I realized today that I never checked in for January on the Theme-a-licious challenge Heather is hosting this year.  Oops!   I’ll try to do a better job in February!  Since it’s also WIPcalypse update time again, I figured I would just combine them into a single post to make things easier for  me.

The first piece I’ll report on is just for WIPocalypse and covers Celtic Christmas.  I spent about a week after the last update just plugging along on her and making some great progress.  Unfortunately, when I was in Vegas with Terri and Annette in mid-January, I discovered I’d made a colossal error in her skirt at some point and had completely left out three rows in the middle of it, so nothing was lining up as it should have.  As a result, I ended up frogging ~600 stitches from her skirt.  This means I actually made negative progress on her this month.

Progress as of January 7, 2012

Progress as of January 15, 2012

As you may notice from the photo caption, I haven’t worked on my Celtic Christmas piece in nearly a month now.  It was so disheartening having to frog so many stitches that I just needed to put her down for a while and work on something else instead.

The something else I chose to work on was Hannah Beeby 1816.  Not only was it on my WIPocalypse list, but it would also satisfy the January Jardin Theme-a-licous goal since I knew there was a flower motif I could stitch.

I started this sampler three or four years ago as a Stitch-a-Long.  So far, I think only two of the original stitchers in the SAL (Carol and Heidi) have actually finished it.   After some serious stitching time over the past week or so, I’m finally starting to make some real progress!

Progress as of 31 December 2011

Progress as of 5 February 2012

In other stitching news, Tracy surprised me with an early birthday present on Thursday!  She gifted me with the Stargazer chart from Mirabilia as well as a $50 gift certificate to Needlecraft Corner.  I’ve had the Stargazer chart on my wish list ever since it came out, so I’m excited to finally have it!  I used a gift card I got for Christmas to pick up some fabric (Angel Dust) from Jo over at Polstitches.  I’m going more for an early morning/twilight look instead of the typical evening/dusk look that many folks do with this design.  Here’s a mock-up of the look I’m going for:

Stargazer on Angel Dust Fabric

Well, that’s my January Theme-a-licious and February WIPocalypse updates.  The current Theme-a-licious goal is Fangirl February which means stitching on designs from your favorite designer(s).  My current designer du jour is Nora Corbett from Mirabilia, so I’m planning to put in some work on my Lady Alexandra WIP.  Since she’s also on my WIPocalypse list, this will be another two-fer month for me.

Until next time …

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I’m a day late in getting my January update for the Totally Useless Stitch-a-Long posted.  I meant to get it up yesterday, but time just got away from me.  So, without further adieu …

The orts in the bottom of the jar are from my new start on Royal Holiday by Mirabilia.  Next up is a bunch of red from work on Celtic Christmas from Lavender & Lace.  Sadly, a good portion of that big chuck of red orts is the result of having to frog nearly 600 stitches from that piece a couple of weeks ago.    The darker orts on the top of the pile are from some recent stitching I’ve done on my Hannah Beeby 1816 reproduction sampler from Timeless Designs.

My little jar has now been emptied into my larger clear paint bucket.  I didn’t bother taking a photo of it this month since it would just be the same orts.  I’ll include a photo of it in next month’s TUSAL update after I’ve added my February orts to it.

Until next time …

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I gave most of the stitchy part of the trip in yesterday’s Viva Las Vegas (Part 1) post.  Today’s second (and final) installment of the Viva Las Vegas series will cover the gambling part of the trip.

As I mentioned yesterday, we all won a little something.  That really made the trip that much more fun.  I was actually the first person in our group to hit for a win.  It happened on Thursday night after dinner.  I was playing one of my favorite games — the 5X Diamond slot machine.

I actually like all the Diamond slot machines, but having the chance of getting that 5X multiplier is pretty appealing.  Speaking of which, if you look closely at the photo, you may have noticed that I did indeed hit on the 5X multiplier with a couple of 7′s on the wheels.  Normally speaking, having any combination of three 7′s on the wheels would yield 120 credits.  Since I had the 5X multiplier, that gave me a 600 credit win.  w00t!!  Needless to say, I cashed out immediately rather than risk losing it all again.    So, what exactly did that mean?

Yep, $150!!  The other $4.75 was what I had left of the $10 I put into the machine initially.  Who says playing quarter slots can’t pay off?!

Still high from my slots win the night before, I was a bit hesitant initially about gambling more the next morning.  I ended up deciding to give it a go though and threw $20 into a video poker game since Annette was already set up playing on one.  Well, I’m glad I did since I won again!  As soon as I hit for a small win, as is my way, I cashed out. Yeah, casinos probably hate me because I take the money and run!

Last up in the gambling department was bingo on Friday night.  It’s probably been 15 years since I’ve played bingo and it’s definitely come a long way in the interim.  Did you know that bingo has gone all high-tech?!  Well, it has!

They have electronic bingo “cards” now that even mark themselves.  Gone are the days of big paper sheets of bingo cards and ink daubers.  These days, all you have to do is sit and enjoy your drink until it’s time to yell BINGO when you win, which I did!  I hit for a $100 win on a triple bingo game.

Annette’s mom, Pat, also won a $100 game.  The big winner at bingo was definitely Terri though!  She cashed in winning two games and took home a tidy sum.  I’ll let her share that news on her blog if she wants.   While Annette didn’t cash in on bingo, she did manage a nice win on the Wheel of Fortune slot machine I posted about yesterday.  Again, I’ll let her post about that if she wants.

Speaking of Annette, please keep her family in your thoughts.  Her grandmother passed away early yesterday morning.  Due to that, she’ll be taking a short break from blogging.  You can certainly go by and leave a condolence note in her comments though.  I’m sure she would appreciate the love & support now.

Oh, and thanks to some enabling help from Cheryl, I found some great brick fabric for the stand-up that I mentioned in yesterday’s post.  I ordered it today, so hopefully I can actually figure out how to make a stand-up and finally finish-finish my Ho Ho Ho piece nearly four years after I stitched it.   Oh, and I may or may not have ordered a few other pieces of fabric, too.  For those wondering about my stash diet, I never said anything about not buying finishing fabrics, so there!

That’s it from me for now.  Until next time …

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Sorry I haven’t posted in several days.  I was off having an awesome weekend in Vegas with friends.  We had an a.maz.ing time and even all came away winners on the gambling front to boot!  We all won at least $100 or more.   I was up $222 at one point, but ended up gambling a bit more and came home “only” $180 to the good.  Given I usually break even or lose a bit, I’ll take it.

We all arrived in Vegas pretty late on Wednesday night, so we pretty much just crashed at the hotel.  Thursday marked the day the fun stuff began!  To kick things off, Terri surprised me while we were still in our hotel room with an early birthday present since we won’t see each other next month for my real birthday.  It’s the Chocolate Sampler design by Jean Lea who owns the Attic Needlework shop in Mesa, AZ.

We then headed downstairs to meet up with Annette and her mom, Pat.  We grabbed some breakfast at one of the hotel restaurants (remind me sometime to tell y’all about the vegan shrimp cocktail! ) and then headed out to Stitcher’s Paradise for some stash shopping!

Since I’m on a stash diet, I limited myself to only what I needed for the Chocolate Sampler.  Ok, ok, I know I shouldn’t have even bought that, but it doesn’t really count since it’s for something I got as a birthday present, right?   Annette also added to the birthday stash list by gifting me with the couple of charts on the left as well!

While we were at the shop, I saw an adorable finishing idea for a piece I have stitched!  It’s the Lizzie Kate 2007 Special Edition Christmas piece.  I’ve had it stitched for around four years, but I’ve never finished into anything.  Well, they had that same piece on display at Stitcher’s Paradise finished as a chimney stand-up made using brick fabric.  So, now my quest is on for some brick fabric so I can duplicate this idea.   I wish I could’ve gotten a better photo, but the piece was on a shelf almost at the ceiling.  Anyway, isn’t it just awesome?!

After the stash shopping fun, it was back to the hotel for some stitching time.  Unfortunately for me, I realized I made a HORRIBLE error on my Celtic Christmas piece and had to do some massive frogging.  In fact, frogging was about the only stitching time I had while we were in Vegas.  At least I’m ready to start making some forward progress again.  By the time it was all said and done, I had to frog about 580 stitches to get myself back on the right track.

Ok, that’s about it for part one of my Vegas trip recap.  I’ll post part two about the trip in the new few days.  I’ll leave you all with this photo which I’m also using as my entry for this week’s PhotoHunt theme which is circular.  Given I was in Vegas, it seemed only appropriate.   This is the Wheel of Fortune slot machine which was definitely a favorite of our group this weekend!  I think we all played on a WoF slot at least once over the course of our stay.

I know I’m several days behind in my 30 Day Blog Challenge.  I’ll try to get caught up on those over the next couple of days, too.

Until next time …

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Well, this full moon is here, so that means it’s time for our first update as part of the 2012 WIPocalypse stitch-a-long.  I posted my full list of planned projects on my dedicated WIPocalypse page.  I’ll just post my monthly progress updates here on the main page.

Celtic Christmas

This is my oldest WIP (work in progress), so I decided this is the year to finally knock it out!  I started it in 2007, so it’s long overdue. I didn’t make a whole of progress on her so far given it’s just been a week, but at least it’s something which is more than has happened in a looooooooong time.

Progress as of Dec. 31, 2011

Progress as of January 7, 2012

Royal Holiday

I also (sort of) got started on Royal Holiday.  I can’t say it’s much of a start, but it’s something.  I had planned on stitching on it for an hour or two beginning at 12:01am on January 1.  Well, I actually only made it about 25-30 minutes before I found myself falling asleep in my chair.  Yeah, I’m such a party animal.

Progress as of January 1, 2012

As I said, I really haven’t gotten much done so far this year.  I’ve been busy studying for school, so that’s had me distracted.  I did manage to make it by my LNS on Saturday for our monthly Saturday Stitch.  That’s where I made most of the progress on Celtic Christmas.  While there, I also picked up some Kreinik braids I need for my upcoming Mirabilia round robin.  I’ll use these for stitching the borders for my piece.  This photo also satisfies today’s assignment for the 30 Day Blog Challenge which is to post a photo of the last thing you purchased.

Kreinik Braid

We were also very fortunate to witness an amazing finish from Lorraine who is one of the older women who still joins us most months.  She’s in her 80′s, but her stitching is absolutely breathtaking!  This is her St. Basil’s Cathedral done on canvas.

St. Basil's Cathedral Stitched by Lorraine

Well, that’s it on the stitching update front. Here’s to hoping I’ll have a lot more progress to show at the February WIPocalypse update!

Until next time …

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