Valentine Emery Freebie

Valentine Emery
Click here for Pattern

Fair and Square Winter Round

I heard from Sonda M. today that she has received my squares. I think that's the longest journey to the USA that my squares have taken. It took them 2 weeks to get to Oregon but I am thankful they are there safely and that Sonda likes them so much. These were so fun to stitch. This was a freebie but I have no idea where it was from because there is no website printed on the pattern so if anyone knows, can you please let me know?

Now the Easter round has begun so I need to stitch those up, but what to stitch? I am going to have to dig through all my patterns I think.

Happy Stitching!

New Vermillion Stitchery design!

They have started the new designs for 2009 called the Door Series. Click here and then click on sample designs to download your copy of the 1st door. This is definitely going into my to do pile.


PLEASE BEAR WITH ME AS I CHANGE MY TEMPLATE AND RE ADD ALL MY LOST STUFF.

MLOTS and Cat in Window

I finally got a scroll frame! Paid something like $45 from ebay for one that comes with three sizes of scroll bars and two sizes for the height part. Anyway I spent the entire weekend adding beads to every area I was forced to skip because I had a hoop. So now I am done for now with the beading. I am now back to stitching on her but am so happy I can now add the beads as I go without worry that they will be broken from a hoop plus I love this scroll frame! I am going to wait on the outline of her hand until I complete her face and her other hand so I can do it all at once.

101 Granny Squares pg 90
Cat In The Window Potholder
Finished Jan 2009
Crocheted

I fnished this cute potholder last week but i spaced on snapping a photo and blogging about it. I had the intent on sending it to my older sister but the girls loved it so much they insisted on us keeping it here.

Round 11 and Basketball

Here is Kiley holding her trophy and certificate for Instructional basketball. The season is over and she loved every moment of playing. The bottom picture is Destiny being a goofball while awaiting practice to end. The coach is hoping that they let her do a season of soccer so the girls have something to do this spring as all the spring sports are more for the boys. I hope they let her cause cheerleading for Destiny also ends next week and that means they are done with sports till the fall as nothing is offered during the summer for whatever reason. But they could both do soccer if they allow the basketball coach to do it. Destiny still has Brownie scouts till May though. And this Saturday and Sunday we have cookie sales at the shoppette!

Here is my Fair and Square Exchange Round 11 to Veronique D. (no Blog). I am so glad you liked them Veronique as they were a joy to stitch for you. :)
EDITED TO ADD: This was a from from here called Plant Kindness

As for my hat I was crocheting in the multicolored wool yarn, I ran out, its taking more than the pattern said it would. The pattern is a freebie and I am not sure if it was actually tested but oh well I will order more wool yarn today and finish it later. I did start on another hat out of a book I have and I know I have more than enough yarn. You'll see that probably sometime next week as I am itching to pull out MLOTS again. I do have errands to run today but DH has staff duty all day Sunday again so if anything I will get lots of stitching done that day. Today I have laundry to do and Destiny is home as there is no school for some weird reason today.

Happy Stitching!

Lots of pics!

Here is MLOTS as of Friday. I had put her away to work on a gift but then decided it would be better for my older DS to do it and give it as she is low on funds atm. So then I decided to pull out some yarn and crochet. Can you tell what it is or going to be? Its being done with Lion Wool Prints - Flower Garden. Its a freebie hat pattern. My winter hat from last year was lost somewhere and I have yet to buy a new one so I thought I would just crochet myself one. :)

Above is my girls, just doing some coloring and being cute :) and below is Bobby and Michael, they haven't been shown in awhile so I thought I would post a photo of them I took a week ago. Their cage was cleaned out later in the day and food refilled, I just had the camera in my hand that morning.

And look at the snow we got this weekend! It came down in fast huge chunks. The girls were thrilled as they wanted to make a snowman with daddy the next day. But later on it rained and it is all now melted. My Geraniums that I have indoors are starting to flower surprisingly. :) And Below is Kiley at her Instructional basketball practice. This Tuesday the 27th is her last practice before the season ends. The bottom pic is Destiny waiting to go home after the kids have their snack, she is watching the older kids play basketball.

MLOTS

Alright so I used my digital camera this morning to take a picture of this and then realized that my camera cord to connect it to the computer was buried in a cabinet with a ton of other cords thanks to DH so I just didn't want to dig through them this morning. So onto the scanner it went. As you can see its a bit too big to get it all on the scanner so this is just what fit. Anyway everything up top the straight line is what i have done over the past week or so. I was looking through my WIP pics of this and I had started this on Feb 8, 2008 can you believe its been nearly a year? I hadn't realized I had this that long.

Today I have to take Kiley to school for her 30 minute session and then wait another half hour for Destiny to be released. Then I am on my way to the post office to mail out my fair and square exchanges and then run to our PO box to see if anything came in and then rushing back towards the house and stopping and the JFK Gym for Kiley's basketball practice before I can come home and make dinner and get Destiny working on her homework.

This weekend we washed all the kids clothes and came to realize that Kiley has enough clothes that they fill up 2 large dressers and than most of her closet so we have started the process of going through them and seeing which ones can go to donation. We are hoping to get rid of about half of them. DH also has a new commander and he has decided to visit every families home to meet spouses and kids. Sounds nice right? Well its not at least to me. You see I never have to deal with commanders and to me it sounds like a house inspection more than a visit. Cause really he could have just had some kind of event at the JFK gym or pendleton field and met us there. So now DH has gone a cleaning spree throughout our house to be sure everything is spotless and I am expected to be home everyday all day until he arrives which we have no idea which day. DH has what they call nesting syndrome throughout the weekend which isn't bad and all but I think I am just more irritated that I have to be home the entire time. Oh well, guess I should be able to get in some good stitching time, right?

So how was everyone else's weekend?

Alright, this weekend I did get some stitching done. I completed my 2 signature squares for the first two exchanges of 2009. So yay! Sorry you will have to wait till they receive it before you can view what I stitched for them. Hopefully i can get to the post office on Tuesday to get them out. DH has gone to play poker with the boys tonight and the girls are tucked into their beds, not quite asleep yet so i may have to poke my head in and see if I can quiet them down a bit. Anyway I think I am going to put on a movie and stitch on MLOTS. I also want to get a scroll frame where the fabric fits inbetween two pieces of the scroll so you dont have to baste or velcro the fabric to it. Does anyone know a good one? I want one I can sit on the couch with.

Boo Fucking Hoo

Subversive Cross Stitch
28 count Cashel Linen
Paradise Blue
Completed January 16, 2009

Here's another one completed. Chloe yes I thought Bite Me fit perfectly for my DH, lol. And this one I must say to the girls so many times on the weekends especially. :P

Bite Me

Subversive Cross Stitch
Bite Me
Completed: January 15, 2009
32 count white Belfast Linen

So here is my first Completion from my new book and of the year that I can show you. Though this is finish number three. This was quick and fun, I may do another from this book though I have no idea what to finish them into so into the completed and not finished into anything pile it goes. I did complete my 2 exchanges except for the signature squares which I am not in the mood to stitch right now. But I still have plenty of time before the send out date.

Okay so I have had my first finish of the year and today should actually have my second finish too but I can't show them to you yet. They are both for my Fair and square exchanges. I have finished one main square and will finish my 2nd main square today. And then over the next few days I should be able to get my signature squares completed. I know they are not due out until Feb 23rd but I really became inspired to work on them and the first one just flew by plus it was nice to get a little break from MLOTS. I also got a new book in too that I completely forgot I had even ordered until I opened up the package, lol. Have that ever happened to you? Well here is the book I bought. I certainly laughed reading through all the sayings and even DH was laughing as I read them out loud. I ordered from Amazon which seems to be where I am ordering a lot of my stuff lately. Anyway as soon as these 2 exchanges are completed I am plan on stitching a few of these up. But I do have one thing ahead of all others. I found out a few days ago that the Elementary school nurses birthday is on Jan 25th She goes out of her way to care for Destiny and has even stopped onher way to the school to pick up Destiny for school so she is not walking in these freezing tempatures (DH takes the car to PT each morning and is not home in time to drive her himself). She has even taken both girls for a sleepover and buys them gifts on their birthdays and christmas. She has become their extended Grandma and so I want to do something special for her. She isn't married anymore and has no children so she is alone up here as what family she has lives in Chicago. So tonight I am going to find something I can stitch up for her and may even put my exchanges aside so I can make sure to complete my gift in time. I can show that one here cause I know she don't read my blog. :)

My Completed Projects from 2008

So all in all I completed:

1 Plastic Canvas
8 Crochet
27 Cross stitch.

Not too bad. :) I do plan to do the Fair and square exchanges again this year. Their are 14 total throughout the year and I have already signed up for three of them. I plan to work on them in between MLOTS and whatever else calls to me. Should keep me busy this year.

My Lady Of Snow

So here she is as of last night. I have finished across from her. I put a box on the section I just completed so you can kind of see the amount that is completed on her. I am working my way up before I go about finishing her dress below. So yes soon enough she will have a head and even the owl will be there though I am not sure how about putting the owl on cause her entire arm is beads and you all know I do those last so I may have to put some stitches in just so I can count correctly on her hand and owl placement and then remove the stitches afterward.

Destiny had her Optometry appointment today and the Dr dilated her eyes with three different drops so she is blind for the day. Well at least on the part of seeing up close. So I decided to keep her home today and she will return tomorrow. She even got those cool sunglasses, lol. He said her eyes are very healthy so yay! No glasses!

Anyone get any snow? We did! We got about 2 to 4 inches yesterday and another couple of inches overnight. They delayed school by 2 hours yesterday but everything is on time today.

Christmas and stitching

So here is a few Christmas pictures. I made this cherry pie from scratch and everybody loved it. I also made German cookies for the first time and DH's grandparents loved them so much they took some home! Huge compliment for me. :) Everybody had a great time and the kids were drowning in gifts as they had pressies sent from Wyoming and Texas from family. By the evening we were all ready for an early bedtime. How was everyone's Christmas?
And here is My lady of snow. The dark blue part on the left extends all to the width of her dress at this part so as soon as this area is complete I plan to stitch upwards and work towards her head and the owl. I also ordered a scroll frame so i can hopefully put her on it and be able to attach the beads as I go so there won't be a bunch of emtpy spaces.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year everyone! Don't forget to track Santa, Heres a free tracker: Here

I'll have stitching to show later along with some Christmas photos. I just am in the middle of baking and so I don't want to touch my fabric or camera.

My Lady of Snow and Cheerleading

Wow 2 weeks since my last post. I'm so sorry everyone. I just have not felt like blogging at all lately. I feel tired continously since DH has been home. He has managed to throw our entire sleep schedule off track and well you all know how that is. Anyway hopefully aftrer this week I will be fine again as he returns to work on the 22nd.

So I have pulled out My lady of Snow. With winter and all the snow here I feel like that was what I should be working on too. I have worked on her for nearly a week now and so I have made some progress. I finished page 1 and I believe theres about 5 or 6 pages. Well it comes as one giant page but its about 5 or 6 pages once I was done making my working copy. Anyway this is her middle area and its almost done across and then I am going to work my way up. The empty areas are where the beads go but I am using a hoop and so I can't put the beads on yet. I am trying to convince DH to buy me a scroll frame cause I want to put her on this so I could bead as I go too.Destiny has started cheerleading and absolutely loves it! She has 2 games a week and 2 practices a week. So she is fairly tired when she comes home each night. They cheer at the Elementary school for each game which is the peewee league for basketball. The top picture I had told her to pose so I can snap a photo of her in her new outfit and this is how she decided to strike her pose. I think she will be a cheerleader for life, lol.

And this final picture, lol. Well I know you are wondering if we were high or something doing this. But truly it was done for Brownie girl scouts. She did this to help earn her science try its patch. We put vinegar in the bottom of a soda bottle and 2 TBSP of baking soda in the balloon, attach the balloon, tilt balloon upward to make baking soda fall into bottle and presto! the balloon expands! Destiny was thrilled as was I! Do you see the snowman? Well I bought us mother daughter aprons as Destiny now being 7 is learning to cook and she has so much fun. I have some pics of her making pancakes and helping cook Thanksgiving too but will post those later.

Okay so Kiley starts Basketball on Tuesday and so I will blog on Wednesday along with another stitch pic too and perhaps a pic of my xmas tree. I actually found sugar free candy canes for Destiny. Actually I found a whole site dedicated to sugar free candies which yay! Now Destiny can have some variety.

How was everyones Thanksgiving? Are you all ready for Christmas? I just have to buy groceries for the meal but otherwise I am ready. I still have a few presents to wrap and am waiting on a package from my family in Wyoming. But we have decorated the house and the balcony is plain because our power went out there and we need an electrition to come fix it. Anyway I will end this long post now.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Wow almost 2 weeks since my last post. Sorry everyone. I finished book 3 and 4 of the twilight series. loved it all. I have to say this is a must read. Anyway my desktop crashed. Its dead and headed for desktop heaven, lol. So I am using my husbands laptop till we buy our new desktop which could be today or tomorrow unless we order one online.

we finished our xmas shopping for the kids too and I have most of them wrapped and under the tree. I would share pics but I am not entirely sure how to do it on this laptop.

I have stitched a little bit on my lady of snow but not too much and i picked up my crocheting again. I did about another 15 more rows on the blanket I have been working on.

I have been sick for 2 weeks now. I have this chronic cough and chest congestion thing going on, a friend of mine who is a nurse said I sounded like I have a bronchial infection. Oh yay! I am doing a bit better but still run down and I have a chronic cough so I haven't felt like blogging or even crafting too terribly much. Just trying to get xmas presents done and my family's into the mail.

Can you believe its already December? Has everyone put up their xmas decorations yet? we put up a lot of ours but we need to go buy new lights for outside.

I also recieved my round 10 fair and square squares too. :)

Birthday, doll, and Christmas

Happy 7th Birthday sweetie!
November 14, 2008

Here is my Fair and Square Christmas Round from Jennifer B. above and my Fair and Square Round 10 to Joan S below
And here is the doll I crocheted for Kiley. remember me telling you I was making this one and ran out of yarn for her arms. Well it came in and so I finished her up today.
I also made 3 loaves of banana Nut bread today. This is my all time fav recipe. It comes from my Grandma on my mothers side. I make this every Thanksgiving and Christmas though anytime your in the mood for it you could make it. Here is the recipe for it too in case anyone wants to try it out. Please let me know if you do and what you think.

Fair and Square Christmas Round

Here they are. They were sent to Jennifer B. who also has a love of snowmen like myself. I am thrilled you like them! Sorry they are not ironed in this pic but they are on Jennifer's blog. I had to snap off a quick pic as I was on my way to the post office that day.

Just wondering where the Round 10 squares are now as I mailed them the same day and they both went to the USA......

Collecting Shells and an apple crumble

Here is she again. What you see done outside her is what i have done over the last 2 days. There is so much to do above her I truly wonder if this will be finished in 2008 or if it will be a 2009 finish. I am guessing more like 2009 unless I ONLY work on this for the remainder of the year.

Here is the Southern Apple crumble I made last night for dessert. This is a huge hit with everyone so I felt I had to finally share it with you all. :) Mine also has chocolate chips because it calls for an oatmeal cookie mix and the only one we have at the PX comes with chocolate chips and I never feel like picking them out, besides a little chocolate never hurt anyone right? The recipe is here. I always add extra nuts too as I love that crunch they give mixed with the warm gooey apples.

So huge history was made obama won! Happy days right? No I am so upset. He wants to take away military raises. Excuse me but our soldiers risk there lives everyday out there and deserve every penny earned and its not like they were that much in the first place but still. Everyone deserves a yearly raise. Not to mention he wants to remove the US flag from the uniform and get rid of our national anthem! Where the hell is your American pride Obama???

Okay rant about politics is so over!

Anyway, I did pick up an old WIP. My collecting shells one. You see at the beginning of the year on one of the groups I belonged to we were all challenged to finish some WIP that was at least 1 year old. Well this one I have had since Destiny was a baby and she is going to be 7 on the 14th so yes its over 6 years old! Thats insane for a medium project. Anyway I have most of the girl finished and decided to get some of the background in. I just picked it up last night so not too much to show yet. Maybe I can post a pic up tomorrow but I really am going to just abandoned all other WIP's right now and work on collecting shells so I can just be done with it. The crafting bug just isn't there too much lately as I am stressing over everything! DH leaves for Haz 11 training on the 16th thru the 20th and that we have to pay for up front and its appr $600.00 USD We don't have the money for it so DH is looking to get an advance for it. Granted we will get paid back for it so not a huge deal but right in the middle with holidays and all the extra money that gets spent during this time of year. Lets just say that I think book 3 and 4 of the Twilight series was my last purchase for me for the year.

Destiny has the next 6 days off of school for whatever their stupid reasoning for it was and she has already started by fighting with her sister non stop today! I am at the point where my head is going to explode! We have also had moving trucks and people non stop in and out of our building as 2 families are PCSing. And since we live on the first floor the movers can't help but bump our doorbell a million times a day. Its too bad I cannot disconnect it. I am so tired lately too perhaps from all the stress is all I can figure. I will be better after xmas is over. Things can return to normal.

Has anyone started their fall decorating? I realised this year that I have next to no autumn decorations....I wonder why that is. Anyway I may have to try and remedy that this year.

Vote for Me Please

Please click on the link below and vote for me. Thank you everyone!

Halloween Pictures!

Well here are my cuties in there costumes this year. Destiny definitely got into character with her Cinderella princess. I was definitely ready to de thrown the little princess by the time we arrived home from trick or treating. We started our day by running some errands which meant walking all over post so I grabbed the girls some BK on the way home for lunch. Then we had to clean the house which Destiny wined that we wouldn't have enough time! But we still had 3 hours before trick or treating began which meant 2 hours for cleaning, dinner and making sure sugar levels were good enough for Destiny to go out walking for trick or treating. DH had staff duty which is a 24 hour shift so he couldn't go with us again this year. Our evening was interesting enough. In fact we had a fun conversation on the way to our friends house before trick or treating.
On the way out the door:

Me: Destiny take your coat its going to get cold

Destiny: But I am hot, I don't want it

Me: take it anyway I don't want you getting sick

Destiny: rolls her eyes and grabs her coat

We cross the street

Destiny: mom can you carry my coat?

Me: no you can put it on

Destiny: No, Cinderella doesn't wear a coat

Me: No but Cinderella doesn't go trick or treating either

Destiny: Well Cinderella has servants to carry all her stuff

Me: Destiny, we are not your servants so carry your own coat

Destiny: Well if I were rich I would have my own servants

Me: That gives you something to shoot for then doesn't it?

The rest of the evening went on like this with her telling us what Cinderella does and doesn't do and with a snobbish attitude. I was on my last nerve by the time we arrived home. Poor Kiley was exhausted too. She was complaining her legs hurt so she fell asleep quickly when we got home. They loved carving there pumpkins too. Kiley picked out the window with the kitty, spider and pumpkin which I traced out onto the pumpkin and daddy carved out. The girls both cleaned out the inside guts too. Destiny wanted to do a twilight them so we made up a vampire about to bite a girls neck. she loved it! We made cinnamon and sugar seeds too which turned out pretty good. :) I am so glad Halloween is over, this one was the most tiring yet.

I did start crocheting a baby doll for Kiley but ran out of yarn for her arms so i ordered some on payday and will finish it up when it arrives. I didn't take any pics though. I also pulled out some yarn to crochet me a top but am not sure I like it too much and may scrap the project all together. DH bought me some drawers and shelves for my stitching and crocheting supplies and made sure I had plenty of extra room for when I buy more! I am so happy! Though I am not sure what to work on next as I need to finish up some gifts to get sent out next payday so they arrive by xmas at their destinations which means I won't have too much to show you all.

I'm sorry I am not commenting on all your blogs. I am reading them but as my life is a bit busy right now I don't have too much time on the computer each day. Thank you for all your comments though, I really do appreciate them so very much!

As for everyone who loves my Mr and Mrs snowman. I bought the kit here