Blah...

Christmas is so much harder as an adult...with children. I'm so tired LOL and I'm ready for Christmas to be past and it seems like it justs keeps getting farther away. Stitching has been put on hiatus for a little while.

Sneaux 2008

Congratulations! You get a picture intensive post!

First the snow (please understand it hasn't snowed this much here in something like 60 years)






Yes, that is my child that is out in the wet and cold in shorts LOL If you'll notice in the next picture she does have pants on. They must have changed clothes about 20 times. Lauren and Maria watched the goings on from inside mostly.

I also stayed inside for the most part. I curled up with my Stitching Girl socks from Marjean and I think they were magic. LOL I finished up the band sampler RR that was due...yesterday. (I'll mail it express to make up for that) She wanted TW bands so I did the center part of the Renaissance Bookmark. And I also finished up the Bluebird of Joy or whatever in the new Ornament Issue. I used Fuzzy Stuff in the hat and some Mill Hill snowflakes.





And finally to reward my hard work LOL Instead of working any any other number of WIPs or Obligation Stitching, I decided to start a new project. The Peacock from Dessins DHC. The fabric is 40 ct. Atlantic Storm from Silkweaver. Threads are Carrie's Creations Slate Blue and Valdani Threads Seaside

SNOW DAY!

It's actually snowing for real in South Louisiana. I've taken a lot of pictures but haven't gotten them off the camera yet. I got the girls all ready for school...we backed down the driveway and went about a block down the street and I decided that was enough of that. We turned around and went back home. Our neighbors apparently did the same thing LOL So the girls are staying home today and getting snuggly warm.

Surprise!

Yesterday I was reading an article about the new JK Rowling book (The Beetle and the Bard) coming out and I remembered looking at it on Amazon, and wondered briefly if I had preordered that or not. I decided I hadn't. But, when I got home, there it was! Apparently I did LOL Anyway, it was a cute little book. A quick read. I read it cover to cover in a couple of hours. I'm also reading Lost by Gregory Maguire. I got about halfway through and still wasn't "getting it", but decided I had invested that much effort I needed to finish it and be done with it. Finally, about 3/4 of the way through it got interesting LOL But, I was too tired to finish it up last night. I'm hoping the last little bit doesn't totally suck and ruin it all together.

And the winner is...

Dianne! I don't have pictures or a randomizer to prove that, so y'all will just have to trust me LOL

Dianne...if you could email me your address at autumn.crochet@gmail.com I'll work on getting your package together.

300!!

Yes, I love that movie, it's serious eye candy. But, this time it refers to my 300th blog post! That thrills me! Took quite awhile to get here. So to celebrate I think I'll do a giveaway. I don't know what it'll be yet. I think I'll kind of personalize it a bit once I know who wins. I'm not going to do anything fancy like link backs or challenging questions LOL Just post a comment to this blog entry before....let's say 8 pm (my time) Wednesday evening.

Weekend Review

We had a pretty good weekend. Saturday was a lazy rainy day. We took the girls to see Bolt. I really liked that movie. The girls enjoyed it. I had a lot of time to stitch and managed to finish up this little ornament. It was a freebie from Plum Pudding Needle Arts.

Sunday we took the drive out to Covington to see my sister's new house. It's a very cute house by the way. We also took portraits for Christmas. It was outdoor which made it interesting because it was quite cold and very windy. The girls helped her decorate her Christmas tree...which translates into sort of watched her decorate the tree while her boyfriend showed us how to play various games on their Wii.

Then they took us to a park near their house to kill some time until it got dark so we could see their enchanted forest. They cleared a bunch of paths through their wooded lot and strung it all up with lights. It was really awesome. The girls loved it.

And we got to meet her new dog Shelby. They have two others. Shelby is a great dane that is not quite albino, but has some pigment issues as you can see from her eyes....and she's deaf. I got a laugh out of her Hitler moustache.

Thanksgiving

We had a pretty nice Thanksgiving. Maria made more pumpkin muffins and Eva made sugar cookies (that translates into I made muffins and cookies and others took the credit lol). I was bad and started a new ornament yesterday while I was waiting between batches. If I work on it tonight, I might finish it tomorrow.

I'm going to brave the early morning shoppers with my oldest daughter and mom. Should be interesting. I'm going get a Nintendo Wii for the family Christmas present. Sam's has a good price on a family bundle so we're going to get there early and take advantage of their complimentary breakfast.

Christmas Tree

We put up our Christmas Tree over the weekend. We were going to be busy for the next few weekends so I decided that we could go ahead and put it up. We go with the artificial trees. My old 5' one had pretty much bitten the dust last year. The cats liked to climb up in it and the limbs aren't meant to carry that much weight. We got a 9' tree this year. Yikes! Thank goodness for cathedral ceilings! I can't put the angel on top. LOL I need to figure out how I'm going to do that. (for you people that check out picture backgrounds, that's the tree box in the hall and the corner of Lady of the Flag behind the tree lol )

And I got myself a few peacock ornaments this year. Here's one that I think is really cute.

Pretty Peacocks

This was a quick stitch. About 3 days of stitching. Probably less if I hadn't been quite so distracted. It's Pretty Peacocks by Sallie Ann Designs. There are supposed to be beads in the tail but I'm leaving those out. I'm gonna use the band across a pillow. It's 27 ct. Natural Banding and I used 3 strands of...ummmm...it was a Thread Gatherer silk, but I can't remember which color it was.

Blogger

I love the new "Following" feature. That makes things soooo much easier! It's such a nifty little feature especially in the wake of Blogrolling apparently biting the dust.

Yesterday was Eva's 7th Birthday Party. She really had a lot of fun. A lot of kids showed up and and she got a lot of cute presents. I was a little worried whether or not she'd actually like the little purse I got her but turned out she really liked it. So Yay Me!

Now I need to start focusing on Christmas. I have the luxury of not having to worry about Thanksgiving. We're just a "show up" family LOL That's not true. I usually bring something, but it's not something that's usually a big deal to cook.

All Done

Finished the Twilight Saga. I read all 4 books in what? 2 weeks? LOL So they were pretty good. I really enjoyed the story. I found some aspects to be a little predictable, but maybe that's because I'm an adult and they were geared more towards teens. Not to give away anything but I kinda felt like the end left it open for another series to be created with 2 different main characters.

I got Sophia's RR in the mail yesterday for the band sampler RR. She's doing a TW theme. I'm gonna do the middle out of the Renaissance Bookmark. I've done that in the past when I was in a TWRR. It turns out beautiful.

Slow Day

Work is a little slow today. I'm feeling a little better. I knew it was going to be slow so I brought my active WIPs with me. I thought I'd share some pictures.

First...which really ought to be my priority...but I always seem to find something else to work on. Kaye's Mirabilia RR. That's Fairy Flora. Not too much left to do on it, but there are a ton of beads on there.

Next up is Violet from the Pixie Couture Collection. I have some negativity associated with this piece. If I finish it, it will be a miracle.

Something is going wrong with my camera and my fabric here. This is my start on "Something Wicked This Way Comes". The fabric is really dark brown. Not green. It's like dirt brown. In fact...it's from Silkweaver Secrets of Nature series called Earth. But it is heavily mottled as the picture indicates. I thought it was fitting for the pattern.

Finally I started the Sweetheart Tree Holly Fob, but I think I'll be using it for an ornament instead of a scissor fob.

Ink Circles Ornament

I have a terrible cold and an ear infection I'm pretty sure. However, I'm trying to tough it out and cut down on my antibiotic use. I'm doing a little better today than I was yesterday. I did finish up this little ornament this weekend. It's the Ink Circles 2006 Ornament. I'll send out the chart to whoever emails me (autumn dot crochet at gmail dot com) first. The fabric is 32 ct. Tobacco (I think) and the thread is Carrie's Creations Raven.

Peacock

I have a slight peacock obsession. Peacocks and Scissors. Those are my two "things". Generally I go for the graceful, elegant type peacock designs, but I ran across this kit on ebay and it made me smile. It only took about 2 days stitching. I used the thread from the kit, which wasn't DMC I don't think. It was actually a fairly nice thread. I wondered what it was but the instructions and everything was entirely in Russian so I don't know. I used 22 ct. hardanger fabric so it would be fairly small. It's about 3" by about 4".

Twilight

Well I read the first book in about a 24 hour time period. It's safe to say I'm addicted now LOL Dammit I hate when I get on bandwagons!

New Glasses

Eva failed her eye test at school so we made a trip to the eye doctor. Poor kid was fairly blind. Fortunately the doctor said that aside from having astigmatism, he felt like her other problems would eventually go away through further development of her eyesight. So we picked out glasses. She looks so adorable in them. They're black, but they have a thin purple line around the edge so it makes them look dark purple and the color is really flattering to her. Thankfully she really enjoys wearing them and loves all the compliments she gets on them.

Lauren of course had to get in on the picture taking. That child is a camera hog.

And just to make sure all is fair....here's a picture of Maria and I

I'm dealing with a personal difficulty, that I'd really rather not discuss, but it's a frustrating situation for me. I'm trying to bury myself in anything that might take my mind off of it. Any new books or movies I should watch? I still have so much stitching to get caught up on, but that's just not doing it for me right now.

Sweetheart Tree Round Robin

Ok, this was a round robin from a while back. I think it was stitched in 2006/2007, but since I actually finished it up in 2008 I thought I better put that date on it. Wouldn't want to cheat or anything like that LOL Sorry about the wrinkly fabric. I don't trust my iron right now. Until I get a new one there will be no ironing of stitching.

What Have I Been Up To?

In a word (or two) not much. I don't think I've finished anything since E. I've been working on Mirabilia's Violet pixie. I got a little burnt out on it though. I'm doing another round robin. Any designer band sampler this time. I got a pretty good start on it. Enough to send it out anyway. First mailing isn't until the 29th. I also started Beloved but I can't decide if I'm happy with it. I'm using one strand of Belle Soie Noir on PTP 36 ct. Fog. I'm debating whether or not I like the coverage.

E Happy Dance

Stitched on 28 ct. Bo Peep Pink Linen

Home

We're back. Our power came back on far earlier than expected. We theorize it's because we live almost across the street from the elementary school. We did all our grocery shopping in Mississippi so I think we're in pretty good shape. I shopped anticipating a hit from Ike as well. Very few perishibles and lots of comfort foods LOL Hubby registered us with FEMA while we were in Biloxi so if we need to leave again we can stay in an approved hotel for free or at a reduced rate or something. Here's a picture from our back yard...

Before

After

And my most favorite little hangout/restaurant/bar/boat launch...pretty much destroyed. The river is extremely high right now. I've never seen it so flooded.

evacuation

we lasted about 48 hrs with no power and hauled ass to biloxi. hubby and i have taken two trips to beau rivage casino this summer. he called yesterday morning to see if they were open and they were so he made reservations until sunday.

we fared well through the storm. no damage to our house or any other relative's house. the damage in the area is extensive. it was worse, far worse, for our area than katrina. whenever the electric company guy for our area comes on the new he says we need to expect weeks and not days in terms of being without power. that's highly distressing.

anyway we're all doing ok for now.

Gustav

Looks like Gustav is indeed gonna hit S. Louisiana directly. If anyone is curious Google Port Vincent, LA and that's pretty much where I live. We were advised to evacuate this morning via Community Alert, but we're staying here and my parents are staying here (and they have the RV...and the generator). I've been in my "Impending Crisis Mode" all week so I think we're pretty well set. We're well stocked in terms of food, batteries, water, etc. I'm not so concerned about the storm or flooding directly, mainly just being without power for an extended period of time. The representative of our electric company was on the news this morning and he said that we could possibly expect outages in terms of weeks. I was sitting there thinking "Don't say things like that you bastard!!" LOL Anyway, we did ok during Katrina and Rita, while I expect this to be worse, I'm sure we'll come through this one ok too. We'll likely lose power tonight or early in the morning so I'll check back in on the other side.

Oh and on a stitching note I started Eleanor or "E" from Letter's by Nora (aka Mirabilia) and I'm about half through already. Might be done before the hurricane is over!

Anagram Les Ciseaux

Another finish! I don't have the picture on this computer, but here's a link to the Mirabilia Board where I posted a pic last night.

Linky

And Here She Is

Watch this Space

I should have a Halloween Fairy HD soon...

Progress

Well, I stood in my stash closet for awhile and stared at everything. I shifted a few things around but it didn't necessarily get "cleaned". After much deliberation I pulled out my Mother's Tree. I got about 2 numbers of one date stitched and decided that was enough of that. No, not really, I got distracted by the stuff I always get distracted by...kids, housework, internet...

Which Approach?

I relieved myself of the RR...and I do feel much relieved by that. Thanks to Kathy for offering to do the extra section! She really is such a sweet lady.

Now...I'm completely relieving myself of the guilt associated with having too many WIPs. I kinda feel like I need a fresh start. However, I can't decide if that should include completely cleaning out and reorganizing my stash closet or if I should just wade through the mess until inspiration hits. I started cleaning it out a few weeks ago and came up with a huge bag of charts and magazines I didn't want anymore. Perhaps if I clean more I can declutter more and thus feel less guilty about having such a messy stash closet. Or perhaps I should just stop babbling and sit down and stitch instead of using this as an excuse to procrastinate.

Progress

I admitted defeat and told Marjean that I just couldn't do her RR. I had already done most of one section, this was an extra section I was going to do. So I'm passing it along to someone else. There's still an open section if anyone wants to do it LOL

I Can't Do It

I can't get out of this stitching slump. I have one project that only needs like a couple days of work on it and I'd be done with it, but no....I just sit there and look at it hoping one day it'll be magically finished. I still have poor Marjean's Mirabilia RR and I haven't hardly worked on it either.

I'm having a little bit of negativity towards Mirabilia RRs right now. I don't think mine is coming back ever. I'm really not all that upset about it. I'm not angry or anything like that. I'm just disappointed I guess. I don't even care if this woman hasn't stitched on it. Just mail it back to someone...don't keep it. If something happened to it, just tell me, I don't care. I just hate not knowing and having to assume the worst.

Peacock Heart

I actually finished something. I haven't had a finish in quite awhile. In fact, it's been so long I had to go find something old to remember how to make my signature. Do symmetrical designs suck or what? There is just no room for fudging.



This is a freebie which can be found here. I used Gloriana Deep Blue Sea on some kind of mystery whitish fabric. I think it's 32 ct. Lugana but that's just a guess.

Mother's Day

I had a pretty nice day. I woke up to breakfast in bed. I got a potted hyacinth and card from Eva and Hubby. Lauren and Maria made these flower pens that were in a painted terra cotta pot. They were really cute. We went to church and I got flowers there. Then we had a crawfish boil and went swimming. Overall it was a good day. I was pretty exhausted.

Pictures

Here are some new pictures of the kids. Excuse me, "The Girls", everyone refers to them as The Girls. It always makes me laugh because even at school and stuff people always know which girls are "The Girls". And I think there's one or two of me in there too.

2008 Pictures


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Am I back?

I'm gonna try to be back. I've been in a stitching slump for such a long time. Not much has inspired me lately. And it can't be just me, but are all the boards just so uneventful? I have one more section to do on a Mirabilia RR and all that will be completely done. I've been neglecting it horribly, but I'm waiting on some thread I ordered. Yes, that's my excuse. In the meanwhile, I've been working on Anagram Diffusions Les Ciseaux. Just plain ole white fabric and plain ole DMC thread. I used the scanner so it's crooked and the colors aren't quite right, but you get the idea.