SAL of Coming Home for the Holidays

I was able to pull this out and get about an hour and half of work into it this past weekend for my SAL with Jules. I just continued on with that huge old roof!! It's comin' along!

Stitching Real Estate!

Well, this past weekend was my SAL with Jules. So, I went digging and dragged this ole' one out, dusted it off and was able to get about an hours worth of work in on it.  I worked on the never ending roof. 

 

 And these past 5 days was my round to work on The Abbey.  It is coming along! I was gonna work on the back stitching page by page, but have just decided to do it by color. I added more of the dark red to the windows and started the black iron work at the top of the tower. It is still just slow going.

 

I don't think it's the project that is causing it to be so slow....it's me.  Since my husband has deployed, I have seemed to become nocturnal. I can't go to sleep at night! And when I do, my daughter wakes me up in the middle of the night. I think I may have gotten a handful of good nights sleep since he left, and that was only with the help of a Benadryl. You'd thing that I would pull out my stitching once she goes to bed. But, by the end of the day after dealing with her ALL day I'm frazzled, and just feel like sitting in front of the TV and zoning out. I just want to turn my head off, and not even think!  I'm just in this funk, and I hate it!  So, this week I am going to try to take a Benadryl the minute she goes to sleep, watch one episode on the TV, allowing the med to kick in, then as soon as it's over head to bed. Hopefully then I will be awake and ready to go nice and early, and able to stitch before she wakes up. Early morning is my favorite time of the day. I am awake and fresh and just love the quiet. I get my best work done in the mornings. So, we will see if that helps me be a bit more productive. (fingers crossed, lets hope!)

 

Well I am super excited!! As these next 5 days I'm gonna start working on a new project! "Sea of Roses" a HAED piece. I will probably use today to kit it up and then hopefully get some good work in on it. We will see. I want to try to finish pages 1-3 on this project this year as I would like to give it to my Sister in law maybe by her birthday in August of 2015, we will see. That gives me more than a year and a half to get it done. It's a nine page pattern but only 4 of those pages are full pages, the other pages only have around 600 stitches on them.  So we will see.  Wish me luck!

Coming Home for the Holidays SAL Progress!

Since we missed our SAL weekend, because I was out of town, Jules and I decided to pick it up for the holiday weekend! I am actually pleasantly surprised at how much I was able to get in on this during the weekend. The weekends get a little crazy with the hubs home and the baby. It seems everytime I'm turning around someone needs to be fed, or cleaned, or entertained....ugh...But! I was able to get quite a bit of work in on it.

I worked mostly on the roof.  That durned thing is gonna kill me! It's the never ending bluish/purple mass that I will be stitching as I breath my last breath...or so it seems.  But I have to admit, it IS starting to look pretty good!!

I hope all my readers and followers in America had a wonderful Thanksgiving day! That you had a wonderful time with family and/or friends, and maybe got alot of stitching in too!

Now it's time for CHRISTMAS!!!

Coming Home For the Holidays/SAL update

Well, here is my update on Coming Home for the Holidays. My SAL with Julie. I can't believe her and I have been SALing on this for a YEAR!! I just realized that! It's slowly, and I mean SLOOOOOWLY, coming along! LOL....Still been in a stitchy rut! Man! I just have too much energy to do anything, like settle in with stitching. As soon as I sit down, get everything settled, my needle threaded, I'm ready to pop up and go do something else! I feel like I have ADHD! All I want to do is sit and read. I guess cause that doesn't take much effort, to pick up and set down. I don't want to stitch, I don't want to work on my pen paling, writing letters and stitching are just taking up tooo much thought, and not enough energy! LOL. And I think the only reason that this is, is because of  what I wanna do and AM doing well are my Turbo Jam work outs!! I am still LOVING it! I'm on day 37! And it's so much fun! So! I work out hard every day and I just don't have the want to to just SIT. Sad, since all my favorite hobbies include sitting on my butt, doing something. I just keep hopping up to do a  house chore, or play with the baby, or go for a random walk around the block! But these work outs ARE working! I am starting to look good! Not so "fluffy" (Ok....fat....)

I figure I can stitch and do all my "Sit down" hobbies after I lose my weight!  So for now I'm focusing on weight loss, and being more healthy!!

So, I'm sorry if I'm not around here posting as much as normal. I just don't have as much to share, since I'm not stitching as much!

Sorry this photo is so blurry.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! We are taking Alyssa to her first birthday party!  I'm sure she'll enjoy it! The person who invited us has 7 kids, and 4 of them have birthdays this month!!! So she is throwing a BIG Birthday/Halloween bash for them. Alrighty, off to get some things done, before we're off to celebrate 4 Rugrats and Halloween!

Coming Home for the Holidays-Progress!

Here is my progress for the month of August! Yes, this post is half a month late! (Hanging head in shame!) This is my SAL piece with Juls, who's father passed away the beginning of this month. My prayers and thoughts go out to her, and her family at this time!

I worked mostly on the roof of the house, filling in some light violet-blue color. I am not sure what is gonna happen with this SAL, if we will continue it, as Juls was working on this as a gift for her father, and she was SOOO close to a finish, before he passed. I will still try to work it into some sort of rotation even if we stopping SALing on it together. But I know I will be thinking about this sweet stitcher and her loss every time I work on it!

Well, a typhoon (A super typhoon-Cat. 4, 133-155 mph winds) is to hit here this weekend. So, I am not sure what will happen. We normally fare pretty well here when these things hit, (no loss of power/flooding) but there is always the chance that it might happen. So, we shall see! So, mother nature has once again ruined another weekend! We'll be stuck indoors while mother nature wrecks havoc on our tiny island. I see alot of reading and possibly stitching in my weekend plans! I hope you all have a wonderful one!

Coming Home for the Holidays-Progress!

It's comin' along!

Two projects in one post!! I am definitely behind!

Well, I have been having lazy days lately! I am still stitching but just not posting! BAD ME! I shall sit in the corner later!

But for right now I am going to share Coming Home for the Holidays, my SAL piece. I am still working mainly on the left hand side of the house.

I got so much stitching in now I have decided it's time to start some of the backstitch:
Can you see it?

Next up is Birdhouse #1. The last time I posted about this one, I was griping about it, and it's still not my favorite project, but we are at least on speaking terms again! See? I was trying to pin point the problem as to why I hated it so much....I got all the threads I need now, and I realized that it is because I didn't make a working copy of the pattern before I started, so sometimes I just feel lost!! And I end up spending so much time counting and recounting just to try to find my place! And it is hard, because so many of the colors (Especially in the roof) are almost identical! UGH! I WILL be making a working copy to highlight of the next house in the series!!
And last but not least...some cuteness to brighten up this post!
LOVE that smile!! Anyway, our weather has been horrid lately, we have a Typhoon on the way to hit late Monday. we'll see, the last one that was to hit last week veered off to the east and we didn't even get any of the affects at all.

Well that's about it in my corner of the world! Happy stitching!

Oh yeah, and I haven't even picked up The Abbey since I last posted about it! So This weekend I am hoping to get some work in on it! Well, providing I don't get blown away by the typhoon, I will post progress on it in my next post! I am almost finished with page 6 of it! I really wanted to finish p. 6 and start the next page by months end...we shall see!

SAL progress on Coming Home for the Holidays

This month I worked mostly on the left hand side of the house. It's comin' along....slowly but surely!

SAL progress on CH4TH

This weekend was really busy so I wasn't sure I'd get much progress in on this, which is Coming home for the Holidays, my SAL project with Julie, but! I was able to get a few hours in on it!! So, it's coming along slowly but surely!!! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Progress on SAL and Bears

For the most part I have only had time to work on Patchwork Teddy's here lately, a little bit when the baby goes down for her nap, we have been pretty busy lately. And my mom gets here tomorrow night, which I am really excited for, but I probably won't be back here for about 5 weeks! (That's how long she'll be visiting!) and I probably won't have much stitching to show then! But we plan on going on a few day trips around the island so I will have stuff to share, but probably not stitching stuff.

Here is my progress on Coming Home for the Holidays...it's coming along slowly, and I realized we have a big counting mess up which we need to figure out how to fix, but that is way over on the right hand side, so I'll get there eventually, right now I'm pretending it doesn't exist, and just working on the left hand side!
Other than that, Alyssa seems to be taking up the majority of my time, lately. She will be turning 1 in less than 2 weeks, so she is in that needy "I want mommy by my side all the time" stage. So when she's awake I am usually hanging out with her. Which cuts into my stitching and reading BIG time. I am trying to be good and stay off the computer for the most part, but that doesn't seem to be working, I still go on frequently...UGH! I need like 5 more hours in a day! Oh well.

Well, friends, I will sign off here and see yah soon...or in 5 weeks! Happy Stitching!

SAL progress on CH4TH

This first photo is mostly all I worked on this weekend. The left hand side of the house, the upstairs window and some of the area below it!
And here is how the entire thing is looking, as my husband has been working on the foliage on the right hand side, he's been putting a bit of work into it too! Jules is such a fast/great stitcher it's taking two of us just to Keep up with her, and she's still WAY ahead!!!
Hope you are all having a wonderful week! Next week I probably won't be posting as we are going on vacation to the mainland (Japan) for a week. I might post photos of our adventures, but we shall see. I may just use the time to stay away from the computer all together and just enjoy life! I will probably post one more time this week, as I still need to share photos of Howling. For some reason, I have lost motivation for that one! And here at the home stretch! I have to MAKE myself work on it! ::sigh:: So I have a tiny bit of work in on it, and I am going to try to get a bit more work in on it today and tomorrow and I will try to share it sometime later this week before we leave!

Where is time going? It was just the 1st yesterday...wasn't it?!?!

Wow!~ I don't know how it got to be the 13th without my posting a photo of my SAL piece that was worked on the first weekend of the month! The days are just going too fast!!! So without further ado here is Coming Home For the Holidays after working on it the first weekend of December...

Not bad! I think I got about 3 hours in on it. It is really coming along!

Lately I have been working on Howling at the Moon, now that I'm pretty much done with Christmas Card stitching, so that is my main project now! I want to look through my WIP's and see if there is another project I can work on so I don't bore you with lots of Howling at the Moon...I like to rotate my projects (loosely) to keep things fresh! A nice small project would be nice! But we'll see what I turn up...I will share Howling at the Moon in my next post. Page 8 is more than half way finished!! I can't wait! A finish on that big ole' honkin' thing is very near...probably a few months away yet, but the end is near....then comes the task of what BAP Iwanna work on next! I probably should go back and try to finish The Abbey, but I have been toying with the idea of starting a brand new one...we'll see....

Coming Home for the Holidays SAL progress...

Worked on this a few hours this weekend, wasn't sure I was gonna get to it. It was a busy weekend. Had to get up early Saturday to take guest to the Airport, then came home went back to bed for a bit, then got up, went to the store, then came home worked out, took my shower, made dinner, then our friend came over for dinner, and I had a headache so went to bed early. Sunday was church, then out to lunch with church people, and had a headache again, so rested. I wasn't sure I wanted to stitch with my head hurting like that, but took some meds and felt better so got some work in on this in the evening! It's coming along. All the blue on the lower right hand side? My hubby did that sometime earlier in October....lol...Hope you're having a great week! I'm doing ok, I still have my headache, it's rainy and tomorrow I turn 34 years old...Happy Birthday to me and the US Marine Corps! Joyful stitching!

Coming Home for the Holidays

I worked on this last weekend, and I think I got about 3 hours of work in on it, as me and the hubs were busy, it being payday weekend, we had date night, and grocery shopping to do, and we went out to dinner with a friend on Saturday. It is s-l-o-w-l-y coming along!! But I find that I am enjoying working on this one again!

SAL post #1...

I know you LOVE my title!! Very original, and creative! Haha! So, today is the day I think we are supposed to share our progress that I am doing with Jules of "A Stitch in time with Jules" (Who recently changed her blog name, and used to be "Julies Creations".) Anyway, no matter the name of the blog, it is still the same great person writing about their lovely stitchiness!

We are both working on a project called Coming Home for the Holidays. I think the last time I worked on this one was in November and you can see what it looked like then here.

So, our SAL will take place the first weekend of every month and then we will share our progress the following week. This being a long weekend, it gave us a little extra time! So, here is my progress. for the most part I work on the big long line of brown and a little more blue and white in the roof of the house. (If you can tell that is a house)

I am sooo excited to be working on this project with Julie, and when you see how far she is don't laugh at me ok? She is WAY further along than I but I still wanted some motivation to get some work in on this!

Well, I wanted to let you know, that my weekend didn't get a whole lot better, the best day was Monday and nothing happened that day, on friday I was treated like garbage by someone I thought was a friend, then Saturday I fought with the hubs (but no worries we made up!) Sunday my daughter was a grumpy pants, because she is teething now! Poor little girl. And yesterday (Monday) was ok.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!! and here before I close out, I want to share a video of Alyssa! Who doesn't like baby laughter?! I personally think it is the greatest thing in the world. It is so carefree and contagious! I can't help but to laugh right along with her when she giggles! So, enjoy!!!

Progress Photo Friday!

Ok, so for most of my readers, it is still Thursday so you get a Friday update early, however for me, here in Japan, it is already bright and early Friday Morning...thus my title!

I have been busily trying to keep on track with my "rotation" which so far I think I have done pretty well this week. And I am going to share photos! If you want to watch my progress on my goals, you can do so under the heading "November Goals" on my sidebar, I will try to keep that updated as I stitch... I'm a little behind on Howling, but that's alright, I can catch up and I have not done my Friday stitching yet, so that progress is missing too.

Here is Howling at the Moon. I am really enjoying this one...all those blues and violets...it is really starting to take shape. This one I work on 1 hour Mon-Fri. so it gets 5 hours of work on it a week. This is my focus piece for the month,

Here is the Abby. This one I have been working on FOREVER it feels like. But it is starting to look pretty good also. I work on this one one hour on Mon, Weds, and Fri. so it gets 3 hours a week.




And here is my last (but not least) photo for the week, this is Coming Home for the Holidays,(more affectionately known as CH4TH) and I work on this one only two hours a week (one hour on Tues, and Thurs.) This is the project that hubby is also working on with me. All that foliage and the large tree to the right? Thats all his work...the house is mine. Looking at this one, the photo isn't that great, but you can see a little work there. If you want to see the difference in progress just go to the sidebar and click on the label for it, and you can see how it is shaping up.


Not much else going on here. I am now on medication for my blood pressure and I had to go have blood drawn this week so they could check out my cholesterol levels and make sure my thyroid function is normal. So, all day Tuesday I had a headache because you have to fast for 12 hours before those tests, and ugh, it was awful...but now I don't have to go to the doctor until the 30th so that is good. I just have to keep up with my workouts and trying to watch my diet. This is so hard for me, because all my life so far I've never had to watch my diet, I could sorta eat whatever i wanted and my metabolism would just melt it away, and now I have to work on it...this getting old stuff just stinks!!! I turn 32 next week! Ugh!

Ok, enough rambling. Oh! I also wanted to say Hello and a great big thank you to my new followers!!! and also, as usual, thank you to all who have left me lovely comments!!! They are all lovely and much welcomed! I need to start hitting blogs with more regularity, as I have been so sidetracked lately with Facebook...That is about to change though. So I will be hitting your blogs much more regularly now! So, I'll see you in your comment box! =)

Have a great weekend!

I big fat finish!!!!!

I did it! I finished snowman #6!!!! My loooooong 6 project project is finished! Now just to figure out what I want to do with them! I was thinking maybe a hanging quilt....I don't know....Oh well, I enjoyed stitching them and thats what matters most! I think they are so cute!

Here is an update of the project hubby and I have been working on together. It is coming along nicely. He has actually been working on this more than I have because I have mostly been working on the snowmen! But now that the snowmen are done I think I will be devoting a bit more time to this one, as well as a bunch of other projects as well, such as "Howling at the moon", and "The Abbey"

Here is a photo of all 6 of my snowmen all together...

And...I have actually been tossing around ideas of starting something new....this one, perhaps? I am not sure. I have so many WIP's going right now...but I loved doing these nowmen sooo much I sorta wanna keep up with the snowman theme.

I don't know...hmmm...

Anyway, there is an update for you all. Thank you for reading!!!

Progress Photo Friday!

This is going to be a heavy photo post, because I have been stitching my little fingers off and trying to stay with a good rotation...I did mess up a bit, but for the most part I stuck with it! I work on a snowman and 1 large project every day. I am working on 4 large projects, and two snowmen, so I work on three of my large projects twice a week, and one of them only gets one day. And my "main snowman piece" gets stitched 4 days a week and the other only 3. Right now, Jack, or the first photo you see here is my "main man" lol.

This is the Abbey. I have been working on this one for a few years now. I love it, but it seems to keep getting lost in piles of lost and forgotten WIP's, I was hoping to have this one finished by my birthday LAST year...to say I'm a bit behind is an understatement. But! I am on the second page of this 9 pager, so...there HAS been progress!

This is Jim...He is snowman #5 in my 6 snowman series. He is my non-focus snowman piece, he only gets stitched on 3 days instead of 4.

(Jack and Jim...Hmmm...nope, I'm not thinking of Happy hour! LOL!)

This is Howling at the Moon, I am getting close to a finish on the first page! This, too is a 9 pager! It is a fairly new project, I don't remember when I started it. Right now it looks like a bunch of grey crayons threw up! But it will get better!

And here is CH4TH. I think I got quite a little bit done on it the one day I worked on it this week,I think my other rotation day on this one is tomorrow.

And wa-la! that is it! That was a review of my week in stitching!

I have not posted my large #4 project, as that day is today and I have not had it out yet, but I will share that...maybe this weekend!

On another note, I started my new job and I like it so far. But I barely started it last night, so not much to judge by!

Alright, I am off to check e-mails, and read some blogs and get that stitching mojo-enabling thing going on that happens when I read blogs, and then I'm settling in for a nice day of stitching!

Thanks for reading! And for all the comments on my "Big news" I am starting to get excited! I am just one of those people who have apprehensions when it comes to new things, new experiences...weird, I know...but that's me! lol

Have a great Weekend!

More snow...but DIFFERENT snow!

Well, if you have followed my blog for a while you know that my husband also has taken up stitching, about a year ago he did his first project and is still stitching. Well, while we were in California, we went to Solvang, a cute little danish town and they have a lot of needlework stores there. And we went hog wild buying stash! We bought two projects though that are going to be "joint" projects....meaning we will BOTH be stitching on them.







Lord help us if we ever do split up, if these projects get finished that is one "custody battle" we will have to duke it out!!! lol! Anyway, without further adeu...Here is the first one it is called "Coming home for the Holidays", (From here on out on this blog will be called CH4TH...he he, sounds like something of the table of elements!) anyway...here it is:





This is what it will look like when finished. Such a cozy holiday feel to it!






























And here is our progress on it so far. He has done more than me...because I have been obsessed with my snowmen as of late, however...I did all the work on the house on the left, and he has done all the stuff to the right, that dark brown tree and such.

So, that is also what we have been up to. I am thinking I am going to start rotating again, cause I really want to work on some other projects other than the beloved snowmen I seem to be obsessed with lately.

And to make it easier for us to see who has stitched what on this piece, we have decided to highlight the pattern with different colored highlighters, yellow for him and pink for me....so next time I share this piece you will be able to see who has done what as I will share that as well.

Oh! and I have other news as well, but this is a long post already so will share that in my next post!

Joyful stitching to you all!