Blog

Happy Wednesday! I hope this finds you well and enjoying life. Welcome to another weekly update on my cross stitching. This week I am sharing updates on Into The Jungle and Year Of Celebrations.  (more…)

Happy Wednesday! I hope this finds you well and enjoying life. This week I have been working on my first new starts of 2018. The first new start is the one I shared last Wednesday, Fabulous Women In History by Cloudsfactory. While I love this piece for a variety of reasons, I do not love the attack of the Frog that came with it. There were several sections I had to rip out and redo, but I managed to get Eleanor Roosevelt and Coco Chanel finished. (more…)

Happy Wednesday! I hope this finds you well and enjoying life. This week I have been working on my first new start of 2018, Fabulous Women In History, the 2017 Stitch Along from Cloudsfactory. This project did not make it into my stitching rotation in 2017, however, my plan is to work through it in 2018 as I would have during the SAL, starting with January and going month by month. (more…)

The Christmas holiday is officially over and we are in full recovery mode here at the Refuge. Yesterday we celebrated Little Christmas, the Feast of the Epiphany, by opening our stockings and having blueberry pancakes. Now it’s time for me to take down the decorations and get back into the swing of things. (more…)

Happy Wednesday! I hope this finds you well and enjoying the first week of the new year. This week I am so excited to say that I have finished Happily Ever After, the 2017 Stitch Along by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery! (more…)

Happy New Year! Isn’t it exciting when the calendar reboots? I know a lot of people consider the New Year as merely a mark of time passing, another year older and deeper in debt, as the song goes. However, I like to look at the New Year as a chance to start over, a clean slate upon which you can design the life you want and write your story anew. That’s what I am doing this coming year, writing a new story, or rather a new chapter in the book of my life. Hopefully, it is a good one. (more…)

Happy Wednesday! I hope this finds you well and enjoying life. Since this is the last WIP Wednesday of the year, I thought I would review my stitching progress, based on my initial 2017 Stitching Plans. Honestly, I have not had many finishes, but I don’t stitch for the finish, I stitch for the stitching, so that’s okay. The finishes I have had this year, were smalls or parts of a bigger series. So let’s take a look at My Year in Stitches, 2017 Edition.

Happily Ever After

One of the first new starts for me in 2017 was the Happily Ever After Stitch Along  by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. This was a 2016 Christmas present and I have loved it all year, despite falling behind in the later months. This project included a lot of firsts in my stitching; my first stitch along, my first pattern from the Pumpkins, and my first exposure to Picture This Plus  fabric. All three are now a steady part of my stitching lifestyle. As of today, I have three remaining motifs to finish and then I will have completed Happily Ever After. An actual start and finish in the same year, this will also be a first for me.

Five Seasons of Quilts

This is a collection of five quilt patterns, one for each season with a bonus Christmas design, by Leisure Arts. Since we moved into our first home I’ve been wanting to stitch more home decor pieces, so I plan to stitch the whole series to change out seasonally. This year, I decided to start with the Spring quilt pattern and chose a 28 count Cashel fabric in Bashful, from Picture This Plus. This piece is only my second time stitching on linen and the technique of doing 2 over 2 has slowed me down some.

Year of Celebrations

Another home decor item I wanted to stitch in 2016 was Year of Celebrations, published by Cross Stitch & Needlework Magazine  and designed by Cathy Habermas. This is a series of twelve monthly motifs that were published in the 6 issues of the magazine in 2014. In fact, I was obsessed with collecting each magazine issue in order to have the entire year of mini motifs. These adorable 4”x4” monthly motifs are destined to become part of my seasonal decor. However, in order to stitch them from my stash, I changed from the recommended linen fabric to 14 count Aida and converted the threads to DMC. February is the month I started with and I have stitched all the motifs from February to July, so I’m halfway finished the series.

Fredrick The Literate, a.k.a. Mystery SAL

The plan this year was to participate in a Mystery SAL, one of my Facebook groups was hosting. Throughout the year we were suppose to post pictures of our progress, but not share the design until we were finished. Unfortunately, the project I chose was a Dimensions kit called Frederick The Literate. While I absolutely love the pattern image, the piece is stitched on 14 count black Aida fabric, and I struggled big time with this piece. It ended up being abandoned for the year, but now that I have my Millennium frame, I will give it another chance in 2017.

Smalls

This year I have had two small finishes, which I recently shared, my Busy Bee Mouse  and Mill Hill Princess Carriage. I also started a mini sampler series from 365 Tiny Cross Stitch Designs by Kooler Design Studio. The book has a huge collection of mini patterns, many of which have variations from month to month. In July, I celebrated Independence Day by stitching the mini sampler for July and then in August, I stitched the mini sampler to celebrate World Cross Stitch day. Moving forward, I plan to stitch the whole series, but with no time line in mind.

Unplanned New Starts

This year I only gave in to new-start-itis once, and it was for my birthday. I really wanted to stitch something fun and unique and different to celebrate my birthday, so I decided to start my Stormtrooper Sugar Skull pattern by Stitch Line. Even though I am not a big Star Wars fan, I loved this pattern and had it in my stash, so on my birthday weekend I picked up some 14 count Aida in my favorite color from Stitch By Stitch and stitched this for a few weeks. This will definitely carry over into next year.

2016 Carryovers – Geisha & Thai Elephant

Unfortunately, I did not work at all on Thai Elephant and very little on Geisha. These projects are not abandoned, but they are in my category of perpetual WIPs. The patterns are beautiful and I truly want to finish them, but for some reason I have difficulty working on them.

Well that’s my progress for the year. Be on the look out for Sunday’s post when I share my 2018 stitching plans.

Thanks for checking in & happy stitching!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Can you believe the year is almost over? It seems like yesterday I was praying for summer vacation and now I am decorating the Christmas tree! In our family it is tradition to trim the tree on Christmas Eve, it is one of my most favorite Christmas activities. Actually, most of our Christmas celebration takes place on Christmas Eve. Starting with Christmas dinner, which is usually a bit early, around 3 or 4pm, then we decorate the tree while listening to Christmas music, followed by desert and our Christmas movie The Christmas Candle. The last thing we do is attend midnight services. Christmas morning I make a special breakfast, we exchange gifts, then we just “chill” all day, watch movies, read, I will cross stitch and hubby will work on his model rail road. This year the main theme for our Christmas holidays is casual and relaxed. We both need a few low stress days to prepare for the new year. Along those lines, we took time Thursday night to relax and see some Christmas lights. It was a very nice evening, especially because the weather here has been on the warmer side for December. Before moving on to some other details from my week, here is a collage of our Christmas activities so far:

What I’m Stitching

No surprise here, I am stitching Happily Ever After by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. The end is in sight, I have reached the bottom row of motifs. Right now I am working on filling in the border, then I will have the three final motifs to finish. There is no reason why I shouldn’t have this finished up before the year’s end. However, I am a bit sad to say goodbye to this piece. This pattern has been so enjoyable to stitch, in fact, this Stitch Along really reignited my love for cross stitching. So much so that I have signed up for the 2018 Stitch Along, Into The Jungle, but I may have mentioned that already. Anyway, here are some progress pictures on Happily Ever After.

What I’m Reading

As I may have eluded to in my intro, my brain needs a break. I think that is why I have had a hard time making progress on some of my books. You may have noticed a few books on my Goodreads shelf have been there for a lot longer than usual. Therefore, I decided to take my focus away from the “heavy” books, and spend some time in a cozy mystery or two. So right now I am happily making my way through Murder by Mocha, the 10th book in the Coffeehouse Mystery series by Cleo Coyle. Don’t get me wrong, just because these are “cozy” books, does not mean they are not good. Claire Cossi is a fun and dynamic character and I enjoy spending time in her life. If you like, check out my review of Book 9: Roast Mortem.

What I’m Watching

Right now I am making my way through my regular Christmas time entertainment. For simplicity, I thought I’d just give you the list of movies I watch during the holidays.

1. Last Holiday
2. The Holiday
3. Rise of the Guardians
4. Love Actually
5. Harry Potter Years 1-7
6. Doctor Who – All Christmas Specials

Hubby has his own favorites, so we usually have a big variety going during the weeks leading up to and including Christmas week.

Weekly Highlights

The Highlight of this past week is that it is ending with Christmas Eve. So I wish you all a very Blessed and Merry Christmas and thank you for taking the time to read my post.

Happy Wednesday! I hope this finds you well and enjoying life. This week I have been working on getting the house fully decorated for Christmas. Let me be clear, I am not a procrastinating decorator. I know many people decorate for Christmas on Black Friday, some even as soon as the Halloween decorations come down. However, I have always celebrated Christmas in the week leading up to Christmas Day and continuing up to the celebration of Little Christmas on January 6th, also known as The Epiphany. So this is the week that I always decorated for the holiday. In between decorating, I am getting in time to stitch and surprise, surprise, I am working on Happily Ever After. As of last night I have finished the Ugly Duckling motif. Now to roll the fabric up and 3 more sections to stitch!

Here are some progress pictures:

Additionally, Sunday night I had a hard time sleeping, as I wasn’t feeling well. Not wanting to pull out a large project, instead I grabbed my Mill Hill Princess Carriage kit. This was my first experience with perforated paper and with beating, unfortunately I fear I am now addicted to Mill Hill kids. Princess carriage was finished up during another sleepless night on Monday. It is just waiting to be cut out and turned into the final object, a magnet.

Here are some progress pictures:

Well that’s my stitching this week, hoping to keep up the pace.

Thanks for checking in & happy stitching!