Well we finally made it to Friday!! I had my Monday evening meeting canceled so I worked on my Bee Hive. It so does not like to be photographed! In person, this is the cutest little project. I might spend some more time working on this project over the weekend. I am wondering if I could not almost finish the needle book case.

Here is my progress on the Long Dog sampler.

My orders still have not arrived. I did get confirmation that my order from ABC has shipped and I am talking to the ladies at Fireside. They are supposed to get the 12 inch Evertite frames in today and then they can ship my order if the weather cooperates. They are having more snow out East. My FitBit is also no where to be found.

I had a fun week. I worked out with my trainer on Tuesday and then had a massage. By the time I got home my arms were so shaky that I could hardly hold my wine glass. I know you are supposed to drink water but I had a great night sleep. Last night was a fund raiser for The Shelter. A couple of our friends joined us. It did not raise all that much money. I am thinking that it would be easier and the Shelter would make more if I just donated money instead of going to these event.

It is taking everything I have in me to stay out of the cross stitch stores this weekend. I am dying to see the new patterns from market. Tonight Inspired Needle is having a market event. I would love to go but I am not willing to drive to the suburbs on Friday night and we have dinner plans. I want Mrs. Waddelow's Huswife by With My Needle. I would love to hear what is on your list as must haves from the Nashville market. I really do not want to miss anything!!

I did finish two books the week. I had a shaky high school education at best. I had never read Pride and Prejudice before this week. As far as classics go, it was not too bad. I am more of mystery or historical fiction kind of gal but I do try to sneak in a classic every so often so I can be well rounded. What I really enjoyed was Divine Justice by David Baldacci. This is his fourth book in the Camel Club series.

That is about it for now. Hope everyone has a nice weekend with time to stitch. I am planning on a weekend of stitching. Take care. Kelly

Pictures of Beautie Spot

I have been in the mood to cross stitch so here are pictures of my progress on Beautie Spot by Long Dog. I finished the strawberry motif and got to move on to a flower on the right hand side of the design.


Here is the start of the next motif. I really like this flower so it should be fun to work on. I have worked across the bottom of this sampler because my favorite motifs are along the top. They are my treat to keep me motivated to work on this project.

Here is a picture of what I have done so far. I think it is a pretty design. It has to be a framed piece when it is done but it is huge. I am not sure I have wall space big enough for this picture.

I finished my book club book yesterday. We picked Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. It was a strange book. It was on Amazon's list of must reads for 2009 and NPR recommended it. I should know that if the book wins an award or is recommended by the booky people, then most likely I will not like the book. I moved on to a David Baldacci book which is a no brainer which is good for now.

I have a busy weekend and I am only home one night next week. I suppose it will be a slow stitching week. Hope everyone has a great weekend and gets lots of stitching time.

A Stitching Blog without Pictures

Last night I had the best intentions of taking a picture of my progress on my Long Dog Sampler. I actually took the pictures, I went to the computer, I futzed with the computer, only to find out all of our external drivers went away. I am not sure if DH got this fixed or not because it was time to go to dinner. I will give this another try tonight or tomorrow.

Dinner was an adventure. A friend is buying distressed properties and the restaurant we ate at last night is on his list of possible acquisitions. Little did I know that my husband is interested in buying into this restaurant. It has potential but the current owners have no taste!! It will need to be redecorated to get the cheap plastic crap off the walls. I really cannot get worked up over this yet. Our accountants need to look at the books and see if this is even a viable business. DH is big into cooking but always said he did not want to own a restaurant. I guess you never know what ideas will pop into their heads.

Since I don't have any pictures, I will show a picture of a sampler I recently found and would like to stitch. Samplers with alphabets are not my usual taste but this one really caught my eye.

This is 1859 Sampler from Permin of Copenhagen. The original is written up in the current issue of Sampler Magazine. I think this will be in my next order . It is only a $10.00 pattern so it is not a big investment until I kit it in silk thread.

Speaking of orders, my orders for the ort box is still not here. I look every time I come or go. I don't have tracking numbers so I am not really sure when they will show up. I also ordered a Fit Bit which is similar to the Body Bugs that the people wear on the Biggest Loser only cheaper. I knew this was on back order until Feb. 14th because their production cannot keep up with demand. I want this so it encourages me to get more exercise into my life. I lift weights twice a week and walk to and from work but I need to work in more cardio. You never know when my next vacation will come around and I will have to wear a swimsuit.

That is about all for today. I hope everyone finds some time to stitch today.

New Background

That was fun!! I just added a new background to my blog. I tried this before but I did not have enough blogging abilities to make this work. Heavens knows what you may find now that I can change the background!


I don't have any pictures to post today but I have been stitching on my Long Dog Sampler and I put in another color on Safari. If I am home tonight, I will take a picture and post another update tomorrow. I finished the strawberry motif and started on a new one. After the holiday's, I have been really good and I have stayed home and stitched a lot on the weekends so I have been getting a lot done for me.


I am waiting on my supplies for my ort box. I have ordered the supplies twice. One order is on back order and the other is delayed due to bad weather. I am really interested to see what I ordered. I ordered based on names. I did not have the time to look up the colors, plus looking on line is not always accurate. We can all be surprised by what I get!! I figured I would order a couple of variegated balls of pearl cotton and I would have DMC colors that will coordinate. If not, I can run down to Michael's or Joanne's.


My book for last week was Wench by Dolan Perkins-Valdez. I enjoyed this book. Some aspects of the book were disturbing. It is historical fiction so many of these things really did happen even if they difficult to imagine today.


That is about all for today. Hopefully, I can post some pictures tomorrow. Have a great day.

How soon until spring arrives??

We had some snow over the past couple of days in downtown Chicago but we have not had nearly as much as our friends on the East Coast. The top picture is the view from our front balcony this morning. As you can see the main roads are clear. The next picture is from our back terrace and you can see how much snow we actually got. A friend few in from skiing in Jackson Hole last night and was only delayed a half hour so things were pretty much under control around here.

We had book club last night and it was a little scary getting home. Fortunately, I had taken a cab so I left the driving up to someone else. My car is a rear wheel drive and just awful in the snow so I don't take it out unless the streets are dry. Soon that car will be retiring to the Florida home so we will buy something more winter ready next time.

I have been working on my Long Dog sampler this week. I am about done with the strawberry motif. I have to finish the two flowers then I can move along. They look almost done in my picture but they need the light color filled in in both flowers and the top one still has some green to fill in. I have been spending time on this project so the strawberries were completed in about a month.

I ordered the supplies for the ort box stitching group from ANG Cyber Pointers. The first place I ordered from has the canvas on back order and I just found out about it yesterday. Two weeks after I placed the order. I reordered the supplies from Fireside so hopefully they will get my order out to me soon. Actually, I ended up ordering cooler canvas from them. It is white and silver. Plus, I ordered a couple of Threadworks variegated #8 pearl cotton balls. I have no idea what I am going to end up with because I did not have time to look them up, but I figured I would have the DMC to coordinate with whatever comes. I ordered four colors so something should strike my fancy....

I have been reading. I finished South of Broad by Pat Conroy and Already Dead by Charlie Huston. South of Broad was good. It did not get that great of reviews but I found it an enjoyable read. I like Pat Conroy's books (The Prince of Tides, The Water is Wide, The Great Santini). On the other hand, Already Dead was strange. It was about vampyers, zombies and a murder mystery. Yes, they spelled vampires with a "Y". I think this was just an attempt to get dollars from the vampire love fest going on right now and there is nothing wrong with capitalism. It was a free book on Kindle and I know why they were giving it away.

Now I am working on Pride and Prejudice. Hopefully, later today we will finalize our book club choice. Since the weather was bad, I think we are going to post a vote so some that could not make it will have a say in what we are reading next month. I am stocking up on some of the Kindle books in case they have a price war so I have several books to choose from.

Hope everyone stays warm and melts out the snowy mess. Happy stitching. Hopefully, spring will be here soon. Kelly

Slow stitching start to February

I have not accomplished much this week so I did not get in a big hurry to post anything. My EGA Guild had a stitch in at the Oak Park library on Saturday. I had a great time stitching with everyone but my progress seems minimal. I worked on my Libby Sturdy - Chicago Santa. I put in the bronze color at the bottom of his jacket. I guess any little bit helps. DH was trying to be helpful last night and pointed out that I still had a knot in this project. I had to explain that it was ok for now and everyone on a stitching blog would understand!

A couple of blogs suggested trying to stitch 15 minutes a day or put in two needle full of thread in a day. Both are excellent ideas but I have not put a stitch in the first four days of February so I am pretty sure this is not working for me. Tonight should be more relaxing so I am planning on stitching. We are all thrown off is DH is working in an office and not at home. Dinner every night is a big production of deciding if we are going to cook, eat out or have food delivered.

I worked on my Bee project by Teresa Layman on Sunday. I woke up early and this was the project I was able to grab without making much noise in the bedroom. Plus, I do not need all the proper lighting or stand to work on this project. I made some progress on the background. Later in the afternoon I had to go to one of my nephews 7 year old birthday party so that stopped my day of stitching.

Next weekend will not be that productive either. We are having a game night on Saturday with people from Kendall College cooking school. We are not game people so we are going to have to buy some games. Hopefully, this will become more about food and booze rather than games. Since everyone is a trained chef, the food should be good and creative. Sunday is the Super Bowl. I could care less about this game but friends are coming over to watch the game. At least the Super Bowl food is good!! Usually high calorie appetisers but those are some of my favorites.

That's all for now. Hope you have plenty of time to stitch this weekend. KMM