Finally an Update

At last, I have a little time in which to make a post. February and March are always extremely busy months around here, and when it gets like this I seem to choose to stitch rather than blog. But things seem to be slowing down some around here now, and next week it should get even better.

I have been stitching in this lost time, but it has been mostly on my HAED designs. I was motivated to get back to stitching on Santa's List, my Christmas HAED WIP, by an informal HAED SAL organized by Cindy F. Then I received a message from Denise on the HAED Forum that she was getting the Christmas SAL there restarted. I was already working on Santa's List, so I joined that one as well. Then I was delighted to find that Cindy and Wendy started a blog for HAED stitchers called Our Friends HAED SAL, which I also joined. When I finished my first page on Santa's List, I still wanted to stitch on a HAED, but I was ready to do something different. So I pulled Fairy Village out of the drawer, and then later retrieved May I Have This Dance as well. I have enjoyed getting back to stitching these designs. Progress is slow, but I enjoy watching the design emerge onto the fabric. Here are some updated pictures.

First is Santa's List by Ruth Sanderson. I have finished the first page.


Next is Fairy Village by Lisa Victoria. I have about 2 and 1/2 pages done.

And finally, here is May I Have This Dance, which I am still stitching away on as of yesterday. I have almost finished 4 pages, but only one of them was a full page. I have approximately 11,000 stitches completed.

I have stitched a little bit on some other things, keeping up with a couple other SALs, but I am going to save those for another post, or this one will become rather unwieldly.

happy stitching everyone!

Fair and Square Exchange

On Monday, the postman brought these delightful Fair & Square exchange squares from Ruth. They are perfect and I just love these colorful birds. Isn't the signature square beautiful? She had read my blog and knew that I had been immersed into birdwatching lately. She also sent lots of lovely flosses...some Six Strands Sweet and GAST in soft spring colors. And to top it all off, a Mary Engelbreit card. I am a big fan of Mary Engelbreit. Thank you so much Ruth!


And here are the squares that I sent to Ruth. She said in her profile that she liked houses and sheep, so I found this pattern in one of my Point de Croix magazines. She said on the Fair & Square message board that they reminded her of the Alps...and so they are...the French Alps. I had a lot of fun participating in this round of Fair & Square, and I am eager to get stitching on the next.

Also, this past weekend was the HAED Challenge SAL. I got about 800 stitches done. Fairy Village is definitely a WISP, but I enjoy stitching on it for limited bursts of time.

Well that is all for now. I have been stitching on the LHN Dear Diary Sampler yesterday and today, but haven't got enough done to share a new picture yet.

Have a great week, everybody!

December Thoughts

I have not posted in a while. It has been just too crazy busy with the Christmas season. I think next year, I am just going to put the blog on holiday during December. But finally things are now getting back to normal. The decorating, the baking, the crafting, the shopping, the wrapping, the cards, the packaging and mailing, the caroling, the Christmas performances and parties to attend...all that has come to pass. I love the holiday season, but I also love when it is over. I still need to take down the decorations, and I traditionally do that on December 30th.

I have not had a whole lot of time to stitch, but I did participate in the HAED monthly SAL challenge. I managed to stitch on Fairy Village in each of the 12 monthly SALs in 2007. Here is a picture of this month's progress. I went ahead and signed up for the 2008 SAL challenge on the HAED forum with this same project. Also I finished my squares for the Fair and Square Exchange and I will be mailing them out to Ruth tomorrow.















And today I managed to drive over to my LNS, which was having a store-wide sale, and make a few purchases. I now own these charts: Redbird Sampler by Bent Creek, Fuchsia Chick Chat by Valerie Pfeiffer, and Colonial Homes by Little House Needleworks.















I also purchased some 32 count Lakeside Linen in Nutmeg and some threads for the Red Bird Sampler. The threads are WDW Bark, Lancaster Red, and Juniper; GAST Harvest Basket; and CC Roasted Chestnut (this last one because my LNS was out of WDW Chestnut and this looked like a good substitute). This store was missing two different colors of WDW that I still need for the Red Bird Sampler, so I will probably run over to the other LNS near me tomorrow to see if they have it. That particular store is more needlepoint oriented, so they don't have many cross stitch patterns, but they have a huge array of fibers.



Happy stitching everyone, and have a good Friday!