A Basket of Bunnies

Hey everyone,

I've been gone for quite awhile, and I know that I said in my last post I would try to update more often.  December got really crazy with us having my soon to be sister-in-law come visit for Christmas, and I got sick with a cold at Christmas and then with flu and another cold in January, and things just got away from me.

The truth is, I've kind of been intimated by my own blogging goals, which made it even easier to just keep putting the updates off.  Despite not blogging, I have been stitching and keeping photo progress too, I just have been too intimated to come back and post here.

For the Crazy January challenge this year, I did 31 starts of those little free kits that come with the cross stitch magazines.  I have a lot hanging around and I figured it was time for me to do something about them.  But when I thought about coming on here to post my progress, it just seemed like more of a chore than anything else.  And then more and more progress has happened since then, and it only complicated things further.

So I've decided, it's time for a fresh start.  I'm not going to worry so much about showing each and every one of my past progress photos, but instead focus on sharing more current stitching (that frankly I'm more excited about.  The CJC projects I picked felt more tedious than anything else by the end of January).

The World of Charity Stitch group I'm a part of on Facebook recently did a Bunny themed challenge.  And looking through my patterns apparently the only thing I have more of than bunny charts is cat charts.  So I started 4 different squares (and planned to do many more!  But ran out of time...).  So my recent stitching is full of bunnies.

Here's the beginning of Woodland Bunny by Lucie Heaton:

I literally started this stitching and got this far while having a 100+ degree fever as a result of the flu!  Next is a cute little springtime themed bunny from Durene Jones:

The bonus thing is that this bunny also has several daffodils in it, which are one of my favorite flowers.  Next up is a Winter Bunny chart by Ursula Michael:

The other two bunnies were very stylized/cartoony, so I felt like this realistic bunny was a nice change.

And last up because I was sick of brown and white, I found a blue bunny from an old Carolyn Shores Wright leaflet called Snugglebunnies:

So that's mostly what I've been working on recently.  I'll try to do better about posting pictures of my progress.   I did also make some progress on two other things, but since they are presents I better wait to show pictures until after they have been gifted.

Happy stitching everyone!

A to Z Challenge: U is for Ursula Michael

Today is Day 21 of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. If you are new to the blog and haven't heard of this challenge before, the basic idea is to blog (almost) every day in April, taking one day for each letter of the alphabet. Since I have a cross stitch blog, I am blogging about cross stitch patterns in my stash and on my wish list for this month of April.

U is for Ursula Michael

I know I've talked about Ursula Michael and her designs during the challenge before, so I'm going to try to keep this one shorter today.

Ursula is a designer with a huge array of designs.  She does everything from seasonal and inspirational to quilt patterns, to the excellent typography designs.  I have a few of these ones, a Christmas tree, and a spring one.  If you'd like to see some excellent progress on the seasonal ones, I suggest checking out Jeremiah's Mom's blog, since she's been working on them (and finished one so far).  I have several of these shaped word designs on my wish list, but I'm most excited about someday stitching this one that's shaped like an ice cream sundae called Let's Eat Dessert.  Yum.

And speaking of yum, this design called Dessert Makes Me Happy was what brought me to Ursula's designs in the first place.  I saw someone stitching this on one of the cross stitch forums I read and it was just so cute I had to find out more about the pattern.  That lead me to Imaginating, which is a company that distributes many of Ursula's designs (although not exclusively).  If you're a digital pattern person, you should visit Ursula's pages on Crosstitch.com, since many of her designs there are only available as download.  And she's fast!  She has been adding new designs every few weeks or so, it's crazy!

In additional the word designs, I love the shaped words she's done for several of the holidays.  Right now there's a Trick or Treat, Give Thanks, Happy Holidays, and this is the newest one, Happy Easter.  I've always loved art that has normal items shaped into letters (I blame this Disney logo from my childhood), and that combined with my love of holiday and seasonal patterns, makes these perfect.

And speaking of my love of seasonal patterns, Ursula also has a beautiful series of stained glass window patterns, one for each season.  I don't have room to show all 4 in this one post, but this is the spring one, which is one of my favorites.  Daffodils again.  

And now this post is starting to get longer, so I will wrap it up rather than risk waxing long. 

One of the other A to Z blogs I've been reading had the excellent idea of adding links to previous posts at the end of a particular day.  So if you'd like to see my previous A to Z entries:

A is for  Alphabet
B is for Britty Kitty
C is for Carousel
D is for Debbie Mumm
E is for Eat
F is for Frogs
G is for Garden Cat
H is for Hats 
I is for Ice
J is for Joan Elliott 
K is for Kokeshi 
L is for Lesley Teare
M is for Margaret Sherry 
N is for Noah's Ark
O is for Owls
P is for Pumpkins
Q is for Quaker
R is for Rules 
S is Sue Hillis
T is for Travel
 

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!

Cross Stitch Group on Facebook

So, if you're a fan of Facebook cross stitch groups, or if you aren't currently but want to try it out, here's a heads up for you.  Ursula Michael, a designer probably most famous for her "word art" patterns, has a Facebook fan group that I love.  Anyway, if you're a fan of her work, check out the group and come join us.  As soon as we get 750 members, we'll be getting a new group-exclusive freebie chart...