Goodbye 2014

This will be my last post of 2014 (clearly). The year went so quickly! I'm almost at my 1 year blogger mark which is quite exciting! I think I'm going to host a giveaway in honor of that! Stay tuned late January for details. :)

I have still been busy stitching up a storm. Okay, not really a storm, but stitching yes! I did not start the Bent Creek Wedding Row like I was hoping. I know what floss I want to use, but I'm having issues with what fabric to use and it's an awkward size, which means I probably need to order something, or change the floss colors. I don't know yet.

I managed one more ornament finish before the end of the year:

It's called Reindeer Cheer from The Cross Stitcher magazine November 2014. I added some Krenik blending filament to the snow/star things in the sky. It looks pretty! I'm still debating on giving it away or keeping it. :) I did sign it 2014, so if I give it away it'll have to be soon. :)

Here it is with the Grumpy Cat ornament:

 

The fabric didn't really photograph well, that's what happens in the winter months I suppose. It's really a light blue, but looks gray in the photos.  

We retrieved our blown glass ornaments, which I may or may not have mentioned last post. My husband purchased the class for my birthday back in October! It was a long wait, but totally worth it. We ended up making 3 ornaments: 

Mine - Green & purple swirl

Ours - Random dots, various colors

Husband's - candy cane

I think my husband's turned out the best! I suggested the colors, so I'm going to take some credit too. ;)

I got all my supplies for my Plum Pudding for my & Neil's Glendon Place SAL. There is still time to sign up!!! It's open until the week January 15th, which is when your first posting is due (around the 15th). Your first post can just be telling everyone what you're going to work on. No progress is required! :)

Here are two "artsy" shots of the floss:

I decided to go with "Antique White" 28 count Lugana. I really wanted the threads to stand out, and every single picture I've seen has looked a little washed out. I was talking with a gal on Instagram who choose to do it on white and it looked nice, so I decided to go a similar route.

I got some treats for Christmas! I got a Mirabilla chart (which of course I didn't take a picture of) called Shakespeare's Faires. It has soo many beads in it! Someday I'll get around to it, I don't think 2015 is it's year though. My husband also got me a digital subscription to The Cross Stitcher. :) AND past issues were only $0.99 so I bought several.

I also got a tacky bead bob (I purchased that dot fabric though):

And some bead storage containers!

There's a lot of room to grow in the storage container though. I think that's a good thing! I had fun searching around for all of my packages to put in there. I realized I had purchased a green twice! ;)

I've started making a dent in my to stitch ornament list as well! I started Peppermint Latte by Casey Buonaugurio Designs from the 2010 Just Cross Stitch Ornament issue on Sunday. I'm hoping it'll be my first finish of 2015! It's pretty small and I'm just speeding along with it. I might be able to squeeze it in this year, but I'd rather hold off for next year, boost my finishes early. ;) ;) 

I think that's all of my stitchy news for now! Did anyone else get some stitchy related presents?!?

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Merry Christmas Eve!

Hello everyone! And Merry Christmas Eve (or merry Wednesday!) to you & your loved ones.

We've been pretty busy, Sunday was my husband's aunt's Christmas dinner. He's got 3 little cousins now and they are always quite entertaining. I ate too much, per usual. It's so easy to do when the food is amazing! :)

Tonight we're going to my in-laws house for presents and dinner. Then tomorrow we're going to my aunt's for dinner and I'm having my parents over to view Japan vacation pictures (I'll post some soon, I promise!) and eat some desserts. THEN on Friday we've got a surprise party to go to. It's a never ending busy schedule. Well, ok, it's over after that and hopefully no longer busy.

We finally made NYE plans. We usually stay home on the sofa. I cross stitch, he plays video games. Well we were going to go to this great restaurant for our anniversary (Jan 5th, we went last year and loved it) but they will be closed for January. But they are having a pre-fixed menu for NYE. And they are BYOB! Score! It's pretty expensive, but we're going to say it's for our anniversary too. That makes it better... I think!

I finished my co-workers ornament at about 8 o'clock on Sunday to give to her on Monday and she decided to work from home on Monday! I gave her a hard time, but she did come in on Tuesday so I was able to give it to her, I barely left enough room between the two designs on the fabric to cut them out, but I think he turned out super cute! Sorry, no back pictures. I didn't think about it!

Right after this, I ran out of bobbin thread and couldn't get the silly thing out, so I'm waiting until tomorrow when my mom is coming over to help me out and finish my second finish of the week. I'm still new with this whole sewing machine thing! I did also manage to finish the presents one, but I'm not sure if the mom reads my blog or not, so I'll be safe and not post it until next week.

I managed to finish stitching a grumpy cat ornament:

You can't really tell from the picture, but I used wisper thread for the hat to make it fluffy, DMC light effects for the star & some blending filament for the snow flakes in the sky. It's quite nice in real life.

I think my next project will be for our 2nd anniversary, it's cotton, so a stitched piece totally makes sense. I'm going to do "Wedding Row" by Bent Creek. I'm thinking about using my two favorite Weeks threads, peacock & taffeta. Which are almost our wedding colors. It won't be a secret since I do all my stitching with him sitting on the sofa beside me.

I was messing around with our fancy camera and took a some what  pretty Christmas tree picture that I'll leave you off with today! Enjoy the day everyone! May your day be merry & bright!

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Finish & Christmas Decor

Hi all! I managed to do some stitching while also putting up some Christmas decorations. Since we were out of town for half of November we didn't get started as early as usual and because of that I only put up like half of our stuff. We have a Christmas village set that isn't going to make it out this year. It takes an entire day to put it up and I just don't have the time this year. It seems like an every other year type of thing!

Here are some decor pictures:

My mother in law gave us these adorable mini wooden Christmas ornaments. I had to go buy a little tree for them. My husband was trying to convince me that this tree should be just for cross stitched ornaments, but, I don't have enough for it's own tree yet and I think this tree is too little. :D

I managed to get my Fleur de Lys Tree by Scissor Tail Designs finished! I really want to get a frame for it,. Some things just scream frame me, and I think this is one of them. I think it'll fit in a 5x7 frame so I'm going to try to get out to a TJ Maxx. I'm thinking an antique white frame? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Fleur de Lys Tree - Scissortail Designs

Fleur de Lys Tree - Scissortail Designs

Fleur de Lys Tree - Scissortail Designs

I really want to get more ornaments completed next year, so I started a blog page just for that. The goal is 12 (one a month) but I listed out a ton so there would be options for me to choose from. You check it out over here!

I would also like to get some other projects finished (like both of my Glendon Place patterns (Plum Pudding & Tiramisu), my Chatelaine (Mini Mandala VI), and my Halloween Black cat). Does anyone else think I'm a crazy person? I bet if I tried I could finish it all, but I get distracted easily by new patterns... Oh and I have a collection of mugs that I want to stitch up. So many patterns so little stitchy time!

Quick reminder about the Glendon Place SAL! You don't have to start stitching, but you will need a post about what you're going to work on the week of January 15th. You have until then to decide! Let all your friends know! The more participation the more exciting it will be! 

How is everyone else enjoying December? Have you tried to make stitchy goals for 2015?

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Back from Japan

Hello lovelies! I'm back from Japan and have finally gotten over the jet lag from the return trip. They are 14 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time and wow did I feel every minute of that on our return trip. I've slept so much in the last week since we got back it's crazy! I managed to pick up a cold while we were there too so I'm pretty sure that did not help the situation at all.

I thought I was going to get some small stitching done. Nope. Not one stitch was put in. However I did manage to read 4 books and start another. Yes. 4 while on vacation. It was so much easier to just pick up my kindle rather than take out all my stitching. In case anyone was wondering I read the following:

1. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
2. The Winter People by Rebekah Purdy (I got the wrong book, I meant to read, The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon, whoops)
3. The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell
4. The Girls With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey
5. Bird Box by Josh Malerman

I found all of these by looking at Goodreads.com's "Best Books of 2014." I liked some more than others, but I didn't put any of them down after the first couple pages, which I will do if I'm not into a book, there are too many books to read and I'd rather not waste time on one I don't care for.

While I was away, my "Stashmas" gift came in the mail. I belong to a group that does an exchange every year called Stashmas. I was terrible and my gift didn't get sent out until I got home. Basically I ordered a big order from a new to me company and it never arrived. Now I'm dealing with my credit card company trying to get my money back. I am so disappointed. I had heard good things about them from the stitching community and my husband ordered from them for my birthday and had no issues. I've been emailing them and getting no responses. I ordered on October 7th so you would think that 2 months would be sufficient time but apparently not. I think I was in such a rush to mail out the gift of mine that I didn't even talk a picture. I had ended up ordering replacements from 123stitch.com because they have never let me down. 

Here's what I got: 

I'm a huge Little House Needleworks fan and I have had this on my wish list for awhile! She also sent me the two skeins of overdyed floss and the button that goes in the middle!!! I love it and I cannot wait to stitch it. It's probably going to have to wait until 2015 though.She also sent over an adorable ornament!

I am almost done with the second little bear, I've ran out of motivation for him. How silly because he's soooo close now!

 
I started a new project that I am hoping to complete by Christmas. It's going quite well so far. I might be able to make it twice! It's Fleur de Lys Tree by ScissorTail Designs. I'm using Dinky Dyes, Evergreen.

While in Japan I stopped at a store called Yuzawaya (www.yuzawaya.co.jp Japanese only) and picked up a bunch of Cosmo floss and a biscornu.

The store was like a JoAnn Fabrics, with less fabric and more crafty supplies. It was on the 7th floor of a department store type building. I would call it a mall, there are so many malls in Japan. SO many! It was a little hard to find, mostly because we don't speak Japanese and we went on our first day there. I don't have any pictures from inside, I clearly wasn't thinking about blog posts while I was there.

They had DMC, Cosmo and Olympus (I bought some coral colors of this, I'd never heard of it). They didn't really have very many kits or anything though. The biscornu kit is from Cosmo as well though. I thought it was cute! They had tons of cute needle felted animals too. I probably could have bought the entire store, but it was day one and I didn't want to lug everything around in my suitcase. We tried to keep all of our shopping until the end which is only kinda a good idea.

I was also able to find a Japanese needlearts magazine at a bookstore attached to a subway stop,
Stitch Idées:

It's filled with tons of cool ideas, I'm kinda in love with these little pin cushions.

And there are some Christmas designs.

The charts are all pull out ones. It's different, but the quality of this magazine is amazing. It's like a book with the paper quality. I need to find all of them now! ;) It was only 1,200 yen which according to today's exchange rate, $9.92 (usd). All the ones I can find on eBay are about $17 + shipping from Japan. Not as awesome. I should totally have done more shopping while there (maybe seek out a used bookstore or two)! I suppose this just gives me another reason to go back!

Also, last, but not least by any means, I received a RAK (random act of kindness) from Andrea over at her blog, The Craft Room:

Isn't it beautiful?!?! I'm so excited, the finishing is so lovely and the pattern is awesome! I love how there's snow on top of the letters too. What a cool detail! Thanks so much Andrea! It's going to look awesome on my tree... as soon as I put it up! I seriously just took my Halloween decorations down this weekend. I mean, I was gone for half of November... I heard she also MADE the card that it came with!!! That's so awesome and I love it too!

Oh and check out the back, how cute!!! I have these little charms, but I haven't used them yet. :)

Another awesome thing that I learned since my last post, there is a community stitchy group here in my home town! I had run across someone's blog who was talking about this great framing shop she found and I emailed her about it (it's actually the framing shop I past almost weekly, I had even told my husband I should try it, how awesome is that?) and she mentioned a stitchy group that meets every Friday! I've been too busy lately, but I think once January rolls around I'll be able to attend. I'm really excited!

This has turned into a rambly post. I think I'm going to close off here for today. I am hoping to go through my vacation pictures soon and might post some next week for everyone! 

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