Stitching and Stuff

Happy Tuesday everyone!!! Hope you all have gotten some good cases of stitch butt and you're having a great week so far!!

This has been a good week. Lots going on as usual, but some fun things for once. First off, I finished up another section of Ann:

Sorry for the somewhat distorted picture here - I don't know what happened.

Just a note here concerning the chart - you see two little birds (barely) on top of the red flowers - well, the bird on the right is not charted, but shows up on the pattern cover photo. So if anyone is thinking about doing this, make note.

A couple people asked me about the lettering and whether it was cross stitch....backstitch.....or a pain to do.....was it boring?


.....well, I guess that monotonous would be a good word for it. But each line goes fairly quickly and I switch back and forth between some of the lettering - like a line or so - and then switch back to the center portion. I was saving the lettering to do all at once and it was making my skin itch because I wanted to stitch the "meat" of the design and not all lettering! I'm doing a happy dance because now I've just two sections to go and am over half way done! The next section has the Colonial A&E type figures (that I can't wait to get into) and then that solidly stitched Mermaid scene (gulp) on the bottom. Any bets on me finishing this? Aw, don't waste your money. I'm sure I'll slip somewhere. LOL

Last Friday I was on a mission to find a new cooktop. DH has finally had it with almost setting himself on fire. HA! I know how to talk to the cooktop from Hell - he does not and since he likes to cook on the weekends, he doesn't go through it on a daily basis. I finally got the new dishwasher a month ago (yeah, no more dishpan hands, Madge!), so he must be feeling generous. "Don't question, just go for it before he changes his mind" is my motto here. Anyway, while I was driving hither and yon, I saw a cute store - or what looked to be cute - so to give myself a break (really I was hoping for a ladies room because....well, I wasn't close to home and had put down an entire bottle of water driving), I went in and found some wonderful frames. I just love this black one:

And then I found a white one too:

I have no clue what pieces are going into either of them right now, I just knew that I had to have them. And the owner says she gets these in every week. She either leaves them as she finds them or makes them look old. Quess I'll be making a few trips over there. Very reasonable prices. She's also trying to get me into sewing for her store - you know - cute little pillows, simple quilts. Hmmmmm, could be a money making proposition for me, but yet I barely get time to do what has been lurking around here done yet. Great way to make some stash change, but the money would probably never leave the store - she has some great things!

Then on the way home that same day, I hit a couple garage sales. My car seems to be developing its own sense of radar for Estate or garage sales and just magically finds it's own way there - wonder how that happens??? Fridays are great sale days I've found! I think that my DH is going to commit me soon if I bring any more of these flower frogs home. I was surprised to find one because I don't normally see them at garage sales:

I also picked up the easel because I thought it would look great holding instruction books on my new table (yes, pictures are coming soon). Then I also found this lamp for the craft room:

All this great stuff for $9.75. Yes, I was doing a happy dance (or maybe I was dancing because I needed a ladies room again). I think the shade is a little overpowering, so I'm going to hunt down another one, but for the price - $5.00 for the lamp, $4.00 for the frog and $.75 for the easel, I was one happy camper. (BTW, that's my grandmother in the picture on the right).

While I'm on the subject of frogs, I have to post these pictures for Kim (she's at the threadheadsunite blogspot - Blogger is being stupid and won't let me link it). She is a collector of flower frogs too, and also a great thrift shopper and she mentioned putting hers in a birdcage. After I rescued my tea cups out of mine when I got the flower cart a couple months back, the birdcage got some new occupants:


That, of course, is not all of them. They're scattered around the house - on tables, etc. I'm going to need a new cabinet to display all of them. Yeah, like DH is going to go for that! LOL

Last Sunday was the monthly Sampler Guild meeting and they've got the greatest projects going on. The first one is this pinball which was suppose to be finished up for last week. Was mine done?? Of course not, you know me. I've been feeling the love with Ann, but I think that now that DD's dance lessons have started and I have 2-1/2 hours to kill waiting for her, I'm going to take these along with me and try to knock them out.

I just love it. Next month, we're doing (or should I say they're doing - LOL) the companion fob (do you not love that skeleton face in the flag?????):

Both of these pieces will be great to display with Shores of Hawk Run Hollow. Well, they will be when I get all three of them done! Could be a while. Maybe when the love with Ann subsides. And speaking of Shores, have you all seen Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow? I'm sure you have. I would like to go there, but I've already got three of these going. I can't even think of it right now. (yeah right.....I'll order the darned chart I'm sure, along with a few others - I think I've abstained for at least two months - that's a lifetime to me - and market is coming, don't ya know?? LOL).

Other things going on - DD found out that she made the school basketball team. YA HOO for her! I was really happy for her. She didn't think that she would make it and we were a little worried because some of the games are going to be played on Monday nights. Not a big deal except she dances on Monday nights. Always the way, right? Well, fortunately both the Coach and Dance Instructor were very willing to make compromises for her - so she'll be splitting her time between each - basketball getting more of the nights because of the shorter season. This meant going from First String to Second, but she was happy with that. Go Catie!!!! Mom is especially proud because that's what I played in school.

Work on the craft room still continues. I've got stuff heaped all over the table otherwise I'd take a picture. I always think I can spend some time down there and then get interrupted with something. I've been waiting for DH to get some things on the wall for me, but he is slower than molasses in January and if I continue to wait, we'll all be looking down at all this from above. LOL You may find this hard to believe and wonder if I've been living under a rock, but I've never installed an anchor into the wall. I've always used those museum type hangers where the hole is nano-sized. But I've got some things to hang that are a tad heavy. Now before you think I'm prissy or something, it's because my husband does all the painting in our house (read: too cheap to hire someone - did I say that?) and he's so anal (seriously so) that he doesn't like holes put into his walls! Yeah, his walls! Last time I looked.........Well, enough of that. I went in and smiled at the friendly guys at Home Depot last night and they gave me step-by-step instructions so that I don't make holes large enough to put a semi through. So I'm ready - drill found, bits found - I'm ready to crank the baby up and go for it. HA!!! Maybe I'll put in some heavy metal music on while I'm doing it to set the mood!

Well, that's all the news that's fit to report today. Tomorrow is my day off - a trip to the cider mill for one of my two annual cider and donuts and drive days (the second is when the fall colors are at their best) - and to see a man about a frog -flower frog, that is. Quess I can call him my stash dealer. HA!

Till later - make a lot of X's.