Stocking

Took this shot while adjusting the Q Snap.

Chris made it home but now it's hailing.

Cake!

So, I decided to bake Chris a coming home cake....but I didn't know what kind of cake he liked and if I called him to ask him, well, that would just ruin the surprise.  Steven thought he liked the German Chocolate frosting so I settled on a German Chocolate cake.

The icing appears to have melted a bit but you get the picture.   I made the cake from a box mix but the frosting is from scratch.  It's not an easy frosting either as you have to boil it.

Heel Ahoy!

After a bit of nice progress the next two days, I can see a heel forming at the edge of the stocking!

Needs a bit more filling in and then I can backstitch a bit and work my way over to the toe..

Memorial Day Wishes

On this Memorial Day, I feel it appropriate to post about my stepson, Chris.  He just finished his 4 year tour with the army on May 22, and will be driving home tomorrow.

After that, he's going to be enrolling in college on his GI bill.  I know some people call it a "free ride" but it definitely wasn't free for Chris.  He was the software guy, so he sat in the tent and made sure that the computers and radios were working.  They would wake him up in the middle of the night to get stuff fixed (until the commander realized poor Chris was getting no sleep and put a standing order not to disturb him at night).  He also volunteered to go on patrols.  On one patrol, a mine went off.  Chris was extremely lucky, he had been sleeping next to it the night before but he was further away when it went off.  The explosion caused him hearing damage (he has ringing in one ear) and messed up his knee a bit.  So he'll be a "disabled veteran."

Have a safe ride home, Chris.

Meanwhile, back to the stocking that will just not END!

I have finally faced it.  I have to finish up this stocking.  No ifs ands ors or buts.  Here's where it's at right now when I pulled it out of cold storage.

It's on the Q snaps and ready to go....

Pattern on Ravelry!

I have the pattern up on Ravelry!  Here's the link: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sock-puppet-on-the-loom

We have Puppet

Here is the finished puppet.  Not bad for my own invented pattern.  In retrospect, I might have made the top jaw a little shorter and I guess the heel didn't do exactly what I wanted it to.  However, the heel does make a nice ridge to put the eyes on once I get some buttons.  If I do this again, I might omit the heel and see what it looks like.  Now, I'll have to type up the pattern and try to figure out how to post it to Ravelry.

P.S. Zoé loves it

Sock Puppet

I'm trying to make a sock puppet for Zoé as she's taken a liking to the old ones that I had.

I couldn't find a loom knit pattern for one so I'm making it up as I go along.

Here's what it looks like so far.

I tried to start a new project....

I tried to start this cute little project:

 So I opened it up and started sorting floss and stuff.  It looked like it was decent and it came with evenweave and everything.  So, I realized that there was only one hank of floss in there instead of two (so I was missing half the floss) and of the floss I did have, I couldn't figure out the difference between two colors.  So, long story short, I've decided not to do the kit right now.

Guess it was good that it was free, right?

It does have DMC colors listed so I can do it....just not right now.

Another Finish!

Adèle's stocking went quicker than expected.  It's already done actually.  Except for the sewing part.

I had to improvise on the top to fit her whole name in but I couldn't get in the accents :(  I tried.

Going Quicker than Expected

Adèle's stocking is really starting to take shape.  The long stitch goes really quickly so I'm actually about 50% or more done.

New Project!

So, I decided to take a break from floss and move over to yarn for a project.  I'm starting Adèle's stocking.  It's long stitch so basically satin stitching with yarn.

Here's all the yarn after I sorted it by color.

It is progressing very quickly.  Here's about a hour or less worth of work:

Another Finish!

With the finish on the Whitework yesterday, I decided to check my stash to see what I wanted to do next.  I was going to pull out the stocking but I saw the Tree Frog Trio.  They were almost completed as of this post.

Here was the progress picture then:

And here's the finished product:

They are just sooooo cute!  Since it's on Aida, I think I will stretch it myself but I will go for a more expensive frame.  I do believe it's a 5x7 (I'll have to measure it) so I bet I could find a cute frog frame for them to go into.  :-)

Next out of the UFO pile will probably be the stocking.  Details probably to follow on Sunday or so.  I have to work the next three days (20 working days until job end) so I won't stitch much.

It is FINISHED!!!

I finally finished up the whitework today.  Stem stitches and all.  Still incredibly hard to photograph.  Hope it's easier to see once it's framed.  That's the next step now.

I Has Floss

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

I spent the day with my family.  Emily is home from high school for the summer.  The girls were so happy to see her.

Ken let me stitch all day in the bedroom where the girls wouldn't get to my stuff.  I watched some Battlestar Galactica (which he hates) and got everything almost done....until I ran out of ecru floss.  Here are some shots.

Here's what the whole piece looks like

There's some chain stitches missing in the middle and some lazy daisy stitching (I despise both)

This corner is missing all the pearle cotton backstitching and there's also some cross stitches missing before I ran out of floss.

And I did a little fudging because I made a mistake somewhere but this late in the game...well, I searched and searched and I don't know what happened.  And I really wasn't willing to frog.  I don't think it will show up too badly.

Halfway Done With the Bottom Part!

I got some major stitching in yesterday and today.  I'm now halfway done with the bottom section of the whitework.   With a decent amount of stitching time tomorrow, Tues and Wed, I think I can be finished or extremely close.

So, so, so, so, so looking forward to stitching something with color.

I took off this weekend because I was supposed to go to Nebraska to get my stepdaughter from school.  However, she got a ride so now I'm just enjoying the paid time off. :)

I hate frogging but still made some progress

I thought I was doing so well today.  But, then when I was going to put in my Symerna Cross, I realized that I missed a row and got off so there was a bit of frogging.  After that, I put in some more crosses in the Pearle Cotton and a bit of satin stitching, so here's what the bottom part looks like now.

At work yesterday, I got off early because it was so slow.  They were also cleaning out all the promotional stuff so I got a bunch of free stuff from that.

A nice Nokia Lumia coffee mug (Kenny loved it!) and a T-Mobile travel mug

A fleecy T-Mobile scarf

A long sleeved T-Mobile t-shirt

A short sleeve woman's polo shirt

Random stuff: a massager, a highlighter, a Blackberry magic 8 ball, a teddy bear, a Blackberry stress doll and a Nokia bag

There was fanny pack and a flashlight too but they escaped the camera.

Upcoming Projects

So, as of June 23, I will have some spare time on my hands.  Not a lot of extra spare time, because I will have Adèle and Zoé to look after but I will no longer be working 40 hours a week either.  So, I've been thinking about what I want to do later this year.  It's going to depend on the money situation too.  If we're living off severance and unemployment, there obviously won't be anything for needlework.  So, here's my plan.

If the money is tight, I'm going after some WIPs and kits that I already have.  I will probably rotate through them to avoid the blahs.

This is Adèle's Stocking

This is Kenny's Stocking which is about 60% complete in progress

This one is about 60% in progress as well with the words and most of the right hand dragon finished.

I haven't really started this because I hate the fabric but I'm going to take Raymond's suggestion and wash it to see if that helps.

If I have some extra funds, I want to do these:

It's the Country Cottage Needleworks cottage of the month set for this year.  I've seen several of my blogging friends do them so I've been drooling a bit.  However, I'd have to buy the fabric and the patterns.  Probably will be using the DMC equivalents since I don't have any overdyeds in my stash. 

My husband and I want to do our living room in cottages so the CCN stuff would work well.  The Snow White Kinkade piece will fit in as well.  I also have these on the "to do" list but I'll have to buy the linen for it.

Whitework Sunday

A bit more progress to show.

Stitching Blahs Blog Hop

Happy May everyone.  Relieved to be over with the A to Z blogging.  It was fun but time consuming. 

I have made more progress on the Whitework but due to the difficulties photographing it, I don't have any updated pics.  Sorry.

On Linda's blog, she had posted a link to a Blog Hop about stitching blahs.  I too have had the stitching blahs.

For me, the stitching blahs start either when I'm sick or in pain or I get bored with a project.  I've battled tendonitis and carpal tunnel, so those contribute to stitching blahs.  I also didn't stitch much when I was pregnant the first time.  I had plenty of time but between the nausea and the fact that the anti-nausea meds knocked me out flat, I didn't do much stitching.

As for the boredom, I really never know when it will strike.  Let's look at some things that caused me to get the blahs. 

Obviously, this piece has a lot of repetition.  Really easy to get the blahs on something as repetitive as this.

I hit the blahs on this piece too.  It's larger than I normally stitch for one (I do better with smaller pieces) and I didn't like the fabric.  The Aida is soooooo stiff!  Ack! 

This piece had a bit of frogging to do on it, causing me to get the blahs.  The 6 shades of green were also getting to me.

Then, there's the stocking that WILL NEVER END!!!  It just keeps going on and on and on.  This is why I normally do needlepoint stockings.  They go so much faster.  It's pretty though.

When I get the blahs, I generally do something else.  Pick up something else to stitch.  Knit.  In the case of the carpal, take a break.  I also generally stick to smaller pieces so that they're finished quicker. 

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