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 :-)

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 :-)

More Progress

Poor baby girl has been suffering with a nasty upper respiratory infection for the last several days, so she's been my main focus. Doctor says it's not serious, we just need to let it run its course. She has some medicine but hates taking it. And she's just miserable, poor thing. I feel terrible because I can't explain to her why she feels terrible!

So, I have a lot to show you. I'd meant to break this up into several shorter posts, but as the deadline for a lot of the SALs is today, I have to combine everything into one long post.

First up, crochet progress. I finished putting black on all my pink roses and attached the first row of squares. Only 55 more to go!

In the midst of digging through my UFO box, I came across thirty burgundy roses I had made for another project and decided not to use. They were too pretty to frog, so I'm turning them into a baby blanket for a coworker of Tim's. I used Red Heart Super Saver Spring Green for the leaves, Perfect Pink for the double granny round, and am joining the squares with Shocking Pink.

Now, on to stitching. I have two more finishes! I still can't believe I finished five pieces in August! (Of course, I started a lot more.)

Here's Amazing by Kincavel Krosses (free chart):

And here's I Never Finish Anyth from Pixel Power Design:

Small finishes, but still finishes.
And (drum roll, please), I have my first FFO!

It's not perfect. There are a few things I think I'll do differently next time. But, all in all, I'm very pleased with my first finishing efforts.

This leads me to SALs, as this ornament is for the Christmas Ornament SAL hosted by Kaye of Kitten Stitching.

Kaye is also hosting two other SALs I'm participating in, the Prairie Schooler SAL and the Americana SAL.

 

For the Prairie Schooler SAL, I couldn't decide which piece to focus on, so I'm working on two. On the left is Santa's 12 Days of Christmas Day 2, and on the right is Prairie Schooler Santa 1984 (the first one in the series).

For the Americana SAL, I'm working on Stars and Stripes by Ursula Michael. I haven't made much progress on this, just the border on the center quilt.

I have been making progress on some of my other SAL pieces. For the Tuesday Pretty Little City SAL I do with Linda and Jo, I've been adding stitches to New York. There's a lot more to the building on the left now.

For the YOTA SAL hosted by Pull the Other Thread, I finally dusted off Cluttered and resumed working on it. I'm taking a break from the cabinet and working on the items on top of it.

I've been slowly plugging along with Cinderella's Castle for A New Stitchy Start:

 

And, finally, I have several new starts. You know me, I can't finish one without starting at least three more! 

Cat Lessons for People by Lizzie Kate:

March Calendar Girl by Little House Needleworks:

Dragon of Fire by Dragon Dreams (free chart):

Coffee Crazy by Lizzie Kate:

Spooky by Lizzie Kate:

Treats by Lizzie Kate:

Box of Delights by Blackwork Journey (free chart):

S is for Sewing by Prairie Schooler:

E is for Embroidery by Jeremiah Junction:

Is It Coffee Yet? by Lizzie Kate

I have been working on a new stitchy rotation for almost a month now and am really, really happy with it. I've made a lot of progress on a lot of different pieces. It's a bit complicated so I'll save the details and progress pics for another post. But I am trying to integrate the same idea into my crocheting.

Thanks for reading and looking. I'll try to get around to all your lovely posts in the next couple days.
Blessings :-)

 

Smalls SAL - Three Finishes!

Thank you for all the well wishes on my last post :-) The last couple days have been much better with a lot less pain. Tim survived his super long shift and got some rest; I don't know how often he'll have to work them, but it'll probably be until they get some more mechanics.

I'm breaking my progress posts into pieces so they're not too long. Today's is all about the Smalls SAL hosted by Heather of Stitching Lotus. And I have three - yes, three, isn't it amazing? - small finishes for the month!

You saw this one already. It's the Boo Club Monster by Lizzie Kate. For anyone curious, I stitched the eyes as black Smyrna crosses with white French knots in the middle because I didn't have any buttons small enough.

I finished the Boo Club Brew by Lizzie Kate, too. That makes three in the series completed!

And I finished my first Prairie Schooler design! This is Santa's 12 Days of Christmas Day 1. Now to focus on Day 2. I wonder how many I can finish this year?

I had so hoped these would be FFOs (Fully Finished Objects for those who don't stitch) in time for this post; I bought fabric and batting and have chipboard. But pain days slowed me down. Maybe I can squeeze in some time this weekend.

Thanks for reading and looking. I'll be back tomorrow with some more progress photos.

Blessings :-)

Gifted Gorgeousness and TUSAL

Late, late, for a very important date! Two, actually. My computer was in the shop this week, so I'm waaay behind on my blog reading and posting. 

Two dates I missed:

TUSAL - Totally Useless Stitch Along hosted by Sharon of It's Daffycat. My ort jars are pretty full this month. The yarn one is emptied every month, but the thread one is for the whole year. I may actually reach my goal of filling it by December!

Gifted Gorgeousness hosted by Jo of Serendipitous Stitching. These three charts were gifts from my wonderful stitchy friend, Linda.

I'm so close to a finish with these two!

Prairie Schooler Santa's 12 Days of Christmas Day 1

Boo Club Brew by Lizzie Kate

But I really did finish this one! Yay!!

Boo Club Monster by Lizzie Kate

I'll get caught up with all of your posts this coming week.

Thanks for reading and looking.

Blessings :-)