Thanks Kreinik

The nice people at Kreinik mentioned my blog on Facebook today. I thought I should at least show a decent picture of Lucy and some of the Kreinik threads that will be used in the Princess and Me Design.

Meet Lucy

I started working on I Love Lucy by Princess and Me as my travel project. I needed something small I could carry around and big enough holes to work in less than optimal lighting. My scan is not the best. The scanner will not close with this project on the Evertites. My Kreinik is not sparkling in this picture. Lucy's bow and the flat areas of the eggs are coordinating Kreinik braid. I started stitching the black background because it is a lot of laying threads and boring.


I have been doing a lot of stitching in public but have had very few comments on my needlework. The nanny traveling with the family across from us liked Lucy and so did one of the flight attendants. Usually, I get lots of comments on Princess and Me designs because they are whimsical and sparkly. Maybe I will get more comments on our trip next month to Santa Fe. If I get in more bling, it might spark someones interest in needlepoint. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to talk to every freak in the airport but I like to do this kind of project on planes so people see needlepoint does not have to be wool, Continental stitches or acres of off-white dining room chairs.

Here are two little projects that will be made into scissor fobs to match needle books of the same design only larger. These are stitched over one so they will make cute little fobs. The rust color is a Vicki Clayton Silk. It is not a color I would normally order and not what I expected but it is what came in. It is a perfect color for the person that will get the needle book and fob so not the end of the world.

Last weekend we visited friends in Newport, RI. We ate and drank through that town. Newport is a beautiful little town on a bay and the ocean. I did not take a single picture so I have nothing to share. You cannot believe some of the beautiful, huge mansions along the ocean. We ate lots of lobster and were in some wonderful restaurants. Our friends house is beautiful. Their house belonged to a carpenter that built the huge mansions. They have fully rehabbed the house and yard so it has a vintage feel but modern luxury. They used to own a gift shop so her house was just full of fun stuff and art. Every time I walked into a room, I would notice something I missed the previous time through.

I will be traveling again this weekend. We are going to spend the weekend in the suburbs instead of driving back and forth to the city. My nieces and nephew are swimming in a state swim meet so we are going to watch the kids swim. The swim meet is near one of our really good needlepoint shops so I will get to go shopping. I have been getting my letters from the teachers at ANG and I need lots of stretcher bars. None of the classes are the same size and most of mine already have projects on them. I also like my husband to put them together before I go to class because I am not very good at getting them together.

That is about all for today. Hopefully, later this week I can post some progress on Safari. I put that on my stand last night and put in a few threads. Happy Stitching! Kelly

How do you like the new look?

OMG! I was just looking at my blog and I got a note in the corner saying my background would go away on Friday. I did not know they just went away. Come Friday, I could have had a naked blog! Problem averted. I picked a new background. Btw...Picking a new background is hard. Some are really pretty but the clashed with my needlework, one background covered my writing, and some just looked silly once they were on the blog.


Back to stitching. The work day is about over. Yeah!!

The bunny is done

I finished my bunny last night. Since this has been a WIP for the past two years, I am thrilled to have it out of my stitching bag and my punch needles put away. By scanning this picture, I could see problems better than with my eyes so after my scanning, I fixed a few areas. In some cases, I just needed to brush away some of the little threads I cut. Also, after this picture was taken, I punched three more rows of loops around the boarder so finishing would be easier.

I still have 3 big needlepoint projects, the knotted scissor case, the Long Dog Sampler, a traveling cross stitch project and a travel needlepoint project. My main goals right now are to get my traveling cross stitch projects done and my knotted scissor case. I have a pile of stuff to take to a finisher so if these are done, they can join the pile. Plus, I need to do an ornament for the holiday party with my Guild. I am not going to finish this myself this year so it needs to join the pile. Getting a couple WIPs done is great before I add the test class for the NAN project, add back in Fred and Ginger, and 4 projects from ANG. I really should have taken Studio Time!!

I was down state this weekend at my parents house. I had a Princess and Me needlepoint with me. It really made the 3 hour drive go quickly. We really did not do much when we were down there. I did get to go shopping in Springfield. They have a couple of nice boutiques and one was having a sale so I picked up a few things.

We have some trips planned in the near future. I don't want to give many details on the web until we return. I will take my Princess and Me on my flights. We are flying Air Grey Hound on the first trip so I am sure I will have stories to tell!! Many years ago we flew this particular airline and the family behind us shared a bucket of KFC on the flight out to New Orleans. Greasy chicken for two hours was about more than we could take. I am also taking this same airline to Columbus. My travel agent is pushing this airline because they do not charge for checked bags plus we are traveling to smaller markets. I am used to traveling with Gold status on American so discounts airlines without status is going to be interesting.

Hopefully, I will get somethings done this week and I can post more progress. BTW...If any of you are into miniatures or petitpoint, there is a very active petitpoint group on Yahoo Groups. It has been fascinating reading and seeing picture about all their great projects. It makes you want to run out and buy 40 count silk gauze and make a doll house rug:)

<>Happy Stitching! Kelly

This is my latest finish. Since I have so few finishes, this is exciting. I am trying to get some of my stitching done for the holiday's so I can send them off to a finisher and have them back before I need them. This is a La-D-Da pattern from the Just Cross Stitch ornament preview magazine. This is some of my tea dyed fabric from Joann's. I believe it is 32 count and I stitched this over one using Fall Maple from Artfabric. I am going to have this made into a needle book for a friend. I am also going to stitch one of the motif's so I can have a matching scissor fob made. This is an easy project and only took me two evenings. I am thinking about stitching it again for an exchange. I have some Vicki Clayton thread in red that would make a beautiful Christmas ornament. I would also like to stitch this on some really nice linen. This crap from Joann's is all I have until I make my way to one of the cross stitch shops or get online and order something.

The bunny is my travel project. It has been hanging out in my stitching bag for a couple of years. I want to get this done and out of the bag. It is cute & colorful. This is a punch needle project by Charlotte Dudney done in DMC floss. Let me tell you, punch needle eats thread. The pattern suggests using Weeks Dye Works for this pattern. Unless you consider punch needle projects heirloom pieces, buy DMC. I think I priced out the threads and it was going to be something like $40.00. It takes 20 skeins of floss. This project is more an effort in threading the punch needle rather than fun do.

This weekend we are going to be in a car a lot. I am not sure if I will finish my punch needle project or work on something more fun. I think it is going to be in the 90's until next week so that should make me stay in and stitch some.

A happy thought...We are half way through the work week!! Kelly

You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks...

I learned a new trick this weekend. Scanning needlework!! It is much better than my pictures. I will have to learn how to crop the pictures. One thing at a time...

This weekend was my Guild meeting. I thought we were supposed to have a bookmark done but I did not end up giving mine away. We did have about five people stop by our tables to learn how to do cross stitch/embroidery. I stayed at the library for a couple of hours after our meeting and worked on a punch needle project I have had going on for an age. One tween that learned to stitch with us, stayed longer than I did was just stitching away on her second bookmark. I left her with the pattern to the bookmark above, some fun colored floss she could play with and a pair of embroidery scissors that were in my bag. Hopefully, we will have a future stitcher.



This is my best picture ever of my Teresa Layman Sweet Harmony project. Please ignore the fold and hoop marks. I started on the background so that was not left until the last. I am also saving the pink and purple flowers so they are a treat to keep me motivated on the project. Oh, the mind games I play with myself!!


I sent my monkey canvases, Fred and Ginger, to Janet Perry this weekend so she could write me stitch guides. I have a feeling that I am going to pick a lot of things out and basically start over with Fred. Which is perfectly OK with me. Nothing has been stitched on Ginger.


This weekend was a graduation party for one of my nephews. DH said thank God that is the last family party for a while. We have had four in the last month and a half. Now that I think about it, we are not getting very far away from family, we are going to be with my family next weekend and the last weekend of the month.


Later this week I will try to scan my punch needle project. I did not think to do that yesterday. Maybe I will get some more done and get this project behind me. I am also going to start a new small ornament for one of our guild out reach projects or maybe the guild holiday exchange.


Happy Stitching! Kelly

Christmas in July

Janet Perry just opened a web page for stitch guides. She says most stitch guides will be around $65.00. This is great news for Fred and his best mate, Ginger. Fred has been at a standstill for a while. I did get some great suggestions from Jane @ ChillyHollow as well. Hopefully, I can get something to kick me in the a$$ on this one. (btw... I was going to start this post with the snowman finish, hence the title, but an after thought to talk about Fred, brought his picture to the top and it refused to move down the page. Notice Ginger's picture did not even make it in.)

I finished my Snowman Christmas ornament over the long weekend. This was really more work than I had anticipated. It needs an iron but I will iron up all my ornaments once I am ready to take a trip to the cross stitch store which won't be until August. I just noticed my 1 looks like this ornament is from 2070 not 2010. I might have to do something about that. By 2070 I will be dead and as much as I hope I get to stitch in my afterlife, I am not counting on it.

Next weekend is our Guild meeting and we are going to teach people stitching at the library where we meet. I cannot remember if we were supposed to finish a bookmark or just bring some supplies. I am stitching something I will like in case this ends up just being for me or I can donate it to one of the literacy projects. This was a free pattern on About.com. I found it hard to find free bookmark patterns that were not a lot of work. This one is a great travel project since I got this far I no longer need a pattern. You can see I had some frogging because when I turned it over to finish off my thread, I found a big knot. You can't have that on something with an open back.

We had a great four day weekend. I really did not do all that much. Friday I ran a few errands. Saturday I took my nieces shopping and then dinner with family which was a lot of fun. Sunday was a stitching day and Monday we had some friends over from out of state.

On my last post I mentioned my husband was sailing on Thursday night. Here is a picture of our beautiful skyline from the lake. This was taken from his Blackberry. His picture is much better than mine using a real camera!!

Happy stitching!!

Happy 234th Birthday America

This was an exciting week for me. ScottLee arrived in the mail. I am not a huge Jean Hilton fan but I have loved this piece for a long time. I have been stalking Ebay for a year for this pattern. Jean's daughter allowed this pattern to be sold at Stitches From the Heart in IN. This pattern was only taught a short while so heavens knows what I would have had to pay on Ebay to get it. It is fairly priced from the store. I read the introduction and it is based on an oriental rug. That must be the reason I was so attracted to this piece. I ordered the pattern for my friend Margie @ Three Cool Pugs and Me so she can help be along if I get stuck.

Here is a picture of my latest Christmas ornament for my friends. They had a gas leak last Christmas and their house blew up. Everyone got out with minimal injuries but they lost everything. My Guild is helping me make ornaments so they will have something nice for the holiday season. Once this is done, I still want to make them some more but I also have to think about the ornament exchange with the Guild. Those finishing deadlines are coming up quickly.

My office is closed today and Monday so we get a nice long weekend. Last night was spent eating yummy sushi and I actually got a lot more done on the snowman. My husband was out sailing so it was nice to have the evening to myself. I am off to run a few errands. When I get back, I will spend the afternoon on the terrace stitching. Tomorrow is shopping with two of my nieces. We have to buy a dress for one who is turning 21 next month and the other one has some extra cash so she is ready to go.

Enjoy your 4th of July weekend. Travel safe, enjoy time with friend and family and maybe work in some time to play with your projects. Kelly