Halloween House SAL

Linda at Stitching With My Furbabies is hosting a SAL for Halloween House.  It is such a cute design, and Halloween is my favorite holiday, so I just had to join in. :o)

I started it as one of my Crazy January projects on the first Friday in January.  I originally put it on 18 count Lambswool linen, over one.

Although I like the way it looks, it was misery to work on.  Stitching over one on Lambswool linen just totally stressed me out.  And the last thing my stitching is supposed to do is stress me out!  So I will frog it and use this piece of linen for one of the monthly cottages I am stitching from Country Cottage Needleworks.

So I restarted it on some pretty green 28 count linen that I bought at the EGA seminar this past September.  It is much more fun to stitch on now, and I love the purples and oranges on the green fabric.  I spent my entire  IHSW on it.  Once I got in my groove, I just didn't want to stop. :o)

 

First TUSAL Post

It is the first new moon of the year, so it is time for the TUSAL post.  For those who don't know what that is, it is the Totally Useless Stitch-A-Long, and you can read all about it here.  To participate, you save your orts from new moon to new moon, and add them to your pretty glass container each month.  It is a fun way to record progress on projects.

So here is my first ever TUSAL photo:

Just a wee bit o' thread, but I am looking forward to watching my orts fill the vase! :o)

All of these orts have come from my Crazy January starts.  As of tonight, I have started all 15 projects.  I didn't manage to work on one every day for the first 15 days, but that's okay.  They are all started now.  I'm working on taking photos of each one.  My camera died and I had to get a new one, which I managed to do this weekend.  I've just not had the patience to get each project out, take its photo, and put it back, but hopefully by this weekend I will have all the photos done and posted.

Fun Give-Aways

I have come across a couple of fun give-aways during my blog reading, and I thought I would share them with you, along with the great blogs they are on.

Seasons of My Mind is having a Pay-It-Forward give-away of 12 LHN Christmas Ornament patterns.  You can find her give-away on this post.

Stitchers Anon (I love that name!) has a give-away here.  Her blog is so positive and uplifting, I enjoyed going back and reading more posts.

So go check them out! :o)

Hermitting Weekend

This weekend was the last International Hermit & Stitch weekend of 2011, so I took full advantage of it. :o)  I stitched on the January Cottage from Country Cottage Needleworks, and it is a very enjoyable stitch.  My progress:

I didn't want to quit stitching, but I have to get up and go to work in the morning.  At least I have only a 3 day work week next week. :o)

I also worked on kitting up my projects for the 2012 Crazy January Challenge.  That is a lot of fun too, and I'm looking forward to starting all of them!  As soon as I get them organized, I will be posting about them.

Christmas Tree Grove

I finished my grove of 40 Christmas Trees right on time last week for our Christmas party.  Everyone seemed to really like the, which made me feel very good. :o)  They were a lot of fun to make, although I must confess that I did get tired of them after a while.  They took me about 4 weeks to make all of them.  My husband made the little stands that they are on.

Here they are, cut out and sewn together, ready to be stuffed and put on their stands.  I used a sparkly pom pom for the "star" on top of them. 

Here they are, my mighty grove!  They really looked pretty all together, all sparkly and blinged out.

Some close ups.  Aren't the little stands neat?  They are precut plaques from Hobby Lobby that my husband drilled holes in, put in a dowel, and then painted.  He did a great job!

All boxed up and ready for the trek to my office. :o)  (I hand to clean up that corner before I could take this picture.)

And here they are at the party, with the candy bags behind them.

I really am proud that I actually finished them on time without having to work on them all night before the party! LOL  It felt very weird last weekend not having a Christmas tree n my hand, beading madly.  But I'm glad to be able to get back to my other projects now. :o)

Progress from my Hermitting Weekend

I got four trees done this weekend, so that is marvelous progress!  I have 14 now, but DH didn't get any of my stands made.  Sigh...I'm thinking I will have to get the whip out. :o)

Here are my trees from this weekend:

And I thought I would add some furbaby cuteness.  Here is my lazy Lacey.

And my ever-happy Flea.  I wish I could be as happy as she is all the time!

And His Evilness Himself, the Kitty Baby.  He's showing me his belly with all the cute curls, just daring me to rub it. :o)

Hermitting and Stitching Weekend

This is my first International Hermit and Stitch Weekend (IHSW), and I'm really looking forward to it.  As if I needed an excuse to shut out the world and stitch. :o)  It's a little cool and cloudy this morning, but we are supposed to have a nice afternoon.  I may even take my hermitting outside for a while. :o)

I'm working on my grove of Christmas trees that I volunteered to make as happies for our office Christmas party.  At my office, we have a "Gift Fund" that you can be a part of if you want to participate in birthdays, sending flowers for illnesses, and the Christmas party, and I am on the committee that plans all that this year.  I thought it would be nice to have a better happy for the Christmas party than some cheap little thing from the dollar store, so I showed my fellow committee members a little handmade Christmas tree to see if they liked it.  And they did, so I committed myself to making 40 of them.  But they are really fun to make.  I have 12 beaded so far.  Here is my grove this morning.

I will be working hard on my trees this weekend.  When finished, they will be on little stands and be about 6 or 7 inches tall.  DH is helping me with the stands.  Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have a finished one to share!

We had our office sponsered Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.  Everyone who wanted to participate brought a dish or contributed to the turkey.  Then we brought our food back to our desks to eat.  I eat with my office buddies in one of my friend's cubicles because she has a work table in her cube.  I decided we should be festive, and her favortie color is pink, so I decorated our dinner table. :o)

And here we are enjoying our Thanksgiving dinner together.  That's me on the right.

I am very thankful for these ladies, as they are good friends and make work a lot of fun! :o)

Happy IHSW everyone!