SAL Check-Ins

I'm squeezing in my check-ins on a bunch of SALs today just in the nick of time. Not a whole lot of progress was made on anything, but every x counts!

Smalls SAL

This is being hosted by Heather of Stitching Lotus. I managed two for this month.

Treats by Lizzie Kate

 My second finish is for the Christmas Ornament SAL hosted by Kaye of Kitten Stitching. It's one of the Mini Cards from Prairie Schooler. Sorry, I'm not sure of the year; I put the chart away in the wrong folder and have yet to find it again!

Kaye also hosts the Prairie Schooler SAL; I'm working on two Santas for this.

12 Days of Christmas Day 2: added a little more green

1984 Santa: finished the pant legs

It's been a while since I posted a progress pic on my Cinderella's Castle for A New Stitchy Start; this is being hosted by Tammy of I Want To Do One More Stitch. I'm still plugging away at it a few stitches at a time.

I've worked more on Pretty Little New York by Satsuma Street; I'm doing a SAL with Jo and Linda on Tuesdays. I finally finished one whole building!

I really like this designer; I'm planning on starting the rest of the cities as well as several more of her charts for the Super Duper Ultimate January February 2016 Challenge.

Here are a couple of my latest starts:

Trick or Treat by Ursula Michael

Sesame Street Group by Gloria and Pat adapted for Paragon Needlecraft

I bought my first silk flosses from Mo's Sale. They're so pretty and soft!

L-R: Peeta, Rue, Girl on Fire, Joanna, Cinna

And, finally, my sweet, wonderful, handy hubby made me a lapstand!

It's very lightweight and makes stitching the big projects easier. I was at 300 stitches on my Mini Owl Family chart when I took this pic; in two days time I was up to 800! I'm getting faster with my two-handed stitching.

That's all for me on the stitching front; I'll gather some crochet WIPs together for the next post.

Thanks for reading and looking.

Blessings :-)

Five on Friday: Five Things I'm Working On

I have been so flighty and indecisive today! I'm all over the place more than usual. But here are five things I've been working on this week:

1. Getting caught up on laundry, dishes, and other household chores. I was down most of last week with a bad fibro flare, and I was down most of this week with a bad cold. There are a lot of clean laundry piles around the house waiting to be folded and put away, more piles of dirty laundry, and so on.

2. Motifs for my mystery crochet projects. You can find the free pattern here at Signed With an Owl. 

So far, I'm using Dark Orchid, Spring Green, and Shocking Pink.

3. Printing charts, cutting fabric, and making lists for next years's SALs. 

4. More motifs for my mystery crochet projects. They look like eggs now, but I promise you they won't in the end! You can see what they'll look like at Color 'n Cream Crochet. So far, I'm using Bright Yellow and Soft White.

5. And, of course, I have more starts! I actually have more than this, but I had these out to photograph for a SAL. These are my first Heaven and Earth Designs, my first time parking, and my first time gridding. I'm having a blast!

I'm linking this up at Love Made My Home for Five on Friday. One of these days, I'll get caught up on my blog reading, too!

Thanks for reading and looking.

Blessings :-)

Alphabet Club B = Detention for Me!

I'm so late with this post, I'm due for a major detention!

This is being hosted by Jo of Serendipitous Stitching and Chiara of The Grey Tail.

B is for many BEAUTIFUL charts

such as the BOO Club Series by Lizzie Kate.

I currently have four of them as WIPs: Creepy, Spooky, Eek, Fright, and Treats.

And I've finished three: Pumpkin, Brew and Monster.

B is also for Brigitte of At Brigitte's Place, who had the wonderful idea of showing charts in her stash for each letter. She was kind enough to let me borrow the idea.

Here are some B's from my stash that are at the top of my To Stitch list:

Cherished Teddies BEARS

I have a lot of these as I collect them. I think I have close to 20 designs started but haven't worked on them lately so no update pics. Instead, here are more I'd like to start!

Carousel, The Spirit of America, and Gardening Angels, all by Gloria and Pat

BABY Samplers

Although my first cross stitch finish was a baby sampler for my niece, I have yet to make them for my two girls. I like these two the best: Baby Girl Birth Sampler from One Nice Thing After Another by Gloria and Pat, and Noah's Ark For Baby by Leisure Arts.

Also in the B file, I have a BERENSTAIN BEAR leaflet by Country Cross Stitch adapted for Paragon Needlecraft,

BIRDHOUSE Welcome by Dimensions, BINGO by C & L Crafts and Co, and Main Street by BUCKEYE Designs.

Of course, I couldn't forget the designer, BROOKE Nolan, of BROOKE'S BOOKS. I recently discovered her and love a lot of her designs. She has tons of adorable freebies over at her website. You can join her Yahoo Group to access some free charts. She also has an Etsy shop

where she sells her designs. I bought the Little Women set; I think when I start these, I'll stitch them on one piece of fabric rather than four.

Thanks for reading and looking. Hopefully I'll be on time next month!
Blessings :-)

Five on Friday: Never Forget

1. On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed, 400 were police officers and firefighters, in the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in NYC, at the Pentagon building in Washington, D.C., and in a plane crash near Shanksville, PA.

2. Passengers aboard United Flight 93, heard about the previous airplane attacks and attempted to retake control of the plane from hijackers. As a result, the hijackers dilberately crashed the plane in a Pennsylvania field instead of at their unknown target.

3. After the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, the rescue and recovery clean-up of the 1.8 million tons of wreckage from the WTC site took 9 months.

4. The attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11 resulted in the largest loss of life by a foreign attack on American soil.

5. 18 people were rescued alive from the rubble of the World Trade Center site.

We will never forget.

 Linking up today with Five on Friday hosted by Amy of Love Made My Home.

I Don't Mean to Keep Disappearing...

Life has just been so busy lately. Alex is much better now; thank  you for all the well wishes :-) She's still teething molars (not fun!) and tends to be on the grouchy side (wouldn't you?). Tim's working less hours (Yay!) and Hope is doing well in eighth grade (how did she get to be 13 already?).

My crochet bug comes and goes; I've been getting the itch to make some baby hats lately. I'm very slowly making progress on the pink and red rose blanket; hopefully I'll get it done before the baby arrives! I'm not sure when she's due; I'll have to ask Tim to ask his coworker.

Family update: my nephew Cameron, who was born July 7, two months too early, is home! He's doing great and is up to 8 pounds.

More family news: we finally have a car!! It's been almost two long years of having one vehicle that only Tim can drive (I never learned to drive a stick shift, and his old beat up work truck is not something you can learn on). We bought it at the end of last year for $200 because it needed a transmission along with a lot of other things. Tim has been working every spare moment on it this year, and it's finally done!! He's taking it to be inspected and get current tags on it tomorrow. It still needs a lot of minor repairs, but it's able to be driven safely. 

That's all for now, just a quick update to let you know I'm still around :-)

Thanks for reading.

Blessings :-)