport waiting for various flights.  The main project I worked on I can't actually show, since it's for someone for Christmas that sometimes pops in and reads the blog, so that one will have to wait until after the holiday to show. 

I pulled out the Mill Hill Love Potions kit to work on since I forgot Holiday Stamp at home in my work bag.  Not much progress, but the first of 3 bottles is mostly done now (sorry for the blurry picture):

After getting home, I put a significant dent of progress in my project for the latest round of the sampler round robin I am participating in on Facebook. 

This project is an antique band sampler, choose your own band.  Which when I read that I went AHHHHHHHHHH because I've never done a band sampler before and had absolutely NO ideas on what to do for it.  But since I'm familiar with blackwork, I found a nice pattern of leaves and vines that I figured I could make into my band.

In other news, I've already put up my page for the Debbie's Crazy January Challenge 2016.  For some reason thinking ahead and planning this is way more fun than actually doing the stitching sometimes.  Once my Christmas gift stitching is done, I will be back to doing a few charity squares, since the last two themes that have been opened in one of my groups really appeal to me.  January will be on us before you know it!

Back with more stitchy progress

I guess my intentions to blog more than once a month have been in vain so far.  Work has been so busy: we got a new computer system a few weeks ago and things have been crazy and in turmoil since then.  Makes me just want to go home and sleep when I get off. 

But I have managed to do some stitching, mostly round robin progress again.  First off, I finished the last round for the Frosted Pumpkin Round Robin.  It's a little acorn to go with my night sky from last update:

After that, I worked on the next round in the Sampler Round Robin, which was this Tulip Sampler design by Rosewood Manor.  Since it's been so long since my last update, I actually completely finished it before I could post any updates:

And speaking of the sampler round, here is some progress to show on Halloween Quaker.  This is the project I'm sending around, so not all of the stitching is mine, but it gives you an idea of how it's coming so far. 

I also have a long overdue new start to show you.  This is for an ornament exchange, and is called Holiday Stamp by Mill Hill:

The stitching itself is almost done, then some petite beading and a few backstitch and french knots and it will be done.  I haven't really worked on one of these Mill Hill kits since last January, and I forgot how fun they are.  I have a few more of these to complete for various gifts over the next month or so until Christmas, so I need to stitch faster!

Trip Update

I have a bit of time in the hotel room this morning before getting going, so I figured I post a few updates.

California has been great so far, it's been really nice to see many of the friends and family that we moved away from 9 months ago when we left for Mississippi.  Thank you for all of your birthday well wishes too; it was a good day with some nice surprises.  I'm at the point where I don't really like a big fuss made over my birthday anymore (too close to breaking 30) but hanging out with good friends was really nice.

I've managed to get some stitching done this trip too, despite fate's best efforts to not let me do so.  I was able to bring some of my projects in my carry on personal item in the plane, and was totally prepared for a nice long stitching session.  Well, about 20 minutes after takeoff I lost the needle and didn't have a spare.  Rats.   However, before that I did make some progress on the pony magnet I'm working on.  Sorry, no pictures yet though since it's for a gift next month.

Then Thursday (the first full day of the trip) I totally smashed my finger in the car door.  Like completely.  I will spare you the picture, but suffice it to say it was very sore and hard to stitch for a few days, since it's the middle finger on my dominant hand.  It's still sensitive, and the nail is completely blue/purple, but at least I can stitch again.

I did manage a bit of progress on both Autumn Circle by Mill Hill:

and my Sparrow square for a Love Quilts project that's due next month.

Actually, both of these pictures are a little old; I've gotten farther on both of them now, but my camera is not cooperating at the moment.

I mentioned my birthday a bit above, and it was nice, but I got one gift in particular I really want to share with all of you.  One of my fellow cross stitching buddies back home (actually we didn't meet through cross stitch, just kind of figured out that we actually enjoy doing the same thing once we were already friends) gave me a wonderful present for my birthday.  Knowing that I love reading, she made me this wonderful bag:

Isn't it great?  Look at the detail on this thing:

And it's fully and beautifully lined too:

(just ignore my knee in the bottom right corner)

It's almost too pretty to use, haha.  Not sure if I will use it as my work bag (I really need a new one) or maybe as a project bag.  I will have to think about that for a bit.  Thank you again Kathy.  I bow to your awesomeness in sewing ability.  :)  

Inside the bag were a multitude of other surprises:

Pretty much a do it yourself kit inside.  Some lovely 16 count aida and 28 count evenweave, plus one of Ursula Michael's wonderful word art patterns.  This is called Let's Be Wicked (obviously for Halloween) and there is also all the thread needed to complete it, along with some Thread Heaven and some new needles.  The needles were especially good since as I mentioned above, I had lost my last one on the plane.  I'm so happy I've got such a wonderful Halloween project to work on this year.

The other things included in the bag were the two sweet Owlet kits from Mill Hill I posted about during the last Stitch from Stash.  Aren't they adorable?!?  Sadly, I will have to wait a bit on these, as I have a few more projects to finish first.

But despite that, the whole thing was pretty much the best stitchy birthday gift ever.  :)

It has been a lovely trip so far (filled with plenty of work and play).  I plan on posting an update on Monday showing off lots more stitching that I've gotten done during the days we have left!

Progress Update: Day 28 & 29 of the Crazy January Challenge

I'm back to the two day update post today, since I forgot to take pictures of the Day 28 project, and so I didn't have anything to post yesterday.  So I managed to take some pictures last night, but the lighting turned out kind of funny, so they will look a little wonky. 

Day 28 was Wednesday, which are always my very busy, very long days, so I purposely chose something smaller.  Plus, at this point, I pretty much had the rest of my challenge all planned out.  So Wednesday was a kit by Mill Hill called Lucky Day. 

This one only has 2 colors of stitching, as the gold thread it comes with is purely for attaching beads.  If you couldn't tell, it will be a four leaf clover when I get done.  The dark green thread I started with didn't show up too well on the green paper so far.  This will be a gift for a friend who loves all things Irish. 

Yesterday was Thursday, which mean it wasn't quite as long as Wednesday, but still busy, so I chose another small project to do, a Mill Hill kit called Kitty's Stocking:

Got the top of the stocking finished.  I'm really excited about this one, since I did the Tropical Kitty kit last year and loved it.  I have one other kitty Mill Hill in my stash to do eventually too.  The one thing I'm nervous about is this one has a lot of back stitching details in addition to the beading, so I hope I can get it done in time for my upcoming gift deadline. 

And since I didn't feel like working on Kitty when I got home yesterday, I pulled Perfume Bottle out again and worked on that while we watched the new TNT series The Librarians (which is kind of kooky, but I really liked, by the way). 

The bottle itself is now completely outlined, and you might be able to see the bit of gray at the top where I started on the sprayer.  I just have the metal and ball part of that to finish, the rest of the stripes to fill in, and a couple flowers at the bottom to finish.  Hopefully I'll be able to complete it this weekend and have something new to show you.  

So now we're heading into Saturday and my weekends-without-internet, so I will be back on Monday with the updates on my last two projects for the challenge.  It's kind of bittersweet.  I loved doing all these new starts, but it is a little tiring on some days, and I am itching to go back to some of the things I've started. 

Until Monday stitching friends!

Progress Update: Day 23 of the Crazy January Challenge

Moving right along with the updates today, here's the progress I made yesterday on Friday.  It was another Mill Hill day, this time with Autumn Circle:

Got the veins of one of the leaves done (I think there's 4 main leaves in the circle).  I've been doing these Mill Hill kits a lot during the week, because they are easy to grab and take to work with me, which some days is the only stitching time I have (on my lunch break).  But I only have 1 left in my "have to stitch soon" pile now, so I need to figure out some other quick projects to take with me for the rest of the week. 

I also made quite a bit of progress on Perfume Bottle.  It's actually starting to look a little like a bottle now.  You can start to see a bit of the stripes forming. 

I always work with projects with large blocks of color like this that they won't look "blended" enough in the finished project, but I think this one might turn out okay.  Sorry for the not-so-great pictures on both of these, it was storming when I took them and the lighting was less than stellar. 

I'm going to have to sit down this weekend and go through the remaining projects I have kitted up and ready to go.  Because of a few projects that have interjected themselves into my original list, I have more projects in my "to start" box than I have days left in January.  But I can't really spill into February starting things every day too much because I have several things due in March that I will need to use February to work on.  Is it silly to just do like an extra week of starts into February?  

Progress Update: Day 22 of the Crazy January Challenge

Well, so far I'm keeping up well with the solo day progress reports.  Although I know that since the weekends I don't have internet, I will still have an awfully long update on Monday. 

Yesterday was Day 22, and as expected I did go with a Mill Hill start.  This is Mum Bouquet:

This is another one of the kits I mentioned like yesterday that weren't originally on my Crazy list, but got bumped there when we found out the dates for our trip.  The goal is to finish it in time to give for a present when we go, then I don't have to pay shipping later.  I got most of the stems done yesterday, which is pretty much all that will be there for that dark green color.  There will be a LOT of beading on this one, since most of the petals are made up of bead loops. 

I'm going to try and schedule my progress post for today's project later tonight before I go internet-less for the weekend, so that's one last update I have to lump into Monday's post.  Wish me luck!