October 2007Monthly Archives

Brightneedle Ta-Dah

I have another small (literally) finish to show off. This was a retreat keepsake piece created by Ann & Liz at Brightneedle. It was to commemorate the 10th anniversary of A Stitcher’s Retreat that I attended earlier this year. It’s stitched 1 over 1 on 29-count Glenshee linen using DMC and Anchor floss.

This was a really fun stitch. It really helped remind me how much I enjoy over 1 work. It’s also my 25th finish for 2007.

Happy stitching!

30 October 2007

Cross Stitch

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Remember me?!

Sorry for the long delay since my last update. Life has been kind of crazy for me the past couple of weeks. I’ve been taking some training classes to prepare for a professional certification exam I’ll be taking this Friday. I’ll be SOOOO glad when it’s over because I’ve been stress eating my way through studying.

Of course, on top of all of that was the fires we had here in southern California. They weren’t too close to me, but I had LOTS of friends affected by them. I even temporarily had some friends staying with me who had been forced to evacuate. Thankfully, all of their homes survived and everyone is back home now.

I did manage to meet my October exercise goal early. My goal was to walk at least 20 miles this month. As of this writing, I’m at 23.3 miles and should get in a couple more miles hopefully before the month ends on Wednesday.

I enjoyed the October challenge so much that I’ve set a new challenge for myself for November. I’m branching out and adding in more things this month. Hopefully this will help keep me motivated and on track even when I’m cruising to Mexico later in the month. Here are my goals:

Walk/Run – at least 25 miles
Swim: at least 8 times
Strength train: at least 8 times
Weight: Lose 4 pounds

29 October 2007

Challenges, Misc.

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Ta-Dah

Yep, I actually have a happy dance to share! I finished a piece last night while I was at the all night Stitch Inn hosted by my LNS (more about that later).

The piece I finished is the Spring Sampler threadpack from Little House Needleworks. This was my first time using the Crescent Colors Belle Soie silks, but it definitely won’t be the last! They were wonderful to stitch with, so I know I’ll be using them again on future projects. I don’t remember the fabric color name, but it’s a soft blue 32-count Lugana from Silkweaver. Here’s a pic of my finish:

As mentioned earlier, last night was the all night Stitch Inn at my LNS. We had a GREAT time, as usual. I finally packed things up and headed home around 3:40am. We got a couple of really cute Halloween projects to stitch and we made a Jack-o-Lantern scissor fob as a Make It Take It project. For the canvas project, we got a really cute witch’s hat which is a companion piece to one I purchased a couple of weeks ago (pictured below). The linen project is a jack-o-lantern lid for a cute little ort bucket we received. Here are some pics:

You can’t really tell it in the picture of the fob, but the large clear & black bead near the right side actually glows in the dark. The bead contains phosphorus which is what causes it to glow. It looks very cool, plus my newest Dovo scissors aren’t “naked” anymore.

After I finished Spring Sampler, I spent the rest of the evening working on the Lizzie Kate Ho Ho Ho 2007 Limited Edition Christmas Kit again. I don’t have an updated picture of it yet, but I’m about 1/3rd of the way completed on it. I have 1 of the scene squares and 1 of the Ho’s completed.

I did pick up a little bit of new stash last night, too. She was offering a special Stitch Inn sale of 15% off any Halloween of Christmas hand-painted canvases or cross stitch charts. I picked up the Frightful chart and embellishment pack from Just Nan.

Even though I’m CRAAAAA-ZY tired today, it was worth it. I had a great time and got to spend some good quality stitching time with my friends.

Happy stitching!

28 October 2007

Cross Stitch, Needlepoint

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Michi-gander

How much of a Michi-gander are you?

Pretty amazing since I’ve never actually lived in Michigan.

26 October 2007

Stitching

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Chocolat & Fire Updates

Let’s start with the more important of the two topics du jour … the fires. Yes, things are starting to settle down somewhat here in southern California. We’ve had a definite change in weather today which should help a lot. The temperatures are 20-25ºF cooler than they were a couple of days ago. We’ve also gone from single digit humidity to levels ranging from 40-65% depending upon the area. Both of these factors combined should help firefighters make great progress in the fires that are still on-going. I’m also VERY happy to report that the homes of all of my friends who were in the fire zones survived. Fires came far too close for comfort to the homes of 3 or 4 friends, but thankfully none of them sustained any damage other than a bit of smoke damage.

I did manage to get in some more work on my Chocolat class piece from last weekend’s retreat. The first part went pretty quick because it was a simple repeating pattern which meant very little checking of the chart. Here is a progress photo that I took last night:

I also started a new Christmas piece. It’s the Lizzie Kate 2007 Limited Edition Christmas Kit. It’s stitched mostly with Crescent Colors cotton floss with the exception of Santa’s face which is done in DMC. Here’s my current progress pic as well as a photo of what the finished piece will look like:

I should get in some good stitching time this weekend. My LNS is having an all night Stitch Inn on Saturday night that I’ll be attending. It starts around 5pm and goes until whenever. I’m usually there until between 2-3am. I know they have a couple of kits for us (one canvas and one linen), so I’m not sure if I’ll work on those or just keep working on my own things and take the Stitch Inn kits home to stitch at a future date. dunno

Speaking of canvas, I’m working on my witch’s hat canvas project, too. I don’t have a progress photo of it yet though. I can share a couple of pics of the finished project though. Mine will be slightly different though as I decided to substitute bright purple for the green. The whole thing is stitched with Mandarin floss, so it’s a really fun stitch.

That’s it for now. Happy stitching!

26 October 2007

Cross Stitch, Misc.

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Fires

Yes, the fires are really bad here in SoCal right now. Thankfully, the worst I’m having to deal with is air quality issues. There aren’t any actual fires in my immediate area. To give you an idea of the air quality, here is a picture I took from my balcony midday today. In case you’re wondering, yes, that’s smoke, not clouds.

Please keep Jill (Jill in CA) and Nancy (nkuelbs) in your thoughts. They have both been evacuated from their homes.

Seven counties here have been declared a state of emergency. Over 300,000 people (yes, more than a quarter of a million) have been evacuated from their homes. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the size of the city of Pittsburgh. Over 650 homes and over 160 structures (churches, businesses, etc.) have been destroyed. Over 520 square miles (1347 sq km) of land has burned.