neglected blog

I've thought about updating my blog for the past week or so, does that count?
Anyway, I have continued to stitch pretty often during the month of March. With a lot of dentist and dr. appts, one can accomplish considerable progress on stitching in waiting rooms. Small projects are great for that and I finished a couple last week: Britty Puppy from Brittercup Designs 'Keep it Clean', minus the words, bone, and heart AND a freebie sampler from Blue Ribbon Designs, I picked up this chart at the LNS, but I think you might be able to download it from her website. I didn't stitch the 'for you' over-one part nor add my initials, but might later...
The other sampler is by 4 My Boys titled 'Snow Proud Sampler' and is stitched on 28 ct. dirty cashel (what a crappy name for that color of linen, but then again, I guess fitting).
One other recent finish will have to wait to make an appearance here until I hear from my exchange partner that it has been received. Stay tuned for a spring house.....
April is looking to be an incredibly busy month for me, with birthdays, easter, house full of company 2 weekends in a row, among a zillion other 'things' going on. I sometimes work better under pressure though, so I might just really keep this blog updated even though it'll be hectic!

I bought my first flowers today, a hanging pot of red petunias-my favorite color and one of my favorite flowers. I wish I was more of a 'green thumb' but at this point in life I've decided I should probably wish to be able to pay a full time gardener instead. LOL I did notice my cannas are starting to come up, wahoo! Now, those are some beautiful flowers to grow because they are tall, grow fast and are pretty low maintenace. I need to thin out the bulbs today and plant some in front of the ugly gas meter out back so I don't have to look at it this summer. Oh, this reminds me, I want to find some more asparagus ferns to grow in pots this summer. They are beautiful and I have managed to keep mine alive every year I have them-awesome! I snagged a pic online to upload here of an asparagus fern.
I'm off to dig in the dirt.......Have a wonderful spring weekend!

Some February Stitching

I didn't know if I would *ever* finish that black background! Whew! It was actually a really good project to have on hand after I came home from the hospital, as I could pick it up and put in a few stitches whenever I was up for a few, without consulting a chart or counting. I detest stitching on black fabric enough that I am willing to stitch an entire background black! OK, only on a really small design like this though. ;) BTW, this is from a 2006 cross stitch calendar designed by Ewe & Eye & Friends and is called 'Winter Warmth'. I had lofty plans to keep current on stitching each design for each month. Ha ha ha Maybe I'll pick up with March now..

I just love Shepherd's Bush kits, and I received a wonderful little surprise from Cathy with this adorable SB heart kit called 'Be True' recently. I didn't waste any time, and ironed the linen (really! I did! even though it doesn't look like it!) and quick stitched this cutie up while watching '24' the other night. There are plenty enough of the silks leftover to stitch this again, perhaps even 2 0r 3 more times and I will be happy to send the chart and leftover threads to the first person to contact me about it! Thanks again so much for the package Cathy!

Every time I think I have this uploading pics to blogger figured out, I find out that it just does what it wants to do. LOL Actually the picture above is what I just finished this evening, and I intended for this to be the last picture...oh well! This is a freebie from Bent Creek called 'Partridge in a Pear Tree'. It was my ornament for February, even though I didn't quite get it finished before 3/1. :)

Above is the linen I mentioned quite a while back (in January I think) from Picture This Plus, called 'Mercedes'. It is a sparkly 28 ct. linen that I will be stitching Bethlehem on with GAST 'Deep Sea' thread. A stitching friend from our stitch group was working on this project last year and I just had to order it too. Stitching friends are so enabling, aren't they? (huh Barb??)

Above is my finished 'Coffee Menu' by Little House Needleworks. I really liked how it turned out. The fabric is 28 ct. Vintage Autumn Fields by Zwiegart. This would be a good linen to just
keep on hand, it is so nice.

And now this is something I whipped up the other day. I told CJ recently that I was looking for something springy to stitch because we had some crummy, cloudy, and COLD weather for what seemed like forever, but it was probably more like a week. LOL I started out by choosing that plaid fabric. I saw it upstairs and decided that I wanted to stitch something I could use this plaid with for finishing. This design came from 'For the Love of Cross Stitch' July 2002 issue, and it is designed by Trail Creek Farm. She used more muted GAST threads on her model, but I switched out the colors for DMC that would coordinate with the plaid. What do you think? I was happy with how it turned out and it is a fun, SPRINGY kinda finish too. I will share a finished finish of this soon, I hope.

Burning up the camera battery yesterday...

Since the camera was out, we took pictures of 'the brats' as we so affectionately refer to them. :)
This is Bumper, he is the BOSS. It is a rough beagle life.....



And this is my sweet Beacon. He is still feeling puny and is in the hospital right now after a setback. The vet assures me he will be fine after some IV fluids for a day or 2. Doesn't he look a little sad?
OK, I'll post later with several stitching pictures. Right now it's time for school to be out.