Sadly, the weekend is over… But I did manage to…

Sadly, the weekend is over…

But I did manage to get a fair amount of stitching done. I am almost done with the first installment of Mystery IX. All the cross stitch is done. I just have a teeny bit of backstitch and about a third of the beads left. I am not sure if I will get it done before the next part comes out. I really want to stitch on all my rotation pieces this week. So here is my progress so far…

I also spent a little time stitching on my magazine lily. For some reason this piece just does not photograph well, but here is what I have done so far. It still looks like a white blob.

Happy Friday, January 27th to me!! The mail man …

Happy Friday, January 27th to me!!

The mail man was very nice to me today. I received lots of wonderful packages from all over the world. I got some stash and….both my Garden and Valentine Exchanges from Stitching Bloggers Exchange BB. Both packages were amazing. I am in awe of the talent of both ladies!

First my Garden Exchange from Leena…

Even the upclose picture does not do justice to the gorgeous specialty stitches in this piece. Leena finished the piece into a cute little box that was full of a beautiful drawstring bag, two skeins of thread and a scissor fob. The inside of the box was also lined with cute floral fabric and contrasting cording. Unfortunately it didn’t photograph well. Thank you Leena!!!

Next to be opened was my Valentine Exchange from Andrea…

It include a lovely wall hanging by Heart in Hand, some charms, pens, notepad and box of bath flowers (they smell so good). Everything was so beautifully wrapped, it was a shame to have to open it all. Thank you, Andrea!!

And last, but not least was some backordered items from ABC Stitch Therapy…

I got a Chatelaine Sampler, Ultimate Debate by Springberry Kreek and Love Tree by M Designs. There were also a few goodies that just made it in time to be packed up and mailed off with my Valentine Exchange tomorrow morning. YEAH!!

Man have been feeling poorly the last few days. T…

Man have been feeling poorly the last few days. Tuesday night, I was starting to feel sick, but wasn’t too bad on Wednesday morning. Since I didn’t have a fever, I thought I could make it through the day since I had a light load. I made to the end of my group before going to the school nurse…guess who had a fever. So I went home and slept for the rest of the afternoon. Last night I didn’t feel up to pulling out the big guns, so I worked on finishing the stitching on my Valentine Exchange instead of Celtic Winter.

Since I am home again today (still had a low fever), I am going to try and put at least an hour or so in on CW in addition to working on White Wedding. Hopefully I will have progress to share on both tonight:)

Edited-9:30pm for stitching update

Today I stitched three hours on Celtic Winter, an hour on White Wedding and finished my Valentine Exchange. All in all a good day. Plus I am feeling better.

Finally blogger cooperates… Blogger has been me…

Finally blogger cooperates…

Blogger has been mean to me lately, but finally it is letting me upload pics again. On Thursday I stitched on White Wedding. I am almost done with the first of six pages. Hopefully by the end of this week it will be finished.

Friday, I worked hard on my Valentine Exchange. It should be completely finished by Wednesday night and ready to go out by Saturday at the latest. With my work hours, it can be hard to get to the post office during the work week.

Saturday and Sunday I worked very hard on Mystery IX. Two corners are totally done and a third is 80% finished. I also added more backstitch and some beads. The beads are really sparkly. Unfortunately, working on this all weekend meant I neglected my lilies again. It will get lots of attention next weekend.

And Finally…I was tagged by Dawn with the meme of four, so here it goes…

Four Jobs I Have Had in My Life:
1. Social Worker
2. Preschool teachers assistant
3. Psych department assistant in college
4.

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over Again:
1. The Princess Bride
2. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
3. Pride and Prejudice-the mini series
4. Henry V

Four Places I Have Lived:
1. Sterling, virginia
2. Greensboro, North Carolina
3. Rockville, Maryland
4. Augusta, Georgia

Four TV Shows I Love to Watch:
1. Law & Order SVU/CI
2. CSI
3. NCIS
4. Survivor

Four Places I Have Been on Vacation:
1. Disney World
2. Maui, Hawaii
3. Maine
4. Duck, North Carolina

Four Websites I Visit Daily:
1. Various Blogs
2. hotmail
3. Washingtonpost.com
4. yahoo groups

Four of My Favorite Foods:
1. Cheesecake
2. General Tso’s Chicken
3. Pizza
4. Chili

Four Albums I Can’t Live Without:
1. My Billy Joel collection
2. Tori Amos-Scarletts Walk
3. Lorenna Mckennett-Live in Toronto
4. Celtic Music

Four Places I’d Rather Be (if not at home):
1. A craft shop
2. Out at dinner with Allen
3. the beach
4. Hawaii

Four Bloggers I Am Tagging:
I can’t think of anyone else

Just a quick post for now… It has not been a gr…

Just a quick post for now…

It has not been a great stitching week, but here is my progress on Woodland Fairy and Celtic Winter. Tonight I will probably do a little more work on White Wedding and my Valentine Exchange since they are priorities. Hopefully I will post a pic of WW later today.

Another picture heavy post…. My Garden Exchange…

Another picture heavy post….

My Garden Exchange made it safely to Nathalie in France. I was a bit nervous as this was the first time I had ever sent something overseas. It made it right on day 7:) Here is my first attempt at both a flat fold and cording. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I did a good job. I had to wrestle this out of Allen’s hands. I got this pattern from Helen Phillip’s Garden book. I changed the wording a bit to make it relate more to the fact that I was doing it for a stitching exchange.

Friday, I finally started working on Butterfly at Rest. I began with the giant blue triangle on the bottom left. While stitching on Butterfly Dawn, Allen dubbed these triangles the “big blue triangles of doom” These triangles were the main reason why that piece took me 18 months to finish. I was not doing a rotation then and I would get so tired of them that I would put it away for a long time. Currently, I am itching to get back to this on Friday and hope to finish the first triangle.

Last night, I took out Mystery IX instead of my lilies. I was able to get the entire top right corner completed, minus the beading. I also started some of the back stitching down the left side. Here it is so far:)

It has been a long, but enjoyable day. Allen and …

It has been a long, but enjoyable day. Allen and I got up at 9 am (early for us on a Saturday) and headed up to Maryland to pick up my parents. The four of us had Red, Hot and Blue (Memphis barbeque) for lunch before heading into DC to the National Theater to see Les Miserables. It was an amazing performance. This is the last time it will ever play in DC and I am really glad we got to go. After the show we trudged back to the metro in the strong wind and flurries. We ate dinner and headed back to Virginia.
On the way home, Allen and I pondered whether or not the power would be on at home considering the strong winds. The question was partially answered when we hit town and instead of being blinded by store lights, we were met with complete darkness. The only lights were the flares set up by cops who were directing traffic at the lights. Fortunately for us, it was only the east end of town that was dark so Best Buy and our house were lit.

I then had the pleasure of spending an hour with Allen in Best Buy looking for an extra harddrive for his computer. Now it is almost 11 and we are home shooting zombies. Unfortunately, I don’t think I am mentally up to stitching, so Mystery Ix and my valentine exchange will have to wait til tomorrow.

Carol-White Wedding is by Ellen Maurer-Stoh. It really is a pretty piece and my sister loved it. Blogger is being a pain about loading pics, but I did add one of the final piece to my webshots album if you click on the White Wedding link in my rotation list above:
)

Anne-A hypnotini is a martini made with 1 part Hypnotiq (a grapefruit/citrus flavored liquor), 1 part vodka and pineapple to taste(about 1part) Allen also sometimes adds coconut rum to mine. They are yummy, but are a bit funny colored with the bright blue liqour mixed with the juice. Looks a bit like antifreeze:)

Finally….. (Edited for update on White Wedding) …

Finally…..
(Edited for update on White Wedding)
Blogger and my camera were working in unison and I could upload pictures to my blog, so here is my progress over the last few days. On Sunday, I started working on the Lilies pattern from the Cross Stitcher that I am working on for the Magazine Mania SAL I am organizing on the Friends Gather Bulletin Board. Since I also worked on my Valentine Exchange, I didn’t get much done. Here is the picture of what it will eventually look like and my meager start.

Then on Tuesday I worked on stitching the outline of China on Olde World Map…

And on Wednesday I put in another two hours on Celtic Winter…

Tonight I am working on White Wedding and will hopefully blogger will let me post again:)

So here is my progress on White Wedding. I really love the color of this fabric. I am going to have to find something that I can stitch on a piece of it:)

A bit about me… From Jenna’s blog: A is for Ag…

A bit about me…

From Jenna’s blog:

A is for Age: 27
B is for Booze: A nice wine or a hypnotini
C is for Career: School Social Worker
D is for Dad’s Name: Peter
E is for Essential Item to Bring to a Party: A good mood
F is for Favourite Songs at the Moment: Sunday Morning by Maroon 5
G is for Goof-off Thing to Do: Web-surfing (usually stitching-related)
H is for Hometown: Born in Nurnberg, Germany, but grew up in Rockville, Maryland, USA
I is for Instrument You Play: Used to play the flute - don’t play anything anymore
J is for Jam or Jelly you Like: Raspberry
K is for Kids: Currently, just Cooper and Zoe, my black kitties
L is for Living Arrangement: DH and I bought a beautiful single family home in April 2005
M is for Mom’s Name: Arlene
N is for Names of Good Friends: Allen, Lisa, Jen, Amy, Jennifer
O is for Overnight Hospital Stays: one night prior to a really early morning knee surgery when I was 11.
P is for Phobias: bugs
Q is for Quotes you Like: nothing sticks out
R is for Relationship That Lasted Longest: My husband…almost 5 years
S is for Siblings: one younger sister
T is for Texas: My parents lived there before I was born, but I have never been
U is for Unique Trait: The ability to turn every molehill into a gigantic mountain:)
V is for Vegetables You Love: Green beans and peas
W is for Worst Traits: Lack of confidence/self-esteem
X is for X-rays You’ve Had: for broken arm and hurt knee. Get chest every year after being exposed to TB
Y is for Yummy Food You Make: Chicken Parm
Z is for Zodiac Sign: Leo

I meant to be super productive after work today, b…

I meant to be super productive after work today, but that just didn’t happen. I had intended to put up laundry, get a good pic of the Lilies I stitched on yesterday and stitch on both my Valtentine Exchange and Woodland Fairy. AAAHHHH the best laid plans. Instead, it was a very long day at work, I came home, ate dinner and fell asleep on the couch. I woke up around 8:30 when Allen called to say he was heading home, Oops!!

I still can’t get a good pic of the lilies for the magazine mania SAL on FGBB. I am not sure why, but it is either out of focus or just glare. Who knows. I did manage to stitch for an hour on my exchange and enter all the addresses for invitations to my sister’s bridal shower into a mail merge file. I was a bit groggy when I did it so I should probably double check it all tomorrow before I print it:) Tomorrow night, I will probably be enlisting Allen’s help in stuffing envelopes. Little does he know…hehehehe!!! Well, I think it is time for me to put my sleepy head to bed. Night