Fair and Square Spring Round

Here is the Fair and Square Spring Round I sent to Renee. I was getting worried as it took longer I guess to reach its destination than normal. She is happy for the bright and cheery spring flowers I sent her. One of the flowers was originally blue but as she hates blue, I simply changed it to a cheery purple.

As for other things, I am slowly crocheting the baby blanket but not doing much else as I am dealing with a continuous migraine no matter what or how much meds I pop. Plus both girls have turned off their listening ears (as the school calls it) since dad left last Monday and so I find myself repeating myself multiple times and wanting to rip out my hair. Oh! And DH broke his cell phone and told me he wants to spend 350 Euros on a new blackberry!!!! I nearly fell out of my seat as there is no way we can afford that!

Coffin Buzz Completed!!!

Coffin Buzz
Freebie from Plum Street Samplers
Completed: April 25, 2008
32 count Silkweaver Paradise Blue
DMC 828

That's right! Yesterday I sat down and put on some shows I was behind on and said to myself "I am not moving until this piece is finally finished!" And you know what? I didn't! Boy I had to pee afterwards, LOL. Anyway i washed it this morning to remove the spilt crystal light DH had done to it last week and here it is all laid out drying on a towel waiting to be turned into a flatfold. Though I realize now that it is going to be a big flatfold. I did adjust the year though as it is no longer 2008 but 2009.

Now I have cleaned my house up this morning. I just have to wash and dry my laundry which will postponed as I feel like stitching some more! I did crochet a few rows on the baby blanket as well but then I came across a tangled area and after messing with it for awhile, I gave up. I don't feel like going back to MLOTS just yet so I am off to see what I feel like working on. ^_^

TUSAL and Fair and Square Round 12

Well, here is my TUSAL this month. Yes, Kiley decorated it with stickers. I haven't done too much stitching this month but I plan to do lots this weekend. For more info on the click here

Yoyo - The DeFac wouldn't give me a large jar, I tried them both, I swear. They basically said for all they know I plan to smash it in the streets. Do I look devious to you? But I am going to go off post next Friday to the German stores and am hunting for a large jar no matter whats inside! LOL

I also saw today that Marg F. received my Fair and Square Round 12 squares and so now I can also show you these. Glad you liked them Marg. This was the Quaker hedgehog freebie by The Workbasket.

I wonder where my Spring Round has gone too now as it was mailed out on the exact same day and was only going to south Carolina. Normally it only takes like 7 days for it to reach anywhere in the USA......

To answer the questions about Bob the guinea pig. He is doing great! So he gets to stay and we decided to leave his name the same. Their are no fights or anything with them, its like he was there from the beginning. ^_^


And now I leave you with a picture I thought too funny not to take. Kiley fell asleep on the couch last week with one finger in her ear and in the other hand is a straw from the juice box you see on the floor next to her.

TGIF!

Okay so since DH left on Monday at 0400, I haven't stitched or crocheted. I'm not sleeping too much but have been getting lots of housework done. Last night we had a meeting with Staff SGT King to discuss housing stuff and turns out our building is doing awesome but now is the time they are starting to come and inspect your house or I should say apartment as thats what we are in. So besides catching up on needed laundry, I have been trying to keep the house spotless. But with Kiley and Batista I feel like they are forever seeing how they can dirty the house so I am cleaning up after them and trying to take them to the dog park to wear out both kid and puppy.

So anyway I am sharing a cross stitch design I finished years ago but that I still love so much. Its not framed yet as its rather big and there are no framers here so when I go back to the states I will take it to hobby lobby and have them frame it. its 10 in High x 20 in Wide and done on 18 count oatmeal fiddlers cloth. I love that stuff besides linen of course. It took me 12 weeks to complete it. At the time I was only working on one project at a time. I kind of feel like I need to go back to that, maybe I can get something accomplished then, lol.

Anyway just my room is left to clean today and of course the kitchen again but then I plan to stitch on coffin buzz. In fact, I plan to spend my entire weekend watching TV shows and stitching!

So have a great weekend everyone! I'll try and catch up on blog reading too this weekend.

Life Is A Stitch

Life Is A Stitch
Helga Mandl Designs
July 2008 issue of The Gift Of Stitching
32 count Silkweaver Linen
Completed: April 18, 2009
plans: Flatfold maybe...

In other news, today I have made it over the 5 lbs lost mark! I'm so happy!

Stitch For A Cure

Donna has created a blog called Stitch For A Cure, here's a short description I stole from her blog:

What is stitching for a cure? It is a year long project to help save lives. We are stitching ornaments to decorate a tree that will be raffled off in November 2009. The money raised will go to American Cancer Society. We want to raise $5000 with this project. If you are interested in helping, please choose a pattern from the right side of this blog and stitch an ornament.

I plan to stitch up a couple to send along and hope you all will join me in this.

Fair and Square Round 12

Today I received my squares from Margie F. She apologized for them being simple but no worries Margie, I think their pretty!

I also mailed out my Round 12 to Margie and my Spring round too so now I am waiting for Round 13 to start up. ^_^

Oh! I also received my package from my floss mom Tracy, she sent so much extras! What a sweetie! What would I ever do without you? So now I can pull out Coffin Buzz and finish it! Woohoo! Though I do have another small project I started on yesterday and want to complete so I will do that tonight and pull out Coffin Buzz tomorrow.

Happy Birthday!

Happy 29th Birthday my love! May all your wishes come true!

Easter Egg Hunt and a baby blanket

How was everyone's Easter Sunday? Ours was pretty good. The Saturday before our post held an Easter egg hunt for all the kids on post and separated them by age group. Luckily our neighbors went with us and since our kids are about the same age, we took the older ones and they took the 2 younger ones. Here they are afterward showing off all the eggs they collected. They had a blast and then spent all evening playing out in the front yard till 930 pm! Time sure flies when your having fun as DH and I were socializing with the neighbors and completely didn't notice the time! We all had late suppers then, LOL. Easter Sunday we ate early and the kids played some more with the neighborhood kids and we spent the day relaxing and enjoying the wonderful weather. I got my two fair and square exchanges completed also along with a little more of the baby blanket done up, though I do still have a ways to go with it. So i am off to stitch up one more thing that I need to mail out on payday this Wednesday. I'll show it to you when it arrives where its suppose to. ^_^

Easter Festivities

So today we decided it was time for Easter preparations. The girls got to dye 5 eggs each as I didn't want all my eggs hard boiled. They had a blast!


And then we made Easter cookies! Okay I cheated this year I bought those pre made packaged ones that Pillsbury sells in the fridge section. So I popped them into the oven this afternoon and here they are 4 dozen cookies later. Kiley's expression about not getting another cookie.And Batista the entire time was sleeping under our dining room table. Yes I know my floors are scratched. They need to be waxed and buffed badly. Sadly it won't happen until the movers come and take all our stuff from our house next year.

Did you notice I changed my blog? What do you think? Better? So if I don't post before Sunday. Everyone have a Happy Easter!

Bob and a new blogger

We got a new pet! Yes he is a guinea pig. His name is Bob but the girls want to change it. Our upstairs neighbor had him before but as he was being mean to the other 2 she had, he had to find a new home. I told her he could try living with us for a bit and if he can get along with the bunnies then he could stay. He is a year old right now and about 12 inches long. Thankfully we have a big cage so it should all be fine. Batitsta wants so bad to play with him and smelled him instantly when I brought him inside. ^_^

As for the new blogger its my older sis, Lynnette. She stitches too like most of us but hasn't done it too much lately. Anyway she posted her first entry which is nearly a novel itself. But if your up to it, you can see her blog here.

I have no stitching or crocheting to show you today as I am still working on my fair and square rounds and then a birthday gift so it may be a week before you see any crafting pics up unless I get bored or something. Hey I am a woman and I do change my mind as much as the hour of the day changes.

4.5 lbs lost! Woohoo!!

I stitched up 1 signature square last night and started the second one for my 2 Fair and Square Exchanges. Then I am off to stitch the main squares and a Bday gift for a certain someone...

Erynne has a new freebie posted today. Its a pretty wintery scene. She is getting so much snow there. Freebie is here


EDITED TO ADD:

This afternoon we went to the library to see the Easter Bunny, color plastic eggs, and get read some Easter stories. We had a blast except Kiley was freaked out by the size of the Easter bunny even when he took his head off and showed her he was only a man in a suit she refused to take a pic with him. Anyway here is our afternoon there though I forgot to snap pics of storytime. And you see the red and yellow puppet theater in the back? Apparently we won enough awards for the library they got to add that. ^_^
And when we arrived home the girls had to be cute and pose with Bobby and Michael. ^_^ ahem, please excuse the mess behind them. We uh uh were having a lot of fun today and haven't cleaned up. Um yea, that's our story and we're sticking to it!

Destiny decided to start her own blog so I hope you all will pop on over and send her some encouragement. I am helping her design her blog which we will work on more tomorrow so its called Princesses and Mermaids, pls drop on by.

MLOTS, beads, a blanket and the rain!

First I want to say thank you to all the kind comments about my horrible day. The rest of my week was a lot better. DH didn't arrive home until midnight Thursday night so he slept most of Friday morning (good thing it was a 4 day weekend for him) Friday evening DH returned home from the post office with my monthly ornaments so this month was beading. Destiny helped do up the dark blue one, she did good. ^_^ She enjoyed it so much she asked if I would order some more for her to do so I guess I will have to look into it. ^_^My moms plane ticket was also bought and paid for so she will be arriving in Frankfurt at 0745 June 12th. We will all have to get up extremely early to go pick her up but thats ok as the kids and I can dose while DH drives and I am sure he will just go to bed early the night before. We have plans to spend the day in Frankfurt as my mom said we have family there?? I don't know them and I don't know if she knows them personally or if they are long lost relatives from my grandpa Bolte's side. It also rained this past Saturday like cats and dogs but that apparently didn't stop the candy man! LOL I had to snap a pic to show you all. For everyone in the USA, the candy man here is like the ice cream man there. He has his music and drives around post selling German candies, mainly gummy candies. Kiley had to comeo out onto the patio and jump into my picture as well. ^_^ And if your curious what our car looks like, its the green mitsubishi you see by Kiley's head.

And here is MLOTS as of this morning. I worked on her most of the weekend trying to finish up her cape. I was going to bead her arm and the top part of her outfit before starting on her skin colors but for the life of me could not find a bead needle that would work with the small beads. I have no idea what i did with the one I used before. So I think on the 15th I will be placing an order with 123stitch.
Here is a baby balnket I started for Lynnette's baby. I figure if she has a girl a will weave in some pick ribbon in certain places to girl it up some more. I have no idea why its making this wierd shape so I am hoping that once its finished and I wash it and block it, it will be okay. And I leave you with a picture of dear Destiny stitching on her Chinese Boy this morning. Please excuse the multiple stuff around her, as we were doing crafts in the living room all weekend. Ok I am off to work on my next two exchanges as I want to run to the post office with them on the 15th.

Happy Stitching!

My horrible Tuesday

Well, today started out good. I got Destiny off to school and then started re designing my little sisters blog per her request. Kiley dozed off so I went to take a cat nap and slept a few more hours. Got up and finished Heather's blog up and sent her email saying it was finished. Destiny arrived home with a note saying Ballet was at last starting up again but registration was last Friday! so I anxiously call and asked if they still had a slot open, yay they did and only $30 USD a month! woohoo! Sure beats the $80 USD a month CYS wanted. So I find out that 1st grades 1st practice is in like 2 minutes! So we rush down there and I shove her into class late. I even got Kiley registered and found out 4 yr old ballet is right after 1st grades so yay! So I come home afterwards at 530 pm get the kids fed and take Batista and the kids to play at friendship park till 8 pm and come home. Remember I told you DH was at training? Well, he says for me to call him and so I have tried and tried but no answer! I even texted him and nothing!

Did I mention the killer migraine I had this afternoon? It was so bad that light hurt and I was sick to my stomach from the pain. I popped 2 excedrin migraine when we got home from Ballet and then 2 more 20 minutes later just to kill it enough to take the kids outside. I'm alright now thankfully so tonight I am popping in a movie and working on MLOTS as she didn't get touched yesterday.

I hope your Tuesdays turn out better. Thanks for letting me rant.

MLOTS

I got some awesome stitching time in this weekend! So happy BTW. Here she is as of now. I mainly worked on the stitches using Petite Treasure Braid so all the new white you see is sparkly. ^_^ I plan to continue working on her today as well. DH asked me yesterday if "I was ever going to finish her as I have been working on her for a long time" I told him yes I will. I was afraid to tell him how long I had been actually working on her as he complains I have too many WIP's. Though really I don't, he doesn't always see when they are completed so he has only seen me working on them and when I start a new one.

DH is in graff this week for training and will not return till Thursday.

Next week is spring break for the kids and there is only a four day week this week as its a 4 day weekend this weekend. yipee!

How was everyone's weekend?

Today I had a complete blond moment. I was making this post this morning and my internet dropped out. I restarted the computer, restarted the broadband box and everything I could think of and still nothing so I do my errands, take the dog out, come in and clean up and then call TKS (our phone and internet company) and he has me check all the cords to the computer and the box and it turns out the internet cord was half plugged in. It must have been pulled on when Batitsta went under the desk, LOL I felt so stupid! Don't you check the cords first? I bet that tech was laughing at me as I sure was!

Batitsta went to the vet today too. He got his third distemper shot and his first rabies shot. One in each thigh of his back legs. He needed to be at least 15 weeks old before he could get his rabies vaccination. They weighed him and he is up to 37 lbs! He is gaining about 7 lbs every two weeks since we got him. And yes he is big enough now that he can jump on our oversized california king bed which made him so happy he tinkled on my bedspread! ewww! Luckily it didn't soak through any farther. Okay I know TMFI.

Happy Stitching!

Oh! If anyone doesn't like stitching on linen then you can always use evenweave to stitch a square for her baby blanket.

Barbie PJ's and Totally Useless SAL

Suzie posted a cute PJ pattern for barbie so I showed the girls and they liked it so I made them each a one in different colors. Pattern is here and here are the ones I crocheted:

Also it is that time again to post our Totally Useless SAL (info and sign up is here) so here is mine:
I did a bunch of crocheting and started a few new skeins of DMC floss so there are the labels for them in there along with many new orts and yarns. I may be able to fit some more orts into there before I have to go hunt for a new container. Hmm at this rate it could be a new container a month, wow! Where am I going to store it all? DH is going to think I am crazier than I already am for not just tossing it out and re using the same container, LOL.

MLOTS and a HUGE favor to ask

Okay so after seeing Felicity's beautiful mermaid yesterday it made me feel guilty for not continuing to work on MLOTS and it also gave me the motivation I needed to pull her off the shelf and get working on her. So i got in several stitches while watching Pirates of the Caribbean At worlds end for like the millionth time. Don't ask what my obsession is with that movie but to me its a good noise maker while I stitch away. Plus I like the pirate song, LOL. Okay back to MLOTS, I am debating about doing all the beading on her arm and then doing her hand or if I should continue the stitching of her cape. I guess I will stitch her cape and when I get bored I will go to the beading and that should mix things up a bit. I looked in my WIP folder and the first picture I took of this was Feb 4, 2008! I was in shock I had been working on her this long. I really need to get her completed.


I was going through my stash a few weeks ago and found tons of old WIP's that had become UFO's and no longer held my interest along with aida cloth that I really did not want anymore as I am absolutely in love with linen period. So i packed it all away and $15 USD in postage later my older sis had some new to her stash. Most of the aida was still new in package. Her budget is zero right now so I felt she needed a stash boost. She loses her internet today as well. She is the one I told you all is pregnant with her first kid. Found out its due on Halloween! The economy is so hard right now that she is having some serious issues finding a job, her bf works a lot but is still having issues making ends meet. They have to move to a more child friendly place too as they live in a tiny tiny 1 bedroom apartment. She has WIC to help a little bit but food stamps claims she makes too much money for any kind of help.


Okay anyway. Thanks for reading about my sob story about my sis. I am going to work on MLOTS while I still have some great lighting in the house even with all the rain and clouds, their thin clouds today. ^_^



Oh! Quick question. Here is my HUGE favor I am asking all of you fellow stitchers. My sister is a fellow stitcher, just about as long as I am. Anyway her baby theme is going to be precious moments and I was thinking of making her a baby quilt for the crib. Would anyone be interested in stitching one square for her baby quilt? The squares will be 6 x 6 inches. If there is enough interest then I'll post more on it. The deadline to receive the squares wouldn't be until October 1st, 2009 as that would still give me enough time to sew it together and mail it to her.

EDITED TO ADD: For the baby quilt, here are the guidelines:

* Neutral Linen only please (white, off-white, creme)
* square needs to be 6 inches x 6 inches
* You can stitch any Precious moments design on the square
* Leave a 1/2 inch seam all around please
* Also please add your name and state/Country (I think she would love to know all the special stitchers who stitched a square for her baby blanket)
* I need to receive squares by October 01, 2009 to leave me enough time to put the blanket together
* Let's try and not have repeat squares also. So anyone who wishes to stitch a square, if you leave your name and the name of the pattern you are stitching on this post only or email it to me with Precious Moments Quilt in the subject line, then I will post a list in the sidebar with the info so as to avoid repeat squares.

*Free Precious Moments Patterns here
* Also patternsonline has a bunch of precious moments patterns for cheap.

If you have any questions please let me know. I know Gloria and Pat(link above) have some free patterns on their website if anyone does not have a Precious Moments pattern.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO IS WILLING TO STITCH A SQUARE FOR MY SISTERS BABY QUILT. IF YOU CAN'T OR DON'T WANT TO STITCH A SQUARE BUT WANT TO HELP YOU CAN SEND ME $1 THROUGH MY PAYPAL ACCOUNT (HERCULESORXENA69 AT AOL DOT COM) AND IT WILL GO TOWARDS GETTING HER SOME OTHER THINGS NEEDED FOR THE BABY.

Happy Stitching!

Chiloe: I do have some charts but I am not sure if i could legally send you even a working copy so thats why I went ahead and left some links to where you could get a pattern.

An award! And some other life stuff

First I received an award from Lynda for Kreativ Blogger. It completely surprised me. Did I mention I love surprises? Thank you Lynda!

There are rules to the Kreativ Blooger award:
1. Copy the Kreativ Blogger Award into your blog
2. Make a link to the person's blog who nominated you
3. Nominate eight (8) other blogs
4. Add their links to your blog
5. Leave a comment on the blogs that you nominated telling them that you have sent them an award

So the eight blogs I am nominating are:

1. Paulette
2. Felicity
3. Vonna
4. Chiloe
5. Heather
6. Sandy
7. Stitcherw
8. Michele


I haven't stitched, or crocheted, or anything of the sort this week. Kiley has had a bad cold lately. And as you all know when little ones are sick they need their mommy so she has been in my lap most of the week. Monday night I was itching to start something new but not too big so I had pulled out the Garden Stitching chair, the second in the series by Cats Whiskers. Anyway I charted out the pieces on the fabric so its all lined out but then the thought of stitching the flowers was just blah! So I folded the piece up and tucked it away and haven't touched a thing since. I now have little Kiley's cold as well and with temperatures dropping and it now snowing once again, it just plain sucks! To add to it all I have a HUGE migraine today and Destiny has so much going on with Brownie scouts these last few weeks, I feel I am never home.

Our FRG is also holding a celebration for woman's month tomorrow and it is mandatory for all soldiers so after Destiny's meeting tomorrow DH will pick us up and off we will go to that. Thankfully food will be served and so I can at least feed the kids while we are there.

Today I got some laundry done and started spring cleaning. I spent my entire morning cleaning every nook and cranny in my kitchen. I never realized how much gets neglected on a day to day basis. Anyway housing sent someone over today to take a look at my stove and it turned out that the hot plates were faulty so he replaced all four of them for me and did a safety check to make sure all else was ok and it was. Yesterday I cleaned the inside of the oven which it needed desperately because I hadn't ever cleaned it in all the years before. I hate cleaning the oven really! I would rather watch paint dry, LOL. But I found thisa stuff you spray on and leave for 2 hours and then you just wipe it out. I had to do it twice for my oven and now its all pretty again! Though the bottom has this black stuff that is caked on that just wont come off, it was there when we moved in. I may have to get a screwdriver or a chisel and try and get rid of it, lol.

Tomorrow an electrician should be here to repair a few of my lights. They never showed yesterday and housing says they have no idea what happened but rescheduled me for tomorrow.

Anyway, if you have read this far, bravo! And thanks for reading through all my mess of issues. ^_^

EDITED TO ADD: While waiting for DH to arrive home, Destiny returned from Brownie scouts with a new purse and Kiley was heart broken she didn't have one too so I went digging and found this wood purse box I had. So since my little one is Tinkerbell crazy, I drew and painted Tinkerbell on for her. She was so excited that I didn't get a chance to do anything with the inside or anything more to the outside. She barely let the paint dry before whisking it away! LOL Perhaps tomorrow she will let me do more with it. But here it is anyway. Please forgive her dirty face as she just had snack.

I still have to order some handles or create some for it. The green dress and shoes are metallic so they sparkle and the blue is a pearlescent color. I dont know where the dark line across her legs came from but its not actually there.

Quilting, crocheting, and cross stitching in a weekend.

So I used up all my DMC 838 on this one and it still was not enough for a completion but here is how far I got. I did place an order with my floss mom so as soon as it arrives I'll pull this back out and finish it. The fabric is lighter than this picture, it looks so dark on here. Hmm must be the cloudy weather that's messing up my pictures.

I also crocheted this little Easter bag which was a freebie from Suzies Stuff. She posts freebie crochet patterns that she designs herself. She's a very talented lady.

And lastly for this weekend I pulled out my fabric for my friendship quilt and cut all the squares and then machined stitched the entire thing together. So here are pics of it so far. I laid it out on my side of the bed. We have a California King, just to give you an idea of the length of it. So now I pose a question to you all. Do I complete it as is or do I continue and make it larger? You see I don't know where exactly I am going to put it or what to do with it though I am loving the idea of having a quilt on my bed and whats better than one with a special stitched square from each of my stitching friends. Though the idea of being able to lay it over the back of my couch for all to see when they come over. So please give me your opinion. I am still doing the Fair and Square exchange as I do enjoy it.

DH got mad at me on Saturday as he saw me putting together my friendship quilt. You see back in 2005 I was crocheting him a Dallas Cowboys throw blanket but when the movers packed it and brought it here to Germany it wreaked of cologne. You see they won't ship cologne at all so I have no idea where this cologne would have come from. It smelled like someone broke a bottle in it and removed the broken pieces. And even with a good wash the smell was still there. It takes 3 months to get our things from Fort Bliss, TX to Bamberg, DE so I guess it had been on there pretty long. So anyway into the garbage it went sadly. SO DH wanted to know when I was going to make his blanket and was upset because I was doing all these other projects and never produced his blanket, LOL. He didn't mention it all these years so I thought he was no longer interested. I guess I was wrong. So payday I will be ordering some new yarn for him and work on it though I am wondering if I could quilt him one......

So how was everyone's weekend?

Coffin Buzz Progress

Here is is so far, sorry for the bad picture, I scanned it in again. So my goal for this weekend is to complete the stitching on this and if I have enough DMC to complete it then I will wash it and dry it and turn it into a flat fold. I need to finish this weekend as I am getting tired of stitching it but I am afraid if I set it aside I may not pick it up again and I really do like this piece.

Comments