Sadly, a Christmas square exchange I mailed right after Thanksgiving to Sabine has apparently been lost in the mail. I’m so disappointed as I hoped she would have it in time to finish it into an ornament for Christmas. I’m going to stitch up a replacement set of squares for her and get them out into the mail. At least she’ll have them for next year.

Here’s a pic of what I had stitched the first time. Perhaps someone somewhere received them and are enjoying them at least.

I decided to participate in the Secret Sister holiday exchange on the Legacy Embroiders Guild message board. I received my goody package from my Secret Sister yesterday. It was from Karin (of Beardie Designs) in The Netherlands. Here’s a pic of what I received (click photo for a larger view):

She sent me a gorgeous cut of Newcastle linen (40-count from Zweigart), some beautiful Thread Gatherer Silk ‘n Colors fibers, and a box of decadently delicious Ferrero Mon Cheri candy. They were wonderful!! Yes, they’re gone already. Thankfully for my waistline, I actually didn’t eat them all myself though. Yesterday was the monthly open stitch class at my LNS, so I shared them with my stitching friends there. I think pretty much everyone came by to fondle the fabric & fibers, too.

I have to admit I was a bit surprised by the candy. I only knew about the now discontinued American version of Mon Cheri which were hazelnut filled. The German version is totally different! They are Kirsch-filled dark chocolate covered cherries. To give you a little idea of how tasty these were, here is a description I found on a website: “A juicy Piemont cherry, floating in luscious brandy and hidden away in a delicate shell of rich, dark chocolate.” Yep, that pretty much sums up how delicious they were.

Thanks so much for all the goodies, Karin!

I got a new toy last week and realized today that I’ve not posted about it here on my blog yet. I got an Amazon Kindle. I.LOVE.IT!!! It’s so awesome to have so many books just a click away in something that weighs just over 10 ounces (.28 kg). Here’s a pic of my new baby:

On a lighter note, I’m sure by now many of you have heard the Oprah declared the Kindle her “favorite new gadget“. As a result of her announcement, Kindles are currently on backorder through Amazon (at least, they are according to the Amazon rep with whom I spoke today). I actually received mine two days prior to her big announcement, so I actually had something BEFORE Oprah declared it to be the latest thing. I guess that makes me one of the cool kids.

In stitching news, I’ve mostly been working on Hannah Beeby and Where There is Life lately. They are the two projects that I took with me to Hawai’i on vacation. Here are my latest progress photos:

Where There is Life (Little House Needleworks):

Hannah Beeby 1816 (Gitta’s Timeless Designs):

The little pin cushion in the Hannah Beeby photo is one that I picked up in a local Hawaiian quilt shop in Honolulu. They had some GORGEOUS quilts in there and it was really tempting to bring one home with me, but I managed to settle for just getting the pin cushion instead. :-)

We did manage to make our way to a local stitching shop while in Honolulu. It was called Fiddlesticks and they were so nice to us during our visit! I did pick up a couple of charts while there. I was mostly wanting to get some sort of Hawaiian-inspired design to stitch as a keepsake, but a couple of other charts somehow found their way into my stack, too. ;)

Well, I guess that’s enough for now. I’ll post again later this weekend. I saw on the Fair & Square blog that my partner received her Autumn exchange that I sent, so I’ll post some pics of it then.

I received my beautiful squares yesterday from Sue W. for the Autumn exchange on the Fair and Square blog. I love it!! I’m definitely thinking this should become a pinkeep. Thanks so much, Sue!

I hope to have the squares for Sue in the mail on Monday. All I have left to do is finish my name square and it will be ready to go. Of course, I won’t be posting any photos of that until after Sue receives it so as not to spoil the surprise. ;)

Last night was also the weekly Stitch-a-Thon for the Let’s Stitch blog. I decided to put in some more time on my Halloween Fairy. I only stitched for around 2.5 of the 6 hours allocated for the SAT, but still felt like I made some good progress. I got her left arm done as well as pretty much all of the owl sitting on it. Here are my before and after pictures to show what I accomplished:

Before:

After:

Well, I’m off for another all day Stitch & Bitch at the LNS. I can’t wait to hear what everything thinks of the O.J. Simpson verdict! I’ll bet good money he was shocked that a criminal jury actually found him guilty!

Since I know Malinda has received the package I sent to her now, I’ll post pictures of my stitching for round 5 of the Fair & Square exchange. The design is called “Tiny Little Quaker” and is a freebie from Papillon Creations. I stitched it on 32-count cream Lugana using Painted Desert over-dyed cotton from Needle Necessities. I also included a skein of the fiber I used and a Just Nan chart with embellishments for her (she’s a big Just Nan fan).

I also got some more birthday goodies earlier this week when I got together with other local stitchers for an open stitch class at our LNS. My friend Nancy (she’s not a blogger … yet ) gave me a nice piece of Glenshee linen and a gift certificate to the aforementioned LNS. So, I immediately used it to purchase the fibers I needed for this cute needlepoint canvas I picked up. Thanks, Nancy!!

I also got some goodies from Darla. Unfortunately, I don’t have photos of those yet, but I’ll try to get some up in the next few days. She got me an adorable pair of bunny socks, a bunny thread counter and she and Nancy collaborated to make for me, and a pair of bunny ornaments. Everything was too cute! Thanks, Darla!

Speaking of Darla, I also was able to give her the replacement piece I stitched for her as part of the Quaker Quarterly exchange on the Legacy Embroiderers board. I still can’t believe our post office managed to lose something that only had to travel about a mile between our homes.

I stitched the same design again, but finished it differently. Since the theme for the exchange was Christmas, the first time I had finished it into an ornament with twisted cord trim. This time I finished it into a pinkeep complete with green star glass head pins I found on Vikki Clayton’s website.

I also managed to knock off another piece from my WIP Killer Challenge on Sunday. As of now, I’m at 2 down and 8 to go before I get to start another new project (with the exception of Hannah Beeby 1816 which I’ll be starting later this month as part of a SAL). I got in the final stitches and embellishments necessary to finish “Stitcher’s Chicken” by Sisters & Best Friends. This was a class piece from a retreat I attended in March 2007. I also had the companion piece “Stitcher’s Sheep,” but I gave it to Nancy because she LOVES black-faced sheep.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m working on a draft entry related to my weight loss journey, but it’s still not ready for publication yet. I hope to get it posted this weekend. So, in closing ….

I received my squares today from Malinda for round 5 of the Fair and Square exchange. Her stitching is wonderful! She also included a LHN chart (Two White Houses) and some Belle Soie silks from my wish list. Here’s a photo of what she sent:

She used elements from a Blackbird Design called “Be Kind and True“. Thanks so much, Malinda!

I had a great time at the Elegant Stitch Chocolat retreat. Chocolate was definitely the theme of the weekend. Jackie du Plessis is a wonderful teacher and Lois spoiled us rotten. She gave us each a pair of little scissors with a fob, an awl, a beautiful handmade fabric-covered box which contained some Thread Heaven and some handmade waxers, and a beautiful sterling silver Kiss necklace.

Jackie’s Chocolat class piece is just amazing! I’ve been having a wonderful time stitching on it the past few days. Here is a pic of what it will all look like when I have it completed … one of these years.

Since my last update, I also finished up a Halloween exchange on the USEBB. Terry stitched the Boo scissor pocket from The Drawn Thread for me. She even edged the whole thing in beads! It’s really beautiful. I got several compliments on it this weekend at the retreat.

I stitched a witchy pinkeep for Goldie. It’s from the new Pumpkin Patch chart from The Prairie Schooler. I used some black antique German matte glass head pins that I got from Merry Cox last year.

I also finished up the last two square for the Prairie Schooler exchange I was in on the PS board. There were only 4 of us in the exchange, so we decided to each stitch a square for the other 3 participants. We started in August and mailed out a square each month ending up earlier this month. Here are the 3 squares I sent and the 3 squares I received:

Sent:

For Sandy	For Christina	For Barbara

Received:

From Barbara	From Christina	From Sandy

That’s it for now. I’ll try to post some WIP pictures next time. Happy Stitching!

Sorry for not updating my blog much. I’ve not really been doing much stitching, so I’ve not really had anything to blog. My primary focus right now is on my weight loss journey. I do post pretty much every day on my weight loss blog. So, if you are interested in knowing what’s going on with me, feel free to check there.

When I do get some stitching done, I’ll definitely still be posting that here. Although, I had to admit that I love Terri’s idea of bringing all of her blogs together in one place. I definitely like the idea of being less fragmented in my life. If I decide to ultimately go that route as well, I’ll post links on both blogs fo the new combined one.

I do have a couple of stitching related pics to share. They are pics from a couple of exchanges I’ve been in over the summer.

Biscornu exchange for Jen:	Biscornu exchange from Leigh:

For the Birds exchange for Becky:	For the Birds exchange from Amy:

BTW – thanks to everyone for helping me verify that I got the comments problem resolved.