The theme of this week seems to be getting stuff done, together, while waiting for Spring. We’ve had a great time enjoying the sun, when it peeks out, and I’ve been slowly but steadily getting the house in better shape, from an organization & minimalist perspective. This past week I have also been able to find consistent time to read, stitch, and scrapbook (i.e. Project Life). Additionally, hubby & I were able to find time to just hang out together, both on Valentine’s Day and during the weekend, which can be difficult some weeks with his schedule and my never ending To Do list. Anyway, here are some of the highlights from this week. (more…)
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WIP Wednesday – Spring Seasonal Quilt
This week I am working on the Spring Quilt from the Five Seasons of Quilts by Leisure Arts pattern book.
When I first saw this pattern, I fell in love with it, and I knew I wanted to stitch up the whole series as an interchangeable home decor item. My plan is to hang them over the door to my back porch. It took a while for me to get motivated enough to kit it up and get started. -
Sunday Stitches & Stuff – Mystery SAL, Valentine’s Day Gift, Junk Drawer, & A Truck
Another Tuesday that I am posting my Sunday Stitches & Stuff post! Either I need to change the name or work on a better schedule for my postings. Truly though, this post covers my week up until midnight on Sunday, or whenever I finally drop into bed, so it makes sense that it takes me a bit to process and write up everything. (more…)
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Sunday Stitches & Stuff – Batch Cooking, Kitten Bowl, & A Finish
Once again this post is a bit late as I like to get this up by early Monday morning, if not Sunday night, but yesterday I allowed myself to sleep in and take a much needed rest. Regardless, another week is in the books, ended by a very nice Super Bowl Sunday. Not that I really care about the Super Bowl, but my tradition is to watch the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. Unfortunately, since we gave up cable, I do not have access to Animal Planet. So instead I watched the Kitten Bowl on the Hallmark Channel (via SlingTV), and they were the most adorable kittens, and puppies too! It is was very relaxing to watch, while I batch cooked our meals for the week.
Last week and weekend were busy but productive. Yes, I finally got the Christmas decorations put away and the Valentines Day decor is out. Being the end of the month I also needed to balance the books and pay the bills. Ugh! I hate that job, it makes my head hurt and my brain want to quit. However, thank God everything is covered for the month. Also, I was able to put in an extra 4 hours at work on Saturday, so that will be a nice bonus next payday.This week I’ve been working on the February motif from the series A Year of Celebrations, published by Cross Stitch & Needlework Magazine and designed by Cathy Habermas. Between the last half of the game and a bit of time Monday, I finished it!
Here is a progression video:Next in the rotation is my Mystery SAL. Although I really want to get back to the Happily Ever After SAL, especially with the release of February’s pattern; I also really want to make some progress on my mystery pattern. It really is going to be awesome when it’s finished and I already know that it’s going to be framed and displayed in my craft/guest room. Here is my starting point this week:
This week, in addition to my regular homemaking tasks, I plan on cleaning out and reorganizing my junk drawer. (I mentioned this last week when I shared my newly organized charging station.) Hopefully it will go smoothly and be done before the weekend. Pictures will be taken to show before and after. For now I leave you with this adorable picture of Duke, chilling on the sofa during the Super Bowl.
Thanks for reading and have a joyful week! -
WIP Wednesday – A Year of Celebrations, Febuary Motif
So Sunday evening I switched to a new project in my rotation, A Year of Celebrations, published by Cross Stitch & Needlework Magazine and designed by Cathy Habermas, starting with the February/March pattern.
This piece is actually stitching up very nicely and fairly quickly so I’m thinking I might actually get it finished, if not this week, fingers crossed, at least by the end of February. Here are some progress pics:
Right now I’ve finished the larger portion in the center of the heart, on the February motif, and have started the postage stamp section. So far I’m really glad that I chose to use the variegated floss. The shading is very interesting, especially because I chose to continue to use the loop method for starting my floss. I know you’re not “suppose to” use the loop method with variegated floss because the shading will not line up once you loop the strand. But I’m actually enjoying the fact that some of the crosses have different color combinations while other sections have more of a solid color. We will see if I continue to feel that way once it is complete. Who knows, I might do the entire series in variegated threads!
Thanks for reading and happy stitching! -
All About Nails – Episode 2
The second installment of Mani Monday actually has two sets of nails. Last week I was sick and never did get around to posting my manicure of the week. So first here is the set of nails I had on last week:
I wanted to play around with color blocking and fell in love with this color combination. The teal color is Morgan Taylor “Stop, Shop, & Roll”, the black is China Glaze “Liquid Leather”, and the gray is China Glaze “Recycle”. The design is my own, in that I didn’t follow a specific tutorial, just taped off the nails and painted. As always though, I am inspired by Cutepolish’s videos on YouTube and the pins on my All About Nails board. (Check out my All About Nails board on Pinterest and my Nail Art playlist on YouTube.)
For this week, I wanted something simple and a different shape, plus I was really digging the Morgan Taylor color on my nails, so I went with a simple color polish. Here are my nails for this week:
Thanks for reading and check in next week to see my new set of nails!
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Sunday Stitches & Stuff – Progress is Progress, Even If It’s Slow
So I was sick most of the week. I had a runny nose, the chills, and my back was “acting up”. It started out last Friday morning, which was already looking to be a very busy day at work, so I really couldn’t rest. Then Saturday I ended up having to go into work for a few hours, still not feeling well. Sunday I finally got to rest up a bit, but at some point on Monday, things took a turn for the worse when my chronic back pain (long story) flared up and stayed on & off all week. It wasn’t until just last evening when I really started to feel myself again.
Needless to say I did not get much time to stitch. However, I did try to work on my Happily Ever After SAL in small chunks. Progress is progress after all and I really wanted to finish at least the center section of the pattern before moving on to the next project in my rotation. Amazingly, despite having to frog two whole letters, I did finish the center section early Sunday evening. Here are some pictures of my progress:
After taking the final picture, I put Happily Ever After away and pulled out the next project, A Year of Celebrations, published by Cross Stitch & Needlework Magazine and designed by Cathy Habermas.
As I discussed in a previous post, I changed from the recommended linen fabric to 14 count Aida and converted the threads to DMC. February is the motif I am starting with, in hopes of finishing before the months end, and until last night I had not decided if I was going to use the solid color conversions, or substitute in variegated floss, which could make for a gorgeous motif. Well, I decided to go with the varigated floss, so we will see how it turns out. Last night I had intended to just get the fabric on the Q-Snap and thread my needle with the first color so it was ready to go, but I just could help getting a few stitches started right away. Here is my “starting point” on the February motif:
It feels like this pattern will stitch quickly for me so I am exited to see how far I get this week.
Other aspects of my life were also slow to progress due to my week of illness/injury. The chores backed up a little, and I still have some Christmas decorations that need to come down! My plan is to switch them out for Valentine’s Day this week.
Progress on my Project Life “project’ is moving along, as I have been using my early morning coffee time to work on pages. It is my plan to do a regular monthly/bimonthly Project Life Update post to share my pages, but for right now here are the few pages that I got done this month, most of them are from the end of 2016 and two are “catch up”pages from 2015:
One last thing, I wanted to brag a bit about my new “charging station” set-up. Since moving into the house last January, I am still learning how best to have things set up, and this one corner of my kitchen counter always seemed to collect junk, while also being where I plug stuff in to charge, if I can find the cords. So I decided to clear off the counter, empty a beautiful decorative box from the craft store of it’s junk, and fill it with all the necessary charging cords for our electronics.
Now the pretty box sits on the counter by the outlet, with a picture frame, my Bluetooth speaker, and the candy jar. When something needs to be charge, I just pull out its cord, plug it into the wall, and let it “rest” on top of the box while it is charging. I wish I had taken a “before” picture, but this task was accomplished in between sniffles and cups of hot tea. Anyway here is my charging station that I am so proud of, next on the agenda is to make the “junk drawer” underneath suit my purposes.
Thanks for reading and have a fantastic week full of whatever brings you joy!
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WIP “Wednesday”- Happily Ever After
No need for alarm, I know that it’s actually Thursday, but I didn’t get a chance to post yesterday. It turned into a quite busy day for me both at home and work, so I only got a few minutes of stitch time. As opposed to today, where I had the day off and managed to carve out quite a bit of stitch time. So my WIP Wednesday is a bit delayed. This week I am stitching the Happily Ever After SAL from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. Currently a handful of stitches in, and I am already in love with this project. This pattern is too adorable for words. In this month’s pattern, we recieved the center piece and pattern border, as well as the first motif which is based on The Owl and The Pussy Cat, a poem by Edward Lear. To be honest I was not familiar with this poem, but after looking it up on poetryfoundation.org, I think it is as adorable as the pattern it inspired. Anyway, here is my progress so far:
I may not be a fast stitcher, but I will be working on this until Sunday evening, I switch projects on Mondays, and hope to get much further.
Today I was also inspired, by another stitching blogger, for a DIY floss tray project. Yesterday, The Amateur Librarian posted her WIP Wednesday, which is another Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery project called Merry & Bright, and she is making fabulous progress on that. In one of her pictures, which are wonderful, I noticed a cute tray where she had corralled her project card and floss. I thought that was such a great idea because I currently keep my project cards and floss in a ziplock bag. Which means, every time I have to get a new thread, I have to pull the whole bunch out of the bag, get my thread, and put it all back in the bag. That gets a little bit tedious. Having a tray to hold it all while stitching makes so much more sense. Today I went ahead and made my own little floss tray from a cereal box and some leftover Christmas wrapping paper.
I looked at a bunch of pins on Pinterest to get inspired on technique and now that I’ve done it, I don’t know why I never did before. It was pretty easy and I was able to customize the size to fit nicely in my stitching box.
Now, it’s not exactly perfect, but it is my first attempt. Most likely I will make another, maybe even a few more to customize the organization of my stitch box.That’s all for now, thanks for reading and happy stitching! -
Sunday Stitches & Stuff – My 2017 Stitching Rotation & Project Life
Two weeks into the year, and I have already been so busy I’ve barely spent any time with my needle and thread. The good news is that I am completely set up now for a steady rotation of stitching projects, including some “if I get that far” patterns. There is also a large list of things I hope to accomplish in the house, but those projects I will tackle on a month by month basis, as the budget will allow. Additionally, this year I am determined to keep up with my digital scrapbooking. Towards the fall of last year, I developed some very good habits for scrapbooking using the Project Life app and my goal is to stay current with monthly & special event pages, as well as retrospectively get caught up on previous years. At the end of the month I will share the pages I’ve made, but for now here’s a look at the pages I finished last year:The first few days of 2017, we were snowed in by winter storm Helena for about 6 days. That time was put to good use as I finished setting up my rotation of projects for this year, and got started on my first new start of the year. With no further ado, here is my 2017 Stitching rotation:
Happily Ever After SAL by The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery
The first pattern of this year long stitch along was released yesterday, and I can not wait to get started! For Christmas, I recieved the kit for the SAL which included hand dyed fabric from Picture This Plus and it is so beautiful! This will be my first time doing a stitch along and my first time working on hand dyed fabric.Five Seasons of Quilts by Leisure Arts
When I first saw this pattern, I fell in love with it, and I knew I wanted to stitch up the whole series as an interchangeable home decor item. However, I never felt motivated enough to kit it up and get started. Until now. When I saw the hand dyed fabric that came with the Happily Ever After SAL kit, I was inspired, leading to the decision to stitch each season of quilts on a different hand dyed fabric that coordinates or compliments the season. To find the fabric I went straight to Picture This Plus, since I loved the other fabric so much, and selected a fabric for my first season, which is Spring.
I decided to go with this 28 count Cashel fabric in Bashful, which is a light pinkish color, and reminded me of spring time. This will be only my second time stitching over 2 on linen, so hopefully I won’t have to frog (rip out stitches) too much.A Year of Celebrations, published by Cross Stitch & Needlework Magazine, designed by Cathy Habermas
For the entirety of 2014 & 2015, I was obsessed with collecting each magazine issue for this series, to have the entire year of mini motifs. Unfortunately, once I got them, I hit a barrier, because the threads listed are not DMC, which is all I really use. Finally, I gave myself a kick in the butt, because I really want to have these adorable 4″x4” monthly motifs to add to my seasonal decor, so I decided to customize the pattern in order to encourage myself to stitch it. Truly, a pattern changed and stitched is better than a pattern never stitched. So I changed from the recommended linen fabric to basic 14 count Aida and converted the threads to DMC. February is the motif I am starting with and I have not decided if I am going to use the solid color conversions, or substitute in variegated floss, which could make for a gorgeous motif.Mystery SAL
One of my Facebook cross stitching groups, is hosting a year long mystery stitch along. Throughout the year we are posting pictures of our progress, but we are not sharing what the pattern is until we are finished. Since it is a mystery, let me just say that this project is a Dimensions kit, stitched on 14 count black Aida.Purse Pouch Project
Some of you may know about my little kit I keep in my purse, in case you don’t here is a post modified from my old blog about it: Purse Pouch. These projects can go quickly or slow depending on how much unplanned free time I have and the complexity of the project. For the most part, I use mini kits and the first one I have chosen this year is the Mouse from the Busy Bees series by Needlemagic, Inc.Carryovers – Geisha & Thai Elephant
Unfortunately, I did not finish my Geisha or my Thai Elephant in 2016, so I have carried them over into this year’s rotation. Hopefully they will finish quickly and I can move on to a few other projects I would like to start this year.If I Get That Far…
In my “to be kitted’ project bag, I have a few patterns I would love to get started on this year, including: Cloudsfactory’s Famous Woman in History SAL, Mirabilia Designs’ The Raven Queen by Nora Corbett, Nancy Spruance Designs’ Roseland Cottage & Fulton Mansion, and A Cross-Stitcher’s Quit Block Collection for future purse projects.Loom Knitting
I have also decided that I am going to include my loom knitting in my weekly project rotation, otherwise I will never finish this scarf, nor get to do any of the other projects that I have pinned. If you want you can check my Loom Knitting Ideas board.It feels like this is a pretty good rotation to start off with, although I am new to the rotation technique, I think it will definitely help me get some more finishes this year!Thanks for reading and happy stitching!
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What I Read In 2016
For 2016, I set a reading goal of 52 books. What was I thinking? That was definitely an over reach, since I didn’t even make it to 30. In 2016, I managed to read 29 books. Which surprised me since it felt like I was reading quite a lot. In reality though, it wasn’t until the latter part of the year that my reading seemed to pick up.That was when I discovered the Coffeehouse Mystery series and I have been chewing through that as fast as possible.
There are 15 books so far in the Coffeehouse Mystery series, which is authored by a husband & wife team under the pen name, Cleo Coyle. The books are set in modern day New York and revolve around the life of coffeehouse manager, Claire Cossi. This seemingly innocuous barista somehow manages to become ensconced in a variety of murder mysteries to which she is drawn like a moth to a flame. Since I am not a book reviewer by trade, let me just say that I find Claire Cossi thoroughly entertaining and, so far, have had a hard time putting each book down.Of course every year I spend time in Mercyverse, a world created by Patricia Briggs, which encompasses the series Mercy Thompson and Alpha & Omega. Both series take place in a world where vampires and fairies exist in the shadows while werewolves are out in public. The Mercy Thompson series follows the life of mechanic Mercy Thompson who lives in Washington and, due to her status as a shape shifter, is constantly engulfed in the affairs of the vampire/werewolf/fairy community. Alpha & Omega takes place in the same universe, and follows the lives of two werewolves, Charles and Anna. Both series are amazing and there are many characters that crossover from one series into the another, as well as several short stories that highlight different individual characters from within the universe. This year I started off with the ninth book in the Mercy Thompson series, which is titled Fire Touched and was released in March. As is typical with any of Patricia Briggs books, I believe I read Fire Touched in a matter of a couple of days. Naturally, once I step foot in Mercyverse I don’t want to leave. So after I finished Fire Touched, I went ahead and read through the Alpha & Omega series, again.After spending quality time in Mercyverse, I decided to begin my introduction to The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. This series falls into the Urban Fantasy category, of which I really only read Patricia Briggs, however, many fans of Briggs also read Butcher, so I thought I would give the series a try. The Dresden Files follow the life of Harry Dresden, wizard for hire in Chicago, where magic and wizardry is surfacing from the shadows. While this world does give off a feeling of familiarity to Briggs fans, it is a story of a very different tone; much darker focusing on some seedier elements. So far, I managed to get through six of the Dresden Files books. Unfortunately, I did begin to lose interest around book five, mainly due to some of the repetitive nature of the story. Butcher gives a lot of the background information on Harry Dresden repeatedly in each book and, since I was reading the series back to back, I started to get a little bored. With that in mind, I’ve decided to space out how often I read the series, almost as if I was reading them as they were being released. That aside the story itself is interesting and Harry Dresden is a character that captures your attention from the start. (Of course my heart will always belong in Mercyverse.)In the summer I took my annual sabbatical from all my typical genres to read Nora Roberts’ The Cousins O’Dwyer trilogy. This will be the third consecutive year that I have read this trilogy over the summer as it seems to have become a tradition of mine. The Cousins O’Dwyer trilogy tells the story of three cousins from Ireland and their magical witchcraft heritage, including the evil dark force that is hunting them across time through generations. For the most part, I do not read Nora Roberts, nor do I read romance novels in general, however, when I picked up the first book in the trilogy, Dark Witch, the story synopsis grabbed my attention long before I took note of the author or genre. Truly, I thought I discovered another urban fantasy story and was caught off guard when realizing it was written by Nora Roberts. Beyond that, I was further caught off guard at how captivated I was by the story. This trilogy is a series that I read in hardcopy, and value that tactile connection to the words. When I read the story, with book in hand, I am transported to Ireland and the cottage where the cousins fight for freedom from the dark forces that are destroying the generational ties that bind their family. There is no doubt that I will be reading this trilogy every year probably about the same time every year for as long as I’m able to read. It is quite like that old familiar movie that you only watch once a year but it still brings you comfort and enjoyment time after time.While I ended my year with cozy mysteries and peculiar children, it did not start off that way. The beginning of the year I spent some time reading some memoirs and other non-fictional stories, however spending too much time in reality makes me want to jump right back into cozy mysteries and urban fantasy tails. This year I’m heading down a similar reading path. My reading goal is 40, hopefully more reasonable, and my initial to be read pile includes the last 2 books of Skeleton Family series, the last 2 books of the Peculiar Children series, the next Coffeehouse Mystery book, and a different Nora Roberts trilogy, the Gallaghers of Ardmore, once again based in Ireland.Here is the complete list of books I read in 2016:
If you like you can check out the GoodReads breakdown of my year in books here.Thanks for reading, see you in the stacks.
Heart, Hounds & Hobbies 