Happy Spring! Happy Easter!

I'm so glad it's Spring! Temps are in the mid-40s today, but on Wednesday the temps should be in the 60s. :) How great is that!

These were easy stitches, but Spring has Sprung took 3 days while The Bunnies took over a year from the time I started it.

My chart for the Dragon Carousel arrived last Friday. I'm soooo excited! I was going to attempt to add metallics but I am overjoyed to see that it CALLS for metallics, both blending filament and #4 Braid. Lots of beads, too! I bought most of my floss at A.C. Moore and ordered the fabric Gothic)from Picture This Plus' website. I'm looking forward to stitching this. I'm not looking forward to stripping and working with all that BF, though.

Lizzie Kate Big Girl Panties....done in 2 days!!

This crazy, funny design only took me 2 days to stitch! I sewed the yellow buttons on at quirky angles. I also made a color change! If I stitched it as charted, the panties on the right would have a purple band at the top not yellow. I substituted DMC 745 since it was handy from the bee CEC Easter ornament. Now my piece matches the picture!

Be Scary pillow

I finished this Pine Mountain design at the end of February, but just didn't feel like scanning it, putting it on Webshots, and then posting it in the blog until today. So without further delay......



These are so much fun and I love the designs. I have oodles to do, but never seem to pick them up to stitch.

Cross Eyed Cricket Soft Boiled Ornaments...done!!

These were so much fun to stitch! These were quick, too. It really seems like spring will come. These were done on 20 ct fabric: sunflower, lilac, antique rose, lime green and daffodil. I swung by Joann Fabrics to get backing calico and I am very pleased with the choices I made. Surprisingly getting backing for sunflower (chick) was the easiest! The butterfly on lilac was the hardest; it's a very greyed hue.

Quaker Christmas SAL and other stuff

I'm not a member, but I added a link to the blog on the Stitch-a-Long. I may decide to stitch this and then I'll ask to join. It's a very pretty design and I'm interested in seeing what others are doing. Someone mentioned doing it with red as the main color with green bits. Interesting idea!

My order from JJ's Collectibles came yesterday! I am so thrilled to have the LK kit "Put on your big girl panties and deal with it." I wasn't sure whether I'd like it or not, but I always loved the colors used. I'm glad I decided to get it especially since it's selling out quickly.

I enter things in the local county fairs so I also purchased Bent Creek's The Red Thread: County Fair. Maybe I can glue some plastic fair animals around the frame! LOL Actually, that's not a bad idea!! Someone remind me of that at framing time. ;)

I am almost finished stitching the cute CEC Soft Boiled ornaments. I need 032BF (I buy it nearly every month; where does it all go?????) and I'll be at The Stitching Post, Catonsville, MD, on Sunday so I'll get it then. I've wanted to do a whole series before, but I don't think I ever have.

So much new stuff; too much old stuff

Rhetorical question: Why are there always so many new charts and kits to get and too much old stuff not stitched?

Shepherd's Bush now has a Green Snowman kit. Not that I've stitched (or started!) the Red Snowman kit. I like the Green Snowman better. I've started Scatter Smiles, but can't stick with it. I have Scatter Hearts and Scatter Eggs, the buttons and the backing fabric, but haven't started yet. I'm trying to finish things that I've started this year.

I was going to make a list of "Things I Hope to Finish Before 2010", but it would be too long, I'd keep adding to it and it would have 200 - 300 items on it! Still, it might be interesting.

I've had kitted up the Cross Eyed Cricket's spring/Easter eggs chart book: Soft Boiled. I like them all! See it here: http://www.hoffmandis.com/detail.cfm?ProductID=07-1328&start=91&image=07-1328.jpg&ProductName=Soft%20Boiled&DesignerName=Cross%20Eyed%20Cricket%2C%20Inc%2E&SubcatID=&DesignerID=CEC&Keyword=&prodlist=des&desrefine=&CatID= I bought the fabric at the time I bought the book while at In Stitches in Alexandria, VA last year. I started them this weekend after seeing them stitched by a friend of mine. I took a page out of her book and I started with the ones I don't like as much. So far the chick and the butterfly are done. I started the bunny last night and made great headway. It'll be nice to have some things done for Easter.

Started CHS Shores of Hawk Run Hollow

I'd pre-ordered the chart and fabric (32 ct) from Drema at Needlecraft Corner. Then, when Kathy released the list of fibers needed I placed an order from Drema for the silk (mostly because she had the NPS silk on sale!). I put in my first 20 stitches (thereby claiming the piece as mine) on Tuesday, February 19, 2008. I'm so excited by it. I'm using one strand of silk on the 32 ct linen. I'm starting in the upper left corner with the lighthouse.

Because Bunny Parade and The Big Zipper call for tons of boring border stitching I did NOT start with the boring black border for my square. I will come back to it.

I have to use my magnifier to see the threads of the fabric at night. Even though I use an Ott Light (love it!!) 32 ct is getting harder to see. Maybe it's the weave. I don't have this much difficulty on all 32 count fabric.