Oh What a Beautiful Day

It is the third beautiful day in a row in the Serial Starter household!  The "damn dog" remains with his owner and I'm still a happy girl.  I'm so happy that I didn't even balk when Hubby didn't come home from work on time last night.  He was almost two hours late, but he made another sale and that is what's important.

So on with the post from Sunday:

Even though things have been crazy with the damn dog, I'm still trying to get a little bit of stitching done.  Unfortunately for the dog Fortunately for me, I can stitch while the dog remains in the kennel.  After all, I can't have his slobber all over my precious Belle Soie, can I?

I finished this Crazy January Challenge piece way back on September 5th.  If I remember correctly, that was Labor Day weekend and Hubby was working all day while I spent my time with needle and thread.

This Heart of Mine by Ink Circles

I've also been trying to work on some exchange stitching.  I had originally stitched up this freebie from The Stitcherhood for my "Friends Stitching Through the Seasons" exchange for Faye.  Then one day I decided to look through her blog and I saw it in the background of one of her posts.  UGH!  Well, it was back to the drawing board for me!  I have managed to stitch something else up for her, which I can't show yet. I just need to find the time to finish it.  I'd better hurry, as I'm going to meet her in person in a few weeks and I'm going to give her the exchange then.

Autumn Freebie by The Stitcherhood
I guess this one is staying home with me now!

On Saturday I spent a lovely afternoon with my Stitching Sisters.  (**Waving madly** Hi Maggee!  Hi Darlene!  Hi Sheryl!)  Lately it has only been three of us instead of four of us because of an illness in the family.  We miss our fourth stitching sister, but the three of us understand and support the other sister however we can.

Anyway, while I was there I was able to finish up another one of my Crazy January Challenge pieces.

Winter Heart by La-D-Da

I absolutely love it!  I used Belle Soie's Attic Tea and it just popped on this fabric.  I'm not sure if I'm going to make this into a hanging heart or if I'm going to attempt to put in on the top of a heart shaped box.  Either way it will be fabulous.  I'm pretty sure that this will be one that I may even stitch again.


Well, time has run out for this morning.  I will try and continue my update again tomorrow morning.

Happy Stitches!

Big Progress , Small Finish and the Traveling Pattern

Happy Monday All!  I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend.  I divided my Saturday between stitching and a little bit of quilting.  My Sunday on the other hand was pure "Hubby Time". 

We spent the morning catching up on HBO's True Blood series.  Hubby just got interested this year, but I've been reading the books for sometime.  We are currently on the last half of season three and I've got season four saved on the DVR.  Only one more marathon session and we will be all caught up.

As for my stitching I thought I'd catch you up on some of my Crazy January Challenge pieces.  First up is the Letter H.  I've been working on this during my "Saturday Stitch Time" with my stitching buddies.

Letter H by Nora Corbett

I also spent a great deal of time on this project a couple of Fridays ago.  That Friday was "Forgiveness Friday".  An old stitching friend and I met at the local Barnes & Noble.  We talked and let many old "issues" go.  As as result of the forgiveness, I'm really looking forward to stitching with my friend again.  (Forgive the picture......the fabby looks grey, but it is a really great shade of purple in real life.)

This Heart of Mine by Ink Circles

I'm also keeping up with my fifteen minute piece.  Here's it is as of this morning.  At the rate I'm going, I may be able to finish this one up by month's end.

Saturday evening also brought me closer to my sewing machine.  I had such wonderful compliments on my color choices for my pillow that I decided to use the same fabric for these two little pincushions.  I learned so much while sewing these up.  They aren't too bad for my first try, but I'll be sure to change things up a bit for future pincushions like these.  (They came out much smaller than I expected.)

Last, but not least let's talk about the Traveling Pattern, "ABCD" by La-D-Da.

Remember this post?  It seems that we have had quite a bit of interest and that excites me so very much!  Originally I was just going to send this pattern off and let flit from place to place.  However, I want to be sure that Peggy Lee gets it back someday.  So, in that vein, I'm going to switch things up a bit.  I'm going to limit the number of people so that the last person can send the pattern back to Peggy along with the autograph book that I have purchased so that she will know where her pattern has been. 

Based on the original post there were about 30 interested people.  If you are still interested, please drop me an email (it's in my profile) and let me know.  Also let me know if you are willing to mail to an overseas/foreign address.  That way I can make up a mailing list.  You will know who you are receiving the pattern from and who you are sending it to.  As for stitching this timely, it took me a weekend to finish this up, so I feel like three weeks should be plenty of time to finish this pattern.

I can't wait to hear from everyone!

Happy Stitches!

New Beginnings and the Challenge Starts

Welcome to 2011!!!!

I've been a very busy beaver the first few days of this wonderful new year.  I just hope that the rest of 2011 is as good as these first few days have been.  I think Hubby said it best with his first Facebook post of the new year.

Lessons were learned , memories were made, and I became a stronger more loving person all in 2010. Now it's my season, 2011 marks the beginning of more growth, more memories, more love and more goals to be met.... Looking forward to all that is ahead......

Speaking of new beginnings, I've been very busy with the 2011 Crazy January Challenge.  I've already made a change to my list of fifteen.  I'm pretty sure that this won't be the last change either!

Remember this post from 2009?  I was supposed to start a SAL with a dear friend at the beginning of 2009.  Well, we never did start it.  So, since this was a "Crazy Challenge", I decided to go crazy with my first piece.  Here's my start on the upper right hand corner working to the left.


Mouline Rouge
by Long Dog

Day two was a wonderful day spent with my stitching sisters.  We decided to have progressive dinner and I hosted the dessert.  It was so much fun to see each other's finished and unfinished stash.  In the process we also found things in each other's stash that we hadn't seen before.  A few of us even exchanged patterns.  I was a good girl and stuck to the challenge.  I started this......

This Heart of Mine
by Ink Circles

I decided to change things up on day three and deviate from my list.  One of my stitching sisters had stitched a piece that I fell in love with.  From the instant I saw it stitched I knew that I had to stitch it for myself.  She was such a wonderful friend and passed it on so that I could fulfill my stitching desires.  So, I rearranged my list and began this.....

Sheltering Tree
by With Thy Needle & Thread

I'm very pleased with my new starts in the 2011 Crazy January Challenge.  Now I'm going to go back to working on Mouline Rouge until tomorrow.  Then I'll have to get start number four under my belt. 

This is definitely crazy.......but fun!

Happy Stitching