December

One last post for 2014!

It's been a busy two weeks. Been using my time off from work to declutter, clean, organize, sort, pack up or throw away basically half the decorations and other items in the house. (I even cleaned through my birthday on the 21st! RAWRRR!) Many many boxes have been filled for good will and countless trash bags and other items have made their way off to the trash heap. Hasn't been much fun, to be honest, because it's been SO MUCH work (almost like moving) but it was very needed. I've felt for a long while that I have entirely too much 'stuff'. You go through a grieving of sorts as you bin it but then a few days later you realize you don't notice it's gone at all. And if that sounds drastic - it is............but it's also not. I still have PLENTY of stuff left! :)

(Psst. There is stuff to be given away at the end of this.)

 

It's too bad I live in too rural an area for a yard sale because I could have a FABULOUS one in the spring with the stuff currently living in boxes downstairs. Ah well. If that's the price I have to 'pay' for living on an off-the-beaten path itty-bitty slip of  a street that's hard to find even when you are looking for it, so be it. It's also quite nice when you can go hours and hours without even seeing a neighbor's car drive by. :)

So. Didn't get much knitting done for Christmas or anything else for that matter with all that going on. 

A pair of socks from November were finished and I washed/blocked the wad of blanket squares that I had finished in the last few months. (Counted this morning and I now have 82 squares completed. I think at least another 48 will be needed to make a good sized blanket. 48. *sigh*)

A new hat for Christmas.......well.......it's in progress. The lobsters are growing a little each day.

The tree finally made it up - on Christmas Eve. Better late than never, eh? 

Very nice to have it up after taking last year 'off' because KITTENS.

Said cats were nice enough to *cough* get us a present this year. (Which I generously paid for. And shopped for.)

Huh. Cheeky little buggers!

After that massive decluttering/cleaning I wasn't much in the mood for all the decorations to be put out so I kept it to the basics: stockings, various holiday candle holders, lighted pine garland on the staircase, etc. 

And I changed up my little 'stitchy' basket with a winter theme that should last until spring. :)

I thinned out my cross stitch patterns as well and have a big stack of them to give away if someone wishes to pay for the shipping on them. There is a bit of everything in there from Bent Creek, Lizze Kate, The Drawn Thread, Cricket Collection, etc. 

 There are also a bunch of Shepherd Bush patterns *without* the kit materials they originally came with. 

I've gone through each one very careful to make sure they are in order and no pages are missing, etc. It would probably be like $10.50 for a priority mailer in the US, international....I'm not sure. I would need your address to figure it but I do enough 2-3 ounce overseas packages to know it would probably be upwards of $20-25. 

You must take the whole thing though. I'd rather stab myself in the eye than have to piecemeal it, sorry! Leave a comment if you want them, if more than one person does I'll just randomly pick a name after a week or so.

Ok, I think that's it for 2014! Have a happy new year everyone! 

Bit somber here, I'm afraid, as my husband's uncle just passed this week. He had been battling cancer for a number of years and it had recently traveled to his brain. It seemed like he would have more time but he started to slip away on Christmas day. I feel so bad for his cousins who have now lost both their parents and all their remaining grandparents within the last four years. Starting the new year with a funeral means you've already gotten the worst part of 2015 out of the way, right? :(

Let the wild rumpus begin!

Firstly - I've been unable to contact the person who wanted the Dandy Dreams pattern. PEOPLE. You need to have your profile public if you'd like to be contacted you when you win. Just a small tip. This is the second time in a row I can not find the person who actually wanted the item I was trying to pass on. I'm not sure who you are Barb, even after scanning through all my followers and trying some Google-fu, so please contact me if you do want that pattern. Thanks! :)

Secondly, we got to pick up the kittens this week!

Tuesday, to be exact. :) :) :)

PLAY PLAY FIGHT PLAY FIGHT FIGHT PLAY PLAY PLAY Zzzzzzzzz

Turns out I'm reallllllllllllly horrible at taking pictures of squirmy, always-in-motion beasties though so getting photos has proved....challenging. I have to take like 20 pics to get ONE good one. Heh. Anyhoo. It took a couple days for them to settle in but now they LURVVVVVVVV us and are purry little cuddle monsters - in between trying to bite and kick your ass, of course.(Oh kittens.....I forgot how bitey they are!) They are confined to the office for the moment (I have a screen gate for the doorway so they aren't 'locked away' though) so imagine me trying to type this post out while kittens are climbing up my back, walking across the keyboard going after my fingers, jumping at the pointer on the monitor, etc. It's a little exhausting! It's a good thing they are cute. It is fun too though. :)

 They were the only two babies in their litter so they are really bonded and do EVERYTHING together like twins. No names just yet but I'm working on it. I wish they would stop growing an inch a day. I feel like I should be able to HEAR them growing, they are getting so big so fast. (9 week birthdays coming up this Sunday.)

So. Not a lot of time for projects and stuff this week. I think I knit about an inch on a pair of socks all week and that is it. 

Also this week, was the annual St. James book sale. Oooooooo, I love this and look forward to it every year! It's a MAD HOUSE when they open their doors. (I know I've posted photos before.) A sweaty, elbow rubbing, packed in like sardines mad house. Totally totally crazy. In a good way. (Everyone is very jovial and good natured about it.)

  I didn't get as many as last year but that's ok. I have a lot of books at home at the moment so I didn't want to overdo it. Got a couple for the hubby, grabbed a few JD Robb books to complete my collection and the rest I know nothing about but kinda looked randomly interesting. A $.50- $1 church book doesn't need to be a masterpiece, you know? I just like reading and can't pass up the opportunity to get some good books at a good price. (Libraries don't work for me because I read in spurts so I would forever be bringing things back late.) It's always fun to poke around regardless of what you end up with.

As far as last years church books, I read MOST of them. I still haven't gotten through all of the JD Robbs I got last year because I'm reading those in order and I haven't worked my way far enough in the series to get to them yet. I will eventually though. I just started the series last summer and I think I'm already up to #13 or something. I could make it through them quickly if that's ALL I read but I like reading 2-3 other books in between. It's a bit daunting to think there are now 35 books in that series though. Yeeesh!

Blah, blah, blah, I'm just boring people now with my chatter, I'm sure.

One last pic.........

Just couldn't resist those new notions kits from Victorian Motto Shoppe. Nope. Did you get one too?

Another week.

It's crazy how fast this summer is going by!! It doesn't help that I've been seeing a lot more Halloween beads being ordered from my web shop the last couple weeks. (Yes, Halloween. Already. I do love the colors in Halloween stuff though so I don't mind it.)  

Mostly everything is put back to rights from the lightening strike. (Was that LAST weekend? Good god it feels like a MONTH ago already.) New grass is being grown to get rid of the dirt runway in my lawn, we've started purchasing some new flowers and plants to replace the big bushes that were pulled out near my front door, and all the smoke damaged clothes are off being handled by a service that specializes in that type of thing. Insurance paid for everything right away so....WHEW. No worries there. (Thank you, Safeco Insurance. You were, dare I say it, quite amazing to deal with?)

Hey! Do you want a free pattern?

I finished up my Dandy Dreams and, in the spirit in which it was given to me (thank you, Maggee!), if you'd like to stitch it too I will be happy to send it along to the first person who asks. I stitched this up with no mods in the colors, on a.......I believe it was 36ct fabric? Loved it, aside from blurry issues with my eye sight, that seems to be affecting everything I do lately. (Not sure if I 'suddenly' need bifocals or what. Does that come on you real quick like? I'm off to the eye doctors in a couple weeks at any rate because it's really annoying. It seems a little better when wearing glasses vs. contacts so I'm just sticking to glasses when doing my handwork stuff.)

I've been meaning to get to finishing up another WIP project so I went digging in my storage ottoman (where things go to die) and came up with this........

You know what? I kinda hate this project so there doesn't seem any point in finishing it, to be honest. BYE BYE, FISHIES. (insert 'swim with da fishes' joke here)

Like: the pattern, the colors. Dislike: the linen, linen, linen

I feel like the stitch count is too big for such a simple pattern. It needs to be done over one or over two on a much finer linen, like a 40ct. It's hard to tell in such a random picture but the fish are just too.......BIG. Don't like. Moving on.

I started something else but it needs more work before it has a TA-DA!!! moment. :)

If you ever wondered (which I'm sure NO ONE has) where my interest in handwork type things come from, I offer the above towels as evidence that it came from my mother. She did those last month for me. All freehand and her own pattern. She doesn't care for cross-stitch because it's too 'structured' but she can embroider the hell out of most anything. (Thanks, Mom!)

My wee little kitties-to-be are getting bigger and are *almost* big enough to take home with us. They are being weaned this week so we're almost there. :)

Sadness. (Now with bonus free pattern!)

 Well, that's that. 'My' baby hawks are no more. Not sure what happened but things were fine Saturday morning - but by Sunday afternoon the nest was abandoned. After watching them intently for almost a month I can't tell you how positively morose I was all Sunday over this. Not sure what that says about the state of my mind of late (nothing good, probably) but there you go. I think I'm mostly over it now. Mostly. Other than having to stare at that empty nest while I'm sitting on the deck, year after year, as a reminder. (Seriously. The nest they had on the edge of our property two summers ago is still fully intact, though you can only see it in the winter when the leaves are down. This new one is in clear view all the time though as you can see from this photo I took while sitting where I usually sit on the deck.) On the plus side though, the adults are still around, at least for the moment. They woke me up early this morning with their squawking, just like normal. So at least they weren't killed or anything. That would be even sadder.

This was a nice little pick me up to my mood though. :)

An amazing little stitched fob from Carol as a surprise thank you for a pattern I gifted her. Just so generous and so EXQUISITE. Her finishing is jaw-dropping perfect. I am in awe. And so thankful for the gift. I will treasure it.

The backdrop in that photo is from my latest visit to WEBS. We were way up in northern Massachusetts for something else and managed to swing by the (epic) WEBS store before they closed. This stripey goodness was part of their anniversary sale so I got it for a song so I REGRET NOTHING, even though I clearly don't need any more yarn.

Heart of America - LHN

And finally, another long-mouldering WIP is put to bed, rest, and FINISHED. Yay! I do so love getting these WIP's out of 'storage' and finished as part of my 2013 'plan'.

The last bit of stitching this was not without incident though. I did the 'land of the free' letters on the bottom last and ran out of the color for that with ONE letter to go. SO CLOSE TO FINISHING. What a bummer, right? And then I looked at the sample and realized I DID THE WHOLE THING IN THE WRONG COLOR. @@#$#

On the good side, I had PLENTY of the color I needed to do it correctly. 

On the bad side, rip. rip. rip. rip. 

Oh well. It's done now and I really do like this piece.

This pattern was originally gifted to me way, way back in, mmmm, 2011? (Or 2010?) 

So continuing with that, I'm going to pass it along to someone else who wants it. Just let me know in the comments if you want to stitch it and I'll draw a name for it at the end of the week. (Or around there.) Don't be frightened off by the size of it or anything because I can TOTALLY see stitching up these blocks individually for smalls or scissor fobs, etc. That 'Old Glory' block in particular seems ripe for a small finish, if I must say. :)

And with that I think I'm going to go sit on the deck some more and try NOT to stare at that black hole of sadness in the tree that taunts me. It is AMAZINGLY beautiful today, after a run of hot and sticky-ickies, and I intend to get out there and soak it up.

Hand-Dyed Floss Giveaway for Xmas!

No, not from me (though I would *LOVE* to get into dying my own threads....but that's a deep, dark rabbit hole I don't want to fall into).....but over HERE on the Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe blog. 

I have some of her hand-dyed threads in my stash (purchased from her shop) and they are divine. I'm always in awe of people who are so skilled at dying. It really is an art form to be able to combine colors so delicately and beautifully. One splosh too many in the wrong tone and you end up with mud. lol

Winnah winnah time.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend. I mostly worked and looked in horror around the destruction that is my house at the moment. (Work has begun on bedroom two. One day this flooring project will be complete and I will no longer have great stacks of stuff to gingerly make my away around in the other rooms....and hall...and downstairs.... And there will be no more $11-projected trips to Lowe's that turn into $275 fiascoes. lol)

And I managed to finish these:

Oh boy socks,  you ruin me sometimes, you do. With your......largeness and neverending-knitting-itis. 

I'm slightly annoyed that I went to the trouble to try and match the stripes as close as possible and the two skeins of yarn ended up being slightly different colors. (One is a little darker and more specklier than the other.) Dye lots be damned, eh? Seriously.........why bother PRINTING dye lots on the side of the skein if it's all a crap shoot anyway? (Looking at you Cascade Simple Stripes!) At least it wasn't as bad this time as the pair for my mother I really got hung on earlier this year. (Now THOSE I was really butt hurt over.)

The foofy feet in the upper part of the photo belong to Old Man Mooshie. I tried to move him along from his usual daytime sleeping spot to get more light for the photo and this is the face I got:

I believe the exact translation of that face is: @&#%!@$!@%!@$!@#

Nice, Mooshie. Nice. Pfffffft to you too! lol

Okay, winnah winnah time. I plugged in the number of comments into the random generator and got:

So the winner for the Uber Jack pattern is Staci of Snippets and Stash!

 Thanks to everyone who played along. I'm sure I'll have more patterns to pass along in the future as I'm of the mind to not hoard keep every last project I finish anymore. I just have waaaaaay too much stuff stuffed away in my closets!!

ORANGE you glad it's almost the weekend? (Small giveaway at the end.)

 It's been an orange kind of week, thanks to my finishing my BC Uber Jack and the newest sock club yarn from Cookie A. I know orange isn't for everyone but I think it's kind of dreamy when it's peachy/Creamsicle in tone. Or an autumny pumpkiny kind of orange. Ok, basically any orange except for traffic cone orange is cool with me. (What can I say? I like color.)

Thank you, Cookie, for your adventurous spirit and eye for color. I *love* this yarn!

Jack is none too shabby in the orange department either though. Did you catch how close I am to the edge of the linen in the first pic? Heheheh. I was determined to use this piece of scrap linen for some reason (me = stubborn idiot) and it was close. REAL close! I figured I could just leave out the vine if I needed a little more room at the end there. I'll definitely have to measure for a frame verrrrrrrrrrry carefully though if I go the framing route. :)

I don't see myself using this pattern again (I only redo smalls) so if someone wants it, leave me a comment and I'll pass it along to you for free. I'll pick someone randomly in a couple days if there is more than one of you who do. 

Note: please make sure your email is EASILY found though, either from your profile or by typing it out in your comment. Hunting for contact info on the internets makes me a grumpy bear and you can't make me do it. Nope. I'm a princess/brat that way. :)

WHO'S SPOILED ROTTEN? WHO?

Oh, that would be YOU. Well, that is if YOU entered my giveaway. 

I've already gotten so many entries I thought it would only make sense if I...............

.......pulled another scoop of beads out of the nether regions of my bead boxes so I can draw TWO names. :)

It's not quite as big a bag as the first one because I honestly don't have any more filler beads to throw in there *but* I did manage to find a few more fairies to giveaway. 

That's it for REALS now though. I won't have any more 'bagged' extras to giveaway probably until the end of the year or so. I need time to build them back up again. :)

New beads and a new GIVEAWAY.

First things first, I posted a few new things up today including a couple 'new baby' sets. 

Is a 6 toed footprint bead weird? I think it is but I couldn't squeeze 10 toes on a 15mm lentil very neatly. Or consistently. (AND I have to do it on both sides of the bead!) So I took a little creative license and went with the more aesthetically-pleasing-and-easier-to-make-but-clearly-alien-baby route of 6 toes. Alien babies for the win.

Now on to the giveaway part.......

I have a bigger and bigger pile of 'extra' beads growing on my work desk here and it's getting ridiculous (or has been ridiculous for a long time and is now becoming RE-DONK-U-LOUS) so I pulled together a big bag of them to giveaway to whoever wants them.

It seems so unassuming in bag form, doesn't it?

Oh, but when it spills out.....................hello beady glassy shiny goodness! These are extras, a couple are plain ole wonky but most are what I would call 'pretty good'. (There are 4-5 Fairies in here too! AND a sterling silver cored Pandora bead!!)

Don't feel you have to have a PURPOSE for them to enter the giveaway either. Out-and-out bead hoarders just for the sake of hoarding are always welcome. :)

The deets:

1. To enter the giveaway all you have to do is email me. ( I will ship it anywhere in the world so everyone is welcome to enter.)

2. If you are a follower of this blog, let me know and I will enter your name in twice. I do so appreciate my followers and the comments I get here so of course you guys get extra special attention. :)
(If you are not a follower but want to be, just click the 'follow' link on the right side bar. Everybody has a Google account at this point................right?)

3. I will draw the winner next MONDAY because it's summer and it will give more people a chance to enter. (I know we're not all on the computer 24/7 once the sun is shining.)

And that's it. Easy-peasy, right? :)
GOOD LUCK!

A small confession. (With a free giveaway at the end so stay til the end!!!)

When I said I had 'bought a bag' of teeny buttons on Etsy a couple weeks ago I wasn't being honest.

It may have been more than one bag. 

It may even have been more than several bags.

In fact..........I may have a teeny problem with collecting teeny buttons.....

But, oh, what a glorious problem it is!

Let's just relish in the teeny button pr0n, shall we? 

(Feel free to click on these to get the biggun' pictures for the full pr0n effect.)

My favorites might just be these micro-sized TEENY-WEENIE buttons. *swoon*

But the polka dot ones are a close second. 

I know there are a lot of stitchers who love teeny buttons for their projects just as much as I do so if you are one of them, leave a comment on this entry and I will pick someone randomly on Valentine's Day to receive a little bag of their very own teeny buttons to swoon over. Just a quick and simple giveaway to spread the love.

As always, followers of my blog will get entered in twice for being such cool characters. :)

(But feel free to spread the word to your own blogger friends if you wish - it's open to all, anywhere in the universe.) 

So I clicked and sorted...

..sorted once more...

...used the Random Number Generator...

...and counted from the top....

And the winner for this week's giveaway was Margaret!! Congrats to you and thanks so much to all who entered!!

That concludes my holiday giveaways but I'll have a big one sometime after the holiday. I'm already squirreling away extra beads for an 'extras, misses, and flat out ugly' type giveaway. Should be fun!!!! :)

Another Monday, another chance to give something away for FREE!!!!!!!!!!

This week is a 'stitchy' giveaway:

Two little ornaments (handmade by moi) stitched from a Bent Creek design. Simply finished with a bit of ribbon and a couple buttons. (The backing fabric is navy with 'snow' printed on it.) Hang 'em on your tree, or on a cabinet knob or....................who am I kidding? Who cares about the details when you are getting it FOR FREE!!!!!! lolol

Same details as last week:

1. To enter the giveaway all you have to do is email me.  I will ship it anywhere in the world so everyone is welcome to enter.

2. If you are a follower of this blog, let me know and I will enter your name in twice. I do so appreciate my followers and the comments I get here so of course you guys get extra special attention. :)

(If you are not a follower but want to be, just click the 'follow' link on the right side bar. Everybody has a Google account at this point................right?)

3. I will draw the winner on FRIDAY this time in the hope I can get it in the mail on Saturday so hurry hurry hurry up and enter!!!!

GOOD LUCK!

And the winner is of the beady giveaway is...........

 Random Number Generator picked #59, I sorted all the entries by subject (to mix them up randomly) and counted from the bottom (instead of the top for something different this time) and the name I came up on was ..............Luann!!

Congrats on winning!!! I will have this out to you ASAP.

Thanks to everyone who participated! I will have a stitchy giveaway up tomorrow, I believe. (Or maybe Tuesday as I still have to stuff it and take pictures of it. Heee!)

New Giveaway for December!

But firstly - I put the Harry Potter set up for ordering today. Did another set up this weekend and figured out the pricing. It's about where I thought it was going to be (which to me, is very very reasonable) so no surprises there. :)

Now onto to the giveaway! I plan on doing two this month: one beady one and one stitchy one. This first one is the beady one.

A cute lil Frosty type Snowman, all wired up on a lariat and ready to be attached to your cell phone, to anything else that you'd like, or take it off the split ring all together and pop it on a chain to make a necklace out of it.

1. To enter the giveaway all you have to do is email me.  I will ship it anywhere in the world so everyone is welcome to enter.

2. If you are a follower of this blog, let me know and I will enter your name in twice. I do so appreciate my followers and the comments I get here so of course you guys get extra special attention. :)

(If you are not a follower but want to be, just click the 'follow' link on the right side bar.)

3. I will draw the winner on Sunday so you have all week to enter!

GOOD LUCK!

And the winner of the Boo Giveaway is..................

Valerie from FogCity Dweller!!!

Congrats Valerie!! He's an easy care ghost and won't give you too many troubles. No haunting your halls at night and that sort of thing. :)

Thank to everyone who participated - you guys ROCK!!

Have a great weekend all!

Bleh. Bleh. Bleh.

Don't forget I'm having a giveaway this week!! You have another day to enter so get going!!! (I probably won't pull the name until later in the day tomorrow.)

This week is kind of blechy because I have an ear ache............AGAIN. Fourth time since August and it's getting OLD. :( I get it cleared up (in my left ear), get about a week or so reprieve and then it starts up again. I have prescription drops and stuff but I think they're useless. I hate hate hate hate going to doctor for stupid reasons (especially because I've had ENOUGH doctor's visits lately, thank_you_very_much) but obviously I'm going to have to go back in if it comes back again. What do they do then? Put a stint in or something? I don't have children so I've never had to deal with this round-and-round-we-go ear ache thingy. lol Hey, maybe I can get myself some adult diapers and a BOTTLE and get the full baby experience! *snort*

Anyhoo, I'm still diligently working on my Sock Blanket squares here and there while in the car (I don't drive) and waiting at appointments, etc. I had a three-hour (!!!) seminar last week which was GREAT for knitting - finished not one but TWO squares during that baby!!!!! I washed and blocked another batch the other day and took pics:

 

 I must have been going through my 'blue' phase with these. LOTS o' blue!

 

This dark blue one has a bit of cashmere in it and is quite delicious. :)

I think I have 16-17 squares done now? Only 999 bottles of beer left to go!!!