Jan Challenge - Day 2

Day 2 of this month's challenge turned out to be harder to find time to stitch. With dh going back to work tomorrow and my trying to get things organized for that (laundry, lunch things made up and started to get packed, etc.), and wanting to hang out with him and dd all together, stitching didn't take priority today:) That's okay though, as dh is back on overtime again, and that means more stitching time.

So today I reached in my stitching basket and pulled this one out. This is from Prairie Schooler book #86 - At Christmas All Hearts Go Home. I am doing this over one on 28ct antique white fabric. Those trees are VERY teeny tiny:) Sorry about the crappy pic, it is pretty dark in my house at night:0)
I also worked just a bit on BBD's Sarah Tobias, but didn't get much done on it. Maybe there will be enough change on it by the end of the week to show an update on it.
Well, it will be an early day tomorrow so I'm off to bed, but will be back tomorrow with Day 3 of January's Crazy Challenge:) Have a good night!!!

January Crazy Stitching Challenge

Nope, I haven't forgotten about this. I've just been busy stitching:) I have two projects for today because two different stitching groups had a January 1st challenge. This first one is 'Peony' and is my first Nora Corbett design to stitch. I've always wanted to stitch one of her fairies and just needed someone who would want the finished product. Well, my dd really loves bright colors and she really liked this one, so here I am stitching it:) I'm doing this one on 32ct antique white fabric and that little bit of stitching at the bottom of the pic is all that I got done so far today.
This one I've been waiting to do for some time now. I am stitching it on 32 ct cream Belfast, lightly overdyed with coffee. I am working this over one. My plan is to make this into a pouch to carry scissors, tape measure, needles, etc.

Because I have a really hard time following directions;0) and because I went a little nuts with this challenge, I will be posting a project for every day this month. Some of the ones at the end of the month will be projects that I had previously started, but most of them (I believe 23 of them) are new starts:) I have no idea how many I can actually finish in a year, but I figured, since I already owned most of the charts I will be starting, that it couldn't hurt to go ahead and start them!!!

That's all for today, I'll have a new project to post about tomorrow:)

Christmas Time is Near

We are just under one week out till Christmas Day!!! We actually had our family get-together with my inlaws today and it was a really nice time. I even got stitching stash and a gc for our needlework store!!! Can't beat that:)

I did get a few ornies done/done, as in not only stitched, but sewn/glued into actual ornies:) Pretty good for me. So this is the first batch for this year. One for my sil, one for my mil and two for me!!! Hopefully in the next few days I will get the next batch of ornies all sewn up.
And this is my Christmas tree. Dd was all excited to get this up and then it took a week with it up before I could get her to decorate it, and we've only turned the lights on a couple time, LOL. Oh, well:) We really wanted to get a new tree this year, but just can't bring ourselves to spend the money on something that is up (and in our way:) for one month a year.

And finally, here is a pic of my 15 new year projects (actually this is only 14 new ones and several WIPs and UFOs). Need to pick one more out and get it ready - though now that I got 2 new projects for Christmas, I may need to do a couple more than the 15:) Hmmm, wonder about doing a new project for every day of the month, LOL!!! Okay, maybe not:0) I will start listing the projects (both new and old) as I show them on my blog. Will be trying to get on here everyday until I go through all the projects and then posting at least twice a month on my progress. I am trying to finish at least one of my WIPs up until then now that I have all my ornies stitched up for the year.

I will be going to my LNS for their end of the year sale in a week or so and I will post pics of whatever I end up getting from that:)

Daybook Entry 12/8/10

Been a LONG time since I've done this, so here it goes...

Outside my window-Last time I posted this I said it was too hot, now I'm thinking too cold!!! LOL I'm one who doesn't like the heat or the cold, so I'm pretty hard to please when it comes to the weather. Actually we haven't had it too bad yet, only a few days so far when the high was around freezing or just under. Nothing like last winter (or at least not yet), so I won't complain... right now;)

I'm thinking - mostly about Christmas and the 'get-togethers' that are coming up. Also thinking about some friends of mine that are going through a really hard time and trying to see if there is anything I can do to help them out.

Out in the garden - Well, not much going on in the garden this time of year. *We* (and by this I mean dh:) did get the garden cleaned up but it still needs tilled a time or two yet before spring. I would also like to get the area around the front porch cleaned up as it has been a while and we have some dead weeds and toys and cardboard boxes (?), and some etc. Really need to get that cleaned up before it snows and then I can't find it all!! : )

In the kitchen - Not much going on there either. Dh has really gotten into cooking (grilling) and is doing most of the cooking for us now. I'm not sure I even remember how to cook (not sure I care to ever remember either:). He has done everything from fahitas to pizza to baked beans to grilled fruit deserts, and he had dd even grilled cookies a couple of weeks ago that turned out great!!! It does help that he has a nice propane grill and a nice pellet smoker grill too:) The last thing that was in my oven was fabric that I was coffee dying!! :)

Creativity this week- Unlike the other catagories in this post, I do have lots going on in this one!!! I am almost always working on something. I am working like crazy to get some ornies done for Christmas, just got one done yesterday in fact. Though I can't post a pic of that one, it is for someone that just might peek in on my blog, I'll post a pic after our Christmas get together. I also started a small lap quilt a few days ago. We have a total of 3 people in this house, and a total of about 3 blankets:) So when a certain young monkey of a girl spills her dinner on my blanket, then we only have 2 clean ones:) I guess I could go out and buy some more blankets, but this is more fun!! I'm also really excited to get started on my 15 new stitching projects!! I think so far the hardest part of that challenge is to wait until it starts!!!

In the barn - We really have dwindled down the number of animals we have out here. We got rid of the chickens last summer (?), and a few months ago took the cows in to slaughter. So now we only have the dogs (2), the cats (8), and the guinea pig. Dd is wanting to do bucket calf for 4-H this year, so we'll be getting a couple more calves around the beginning of the year, and we are all really wanting chickens again, so are planning on those sometime around early spring. That should help raise our animal numbers back up again:0)

What I'm reading - Nothing for me right now. Dd and I have been going through some missionary stories lately though. One of them took us only 2 days to get through:) It was really good, about the missionary Ida Scudder (1870-1960, missionary to India). So reading those and a few other things for her school (science and history).

Okay, so two posts in a week!!! I'm doing so good:) hehehe

It's been a long time:)

Well, I never did promise that I would be good at keeping up with blogging (or anything else for that matter, you should see my laundry pile!!! :) However, I am going to try to do this once again. I'm pretty sure no one reads here anyway, but even if not, it is fun to go back and read what I have written and it makes me feel that I have actually accomplished something to go back and see pics of my stitching and other things.

So I have a few pieces to show off. I'm pretty sure I've finished a few other small ones as well, but I can't remember now (SEE? I should be doing this more often, if for no other reason than to help me remember what I have done!! :) hehehe.

These will all be made into ornaments as gifts for Christmas. Once I get them all sewn up, I'll put another pic on here. This first one is from Brittercup. I did this one for an exchange, but did another just like it (though half the size) for my dd as she really likes it too. She has a mini tree for her room and so the ornie needed to be really small.
This one is from Blackbird Designs and can be found in the 2009 ornie issue of JCS mag. I'm pretty sure I'm keeping this one for myself:) Oh, and I hand-dyed the fabric on this one and the next one!! The fabric looks different in these two pics, but it is really the same color and both look closer to the first pic IRL.

And this one is by The Victoria Sampler - Designs by Cathy Jean. I started this one thinking it was for me, but after my mil saw it, and said she really liked it, it became hers. Now, I am thinking I need to stitch this one again for me:).

I am also signing up to do a internet stitching challange. The challange is to start a new project everyday for 15 days, starting Jan 1st and blog about those projects over the course of the year, until they are finished. I WILL FAIL this challenge (at least the last half of it, I do have 15 projects to start), but it will be fun anyway. I have already picked out my 15 charts and have most of them kitted up (though I need a few fibers and fabric for a couple of the projects). I will need to wait until our LNS has their sale at the end of the year to get the few things that I need, but I am almost ready as it is. I think I will also add my older WIPs to the list as well, so that they don't become lost and forgotten!! After counting the WIPs I already have (and that I still would like to stitch. I have several that I just don't like anymore), I will be adding 8 more projects to the 15 new ones:) Well, like I said, I WILL FAIL, but that is okay, I really like stitching:)

Daybook Entry for 6/23/10

It's been a while since I've done one of these, soooo....

Outside my window.... It's HOT!!! Even in the mornings, which I didn't expect this early in the summer. This is pretty normal for August, but not June. I guess after such a cold winter we had it coming:) We did buy dd a new stock tank to swim in . She loves the water had been 'swimming' in an old cast iron bathtub that the in-laws had laying around, but she can't hardly move in it. So we moved her up in the 'pool' dept:) She is loving it and I have even gotten in there with her once. It had been a long time since I've swam in a stock tank!!!

I'm thinking....Well for a while after school was out I tried thinking as little as possible:) I haven't even looked through curriculum for next year yet even though I bought it 3 weeks ago. Usually I only wait about a week, if that, and am then digging through it all. Too much going on I guess, but I do feel as if I'm almost ready to tackle it. Really it's not very hard as all the lesson plans are done for me (THANK GOODNESS!!!) but I do like to have an idea what will be coming up and to loosely plan for at least the first couple weeks.

Out in the garden...It needs tilled, but the rows of veggies are mostly weeded (except the okra, still need to do that row), which is a HUGE improvement over the past few years:) We have tomatoes, lots of peppers, green beans and okra. Yes, a big scale down from what we've tried doing in the past (though the whole garden is planted, so while we didn't do the veriety that we've tried in the past, we have the same volume of plants:).

In the kitchen....I've been working on canning some, though not from our garden yet. My father-in-law loves to grow a big garden, though he and mil eat very little of it. Instead they seem to give most of it away. Works for me!!! So we've already gotten lots of peas (my dd loves to shell peas:), green beans, cucumbers, onions and potatoes:) And I didn't have to plant, weed or pick a single bit of it, LOL. We ate peas until we were sick of them, so I have 3 batches in the freezer. We're not sick of the green beans yet, but I had too many to use, so I've canned 5 quarts of them and have more in the fridge that we need to use tonight.

I'm also back to working on GF cooking. It's too hot to work on baking very much, so I'm thinking of playing with flatbreads. I started looking for recipies and it's kind of fun to find that each area of our world has their own verson of a flatbread. There is the popular pancakes (which I made this morning) and tortillas which I am most familar with. And I've had pita bread before, though very rarely. So those are a few that I might try, but I also want to look into chapita, naan, paratha etc, of India and see if any of these will work for me too:) Pizza crust and focaccia are also considered flat breads, but I have to stick to those without yeast and as I said, I also don't want to turn on the over if possible:0)

Creativity this week....Mostly working on things with dd. 4-H county fair is coming up pretty soon and she has several projects that need working on:) She wants to take 4 entries for Foods, 4 entries for Arts and Crafts, 4 entries for Photography, and 4-5 entries for Gardening/Plant Science. HMMM, we better get busy:)

My reading indulgences....I have a couple books that I'm reading through, one quickly and one a bit slower. The slower one is 'One Million Arrows' by Julie Ferwerda and is about how to raise our children to live their lives for GOD. It's been good so far, just a little slower of a read for me as I want to absorb it instead of just skimming. The other book is 'Boys Without Names' by Kashmira Sheth. It is about a family in India that has to move to the big city, looses the father and then out of desperation the oldest boy goes looking for work only to be sold into slavery. It is really good and though not a true story, it is based on what really goes on there everyday. I started this 300+ pg book yesterday and am 2/3rds of the way done with it:) That is why I won't do a post about how my house looks now, cause I've been busy with other things:) hehehe

Okay, I've made this long enough now, so I better go and actually work on my mess of a house;)

Animal update

Thought I would give an update on our animals around here:) Here is the only kitten that survived the first round of kitty litters (round #2 is soon to come). We had 4 born (2 different momma cats) but one momma wouldn't take care of her's so we didn't get very many this spring. My dd brought this one inside to me as I was cleaning out this table, so I stuck him in there and he really seemed to like it:) We gave him this 'seal' toy which he really likes, you have to keep your fingers back or he'll get them too:)
Here is a couple pics of our boys. I'm not sure how this happened, but a couple weeks ago my dd was playing outside and called us out to see this. Seems like he was playing with the bucket and got it stuck on his head, LOL. Took my dh a while before the bull calf let him get close enough to pull it off it's head:) It was pretty funny as the calf was rubbing the bucket all over the ground trying to get it off:) The other guys didn't seemed bothered by it at all. hehehe

We also got rid of our chickens. It was kind of sad as we really liked having them here, but they were pulling up our garden and as they kept eating things they shouldn't, we weren't eating their eggs anymore either (we gave the eggs to the cats). Next time we will pen them in, hopefully 'chicken tractor' style so they can still eat naturally but not be so 'free' ranged. This will help us to know where the eggs are too, instead of having a year long easter egg hunt:)

Next week I hope to post an update to our garden. Since dh is doing a good deal of it this year, it is weed free enough to post pics:)