Saturday, June 30, 2012

Where have I been?

Hello Friends!

I feel like I have been away for so long, I have been working so much overtime and enjoying my house being virtually empty of people that I haven't been doing much stitching or anything else, for that matter. I have been watching a bunch of movies for some reason.

I did finish the baby announcement for my friend at work, now all she has to do is have the baby and I can complete it with the name, birth date and frame it. We're all so excited at work, can't wait for our baby to be born. Yes we've all decided that she's ours.


 I can't wait to give it to her. I just hope she likes it.

I have been working off and on on the Train of Dreams SAL, I have decided that since I have completed the birth announcement for now, I'm going to get back to my Random Number generator and get my challenge pieces back in the mix. I have added the ToD to the list and another birth announcement since I just found out that my daughters best friend is pregnant too. I have a lot more time to do hers, so I should be able to get it done in time as well.

This is what I'm going to do for my daughters bestie. I bought this in the late 90's and have had it stashed ever since, I pulled it out of storage and the fabric is stained and the little bit of stitching I had started is dirty too so I'm just going to start all over. The floss in the kit has an odd musty smell so I have to convert the Bucilla floss colors over to DMC, no problem there.


 Now then, here's the TofD progress, just to keep you up to date with where I am on it.



 I've done a little more since that last pic, but not enough to warrant a new photo yet. I am really enjoying working on this, but I think I need a little break. Confetti is giving me headaches right now.

So I'll get back on soon and update with whatever the number generator comes up with. So sorry it has been a couple of weeks between posts, but I think things are slowing down a bit and the newness of having an empty "nest" is wearing off. See you soon and have a wonderful week! For those of us in the States, Have a safe 4th of July and if you are lucky enough to have fireworks, please televise them for us here in AZ, all of ours have been cancelled I believe.

Saturday, June 16, 2012

I Feel Like I'm Cheating...

It's odd, but I feel like I have been cheating on my 2012 challenge pieces. I have not touched one of them for weeks! I have a reason, but it still feels like I'm being disloyal. I know it's ridiculous, but....

Here's where I got on A Star is Born. The little mama is still holding on, I don't think she's going to make it to her due date, but if she doesn't I can finish this fairly fast.


I'll finish the last of the stars this week and get started working on the backstitching. I can't wait to see her face when I give it to her.

I worked on the Train of Dreams SAL last weekend and haven't looked at it all week so I didn't make a huge amount of progress, but I can definitely see how even just a little bit of progress can keep me motivated. I may not keep updating each week, but I will keep taking pics and will update at least once a month. I like having both pics together to compare on this one.


Had date night with my hubby last night and tonight I'm taking my daughter out for a belated birthday dinner. Tomorrow hubby and I are going to a Scorpions concert. He plays in a Scorpions tribute band so he'll really enjoy it. I just hope it doesn't rain since the concert is outside and we have lawn seats.

I hope to have more pics for my next post. So until then, Happy Stitching!!

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Not such a great week, but progress.


This week has been hectic and frustrating and a couple of other things and I'm glad it's over. My daughter turned 25 on Tuesday. I really was looking forward to taking her our to dinner at her favorite restaurant and had it all planned out, but wouldn't you know it, the money I had set aside for dinner got taken out to pay the car insurance! I mean, what? I need insurance on my car? Oy! The timing just couldn't have been worse. So I couldn't take her out for dinner on her birthday, but I will take her out next week, this time to her other favorite restaurant since her boyfriend did take her to the favorite. I did get to make her requested birthday "cake", however, and it was DEEEEEElicious!


Make a wish!


Yes, it was a chocolate pudding pie! And she blew the candles out so hard, she knocked them over. When my son asked if she made a wish she said, "I don't need to make a wish, I already have everything that I want." What an awesome kid! So happy to have her in my life.

The rest of the week just seemed to get away from me. I did get some progress on my birth announcement, but didn't finish it, like I'd planned. But here's the progress on that one.



This is so darn cute, I really want to finish it up quickly so that when my friend has her baby I can give it to her mom (who also works at my office) as soon as I get the name and date on it and get it framed, probably the following Monday, whenever that may be.

I worked on the SAL all week, off and on as my mood allowed. I spent most of the week battling a case of the blahs. Depression hadn't set in until last night. So here's the progress I made over the past basically 2 weeks.



I saw in the enlarged photo that I missed a leg on one stitch that I'll have to go back and fix, because even if you can't see it, I know it's there and it will drive me crazy knowing that I didn't take care of it.

Can you see it?
I finally got a version of Adobe Reader that will allow me to highlight my progress on the chart. This was very frustrating for me since I love the paper print out and all, I just can't see it very well. Now that I have the updated version that will allow me to highlight it, I can zoom in and highlight and see it without straining my eyes. YAY!!!!

I found out some really disturbing news about one of my cousins this week and I'd really appreciate any prayers and good thoughts for his health and welfare. He and his brothers have been more like brothers to me than my own brothers at times. I'm pretty heartbroken for him right now.

I'm hoping this week will see me cheering up a little bit more and I'll get more done on the birth announcement and then maybe I can get back to my crazy 15 rotation and get some of them worked on too. Wish me luck?

Have a wonderful week!

Friday, June 1, 2012

Baby announcement progress

This week I worked almost exclusively on the baby announcement for my friend at work. I didn't really plan on giving it to her at the baby shower today, but I did hope to have it close to finished. I did make great progress on it and I will work on it again this week until it's ready for the new baby's name and date of birth. I'm really happy with what I got completed.


It is definitely a quick stitch. I didn't get to touch it one night so I'd say another day or two and I'll have it ready for back stitching. We had the baby shower today and we succeeded in surprising our friend! She had no idea that we were planning this for a couple of weeks. One of our managers almost let the cat out of the bag today though, he caught himself just in time. Thank goodness for that. I was a bad girl and didn't take my camera so I have to wait to get pictures from one of our other girls who did remember.

I was working on my SAL last weekend a bit, devoted a little more than a day because the other girls are blowing me away in their progress. I'm enjoying it anyway so I'm not too worried about falling behind. I will take another picture on Sunday but here are the progress pics for the Train of Dreams.



If I can finish the stitching on the baby announcement I'll roll the number generator to find out what is next and post an update during the week if I can.

Tuesday is my wonderful daughter Sami's 25th birthday. She's probably my best friend aside from my hubby. I'm taking her and her boyfriend and my hubby and son out for dinner at her favorite restaurant Red Lobster. The boys aren't really seafood people, they'd prefer steak to seafood any day of the week. They will order whatever else they can find that isn't fish and be happy about it....or else! LOL

So here's hoping that you have a wonderful and relaxing week ahead and I hope you all find time to treat yourself to something special this week. See ya next time!