Hawaii....I'm just saying!!!

We swam with dolphins today! I got to swim with my DH, both my kids, my sister and my neice. We had an awesome time! Like Luke said as we left the dolphin pool, "That was AWESOME!"

We're loving the warm weather. My parents rented a great house. The kids jump in the pool around 8am...we drag them out for lunches and supper...and for bed! Seriously, they are in there for HOURS!

Can't wait to share a few pictures! Not a bit of stitching getting done, but TONS of great memories!

A Few Pictures Before I Go....

My old blogging friend: motherstree stitched this and graciously shared the pattern with me! I originally was stitching it for myself. You see, I find they perfectly appropriate and hilarious! But Luke came up and saw me stitching it, and didn't care for it too much! Guess he took offense to being compared to a chicken! ha

So instead I am taking it to Hawaii and giving it to my SIL. She has three kids, none are old enough to read, so surely they won't be offended! :) I dug out my LHN "Hen Party" and they had a little cluster of three chickens, so I stitched that on the back of the little pillow. Cute, huh?


Remember I said I was going to work on FP?! Well, I did it! Yes siree! In fact, all my flowers are stitched! I started it in February 2009, so guess one year to get that much done isn't too bad! I stitch in hand, look how wrinkled that left hand side is! Yikes!



This much of it is backstitched, except for three itty bitty leaves:



This part still needs to be backstitched!

Oh and then there's all those hummingbirds, bees, butterflies and bugs that need to be added!

I still have lots to do before we leave for Hawaii tomorrow! The bathrooms are all clean. The cat has gone to my inlaws (bless their hearts). Livingroom is pretty much picked up. I have piles of clothes for the boys. Cross-stitch stuff is ready. What am I missing?

Oh, just the tiny issue of MY CLOTHES! :) The boys have a birthday party tonight, so that'll give me a good two hour slot to finish packing...okay, start packing.. whatever! DH will be home from NYC tonight at 10:30pm! I'll probably have to do a load of wash for him, and then he needs to pack!

See ya in a week! :)

Heading to Hawaii!!!

We're heading to Hawaii! My parents are treating me and my siblings to a lovely vacation on the North Shore, near Honolulu! We will all arrive by Saturday night: Mom, Dad; Big Brother and his wife and three girls 13, 7, 4; Dh and myself and our two boys: 12 1/2 and 10; Little Single Sister: Little Brother and his wife (who happens to be named Sarah) and their two girls 6 and 3 and a new baby boy 6 months. Can you say full house?!

My part of the family will be there for a week. The rest of them will be there for two weeks. We've done a similar vacation, twice, to an itty bitty town in the Bahamas. We always have a great time together! And a week is perfect for my family! :)

I've got some easy little ornaments all kitted up. It takes a LONG time to fly to Hawaii from NC! We leave on a 6am flight, which means we have to leave our house by 4am at the very, very latest. We'll fly through Texas and Seattle and then on to Honolulu. It will take ALL day!

I debated taking my FP along with me. It's all just backstitch and it would be so easy to work on! But as my darling Luke said: "Mom, I don't think that'd be a good idea!" Smart kid, huh?

So tomorrow will be full of packing and cleaning the house! You know, I can NOT leave on vacation and come home to a messy house! Anybody else have that problem?

I've been debating taking a pause from the ole blogging world! Not sure I'm adding all that much to it anyways. :) So we'll see! After a week in Hawaii, I might just get my blogging groove back!

I hate change!

Oops, I was trying to give the blog more space to read the posts! lol

Now at least, you can see that my little sister was supposed to be in the picture to begin with! She never was all that much into stitching! :)

So how do I make my picture fill that whole space at the top?

Can I make the print bigger for the name of the blog?

Can I change the color so you can read it better?

I think I might have messed up! LOL

Come on experts...HELP!

Backstitching for hours!

I finished all the flowers! So now I'm starting on the backstitching! It is going to take forever!!! But it sure makes the flowers look pretty, doesn't it?

I have a grand plan: there are about six pages of this design. Well not six pages, it's really six sections of four pages stuck together. The pattern is huge for this baby! Oh and that's just for the stitching and backstitching, there are another 3-4 pages for all the bugs and bees. So my plan is to backstitch and do all the extras (bugs, bees, butterflies, hummingbirds) on that one page. So then, I won't have to go back to it once I finish it.

The real difficulty with this pattern, is all the backstitching is the exact same color on the chart. But so many flowers and leaves overlap each other, it's hard to know where to stitch which color. And then there's the whole section of animals sitting on leaves and flowers... that also have some backstitching.

So do I backstitch the entire flower, then stitch the bug even though it might overlap on the backstitching some? I don't think I want to backstitch the flower over the bug..... hard to explain, I think I'm just going to try it!

So far so good on sticking with FP! We'll see how long it lasts! :)

We got another 3 inches of snow last night! This sure is strange for NC! Two weekends of snow in a row! This time the snow was really light and fluffy, instead of hard and icy! It stuck to all the trees as it was coming down and it sure looks pretty!

Enjoy your weekend!

Flower Power Update

Don't be shocked! :) I finally finished the tall pink foxglove flowers:


I am working on my last batch of flowers! The greenery and leaves are all done, just need to fill in these pink and white flowers:



Here's the entire left side, I was sitting on the couch stitching last night when I decided to take a picture. I laid it on my lap and it stretched all the way to my toes! This thing is going to be huge!



I have tons and tons of backstitching to stitch, and lots of bugs, butterflies and hummingbirds. All this time I was thinking they were all over one! I was just really looking at the pattern last night, and all the hummingbirds are stitched over two! YEAH!! :)

I started this Feb 2009, so guess I've made a lot of progress!

I Really Messed Up!!

Last night around 6pm we got a phone call. Luke's best friend wanted Luke to come spend the night. Technically, in the land of Mommy Law's, I owed a sleepover because Luke had just spent the night there during one of our snow days. So instead of Luke going to his friend's house, the friend came here.

No Problem!

This morning, another friend calls and invites Luke to his house. Well, Luke can't go over there because he has a friend here. So that friend ended up at our house.

No Problem!

But I told DH, as he was on his way to Walmart.... "I really messed up!"

You see, I had two chances to have a quiet stitching day, and instead now I have three, ten year old boys running circles around me! :)

It's okay, so far we've made four official, laminated, name badges! (I messed Luke's up! Figures!) I got to throw rubber balls at Luke and his best friend. And we got to eat pizza bites for lunch!

Oh and I also pulled out my stove (nasty), pulled out my fridge (not so nasty), so all in all, a pretty productive day!

Course, since there are three ten year old boys playing Army outside, there is no telling when I'll be captured! Earlier, they said they were playing terrorists, and I asked Luke to take a few things to our back shed for me. He said, "Fine! We're terrorists with a heart!" Don't we wish they all had hearts? Thankfully they have moved past terrorists, and are now playing Army... with swords!?? Go figure!

Last night, Luke and his best buddy were watching a cartoon version of Star Wars. And his buddy says to Luke, "Oh, I just love this show!! It reminds me of my childhood!" WHAT?? This kid is ten! ha

Hope your afternoon is more quiet than mine will be! Dh is on his way home with our 12 year old! :)

A Few Finishes

It's been cold and rainy around here lately!! Reminds me of home! (Kodiak, Alaska) I haven't had huge amounts of stitching time, so I've been doing these little one nighters!

Before you think I've given up on FP, I haven't! I just don't like to pull the massive thing out, if I only have an hour or so to stitch!

I finished the pattern for our college intern. Now I need to make a trip to the fabric store, to find the perfect, funky, fabric to make it into a pillow.



It's really all Faye's fault! Or maybe it'd Mylene's! See, I first saw Faye's tree of Valentine ornaments and thought to myself, "Self...you need one of those!" Then over at Mylene's, I saw all these cute little Valentine freebies and thought to myself, "Self...now you have no excuse!"

So I went through my stash of random overdyed threads and picked out the pinks and reds that I wanted to stitch with. I had tons of pinks and muaves and burgundy, but I need to get some REDS! Course that sort of defeats the point of using up stash, doesn't it?!


Love is stitched with Dye is Cast Geranium, Be Mine is stitched with Dragon Dreams' Pink Pansy. I have NO idea where I got that thread, I think in a thread exchange a few years ago. Love is stitched with a GAST thread, but I have no idea which one!

This is the pattern I'm working on now. It's not a freebie, it's a PS from long ago! It's supposed to be stitched in all different colors, but I'm using one over-dyed for the whole thing. I'm stitching with The Dye is Cast thread, Barn Red. It's my favorite of all the Dye is Cast threads. Bummer she isn't doing her threads any more, they are so much nicer to stitch with! Course Victorian Motto Sampler threads are about as nice! :)


I have another row of hearts and vines to put under the last row of abc's. It's supposed to be square, not rectangular! But my fabric doesn't seem to be square! Now that's annoying isn't it?! It's 34 ct. Williamsburg Oyester, from a fancy pantsy LNS, not even cheapo stuff from Joann's or Michael's! LOL

I think it'll be okay once I finish it, nobody but you all will know it's not exactly right! LOL I just will have to back it with sewing fabric, don't you think?

So Faye... Mylene.... Since this is all our fault, I need one of you to provide the tree to hang these on and one of you to finish them all into ornaments! Volunteers?!

Just Kidding! :) Have a good weekend, everybody!

Anybody have this pattern?

I would love to have this pattern to stitch for my DH. I've heard it was Out of Print. I'm hoping one of my wonderful blog readers might know where I can find one?! :) Thanks!!

BRRR!!!

Okay, enough of this snow and cold! I live in the south, for heaven's sake! :)

Today is the second snow day, for my boys! No announcement for tomorrow yet, at the most, I think they might have a two hour delay. *Updated! School canceled today for the THIRD DAY!* Some of the side roads are still really icy. So we'll watch the evening news and see what the announcement is!

I have NOT given up on FP! :) But there was another pattern I needed to stitch really quickly! Remember the one with the different threads I was deciding between!? I decided to go with the less bright varigated thread. But when I had stitched the first letter, well it just looked kind of boring!


Then I thought I'd try the color it called for, Turkey Feathers, and thought maybe I would like it better after I actually stitched with it. Nah, too dark and blah, not what I was thinking!

So I stitched a bit with the much brighter thread, and really love how it turned out! I left off the border, and will just make it into a fun little pillow for my friend.


I stitched as much as I could, and ran out of thread! DUH! :) So I've ordered more, and hopefully it matches EASILY! We'll see! When it's finished it will say, "Well behaved women rarely make history!"

So I ran out of thread last night around 11:00pm, and didn't want to go to bed! So I picked up a little Valentine's freebie I saw Mylene stitch! It was such a quick stitch! :) I just used some Victorian Motto red thread and the brown is a Crescent Colors, I think! Want the pattern?


Remember the original thread my pattern called for....Turkey Feathers. (a silk thread) What else could I use it for? How about a Turkey Freebie!? So I'm a little early for the season, but the Turkey is cute!! :) The pattern for him is on the same page as the Valentine's pattern.


Back to FP!