One Stitchy Post Coming Up (as promised....)

Hi all! As always - thanks so much for all your wonderful comments! I am glad that my last post about the Harry Potter finale did not bore you all to death! :-) Now I am back with the stitchy post that I promised to post before this weekend has ended...

So, I did not get a whole lot of stitching done, what with sick-days and movie watching into the wee hours. But one can be productive with not a whole lot of time, right? Give me the internet and I can be real productive in seconds flat...
So without further ado, introducing this weeks stash enhancement. First off, I wish that I have not checked out Silverneedles "just in" page last week, since I thought that all the new Sweetheart Tree kits were adorable! The welcome kits are really neat for us lazy individuals - you can order the pre-cut mat-board so that the finishing will be reduced to a minimum. Me likey!
I did also keep with the Halloween theme from last week and ordered Hagatha's Hats by Just Nan - both versions. Interestingly enough, the orange one is on back-order. Well, at least I got the linens...
I did also purchase "The Guest House" by Bent Creek. It has a crazy chemist working in his lab (I assume Dr Jekyll) and I know quite a few "crazy chemists" at work, who would love to get this tiny picture (me included - I may have to make one for myself to display at work...)

On Friday, the mail-man brought me the highly anticipated Loose Feathers, part 1, from Blackbird Designs. Let me tell you, this booklet does not disappoint! At $12, this is quite a find on today's market, where we now are pretty much used to paying $8 for pamphlets charting one minute ornament... Here we have three generous, large and beautiful projects. After I read this baby, I went on-line and ordered an assortment of chenille trims off e-bay. I got to work with chenille trim at the Shepherd's Bush retreat last year and I just love it! It is easy to work with and looks great, so I am looking forward to fondling them sometime next week...

I did also manage to pass by Jo-Annes yesterday to pick up some beads and ribbons. My plan is to finish the Moonriders and Crowjackers with a beaded seam. It looks grand in my head, but time will tell how reality looks... ;-)

Here are the fronts and the backs, just waiting for someone to stitch'em together... (I have been waiting for the finishing fairy in vain.)

While picking up all the trimmings, I also happened to pick up these adorable reusable totes from JoAnn. How cute are these - I love that they are "real craft totes"!

(I was not real crazy about bloggers new picture loading tool, until just now - I discovered that I can type while to photos are loading - yay! - Scratch that - I am about ready to go absolute boinkers.... What do the rest of you think?)

So, did I do anything constructive this week? Seeing that I shamelessly increased the stash, did I manage to reduce it? Yes, I did (but not proportionally so)!
Here is the second Fremme piece. Progress pic, finished piece, and together with the companion.

These were so much fun to stitch on! (In the second photo you can see the project that I am determined to finish next; the Patricks Woods' Lucet pre-stitch....) I just met with my once-a-week-stitch-buddy, Pink, who told me that she really likes the third picture in this series. Sigh! I think that she just twisted my arm -Oouch, stop it Pink, it hurts! ;-)

I saw the cutest finish of these pictures on a Japanese blog. After some careful observation I have concluded that the borders are finished with picot-edge ribbon. How sweet is this!? Now I need to decide whether I should use black or green ribbon.

I did also spend some time girly-fying our bathroom this weekend. DH is pretty wonderful when it comes to things like this - he just says "Mmm, that's nice honey". In other words, he really doesn't care a whole lot, which works out fabulously well in many situations.
We started out with some Amy Butler towels last weekend. All the solid-color towels were pretty blah, so I decided to go with the big orange print with aqua ends (DH: "Whatever makes you happy, honey"). I expanded to the Amy Butler shower-curtain this weekend. So, as you can see, I am still in my "trying to go bolder" phase... :-)

I will try to make a custom-size bath-mat from one of the towels using some aqua and orange print fabric. I found a bunch of neat tutorials on-line, for example this one or here is a very cute, much more ambitious one at The Moda Bake-Shop (isn't that polka-dot terry fabric just the cutest!?.
(Speaking of cute home-sewn stuff, check out this really neat site - lots of great projects, ideas and free tutorials at Sew4Home.com!)

I am leaving you with some happy summer photos from our front yard. I love the summer season!

Happy Stitching and Talk with You in a Bit!

PS - Wohoo - I made it before the weekend is over - it is 11.44 PM as I post this! Must be a personal best, even though the picture posting process slowed me down significantly... ;-)