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!

SAL progress on Coming Home for the Holidays-July

Still working on the left hand side, with back stitching, and also worked a bit on the light blue in the roof, you can hardly see it...it's slowly coming along, when you think that when we started this SAL in Oct and it looked like this:

Yup, it's come quite away!

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!!!

What the Huh?!

Ok, I am mildly irritated!! Ok maybe a little more than mildly....I have always been able to order my DMC floss from a certain retailer on line, since I have moved to Japan. I am not going to name the retailer, because I don't want to give them a bad name, however, right now I am NOT very happy with them at all!! I tried to place an order for DMC on Saturday from this retailer, but I couldn't figure out HOW, I thought that is weird there is no place to put things "in my cart", then I notice at the bottom of the page a note in red that says "We're sorry we are unable to deliver this item outside North America". So I wrote them an e-mail telling them that I have an APO address and so my mailing address IS in the US, just that I AM in Japan. She wrote me back pretty quickly and said "Yes, but the product will still end up in Japan, so we can't make your order, I'm sorry."

So, I sent another e-mail saying "Well, just out of curiosity, why not? I have never had problems with it in the past." I mean, do the silk worms have cooties or something? I mean, I know the Japanese are huge germaphobes but come on now!! (No offense intended, it's actually a good thing!) And I have not heard back from them yet! They promise responses within 24 hours and it's been nearly 35 hours since I last sent it. (I didn't write the cootie part in the e-mail, just the fact that I wondered why not since I have never had problems in the past)

So I was actually thinking that I could get around it, by just having it shipped to my parents, and then just have them forward the package to me, but if I don't get an answer then forget it, I'm not gonna reward bad customer service!!

So now I'm scouting around to see if anyone else does shipping outside the US, it looks like "1-2-3 Stitch" does, and their prices look pretty reasonable...can anyone tell me if they have used this retailer before and if they got good/timely customer service? Or! If I can pay someone to be my "Floss Fairy"...lol...I could send you money to buy it and send it, if you are in the US it is just like mailing with in the US, there are no airmail fees or anything....I'm just sooo frustrated!! The craft store here, although they carry a good amount of DMC, for some reason NEVER have the color(s) I need! GAH!

Anyway, so that is what I am dealing with on the stitchy front right now!
I wanted to thank all the wonderful people who left me comments wishing me safety in our next typhoon! It actually went the other way!!! So, we have just had a little bit of rain, but that is it!

Also I am super excited for this upcoming weekend, it is my first weekend working on an SAL with Jules from http://julies-creations.blogspot.com/. We are both working on a piece called "coming home for the holidays" and although she is quite a bit further along in the project than I, I suggested we do a SAL, in hopes that it would motivate me to work on this project a bit!! So, we will be sharing our progress next week on that!

Well, I finished another Christmas Card but this is already a really long post, so I will be posting it in my next post!
Thank you all for stoppin' in to say hello, I love all your comments!! and I am also enjoying hitting up your blogs and leaving notes here and there as well! And Also a friendly Hello to my new followers!!!

Til next time: Joyful Stitching!!

Decisions, decisions...help? Please vote!

So, I need your help, fellow blogging stitchers! Some would argue I actually need a great deal more help than anyone could possibly offer, but for today I just need help picking which WIP I should stitch in the month of July.

I really need to mix it up a little as I am starting to get a little sick of the pieces I am currently working on, and with me working on the same couple projects all the time, my WIP drawer isn't going down as quickly as I would like. So, I decided that for the month of July I am going to put aside the lamb series, and work on something different. And that is what I need help with!

Ok, I have narrowed it down to three choices! (An amazing feat, considering the number of WIP's that jumped out at me and clambered for my love when I opened the drawer!)

First up...Snow Valley Express...This one I have been working on since I was in college...and I graduated 5 years ago, so this tells you how long this one has been a WIP/UFO. This one I started to give to my dad for a gift, as my mom is the proud owner of several of my pieces, however, my poor dad has nothing that I have ever stitched....sad, I know, and then this one I procrastinate for YEARS on....I really need to get it done up, so maybe I can send it as a Christmas gift. So, thats option #1!

Option #2: Isaiah 40:31. I started this as an SAL with a fellow stitching blogger a few years back, but we both got busy and decided to call it quits. I would still love to finish this one, and just recently at Bible Study we were talking about memorizing scripture, well, one of the girls spoke up and said "You could just cross stitch verses, I bet they'd get stuck in your head then." Or something like that, which made me think of this project, and it made me want to pull it out and work on it again.

Option #3...Holiday Airing, by Diane Phalen. I love her work, and have several of her patterns in my stash. And I would like to finish this one day, and I thought, well, it's crazy hot out, so why not work with some snow, maybe that will make me feel better! Plus, for some reason, I have been having the inkling to stitch something Christmas-y, so I thought this one would be a great one to pull out.



So, there yah have it, stitchers, now just leave me a nice little comment and tell me which one you vote on!!! I would greatly appreciate it!



I want to say hello also to my nre followers! Wow! Up to 75 now, that's amazing!! I never thought I would entice that many people to my blog, to listen to my drivel. Thank you all so much, it really makes me feel good that my love and hobby of stitching is being appreciated and enjoyed by others who stop by!



Well, I am off to get some reading in, I am almost done with book #7 for the month. Yay me! Last month I got 4 done, so a bit of an improvement, I'd say!



Thank you for stopping by! and until next time, Happy stitching!

Haha! As I was posting this I got follower #76! thank you!!!

Progress photo Friday

Yes! Hold on to your hats, I am actually going to post photos. Well, one photo. I am not quite to the point of actually posting a photo of Cheryl's Bouquet quite yet. I'm almost there, though, and if I keep on it I think I may be able to post something by the end of The weekend. So, keep your fingers crossed. Today, my goal is to work on my SAL project, as I didn't work on it at all yesterday. But I think today I am going to have a complete stitchy day, I will work on project after project all day long. And first off I am going to make myself work on that stinkin' eagle, and get some of it done. I hate that it feels like it's hanging over my head, mocking me!!! So today I will conquer it!!! LOL!


So, here is the last progress photo, from before we took our little break from it:









And here is my current progress:

So, there yah go. sorry the photos look a bit rough, I think it's the texture of the fabric, but none the less, there it is! Finally a progress photo! You can see I worked on the dreaded wing quite a bit, and the other night when I started getting frustrated with those browns and I felt like throwing it across the room, I just worked a bit on the wording, as that is very easy, and a nice break from all the tediousness of the many browns in the wing of the bird. Well, not much else to share at this point. I am eager get myself situated on the couch and put in some good stitching time today. I have been a bit preoccupied with my writing as of late, as I shared a few posts back, and that has taken up quite a bit of my time, but I feel as though I am over my little blogging and stitching slump, so you should see more of me here! and thank you everyone for hanging in there with me during this slow time and for encouraging me during my slump!

Progress Photo Friday

Well, I had a bad nights sleep again last night, was up from 1:30 to about 4 in the morning, which made it really hard for me to get up and take DH to work this morning so I could keep the car, for my enterview today. So, anyway, I am thinking oh well, my sleep pattern is gonna be like that anyway if I get this job, so what's the big deal, right? I came home and drank coffee, and now I'm good to go!

So, I have decided to share all my progress photos today of my entire weeks worth of stitching, I was noticing that I really don't share that many photos, do I? like every three or four posts I'll share, so I thought well, maybe if I scan every thing all on one day then share them thorughout the week, that would work for me. I am so lazy when it comes to bringing my stitching into the computer room for scanning! I don't know why that is! But I think am going to try to scan all my photos on one day then share them throughout the following week. I don't know. all I know is that after I go and read everyone else's blogs and see all their lovely stitching, I realize how very plain my blog must seem! Anyway.

So, here are my photos for this week. I worked on Isaiah 40:31, on Tuesday and Thursday and I worked on the Abbey for most of the afternoon and some of the evening yesterday, and I worked on Snow Valley Express on Monday and Wednesday, so there are some progress pics to share!

So this is last weeks progress on this one:

This is this weeks progress:

and here is Snow Valley Express:

and here is the Abbey:
Phew! Now I know why I hate posting photos! What a pain to get all those on there! So, from now on I will be posting photos one at a time! well, I hope you enjoyed looking at my progress! and now I think I will go sit and do some stitching on...something, I don't know what quite yet, but something! Sorry that some of the scans are cooked!

Progress photo Friday

This is last weeks progress:

This weeks progress:

This week I have worked soley on Isaiah, my SAL piece. I have just been too lazy to pull out any of my other projects. Although today I do feel like I could work on something else...maybe try to finish up that card for my friend. or finish the Erica Michaels February Freebie. That will take a bit of research though, as I am not using the called for threads on that one, so I am having to match the DMC colors to the threads used by the designer...it really wouldn't take too long once I get going on it again. So, this weekend I think I should make it my goal to finish the card and the February freebie, afterall, February IS almost gone, and it will be time to start on March. Well, I am off to get some breakfast and then pop in a DVD and stitch the rest of the morning away. I have so much I want to do today. Including play SIMS and read, since I need to finish up "Looking for Peyton place". It has been a really good read, but for some reason, it is slow going. I only have about 15 more pages to go, but the last 50 pages have just taken me FOREVER! I need to get moving onto my next one, if I am ever going to make my reading goals for the year!