Tah-Dah!! MLQ is Finished!

Finally a picture of my completed My Lady's Quaker! I still can't believe I finished it!

I know it doesn't look straight in the picture but it is. I still have it attached to the stretcher bars. Now that I have taken the final picture I can remove it. Like I mentioned DH is going to make a frame for me with glass. I will show a picture when it is all framed and ready to hang. I think I may hang it here in my craft room. I still haven't painted it but may be able to soon.
 Today is Mardi Gras and I am making Dirty Rice with Smoked Sausage for dinner tonight. I made this last year for the first time and my family said it was good and ate it. I use Turkey Smoked Sausage to cut down on the fat a little.  I bought a small King Cake this weekend so that will be for dessert.
 I remember when I was in New Orleans (not at Mardi Gras time) and first saw the name "dirty rice". I was like Ewwww lol  Not a very appealing name but I get it now. The kind I saw there had chicken gizzards in it which does make it look "dirty". The recipe I am making has no gizzards and that is just fine with me!

 I am almost done stitching for one exchange then I will start the other. I am also trying to decide if I want to start "Little House Neighborhood" by LHN now or work on another of my WIPS. I did sign up for a challenge with BeckySC in which I have until December 31st to finish the LHN so maybe I should start it.

I hope you all had a great weekend and got lot's of stitching time in!

Thanks so much for your wonderful comments & for stopping by :)

A Valentine's Finish & MLQ Update

Not sure why but I have a Valentine's finish that was completed awhile ago and I never posted it here. The design is called "True Love" by The Samplerbird and Robin offered it as a freebie on her blog last February.  I stitched it on 32ct white opalescent fabric and the DMC floss called for in the design. I also stitched a fob using the smaller design but I haven't finished it off yet.
I finished it using a heart shaped silicone baking cup. It was a bit tricky trying to get the fabric heart shaped when putting it into the cup, so I did the best I could. It was really a fun design to stitch! Thank You Robin!

As promised here is my progress on MLQ. I worked on it a lot yesterday so I now have the whole first row of alphabet done. I saw a picture of someone's finish awhile ago and noticed she stitched her initials in a different color than the rest of the alphabet. So I decided to do that too. I may frog out the letter "B" and do that in a different color as that isn't one of my initials and I chose that color as the one to do my initials in....I don't know . What do you think??

It is suppose to rain later today and tomorrow. Sounds like stitching days to me! I do have a Butterfly Club meeting on Sunday so no stitching that day. Maybe at night though watching "Once Upon A Time".

Thanks so much for all of your wonderful comments and for stopping by!
Have a great weekend everyone!

My Lady's Quaker Update

I've been working on MLQ everyday now so I have gotten somewhere with it finally! I am really enjoying stitching this one. I wonder why I ever put it down??
This is what I posted last:

And here is where I am now:

I don't have much more to go. I just have to finish the design on the left and then another smaller one near her dress. Then it is on to the rest of the alphabet and I am done.

 All of my exchanges due are stitched. I plan on taking today and tomorrow and finishing them into something. I think I am going to do flat fold's on all of them except for the one that is suppose to be an ornament. I like flat folds because you can display them anywhere you want.

 My puppies both had birthday's last week and now they are 3 years old! I can't believe I have had them 3 years already!

All of my butterflies have hatched and I've sent them off into the world! I only had 1 casualty and that was yesterday. The last one started coming out of it's chrysalis  and was stuck! All that was sticking out of the bottom was it's front legs and it's antenna's. I waited and watched it and saw it was getting no where, so I took down the chrysalis and tried helping it out. Unfortunately something was wrong with it and there wasn't anything I could do except humanely put it to sleep (That would be put it in a small container and stick it in the freezer for a few hours). Believe me it bothers me when I have to do that but it is better then putting them outside and having a bird or something else devour them. I've seen it and it isn't pretty :(

 If your into baking I came across this neat website/blog called Bakerella . She has some wonderful recipes and ideas for decorating your baked goods. I signed up for her newsletter and this morning she had these gorgeous cookies & cupcakes decorated with fondant. They are so pretty you almost feel guilty eating them lol She even shows you how to do it and gives you links to where she bought her molds and what recipe she used.

Well I better get started on my finishing work. Before you know it it will be time to pick my DS up from school!

Have a good day everyone and Thanks so much for stopping by!

Monarch Butterfly Chrysalis's & MLQ Update

It looks like 3 of the 6 Monarch chrysalis's are getting ready to hatch! I wanted to show the difference in colors from ones that are ready to hatch and what they look like when they are recently formed.

This is one that has a ways to go. When they first form they are green with a ring very glittery gold on the top. This particular one is about 1 week old.

 And these 2 are ready to hatch anytime now! You can actually see the colors on the butterfly! The chrysalis's are actually clear so the green ones are the caterpillar/butterfly going through metamorphosis.

 And this picture shows both the green and the black one together.
 So I am patiently waiting for their arrival. It is in  the 50's right now but it is suppose to warm up to 70F today.  That will be warm enough for them to fly and find food. Unfortunately most of the plants here in my yard were zapped by the cold spell last week. So they probably won't stay in my yard for long and will fly on to find food somewhere. They say you can put out rotting fruit or banana peels and they will eat that but I just see that as inviting unwanted critters to my yard. Bad enough there are fruit rats around eating from the orange trees nearby. I say let them stay there lol

****UPDATE*****
I just looked in the cage and saw this little beauty!! One down 2 to go!

 Notice the red string in the first pic? Well the web that the caterpillar made wasn't the best and it was hanging. I accidentally pulled it with a stem when I was putting more leaves in the cage. The poor thing fell to the bottom of the cage and was wiggling around. I tied a piece of  thread to it and then wove it through the screen and hung it from the top of my cage. I am so glad he/she came out OK!

 I've been stitching on My Lady's Quaker and have gotten  some done.
Here are before and after pics.

Being I picked my own colors for this piece I am just randomly deciding what color to use for each part of the design as I go along. I still haven't decided what color I want to do the alphabet. In a picture I have of the finished design the stitcher highlighted her initials in the alphabet by using a different color than the rest of the letters. I like that idea so I am going to do that.

Thanks so much for the wonderful comments on my last post! I truly appreciate them and for you stopping by!
Have a great day!

Thank You, WIP's , Exchange Stitching & Monarchs

I want to Thank all of you for your condolences on my dear friend Fred. He truly was a wonderful man. I am sad because I could not attend the services for him and be there to comfort my friend Debbie. They are in New York and being my DH was out from work the past 8 months (he just went back last week) it just wasn't possible for me to fly there. But I was there in thought.

WIP's-
 I was reading my dear friend Lisa's blog  and she mentioned that she was going to try and keep track of her WIP's (works in progress) to inspire her to get them done. The idea is if you see them you will finish them. so I figured that was a good idea and dug out the ones I have. I know I have 4 however 1 is missing and I can't find it anywhere lol I am sure it will show up someday.

The Magic Of Summer

Designer: Charles Wysocki

Dimensions Kit

This is my oldest WIP and the first thing I ever cross stitched 12 years ago. What the heck was I thinking???? LOL This certainly is NOT something a beginner should start with but I fell in love with the design. This has also become something my DH bugs me about by saying "Are you ever going to finish that one???" Grrrrr men! They don't get it! I do want to finish it and now that I am a more experienced stitcher it is not as overwhelming to me. It is on 14ct aida which I no longer stitch on but I got this far with it so I will force myself to stitch on aida lol

Grand Abecedaire

Designer: Gazette94

This was fun but it got a bit monotonous because it was so big. I am an "instant gratification" person when it comes to stitching and this was taking forever lol  I am also off by one stitch on the top right design but I didn't notice it until too late. Like the "stain" on the piece??? Sigh......I use stretcher bars to stitch with. This piece was so big I had to roll it up and then tack the excess to the bars. I also left the brass tacks in the piece. I picked it back up a few months ago and had to move the fabric to continue the design. When I removed the tacks a few left a small "rust" looking spot. So I looked up online how to remove that kind of stain and it said use lemon juice and salt. So I did and the darn spot is still there. I suppose when I am all done and wash the piece that water stained looking area will be fine but the darn "rust" spot will remain. I am glad I used DMC floss on this. I know they sell something to wash stitched pieces so I will have to pick some up. I will finish this as I am almost done at this point.

My Lady's Quaker

Designer: Jardin Prive

As soon as I took this one out of my closet I thought "why didn't I finish this??" So that night I started back on it and I have the half circle on the top left complete! So I will be working on this one first.

 As for the 4th one it was by a French blogger and if I can find the pattern (which is probably with the missing piece) I can tell you the name of it. It was a Christmas design which was heart shaped. In the heart were 2 deer and 2 hardanger hearts . The bigger  hardanger heart was in the top middle of the design and the smaller hardanger heart was at the bottom point. It was the first time I tried hardanger and it actually came out nice. I stopped working on it because I was off a stitch on one side of the design and for the life of me I couldn't find it. I decided to walk away from it and try again but alas it is missing lol Oh and that was about 4 years ago!

 I've completed my exchange stitching for 3 exchanges out of 4. One isn't due to be mailed until March so I am ahead! Yeah!!! I just have to do the finishing work on them. I will start the last one in a day or so. I already have a design picked out for it.

 I am finally getting back to normal here. With my DS on winter break, the Holiday's and DH being home my routine was messed up. Now the house is quiet and it is just me and the dogs :)

I almost forgot about the Monarch's! A few weeks ago we were expecting a cold snap. I had been seeing a Monarch butterfly flying around my yard and figured I would go check out the milkweed and see if anyone was on there. Sure enough there were 3 huge monarch caterpillars. I knew they would die in the cold so I got my cage ready, cut off all the branches with leaves on the milkweed and brought them inside. As I was setting up the food in the cage I came across 13 more caterpillars in different stages! Some were tiny! I knew I did not have enough leaves to feed them all so I emailed the president of the butterfly club I belong to and asked her if she wanted to adopt some of them. She said yes and that the speaker we were having that weekend was from the Butterfly House and she would ask him to bring some Milkweed for us. So I now have 6 Monarch Chrysalis's in my cage which I still have here in my craft room! They are taking longer to hatch because the weather is cooler. I will take some pictures of them when they are born.

Have a great day everyone!

Thanks for stopping by!