Happy Monday! AND Happy March :)

Today is a true milestone, it's my 100th post! Unbelievable! I've said it before and I'll say it again, I never imagined when I wrote my first blog post that both the stitchy world and the blogging world would become so important to me. I am so very grateful to able to write here every week and get to know my fellow stitchers of both the cross stitch and quilty variety! 

I'm also happy to say that the drought has ended on the stitchy front! Thanks to my contracting the cold and being quarantined for a few days last week. However, I'm on the mend! Feeling much better :) I was the last in my house to get this bug, which I had thought I had successfully escaped. Nope. I wasn't quite so lucky.

In any case it wasn't all bad. Being couch ridden, I decided to pick away at my cross stitching, considering that, besides moving your head to look at a pattern every now and then, no physical activity was needed. That meant no uncontrollable sick sweats, or exhaustion, or plain yuckyness ensued! YEY for being able to be at least a little productive while sick. Is there anything worse than feeling like a complete vegetable, laid up for days because you can't bring yourself to move a muscle????

I have finally managed to finish off part 2 of L*K's Holly and Hearts Sampler. Which has been tthhhhhissss close to a finish for just about forever.

The only thing that bugs me about Part 2 is the spelling of "honour." Not that I have a problem with Americanized English, but I've grown up with the British spelling. So things like the no "u" in honour drive the anal retentive side of me up the wall. I thought about changing the spelling having seen some people modify their's, but it always looked a bit too squishy. It was like two obsessive halves of me battling it out, one - the need to spelling things correctly (which given that I used to be a horrible speller would shock some of my childhood friends) and the other screaming that things need to look symmetrical.  In the end, the more symmetrical - artsy side of me won out, much to the chagrin of my spelling side. 

I also fished out Santa's Magic from my all but empty WIP bag (no stitched words in sight). I'm actually pretty proud of the fact that I really only have 2 WIPs. Santa's magic and LHNs Mystery Sampler (on which I also need to finish part 2... there's a trend here). Just before Christmas I had put tones of time in one Santa and needed a bit of a change in scenery if you know what I mean. But now he's strapped into the qsnaps and ready for some flossy love.

As you can see from the picture I've been using some lovely sparkly thread... At long last I have met Kreinik floss! Or can I say Kreinik sandpaper. As beautiful at this stuff is... it's horrible on the fingers. The tips of my fingers were near rubbed raw after only an hour of stitching. Ohhhh the trouble we go through to make things extra beautiful!

Anyway, I'm going to keep Santa on the stand and will myself to plug away at him for the next little while. 

Until next time!

Melissa

Happy Thursday,

I have a new finish and start to show you all today! I haven't taken part in IHSW for a LONNNNG time, despite my best efforts. It's easy to let life whisk away your weekend I find, so hermitting can be a bit of a challenge. This weekend past however I found myself with a little extra time on my hands than usual and decided that some quality time with my stitching and netflix was in order :) I stitched until my hands and fingers went tingly and watched a season and a half of Bones. Yup I think I'd qualify this as a successful weekend!

I finished another house in the Santa's Village series by CCN and have another waiting in my WIPs bag just waiting for a start. I have 5 out of the 12 in the series right now... and NOW CCN has announced another series called Frosty Forest! I'm going to have to speed up because I find myself already loving the concept of Frosty Forest... oh dear ;)

Santa's Stocking Store
Country Cottage Needleworks
Stitched on 32ct Opalescent Belfast

I also put a start in on L*Ks new Mystery Sampler, Holly and Hearts.

I've been dying to start in on this sampler and have had it waiting in the lineup for a while. But I was being very disciplined and made myself hang off on starting until I finished my Santa's Village WIP! YEY for willpower.

Unfortunately, Santa's Magic has been neglected over the past week or so... just because I'm working with Kernik thread now and I hate it.

I figure once I've put the last stitch in part one of the L*K mystery sampler I'll kick my but in gear and continue on with Santa's Magic. I find with large intricate projects I always like a little side project just so I can take a break from it from time to time. Anyone else do this?

Also, do you notice how everything I'm working on right now is Christmas related?! I must have an obsession subconsciously... 

Ciao for now!

Melissa

Happy Friday!

Welcome to the long weekend everyone!!!! I am just so excited to take a break from building and spend it with lots of family and friends. Unfortunately that likely means very little stitching will be done… if any. BUT I certainly have made up for it!

I have tons of stitchy stuff to share with you!

First up, I finally finished Old Nantucket by LHN a couple of weeks ago.

I also finished part 3 of Santa's Village just last night - with the help of Annette over at California Stitcher! Here is North Pole Post Office by CCN in all it's glory :)

I also finished Part 1 of LHNs Seasons mystery sampler:

I know… not a finish picture but I'm too lazy to go take ANOTHER picture and then have to upload it and fiddle around with it haha. The couch is too comfy. 

And finally the postman made a visit today:

That my friends is the delicious floss I received after finding out that I was one of MANY winners during Nancy's Birthday Giveaway at The Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe. I couldn't wait to take a picture and the light was just right to capture how vibrant and beautiful these skeins are :) Thanks Nancy!!!

Have a great looooong weekend everyone!!!

Melissa

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Welcome to the end of the month already!!! Unbelievable. Where has this month gone at all????

Well I think I have an idea what I have spent my time doing... stitching and house building of course! I can't believe it's been just a little more than a month since we started building our house and all our hard work, sweat and even some tears (from pain) have produced this:

Coming right along. We're in the process of trying to get the garage up in the void you see on the left hand side of the house. Many thanks to my family for being such hard working people. Who would have thought you'd be working your day job AND moonlighting as construction personnel in the evening/weekends ;) We're also stillllll waiting for the town council on some critical decisions so we are trying to do what we can until those decisions have been made. But, I'm afraid if there isn't some kind of decision soon then it may well hold up construction!!!! Grrrrrr town council why do you have to do everything so slow!!! 

On the stitchy side of things, I wonder if it's possible to legitimately have a happy dance for getting long awaited stash in the mail??? Legitimately or not I was dancin away when I opened the mail box to find my order from 123stitch had arrived! 

You can probably remember my lamenting that I had run out of the floss I needed to finish off Nantucket. Well here is the lone skein of floss in all it's glory:

But wait there's more - you didn't really think I would order only one skein of floss did you???? Given that the shipping costs have gone up considerably recently I've been putting off purchasing stash (which is probably not a bad thing) until I absolutely need it and get many things at once to justify the extra shipping costs.

I decided to purchase the first part of Little House Needleworks Mystery sample + all the goodies.

Doesn't that over dyed floss look delicious???? I absolutely love the colours and cannot wait to dig into this sampler while waiting for the fabric for Santa's Magic (yes I decided on a fabric!!!! Thanks for the suggestions everyone!!!!)

I also purchased a couple more charts, floss and buttons from the Santa's Village Series by CCN.

I've been really enjoying stitching these little houses up and cannot wait to have all 12 completed :)

Speaking of the Santa's Village, I'm very near a finish with the North Pole Post Office. 

Unfortunately I neglected to order the floss to finish to roof as I thought I already had it... which I didn't. So once I finish the snow flakes and top boarder it's off to the WIP pile for this one until I get a chance to order that floss. I should mention that I was going to simply use the DMC conversion for the roof, but I simply could not resist the lovely variegated floss that is suppose to be used... I know I'm a sucker for specialty items haha. 

Until next time my dears!

Melissa