So true

Thanks to Cross Stitch Happy for offering these free charts! I enjoyed stitching with beads for the first time and made one other small change. Can't wait to start the next one!

P.S. I have no idea why my text is underlined

My little stitcher in training

Paige wanted to help me with my cross stitch the other day so I gave her some fabric and floss to make her own. Surprisingly it kept her interest for quite a long time and she didn't need hardly any help. Welcome to the crafty side baby girl.

Still here

I've been seriously procrastinating with updating here but I have plenty of pics to make up for it!
I finished this blanket just in time for the baby shower. Baby Adrain (no, that's not a typo) will be here any day now! I want to make another in pink.

Noah's Beep Beep blanket. Lightning McQueen approves!

Noah approves too.
I made cards and magnets for my mom and the MIL for Mother's Day.

Willow Tree Sampler. This one only took me 4 days to stitch, that's like a world record for me! I'm thinking about stitching it again with different colors.
Stitched on 28ct Buttermilk Linen. The fabric is a light yellow which doesn't show up at all in the picture.
A freebie from here. This one only took a couple days longer than the Willow Tree. I'm on a roll!! The wings are sparkly but can't really see it in the picture as usual.
Stitched on a linen napkin. Yup, I bought a set of 4 linen napkins at a garage sale for $1 with no intention of using them as napkins. Reuse & Recycle!
This will be a Christmas present for the FIL. It looks like a giraffe at the moment but, trust me, it's a fish.

And just because I can. Here's my two little bugs that keep me busy in between stitches.

Back from the framers!

My first piece to professionally framed! Click to embiggen.
Hanging in the living room. Please ignore the off centeredness of the frames and wall in need of paint.

You can never have too much stash

I was able to go on a little shopping spree last month, as if I needed more! I really need to figure out a way to organize this stuff.

First is Growth Rings from Just Cross Stitch magazine. Brown and turquoise threads to match my living room on white 32ct lugana. I started this last week but between the kids and my own attention span I haven't been able to concentrate on it much.

Goodies from 123stitch.com. My favorite stitchy site. These were in my mailbox only two days after ordering!
Hand-dyed fabrics from Enchantedfabrics.com. Full of lovely sparkles!! 28ct Opalescent Lugana in Prairie Skies and Bubblegum.
Charleston Lady from TheStitchery.com. I've been wanting this one for a long time. I'm thinking about switching out the aida for the Bubblegum Lugana.
Even with all this lovely new stash I've been knitting more than stitching lately. I was tired of the boring plastic stitch markers so last night I made some new ones.

Then I made a charm for the dog.
Time to get back to stitching...now where do I start?!?

I'm on a roll

Bent Creek's Wedding Row
32ct 2 over 2
This was so quick and easy. I love it! Now to figure out how to frame it.


Close up
Not sure what I'll be starting next. I went on a bit of a shopping spree online last week so I'll have lots of new stash to choose from pretty soon.

I can knit!

I never thought I'd say this but I've been knitting up a storm lately. Beep beep is what started it all. I just had to give it a try for my little man. He's getting quite the collection of Hot Wheels and needs somewhere to drive them. This has been going suprisingly fast and I'm about half done. Would probably be closer to done by now if I'd quit starting other projects. This thing is gonna need some serious blocking.

Then I decided I must make these socks. Well, they're more like leg warmers since they're toeless and heeless but that's besides the point. So far so good. I pray I have the ambition to make the second one and that it turns out the same size as the first. That's not asking too much is it?

Last, for now, is a diagonal baby blanket for a cousin due in May. I like the stripyness of this yarn.
I haven't completely abandoned my other crafty stuff. I started Bent Creek's Wedding Row a couple weeks ago. I switched to brighter colors and would probably be finished with it already if not for that darn knitting up there getting in the way.

Happy Dance time!

I finished Noah's stocking last night!! I just need to get a star button for the top tree and then actually make it a stocking but I have the rest of the year to figure that out.

Now what? I think I'll start this for my sister next. We used to play Pooh sticks all the time and this reminds me of that. But there's also a couple things I'd like to crochet and I'm going to attempt this but don't have the needles yet.

I think I need to do some serious stash organizing soon.

I'm still here!

Happy New Year everybody! I hope you all had wonderful holidays. I took a little break from cross stitch to crochet a bunch of hats and scarves for gifts. I also managed to finally finish DH's quilt and framed MIL and SIL's gifts myself.

Noah checking out daddy's quilt. I finished it while DH was at work and surprised him with it on Christmas.

I'm really happy with how this turned out for my first quilt. But next time I'll pick the fabrics myself.
SIL's Christmas gift. I was hoping to find a better frame but had to settle for a plain one.
I love this frame and knew it would be perfect as soon as I saw it.
Close up of frame
My first finish of 2009!
I finally got back to work on Noah's stocking and , thanks to the Facebook SAL group, I FINALLY finished the never ending red of Santa's shirt!!! Santa also now has eyes, train tracks over his head and the beginnings of a train underneath him.

Procrastination can still be productive

I've been very much distracted by paperbackswap.com lately. Between that and avoiding all that red on the Santa stocking I've managed to finish another Christmas present. Here is It's 5:00 somewhere before the backstitching
And all finished. Now I just need to find a nice frame.

Here's my next project of Santa avoidance. A freebie from Artecy cross stitch. Kinda obvious what this one is!

I've also joined Me, Myself and I Round Robins and am having fun planning my village. I'll have some pics once I get it planned out more.

Happy (day before) Grandparent's Day!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Still stitching

I forgot to post a picture of the Irish Blessing so here it is. I haven't heard from the recipient yet so I hope she is happy with it. I went cross eyed several times stitching that knot 1 over 1 on 25ct.My latest project is Bent Creek's Santa Train stocking for my son. I've really enjoyed the simplicity of this one, not to mention the huge stitches. 4 over 2 on 18ct! I wonder if I'll have it done and put together in time for Christmas.
This is my progress as of last night. It's gonna take forever to fill in all that red! I still need to go back up and stitch the railroad track above Santa's head. I didn't have the right color so had to skip over it. I'll take a better pic of the whole thing when I take it off the Q snaps to move it.
I'll be taking a break from all that red today to start Post Stitches It's 5:00 Somewhere. This will be a Christmas present for my sis-in-law. So many shades of pink!!

TGIF

Been continuing the stitching spree. I found this one on spritestitch.com and plan to do more from that site. I'm not sure how I'm going to finish this one off. While stitching the outline of the castle DH walked by and said "Hey, you should make that Mario's castle!"
Me: O_o ....it is

Wine a bit by Post Stitches. I started this on Sunday night and finished it Tuesday night. A new world record for me! I really thought this would take longer and didn't have anything ready to start next. This will be a Christmas present for my mother-in-law and I'll be attempting to frame it myself.
I was going to start a stocking next but I don't really like the linen I was given for it. I have fabric for some pattens but no floss and floss for some but no fabric. Guess it's time to dig out a UFO!

Finishes feel good

This one is a freebie from here. I made it for DH to put on his desk at work. He loves his coffee. Stitched on blue 14ct aida

Before finishing

After

Another freebie but I have no clue where I found it, it's been saved on my computer for over a year. This one is for myself which doesn't happen too often! Stitched on the same blue aida.

And my current wip. I was asked to stitch this Irish blessing by someone who's mother recently passed away. Stitched on 25ct antique white lugana. I was planning on using 28ct but apparently I had a total brain fart while buying the fabric and didn't realize it until the next day. The lettering is 2 over 2. Underneath will be a celtic knot (freebie from Ink Circles) stitched 1 over 1.

Finally finished!

After taking about five times longer than it should have, the wedding square is finally finished!! Now it needs to be sent across the country to California. You bet your butt I'll be putting delivery confirmation on this one! Hopefully I'll get to see it after it gets made into a quilt with all the other squares.

Stitching the night away

The wedding square is slowly getting done.  Just a couple more blue swirls to go then the rest of the border and lettering.  I've really enjoyed working on this and will be sad to see it go.  I hope I get to see a picture of the whole quilt put together eventually.

I crocheted a nintendo ds cozy for a swap partner.  After searching all over for a pattern I finally made up my own.  It's pretty quick and easy so I'm sure I'll make more!  I've been trying to think of a way to add a pocket for games too.

 

Chunky pages coming soon!

Finally!

I finally managed to get a bit of crafting done.  My little kidlets aren't making it easy lately.  I'm sure it's not going to get any easier since Noah figured out how to crawl yesterday!

Oh, before I forget for the millionth time.  Thank you Val(yarnigras) for the apron and bookmark!!!!  I love them and will try to get pics soon of the apron in action.  P.S. I've been behind on my blog reading lately so I'll probably be sending a bunch of comments your way when I play catch up.

I signed up for a Recipe chunky book swap and here is what I came up with.  I made the pages pretty big, 6 inch square, so I could fit the recipes on easily.  I couldn't find as many cooking embellishments as I would have liked.  Well, today I saw a whole bunch that would have been perfect, never fails.

 

I've also been stitching along on the wedding square (after the kids go to bed).  It needs to be in the mail by the end of July so hopefully I can keep up the pace.  The light blue is half stitches which helps a ton.  I can't wait to see how it looks without the waste canvas!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommy's out there. 

Here's is what my kids made me with just a little help from daddy.  I think I will attach some ribbon to them and hang them on the wall.

So much stuff, so little time

I keep buying more and more stuff and then I feel guilty because I never seem to get anything done. I need to get more organized...and a babysitter would be nice. Paige is heading into the terrible twos and getting a lot of practice in with the tantrums (even as I type this she's throwing a huge fit because I had the nerve to try to change her clothes!) Noah is pretty happy most the time but sometimes he wants to be held all day which makes it difficult to do anything, even with the sling.

Anyways, a friend has twisted my arm...I mean convinced me to start an Etsy shop. We'll see how long that takes for that to happen. I already set up the account, now I just need to make something to sell....someday.

To show that I am actually doing something. Here is a cross stitch I started last week. It's for the husband's cousin who is getting married this fall. The cousin's fiance's family has mailed everybody a 12 inch square of fabric to decorate. The squares will be made into a quilt that will hang over the couple when they say their vows. I decided to use the pattern from this kit and changed the colors to the wedding colors. This is my first time using waste canvas so I hope it works out. Stitching on a white grid over white fabric with light gray floss is not easy!!!

Here is the beginnings of a pair of wool shorts I'm making for a friend on LJ. She has recently entered the world of cloth diapering and having entirely way too much fun with it!

And just because I love to torture myself I started a Crochet-along in a crochet group on Swap-bot. The theme is Circle in a Square and each week I post a new square. My goal is to make four of each square. Right now we're on the second square. The four on the right are from the first week. They're all the same size, the camera was at an angle. The other square is from this weeks pattern. It came out a little bigger than the others so I need to adjust the last round a bit.

This will be a blanket for Paige. I really wanted to try satin binding on this one but it cost a bit more than I thought so I just got the usual kind. I thought the bunny looked like she was ready to go to bed so I picked out the blue star fabric for the back.

Gotta love sales!! More future blankets, possibly for the Etsy shop. These have binding too, I forgot to add them in the pic.

And finally, the husband has a blanket/tapestry of dogs playing poker so when I saw this kit in the sale bin I had to get it.

You can never have too many blankets

I saw this fishing flannel at Joann Fabrics and just had to have it for blanket for Noah.  I thought the iron on would be perfect since my dad can't wait for Noah to be his fishing buddy.  I later went back and bought some binding for it.  It's the first time I've put binding on a blanket and I'm glad I did, it looks so much better that way!  The fabric on the right was picked out by my husband.  He wants me to make him a blanket for the couch.  I was going to make it like Noah's blanket but then I decided to be adventurous and cut it all up into 6 1/2 inch squares to make it quilt-like.  I've been slowly getting all those squares stitched back together.  My machine is being very tempermental lately and doesn't seem to want me to make this blanket!  But I will get it done!  It'll be far from perfect but I know better to expect that and I'm sure hubby will love it anyways.