The Happy TV List (and some stitching updates)

Thanks for all your wonderful comments, it is always so nice to hear from all of you.  I know that I have been terrible about visiting all of you lately, but I have been pulled into the craziness of life yet again...  ;-)  I hope that I'll be able to make up for the neglect during the next few days - I am really curious to see what you all are working on!

I did get a question a couple of weeks ago from Bird Cages: "Did you teach yourself all of this or did you originally learn from a class or someone else?".  Well, I learned the basics for cross-stitch in Swedish elementary school - reading a chart, keeping the back neat, making sure that all the legs are slanted in the same direction and so on.  The more advanced stuff I learned through some great designers and kits, and I was really into the designs by The Drawn Thread for a while, learning a lot of specialty stitches.  Hillside Samplings had some really good kits back then too and her instructions were fantastic.  Thanks to Hillside Samplings, I got over the fear of finishing.
As I got more advanced, as in got more skilled in other counted work than cross-stitch (pulled, drawn, Hardanger, etc), I also invested in a few really good books (if you don't already have The Proper Stitch by Darlene O'Steen - get it!  Seriously!) and used the internet more to check on particular stitches.
I did also take a number of classes, but in all honestly, I think that very few stitchers take the classes I have taken to learn new techniques, but rather to get their hands on some fabulous projects, get away from the everyday grind, make new stitching friends and meet up with old ones.  (The exception is probably the Lucet class with Sherri Jones of Patricks Woods, where we learned how to make lucet cord.  That was a lot of fun!)
Speaking of Hardanger, check out this fabulous Christening gown adorned with Hardanger lace over at the Sinister Craftiness'.  Wow, oh wow!

Well, time to get down to the good stuff!  LOL  The big update for this week is the progress on the EMS sampler.  Here it is complete with part 7 all stitched up.  (I did my usual cheating and stitched up the repeating cherry border... patience?  What is that...?  :-))  It is getting closer - almost 2/3rds there!

Below you can see a close-up of the latest additions.  The puppy and the sweet cherry border were by far the easiest stitches, while the two flower clusters to the right took some time and concentration.  I really do like how the flowers turned out; they look so delicate and transparent (you can probably see it better if you click on the pic).  The white flowers are part of a larger motif, which I am real anxious to spend some more time with in a couple of weeks!

Can you believe that there are 23 floss shades in the small flower motif!?  All of the DMCs have been lined up next to the chart so that you can see how incredibly detailed these Biedermeier motifs can be.   I have a hard time grasping that I actually keep working on this sampler, since I am normally not a fan of switching colors every 30 seconds.  It is well worth the exception though; it is so much fun to see the motifs and the entire sampler slowly grow together into one large beauty!  It definitely helps that it is broken up into a bunch of smaller segments, or it would probably already have hit the UFO pile somewhere....  ;-)
Next assignment will be a quickie, so I am already looking forward to that part to come out.

The reindeer stocking did also get some TLC this week.  It sounds like all of you are in agreement that the red rounds are indeed their noses.  It was a fun stitch, even though it was a bit tricky to stitch with the overdyed floss so that the dark and light shades worked well together.  I am pleased, even though it is not as pretty as the original is.  I think that the stockings have turned out to be a great counter-point to the fiddlier switch-floss-every-second-stitch type projects, since there is a very limited amount of changing floss at all.  I think that the reindeer design required a total of 4 different floss-colors!

Perfect timing on the finising too - the next couple of socks in line to be stitched arrived in the mail-box the same day as the last reindeer nose had been completed.  I think that I do need a quick break from the stockings for now, but I'll try to get back to them in a week or two.  I am pretty excited about scavenging for some fun and matching cotton fabric for finishing.  I saw that the local Hancocks Fabrics just started displaying some of their Xmas fabrics, so I may have to go on a shopping trip pretty soon... LOL

The stitching focusing problem hit this week again.  This is the beginning of Just Nan's Lady Scarlet's Scissor Roll, started yesterday.  It has been a fun and pretty quick stitch so far, so it is hard to put away.

And I did get something finished-finished too.  Here is the set of Sweetheart Tree's seasonal welcomes hanging together on the wall.  As always, the idea in my head looked so much better than it ended up being in real life, but it is now on the wall!  All of it is simply pinned together, so it is not too late to get a better idea sometime in the future.....

Here are a couple of us chicks hanging out and discussing the latest news on the net and various TV shows.  Henny and Griffin are not picky; as long as there are no cats or prey birds on the screen, they really don't care a whole lot.  Meanwhile, mommy has watched a lot of positive TV shows lately, and even came up with a list of the current favorites.

 

The TV-Shows-That-Make-Me-Happy Top 5 List:

1. Secret Millionaire - I love it! This show makes me cry, but that's all right - it makes the millionaires cry too.
2. NY Med - I was lucky enough to catch the first episode and I really liked it!  Not all of the patients stories end well, which makes it even more inspiring and makes you think. Supposedly it is just an 8 episode series, but we'll see abut that.  Dr Oz is one of the stars of the show and I must say that I got a whole new respect for him after this show.
3. The Biggest Loser - talk about inspiration!  Nothing is impossible!
4. Extreme Makeover - Home Edition - it is so much fun to see the look on the faces of the receivers!  It is also good to learn about what other people struggle with in life; it definitely sheds a different light on the difficulties in my own life...
5. So You Think You Can Dance?  - By watching this show I have learned that I don't get nearly as moved by song as I do by dance.  The talent pool in this show is simply incredible.

They are all great alternatives to the celebrity gossip, the negative news and the outrageously bad talk-shows (like Jerry Springer and Maury.  No offense to the fans out there, like my DH...).

Anyway, those are the shows the chicks and I decided is what we think is the good stuff.  Any other tips about positive TV shows out there?  We are collecting!  LOL  We don't have cable or satellite though - but we do have Netflix!  (Speaking of, thy just added 4 more seasons of Hercule Poirot - I am in heaven!)

Well, time to get back to things here.  Take care and Happy Stitching,

Halfway There!

I am thrilled to show you the progress on the EMS 2012 Antique Sampler freebie - it is halfway completed.  

I got a really nice surprise on May 31st, when I popped over the the EMS web-site and realized that the June assignment had been posted one day early!  Woohoo!!!  Friday was devoted to more green confetti stitching than I am thrilled enough about to describe in detail... say no more.  :-)

It was worth it in the end.

As you can see,  I decided to carry out some smaller changes to the original; I changed out the mushroom motif for a bunny and the small flower sprig for my initial (not sure whether I will switch colors later on, but at least I like the placement after re-locating it a couple of times).

I have been a fan of Biedermeier style samplers for several years, so back when I was still (very actively ;-)) building up my stitch library collection, I invested in a couple of the books by Rafaella Serena.  These books are not real cheap, but totally worth it.  She has published three books (I believe) shock full of old Biedermeier plates, both from her own collection and others.  Quite a few of the motifs are charted in the back of the book.  Even if you never get around to stitch any of the designs, let me tell you, these collections are true historical eye-candy and they could serve as very nice coffee table books.

Since I wasn't thrilled about the mushrooms, I decided to flip through the animal themed volume to see if I could find a small motif to use for a substitution.

 

This is the wild-life inspired bell-pull where I finally spotted a perfectly sized bunny.

After that came the tricky part - substituting the motifs and to do that, I used the master chart.  I scanned the bunny, used Photo Shop to mirror her, and enlarged her to the right grid-size (the last step was by far the most frustrating one.  A 100% "real life" view on the monitor does not necessarily show up the same size after printing - blargh!).  

A bit of tape, filling in the grid-lines with a pen and voila!

While flipping through Rafaella's book I found one plate that was especially intriguing!  

Do you spot it?

The peacock and the sparrow motifs in the EMS sampler have been taken from this particular antique Biedermeier plate (the pic is clickable for a better view)!  Ellen changed out the colors in a truly fabulous way.  I really wish that I was as skilled with colors as so many of you out there are!

I picked from all the browns that had already been used throughout the design, free-handed the greenery (nowhere near fabulous, but it works) and that was it - easy-peasy!  The close-up below shows the newest additions; the bunny, the grave stone, and the beautiful little rose and violet bouquet.  The colors in the bouquet are quite a bit more intense than the rest of the colors, so it will be interesting the see if it will be balanced out further down the road.... 

Here is a close-up of the tiny bunny wiggling its nose good night!

As always, thanks so much for stopping by and all the comments you leave when visiting!  It is so much fun to hear from you and I really appreciate the extra time you take to leave a greeting!

Take care and, as always, Happy Stitching,

One more day til' vacation starts - woop, woop!

Happy Friday all!

This is a quick drive-by post - the parents are on their way in (less than 24 hrs - yay!) and I really should be cleaning my house instead of getting stuck in the net...
Anyway, I figure that I will be out of touch for the next 10 days while my parents are visiting, so here is a quick Hi and Hello!

Speaking about cleaning, instead of focusing on what I really need to get done, I had bunches of fun with the second Rosenstand bell-pull.  It is completed and I love them together - below a photo before it hit the ironing board.  The piece on the right was stitched back on 2010 - I have done worse than a 2 year gap between companion pieces in the past, I kid you not~!

Here below they are hanging in a door-way so that you can get a better feel for how tall they really are.  I am looking forward to hanging these babies in the house, but not so much to the hours of hem-stitching...

 Here are a few close-ups, just for fun.  The birds were a real joy to stitch!  They look so content and relaxed, don't you think?

I did also manage to start on the fourth segment of the EMS SAL 2012 sampler.  I haven't gotten very far yet, but I am taking my time with this section, since I am contemplating some possible changes.  It'll be interesting to figure things out, I am sure...

I am not sure about the small flower swag thingy at the bottom... they look a bit blah compared to the rest of the motifs.  DH comforted me by saying that it'll probably look better when all the other motifs are in place.  I am not positive that will help with making the relatively bland colors pop.  Oh well.  The berry branches are so sweet and I enjoy working on them.

After a longer dry-spell in the mail-box, I "accidentally" got in some stash this week.  First I got a package from Australia with a few stump-work kits from Jane Nicholas.  Stump-work is something I dream of making one day, but I don't think that day will be tomorrow...  LOL
Her designs are so, so, so pretty!  Well, since the parents are almost here, the bunnies had to move from the guest bed-room to the stitch room, so I can't dig anything out from there, no matter how much I want to show you.  Poor, poor bunnies... ;-) (And poor, poor bunnies' mommy... sniffle)

...so   ...  I'll show you the newly acquired stash on-line instead - I got the tiny Bumble Bee kit, the fun looking Scarab Beetle Pouch and the large & absolutely gorgeous Fritillary, Fennel and Scarab Beetle.  Splurge!!  LOL  I love the Snake's Head Frittilary, so this one was a must.

Today I got a couple of neat surprises, that have not been "locked in" yet.  First off, here is the second kit from the Prim Sister Club.  Maybe not quite as cute as the first kit IMO, but still a real sweet design.

Second, a few charts, charms and linen cuts from the Woolly Tyme Club from Homespun Elegance.  I have kicked myself for not signing up to participate at the time, but I wasn't really into prim yet... On the plus-side, the prices are significantly better now ...  So far, I have managed to scrape up 9 out of 12 months which isn't all that bad.  (Still missing November, October, and July.)   I am planning on making a bunny to display the blankets on, instead of the sheep that they were intended for.  Any thoughts?

Before getting back to the bathroom scrubbing, I just need to share a photo of a real snuggle-bunny with you.  Back when we got Princess, he was such an itty-bitty thing.  Bubba was really very mean to him, but he is kinda' like the nice dog in UP! - he just did not get that she didn't adore him!  Well, they did become really good buddies after a while, which is lucky for Bubba; Princess has grown to become twice Bubba's weight since.  He is now too large to fit in the largest size igloo that the pet-store carries.  That tiny ordeal does not stop him from visiting with Bubba, nope.  Here he is, with his head in the igloo, probably getting licked by Bubba, while the rest of him has to stay outside... like Alice after drinking form the wrong bottle...LOL  He is just too funny and still very, very sweet as you can see!

Well, back to the sponges and buckets with me!
Have a great Friday, an even better weekend and don't forget to stitch!  ;-)

Reporting In! (... after days worth of napping... )

I hope that your Monday was as all right as mine was!  I think that my Monday was so good partly because I have been doing a lot of well-needed resting lately.

In all honestly, to say that I have been taking it easy is an understatement; the weekend was filled with one nap after the other.  As most of you probably agree with, things tend to all bundle up and happen at once and last week was one of those crazy "perfect storm" times.  What was nice was that the vast majority of all the craziness was very good such.  The outcome could not have been better for any of the events either, so not only am I napped out and "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" as one of my friends always says, but very pleased with life in general as well.

On the other hand, there is not a whole lot of stitching to show off.  I did manage to finish the third part of the EMS 2012 SAL and I "cheated" and worked ahead a bit on the second blue-bell border.  It is turning out pretty, if I may say so myself.  I am a tad nervous about the next assignment, since there seems to be an awful lot of confetti stitching in the flower bunches...  I am really not a fan of confetti...

So, I finally managed to iron the sampler before taking a shot.  Next time I'll try to remember throwing a ruler or something in there, so that you can see how small it really is.  (The pics are clickable, if you'd like to see some close-ups.)

 

Here is a close-up of the last couple of motifs.  I love the little brown bird perching on the budding rose branch.

I did manage to pull this Scarlet Letter shepherd together too.  This one is stitched over-one and let me tell you, after stitching the green hill that he is resting on, I am done with both green and over-one for a while.  I assume that the critter dancing to the pipe is a dog...or a very small horse..?  LOL

I have started his shepherdess companion, but not gotten very far (as can be seen from the pic below).  I am excited about her, since she has a pretty brown skirt with pink dots on.  I think that she will be cute! 

Finally, here is a framing (gasp! - You know that very rarely happens here.).  This is the Goode Huswife bunny framed in a cheap standard Michaels frame/mat kit.  I added the bunting scrap-booking stickers to the matting to give the arrangement a happier and more spring-time celebratory feel.   He is standing together with all the Easter carrots on my mantel now.... after all that Easter stitching, Easter is not over in our household for a while yet!  :-)

I did take a number of photos of spring flowers in the garden this morning, but I feel another nap coming on, so I'll have to show you those some other time...  ;-)

Take care, Happy Stitching and don't forget to sign up for the giveaway if you haven't already done so!  Oh, and speaking of; thanks so much to the 18 followers who have left comments so far.  Your lists of three things that make you happy are so uplifting!  I have a feeling that I will go back to re-read your "happy" comments many times in the future!

Check out all these cool blogs!

Happy Monday (I have 2 hrs left here...) too all blog-peeps out there!  I hope that you had a great weekend and that you had to clean a lesser amount of bird-cages that I did.  DH is out on business travels again, so I spent a long Sunday cleaning the house.  It was actually quite enjoyable and all the critters have had fun scrapping everything down while I was away at work today.  The state of our house strives towards entropy much faster than it does in the rest of the universe, I have noticed.  Well, enough with the cleaning monologue and the nerdy science jokes...

I almost fell off the couch today when I saw that I have 99 followers.  I am so glad and so humbled that 99 people have signed up to follow this adventure.  I truly appreciate it more than I can express.  

So.... I really should sit down and think about a fun give-away.  I will see what I can come up with.

I did also get my first ever blog award - I am thrilled!  Heather, from It's Geek To Me, e-mailed to let me know that she has given me the Liebster Blog Award!  Thanks so much Heather, this will be fun!

So now I have to do the following (shamelessly copying the fine-print directly from Heather's blog here):

"Liebster is a German word meaning favourite, dearest or beloved. The Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other new bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers, to help spread the word about their blogs and to help them gain wider recognition.

The Liebster award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting.

1. Choose 5 up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers to award the Liebster to

2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.

3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blog so they know about the award.

4. Share 5 random facts about yourself that people don't know about you.

So, here are 5 of my Fave-Under-200 blogs (Hmm, should I have checked that they will accept the award first maybe?  Dunno, I am new to this.  Well, I'll take the chance!)

Here they are, in no specific order:
-  Stitching with Kittens!  The blog title says it all!  LOL  She has stitched plenty of fabulous pieces - I can only dream to get pieces on this level of advancement accomplished one day.
-  Diane at Nan's Needlework Notions.  Diane is so talented - her finishes are absolutely perfect, not to mention that she has a knack for picking out the cutest designs.  Right now, she is showing off some Easter decorations that are to die for!  Nan is also the host of The All Year Long Christmas Stitch-A-Long.
-  Ruth of The Musing Badger.  Stitching and reading - can't get much better!  She is participating in the Pratchett Reading Challenge 2012 and check out her gorgeous Beatrix Potter - love those colors!
-  Marsha of Everybody Loved Clark.  She just came back from a trip to Arizona that looks fantastic AND she got to visit the Attic - lucky girl!  Absolutely beautiful stitching is not the only craft Marsha does, but she makes soaps too.  And she loves bees, which is why I usually refer to her as Bzz*Bzz*Bee...
-  Blue Star Stitcher shares photos of the neighbor wildlife (including love-birds!) and she has a huge heart that she opens for needlework that need an adoptive home.  Do you ever think about what will happen with your stash and finishes in the future?  We can only hope that there are more people like Blue Star out there.

Well, the next one is trickier.  5 random facts coming up:
1)  I love hot-dogs with mustard!  I don't really eat them especially often, but I love'em!
2)  I "almost" became a LNS owner a few years back.  My friend Pink tried to talk me into buying a store that was closing down with her.  Luckily, we decided not to and then the economy tanked, but it was a fun dream.
3)  I love opera - I wish I could sing like that.  When I was in high-school, I used to sing the aria of the Queen of the Night in the stair-wells while running between classes.  I was not half-bad... htne I became an engineer (read between the lines here).
4)  My dream house is a southern Victorian wood house with painted details, wood-work like an ice-cream cake, and a wrap-around porch.
5)   I miss the ocean pretty much daily!

So, I finally decided to start on a new "official" project and pulled the Shepherd and Shepherdess miniatures out of the stash.  I started with the tricky shepherd and his chubby dog - pony... ? .. you tell me!  The stitching is a bit slow, since it is over-one on a fairly larger count linen, but is does look sweet.  Not looking forward to the large, green hill though.  The chart is a bit tricky to read.  It is hand-drawn and the green and red in the honeysuckle border are a "V" and an up-side-down "V" respectively.  I am not a fan of ripping over-one... LOL I got a bit stitched, but then it got put away in a corner, so that I could spend some time on the EMS sampler before the April part would be published.

I did manage to get part 3 done; the left-hand side of the basket and the blue flower sprig were the assignments for last month.  Since this pic, I have down-loaded part 4 and the fun continues!

 

The is ending up much smaller than I had envisioned.  (I would recommend actually stitching this on a larger count, if you decide to work on this piece.)  It is petite, not a whole lot longer than 12 inches, but I love it!  Check out the crazy amount of colors that go into this beauty.  Piles and piles of DMC.  Luckily, I am stitching with one strand, so it is not too bad.  Yesterday I managed to finish the pretty little brown bird in the upper right corner and the upper flower border is finally done.  That little bird is too pretty!

Next part will be the one with the mushroom.  I am trying to come up with something else to stitch instead.  I mean, I like mushrooms and all, but maybe not in this sampler.  I think that I did find a nice butterfly that can come and live here instead.  any other suggestions would be of great interest too!

Since I am hopelessly behind in my photography, I can only show you this pic of the "half-baked" CRC carrot ornies.  I can report that all 12 motifs from the three booklets have been successfully stitched up and they are eagerly awaiting the finishing party.  There really are no excuses..  I have all the mat-board parts needed, I picked out my backing fabric..  I am still contemplating whether I should finish the edges with cording or with beads.  And am I efficient enough (read "lazy") to use the glue-gun instead of sewing each ornie together?  Plus, I do need to pick out a suitable ribbon somewhere.... decisions, decisions.  I am excited about adding all the beads and bling, though!  I guess that will be my carrot!  (Bad pun alert - heheheh.)

 

(Note how cheap I am with my linen - each precut from Silverneedle was meant for one ornament.  In other words, I have enough pieces to stitch each ornament at least one more time.  Maybe next year.. :-))

Here is an example of adventures waiting to happen when you live with a bunch of shredders.  This poor blue bird doesn't even know what hit it, while peacefully sitting on its nest.  The card-board, linen, floss, and the glass-beads (!) have all been eaten up by one or two of my little angles.  My reactions are surprising even to myself sometimes - I could tell that DH was so sorry when he fished it up from behind the couch and showed it to me, but I just shrugged and started thinking about possible way to salvage the piece.  Luckily, I generally enjoy the process of stitching and making more than decorating and displaying, if that makes sense.  Anyway, I am thinking about making one of those pretty little pin-pillows that are so in right now - you know the ones that have a piece of cotton sewn onto the linen on the front (yep, I know that my description totally blows, so check out these examples on Karen's Handiwork blog instead.)

 

I am very pleased to report that no angel has showed any sign of tummy aches after the disappearance of the glass-beads.

The spring bulbs are almost bloomed out in my garden now.  This pretty pink double-petaled tulip enjoys the mild spring, together with some neighboring fuchsia single-petals.

I managed to get all the pansies and the violets in the ground too.  the ones in the pots look fine, but the plants that I sat in the ground don't look pleased at all.  Life if tough, little violets!

Spring is in full swing indoors too.  The birds are getting anxious about building nests and they have started to court each other.  They strut about, fluff their neck feathers and bob back and forth - all to impress each other; scaring away the competition while impressing the potential partner across the room.  I know that they aim to look super cool and majestic, but mummy just laughs and thinks that they are the cutest little down-balls ever.  Mothers!  So they are absolutely adorable, but a great deal less easy to handle.  They get very territorial and aggressive during this time, so I have grown a good collection of bite-marks on my right index finger during the past couple of weeks.

Here they are - guarding their club house with talons and beaks... and dirty looks.

Well, it is bed-time yet again.  I will try to round up Bubba so that we all can go to bed.  (That sounds easier than it is - it generally takes flipping over both couches in the living room upside down while trying to herd her towards her room.  Well, I'd better stop talking about it and actually start doing it.)
Have a great week and Happy Stitching,