Start of Cardinal Winter

I'm trying to make two small ornaments a year for my little Christmas tree.  You can see the two I made last year here.... really, I made them this year, but we're going to call it last year.   I bought the pattern "Cardinal Winter" by Little House Needleworks awhile back. And since I finished my 'Very Scary' , I get to start something new.  

A little magic trick I do....and I have shared this with my stitching buddies.... I highlight what I've already stitched in the crowed areas.  It helps my eyes and I can see right where I'm supposed to stitch next.

Here is a picture of this adorable pattern and my progress. I fell in-love with the birds and the trees. I am a sucker for a bird.

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In other news~ We're dying flowers for Science. (homeschool)

You can see a bit of blue starting to show up on this first flower. My son is graphing the progress.

 Tomorrow we leave for a friend's wedding.  I just had to show off my husband's artwork.  On my calendar I had written " We Leave on a jet plane" and drew a plane. This morning I sit down to read what we're doing today and I find this cute artwork under mine. He writes "Going thru security" and drew the people. It gave me a good, big laugh this morning.

The Big Reveal ~ Very Scary

My 'Very Scary' is finished and now you get to see what I replaced the teal rectangle with in the middle section...... a cute little eight legged spider.  All the stitching is finished,  I still need to add one bead and make it into a wall hanging.  My husband is going to make a hanger for me. :o)

Here is a close up of the top....

A close up of the middle.... you can see the spider better in this picture.

A close up of the bottom section..... I did end up frogging the right boarder and restitching it. (you can read about that here) Thank you to all who gave me advice about this.

Here is a picture of what it would look like it I had followed the pattern. Much brighter and can you see the teal rectangle? It has a little key charm hanging in it.  I do like this version too. It is so adorable, but I just love more muted colors so I changed a lot of mine. :o)  I also really like spiders as a Halloween theme, so I had to throw a spider in there somewhere.

Here is mine again so you can compare.

I loved stitching 'Very Scary'!  If you are new to 'Very Scary', it is a mystery sampler by Lizzie * Kate.   Happy stitching this week.

All Kinds of Things to Share

              I finally went to the eye doctor after it took me 3 months to work up the nerve to call and make an appointment. I'm not kidding... I have a phone phobia. And guess what... I needed reading glasses.  I knew I did, that's why a made the call. So here are my cute new glasses. My husband says I look like a sexy secretary in them. hahaha. And my daughter says I look like a librarian.

I haven't done much stitching on 'Very Scary'.  My daughter said the moon wasn't scary enough so she drew me a new one. And of course I changed the color.

I've stitched a little on my August BOM.

I used 'So September's' pendant tutorial and made a bus pendant. I think my best friend and camping buddy will be getting this for Christmas. *wink

I started the new BOM at my local quilt shop, Quilting Adventures.  I fell in love with the Earth color way. ( They have 4 color ways available I think) I was going to go with a dark brown background, but yesterday I went in to the shop and spotted this cute batik. It is cream color and has daisy flowers all over it. LOVE.  So I went with it instead.

And last on the list to show.... I finally framed the wedding sampler I stitched up for our friend. The wedding is next weekend.... nothing like waiting until the last minute. LOL

Two Halloween Ornaments

I know it seems like I just made a blog post the other day, but I've got ornaments to show.  I've done no stitching since my last post , but have done a tiny bit of sewing and traced my next HocusPocusVille block.   I made my two Halloween cross stitches into cute Halloween ornaments.  There are all kinds of cute way to finish off these little suckers, but this is the only way I know how to right now. I am pretty excited about them. They make me want to make more.

"Haunted" is from the Lizzie*Kate Mystery Sampler, it was the bonus pattern in part 1.  And "Spells" is from the 'Just Cross-Stitch' Halloween 2012 issue.

I've backed both with a glow-in-the-dark spider web fabric.

As for my Mystery Sampler, 'Very Scary'..... I still have not decided whether to rip / frog those stitches yet or not.

HocusPocusVille #7

I finished HocusPocusVille block #7.   And call me crazy, but I made a tiny change. Teehee hee....

So, the pattern has this cute tiny spider hanging from a tree, but he only has 6 legs.  Well, we all know that 8 legs is what separates spiders from the insects. So I had to give him one more leg on each side.

Don't you think he looks more like a spider now?

I have a question about my 'Very Scary'.  Here is a picture of how far I've gotten. Do you see the mistake? It's on the right side boarder. It is over one thread too many. Just one thread.

I've messed up on this much (pictured below) and would have to 'frog' this much. What I want to know is.... can you tell?  Can you tell the board is over one too many threads?  If you look at the picture above and compare the too sides, you can tell the zig zag is over two thread from the straight black line on the left side. What do you think?

If you were wondering, I did change my top row grass color. The pattern called for 'Cadet', but I used two different colors instead. One strand of 'Thyme' and one strand of 'Bullfrog'.

Below is the 'Cadet' color I didn't use. It is a pretty color, I just didn't like it for this project. :o)  I felt the 'Cadet' made the house look like it was floating in the water.

Here's a picture of the whole thing..... can you tell the mistake? Should I 'frog' it? Or just leave it?

A Saturday in September

A little progress on 'Very Scary'.  I've once again made some color changes.... teehee hee.

I've changed the house color. The pattern called for 'purple haze' (on the left), but I used 'river rocks' (on the right) instead.  I like the 'purple haze' color, for a purple it is very pretty.  It is just too bright for my 'Very Scary'.

I have gone to the dark side and joined the new BOM at my local quilt shop, Quilting Adventures.  I wasn't going to play this time, but I saw the Earth colorway being offered and I couldn't resist.  I haven't picked out my background fabric yet , but I am thinking of going with a very dark brown.

And I just need to show off  the cute minion my daughter and her best friend made.  They made up the pattern themselves following a picture of a minion on line. He even has a little cloak and a book with pages in it.

A minion is a little creature from the game 'League of Legends'. My daughter is a gamer. :o)

Spells

                               I finished stitching "Spells".  This pattern is in the 'Just Cross Stitch'  2012 Halloween Issue.

I bought 3 different fabrics so I can back my 2 finished Halloween ornaments....I hope to stitch up some more.

And I started 'Very Scary' Part III....