At last! a few pics

Good morning!  Long weekend mode here..read a bit (Caleb Carr's "The Italian Secretary" - should have paid attention to the reviews!  His previous books were way better), cooked a bit (a seafood tomato cream sauce), went to mass,  prayed very hard last night and somehow got heard, so now I can post a few overdue pics!

Here is the original Whimsey and Wit chart, complete with my nephew's drawings on the sides.. it was No. 207 of the print run, I guess (see lower left).  I think at some point it got wet, so Baby Jesus (Day 9) has a little splotch on him... the chart has a cute stamped mark that says "Sisters in Stitching" at the bottom.  I wonder what happened to Lori? I picked her name up from page 2 where it says you can email if you have any questions about the finishing..  I have a little problem with my fabric because of the grids.. I don't have enough fabric left to fold over for a dowel on top!

And here's the other chart I was looking for.. found!

And that's all folks!  I took a picture of my little ornament and of my recent sewing but the USB connection's acting up again.. it doesn't recognize my camera!

Ah well, will try again later. I'm planning to bake Cinnamon Rolls and Double Chocolate Chip cookies.   Happy stitching, all!

Three Day Weekend !!!

Happy happy day - Saturday work but Sunday-Monday and Tuesday off. Yippee!  This is a tradition inherited from the Mexicans I think - celebration of All Saints and All Souls' Day.  Officially it's All-Souls' we're supposed to be celebrating and I don't know when we started with All Saints.  Maybe because the thinking is, the beloved dead are in the company of the Saints (or are saints themselves).  Whichever it is it's a day of remembrance for our beloved departed. Remembrance of them always makes me teary eyed - two brothers, my dad - all so young when they passed! Cousins and aunts and uncles, and of course grandparents (unfortunately gone on both sides though they lived to good ages, to their 80s).

Today was just lazing around and channel surfing and got caught up on 3 episodes of Modern Family - always good for a laugh/some light relief however previous season seems funnier somehow.  Could not quite decide whether to watch something scary like Sleepy Hollow (by the reviews not as scary as the other offerings like Ring and Ring 2, maybe on the level of 'the Walking Dead' which looked like an 80s movie to me).   Decided that what I really want to watch is the Looney Tunes Halloween Specials with Daffy Duck and Sylvester and Porky Pig - no I'm sure it's NOT Porky Pig -  and Tweety.. loved the one where they ended up in Duckula's Castle... not sure if it's actually the episode , will look it up in Amazon in a bit!

Finally got started on the angel - stitching with DMC (a pale blue) and DMC Special Effects silver metallic thread.  It looks pretty; the threads together give off an "icy" effect  but man is it hard to stitch with!  Same problem as the Kreinik gold, the metallic ribbon and the nylon thread separate at some point!  Thought my floss length was reasonably short but I've gone to 8" and still having problems.  Ho hum.  But the nice thing is, got started again on the Whimsey and Wit so that's a good thing!

Will give my camera one last try tomorrow with it USB cord and if that doesn't work, will use another one.. but by hook or by crook am posting pics tomorrow!

a little finish

Celebrate!  Dance of Joy!  I finished a little freebie from Prairie Schooler "Deck the Halls", another Christmas tree!  This is another one for my niece, so she has a choice of Christmas trees.  The little girl always surprises me.  I thought she'd want an angel ornament, but no, she wants a Christmas tree! I'm a little freaked out that Christmas is less than two months away... Anyway I stitched the July freebie from PS, and here's how it's supposed to look (from the site): 

 

Now, if my USB connection was working I could show you my take on it! A little "original and my version" comparison as it were..  I used a lighter colored floss for the candle "flame" and the color  practically blended in with my fabric, an Aida 16ct.  DMC 676 instead of 677.. I should look at what I pick up more carefully!  I've done that with other things, too, not just floss!  Even a tin of ice cream!  You can imagine how dismayed I was when I got home lol..  Cookies n Cream instead of Coffee Crumble!

I'm now doing the Guardian Angel, another freebie, from Cosmic Handmade, and it's a cute 'contemporary' angel.  This one's for my sister-in-law.  I also saw other cute angels (in a more traditional design) from Told in a Garden.  As you can guess, my own projects are not getting much love right now, because I'm so fascinated with all the freebies!  But as soon as I'm done with the Guardian Angel, I'm doing the Angel from Day 1 of my Whimsey and Wit Advent Alphabet!  That's 'cause I finally have some silver thread for the angel - DMC, not Kreinik.  My gold thread, ah blending filament, is Kreinik, from many years ago.  I bought a whole bunch of different colored ones from that little (and little-known, alas) store in Mile Long because I really wanted to do a set of Russian angels that were in an issue of Cross Stitch and Country Crafts.  Some things never change, lol.  I will be looking through my magazines for that issue - I think that was in the early 90s, before 1993.  I'll post a pic soon, maybe use another camera..
 

good week overall.. with an anticlimax!

My stitchy friends are increasing..hi C, J, C, and H! And yay, my mom found my original chart:  Whimsey and Wit Advent Alphabet!  sadly the plastic bag is gone, and that's where the free magnet button thingy was.  She also found my True Colors: Madonnas of the Old Masters chart!  I took out my WIP, tried doing a few stitches and promptly got a headache-- what was I thinking? one stitch over one thread, at 22ct?  I must have been mad!  But then of course, it *was* 8 (or was it 16?) years ago...

Hurray for my brother -- Dear brother sent me a 16-pc cookware set!  Pretty cool of him since it arrived here the week after his birthday, and, you guessed it! We didn't send him anything special! We miss him (and his wife) every day but there you go, things happen.. or rather, they don't!  But we are very good about remembering to greet!  As for the cookware set, it saves me from bugging him every time there is a sale on at Canadian Tire... but please, DB... could you get me the Lagostina stuff that sometimes goes on sale at $9.99?  Please??

He also got us something music-y which I am sure we will enjoy for years to come, but right now I am trying to figure out how it attaches to all its gear!

I also got some beautifying done skin-wise, so I feel better - what I  mean is, it stings, but I feel better knowing I look better... now I just have to work on my hair (grumble grumble, I already fixed it before, so why do I have to do it again)- I may or I may not this weekend, depends if I can bear the thought of sitting in the salon for at least 4 hours :(  

Now for the bad part.. now that my charts have surfaced and I have this sort-of weekend for stitching,  when I have something stitched to show,  my computer refuses to cooperate!  It doesn't recognize the USB cord to my camera! Waaah... any techies out there who might know what is wrong? It's on Windows 7 and "ask me" is enabled on Autoplay.. but Autoplay doesn't play at all!  Could this have happened because I pulled out my USB when the computer was shutting down?  Now what to do?   I plugged my USB in and it recognized it, and gave the option to eject.. so I followed.. and when I tried it just now with the camera USB, nothing..

Is Mercury, what do you call it, out of phase?  Good luck to me, hope my camera works tomorrow!

The pics i (still) didn't get to post

This was the storm that was:

A friend didn't get to work because of the typhoon (massive flooding on the streets to his office), and took refuge at this vantage point.  He had a good view of the waters of the bay - the storm surge caused all this cascading water.

The chart from which I sewed those simple ornaments (hoping it'll behave and not turn over..):

Drat!  It's not behaving.  It appears right side up in Windows' preview pane but flips when I put it in here.  I'm too tired to fix it right now...

Oh, and here's what I'm supposed to be working on (keeping fingers crossed that it'll appear the right way)..

OK.. it's not working.  I think it's time to go to sleep!

whacked

I've been wanting and wanting to stitch and show some solid progress on my Whimsey and Wit Advent Alphabet work (sorry friends it's supposed to be a scroll, not an afghan, though with the grids on the fabric it could look like one), but all I can show is Kris Kringle's hand and the staff done.

I wish I could do an afghan, but I'm not that ambitious yet..  :)

This is what the entire scroll would look like:

(Picture to come -- it's coming out horizontal!)


Christmas ornaments are a bit better, the Christmas tree's all done (somehow I thought the pattern said gold filament thread but it didn't, after all -- and I was so excited to use it!).  The trains are a bit funny, I finished the outline stitches on the wheels.. but only finished one wheel on each!

The pattern book below (again picture to come, it's horizontal AGAIN), I highly recommend it for beginning stitchers like me.  You feel a glow of accomplishment much faster! Sorry, I'll have to fix that sometime.. too tired right now.

Oh, and just yesterday finished this (as a break from doing Christmas-y things).  I started Sunday afternoon and stitched intermittently, thinking of all sister stitchers diligently sewing away on a Hermit and Stitch Day (or was it a just sit and stitch day?)  The pattern is from the Cross Stitch and Needlework magazine and the design by Cherrywood Designs.  Isn't it cute?

I used DMC instead of the WDW, Gentle Art Samplers and Crescent Colors recommended, and tried out variegated floss on the yellow flower.  I followed some advice I read somewhere to finish the x's individually so the color variations would show.  I think it came out nice.  Don't look too closely 'cause I missed some stitching on one of the flowers!

Before all this we had a typhoon (see the wind blowing at those coconut trees and how overcast it is.. we lost electricity practically the whole day):

and work was not spared, the disaster we were preparing for and privately half expected would happen, happened, and on the same day.  We've been in damage control since then, because as someone once said "the best laid plans of mice and men .. often go awry".  Odd working hours - 1am to 1130am, 4am to 1pm, 11am to 8pm, I've done them all...

Dear God, please throw a bit of luck our way.  Thank you.

And speaking of thanks and birthdays this week, it's my youngest brother's birthday, so Happy Birthday bun, we love you!
And my dad's birthday, we miss you very much and love you.
And the ex's (exe's?).

God bless us all this week... thank you for reading, hope you drop a line!