Thursday, March 29, 2007

What a dreadful week!

Delivering Plenty from Homespun Elegance


It's been a rough one, seems like everything that could go wrong did. My best friend Karen's Mom died from liver cancer. She was just diagnosed a couple of months ago so this went so incredibly quick that we all are still trying to understand it. I made it to the funeral last Thursday but didn't have time and stay and talk since DH and DD had a stomach flu that day. Karen and Tom is coming over Saturday though so we can catch up then. Very sad business.
Emma succeeded in coming down with two different illnesses in one week, which I think might be a record. She woke up with a terrible fever Monday night, seemed like it was a 24 hour thing that goes around and then she came down the stomach flu Wednesday.
Just a question, why do they have to put super red food coloring on so many things? I almost went into shock when I walked into Emma's room Wednesday evening and thought that she was bleeding internally for a moment until I realized what it was. I think my carpet cleaner is one of the best things I ever gotten, BTW.
But I did get some fun things done too (well, I enjoy the result at least). I finished painting the living room and I did get most of my yard cleaned up. Yay! It was so lovely Sunday and I was out there working for the whole afternoon. So nice to be outside after it rained all day Saturday. But that was ok too, my whole jaw hurt all day after my dentist appointment that morning.
I didn't stitch much last week, didn't go online much either. A combination of Emma being home and playing with her Webkinz on the computer and just having to much to do I guess. But Delivering Plenty is finished! I might add some smaller charms later on but I think it looks ok without them.
At the moment I'm beading on Sleeping Beauty, hope to finish her soon.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Stitching Camp!

Homespun Elegance Delivering Plenty


Mirabilia's Angel Proclamation


I went off to a stitching camp this Saturday, so much fun! It's organized by different chapters of EGA in our region so it's people coming from all over but it's really close to me. Which is good, since it's hard for me to be gone more then a day. This year I took 2 finishing classes, Cathy Haberman from Hands on Finishing taught them. The first one was a needlebook and scissorfob class, the second a box top and a strawberry class. I had used all the finishing techniques before but I did pick up some quite good advice and some new ideas to use.




There was a lovely lady from the day group that I hadn't met before that I chatted quite a bit with since she took the same classes as me. We had so much fun!




In the evening they had merchandise night and I picked up way to much stuff. Cathy had brought all her clearance stuff with her that was left after she closed the shop and there were some great deals to be found there. So much lovely fabric, sigh.


This was just what a needed after a pretty busy week. I got almost all of the living room painted and I just love the new color, it looks so good. Then my 3 year old got sick and she was up quite a bit during Tuesday and Wednesday night. I don't deal well with sleep deprivation, I was walking around in a haze here, had a hard time even thinking straight.


Friday I did get out and down to Richard's Gallery to get my Australian painting framed. I waited with picking out the frame until I had the new paint on just to be sure that it would all work. It will be great to be able to finally hang it on the wall. I have started on the new curtains too, but that will take some time to sit down and finish them.
I did get a couple of more stitches in on the Angel Proclamation and I started HE's Delivering Plenty. The latter is a pretty quick stitch so I'm hoping to finish it this week.

Monday, March 12, 2007

A blurb!

Future Mirabilia's Angel Proclamation


Where has the week gone? It feels like I spent it in the car, actually. Took the kids to meetings, parties, and drove their friends home.


It's been gorgeous here, temperatures in the 60's and we'll hit 70 today and then it will start to cool off. My early tulips, crocuses and daffodils have started to poke through. That's nothing compared to my neighbor though, his is already up about 5 inches. It must be some early daffodils that he has found or maybe they are just getting lots of sun. I try to figure this out every year. It's really nice to have someone that are into gardening living beside you, you always have an interested audience when you have found something really cool or are looking for something specific and it goes both ways.


I've been going through my finishing pile and actually got my Lizzie Kate Flip It's mounted so Oscar can start displaying them in his room. I just got one frame but he can easily change them every month. Then I put some felt on the back of one Mill Hill ornament, finished a needleroll and started finishing another one and I'm working on finishing JN's September Song into a bell pull. I need to pull out my iron today so I can press the edges on that needleroll, I just can't do the hem stitch without having it pressed down good. We were watching Borat yesterday and I couldn't be bother to do it in the middle of the movie.


So I haven't gotten that much stitching done on the angel from Angel Proclamation, it's just like a blurb at the moment. I have to take out the purple too since I stitched it in the wrong purple color, but I will wait with that until I have gotten a bit further on it. Then it won't feel like I'm taking out that much.


My other project this week is to start painting the living room! I pulled out the quarter gallon test paint can yesterday and just painted some up close to the green in the kitchen and up against the wood trim. It looks like it's going to work out well and Anders liked it quite a bit. So I'm off tomorrow to get more paint, but I will try to get the taping done today.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

My newly painted kitchen.




I did the last of the painting in February but it didn't look quite right until now. The paint I'm using takes a real long time to dry and color looks a wonky until it does




Tuesday, March 06, 2007

St Basil's Cathedral update!



This one is going much faster then I anticipated. Quite a bit of backstitching to do eventually though but that usually goes quick.

I did go to much EGA meeting yesterday which was fun. Last time I was there was in October and then we started having both soccer and swimming on Mondays there for a while but that's over with now. The ladies agreed to come in and help my daughters 4 H troop out when we receive our DMC kits (that will take a while). Everyone is pretty excited!

Then I somehow came home with Mirabilia's Angel Proclamation. We are stitching it for the church that we are holding our meetings, hopefully they will like it. Seems like I'm almost the first one to stitch on it (the little bee on the left hand side is there already), I'm doing the angel on the left hand side. Hopefully she's going to be a quick stitch too, I have so much that I have to stitch on this month. I told them to not expect it back until May though.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

After the blizzard!

Our street.

Cleaning up the drive way.

My new WIP, St Basils Cathedral from Dimples Designs.
It's still a mess here after the blizzard that hit us Thursday. It's been snowing on and off for the last 4 days and we have strong winds too. So some roads are still closed due to drifting snow and the snow is piled so high in certain area's that the street crew can't plow them.
They finally cleaned up our street. These are the pictures that turned out ok, tried to take some during the blizzard but they didn't come out. And there was no way that I was going outside to take them. I would have ended up somewhere in Iowa or something with those winds.
Yesterday I had to brave the weather and go out for groceries, the cupboards were empty after everyone has been home for such long time. Unfortunatly I was not the only one. It took forever, I was not in the best mood when I got home. I can't take crowds.
I did sit down and kitted up St Basil's Cathedral from Dimples Designs and started stitching on it, scanned a picture of my progress. It's for Mel, she turns 50 this year in August so hopefully I will finish it and have it framed by then.
We went out for a nice anniversery dinner yesterday. Almost didn't get out since our babysitter had forgotten about it (he had the flu so he's excused, it's not easy to remember when you are that sick). But he's brother filled in for him and we did get the last open table down at our little nice French restaurant that's pretty close to us. Nice dinner and a nice bottle of wine, and it's so nice to sit down and talk without being interrupted by kids.
So in all it turned out to be a pretty good day!



Friday, March 02, 2007

A quick update!

2006 Just Cross Stitch Prairie Schooler ornament

My progress on The Gameboard Sampler from Drawn Thread
I was hoping that they would have had started the clean up after that big blizzard we got yesterday but that didn't happen. Me and the neighbors have tried to help out all the cars that got stuck in on our street today, but as soon as we got one car out, five minutes later another one is stuck in the same place.
I guess the county is trying to keep the main roads clear first and foremost but with strong winds and more snow that's hard.
Just wanted to add some stitching updates today. Since the kids have snowdays they are out and in and everytime they come in they drag a cubic meter of snow with them. I'm working hard on getting it off the wood floors.