Blue Ribbon Design finish - woohoo!

I don't know but once I get down to the last hour of so of finishing a piece I start to make lots of mistakes.  Is it a curse or something?  More likely I guess I get impatient and don't pay as much attention to the chart and my stitching. Or it could be that it was almost midnight and I was tired and riding on too much Diet Coke.....   Anyway, as I was finishing up the last snowflakes and penguin, I must have made about 7 or 8 mistakes Friday night - so frustrating!  All is fixed though and I was not defeated in my journey to another finish.

Here is Blue Ribbon Designs' "It's Cold Outside".   I was using a Q-snap at first and for some reason pulled my linen a bit wonky but I'm sure my framer will straighten it out - glad I'm not mounting this piece as with all those border lines it needs to be perfectly straight!  I just love the little penguins and that's what really drew me to this design. 

It's Cold Outside by Blue Ribbon Designs

Stitched on 36-ct Haven by Picture This Plus with various overdyed floss

I got a lovely package in the mail on Saturday from Kathy over at The Flying Needle.  Kathy was kind enough to host a UFO contest awhile back on the Legacy Bulletin Board.  I was one of the winners so Kathy gifted me with a lovely piece of Silkweavers linen (my favorite count too - 36), some gorgeous Bohin scissors and Bohin needles too.  I am just thrilled to have these.  I had finished my 'English Sampler" last year for the contest - I think I started it in 2005 (blushing...) but so glad I finished it.  Winning a prize was just an added bonus - thank you Kathy!!

Yesterday I finally got out my kitted Jenny Bean pin tuffet. I love the Jenny Bean designs and this one will be a quick stitch.  I don't why I waited so long to stitch it but I guess it's just guilt because my WIP/UFO basket is always calling to me.  I told myself I need a reward before diving back in the basket of projects needing attention.  

This is going to be a short work week for me - I head back to Illinois on Thursday to visit my mom for her 80th birthday!    I'm traveling with one of my brothers who lives near me.   I'm going to have to dig out a warm jacket - it's been in the 80's here in Phoenix the past week although cloudy and cooler today.   I'm not sure if I can stitch on the plane or not.....normally if I don't have my magnifier I have to wear readers over my regular glasses and I don't like to do that in public - I can't imagine why but people somehow think wearing 2 pairs of glasses is odd LOL.    It's either that or take my glasses off completely and work about 8" from my face. Neither one is very good.   Not to mention there is so little room on the planes these days that sometimes it's just not worth trying to stitch. Maybe I'll just go for reading or snoozing to my iPod music instead. 

Thanks for your continued visits to my little world. I'm always excited to see a new comment. I follow about 150 blogs myself and I know how hard it is to keep up with everyone let alone comment.   We all need more hours in the day!

Dickens Village Ornament finish

I thought I'd be posting this a long time ago, since I wanted to do an ornament a month this year.  It's March but better late than never!  This ornament seemed to take a lot of stitching, I think my next choice is going to be smaller and simpler.  This is from the leaflet  "Dickens Village Ornaments" by Margaret & Margaret.  There are 5 patterns for little Victorian houses in the leaflet.  I adore house ornaments and end up buying a few each year it seems if I happen to see any while out Christmas shopping.  :)  Eventually I hope to do the other 4 house ornaments but it may take a while.  It's charted for DMC on 26-ct fabric but I used my own silk conversion since I wanted the ornaments a bit smaller.   Even with 36-ct fabric this turned out about 3.5" X 4". 

My lonely ornament tree finally has it's first ornament!

"Old Curiosity Shop" by Margaret & Margaret
36-ct Lakeside Vintage Basketweave with various silks

Now back to BRD "It's Cold Outside"...........  

Weekend Update..........and a little finish

Keeping busy as usual.   I'm sure this happens to the rest of you - things around  the house seem to happen in bunches, don't they?  No sooner did I get everything clean and organized after our bathroom remodels but I had a visit from Mr Murphy as Heidi says LOL.  We had a big rainstorm about 2 weeks ago and had a roof leak in our bathroom - right over the new bathtub.   I was in there hanging a picture on the wall when I started hearing the drip drip drip.  Then the wash machine broke.....and the pool pump started making this awful noise.  So I've been busy making phone calls and entertaining service calls getting all of this taken are of.  Luckily both the wash machine and the pool pump repairs were covered by warranty services but the roof will cost about $800.  Then I took my car in last week for it's 60,000 mile service and discovered I had some "shredded drive belts" and "leaking struts"  (whatever those are) on the front end.  So it was a pretty big bill when I picked up my car but it's only 5 years old.  I would like to keep it a lot longer so I hope it will settle down now for awhile.  It's always something!

I did have a little finish last week. I saw this pincushion on Just Carol's blog last year and loved it so I picked up the out of print pattern on eBay and made myself one. I love pincushions and have more than I could ever use but they are fun to make.  I added a little stork scissor charm to the top.

"Stray Pins & Runaway Needles"

Theron Traditions pattern "Mom's Scissors and Stray Pins"

stitched on 34-ct Cafe au Lait Legacy Linen with recommended GAST threads

I'm also making some more progress on BRD's "It's Cold Outside".  Stitching all the boxes is a good task while watching movies as you don't have to watch the pattern much but it gets pretty boring.   I'm looking forward to finishing this piece in the next couple of weeks.   I had to chart my own initials - when you have two "M's" in your initials they frequently don't fit with what the designer gives you to work with.  Not to mention my last name has 9 letters which also can be a problem on samplers.  So I make it work however best I can.

I'm making progress on my WIP list at least.  I also got some more applique blocks done for my "Winter Memories" quilt. My goal is to finish the quilt top by the end of March.   I only have one more applique block to do but then I have a few pieced blocks and some embroidery as well.   Here's the center ice skates block which is supposed to look like an old photo with the wavy edges and photo corners. I'm sure a lot of you are too young to recall when photos looked like this but all my childhood photos are in this style (and they were black & white too LOL!).  The quilt is slowly growing on my design wall. 

We're having lovely warm weather here in Phoenix - the plants are all starting to bloom and the birds are starting to make their spring nests.  Every year we usually get one or two nests of baby birds in our yard.  Hope winter is starting to ease up for those of you in the cold spots.    And note it's been 2 days and we haven't had any new stories about Charlie Sheen - how will we get through the week?!?!    Unfortunately March Madness (NCAA basketball) is starting so from now until it's over the DH will be glued to the TV watching basketball.   I'll be hiding out in my sewing room with my boxed DVD sets of Boston Legal..........got the rest of the seasons for Christmas and I'm about to start on Season 3.  

Have a great week friends and I'm happy you stopped by.  :-)