Happy Halloween!! I am sitting here blogging and …

Happy Halloween!!

I am sitting here blogging and waiting for all the little witches and devils to show up at the house in search of candy. I hope they come because we have a boat load of candy. If not, my office will be swimming in candy until the end of the school year….well, at least until the end of the week:)

Allen and I made it safely home from our little jaunt to southern VA to visit his dad and grandparents. Despite the long trip, it was a nice visit. Allen’s grandparents are sweet. Allen drove with his granddad to Lynchburg to by a TIVO for them, then spent the rest of the weekend setting it up and teaching them how to use it. Now Granddad can tape all his soaps without the hassle of tapes. I meanwhile, did a lot of knitting and played through most of Castlevania on Allen’s Nintendo DS. On the way home we stopped to she my BIL’s new min-pin puppy and my MIL’s new kitten. They were both adorable and each had a very angry new big sister:)

When we got home, not only were there two sweet kitties waiting for me, but also a bunch of stash. In one package I got the following:
Qsnap extenders
Desert Sunset Sampler by Black Swan and
Eastern Shore Sampler by Jeanette Douglass
I am still waiting on two samplers by Drawn Thread, but apparently there was a distributer change which caused a bit of a delay.

In the second package, I got the new exclusive Mirabilia Christmas Elf Fairy. I first saw her on Bunnyhead’s site, but like her, was a bit put off by the price. But love of stitching fairies won over. When she arrived, I was actually quite surprised by the content. It was alot nicer than most kits that you see. In addition to the chart, it came with a nice size piece of 32 ct Natural linen, 12 full skeins of Crescent Colors threads, one full card of White whisper, 2 packs of mill hill beads and a small baggie of #4 braid. Judging by the pattern, you will probably have a fair amount of several of the colors left over to use on other things Everything came with its original tag and there was no sorting…YEAH, especially after spending time at a stitching party helping another stitcher differentiate between, lite gold, gold, medium gold, burnished gold, etc.

Cooper and Zoe say thanks to everyone who was conc…

Cooper and Zoe say thanks to everyone who was concerned for them. They are well back to their old selves, except Cooper still has a horse meow and their paws seem itchy where the fur is growing back. Their teeth look beautiful and white.

For those who asked, Cooper and Zoe both have yellow eyes and are from the same litter. They were rescued along with their three siblings in April 2002 by the Northern Virginia SPCA. Their siblings, two orange tabbies and a tortoise shell were very outgoing and were adopted very quickly. Cooper and Zoe were very close and were going to be adopted together, but no one seemed to want them because of Cooper’s extremely shy personality. They were 8 months old when Allen and I came along(I love black cats, even shy ones) I still can’t believe anyone would turn these two down. They are so cool. I do have to say that Cooper spent a significant amount of time behind the toilet for the first month he lived with us and Zoe scared us by trying to learn how to fly off the loft on several occasions, but they quickly became loving, wonderful pets. I can’t imagine life without them. (The pics to the left are with their other littermates. I think that in the top pic, Zoe is the one in front with the tilted head and Coopy is behind her.)

As for telling them apart, Cooper much taller and longer and weighs four pounds more than Zoe. He is very sleek and has a long pointy nose. Zoe is our teeny-weeny and has front legs that are way too short. Allen always jokes that they were twins and the egg didn’t separate right, thus explaining Cooper’s extra long legs and Zoe’s stumpy front legs that make her sit funny. Zoe is also much fluffier than Cooper and has a round Ewok face. Unfortunately, when they are getting into trouble, all you see is a black blur and yellow eyes.

Well, the kitties are going have to hang out by themselves this weekend. Allen and I are off to his grandparents house. It will be nice to see them, but no stitching for me. I will bring a blanket that I am knitting. I only work on it when we visit his family. I have been working on it since Allen and I first started dating. Maybe this will be the weekend!!

Poor Kitties My sweet little babies had a rough …

Poor Kitties

My sweet little babies had a rough day today. We took Cooper and Zoe to the vet today to have their teeth cleaned. They had to be put to sleep and have an IV. They came home around five this evening and despite their ordeal, have been very sweet and loving to both Allen and I. To put in the IV they had to shave their little paws and they had little pink bandages with hearts on them. I hate it when we have put our furbabies through something so uncomfortable to keep them healthy. Cooper is in the top pic and Zoe in
the bottom.

Here is a updated pic of WF. I added most of the …

Here is a updated pic of WF. I added most of the beaded sash. Unfortunately the picture blurs the cream colored beads at the bottom.

POOO, the weekend is almost over. It was a fun one though!! On Saturday, I went to meet some other stitchers to chat and stitch. I have the lovely opportunity to meet Jo. It was fun to get to know her and see some of her wonderful projects in person. I stitched on the wedding sampler. I am working on.

After stitching for several hours, I picked up Allen and we went out to dinner for his birthday. We initially were going to go to one of the new restaurants at Tyson’s Corner, but after taking forever to find parking spots and shopping a bit, the waits were outrageous. Thus, we drove back home and ended up trying an Irish restaraunt in town. We had never been before. We broke out of the norm for our usual choices when eating Irish food, but had some really good chicken dishes. They were delicious.

Today, Allen and I were both very productive. Yeah for us. And I exercised. Yeah me. Now I get to spend the rest of the evening stitching.

I also finally mailed off those charts to the four ladies who claimed them on Saturday morning. Sorry it took so long, it was a heck of a week. I really hope that you enjoy them!!

Another post of meme questions. I have been feeli…

Another post of meme questions. I have been feeling poopy most of the week so far. Not enough to not go to work, but enough to just come home and lay on the couch and do nothing for the rest of the evening. Needless to say I have not gotten any stitching done. It also means I have not sent out the angel patterns to those who expressed interest in them. Sorry guys. I will have them in the mail Friday.
Tomorrow I am hauling the furbabies to the vet after work. They are both due for their annual shots and we are concerned that someone has an upset tumtum. All weekend on of our little ones was leaving us presents all over the house. Of course any time I tried to catch them in the act, all I saw was a furry black blur. Also, this problem seemed to stop the moment I called the vet to make an appointment. Do you think that they know?? going to the vet is a huge endeavor and involves Allen coming home early to help me. Zoe is very slippery and wriggly and they like to be together in the same crate. Hopefully they are both fine and they will help me stitch when we get home:)

Today’s Stitching Blogger’s Question was kindly suggested by Cathy and is:

Do you mark or hi-lite your patterns or can you follow them without any markings? Do you make copies to mark up, or do you mark originals?
I usually make copies of my charts and do mark them. I am terrible about keeping my place, especially when I first start a piece. I am trying to do Olde World Map without too much marking. I am just using a few small pencil marks to keep my place. It seems to work so far. Maybe I will try it with other projects too.

I thought we’d do a little ‘this or that’ this week! Enjoy!

Which one?
1. Lemonade or Iced Tea? I lean a little more towards tea on a regular basis, but like lemonade too.
2. DVD or VHS? DVD
3. Gold or Silver? Gold
4. Baseball or Tennis? Baseball, hands down
5. Spring or Autumn? Autumn…I love the leaves
6. Diet or Regular? Diet
7. Hearts or Stars? Hearts
8. Snail Mail or Email? Email (Thanks to my computer geek husband)
9. Shop: Online or In-Store? both, depends on what I am looking for
10. Credit Card or Check? What is a check?!?!?
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Today was an incredibly tiring day. I was in meet…

Today was an incredibly tiring day. I was in meetings almost continuously from 8am to 8 pm. By the time I got home I really was not in the mood for any stitching, but I made myself finish the little bit of white in the middle of what I worked on last night on Woodland Fairy. I am glad I did, but that was all I could muster for this evening. I am looking forward to working more on it tomorrow. Here is a pic of my progress so far this time around.

Off to new homes… Yeah, several of my angel pat…

Off to new homes…

Yeah, several of my angel patterns have been claimed and will be off to new homes. At this point, Native American and Russian Angels are still up for grabs. On tap for today is lots of cleaning, grocery shopping and then some well deserved stitching. Allen and I may go see Wallace and Grommit if we finish our chores in time.

What a wonderfully relaxing Saturday!!! I did som…

What a wonderfully relaxing Saturday!!! I did some housework (cleaned the kitty poop, laundry bathroom cleaning) and then spent the rest of the day watching movies and baseball while stitching/organizing stash. The only thing that could have made the day better was for Allen to have been home all day. He will be home all day tomorrow, YEAH!!!

I also got some stash in the mail….silk fiber and beads to do some christmas ornaments for me, mom and my sister, Becca. I also ordered ornament cuts from Silkweaver which shipped on Friday (Should be her Monday:)) That means they will be all kitted and ready to go for Thanksgiving weekend when Allen has his surgery. Between that and a book I should be set for a long boring day of sitting and waiting…at least my parents are going to come up hang out for a while (My family is so cool!!)

Today, I finished the bottom band of the wedding sampler and the bottom line of text in the verse. It is looking beautiful. I hadn’t quite done ten hours, but since I made good progress on it I decided to move on. Also, Woodland Fairy was calling VERY loudly to me from the WIP basket, so I pulled her out to work on next. I finished all of the branches in the bottom right of the pattern. Tomorrow I plan to work more on her dress.

On the organizing front, I got the majority of my patterns into sheet protectors so they will stay safe (When I am doing this Allen frequently comments on how obsessive complsive I am). All that is left are the patterns that are too big. After that I organized them into categories. All of my Mirabilia and Lavender and Lace patterns went into one notebook and I started putting the rest into a second notebook. I need at least two more notebooks. Next time I am at Office Depot.

While I was looking through my stash I was reminded that several years ago when I got some Barbara Baatz angel patterns, I ended up getting two of each. If anyone is interested, I would be happy to send them to a new home.
They include:
Native American Angel
Russian Angel
Angel of Romance
Celtic Angel
Angel of Harvest
Angel of Fantasy
Japanese Angel
Nordic Angel

To start off the day I am going to answer some mem…

To start off the day I am going to answer some meme questions…

How bad is bad?

Here’s another set of questions from Nicki.

1. What’s the worst book you’ve ever read? As I Lay Dying by William Falkner
2. What’s the book you hated the most? Same as above
3. Is the answer the same to both questions? If not, why not? Resounding YES
4. Why was this book (or these books) so bad? I had to read this book as summer reading before my junior year of high school. I love to read and usually enjoyed the books I had to read for school (Until, of course, we analyzed them to death). As I Lay Dying I hated from the absolute beginning. I could never get into Falkern’s stream of conciousness style of writing and then of course we spent four AGONISING months where each student had to do a structural analysis of one of the chapters (this was a requirement for the International Baccaleaureate Diploma I was working toward). Needless to say we were all ready to burn the book by the end of the semester…and yet, by the end of the book, none of us had any clue that Dewey Dell was pregnant!!(I am sure I will get a laugh from Mom over that one!!)

Today’s “Stitching Blogger’s Question” was suggested by Outi and is:

How do you `non-hoopists’ who use a rotation system handle it (as it seems to be lot easier if you are in good terms with hoop)? Do you have several scroll frames? Do you use Q-snaps or maybe something completely different? Or do you just have one or two big projects and others are small enough to be kept in hand while stitching?
I have always hated using hoops. When I started doing larger projects, I began using scroll rods. When I decided to move to a rotation, I ended up with several scroll rod sets, but have found that it was a pain to keep taking stuff on and off to take pics for the blog, etc. Recently I have discovered the joy of qsnaps. I have three different sizes and that pretty much will cover anything sizeable that I stitch. I may get some extenders for when I start Mystery IX in January.

Now on to other things: I am almost completely finished with the bottom band on the wedding sampler I am stitching for my friends. It is “Wedding Sampler” by Stitcher’s Heaven. I picked it because it had a verse from the Book of Ruth with an option to stitch it in Hebrew. I think they will really like it and I am having a hard time resisting posting pics. I want to keep it a secret. I will post one after the holidays.
I have also been working on organizing my pattern stash. A lot of stuff that came in my most recent purchase was put in sheet protectors. I thought this would be a great idea for all of the patterns I have clipped from various stitching magazines. That way it will keep them from getting bent or wrinkled. I plan on putting any patterns that will fit into sheet protectors and organizing them in binders by subject. I love to organize stuff like that!!

To finish the day…here is a post of my little boy. In this pic he is being nice to mommy and trying to help me organize my stash. He is such a silly boy!!

Be nice computer… Maybe the compter will be nic…

Be nice computer…

Maybe the compter will be nicer to me than it was last night. Let’s give it a try. Today was a bit boring. I had the day off for Columbus Day, but since DH is away at a conference, it was not much fun. Plus many friends work for places that didn’t get today off. My day consisted of laundry and grocery shopping. I also did some shopping for organizational stuff for my cross stitch. I went to the new scrapbook shop which had really nice, thick plastic zip storage bags. They are very sturdy and have a handle. They are also bigger than the large size ziploc bags so they will work well for keeping my WIPs organized. I also bought two binders and some sheet protectors for my charts. Many of them are out of magazines and get easily wrinkled. Hopefully this will keep them neater and will make it easier to find what I am looking for.

After dinner, I pulled together the thread and fabric (32 count Bay Leaf Jobelan) to start the wedding sampler for my friend Rob and his wife Elana. The have been married for 18 months, but better late then never. I started on the bottom band and I am really loving it. The GAST Pine is so vibrant. This is going to be a Holiday gift for them and I really hope they like it.

Currently, I am playing on the computer and watching the Angels/Yanks game. The Angels are currently winning, YEAH!!! Have I mentioned that I hate the Yankees. I was planning on going to bed at 11 tonight, but seeing as it is almost 10 and only in the fourth inning, that may not be happening. Oh well, so I will be tired for group in the morning.