I’ll start this first new stash post with photos of some stuff that I’ve gotten, but didn’t actually buy. I got a couple of Mirabilia charts from friends at my LNS. Next, I was thrilled to receive a couple of items by The Stitcherhood that were on my wish list as a gift from the designer! Thank you again so very much, Maria! (Be sure to check out her blog for some cute freebies, too!)

Design: Circle of Friends
Designer: Mirabilia

Design: Queen of Freedom
Designer: Mirabilia

Design: Stitchers’ Samplers
Designer: The Stitcherhood

Design: Haunted Holler
Designer: The Stitcherhood

The friend that gave me the Queen of Freedom chart also gave me a stitcher’s third [24" x 27"] cut of Wichelt Silvery Moon fabric. As soon as I saw it, I thought of the beautiful Victoria Sampler Christmas designs stitched on a similarly colored fabric. I ended up deciding on & purchasing the Christmas Village design since it doesn’t require any Hardanger. ;)

Design: Christmas Village
Designer: Victoria Sampler

The last thing I’ll share today is a kit I picked up from Drema at Needlecraft Corner. (I also purchased the kit for the Moon Witch finish shown in my previous post from her as well.) It’s the October teacup from Just Another Button Company. If you look closely, you’ll notice it’s a little skull. How cute is that?! If you want to see what it will look like when finished, click here.

Design: October 2009 Cup of Tea
Designer: Just Another Button Company

Update: I realized that I missed posting my TUSAL update for this month. Imagine that! I think I’ve only posted it on the correct day a couple of times this year. Oops! Anyway, here is my latest TUSAL update:

Ok, that’s it for now. I’ll try and get part two of the new stash up in the next couple of days. Until then …

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I received my squares from Jeanie last week. She choose a couple of small motifs from San-Man Originals. She did a great job. I think the squares are adorable. Thanks, Jeanie!

I also have another little finish to share. It’s actually a partial finish of an ultimate larger piece. It’s from the Sea to Shining Sea silk thread pack series from Little House Needleworks. The whole piece is made up of five regional squares and a border pack. Since they are each packaged separately, I’m counting each thread pack as a finish. So, here’s the West Coast:

I have one last picture to share before I finish this up. I’m a week late posting it, but here is my monthly photo of my orts jar for the Totally Useless SAL:

I also want to add a note for those of you who are following my weight loss journey. I registered a new domain name for that blog. The new URL is http://www.melgetsfit.com. If you have the old URL bookmarked, it will still continue to work. Edit: Turns out I was wrong, the old URL apparently doesn’t work any longer. It will get you to the site, but the blog entries are no longer displayed. I just ask that if you link that blog elsewhere that you please use the new URL. Thanks!

Ok, that’s it for now. Until next time …

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Click to enlarge

You’ll likely notice a lot of metallic ribbon and braid near the top this month. That was from the Multiplicity class that I took. It was a fun piece to work on, but I was glad when it was finished so I could have a break from all those metallics and get back to some floss. ;)

We’re also down to last call for my blogiversary/1000th post giveaway. As of the time I’m writing this, there is about 25 minutes remaining to enter. I’m going to try my absolute best to get the winner announced tomorrow as promised. However, my DSL modem/router died very late Sunday night and I was wouldn’t internet access at home until last night when I replaced it. Losing two days of internet access at home resulted in me getting way behind in adding the names of the entrants to my list. As you can tell by the number of comments I’ve received, it’s a bit of a daunting task. Anyway, if I don’t get completely caught up tonight, then I’ll finish up tomorrow night and announce the winner on Friday.

Until next time …. when I announce the big winner …. ;)

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It’s difficult to believe that another month has passed by already, but it has. The new moon was yesterday, so that means it’s time for another Totally Useless SAL photo update. Here ya’ go (the photo was taken a night, so please pardon how dark it is):

I don’t really feel like I made much progress in my ort collection since last month’s update. I was on vacation for about the first 10 days of this TUSAL month, so that definitely contributed to the lack of stitching this month. Hopefully I’ll have a lot more going into the jar this month.

I also wanted to post about another great stitchy giveaway. Jan is giving away a lovely chart, and everything needed to stitch it, in honor of the birth of her new granddaughter Alexandra. She has all the details for the giveaway on her blog. What a lovely way to honor her new grandbaby. Here’s a pic of everything she is providing:

Until next time …

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On Friday, we headed over to Pasco for the day. I had an appointment with her brother Kevin to get another tattoo. I had him do a piece in memory of my beloved grandmother. She grew beautiful irises and loved hummingbirds, so that was the inspiration for the design. Lastly, I had him add in “Gran” in a nice script since that’s what I always called her. Here’s a pic of the finish product taken immediately after he finished it:

The colors are a bit softer now that it’s healed for a little over a week. I’ll take another photo to post once the healing process is completed. I know you can’t really tell from the pic, but it’s on the side of my right thigh about halfway up. As a size reference, it’s probably about 6″ across at the widest part.

On Saturday we just kind of hung around at Tracy’s house. I got in quite a bit of good stitching time on Moonlit Garden. It’s the Loose Feathers #22 design from Blackbird Designs. Here’s my latest WIP photo of this design:

Design: Moonlit Garden (Loose Feathers #22)
Designer: Blackbird Designs
Fabric: 30-count Broomstick Brown from R&R Reproductions
Fibers: Weeks Dye Works
Progress as of June 23, 2009

On Sunday, we headed over to Seattle. Her dad was riding in the 100-mile Livestrong Challenge, so we went over to be his cheerleaders. Even though he had to ride through some rain and a bit of hail at one point, he still finished the full 100-mile ride and raised nearly $1000, too! WTG Jim!! Here’s a photo I snapped of him right after he finished the ride:

Monday was my last full day in Washington. We just kind of took is easy most of the day. We did head over to Moses Lake mid-afternoon to take in a movie. We went to see “The Proposal” and had a great time. It was a really fun chick-flick to see together. Of course, it didn’t hurt that it starred hunky Ryan Reynolds either. Oh yeah, Sandra Bullock was in it, too. The main cast was rounded out with Craig T. Nelson, Mary Steenburgen, and Betty White (who was hilarious!). In an ironic twist of art imitating life, Reynolds is actually a Canadian married to an American (Scarlett Johansson).

After the movie, we headed back over to Tracy’s place and spent the rest of the day just hanging out and watching TV. We both did a bit of stitching, too. Tracy spent some time working on Psalm 145 from Little House Needleworks. Instead of working on Moonlit Garden again, I did a bit of guest stitcher work on her Sistine Chapel project. I’m still amazed she decided to undertake this project, but I must admit that it was kind of cool to put some stitches in it. Here’s a photo of me working on it with the full 2.5 yards of linen sitting in my lap. Following that is a photo showing what I stitched on the piece.

That’s pretty much it for the photos from my trip that I’m going to post to my blog. If you want to see more, you can find them here.

I’m also nearly a week late posting my monthly photo for the Totally Useless SAL. The new moon fell on June 22, but I was still out of town at the time. I actually haven’t had much time for stitching since I got home, so even though it’s nearly a week late, it’s still pretty accurate.

In this photo, I temporarily set my ort bucket on my canvas WIP of Plum Blossom Kimono by Margaret Bendig. This is a class that I’m taking through my LNS, and I’m behind on my stitching right now due to my vacations. Canvas projects just don’t travel as compactly as cross stitching projects. ;) You might also notice the quarter on the canvas. It’s not actually sitting on the canvas. It’s a needle park that was given to me by my friend Cindi. It’s a California state quarter mounted to a rare earth magnet. She gave one to my BSF Darla, too. You can see a better photo of it here.

Now that I’ve rambled on so much, I thought I should finally explain why I used “Updating on the Run” as the subject for this post. Even though I was on vacation last week, I’m heading out again tonight. I have an all-day class with Ellen Chester at the LNS today, but then I’ll be catching the red-eye to Detroit tonight to spend some time with my friend Nick. I’ll be there for nine days, and I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for updating my blog while I’m gone. If you want to know what’s going on with me, the best option would be to follow my Twitter feed (info in the side bar on the right).

Well, that’s it for now. I desperately need to get into bed since I have such a long day tomorrow. I still need to finish packing, too. Eek!

Until next time …

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Original:

My version:

Letters from Nora – Madeline Melissa
Designer: Nora Corbett
Fabric: 32-count Waterlily
Fibers: Crescent Colors, Treasure Braid
Stitched 2 over 2 except braid which is 1 over 2
Progress as of May 25, 2009

As you can see, I definitely made a few modifications. I changed her from a brunette to a red head. I also lightened the skin tone. The original chart called for Cobbled Peach (CC), but it just seemed so orange to me, especially after making the decision to made her a red head. It looks far more orange in person that it looks in the original model photo. I used Creamy Peach (CC) instead.

Another modification I made was making her wings sparkly. When I think of fairies, I just think their wings to to sparkle. I tried to get a close-up shot to show off her wings a bit better. The wings themselves are a bit out of focus in this shot, but that was the best way I found to capture the sparkle.

For the white part of the wings, instead of using Cloud (CC) as is called for in the chart, I substituted some Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Braid (PB10). For the purple part, I still used the Vintage Violet (CC) called for, but only used 1 strand of it and then 1 strand of Kreinik 032 blending filament.

In retrospect, if I were to do this again, I might stick with the Cloud and just use the blending filament with it as well. It would definitely make the wings a bit more prominent. Although, I do kind of like the transparency feel they have with the Treasure Braid.

I also wanted to take a minute to show off my latest ort collection. I’m doing this as part of the Totally Useless SAL. The SAL consists of starting a new ort collection beginning from the time you sign up to participate. Each month thereafter around the time of the new moon, you post a picture of your current ort collection. Since I only signed up for the SAL on April 29, this month’s installment is not quite a full month’s worth. These are my orts from April 29 through May 24 (date of the new moon).

In closing, I also wanted to point out a new feature on my blog. I’ve added a new rating system. So, for those times when you might not feel like leaving a comment, you now have the option of just adding a rating to a particular post. The rating scale is 1 to 5 stars with 5 being the highest. All you have to do to rate the post is just click on the desired star. You will find the stars immediately below the title on each post.

Well, that’s it for now. I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Until next time …

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