January Progress and February Goals

So here is my update for January. All in all a good month!

1. Make good progress on M9-I would like to have most of the corner currently being stitched finished-Sort of
2. Finish Christmas Elf Fairy-Yup
3. Stitch on 17th Century German Garden-Yup
4. Stitch a name ornament-Nope
5. Stitch a Valentine’s Exchange-Yup
6. Stitch on Butterfly Rest-Nope
7. Stitch on Bordeaux MysteryYup

I also finished one christmas ornament and started Stargazer.

Apparently I forgot about my desire to stitch a name ornie and work on my Butterfly. Oh well:)

For February:
1. Finish one corner of M9
2. Continue Bordeaux Sampler SAL
3. Start Barnabee’s Quest SAL
4. Stitch on Stargazer
5. Stitch on German Garden
6. Participate in Christmas ornament SAL
7. Stitch baby sampler for my friend

Good luck me!!!

And now for your regularly scheduled stitching post

Wow, I finally wrestled Cooper away from the computer. He can be a very persistent little chap! It has been a very pleasant few days in our household, despite the increased frequency of kitty spazings. I am not sure what is up with the two of them, but they have been especially hyper lately. I frequently feel as though the ceiling is going to cave in on me as I sit in the family room stitching.

So, earlier in the week I promised you a progress picture of my LTD German Garden. I am really pleased with how far I have gotten on this one. Last week, I worked on the circular gardens to the right of the center garden and on the mulberry trees at the very top of the garden. This piece is full of specialty stitches which have been a blast to learn. The circluar gardens are a laid/filled trellis stitch.

As of this coming week, I will only be working on my garden once a week, probably Wednesdays, as the Barnabee’s Quest SAL starts on February first.

On Friday and part of Saturday, I pulled out Stargazer. Again I had a hard time putting her down. I really made great progress on her this weekend and almost have stitches across the full width of her skirt. Yesterday, I made a quick stop at Michael’s because I am almost out of a couple of the main colors in her skirt.

After putting up Stargazer, I pulled out some ornament UFOs that I had started sometime last year. This weekend is the first monthly Ornament SAL and I thought that finishing these two up would be a great start to the new year. Unfortunatly, I seem to have misplaced on of the DMC colors for one of the ornaments. No problem I thought…I have to go to Michael’s to pick up some other threads anyway. Problem…the one color they were out of was 815, the color I needed for this ornament. So, it will remain unfinished for a little while longer until I can get to ACMoore or another Michael’s to buy some 815. Today, the other ornie came out to play and hopefully it will be done tonight.

Hi, my name is Cooper…

and I am a craze-a-holic! Over the course of this weeknd, I have spazed about eight million times. I have chased Zoe, played with Daddy and my laser and just plain acted the fool! On Friday night, Mommy caught me here… This is me high on grass!!!

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, I like to climb up the staircase of bookshelves that are in the “library” upstairs. It is very high and there is just enough room for me to sit if I crouch down. I can’t sit up or else I would bonk my head. Here is a pic to show up how high I am. This is the top of the bookself staircase. This bookcase holds many of Mommy’s books. It is mostly mysteries, histories, religious studies texts and a handful of children’s books. I am not interested in any of these.

And here I am on my way back down the bookself staircase. This is the middle step. This bookcase hold a bunch of Daddy’s computer textbooks, some comic books and a few books from their honeymoon in Hawaii. I am also not interested in any of these books. Nor am I interested in the mishmash of books that live on the smallest bookshelf. I think that I am not interested in them because I do not know how to read. I am pretty sure that Mommy and Daddy won’t teach me to read because they are afraid I will take over the world if I learn how.

After hanging out on the bookselves for a while, I resumed the hunt for the tiny black Zoe-cat. She is very elusive and I had a hard time catching her. On Saturday, she and I convinced Daddy to open the doors to all the secret kitty-free rooms in the basement. We went exploring and it was very scary. Now that I have finished taking over Mommy’s blog, I am off to take a nice long nap to conserve energy for my next spaz, scheduled for 2:30 Eastern Standard Time. I suggest you get out of my way!

What a busy weekend…

We had a very busy weekend in our house. Friday and Saturday Allen and I did a kamakazi cleaning on our house as we were expecting guest for dinner and game night. The house looks great and everyone had a great time. It was quite amusing to watch my sister play Guitar Hero. After Guitar Hero, we all sat and played Apples to Apples. This is a great game for a group of 5-10, especially if you know each other pretty well. It ends up getting quite silly.

In amongst the hostessing and cleaning, I did manage to get some stitching in. Earlier in the weekend I put some time on Mystery 9. It is coming along slowly but surely. I almost finished the first of four corner pools. Just some overone and back stitching. I am kind of hoping to have the whole corner done this coming weekend!

The second half of the weekend I spent working on Stargazer. I really have a hard time putting this one away whenever I bring her out. The only problem this weekend was that I ended up with a defective skein of DMC 931. The thread kept breaking on me in the middle of a big section of stitching. What a pain! i did notice that my order with SB&B is just waiting on a pack of beads that is out of stock. Hopefully they will be here soon…I can pretend I am about ready to start beading:)

On Monday and Tuesday, I spent some time with Bordeaux Mystery. This band is a really fun stitch, minus the over one grapes. The Rhodes stitch grapes more than make up for it, though. They give a really cool effect when you see the piece in person.

Tomorrow it is on to my German Garden which is coming along nicely. I did work on it a great deal last week, but forgot to take a pic to share. I am also hoping that this weekend I will be able to get my printer/scanner set up to upload scans onto my laptop. That way I will be able to scan my smaller pieces. YEAH!!

My new gadget

On Friday night, Allen came home with a very sweet present for me. He remembered that I had mentioned wanting a small copier for the house so i could make working copies of my patterns and other fun things. So here is my new toy. It is a combo copier, scanner and printer. Now I can scan some of my smaller pieces as well. We just need to get it hooked up to the computer.

The Move is On

As of today, my blog will be moving to the following url:

www.lesliesheaven.wordpress.com

I hope many of you will update your feeds and keep following my blog! I was unable to find an easy way to transfer my old posts, but I did manually copy a few months worth. As time goes on, I may copy more over, but it will definitly take time. For the time being, I will keep a link to this blog on the front page of my wordpress blog.

My Three-day Weekend…

was spent cleaning and stitching. We are having friends over next weekend for a game night, so I desperately need to make our home a bit more presentable. While taking breaks from cleaning I also stitched and went to a baby shower for one of my best high school friends.

Here is all the stitching I have done since my last update…

After finishing up Christmas Fairy I decided to work on Stargazer for a little while. That is how I spent my Thursday and Friday evenings. I really love that piece. The colors really call to me and it is a pretty quick stitch. As my CC got charged from Stitching Bits and Bobs the other day, my beads for this piece should be on their way along with my kreinik for Barnabee’s Quest. Here is how she looks so far. Sorry for the crappy pic.

On Saturday and Sunday, I worked a little on M9. I am not sure why this piece is just not calling to me. Not much left in this corner though. I spent some time on the corner pool while watching the Illusionist (great movie) and Superman Returns (2.5 hours of my life lost) on Sunday. I hope I get into another groove with this one again soon!!!

And today, I am officially finished with Part 1 of Bordeaux Mystery. Then I went on to work some on Part 2. Part 2 is really pretty, but there are tons of over one grapes. I think they may bee the death of me!

My Three-day Weekend…

was spent cleaning and stitching. We are having friends over next weekend for a game night, so I desperately need to make our home a bit more presentable. While taking breaks from cleaning I also stitched and went to a baby shower for one of my best high school friends.

Here is all the stitching I have done since my last update…

After finishing up Christmas Fairy I decided to work on Stargazer for a little while. That is how I spent my Thursday and Friday evenings. I really love that piece. The colors really call to me and it is a pretty quick stitch. As my CC got charged from Stitching Bits and Bobs the other day, my beads for this piece should be on their way along with my kreinik for Barnabee’s Quest. Here is how she looks so far. Sorry for the crappy pic.

On Saturday and Sunday, I worked a little on M9. I am not sure why this piece is just not calling to me. Not much left in this corner though. I spent some time on the corner pool while watching the Illusionist (great movie) and Superman Returns (2.5 hours of my life lost) on Sunday. I hope I get into another groove with this one again soon!!!

And today, I am officially finished with Part 1 of Bordeaux Mystery. Then I went on to work some on Part 2. Part 2 is really pretty, but there are tons of over one grapes. I think they may bee the death of me!

In other news…my friend Robby is going to try and see about some ways of transferring my blog to WordPress. If nothing else, I will copy some post over and put a link to this blog on the WordPress blog for anyone who wants to read old material.

A Potential Move

Alright, I think I may be jumping on the bandwagon of people moving to wordpress. I love the fact that you can have the additional pages on your blog for challenges, lists and things without having to bump posts on your main page or having a gigantic sidebar.

The problem…my current blog is in the NEW Blogger format and cannot be imported into wordpress like those who have old blogger have done. Well poo! We shall see if there is something to be done that is not too painful.

Keep an eye out for a new URL.

My First 2007 Finish

So here is my first finish of the new year. May I present my Christmas Elf Fairy! She really is so pretty and the silver beads are increadibly sparkly. None of these pictures do justice to her sparkles. You can’t even see the bead snowflakes around her boots. Behind the fabric is the book that I am using to help Allen as he plays Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. It is funny how many of the tasks in the game you cannot do without the official game guide:)

Now the ultimate decision…what to stitch on for the rest of the evening!?!?