Devil's Head

UGH Finally after two hours of climbing and a two hour
drive it's over! I am done I climbed to the top took the
pictures and climbed back down!. Yes I did not take
pictures of myself but I did get the boys to hold still for
a minute and got pics of them so here they are at the fire
 lookout on top of Devil's Head!



this is Wyatt - he's five and he carried sticks all the way
 up and halfway back down again until he slipped and
 fell and then I umade him put them down for good! He
didn't even fall behind until after he fell!



Dalton who hates pictures and complained more
 then I did all the way up!



This is Cauy he did so well, better than I would
 have thought -this is the kid who eats everything
 and sits and plays video games the whole time!
 I couldn't even keep up with him until after he fell
 on the way back down!!!!



This is Cody and Wyatt - Dakota kicked my butt -
 he basically ran circles around me the whole way.

It was a great trip though the kids loved the view
 and all agreed it was worth the hike and the drive
 ( dirt road, Durango - and a girl afraid to drive on
 dirt roads! LOL We went 10 mile and hour for
 7 miles!) Here is some of the pictures of the view:







And lastly the proof of the time hiking and
how many steps it took to get from the bottom
to the top! 

Found it!

I finally found my camera so here are a few pictures of the Mime's the Word Needlebock: Details are- stitched on Gold Silk Dupioni, with 100/3 silk, Au ver a soie six strand silk, Krienik, HDF ribbon, Finca floss and pearl cotton, and DMC cotton floss. Lining is a burgundy batik and a teal batik for the pockets, and Burgundy Wool felt for the needle pages. 

Here is my current picture of the Turtles I am stitching for Mom for Rhonda, Mom will do all the finishing. I am just doing the stitching because it is quite small. The large turtle shell on this fabric is 2" across! Like I said very tiny turtles!

Crystal Ball....where is my camera!!!!

I have been looking now for almost three days! I can't find my camera anywhere!

I can only tell you that I am making progress on the turtles for mom, and Mette is underway ( and looking awesome!) I also started a new project for a wall hanging so I can learn new crewel stitches. I am using the Anchor Crewelwork book - 30 drawn designs and about 50 stitches, so I better learn a lot! 

I also finished my Mimes the Word Needle Book today and it came out very well. At least I think it did and as soon as that pesky camera shows up I will get some Photo's on here! 

OH AND I won one of Pat Winters giveaways!!!!! Yeah!!!! I won the green and blue one - I adore it and can't wait to see it in person! I will post photo's of that too when the camera surfaces! 

Pat is still giving away some amazing things and you can still sign up on her blog, it is listed below in my blogs that I follow! Go see what she is up too! She always has great pictures and really awesome stitching to admire!

Mime's the word Finished Front cover.

I just finished putting the beads on the front cover for my Mimes the Word needle case. Now all I have to do is figure out if I want to stitch something for the back or not.....

Day Three- Mimes the Word!

Here is a short update on my mime needle case front, I am still not sure what to put on the back on it yet, Maybe some of you out there can help me think up something unique! 

Mimes the word!

I chose to work on another embroidery project that has a few more challenges to it than the last piece. On this one I will have to work a face. A rather small face, As you will see below the face needs to be filled in before the eyes, nose, mouth details are put on. 

The back ground on this is a two tone silk, I lucked out a few days ago and a lampshade store downtown listed a brown paper bag of silk scraps for free, OF course I jumped on it!!!! I was so thrilled when I got home and discovered that most of the pieces are large enough to embroider on and still have scraps left for a crazy quilt! 

Anyway I am using DMC, Anchor, Finca 6strand, Finca Presencia, A Ver a Soie in six strand, 100/3, Perlee, and a Metallic from them called "Bijoux" that is wonderful to work with! I have also used ribbon from HDF, and some Kreinik size 4 and 16 in silver. 

Pictures of the Finished Piece!

Here are the pictures, you may still see a little halo of red around the strawberries but it is coming out..Slowly!
Right now it is soaking in Oxy Clean, I have no idea what that might do to the silk but I will let you all know!

What to do Next!

I can't decide! I have four blocks for mom's crazy quilt pieced. BUT the boys are home for summer and I don't have a big enough work space for laying it all out till I get them back in school. SO that is on hold for a few weeks. They go back on August 9th.

Then there is Mette which is a SAL with Marie but we don't start till the first and we are only doing one motif a week so that's not gonna help right now....

Then there is quilts for the boys but we run into the same issue as the crazy quilt for mom...No room till the boys go back to school. 

Well I do need a bigger needle book.....I have a wonderful mother who has made me two that stay here by my stitching chair, but one has my beading and cross stitch needles and the other is more of a pocket thing. Not really good for sharp needles......SO do I make a needle book.....Or something else...... 

HELP!

The one thing I am very sure of is that IF I use a RED it will be a DMC! I don't care if it is cotton and the rest might be silk.....I can trust it to NOT ruin my stitching!

So I finished...And it bled!

When I began the sweet bag project I took the Red that I was going to use and washed it laid it out to dry on paper towels and got NO halo from it at all. So I figured there would be no issue when I finished the project. Well I washed it, it dried over night, and the strawberry's bled! I am so mad right now! I  have washed and wash, soaked and it just keeps getting worse! SO the top half of the design is ruined. I am going to soak it in warm water and see if it helps at all, at this point there is no reason not to try it. 

For anyone who is interested I was using HDF (hand-dyed fibers) Silk six strand regular for this project and only the red is being an issue.

There is no picture because my camera won't turn on. I have tried new batteries and it still is not working. Which isn't helping me mood at all! 

Almost done!

Well I have just a few more involved sections left and then the tendrils which are supper easy and go really fast. Then I will be all done with the embroidered part of this project! 

I managed to get four of the base blocks done for mom's crazy quilt, out of 20 total. I am waiting on a few more things I have in the mail before the embellishing takes place. I am not real sure what I am doing so I may not post pictures of that for awhile! LOL 

Neighborhood sale finds!

I don't usually do yard sales but where I live had a big huge sale this weekend. Of course most of them will be out tomorrow but I have too much to do tomorrow to make it so I thought I would hit the early ones and see if I find anything cool.

In a couple of days I am going to be starting a crazy quilt for my mom, she has always wanted one and I was never comfortable enough to make one until now ( I hope) I will be working with yellow and lavender (think cottage style colors) with a few pinks, blues and all cream/white laces.

I lucked out a few days ago, one of the local quilt shops was having a back room rummage sale and I found a ton of yellow and purple scraps and I also hit Joann's clearance section for more formal yellow/purple fabrics and I did find a few.

And today I found some older costume jewelry, and some little girls Sunday dresses that will be salvaged for the trims and embroidered fabrics. I also came across a 100% silk formal gown in a very pretty light green that is suitable for embroidering on! I figure about 2 yards total salvaged out of the green dress and closer to three out of the five little girls dresses. Not bad since the total price tag was under $10 for all of it!

However, I should find a way to leave the five year old at home! He spent more than I did! He managed to get a race track and several cars for it as well as a beanie baby ( don't ask why! I have no clue!) But at least he is playing with it!

Oh and yes that is the FREE rug I found after cleaning and four days drying! Wyatt loves it, He drives and parks his cars on it! 

Close up of a couple days work!

I hope to have this done in a couple more weeks. It looks like I might finish it soon! Anyway here is the eye candy!

Deal of the Week!

So we live in apartments here and sometimes people throw out completely useful items because of one reason or another. It has been raining here and so I went down to throw out our trash instead of making the boys do it. 

In the trash bin kinda just laying there was a braided rug that I recognized right away, this rug is from Target and it was about $85 new. This one was very gently used as you can see in the picture and since we are going Shabby Chic anyway I figured it was worth washing and seeing if it could be salvaged. Those who know me are familiar with my "just paint it" attitude towards furniture. I have almost furnished my house with free furnature off craigslist ( See the Sewing Chair!) 

After about 20 min soaking in bleach and laundry soap this is what I got! 

Right now it is still drying out hanging in the shower. I will show a better picture when I can lay it out on the floor. Total measurements are 3' x 5' and worth the 20min of washing!

Finally the Leaves are done! AND the Strawberries!

I managed quite a bit of work on this today since it was cold and rainy here I didn't go to the football game. I finished the leaves and the strawberries, vines, and strawberry flower and bud! Next is pansies! Purples and yellows will be nice to work with after all that green and cream. 

The lattice work on the strawberries was harder to keep even than I thought it would be, even though I tried very hard to space all the stitches in gold the right distance apart they still are a little wobbly looking! Oh well, it's my first time so I didn't think it would be perfect. 

More leaves.......

Yes I am still working on leaves. I have been kinda busy these last few days and haven't really gotten much stitching done. I want to have it done before the 1st but I am not sure that will happen since most of the work coming up is not stitches I have done before. And as you can see there is still a lot of drawn areas left to fill in! And I won't even talk about the finishing! LOL

COMING RIGHT ALONG!

This is the progress so far in the last 5 days I really didn't get much done on this but I did manage to paint my sewing table and organize the new shelves I put up in there too. I love the look of mason jars and shabby chic which is good because that's all the budget really allows for these days! 

I did receive an awesome assortment of trims, buttons, and batik fabric from Marie a couple days ago which is so awesome! I have so many new ideas floating around in my head for cool and interesting quilts, embroidery projects, and even one with both! 

So without further delay here is the progress on my current project!

Today's progress - A leaf.

SO I finished the stems yesterday and today I managed the thorns and one leaf. ONE!

The thread I have chosen is very thin and although it is very pretty it is taking forever to fill in the little areas!

AND THE WINNER IS????

REDRODI56

Congrats to you on winning the giveaway for I Pledge  Please email me so I can get your address and get it in the mail to you!

Thank you to everyone who entered! 

Learning Something New

In the light of day after Fairy Idyll I just was not in the mood to stitch another huge cross stitch piece. So I decided to try my hand at something new. Embroidery is something that if done right it is the most beautiful of all embroidery - Of course in my opinion! LOL

I have had this one Inspiration Magazine laying around my house for years and all because of this one project in it that keeps calling me. So I thought before I start my Mette project with my friend Marie I wanted to try this out!  For those of you who don't know what Mette is I will post a pic of the design when we start so you can see that it is enormous!

The Project I have just started is from issue 51 and is on the cover - The Elizabethan Sweet Bag, I won't be making it into a bag but another part to the Fairy Idyll project! Or if it turns out better than I hope for than it will be turned into a needle book for that friend I mentioned up there!

I will be posting a daily picture of progress on this one and PLEASE leave your feedback (good and bad) as to things I could do to improve my embroidery!

I am using all HDF silks and a little petite treasure braid for accent, and stitching on a tone on tone quilters cotton with a layer of muslin behind it. The blue pen marks are on wash away stabilizer and is one of the hints in the book!

All Done! You guys can look now!

So I finally got the binding sewn down and a few hand sewn touches later...... 

WARNING: IMAGES MAY DISTURB SOME STITCHERS!

LOL SO I got bored..... I was in one of those moods where the project your working on has run its course and now all you want to do it throw it away or hide it! Well, I was watching a show, on quilting, and on this show was this really cool idea. 

Now, this really cool idea would entail me having to cut apart a current project and sew it into a quilted book. Never mind that I had been stitching on this project for months and was to the point where a few more hours of beads and backstitch and it would be complete! I had just had it with this project, I didn't really like the way it was shaping up and was curious if this new idea would work. 

It's not quite done yet, I still have binding and button holes to make (which will make sense later!LOL) But here is the process of making what I have done so far! 

BEWARE THE IMAGES ARE DISTURBING!!!

Fairy Idyll - Not quiet completed - MWAHAHAHA

Yes, Yes I did cut it up! FREEHAND!!! (the evil continues!) 

OK, Not so evil! 

See, It's practically all better now!

A few more touches and it will be all over!

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

after the neighbor kids go home;)

My Quilters Mojo Doll Update

I received an email from the editor of Quilters Home magazine today! They are asking that all entries into the Mojo Doll contest be sent in by June 5th! So off I went to the mail today and got her on her way to them, I am keeping my fingers crossed!!!! They are giving away prizes and also putting pictures in the OCT/NOV issue of quilters home of some of the dolls!!! How cool is that!

I can't wait to see if she makes it into the magazine or even wins a prize!!

Freebie! I Pledge

For the first freebie I wanted something small, I choose a Biscornu since most stitchers have been brave enough to already stitch one. If you do download this freebie and read through the pattern instructions and see any problems please let me know so I can fix them!

The story behind this design is not all that interesting but I though you might like to know. I was uploading my Cross stitch program to my "new" computer and decided to play around with it a little and see what happened. Well before long I had the top to this design done and started on the bottom. After completing the stitching part of the design I found the publishing button!!! How exciting - it almost looks professional! I am still learning the ins and outs of the program but have found it really easy and fun to use.

There is a few fun facts listed on the PDF about our Pledge and why the one on the Biscornu doesn't match what we know today!

You can find the link to the PDF on the Freebies tab at the top of my blog. Don't forget to enter the Giveaway for the Finished Biscornu!!! All the details are listed on those pages!

PATTERN AVAILABLE ON FREEBIE PAGE!

What a Face!

Ok so this afternoon I asked my son to take out the garbage, Well he came running back in talking about a baby bunny he saw and wanted to take a picture of it. So off he went with all of his brothers behind him to go see this baby bunny. One of my sons came back in and said that his older brother was petting this baby bunny, so I had to go see if it was dead! (they are boys!) well it wasn't dead and I don't think it is sick however it must be kinda dumb because he had climbed up one flight of stairs and was sitting there letting my four boys crowd around him, petting him and everything.

Well, I can't just leave this little guy out in the hallway and I don't think he would make it down the stairs. Afraid that he would become cat food I brought him in the house. After the thumbs up from the hubby we are keeping this little guy and named him skittles (yes after the candy) so here are some pics of this tiny little bunny, BTW the second picture is the bunny and my son Daltons pet hamster who is a Dwarf Russian Hamster just so you can tell how truly tiny this guy is!

Here are some pics of my new stitching chair! Got to LOVE Craigslist! It was free and even matches all of my rose and green stitching boxes! LOL

Minor setback!!

I few days ago my little computer crashed, on this little computer was not only all of my favorite sites but also the freebie pattern I had designed not to mention a crap load of photos! Well I managed to get the computer restored to the factory settings but that doesn't help in the other departments.

I had already started the freebie and part of it stitched so I used that little part as a starting point and I believe  I have restored the pattern and I am almost through stitching the red on the front. YEAH! So there will still be a freebie and give away in the next week or so!

Contest sampler start!

I finally decided what to use for the Wienhenburg sampler contest! Silkweavers 40ct opalescent Newcastle linen hand dyed called Winter Skye, and HDF d-bag silk in single strand that just happens to match Hints of Rue that I have three six ply skeins of!

Here's the first motif!