The October Country

Another finish for SOLAK

2011-02-17T00:25:00.003-05:00

This morning I finished my third square for SOLAK. The pattern is "Black Bear" by the Stoney Creek Collection. I also started working on the pattern "Fox" by Jeanette Crews Designs. Not that you can see the fox yet, just the log it's standing on!

So, that's my work for today! Thanks for looking. :)

Black Bear, Almost Finished

2011-02-13T22:45:00.001-05:00

Just another quick update to show my progress on the Black Bear square. Hoping to finish it tomorrow. We'll see! This is what I have done:

Black Bear

2011-02-12T02:14:00.001-05:00

Just a quick post to update my progress on the Black Bear square. This is what I got stitched today.

Still frozen...

2011-02-11T00:49:00.001-05:00

Today was no letdown in my recent series of adventures. I had my second shift at work, and when I got out at 2:00 the car was acting funny. I managed to drive to the middle of the parking lot, just far enough to get stuck in the middle of an intersection. AAA took almost three hours to get there from Manchester.
Which left me ample time to witness the rotten nature of humanity. People were SO rude and flat out nasty... As if I planned to stall my car on a whim. Yeah, I had nothing else to do with my afternoon except break down. It got to the point where if one more person honked or flipped me off, I was going to lose it. And the worst part is that it was mostly old ladies! Who knew senior citizens were so full of rage? Finally a young guy stopped and helped me push the car out of traffic, so at least there was one human being in Nashua today.
When the tow truck driver finally got there I could have hugged him. Partly because he was there to pick up the car and partly for body heat. It was 24°F out so you can imagine what that felt like.
Anyway, the car is now in the shop, hopefully to be fixed soon.
For stitching, I decided to start the Black Bear pattern for SOLAK. This is my work for the day.

Another finish

2011-02-10T01:25:00.001-05:00

Tonight I finished my second square for SOLAK. The design is "The Hunter's Pace" by the Stoney Creek Collection. I am pleased with how it came out; I think it will be a nice addition to Tom's quilt. I haven't decided which square to work up next, so I'm off to look at my patterns now.
Thanks for looking!

An experiment

2011-02-08T22:49:00.001-05:00

So I got my new phone today! In celebration of that, I am writing this post from the phone! Pretty cool. Anyhow, I worked on The Hunter's Pace and got quite a bit done. This was my progress.

A finish!

2011-02-07T23:10:00.004-05:00

I had trouble posting last night; my text kept getting deleted/sucked into the internet void so I eventually gave up. However, I finished my first square for SOLAK yesterday. This is "Golden Retriever - Barney" by Country Cross Stitch. It was a lot more backstitching than I am accustomed to; I usually stitch HAED patterns which are all cross stitch! But I patiently stitched in every last blade of grass (in three shades of green, mind you!)
Then, I started working on the next square for Tom's quilt. It is a pattern called "The Hunter's Pace" by the Stoney Creek Collection. I am having to trim about 20 stitches off the top and bottom to fit the 4" requirement but I don't think they will be missed. You can see the tree, the deer, and the rabbit so far.

Sorry about the shadows in the picture. Hopefully the less than desirable picture quality problem will be over soon; I found out I was eligible for a phone upgrade so I just ordered my new phone which has a 5 megapixel camera in it. Which I thought was pretty awesome until Nate informed me his HTC Evo has a 12 megapixel camera. Whoopee for him. :-P

The waterfall in my bedroom has slowed but has not been resolved. Maintenance finally decided to show up this afternoon to take a look. They threw down a couple of trash bags and a new bucket (hooray, I can have my trash can back), peeled the popcorn layer off the ceiling, poked a hole with a utility knife in both rooms and called it a day. Apparently the apartment above us is vacant and was flooding with water pouring down the walls and "nobody called maintenance." Really?? Cause I'm pretty sure I called maintenance on Saturday night when I had the Poseidon Adventure in my room!! Ugh. According to maintenance, there's nothing they can really do until the snow melts. Today was therefor good and bad because it was sunny and (slightly) warm, so the snow was melting. Theoretically that should be a good thing, clearing the roof and running off. Unfortunately there is a veritable glacier on the edge of the building so instead of running off, the water is running down into the flushing and onto my bureau. Delightful. Supposedly they are waiting on a contractor from Pennsylvania (not exactly close to New Hampshire!) because there are so many homes here in New England having the same problems that no one local has time to do the work. (For those of you who don't live around here, we have had one massive snowstorm after another and there is well over a foot of snow and ice caked on the roofs.) So the saga continues.

Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Take care and thanks for reading!

20,000 Leagues Under the Ceiling

2011-02-06T09:46:00.003-05:00

So this is what I woke up looking at this morning:I suppose I should be more detailed. At about 12:00 am I was sitting on the couch stitching when I heard a noise from the bedroom as if someone had turned on the shower. Disturbing, yes, but a few weeks ago our sink accidentally overflowed and leaked into the first floor apartment and maintenance caught it before we did, so I thought maybe the same thing was going on from the third floor. Never did I expect to see what I did.
Water was gushing from the ceiling next to a vent, and the popcorn layer was peeling and bulging away. My bureau was soaked. The clothes in it were soaked. The 20 or so books and magazines I keep on the bureau were soaked. The floor was wet, the hamper was wet, even my bed was wet. I called Nate and he said to call maintenance.
In a panic, I dug out our apartment community reference manual. There is a page about the "24 hour maintenance" staff we have on call, and an explanation of what constitutes an emergency and thus an emergency call. The second item on the list is flooding. Ok, water pouring through the ceiling, check. So I called the number.
I was connected to a woman from the answering service who could not have been less interested in helping me. I don't know if I interrupted her midnight game of Ms. Pacman or what, but she got my apartment number wrong, asked for my phone number repeatedly, and clearly just wasn't paying attention. When I explained the nature of the problem, she asked if it was something I could "stave off until tomorrow." When I replied no, there is water pouring into my bedroom, she said she would have maintenance give me a call.
Now I felt at least somewhat reassured. Maintenance has a little cabin on property and they are usually just a golf cart ride away. Or so I thought. At 12:26 the phone rang. It was maintenance alright. The man on the line greeted me "Hi, this is ---- from --- ----- Maintenance, how are you doing?" When I answered "I've been better..." he sighed and said "Yeah, me too." Now hold on a second. I am usually a very empathetic and appreciative person, especially toward those in service industries. But frankly, when it's after midnight and there's WATER POURING FROM MY BEDROOM CEILING, I don't really give a crap how the other guy is doing! Don't complain to me!!
Next, I was instructed to "poke a hole in it [the ceiling] with a pen and put a trash barrel under it." I was silent. I thought I was misunderstanding something. Was he coming over to poke a hole in the ceiling and put a trash barrel under the leak? Was he joking? He goes, "Hello, are you there?" Finally I said yes. He told me "That's all we can do for now." Confused, I asked "So you're not coming over?" "No." "Is someone coming over tomorrow?" "We'll probably be able to send someone over on Monday to assess the situation." I was flabbergasted. Probably? Monday?! His parting words of comfort were to tell me "there's a lot of this going on." Oh great, so you're not just blowing me off, you're ignoring my neighbors as well! I got off the phone and started to get really angry. I had already been able to figure out to put a basin under the leak and had put towels down in the affected area, but that only does so much, and now there was a leak in the second bedroom where I keep my valuable book collection. I called Nate back to update him. He called the answering service repeatedly and was unable to get any further information. Maintenance refused to call him back.
So we slept uneasily all night next to a rapid leak in the bedroom ceiling. The bulging was getting worse, and I fully expected to wake up to another waterfall when the ceiling let go again. This morning the damage is worse, as shown in the photo above. Still no help from maintenance. The books and electronics from the bureau are destroyed. I have no idea what will happen next, but I am extremely unhappy. With what we pay for rent, I fully expected maintenance to respond to an emergency. But apparently it's too much trouble for them. Let's wait til Monday and see if the ceiling, walls, and carpet all end up destroyed. Maybe then they'll decide to send someone over.
Maybe.

Golden Retriever (SOLAK)

2011-02-05T23:06:00.004-05:00

Last night I began working on my first square for Stitches of Love and Kindness. The pattern is "Golden Retriever -Barney" by Country Cross Stitch. You probably can't tell yet from the picture what he has in his mouth but it's a camouflage hunting cap. The quilt is for a man named Tom who loves hunting so I am stitching several squares with hunting dogs and game animals. I also went to Michael's today (with a 20% off coupon-score!) to pick up some more 14 ct Aida and a few colors of floss in anticipation of starting the pirate's alphabet.
Well, that's my progress for today. Back to work!

The Cure for Frogs

2011-02-04T22:23:00.003-05:00

After several frustrating hours of frogging my large project ("Wolf Countess") I have still not made a lot of progress. In fact, I was in something of a selfish snit over the whole ordeal. However, I was lucky enough to receive two emails today, one from "Stitches of Love and Kindness," and one from "Stitch for Pleasure, Stitch for Charity," accepting me into their respective groups.
Am I crazy? You might be thinking... taking on more stitching. But I feel like this was exactly the encouragement I needed. It is very enjoyable to get wrapped up in a large project of one's own, but there is something truly special about being able to reach out to the world around you with your stitching. It will both break up the time whilst I work on the larger projects, and it will allow me to give something back.
For Stitches of Love and Kindness, ("SOLAK",) I will be stitching two squares for a quilt for a man named Tom who is suffering with cancer. He loves hunting and motorcycles, so I will be stitching one square with a hunting dog, and one with a poem called "The Hunter's Pace."
For Stitch for Pleasure, Stitch for Charity, I am taking on a fairly large project made up of small stitched squares. It is a "pirate's alphabet" quilt. The designs come from a stitching magazine in the UK I believe, and they are a riot. I expect this to be lots of fun to stitch.
There are many good crafting charities both here in the USA and abroad, and I encourage you, if you are reading this, to join one, even if it is just for one square. Both of these charities accept squares on a constant basis, so if you are deadline challenged, it's no problem. Here are the links for the groups I joined:

Stitches of Love and Kindness

Stitch for Pleasure, Stitch for Charity

Thank you for reading, and happy stitching!

A plague of frogs

2011-02-04T13:41:00.002-05:00

Well, I spent all day yesterday and all morning stitching the top of the banister on "Wolf Countess," only to realize 8 rows from the top that I was one row off on everything from the bottom of the page! ARGH!!! Now I am picking out stitches, during time I was hoping to stitch. Don't you hate when that happens?
Tonight I am starting at a new part time job, just so I can bring in a little money. I am nervous but hopefully it will go well. Have to be there at 5.
I'll probably post again tonight to let you know how that goes, and hopefully with some stitching progress!

Wolf Countess

2011-02-02T21:39:00.002-05:00

Just a quick post to update my progress on "Wolf Countess." Working on the banister next to her. In other news, it finally stopped snowing! Not looking forward to digging out tomorrow...

This is becoming a pattern...

2011-02-01T16:07:00.003-05:00

So, I finished page 9 of "Wolf Countess." And, we are in the throes of yet another massive snowstorm! They are predicting 20"-25" of snow between now and Thursday. It's starting to become a real problem around here, because we are running out of places to put the snow. The roads are becoming narrower, the snowbanks are looming high overhead... there is one mound at the Loop mall in Methuen, MA which was 65' tall as of yesterday. Ridiculous!
So here is my stitching so far... I finished the work on this page in 11 days, which I think is a record for me! I'm going to shoot for the two week mark again on this next page, though it will probably stitch up more quickly since it is just background.

Well, that's all for now!

Wolf Countess

2011-01-24T23:21:00.002-05:00

This is the stitching I got done today and yesterday on "Wolf Countess." Not as much progress as I would like, but I incorporated some color and detail so that's good. Sorry about the crappy quality of the picture, it ended up being really bright for some reason. That's all for now! Thanks for looking. :)

Wolf Countess, Page 9

2011-01-22T23:11:00.004-05:00

The following represents my work on "Wolf Countess" today and yesterday. I finished all the stitches in DMC 939 which is a very dark blue color. You can see it sort of sets up the "skeleton" of the rest of the page, which is the bodice of her dress. Time to start filling in some colors!

More Snow, Page 8 Finished

2011-01-21T12:52:00.002-05:00

The last time I wrote we were waiting on a pretty big snowstorm. It did not disappoint, and since then we have also had a snow/ice storm and then another snowstorm this morning! The sun is finally out but no melting; the temperature is supposed to get down to ZERO by tonight!
I met my stitching goal on "Wolf Countess" with one day to spare! I finished page 8 in 13 days. Since I seem to be on a roll with this pattern I am going to aim for another page in two weeks, so that will be by February 4th. I also received some stash from 123stitch.com. (Hooray!) I got the pattern "Holiest of Nights" by Homespun Elegance, which I look forward to stitching for Christmas, as well as several of the Prairie Schooler Santas. I also bought "Thine is the Trick and the Treat" by Prairie Moon which I will work when I feel like doing some monochromatic work. I purchased two pieces of 40 ct Heritage linen with the Willow Hill Samplings "Birth of a Nation" patterns in mind.

Snow is coming!

2011-01-12T00:35:00.003-05:00

Spent the day stitching and watching "Kitchen Nightmares" today. I worked on "Wolf Countess." We are expecting 12"-18" of snow tomorrow, so we are hunkered down and ready! It could end up being a bust, but it could be the biggest storm of the year so far. We'll see. That's New England for you!

Two Days' Work

2011-01-10T21:33:00.003-05:00

Today was relaxing. Nate had the day off so we just hung around the apartment except for a brief trip to the grocery store. We watched "The Last Exorcism," which was decent until the ending, which was bizarre and kind of a let down.
I worked on "Wolf Countess" today and yesterday, and this is my progress so far. That's all for now!

Wolf Countess-Page 7 Finished

2011-01-08T22:51:00.003-05:00

Well, I accomplished my weekend goal early. My hope was to finish the page I was working on by tomorrow evening but as you can see I just finished the last stitches in the block.I will be moving on to the next page. I am not sure how long it will take me so as an experiment I am going to set a goal of two weeks. Let's see how it goes!

Just a quick post...

2011-01-06T21:34:00.003-05:00

Just a quick update to show what I stitched since this morning. I am hoping to have this page done by the end of the weekend.

Too tired to post last night!

2011-01-06T11:59:00.002-05:00

I was too tired to make a post last night, so I am probably going to end up writing two today. I spent the day stitching at my Mom's house, she hurt her back and was on the couch most of the day so I went over to keep her company. This was my progress on Wolf Countess: Today I have a lot of stuff to do around the house (laundry, etc.) so I'm not sure how much stitching I will get done but we'll see. I will post again at the end of the day to update.

Today's Stitching

2011-01-04T23:14:00.003-05:00

Well, today got off to a bad start. Someone lifted my debit card number and made some fraudulent purchases out of my account, so that was the surprise I woke up to this morning! I was able to go to the bank and get it mostly straightened out but still, it was frustrating.
Other than that the day went well. Nate had the day off so we relaxed and watched movies.
For stitching today, I worked on Wolf Countess. This is my progress: I finished the grey and started in a dark green color. The banister is starting to take shape.
Well, that's all for now! Thanks for looking!

Wolf Countess

2011-01-03T22:52:00.003-05:00

I spent the day working on Wolf Countess today. This is my progress:

Still working in the same grey color but I feel like I got a good amount done! I also recently got the companion pattern to this one, called "Wolf Manor." However, I will not be starting that soon. No more large starts until I get one of the WIPs finished! :)

Page Four Emerald Stocking

2011-01-02T22:44:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year!
This represents the last few days of work on "Emerald Stocking." I got a little tired of all the intricate stitching so tonight I switched back to "Wolf Countess" for a bit. Just working lots of grey but sometimes that's nice.

I plan to continue working on both pieces this week.

Page Three Complete

2010-12-28T21:20:00.003-05:00

I spent most of today cleaning up the aftermath of the Christmas party. Four loads of dishes and a whole bunch of trips to the dumpster later, I sat down to do some stitching. I finished page three, so now the top row of the Emerald Stocking is complete. I still have some laundry to do, but then I will be starting on page four!

Page Three

2010-12-26T22:15:00.004-05:00

Today I started page three of the Emerald Stocking. I completed most of the knotwork in yellow and just began filling in the green. In other news, I am getting ready for the whole family to come over tomorrow for a Christmas party. Unfortunately we are having a blizzard so we'll see how that pans out...

Page Two Finished!

2010-12-25T22:01:00.003-05:00

After some ferocious effort over the last few days, I have finished page two of the Emerald Stocking. The knotwork is beautiful but it is a huge pain to stitch... tons of confetti. Almost done with that part though!
Christmas was nice and relaxing, spent yesterday at my mom's and today at home watching movies snuggled up with the cat.

Off to work on page three! Merry Christmas!

Emerald Stocking, Day 27

2010-12-19T21:44:00.002-05:00

More work on the Emerald Stocking today. I started on the different shades of yellow in the knotwork. It's a bit hard to see but it's there. Otherwise, it was a fairly uneventful day. Back to stitching!

More Emerald Stocking

2010-12-18T21:36:00.002-05:00

Today was my second day home. I spent a lot of time cleaning and ironing, made a trip to the grocery store, and did some more stitching. I am still working on the Emerald Stocking, this is what I got done today. I am itching to get back to work on Wolf Countess, but I am torn because I also want to get these stockings knocked out well before next Christmas. Well, that's all for today. I have a bit more ironing to do, then back to stitching!

More Emerald Stocking

2010-12-17T20:23:00.002-05:00

I am going to be taking some time off of work for awhile to refocus and get my life straight. I have a lot of things to work out and a lot of stuff to deal with. So today was my first day at home. I did some final Christmas shopping this morning, which was a horror show. I assumed since it was a weekday morning that it would be smooth sailing but no such luck. We are expecting a pretty sizable snow storm here on Sunday and Monday so everybody and their mother was out today. The DW Highway was almost impossible to get around on. But I got some good shopping done.
Since getting home I have been working on cleaning, laundry, stitching, and spending quality time with Marley. :) Here is what I accomplished on the Emerald Stocking today: I should be making a lot more progress now that I'll have more free time!
Well, that's all for tonight. Thanks for looking!

A new arrival!

2010-12-16T22:14:00.004-05:00

Ok so I lied in my last post, I didn't write the next day. But I have gotten some stitching done since then; I actually finished page one of the Emerald Stocking. This is my progress, excuse the hoop marks.

We also added a new member to our family today! We visited the Humane Society for Greater Nashua and adopted our new furbaby, Marley. He is kind of hard to see in the picture because he is all black except for a tiny patch of white on his chest. He has been sitting on my lap for the last two hours while I was stitching; now he is climbing around on the kitchen counters getting into mischief. Nevermind, he is down from the counter now and trying to eat my snowman decoration.

Stocking, Days 12-18

2010-12-08T20:10:00.003-05:00

It's been a crazy week so I haven't really had a chance to post, but I did finish the first page of the Emerald Stocking tonight. It's difficult to see the shades of green in the picture but they're actually quite nice. This represents about 45 hours of stitching time so far. More tomorrow!

Stocking, Day 11

2010-12-01T21:42:00.002-05:00

This is my work from today on the Emerald Stocking. Not much to say tonight, I am tired and heading off to bed, but wanted to update the project!
Good night!

Stocking, Day 10

2010-11-30T22:44:00.003-05:00

A day off, finally! I didn't spend as much time stitching as I had hoped since I haven't been feeling well... every time I stand up I get vertigo which makes it hard to focus on much. But hopefully that will pass soon. I got some more stitching done on the knotwork details and also added some green finally!I am also getting ready to make a trip to the craft store to kit up the other two stockings; hopefully I can do that tomorrow. Well, that's all for today! Thanks for looking!

Stocking, Days 8 and 9

2010-11-29T21:39:00.004-05:00

I wasn't able to do much stitching over the weekend, or get to post, so this is an update for the weekend and today. No stitching time on Saturday, I ended up going to my mother's house to pick up my Christmas decorations and didn't get home til 11:00. Yesterday and today I made a bit more progress on the Emerald Stocking, as you can see below. In other stitching news, the Sapphire Stocking pattern arrived today, so now I have all three! I am hoping at this rate to have the three done in a few months, definitely by next Christmas. We'll see how it goes!

Stocking, Day 7

2010-11-26T21:09:00.004-05:00

I didn't get home from work until about 7:30 tonight, so I haven't had much stitching time. But I did work a bit on the Emerald Stocking. More details in the knotwork in a pale yellow color, kind of hard to see. Hoping to get more accomplished over the weekend! Back to stitching!

Stocking, Day 6

2010-11-25T20:03:00.003-05:00

First things first, Happy Thanksgiving!
We went to both sets of parents' houses today, so lots of stitching time in the car, etc. I brought along the Emerald Stocking to work on, and this was my progress.

I finished the black on this page and started on a light yellow color. It's hard to see in the picture but hopefully it will be more visible soon.

Thanks for looking! Off to stitch some more...

Stocking, Day 5

2010-11-24T21:22:00.003-05:00

Another few hours of stitching on the Emerald Stocking! Not as much progress as I would like but I got out of work late, again.
Thanks for looking!

Stocking, Day Four

2010-11-23T20:41:00.003-05:00

I am exhausted so this isn't going to be a long post, but I wanted to update my progress on the Emerald Stocking from today. I am so excited to see the design coming together!
Off to bed now...

Stocking, Day Three

2010-11-22T20:56:00.004-05:00

Another looooong day at work... 6 am to 7 pm. Needless to say, I didn't have much time to stitch. But here is what I've gotten done on the Emerald Stocking pattern as of tonight: Still all black, but I can see the details starting to appear!
Well, that's all for now, back to work on the stitching!

Day Two, Project Stocking

2010-11-21T17:14:00.003-05:00

Today I had the day off. Well, sort of... I had to go into work for a few hours this morning but then I had the rest of the day. So I have been stitching and watching movies. I have been focusing on the Emerald Stocking today. No color yet, lot of black background. But you can see the pattern beginning to emerge. That's my progress so far, off to stitch some more!

A Modest Beginning

2010-11-20T19:41:00.004-05:00

Last night I made a pilgrimage to Michael's for some floss and fabric, and kitted up the Emerald Stocking pattern. I prepped the fabric and then stitched about 45 minutes before heading to bed. So, not a ton of work done, but it's a start!I also completed some stitching on "Wolf Countess." Only a few rows, but still progress. That's all for today, I'm going to go sit down and watch "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" while I stitch. Might stay up late tonight, I actually have the day off tomorrow! We'll see...

It's Been Awhile...

2010-11-18T19:26:00.006-05:00

Ok, so I am going to try this blogging thing again. Forgive the lapse in time from when I last posted. I've moved, started a new job, etc. so life has been busy. Fortunately I have still had time for stitching!

I am currently working on two HAED designs:

"Vibrant Vista"

and "Wolf Countess."

I am putting in as much time on them as possible, but my new job has meant 13 hour days 6 days a week! So I haven't had as much needle time as I would like.

Crazily enough, however, I am about to add another project to the mix. My stepsister has one child already and is expecting twins in December. I am working on a set of quilts for the twins (pictures later) but when I saw the new Cari Buziak stocking designs on HAED, I knew I had to stitch all three for the little ones! I received the ruby and emerald patterns in the mail today and I am psyched. Love that new chart feeling! I will be ordering the sapphire pattern soon.

I am going to kit these up this weekend, so be on the lookout for the beginnings of Project Stocking 2010!

That's all for now, off to stitch!

-Carolyn

Updates!!

2009-03-24T23:09:00.005-04:00

My poor neglected blog! I haven't posted since the fall, that's pretty horrible. Guess I got sidetracked by life. I need to get to bed but I will try to catch up on my recent and current projects first.

I joined the Fair and Square blog a few months ago and participated in Round #11 as my first round. I stitched these squares for Nicky R.:...and received these in exchange:
This is one of LHN's "Little Women" designs. This was so perfect for me, because I LOVE to read. Now, I am stitching two sets of squares, for Round #12 and the Spring round. Can't post pictures of the progress right now though, they have to be a surprise!

In other stitching, I started and finished "Spring Has Come" by the Prairie Schooler. I am hoping to get it framed next week:

This was a blast to stitch, and I am looking forward to hanging it up in honor of the season! I will also be starting the "Summer Breeze" design soon.

I also took on a bit of a challenge and started my first HAED project, "Black Cat." I am stitching on 28 ct. Monaco and it is very slow going. I haven't worked an over-one project with such tiny stitches before! I haven't accomplished much yet but here is my progress so far:
Like I said, slow going! No cats are immediately obvious right now. But hopefully this gigantic project will help me be more regular with my blogging. I will need some encouragement with tracking my progress!
Off to bed for now, hopefully I will have some more work to post tomorrow.
Good night!

Crummy Day

2008-11-26T23:41:00.003-05:00

Today wasn't the best of days; I have been exhausted for days and I had to leave work sick after a few hours and have been sitting at home miserable since. The only upside was getting a little more work done on my Thanksgiving challenge ornament.
I don't think I'll have it finished by tomorrow, (have to work from 10:00am - 9:00 pm) but I should have it done by the challenge deadline of November 30th. More to come soon!

Seasonal Ornament Update

2008-11-25T13:51:00.003-05:00

I used part of Friday 11/21's SAT to continue working on my current seasonal ornament challenge. Yesterday was one of two days off so I also spent quite a bit of time working on it, as well as having a little movie marathon with Nate! (Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Pirates of the Caribbean 1 & 2) So here is the progress on the little plaid pumpkin:

I am so pleased with how it's coming along and I'm hoping to get it done before Thursday! Can't wait to share the results with the rest of the group
I also made some marginal progress on the Ireland House piece, but I am getting overwhelmed. Thank goodness for the support at Let's Stitch! Everyone is so encouraging.

I am planning to work more on it during the next SAT, and probably all the rest til Christmas. Wish me luck!

Two Updates and a New Start

2008-11-19T23:33:00.003-05:00

I haven't been great about posting the last few days, so I have some updating to do.

Friday was the 6 hour stitch-a-thon over at Let's Stitch and I worked on the Jasmine piece as previously posted. It was so much fun to work on my stitching while knowing there was a whole group of others all over the place doing the same thing at the same time. I am looking forward to this week's SAT!

After the SAT I decided to rotate onto another sizeable piece, the Ireland House picture/Christmas gift for my Aunt. I have stitched over 110 hours on this piece so far and I still feel like there is a long way to go. I think I will work on this during the SAT on Friday. I am getting frustrated with some of the color changes etc. so I could definitely use the group encouragement!

Last but not least, I joined Vonna's seasonal ornament stitch-a-long blog. The idea is to complete a new stitched ornament every two weeks, for each season and holiday. I am really excited for this because I have lots of decorations for certain holidays (namely Halloween and Christmas) and not so much for the rest of the year. It will also be satisfying to have smaller scale projects to finish up... should balance out some of the big bad projects! The current challenge is to stitch a Thanksgiving themed ornament. I chose to use a portion of a Harvest-themed design from the October 2005 Stoney Creek magazine. It is a little plaid pumpkin and I think it will make a great ornament!

Speaking of which, I am going to go work on the ornament now!

More work on Jasmine, scheduling thoughts

2008-11-12T10:23:00.003-05:00

Lots of time spent stitching yesterday, but I didn't get around to posting my work. Once again, I worked at the Love Quilts block for Destiny. I have put in about eight hours of work thus far between preparing and gridding and stitching. I am pleased with the results so far!
I have been thinking of starting a rotational system again, to get work done on multiple projects (read: UFOs!) in a timely fashion. I like to track my work in a notebook (so using a blog is very exciting for an obsessive documentarian... pictures!) and what I would usually do was work on a given piece for say, fifteen hours, then pack it up and move to the next, complete fifteen hours of work, and so on. Once I had gone through the original rotation a few times I would allow myself to add another project to the mix. It was a good way to balance things out. If I do this again I may have to adjust my time allotments due to time strictures (e.g. Ireland House is a Christmas present, Love Quilt blocks are due in January and then February, etc.) but I will have to think about it...

Jasmine

2008-11-10T21:37:00.002-05:00

Not much progress today, but Nate and I had our only day of the week off today. We spent the morning covering up the pool and raking leaves which promptly blew back all over the yard. This afternoon we headed over to the mall for some people-watching and to get my phone replaced at the Verizon store. I was eligible for a free upgrade with my contract renewal, so I got a nifty new phone. It was quite the fiasco trying to actually get the new phone activated and the new contract set up, but the salesman was a great help and the situation was eventually rectified. And the new phone has a much better camera!
Now we are back home, just finished watching Tim Burton's adaptation of Sweeney Todd, which was marvelous, not that I had any doubt. Let me add that Helena Bonham Carter's gowns were absolutely amazing!! Anyway, now we are watching Ocean's Eleven and I am working on the piece I wrote about last time. The theme for the Love Quilt is "princesses" and the colors purple and pink. Not anything like my usual subject matter, but it's for a good cause. The pattern I put together is a picture of Jasmine from Disney's Aladdin. If you use your imagination maybe you can see the picture coming together... ...Maybe not yet. Like I said, I haven't put much time into it yet, I'll post more tomorrow.

New Project

2008-11-09T01:09:00.003-05:00

This morning I spent a few hours working on a section of the Irish house piece, but after all the black I needed a change of pace. I recently discovered the Love Quilts project (http://www.lovequilts.org) and decided I would like to contribute some stitching time to the cause.
The group was organized in order to bring different stitchers' talents and creativity together on individual blankets for terminally or chronically ill children and their families. A theme and color scheme are selected based on the child's interests and stitchers can sign up to contribute a 9"x9" block within a given timeframe. Once the blocks are submitted, quilters wash and assemble the blocks to form a quilt top and then finish the blankets, which are then presented to the children and their families.
I am going to be stitching a block for a young girl named Emily and one for a girl named Destiny. Today I started working on the latter; no pictures yet since most of the time was spent prepping the fabric and pattern. Hopefully tomorrow I will have a bit of progress to show!
I was excited to receive an invitation to join the blog Let's Stitch Too, which is moderated by BeckySC. I can't wait to participate in the stitch-a-thons, challenges, and to get to know other stitchers.
Well, that's all the news that's fit to print, as they say! Until next time...

2008-11-07T13:27:00.003-05:00

I don't have much time to write today before I head to work but I spent most of the morning stitching away on the Ireland house piece. Still stinky picture quality but hopefully it still shows the progress.

I am not sure whether I will keep stitching after work tonight or do some reading... my fiance Nate picked up my library books for me yesterday so I have two new books to start that I have been waiting on for a couple of weeks. Either way it will be a good way to relax at the end of the evening!

To begin at the beginning

2008-11-06T10:24:00.003-05:00

Well, here goes! First post. I have been staring at the blank screen for several days now, wondering how to begin, then going off to the trivial things... what color a hyperlink should be, or where italicized print is appropriate... garbage, essentially! Just need to start writing and it will fall into place from there.

To introduce myself, my name is Carolyn and I live in Massachusetts. I grew up here and don't think that I could live anywhere but New England. I absolutely love the fall and Halloween and wish it was lasting a bit longer this year... we have had a great season with beautiful weather and gorgeous foliage but one can definitely feel winter in the air some recent mornings!

My background is in Emergency Medical Service, of all things, but I had to give up working as a paramedic due to some health problems. I am currently working as a cook, which I really enjoy, and I am hoping at some point to attend culinary school and work as a pastry chef. I have always been a creative, visual person, from drawing and painting to theatrical set and costume design, to cross stitching and quilting, and it is surprising how much of that translates into the preparation and presentation of food!

The free time I have is spent reading (anything and everything I can get my hands on) and crafting. My primary interest is in cross stitch. I love to design my own patterns, both by hand and using the PC Stitch software. I have too many projects in progress to count and one of my goals in starting this blog is to get some of them finished! I love to read other people's blogs about stitching and see their projects develop, so I am hoping to likewise motivated myself. I stitch everywhere. Literally. In the car, while watching TV, at parties, in Doctor's waiting rooms, etc.

My focus at the moment is on a planned Christmas gift for one of my aunts. She is something of the family historian and has been delving into every record available to learn our family's past in this country and overseas. It helps that my cousin is attending university in Ireland, which has allowed her some trips there for firsthand exploration! The pattern I am stitching is based on a photo taken (by another aunt) of my great, great grandfather's house in Ireland, which was taken last year but has since been demolished. It is somewhat slow going because I created it in PC Stitch which I love but tends to make lots of tiny sections of color. Here is the photo and a recent shot of the stitchery to compare:

My apologies for the horrid picture quality on the stitching... taken from my camera phone. Boo! Hiss! I will try to borrow my fiance's digital camera for future endeavours.

I recently started quilting which was something I had been interested in for some time. The push I needed to get going was when my dear friend Melissa announced she was expecting! We now know that it is a little girl coming in March, but at the time we didn't know, so I headed off to the fabric store with a general crib quilt pattern idea to dictate yardage. I found a soft flannel print with baby jungle animals on it to use as the backing, which set a nice neutral green and yellow pallette.

I dragged that bolt of fabric around the store with me until I found suitable matches and when I got home, totally changed the layout of blocks! This is what I have finished for the quilt top so far:

And for now I will leave you with that, because this has become a very long post indeed.