August Progress and September Goals

Well, it is that time of the month…goal time. I think I did pretty well in August.

Now onto August:
1. Stitch Autumn Dragon for RR-Yes and mailed
2. Stitch on Chatelaine M9A Little
3. Stitch on StargazerA Bunc
4. Make a small start on the next round of the Neighborhood RR.Will tomorrow night

And here is my list of goals for September:
1. Finish my house on Carol’s Neighborhood RR
2. Stitch Winter on Outi’s Dragon RR
3. Finish page one on Stargazer
4. Stitch another bridge on M9

Happy Stitching:)

Stargazing

This week I have been taking a break from my Round Robin Stitching for a while and have been working on Stargazer. I am nearing the half way point on the stitching of this. She is really turning out beautifully. I am very pleased with the Silkweaver Starquest linen that I picked for her! I am going to put a little more work into her tonight before getting back into Round Robin mode. I think I have the perfect house picked out for Carol’s neighborhood.

Finishing and Framing

So, last night I finally finished Autumn Dragon on Christine’s RR. All those fractional stitches with blending filament and the back stitch took a lot longer than I expected. I do, however love how it turned out. The colors are fantastic! It is ready to be off to Outi for the final round of stitching:)

Yesterday I also picked up two pieces that I had dropped of for framing a few weeks ago. Both pieces have been finished since the end of last year and I just got around to taking them. Bad Leslie. Oh Well, they are done now and I love how they turned out. The first is a seasonal themed round robin I participated in last year with Renee, Christine and Mylene. I stitched the summer house in the top right.

The second is Mirabilia’s Woodland Fairy which I finished last November. I really love how she turned out. Her golden dress would look perfect on the walls of our family room, but unfortunatly there isn’t really a place where she could hang and not be obscured by something. I need to spend some time wandering around the place looking for the perfect spot.

Well, off to a work dinner…hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!

Weekend Stitching and Birthday Fun

Over the past week, I have been busily stitching away on the Autumn Dragon for Christine’s RR. Like Christine, I was not as big a fan of this one as the other two we have stitched so far. The main portion of the dragon was not too bad, but the fractional stitches with blending filament is a pain. The colors in it are fantastic. I was about a quarter of the way done with it on Friday and I made it the focus piece for this weekends Stitch-a-thon. As of this picture, I am basically done with the cross stitching. I plan on tackling the back stitch tomorrow night.

In other news, today was my birthday! I am now officially in my last year of being twenty-something. Looking back, I would say it has been a very successful 29 years. It has been a nice birthday weekend, too. Last night, Allen and I went to my parents to celebrate my birthday and my sister’s (which was last Friday). Today, I got a chance to relax with Allen and we made a wonderful dinner together. I got some lovely gifts too. I got a gift certificate to Amazon, some lovely lotion, a Vera Bradley diaper bag from my sweet family member. Allen went over the top and bought me a new Ott-lite for my stitching area, which means I can take the old one (which I pilfered from Allen) and use it in my sewing room. He apparently also ordered the sewing table I wanted.

I also got this fantastic gift in the mail.

Carol stitched me a fantastic scissor fob and included a lovely pair of scissors. Thanks so much Carol!!

Stargazer stitching

Well this week, I have been having a fantabulous time stitching on Stargazer. I am really reminded how much I enjoy working on Mirabilia pieces. I adore the colors in her dress, particularly the blue-grey in the bustle. I can’t be too far away from the halfway mark on the stitching as she gets a lot narrower as you move up the pattern. The width in the top half is mostly scattered beads. It is a ton of beading though. Here is how she looked the last time I worked on her which was probably back in March.

And here she is after this week’s stitching.

I do need to put her away for a few days as I have set myself a goal to get Autumn Dragon for my RR done by September 1.

On the baby front, he is starting to move around a bit more. He particularly seems to enjoy doing backflips around 11pm. He still gets a bit shy whenever Allen tries to feel him move though. This morning, I went to do a bit more looking around at baby stuff with my mom and sister. I am still totally overwhelmed by everything that we will need. Any suggestions from any moms out there on items you can’t live without or items that are a waste of time are certainly appreciated.
After browsing, mom treated Becca and I to massages for our birthdays. It was sooo relaxing, especially after this week at work. I know that back in June I was complaining that I was really looking forward to the end of the school year, but now I really want school to start again. I am tired of being in the admin office all day. I realize that I really dislike the politics and I am much more tolerant of teenage drama than I am of adult drama.

Does anyone remember this piece?

It has been such a long time since I worked on Chatelaine’s Mystery 9. I decided to start putting some hours in on my two bigger WIPs, M9 and Stargazer. I really enjoyed working on M9 again this week. I was able to finish up the stitching on two more of the side pools and added a second set of stairs. I am going to have a hard time putting it away, but I would like to work on Stargazer a bit before I pick up my dragon RR again.