My, Oh My - How Time Flies!

Hello and Happy Monday all stitching friends!  Time flies - it feels like the days have been shortened with a few hours.  There is less and less time to squeeze in all the fun stuff, if that makes sense.  (I already managed to miss my very first WIPocalypse post, so I guess that I am done with that... LOL). 

I have managed to stitch on a few projects here in the evenings, so I have a few pics to share with you.

First, I realized that we are almost in March, so my pre-stitching for the class with Patrick's Woods is due very soon.  I managed to slap together five pieces out of eight this past week.  I really enjoy the stitch, even thought there is a good deal of over-one stitching.  The colors are very pretty and much long-arm cross-stitching and hemstitching.  The hemstitching is a drawn thread stitch which I am very fond of; I finish all my bell-pulls and table-cloths with drawn thread hemstitching - it is so pretty - it looks like lace!

The pieces that are left will be a breeze, since I have already taken care of the "boring" part - the borders!  LOL

Here is a close-up of the pretty little bird that is back-stitched and filled with overlapping long-stitches.  I think that I rather packed my bird full with stitches, so it looks less primitive that the original does.

Here is a close up of the pretty hemstitched part of the design hat will be the side of the mattress style pin-cushion.  Isn't it beautiful with the blue ribbon woven through?

I did also get a chance to finish most of the EMS 2012 SAL sampler.  I say most, because I am not a fan of stitching half of a motif, since I am too lazy to restart all my threads.  I also feel that the sharp start and end within the same motif can be seen after the motif has been completed..  I'd pace myself and wait to get the next part before finishing the basket. 
Now I am trying to tell myself that I need to get cracking on the upper border - 5 more repeats to go.

I have probably mentioned before that we are a group of ladies who stitch at work.  We try to stitch at least once a week, but all of us have been crazy busy lately, so it has been a sparse gathering.
Last week I managed to finish this little piece, A Stitch in Thyme  from Little House Needleworks.  The kit came with the super-cute needle-book and tomato pincushion.  Unfortunately, I have lost them...  don't you hate that!?  I seem to manage that a lot...  Drives me nuts!  Anyway, maybe here in the future some day they'll pop up.  Then it is just a matter of finding the stitched piece again!  LOL  It is a very cute piece though.

Here is the fully finished heart needle-book and the little heart box painted by Liberty Hill that came in this limited edition kit from Hillside Samplings.  This was a lot of fun - a lovely stitch and a pretty straight forward finish.  There were some tricky parts getting the assembly done, but it all got lovingly forced together in the end.  Sorry about all the pics...
I spoke with the lady that paints the Liberty Hill treasures last week.  She is so sweet and friendly and took her time to talk with me - and we even discovered that she has visited my blog - I am thrilled!  Needless to say, I am looking forward to the 2012 prim club very much!

Speaking of primitive and clubs, have you seen this one, Prim Sister's Club!? 

Country Sampler, Notforgotten Farm, Primitive Bettys, and Pineberry Lane have joined forces to send the club-members a kit every other month.  I have signed up!


I bought as tiny bit of stash over the Superbowl weekend at Silverneedle's sale.  I was good and I only bought finishing materials and a Very Bradley organizer (I love the bold white, green and turquoise colors) that I wanted to keep coupons in.

 I have to share a close-up of this funny little note that came back in the package with you:

LOL!

I hope that all of you had a nice Valentines Day.  I had great plans - more than months in the making.  I got the idea inspired by this beautiful Valentines wreath made from reproduction vintage cards by Williams Sonoma.  Isn't it lovely?

Well, I found a few tutorials here and here and there are so many wonderful and generous web-pages full of images of fun and pretty vintage Valentines cards.  This site is my favorite! 

I did get cracking on the wreath and it would have looked grand, except for the fact that I ran into trouble with the Modge Podge - it never seemed to dry up and in the end, all the cards curled up, so I decided to give it a rest!  As you can see, I decided to go with the vintage reds and the cheesy greetings - they are too funny!  Makes me smile!

I added some glitter paint to make things sparkle a bit - it looked great (this was before the blasted Modge Podge!). 

 

 

I'll definitely give it another try next year - or maybe I'll try for the precious Easter wreath here in a few weeks..  Just have to rest up my tired scissors fingers and print out some fun Easter greeting cards first...  :-)

Speaking of Valentines - here is Rusty guarding his (?) nest-box with Pixie peaking out from behind.  We'll see if they lay any eggs.  That would be the first clutch for them, so it is exciting (even though I am hoping that there won't be - we don't have any more space here!).  Pixie and Rusty are different types of Greencheek mutations, so their babies would likely be quite unique.

 

This is Nibbler - also known as "Big eye", since his (?) right eye, the one that is looking at YOU right now,  is much larger than the other.  Soooo cute!

Nibbler almost died when he was a baby.  He flew into a window really hard and started to bleed into his beak.  He almost suffocated on his own blood.  DH freaked out, which helped keeping me much calmer than I would normally have been.  I took Nibbler out to the bathroom, held him upside-down while rinsing his beak with water.  I was sure that there was no chance that he would make it, but we were all very, very lucky!  It is hard to have loved pets die in your hands and especially that young.

I swear that the big eye is a memento of his near-death experience, while DH thinks that I am imagining things.

Nibbler's "big eye" is focused a lot on Scrappy.  Scrappy has a set of admirers that follow her (?) anywhere through the house.  It is a bit of an interesting situations.  Pebble and Nibbler chase after Scrappy, who goes "home" to Henny in the evenings, since they are cage-mates. 

 

And this beautiful basket is what my "cage-mate" keft for me to discover after work.  He knows that I love bulbs and he really overdid himself - I am so spoiled by that man!  They are starting to bloom out, but I can't wait to dig these babies down in the ground and see what happens next spring.

This is what is going on right now - here in Kentucky, we are all very confused about the winter that never seemed to come.  We are all holding our breath and waiting to see if there will be any late winter-storms before the real spring finally arrives.  Some of us are less patient than others - my mini irises decided to take the plunge and they look happy.  It put a big smile on my face when I left the house Thursday morning and saw these brilliantly blue gems glistening in the flower beds. 

 

Henny says that it is time to get back out of the basement!  "It is cold down here, mom!"  Isn't she the cutest little thing?  Even though I clipped her wing-pens way too short last time.  No worries - it is like clipping hair or nails; they do grow back out, but it takes a few months.

Well, how can I say no to my special little hen?  Better get up to the warmer part of the house. 

Bubba says Bye!

 And I'd better say bye too - it is bed-time again!  Lots of wishes of many hours of lovely stitches!  I am (once again) hoping for enough time to visit all of your blogs this week!