One Woman Learning to Live Her Best Life

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Planning for a REALLY long life

I’ve always made the joke that I won’t die as long as I have unfinished/unstitched projects in my stash. Well, I’m clearly planning to give Methuselah a run for his money. P I’ve not had a lot of time for stitching lately due to my work schedule and training for my upcoming half marathon, but that hasn’t seemed to stop me from acquiring more stash. lol

First of all, I do want to thank all of you for your input about my fabric choice for Garden of Eerie in my previous post. Between my own preference, your votes, and votes of the women at the monthly Saturday Stitch group at my LNS, I’ve opted to go with the Lentil.

Lakeside Linen: Lentil:

I have decided to use the Sand Dune on another project — Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow from Carriage House Samplings. Yes, I bought it! nod


Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow

As soon as I saw those Halloween squares, I just knew I wanted to stitch it. I love the entire design, but it was really the Halloween squares that spoke to me the most. So, I have decided to adapt the design a bit and make a smaller piece using four of the Halloween squares that didn’t include any of the verse. Here is my own mock-up of what my planned piece will look like when finished … some day. P


My version of Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow

By the way, for those who may not have heard yet, if there are any Carriage House Samplings charts you have on your wish list, you might want to go on and purchase them. Kathy has decided to hang up her designing hat. You can read all the details on her blog in this post. The quick overview though is that she will continue to sell and ship to shops until July 1, 2010. After that, any remaining inventory she has left will be listed at her Etsy shop and will be sold there until December 31, 2010. Her charts will no longer be available as of January 1, 2011. (

I had the day off yesterday, so I took the opportunity to drop by my LNS to pick up a new Prairie Schooler chart she ordered for me. While I was there, a few other things managed to find their way into my basket. wink

In addition to the Prairie Schooler The Tortoise & The Hare chart, I also picked up the SYHO design from Belinda at Blue Ribbon Designs called Established With Love. It’s such a sweet little design, and I’m a sucker for houses. nod Since I’m also an avid reader, I picked up The Book Store from Nikki over at Country Cottage Needleworks. Although, I do most of my reading on my Kindle these days, so it’s pretty rare for me to make it to a book store any longer. When I do though, I try to find an independent bookseller instead of one of the major chain stores.

You may also notice there was a floss toss in my new stash photo. I can’t share what the project is yet since it’s for a gift, but let me just say, I am IN LOVE with the color palette! I thought the design I selected was so pretty when I chose it, but once I pulled the fibers, I loved it all the more! I absolutely can’t wait to see how this design comes together. Here’s a closer view of just the toss:

The photo is a little dark because I took it around 9pm last night. I decided I couldn’t wait until it was daylight because I wanted to start stitching. lol

Ok, this post is starting to get really long, but I still have more to share. Perhaps this means I should get back to posting more often. P Anyway, I’m sure most everyone is already familiar with these other items, and I don’t really have anything to say about them other than the fact that I purchased them. That being the case, I’m just going to share the photos and call it good.


Honeysuckle Manor book from Blackbird Designs


Needle and Thread (with bed) from Little House Needleworks


Winter Sheep – ornament #5 in LHN Ornament of the Month series

Ok, so I do have something else to say, imagine that?! wink This last piece is actually an OOP design that I purchased from Nicole. I had the pleasure of taking a class from Liz & Ann from Brightneedle Designs a few years back and fell in love with their designs. Subsequently, they have retired all of their old designs and are now only doing teaching pieces. This is one of their retired designs that had been looking to find for quite a while. When I saw Nicole was offering it fully kitted on her trade/purchase blog, I swooped it up. I’m so excited to finally have it in my stash. D


The Sampler Sampler by Brightneedle Designs

Ok, now I’m done. P Until next time …

The Time has Come

Yes, the time has come for me to admit that I have hopelessly fallen off my no-stash diet challenge. Thank goodness I’m doing better on my actual weight loss diet than I did on this challenge. lol I did manage to get 11 projects finished, so I made it almost halfway.

My latest finish was the first shoe for the Hagatha’s Slipper class that I took recently from Margaret Bendig. I finished this part up on Friday night, so now I just need to do it again in reverse for the opposite side.

What caused me to stray from my challenge? Well, once all of the Halloween designs started coming out recently, I knew I was doomed. I *love* Halloween stitching! Here are my latest purchases that I picked up at my LNS yesterday when I was there for our monthly Saturday Stitch.


Click to enlarge

I’m going to leave my 25 Projects page (also linked at the top of my blog) in place. After I make a few purchases from the St. Charles fall market for TNNA coming up in a couple of weeks, I plan to get back on my challenge and make NO MORE purchases until I finish the remaining 14 projects to reach my goal of 25.

Speaking of the St. Charles market, have you seen one of the new designs coming out from Paulette at Plum Street Samplers? I’m not usually much on the whole Adam & Eve samplers deal, but this one is a MUST have for me! lol It’s called “Garden of Eerie” and cracks me up every time I look at it. What an incredibly fun design!! (Hey Darla, did you spot there’s a vulture on it?! ) )

Paulette has three other designs coming out at market as well. You can see them on the Kelmscott website since they are the distributor for her designs.

Oh yeah, as long as I’m confessing, I should probably ‘fess up to not sticking with my new rotation plan either. X I am actually in the process of reworking it though, so I’m not saying yet that I’m completely abandoning it. I’m playing around with a concept that Terri mentioned to me. Rather than selecting particular designs to incorporate into the rotation, each slot would be a particular theme instead. Here is what I’ve come up with so far:

10 hours on current projects (started within the past 6 months)
10 hours on older projects (started more than 6 months ago)
10 hours on seasonal projects (Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc.)
10 hours on samplers
10 hours on canvas projects
10 hours on “anything goes” project(s) of my choice

I’ll just have to decide if I want to go forward with it. I made it through three slots of the previous rotation I had set up and found myself hating it the whole time. I think it’s the rebellious child in me. I just want to stitch on what I want when I want without some stinkin’ rotation telling me what to do. )

I have a couple of floss toss pics to share with you all as well. I think since this entry is already getting pretty long, I’ll save those for another day.

Until next time …

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