Two finishes and a challenge

I get to do a happy dance for all my work this weekend. I finished Safari in time for my Guild meeting. Actually, at the meeting I was working on the seam allowance but all the other stitching was done and I finished the seam allowance Saturday afternoon. Since this was my 2010 Challenge piece the Guild gave me a pair of scissors that I should have taken a picture of. They have purple handles and I like purple. Only four guild members finished their challenge pieces this year. I am not sure what I am going to do with Safari now that it is done. If you have any great finishing ideas, I would love to hear them.

A second cheer needs to go out for Santacile. After I took this picture, I continued stitching and the seam allowance on this piece is done all but four rows. I would have slept better last night if I would have just completed the four rows but it was getting late and I needed to re-thread my needle. Plus, my fingers were getting tired. The purle cotton I used in the seam allowance was a little thick for 18 count canvas.

Saturday was our regular Guild meeting. We had a fun meeting because we had a stash sale and we voted on next years challenge piece. The members voted that I should finish Beautie Spot. I took a picture of Beautie Spot as of the start of the challenge. I have a row of motifs across the top and the boarder to finish. I should be able to get this piece done in a year. The other two they could have voted for were Funky Rose by Terry Dryden or Witches Brew by Debbie Stiehler. I was kind of hoping for one of those projects because they will be more of a challenge to finish but Beautie Spot is older.

I am planning our Guild retreat in March. I have the retreat pretty well organized and I am looking forward to shopping and the stitching time. I am looking for a stitching related game that we could play on Saturday night. I am looking for something to break up the evening. Around 9:00 pm everyone gets a little punchy. If you have done anything fun at any of the retreats you have attended, I would love to hear your ideas!!

Other fun things that happened this weekend were we visited two new restaurants. On Friday night we meet friends at a new brewery in my hood called Haymarket Brewery. The hostess was a hot mess so we went down restaurant row to my favorite Indian restaurant, Jaipur. On Saturday we had a friends 30th birthday party at Moe's Cantina. Since we had to go to River West for her party we decided to eat at Prosecco. Prosecco has been around for a while but it was the first time we had been there. It was a beautiful restaurant with tons of class. Opentable said the dress was business casual which really did not work for us since we were going to Moe's after dinner so we wore nice jeans. It was really interesting to see how the dress was so generational. The older people were in suits or sports coats. The ladies had on furs. The younger people in the crowd had on jeans and sweaters. At first I was horrified that I had picked such a nice restaurant and worn jeans and even worse is DH wore his Carhartt jacket because it was below zero with the wind chill. Once we checked the coats, I had a glass of Prosecco and a half bottle of wine, who cares what you wear. The food was delicious and we are looking forward to going back.

Well back to the work week. I am not sure where my projects will take me now that I am done with Safari. I will work on a WIP but not sure which one. I am enjoying everyone working on the Crazy January Challenge. Some people are taking on some pretty big projects and I am enjoying seeing all the patterns. Some are new to me and hopefully I will be able to resist temptation.

Happy Stitching.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. This is my last day of a two week holiday break. It has been a busy two weeks. The first week was full of holiday preparations, six days in cold, Florida with my family, a New Years Eve party at our house, and pretty good stitching progress.


I am working towards a deadline of Saturday on Safari. I have the basket weave to complete at the bottom and beads to add. The basket weave is slow going. My Guild meets on Saturday and this was my challenge piece for 2010. I know I had a year to get this done but I am working hard this last week. I will have this done before the meeting. I have to pull a few projects together so the Guild can vote on my challenge piece for 2011. Only once since we started this, I did not get my challenge piece complete so it is motivating and makes me get one old project complete.

Santacicles was my travel project in Florida. He stitched up very quickly. I only have the band on his hat to complete, I need to add eyebrows, and I am going to do basket weave around the outside for the finisher. My last Santa by JZC I did not go around the outside. This made the finishing more difficult and super expensive.

Good luck to everyone doing the crazy challenge. I am enjoying your blogs and seeing all the new projects. Having 15 more WIPs would make my skin crawl so this challenge is not for me. If I was not working on Safari, I might have tried to spend a day with each of my WIPs but I don't think I have 15 going at this time.

I hope everyone has a healthy, happy and productive New Year.

Since I am working at home and the sun is shinning, I am able to get a pretty good picture of Safari. I finished the Cheetah spots and cream and gray woven area. Last night I started filling in a couple of the purple diamonds in the woven area. I think I am making some pretty good progress on this project.


I just had The Beauty Girl, Nicole, in to go through my make-up. I basically found out about some new products and I am not off base with the products I use. Now I am going buy some of the products she suggested when I get to Florida next week. It was cool to have her in and suggest ways to fix problem areas. She also shared tricks to make your face brighter. She suggested products from the high end department stores to your local drug store. Most things could be bought at a Sephora.


We only have one Christmas party this weekend. I do need to do a little bit of Christmas shopping over the weekend. I have not really worked myself up over Christmas this year. No one needs anything so I am not getting them much. It is almost an exchange of cash which seems a little ridiculous. Mom likes to see presents so I guess we will go on wrapping gift certificates.


Hope everyone has a great weekend. Happy Stitching.

Lucy is Done

Lucy was finished last weekend. Even though I only seemed to have a little bit of work left on her, it took me several hours to finish the background. I think I will have her made into a Spring Pillow. The instructions said she was finished with pink with white polka dot material.

This is the Santacicle canvas I took at ANG. My stand made a hole in the canvas so I ordered a new canvas and I am taking this as a class through the Shinning Needle Society. I am not sure I like the red sparkly stuff I am putting in his hat. That is why I stopped on this project until I could see it in the light of day. With the petite very velvet it looks crowded. I may skip this stuff and just add the beads.

You may not be able to see my progress because it was only a few hours of work. I put in four lengths of thread around the brown spots. I put in a couple more lengths of sea grass in the area below the spots. I need to get in the sea grass so I can tell where to put in my spots. This piece is my challenge piece for my local guild. I think it could be possible to finish this piece by the second week in January. This piece is too big to travel with but I am off of work and home 8 days at the end of the month. I may travel with Santacicles. (Yet another opportunity to trash this canvas) :)

I have a few new followers that I would like to welcome. Longtime or new followers I would like to thank you for joining me on my stitching blog. If I don't follow your blog or if you start a new blog, leave me a comment or an email and I will be happy to follow your blog.

This weekend is the big party weekend. Both parties should be fun. I am blowing off my Guild Meeting tomorrow morning because I am afraid there could be a fine line between the party tonight and Saturday morning. The EGA party is also in a far away suburb and the weather could be icy tomorrow morning.

I hope everyone has a warm and stitchy weekend.

Safari is being completed like a man on parole,

I want to be everywhere at once on this project! You would think I would finish the Cheetah spots. I have two issues with these spots. First, the lines that show up like they were drawn with a black Sharpie in this picture, are barely visible when you see this project in person and my Ott light is shining down on it. I have been working the gray/ivory, woven sections so my Cheetah section does not stray. Second issues is the lighter brown in the Cheetah spots eats thread. I am forever starting a new thread on this section. I have also spent a little time with the basket weave around the cats head. This is just time consuming and I do not want to leave all this fun to the end. I really do not mind doing basket weave and it is a good task when I just don't have the power to think...

Sunday, I must not have had any brain power or was it the wine? because I worked more basket weave on Lucy during the football games. I really did not accomplish that much but I wanted to show something besides Safari.

Pre-registration for EGA National Seminar in Naples is open until September 20th. I did sign up for a few classes, now it is wait and see what I get. I was picky this year and I did not worry about the days because I will stay at the hotel some days and my parents condo on day's I don't have classes. My classes were picked more on teachers and techniques rather than the love of the projects this year.

This weekend is Mayan Lighting pilot class. It will be fun! Hopefully, I will be able to share this project. This will be taught at NAN in March. After class, I am meeting up with part of the family for a Sox Game. This is my first professional sports game this year.


We are busy planning trips. We are working on our visas for Brazil, we booked our tickets for Thanksgiving and Christmas in Naples, FL, and I am working on a trip to Europe in the spring. I am going with my mom and we are debating between a tour through Italy or a boat cruise on the Danube between Prague and Budapest. If you have done either of these trips, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Hope you are not getting to bored with Safari. I want to get as much done as possible before seminar. Hope your week is filled with stitching fun!

Two Sections Done

The long weekend was good for Safari. My goal was to finish the background around the giraffe spots and that was done on Sunday night so I set a new goal. Get the zebra stripes done and they were completed on Monday. I also put in one thread of gold basket weave around the cat guy. I did not stitch last night but I will be back at it tonight.

Last night we did not have cable or Internet so we were on the terrace. Here is the sun setting with our city twist. Thursday night is movies in the park night. They are showing Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Lets see how long my friends last in the park with having to hide their wine. I bet they are on our terrace within an hour...

Happy Stitching!

Stitching Toy

I finished my giraffe spots on Safari. The color in the picture looks a little bright but it is Fish Pepper by Vicki Clayton and is really a muted color. I am setting a goal for the weekend to finish this section. The background on this section should be fairly quick but a lot of laying threads.

Now onto my new toy! My new System 4 Travel stand was delivered on Wednesday. There is always a big debate between which is better, the System 4 or the Lowery. I bought the Lowery first because the base did not have as big of foot print as the System 4. Prior to the Lowery I had the Gazelle and I was tired of all the feet. The Lowery base is not as stable as the System 4 and you do need to put some weight on it so your work does not tilt over. The System 4 is all feet and teachers are not all sold on this stand because they trip over the feet. For my stitching chairs, I basically have to work from the side because one has an ottoman and the other is a chaise lounge. Personally, I don't see much difference in the stands other than the feet so buy what fits under your stitching chair. The Lowery base is flat so it might work better if you have a chair such as a Lazy Boy with lots of mechanics underneath.

You may be questioning why I need two stands. I don't, but I wanted the travel stand. My company gave me a service award so I had extra money to spend on something fun. Plus, I can take my travel stand to my pilot class in a couple of weeks, ANG National Seminar in October, and it can go to Florida on our holiday trips. I will get my mom to accessorize my stand for Christmas.

One more thing about the stands is get on line and price these things. I really wanted to support my LNS but her quote was close to $100 dollars more than the place I found on line. Now I am all about supporting local shops but not at price difference.

Finally, I wanted to tell you about my new/old book. This book is free on archive.org
I printed the book out and took it the UPS store and had the wire binding added for about $5.00. It is a great basic embroidery book. It is in black and white but you can see the pictures and they have very nice line drawings of stitches. I never really learned embroidery and occasionally I need to use some of the stitches.

Hope everyone has a nice holiday weekend and hope Earl does not mess up any plans. Happy Stitching! Check back next week to see if I accomplished my goal.

A Little of This & A Little of That

Yesterday, I spent most of the day stitching but it does not appear that I accomplished all that much. My main project was Safari. I put in the giraffe spots. For the time I spent on these spots you would think I would be done with them, but I am far from done. Maybe I was too focused on my DVR instead of my stitching. Project Runway, Jersey Shore, Big Brother, Hung, an occasional CSI, a soap opera or two, may have distracted me. Keep in mind that I have not been home for three weekends so my DVR was pretty full.

I worked on my Teresa Layman project on Friday night and some Saturday afternoon. Everything I put in on Saturday had to be picked out because I used the wrong color twice. A thread was put away on the wrong card and I kept using the wrong color. Picking out tiny French knots is a time consuming process.

Notice the new hoop. This is a Hardwicke Manor Embroidery Hoop. This is soooo much better than the plastic hoops I have used in the past. I can get this hoop tighter and hold the fabric more taunt. One of the professional embroidery people said this is what she used so I have been eyeing them for a couple of months. Hedgehog Hand Works is having free shipping this month. I believe this saved me $10.00 in shipping by ordering this month. I know Needle in a Haystack has these hoops and I am sure others sell them as well. I bought the 6 inch round in 5/8 and the 5 inch round in 5/16. The 5/8 one is so nice! It is thick and sturdy. The 5 inch only comes in 5/16th and I think it will work great on smaller projects. I found a tutorial on binding embroidery hoops which I think I will try once I get to a fabric store.

Here is Lucy. This is mainly from earlier in the week. I think since my last post I finished the yellow egg and part of the basket. She is fun to work on but I will not work on her until I go to Santa Fe. I will have plenty of plane time to work on her.

My weekend was fairly quiet for a change. We did go to a street fair in Little Italy on Saturday. We walked it a couple of times, then we went to University Village to a bar/restaurant, the nice wine store, and then back home for some burgers. It was a fun day!

There is not much else going on here. I hope everyone has a great week. Hopefully, we can all get at least a few stitches in! Kelly

Hi, The weekend was busy and fun but I did manage to get some stitching done. Above is Safari by Terry Dryden. I worked on the cat and did the sections below the head. My pencil mark show up great in the picture but I could not see them well yesterday. I was working outside on the terrace and the lighting was not right for this work. In case you are interested, Terry is going to teach this project at NAN. Speaking of Nan... my friend is teaching the half day class Mayan Lightning. I am going to take her practice class for this project in September

I finished the flower motif on Beautie Spot and started the bug on the right.

We had about 10 people over for the hockey game on Friday night. Saturday was my nieces college graduation party in the suburbs and Sunday was more hockey. These hockey games are wearing me out. Hopefully we will only have one more until we win the Stanley Cup!!

Thanks for stopping by. Happy Stitching.

Stitching Retreat Weekend

Welcome! I finally have lots to show and pictures this week. I spent the weekend stitching with my EGA Guild friends at the Marriott in Oak Brook. It is a very nice hotel and we had a great time stitching. I took Friday off from work and spent about half the day shopping. I went to Inspired Needle. It is a very nice cross stitch shop about 40 minutes outside of Chicago. I don't get out there very often and my bank account thanks me for that. I did not think to take pictures of what I bought. Oh well, that will give me something to post about later this week. I spent about an hour and a half looking over all the stitching goodness. After that was done, I went to Village Needleworks. It is a needlepoint store with lots of goodies. They have a great selection of thread, hand painted canvas, and notions. I really did not need any needlepoint stuff but I had to stop by for a look. I ran across another guild lady and we had a very nice lunch in a diner in the strip mall.

I spent the rest of the afternoon stitching on Safari. Over the weekend, I finished the stitching across the bottom, some of the zig-zag section up the middle, the diagonal zig-zag, the green sea grass on the diagonal and started the zebra stripes in the upper right hand corner. I drew in the zebra stripe and the spots. I had to work the zig zag sections so I made sure my counting was not off before I started the animal prints. The pencil markings show up better in this picture than in real life. They are very lightly drawn and hard to see. It helps to have a white cloth behind the project.

My next accomplishment for the weekend was to finish and cut out my ort box. Right now it is in five pieces and waiting for the lining. My eyes and brain could not tackle cutting fabric after a weekend of stitching so I thought it best to put the project aside for a day with more energy.

Saturday night I started the scissor fob that goes with my needle book. When I started making mistakes, I decided it was time to go to bed. French knots are not easy to pick out!! On Saturday night, we did have a fun scavenger hunt around the hotel. It made us get off our stitching butts and get moving. We had to follow the directions and we collected supplies and directions to make a small project. Plus, candy to keep us going.

Finally, I worked on my Long Dog Sampler last week and on Sunday morning. I am working on the flower motif on the right hand side of the picture. I bought a big Ink Circles pattern to work on next so maybe the idea of a new project will get me moving on this one. I did buy some more threads for Beautie Spot. This pattern calls for Gentle Arts Thread. Let me just say, there is not much thread on a card and they are selling for $2.00 a card. This project is expensive. I have no idea what it has cost but if I am going to invest this much time, I want it done right.

Sadly, I left the retreat about 11:00 am on Sunday. I had to go to Nordstrom Rack and DH had 9 people over for dinner last night. I think he was a little board being by himself this weekend so he threw a Sunday night dinner. He made a lovely stuffed pork roast with a maple syrup glaze. We had an incident on the table cloth with a glass of red wine but I took the table cloth out of the dryer this morning and it is no worse for the wear.

Tonight is a manicure and pedicure. I cannot wait!! I have not had a pedicure since we were in Naples in December. I like my nails to breath a couple of months a year and since most of the winter they are stuck in sox's and boots, it is the best time for freedom from paint. Now they can be pampered until next January.

That is about it for now. Have a great evening!! Kelly

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.

Another three day weekend

I did not mean to have a three day weekend but I got a 24 hour flu and could not go to work on Friday. I hate wasting time off being sick. I would much rather use the time for vacation. I had another big stitching weekend because I was just not up to doing that much. Now I am tired of being sick and I am getting back to normal.

I spent some more time on Safari this weekend. I finished the green and cream section that has been intemidating. Once I got going, it was not bad which I knew that would be the case. I had not filled in a green section and that threw my mind in a tailspin. Once I got the visual in my head, I could see the pattern and this moved along. I also finished the stitches around the gold/wine diamonds and started the plum silk above the varagated tread. The beauty of needlepoint is it moves fairly quickly once you invest the time. Look at the huge sections I have done. So much progress in these pictures compared to my cross stitch projects. I did not even take a picture of my work on the Long Dog Sampler because I felt my work on the strawberry was not that exciting to show.

I have not shown a real picture of my Teresa Layman project until today. You cannot believe how addicting colonial knots and French knots can be until you do one of these projects. This is a small project but not a good travel project. I like to work on this project in a stand so I have both hands free. This allows me to make better knots. I might do one of her doll house rugs after this set is done.




Since I have been laying around a lot lately, I wiped out my DVR and moved on to movies. We went to a movie in a theater this weekend. I usually get to ADD to sit around and not have my stitching so I have not been in a theater in over 10 years. We saw Up in the Air. It was nice to watch George for two hours but other than looking at that hottie, it was not worth it. The theater experience is different than it used to be. This theater had a bar, served dinner, and did not allow children so all that was plesant. At home, I did watch Twilight and Juno. I like both of those movies. I also finished season one of Nurse Jackie on Showtime. Yet another series that I am hook on.

On the reading front, I finish Shanghai Girls. I really liked the book. She left herself open to writing a sequal to this book. I started South of Broad by Pat Conroy. I have only read the first chapeter but I think I will enjoy this book. I only have two books left on my Kindle so now I am getting excited about what I am going to order next. I have a six page wish list so it will not be hard to find something.

Tonight is dinner and a haircut so I won't get any stitching done. My hair has not been cut in three months and it needs it. My stylist quit her job so I have found someone new. This salon is closer to my house so it will be easier and cheaper to get a haircut. I picked their senior styist so hopefully she will be able to manage my mop.

My DH picked up a consulting job today so there goes my bitch. I guess him earning money is better than him doing my laundry and errands. It is good that he will be getting out of the house. He gets board and the cold weather does not allow him to do much outside.

Hope everyone finds time to stitch and have a wonderful week.

A three day stitching weekend

My weekend was full of stitching. On Friday night we went out for drinks with friends after work then dinner. I was home by 10 but I completely lost my voice so DH had a very peaceful weekend. On Saturday, I could barely speak above a whisper. All of this would not have been a big deal but I had to give a presentation at a church to raise money for the homeless shelter I work with. I squeaked my way through the presentation and hopefully raised some money.

Since I did nothing but stitch over the three day weekend, I accomplished a lot. I have not posted a picture of Beautie Spot by Long Dog Samplers before today. Over the Christmas break I finished fox in the lower corner, the little bug above the flower, and started on the strawberries. This weekend I made progress on the strawberries and some of the outlining. I enjoy the outlining. It is the filling in that really takes the time. This is a huge project and I have been working on it for a couple of years so you will be seeing this one for a while.

I also made progress on Safari. I finished the section with the gold diamond shapes and I put in the variegated thread around the diamond across the bottom. I am really enjoying this piece. Terri Dryden does a great job in designing so you have very little compensation. The design with the green silk is still not clicking. I really just need to sit down and add some of the white so I can visualize the the pattern. If I keep working on this piece, I should not have a problem getting this done as my guild challenge piece.

I really do not need anything else to do but I signed up for the Ort Box project with ANG Cyberpointers. I have not picked my colors yet. Someone suggested using an over dyed for the blackwork on this piece and I thought that was a great idea. I might have a sample of an over dyed that I bought that may be the right size. If not, the pattern called for Perle cotton and DMC. I have plenty of DMC and can easily pick up Perle cotton.

My other accomplishment this weekend was finishing Eclipse, the third book in the Twilight series. Loved it!! These are such easy reads. It was perfect for the Kindle. I will have to buy the last book in the series. I do not like to haul around large hardback books so that is why I have not rushed through this series. My next book is Shanghai Girls by Lisa See. I have loved all of her books so I am excited to get started on this one.

Hope everyone has a great day and maybe get in a few stitches. KMM

Progress on Safari by Terri Dryden

My horrid photography skills are shinning through on these photos. I am trying to show how much I accomplished on Safari over the weekend. I completed all the stitching in the upper left hand corner, I added to the green silk below that, I added the diamonds, and the maroon and gold strip across the bottom. I wish you coud see the beautiful threads used in this project. The gold around the maroon silk Splendor is Sea Grass. I will have to look at the thread list to tell you what some of the other threads are but it is fun to see the different textures in this design.

This project is moving along pretty quickly if I devote the time to it. The three day weekend will give me some extra time to work on it. The light green silk section is confusing me. I don't have a good visual and understanding of the pattern. I need to wrap my mind around the design and that was just not happening for me last Sunday.

I have been busy this week so I have not stitched since the weekend. Maybe tonight I will be able to get something done. I have to watch last nights episode of the Biggest Loser. Love that show. Have fun stitching. KMM

Today was our EGA meeting. We were supposed to bring in a few projects for the guild members to vote on and tell us which one to complete by the January meeting in 2011. I brought in my Windy City Santa by Libby Sturdy, Safari by Terri Dryden and my Long Dog Sampler. Santa and Safari tied twice so I got to pick my project for the year. My challenge piece for this year is going to be Safari. I guess now I have to get busy and stitch. I did work on it for a little bit over the holiday break so maybe this will help me keep my momentum going.

We are having friends over for dinner tonight so no stitching will get done. DH is making homemade pizzas. Tomorrow is another dinner so I will only get to stitch part of the day. His school starts on Monday so I will have some evening to myself to get more done.

If I make much progress on anything tomorrow, I will post a picture. Have a great weekend. KMM