Happy Halloween!

Here are the stitched and not yet finished pieces of my Halloween stitching. I suppose I will get around to doing the finishing some day... Just have to be in the right mood.






















Next we have the Halloween exchange I sent to Marianne. I am very afraid that the package she sent to me has been lost. Maybe it will come next week.







Here we have some lovely acorns and a strawberry I crocheted for a few friends. Here is the pattern if you feel like making one. They do go very quickly and are very fun to make!

I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!

PS Halloween Exchange with Elisabeth

Pictured above is the amazing package of goodies that I received from Elisabeth! She sent me TWO stitched pieces, an ornament and a fob. The fob even has a French coin inside for weight. How cool is that?! She also sent a few yummy treats and floss tucked into this really neat fabric bag! I plan to use that bag to tote around a tatting project I am working on. And, I have to say I am extremely excited about the postcard! I love postcards and this one is very very special. It is from her husbands collection and is postmarked 1904. The picture is Moulin Rouge!!! I LOVE it!

Above is a photo of what I sent to Elisabeth. I stitched the owl from a Prairie Schooler Halloween leaflet and made it into a pin keep. I love JABC buttons so I added a spooky pumpkin button to make it more festive.

Thank you for such a wonderful exchange, Elisabeth. I hope we get to do it again some time =)

Halloween Exchange with Becky SC.

Here are the wonderful goodies that I received from Becky SC. for our personal Halloween exchange! I am truly spoiled, aren't I? The treat bag has already come in handy. Right after my hernia surgery I wasn't allowed to carry much so I used this as my project bag =) I already have plans for some of the floss to be used in one of the JBW designs I want to stitch. The little painted can (I sure wish I was that talented!), the wooden pumpkin decoration and the beautiful stitched ornament you stitched for me are on my Halloween tree. I will put a photo of it in a future post. I still have a few things I stitched for myself that I need to do the finishing on, and one more exchange to receive and then there will be pictures.
Here is a photo of the meager offerings I sent to Becky. The ornament is a newer pattern from Trilogy called "Spooky Tree". I added different buttons that what was called for. I really enjoyed our exchange and hope that maybe next year we can do it again =)

Halloween Exchange with Marie P.

Here are all of the wonderful goodies that Marie P. sent to me for our personal Halloween exchange. She embroidered a wonderful Halloween candle mat with cats on it, a stitched floss ring tag with some beautiful floss. I plan to use that for some Prairie Schooler stitching soon! The pot grabbers are great! I have always wanted some and these are perfect! And all of the other goodies are great too and will come in very handy!

But not the cat, of course. That is Sebastian. He insisted on being in the picture and he promised to "act" as casual as he could. He did pretty good, didn't he?

Now, isn't this doll just amazing?! I so love it!!! He is sitting atop one of the speakers for the t.v. I just think it is completely cool how she matched the stitching to this doll! Definitely one of my very favorite things for my Halloween display!

Here is what I sent to Marie. The ornament is from the JCS Halloween issue. As you can see, I have been flitting around to a few different crafts lately. Knit dishcloth, crochet scrubby, wool pumpkin pin cushion stuffed with ground walnut shells. My LNS had these great little kits all made up. All you needed to do is sew, stuff and assemble! So easy even I could do it, lol!

Thank you for such a wonderful exchange, Marie. I love everything, especially that it will coordinate with my Halloween wreath once I get it stitched and put together (maybe next year).

Halloween Stitching Plans

I have been busily stitching away on some really cute Halloween ornaments but I can't show any of them because they are a secret. Once they have been received by the special ladies I have stitched them for I will post photos. Until then, here is a photo of my next project, once I have finished the secret stitching. I found this black wreath and pumpkin bell at Michael's last night and just had to get them. I want to make a new Halloween wreath and I think this will be just perfect! The fabric is Autumn Field Lugana from 123Stitch! and the floss is good 'ol DMC except for the black. I am really hoping start this soon =)

Have a great day!

Autumn Song

This is the first ever Blackbird Design that I stitched. I bought everything to do the finishing myself and after putting it off for months realized that "I" would not be doing it and gave it to my finisher. I picked it up yesterday and I am quite pleased with how it looks.

I decided that it was time for a couple of small exchanges so I am doing three Halloween ornament exchanges. I have already stitched one, so two more to go! I pulled out all of my Halloween stitching and YIKES! I scared myself with how many patterns I have! Yes, I am still going to buy the BBD Halloween book and fabrics. I went though my threads and pulled what I already have and that will save some $. I also plan to get several of the new LK patterns. I have a few "must haves" every year. They are JCS Halloween and Ornament issues, LK Tiny Tidings, LK Santa, PS annual Santa and any Halloween or Christmas books if I like them, and this year I have purchased every Blackbird design and Loose Feathers project. And believe me, I don't think I saved any money with this plan but I have the things I want the most =)

What are your "must haves" each year?

Have a great day =)

It's About Time! - Long post

Yes, I do think it is about time that I pull out of my funk and let everyone know what has been going on the past couple of months.

In May, we flew to Oklahoma to see my baby boy marry his high school sweetheart. Soooo exciting and sooo happy to see them take this step. To make a long story short, I ended up in the hospital the night before the wedding for a stay of eight days. Back in February, I had been diagnosed with an ulcer. I finished the medication about a week before leaving for the wedding., and I still wasn't feeling "normal" (whatever that is, lol) but figured it was nerves about the impending nuptuals and if I still wasn't up to par after the wedding, then I would go to the doctor when we got home. Yeah right. Turns out it perforated and I had to have surgery. The yucky kind that leaves a six inch scar down the center of your belly =( Not that I would be wearing a bikini any time soon but I had hoped that someday.....LOL. Anyway, the wedding went on and the kids came to see me at the hospital afterwards. I tried like crazy to get myself together to go. The Doc even said that if I could, they would load me up with pain meds and let me out on a pass for two hours. I couldn't even dress myself which is funny now, but not then. I passed out during the attempt and had to be put back into the bed. See, the doc thought it was something else wrong that would "fix itself" so at that point I hadn't had the surgery. It wasn't until the day after the wedding that he decided to go in and have a look. Once I was cleared from the hospital we flew home and a few days later noticed something wasn't quite right. We went out to my favorite Vietnamese restraunt for soup and my husband asked if "that" was me or had I spilled soup on myself? By "that" he was refering to the stain on my shirt, right over my incision. I immediately went into denial and said it was soup of course. But it wasn't. We went to the hospital and had the build up of fluid around the incision, and the twenty one staples removed and I felt much better. I'm sorry, did I say I was trying to make this short? I lied. Even after that incident, I had another one before I was able to get on with the healing. And it was by far the grossest thing I have ever been through so I won't share any details. However, now I am doing much better. In two weeks I will have an EGD and then the docs will be able to see that everything is healing fine on the inside and I will feel better knowing that everything is okay too.

So, without further ado, I present a few things I have been doing. I will will share more photos later this week but decided to start with just a few for this post. I am learning to tat and this is my first doily:

Here are four more Blackbird stockings back from the finisher. I have a couple more stitched but really need to get my act together. I am supposed to lead a SAL for these with my local needlework guild and it won't be very inspiring if I can't keep up with it myself. I had already planned to stitch them all so this should really encourage me to keep up. Except that I have only wanted to tat lately.
A few weeks ago my inlaws came to visit and Sue brought me this bounty of goodies. This collection of tatting supplies came from her Aunt who passed away last year. No one else in the family tats so she asked if I could have the box of items that were now in storage. I feel so lucky to have them and will make lots of things. She saved some really neat patterns and I have already made one of them with some of the thread but it is a secret for now ;-)

The photo above shows the tatted flowers and doodles she had made and saved for note cards. The photo below shows the vast amount of tatting thread from the box and the patterns she had clipped from old Workbasket magazines. The thread was all in stationary boxes but I put it all into these plastic school boxes in hopes to keep it in really good condition so I can use it.
This photo shows all of the tatting shuttles and various tools she used. What an awesome collection!!!

Now, here is a link to the video my son made from the wedding pics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jrhgq1PNYQ
I think you will agree that they are just the cutest couple ever =)

Have a great day!