Happy New Year SFS and New Chart!

It's almost 10:00 here on the west coast and I'm enjoying a nice quiet evening stitching and will break out the bubbly soon.  Hubby wants to wait until midnight but we have a whole bottle to drink :). On the other hand it'll mean staying up late to stitch if we wait...decisions decisions ;). 

First up is the final SFS.  

Carryover: $40

Allotment: $25

Spent: $0

Final total: $65

Possible total if $0 spent: $300

Not bad if I do say so myself.  Thanks again for hosting Mel!

Well I'm sad to report I had absolutely no finishes this year.  Oh well lol next year I'll have one at least!  I'm definitely finishing paradise I'm almost to the halfway point. I should reach it sometime next week.  The last two days have been nonstop stitching.  Yay!

I've managed a page finish and soon to be the two.

Last time (2 weeks ago 😳):

This time:

This year I'll be doing the new stitchy start SAL, GG, and Finish It Up hosted by Stacy at Crossed Stitches.  Paradise fits all of these categories so my main goal is to finish paradise and possibly the other two Halloween banners.  Wish me luck good luck on all of your goals!

Before I say goodnight I had to share with you all my new chart!  Keiley over at Keeble's World gifted me the gorgeous HAED Falling Snow which I've been drooling over for months.

And we're talking about doing our own SAL for the new HAED that should be charted soon 

Would anyone want to join?  It wouldn't be for several months at the least but it's in the talking stages :). Thanks again Keiley I love it!

Thanks for sticking with me I'll see you all next year!

December GG

Hello again everyone it's time for our last Gifted Gorgeousness of the year.  GG is hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.  Paradise has suffered greatly in the last few weeks.  Between the holidays and me starting school I've barely touched it.

Last month I had finished the page:

This month I'm here:

Not even a page.  And most of that was in the first week.  I think my education killed my bug lol.

However Halloween Banner Green has seen some love

Last time:

Now:

This was done in the car on the drive down and back from Seaworld.  Around 6 hours total.  And some was done a week before that at a group with some local stitching ladies.  

Alas no more will be done for a while as this weekend I have my sister in law coming to stay with us and then 2 days after she leaves we have my mom coming to stay with us for Christmas.  I'm going to teach her how to stitch counted.  She's only ever done stamped so this should be interesting.  She chose HAED's You Can Leave Your Hat On as her first piece LOL!  I got my mother in law started stitching too she's working on a Tilton Crafts piece which is the Dalmation (sic).  I'll update you all as it they go!  

Thanks for stopping by I hope my bug comes back soon.  I think once the holidays are over I can find a routine with my new job, school and stitching.  I've had my eye on HAED's Falling Snow for several months so once we play catch up with my paychecks I may have to get it.  

See you all next time with hopefully a large update.  I probably won't be back until the new year though so just in case Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas Advent Blog Hop

It's that time of year!  Time for Serindipitous Stitcher Jo's Christmas Blog Hop!  

I don't have any new Christmas stitching I'm afraid since I've been working almost exclusively on Paradise.  But I have my completed ones to show!

Candy cane Santa was the first kit I ever bought/finished.  

My next Christmas start will be:

But I'll be putting beads on the houses to simulate lights when I'm done.

The theme this year is what do you do for Christmas Eve?

Well as a child depending on what time my dad picked me up I would either have a big family party at my mom's and go later to our smaller family Christmas at dad's or go straight there.  Now as an adult either my husband or I would have to work so when I was off I would usually just relax myself with some hot chocolate and baileys, my stitching, Christmas lights and Christmas music.  This year were both going to be off and my moms coming to town so we're going to make some festive drinks, get some pizza rolls and junk food for dinner and watch Christmas movies.  I'm really looking forward to having the holidays off!

Thanks for stopping by I'll see you next week/year!

November SFS and Paradise Progress

Hello again everyone I hope you all had a lovely thanksgiving!  I'm sure you heard SFS is no longer a thing because of personal reasons on Mel's end.  I've decided to see it through to the end of the year though.  I know there are several other people doing this as well.

Carryover: $75

Allotment: $25

Spent: $60

Total: $40

That is the most I've spent in a long time on stitchy stuff and it was all in fabric.  I realized my last post was for GG on the 15th and I haven't stitched much.  I didn't take any stitching at all for thanksgiving because my flight was only an hour.  I did end up having to work the first three days of the week at a different location and so I flew in after work Wednesday night.  I like my new job but tomorrow will be my first time at my permanent location.  I'll let you all know how it goes :)

My thanksgiving was good once it actually happened.  Since I had to change my flight I was stressing out because my hubby booked it for two hours after I got off work which would have been fine but he booked it out of Los Angeles international which means the drive down to it was about an hour and a half.  I'm not sure I would have made it except my plane was late getting in.  But I was stressed about it the whole week.  

It was up to us kids to cook and we went to San Francisco to my father-in-law's house.  There were only 6 of us and the young definitely outweighed the old ;).  My hubby, sis-in-law and I chose the menu and cooked everything and it turned out great.  We made some hot spiked cider while we cooked and had a great bottle of wine with dinner his dad was saving.  He kept saying he was expecting to have to drive to get fast food because we were going to poison him lol.  We spent the rest of the night playing Disney trivia with shots of whiskey for the loser. Totally his sister's idea lol but it was fun!  The next day we helped them decorate for Christmas and then flew back.  Saturday I met some local ladies for their monthly stitching session.  It was a lot of fun!

I said I didn't get much stitching done and I really didn't!  My bug has left for a bit but I've been trying to power through it.

Last post I was here:

Now I'm here:

This is about 3/4 of a page and the yellow is all DMC 444.  After another page and a half I'll be out of the yellows and most of the oranges completely.  I'm excited to get to the halfway mark so I guess I need to start stitching :)

See you all next week!

So Close: November GG

Hello all this is my post for November's GG.  Gifted Gorgeousness is run by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.  It seems like I do a lot of her SALs lol.  As always my GG piece is Paradise which is a present for my cousin for their wedding.  

The so close is that I'm so close to another two pages being finished.  Well one really but I'm stitching two pages at a time so I'm just counting them together and updating my progress bar with the finish.  I'm also so close to starting my job.  I'm supposed to start on Friday.  They were a little late getting me the paperwork I need so I hope that doesn't affect the start date.  I had to get a tb test and fingerprinting so I did all that on Friday and got the results of the tb today.  So they should have all of that paperwork tomorrow.  I'm having trouble determining when my time off is for thanksgiving break.  We have flights booked from before I got the job for Monday through Friday.  One of the school sites says they're off those days but the other sites says only thurs-fri but nobody will give me the actual dates.  They said I'll get my schedule at my orientation which means I would have like 1 day to change my flight.  So frustrating.  It's been bugging me but I've been trying to let it go.  I think it's the full week but the problem is out of their dozen or so locations only two are off the full week but I'm not sure if one of those is my location because their website is very confusing.

Well that was longer than I was expecting lol onto the pictures!

Last GG:

This time:

Almost 4 pages!  Wow really?  I'm really only missing a hundred stitches and like 6 colors.  It seems like I'm always a few stitches short.  I would've had the page finish today but we spent the whole day out lol.  I won't have this much progress again for a long time.  I start my school on the first and that's going to take up most of my time.

Update:  I finished the page about 2 hours after I posted :D

New Start and Element Finish

Hello again faithful readers!  I have to say I've been over the moon the last few days.  Why you may ask?  I got a job!!  After being here for two months I'm happy to say I'll be a tutor at one of the alternative schools doing everything from K-12.  There were two jobs I was in the top running for and although I didn't get the other one I was told I was their second choice and the other person simply had more experience.  I was really surprised I got this job as it said I needed to have 2-3 years of tutoring experience and I have none.  But I am starting my masters program for teaching in December.  The best part is that the job pays $10,000 more a year than I was hoping for.  Now I can finally start paying off my student loans enough to make a dent.  I have to buy another car first though since this job is about 45 minutes away.  I'm planning on joining a gym as well and hubby wants to join me but I wanted to go before work so I have stitchy time and he'd rather go after so we'll see how it works out.

But you're here for stitching and I have some fun stuff to show!

First up is Paradise.  I finished the sun!  I don't have a page finish yet but I'm close.  I'll probably have it tomorrow.  I also started the third line of text.  So progress is being made.

Here it was last time:

And here I am now:

The sun shows up a little better in person.  It's crazy how it blends in though just like the real sun.  I'm really hoping I can get the lines out of the piece but I'm about 99% sure I will.  In this case they're caused because the fabric is really thin.  So once I fill in the space behind it it should be fine.  I would test it but I have to do it in hand.  

The other stitching I have to show is...A New Start!  Yep I haven't had an official new start since I started Paradise.  What did I choose?  

Annya Kai's Rapunzel by HAED!  The bright pink is such a welcome change.  Haed is running a challenge on their Facebook page to do 400 stitches on any of their pieces and we get an exclusive chart.  Hey it was a good excuse for me!  So I decided I wanted to try cross country stitching and I also wanted to try 1 over 1 evenweave with pin stitch.  It turned out really well if I do say so myself.  I hadn't seen a tutorial on an evenweave over 1 pin stitch so I used the same instructions as aida and split the threads.the method I'm using also means I can do it all from the front so I don't have to turn it over at all.  So that's all of 718 done as there were 454 total stitches in it.  It's the sleeve and bodice of the dress as well as part of the skirt.  I'm really wanting to go back to her but I will fight the urge and continue on with Paradise.  I have a little more black done on Halloween Banner Green but not enough to show.  

I also got a ton of new fabric.  The lns near me is closing and is selling everything for 80% off.  They didn't have much white left but I got around 10 yards of fabric for $65 including some cashel and Belfast linen.

The top one is 32ct as well.  They're each around 2 yards and I'm going to use it for dyeing hopefully to sell.  I may try to leach the color first using rit color remover but I'm still deciding.  I was so thrilled with the price and there's another lns not far but they don't have a great fabric selection.

I don't start my job until the 20th and I'm not sure if we get off the whole week of thanksgiving or only a few days but I hope I find out soon because I may have to change my flights.  But I'm pretty sure my uniform consists of jeans and a company polo so I'm happy since I live in my jeans :). So now that I have the job I can spend my days til then stitching instead of searching!  I'm just waiting for them to send me my background check info so I can be official.  Thanks for stopping by I'll see you all with another page finish (more likely two).  I'm off to create my progress bar for Rapunzel!

Another Post=Another Page Finish!

My needle has been flying as I spent my Halloween finishing up my page on Paradise while watching Halloween movies.  

Last post I was here:

Now I'm here:

I'm going to start with the sun so I can see how it fits in the U.  Well after I do the letters because I have to stitch those first.

I took a picture after each color unless there was only one stitch in that color.  I'm posting them below if you're interested :). If not thanks for stopping by I'll see you next time!

Happy Halloween Blog Hop!

Happy Halloween everyone!  This post is part of the blog hop sponsored by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching.  If you want to participate head over there and go to each blog to spell out the mystery phrase.  Then email it to Jo for a chance to be in the drawing.

I've made some more progress on Halloween Banner Green:

And your letter is in the pic above ;).  Hint: it's on the stitching. If you can't figure it out I'll post it at the bottom as well.

Your next stop is Fireflies Cats in the Garden

So head on over there and say hi to Noni.

I hung up my other banners finally and got them finished finished :). I did them as bell pulls.  I cut the dowels and painted them an oil rubbed bronze color. Then I added some twine as the hanging mechanism.  I love how they turned out.

I carved my pumpkin Thursday night and love how it came out:

Carving pumpkins is my favorite part of Halloween.

If you didn't see the letter don't worry.  It's: U

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a happy Halloween!

October SFS and a Page Finish!

I've been a stitching machine!  I have a page finish.  Well 2 actually since the last post.  But first up is SFS.  It's hosted by Mel at Epic Stitching and is a way for us to keep track of our stitching spending so we actually stitch from our stash.

Carryover: $59

Allotment: $25

Spent: $9

Total: $75

I had to buy a couple of colors for paradise because I'm running low finally.  I had to get more 444 and 972.  I would have needed more 742 but I had already bought some on accident several months ago.  I also bought some new fabric for a RAK I received but I'm thinking of returning it and buying it from haed instead.  The fabric is a thin 32ct linen which is actually what I'm stitching paradise on now but I prefer 28ct and haed has good prices.  We'll see though.  Want to see my RAK?  (Lol that sounded dirty)

Isn't she gorgeous?  :D. It's my first ever RAK of a chart and I was so happy to get it!  I won a joke contest in the Facebook haed page.  

And speaking of paradise I have gotten a lot done!

Last time I was almost to the bottom:

And now I've finished that page and the next page:

Since I'm stitching 2 pages at a time I'll go down with one color completely before starting the next so I'm actually about a page and a half done.  The needle marks the end of the page and the next set of pages takes us to the sun and also to the beginning of the bottom line of words.  I didn't plan it that way but I like it :). My last post for this piece was on the 15th so I've completed a page and a half in 2 weeks.  Nuts!  But a good nuts :)

As far as my private life is going I just got an email to set up the final interview at a school district.  I had to take a test and then have an initial interview first.  I also had an interview for a temporary position but haven't heard anything yet.  Both of the interviews were on Friday.  The test had around 40 people in it and they invited the top 10 to do the initial interview.  I don't know how many are getting the final interview but I'm hoping it's 5 or less :). Or even better that it's just me and they want to make sure I fit in LOL.  I'm hoping I get this one as it pays really well and I'd get holidays off.  Cross your fingers for me and I'll see you next time with hopefully a job and another page finish :). Well my next next post since my next post will be on Halloween for Jo's Halloween blog hop

Wow!

Thanks Shelly!  I was the lucky winner of a giveaway over at Arizona Stitcher and I received it last night.  It was far beyond my expectations and I love it all!  

Some close ups:

I got a cool kitchen towel, ghost and witch decorations, a candle, some Halloween tissues, skull earrings, some cool skull stickers which I might make into needleminders, a cool Halloween biteand some stitchy stuff including a kit for a pin keep which I is great since I don't have one yet, a needleminders of the Raven which is one of my favorite Edgar Allen Poe story, some Halloween colors of DMC and a great card to round it all out!

On another note I have 2 job interviews set up on Friday so I'm crossing my fingers and toes!  The first one is the one I would love because it's at the superintendents office as a clerical worker and it pays well.  I already did the intake exam which narrowed the field from around 40 candidates to 10.  I think there are 2 interviews for that position.  The second interview is at a school as a student advisor.  It's temporary but might turn into permanent.  I have no idea how long the position is for though.  But I'd be thrilled with either of them!  I'm really excited but really nervous too.  At least I know the candidate pool of the first one.  I've made good progress on Paradise too but I'll save that for a little later.  Wish me luck and thanks a ton Shelly!

October GG

It's the 15th again which means it's time again for Gifted Gorgeousness hosted by Jo from Serendipitous Stitching.  I'm stitching a present for my cousins wedding which was actually this past weekend.  Needless to say I'm not even close.  I showed her my most recent pic though so she knows what she's getting.

Last month I was here:

Now I'm here:

So close to the bottom!

I didn't get a ton of pics from the wedding but here are a few:

Sorry they're from my computer and I'm posting from my phone.  It was a ton of fun!  When I get the official photos I'll post a few more.  Thanks for stopping by I'll see you all next week!