A new tree

Just a quick post to show you my latest tree.  The Liberty tree is featured in the July/August issue of Just Crossstitch magazine.  I finished this one as a button on pillow using one of Trail Creek Farms pillows, a quick and easy finish.  This magazine issue is also the ornament preview issue and there are several must stitch (for me) ornaments.  I hope to have a nice batch of new ornaments for the Christmas tree this year.  I've been collecting and designing ornament charts all year, now to get to stitching them.  My kids enjoy adding the new ones to the tree each year, and the handmade ones are always the favorites.  Thanks for stopping by, I hope that you are all enjoying your Summer.

Angels on Blue

I haven't been getting any stitching done lately but Susan A. has.  Susan kindly sent me this pic of all five of my angels stitched on 30 ct. Sky fabric.  My first reaction was Wow!!!  I love how the blue fabric sets the angels off so nicely.  Plus, her finishing is lovely.  Hers is the first set, other than my own, that I've seen completed and they just made my day. 
As a designer, I design what is inside of me, never knowing if it will be something that others will want to stitch, so it always makes me smile when I see someone else taking the time to stitch my designs.  Thanks for sharing these with me, Susan!!!  And thanks, everyone for visiting my blog. 

A Few Finishes

It has been busy, busy here. We are well into March and the days are just flying by. Been busy doing kids stuff, helping with the cross country team, trap practice, boy scouts and dance, dance, dance. Spring recital is coming up so it's time for me to help with costume details, which involves checking the costumes, doing any quicky finishing work that needs done on them, making any extra items needed, handing them out to the students and explaining the stage makeup and costumes how to's. The costumes are beautiful this year and really well made, I can't wait to see them on the dancers.

As for stitching, my finishing pile is growing. I have over a dozen things needing my attention. Little pieces and big. I will schedule a finishing day soon, I will, I will.......

Here are a couple of recent finishes, excuse the wrinkles. The first is a sweet little design from Carriage House Samplings. I have so many of her designs in my stash and am trying to work a few of them into my rotation. I love the pink, red, olive color combo in this design and have plans to make it into a thread keep.

This is Shakespeare's Peddler's Jenny Bean's Christmas Sampler. It was a fun design to stitch, enough color changes to keep me interested, and pretty shades of red and green. I changed a few colors here and there but nothing extreme. I have two great rustic frames that would work for this piece and I cannot decide between them yet.

The last piece is Cape Cod Girls, by the Primitive Needle. Really quick stitch. I used a beautiful piece of linen from my "special" stash. Sharon Crescent, creator of the lovely Crescent Colours threads used to dye linens when she first started out in the needlework biz. The colors were soft and amazing and I bought a fat quarter of every shade that she had. I keep them in my "special" box and use them sparingly. This is a soft blue green and worked perfectly with the Weeks threads that were called for. I did pick up the new Cape Cod Boys companion design so it will get a "special" linen from the box as well.

Enough from me for today. I have orders to fill and a couple of magazine pieces to get ready. Thank you for your comments on my stitching and on my new little Lucy Lu. My daughter discovered that Lucy likes to play dress up so there will be some silly dog pics in the future. She is also reading up on agility competitions for pugs and plans to make Lucy a star. Have a great afternoon!!!

Lucy Lu

Here is my little Lucy Lu! She finally sat still long enough for a couple of shots. I LOVE her buggy eyes. Such a sweet little girl.

LHN Needle and Thread

I started this Saturday night and finished this cute little piece last night. It's Little House Needlework's Hoffman exclusive, Needle and Thread. It was fun to stitch and easy to finish. My first "market release" finish. It will sit near my stitching spot, perfect for my scissors and spare needles.

It's been busy since my last post. Everyday life keeps me on my toes lately. We have a new fur baby addition to our household, a pretty 4 month old black pug. Daughter Di named her Lucy Lu and she is such a liitle bundle of fun. The rest of my fur family is adjusting well to their hyper little sister.

I've been sneaking my stitching in wherever I can and will post more pics when I get some time. I really need to have a little finishing marathon, I have a dozen stitched pieces waiting for their finishes.

Until next time, enjoy yourselves!

And the winner is......

Before I announce the winner, I want to thank everyone that commented and posted about my giveaway. I'm a relatively new blogger and I appreciate your participation and comments. Thanks to you, I have "discovered" many new and interesting blogs and have added them to my list of favorites. This was fun so I'll be doing lots more giveaways in the future.

Okay, drum roll please..................... the winner of the JSC Ornie issue and the Angels charts is Deb, creator of the wonderful blog, The Thread Gatherer http://threadgatherer.blogspot.com Deb, if you would email me your snail mail addy, I'll send this out to you right away.

Thanks again to everyone for participating! Enjoy your day!

The new ornie issue is here, time for a giveaway!!!!!

I've just received the Just Crossstitch Ornament issue and and it has made my day! I have eagerly awaited the yearly arrival of this magazine since I first discovered it. And, since my Hope Angel made the cover this year, and since I have been such a poor blogger lately, I am having my first blog giveaway.

I will be giving away one copy of the magazine, along with one each of my four Angel Ornament crossstitch charts. That way, the winner will have the entire set of angels to stitch. To enter, please leave a comment on this post. If you post about the contest on your blog, you will get entered a second time. I'll announce the winner next Thursday. Good luck!!!

More about the magazine, lots of great ornies in there to stitch. So many of my favorite designers are included this year, all with wonderful designs. I have kitted up six already and will start stitching the first this afternoon while waiting on the school pick up line for my kids.

This brings me to the reason that I have been a poor blogger, my kids went back to public school for the first time in four years. It has been a real change. They love their new adventure, new friends, new teachers, band, dances, etc. They do not enjoy homework, getting up at 6:00 am (mommy really doesn't enjoy that one, it's still dark here at 6:00 am, ugh!!!) or busy work. All in all, it has been a good experience so far. We'll have to see how we do on our first quarter report cards. Until then, if anyone has any ideas on how to motivate kids to get out of bed on the first call, please let me know. The "time to get up" song doesn't seem to be working as well as it did the first couple of weeks. :)

I do actually have some stitching to show, I'll post pics next time. Thanks for stopping by!!!