Snowed In

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It has now been 4 days since I left the house. The kids can’t go to school, I can’t get to my shop, and it would be dangerous to try to head to town for groceries or to run errands. That’s all thanks to a freak winter snow storm. No, that’s not right. It has been spring for almost a month. Well, tell that to mother nature. She has been dumping snow on us for days, along with freezing rain. On Sunday a lot of churches were closed. Today (Tuesday) several colleges and universities are closed. We could not get our driveway cleared until late afternoon yesterday, but it didn’t really matter because the county had not plowed our road yet anyway. It was dinner time before they plowed the “main” road, and then after that when they got around to our street. Luckily I had my taxes done early, because there is no way I would be able to make it to the post office either yesterday or today (this year they are due on the 17th). There have been about 3 days in the past week where we did not get any mail at all. When I woke up this morning I looked out the window to find that we had been dumped on yet again. It is a never-ending battle of plowing, shoveling, and trudging through snow. Since snow here is very common in October and can even start in September, this is a very depressing time of year. After 7 months of looking at this stuff, you just want it gone. Other parts of the country are busy mowing their green lawns, and their spring tulips and daffodils are long gone already. Here, I am seeing friends post on Facebook pictures of their car temperature gauges registering below zero temps, and photos of the snow only a few inches below the street signs on the corner.

The past two days I have spent “spring” cleaning the house, doing laundry, and organizing. I guess today will be more of the same, with maybe a bit of time for stitching as well. I just completed the 4th of 9 gingerbread houses (pics to come!) and I am going to kit up the materials needed to finally start the red haired mermaid from long ago. I just got some new fabrics in, and I can’t wait to play around with the fabrics, floss, and beads to see which one I should use.

XXX
Carrie


A 2.5 Year Work-In-Progress

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Yesterday I was going through my box of “completed” projects that have not been framed yet, when I came across my little hedgehog pincushion. Well, it was technically two stitched sides of a hedgehog waiting to be turned into a pincushion. I had completely forgotten about this project. I had stitched it up quickly, but then never got around to putting it together. I decided it had been long enough (since September 2015, yikes!) and I got out my sewing supplies. It was a bit trickier than I had thought it would be, because the pattern was from one of my digital magazines. So when I printed out the templates on my printer, they were not large enough. I had to play around with enlarging them before I figured out the correct size. Most of it went together on the machine, which was quick and easy. But the bottom piece of green felt had to be hand sewn on, which was really tedious and painful and today I’m having an issue with trigger finger because of it. Ouch! But finally he was done, and I got to put in the cute leaf shaped pins I had found. He is so adorable and I absolutely love him! I think instead of using him as a pincushion I am just going to keep him on my desk to look at, whenever I need to smile.

You can read my original post about this little guy here.

XXX

Carrie


Christmas Cutie

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Yes, it is a dog!

This was another free cover kit with The World of Cross Stitching. I didn’t get much time to work on it while visiting my parents but it stitched up pretty quickly on a lazy weekend.

After finishing, I just wasn’t sure about the bottom portion where there is no backstitch. It looked unfinished to me. So I decided to see what it would look like in the card…

Yes, that bottom portion definitely needed backstitch. I had to kind of figure out where the stitches should go, since the chart didn’t include it and the rest of the design had the backstitch go on an angle, instead of following around each stitch. But I think what I did to it made it look so much better:

Now I just need to mount it into the card! I love how the hat uses silver metallic thread. You can’t really see it in the photo, but it is so shimmery and sparkly, and really sets off the entire design!

XXX
Carrie


What Is It?

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While going through some of my cross stitch magazines, I found this project tucked away between the pages. I had completely forgotten that I had started this while I was visiting my parents over Christmas break. Can you tell what it is going to be? Since it is another quick card project, I am going to finish this before working on the Gingerbread Houses again.

XXX
Carrie



Oops…!

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A new copy of The World of Cross Stitching  came in the mail, and it had this cute bird card kit with it. Because I get the issues a month late in the US, the card is too late to make for this Easter (it’s hard to see, but there are a few Easter eggs at the bottom of the card). It was so cute and looked like a fast stitch, though, so I decided to give it a go. I got this far and then went to bed…

And when I went to look at it this morning I realized how hilarious it looks. Those are leaves, I swear!

XXX
Carrie