It Came It Came!!!

I kind've stalked the mailman a bit because my calendar and coloring book came today!

They're gorgeous and Brigid was even sweet enough to sign the coloring book.  

The coloring book has 50 Celtic mandalas including all of the designs from the calendar.

I've also reached page finishes (sort of) on 2 projects.  

Of course we have Paradise:

Which is a true page finish and I've reached the bottom of the page on the half I've been working on in the black on Halloween Banner Green:

I kind of like having multiple projects with page finishes!

Thanks for stopping in.  I won't have much more progress on paradise for a while because I leave the day after tomorrow for the wedding and I'm leaving it at home so the bride doesn't see.  I'll take banner on the plane.  I have to let out my bridesmaid dress which I may do by hand because I gained more weight from having to eat out for 6 weeks during the move.  I hope I don't mess it up.  Wish me luck!  On the other hand I started working out today finally after finding some good workout dance videos.  It's time to get this PCOS under control.  It should help me lose weight too.

I Was Wrong!

So I had to post a slight retraction to my last post.  Not really a retraction but a correction.  In my last post I had said that my new chart, Celtic Wolf, was not the exact design I wanted but I am thrilled to say I was wrong!  When I received the chart I hadn't looked through it fully and just looked at the picture at the top of the pattern.  The picture shows a different pattern but the pattern itself is exactly how I wanted it!

 These are all of the pictures in the calendar but the cross stitch is the top middle.  Since I showed it last post I thought I would show all of the pictures instead :)

On a side note I've been toying with the idea of selling my hand dyed fabrics.  Would anybody be interested in buying them?  If not absolutely no worries I still love making them for me and as part of giveaways :)

September SFS

Hello again friends it's time for another SFS.  SFS is hosted by Mel from Epic Stitching and is designed to curb our spending and stitch from our stash!

September: $25

Carryover: $50

Used: $19

Total: $59

What did I buy?  This one was a little difficult to determine because it was part of a package deal.  A few months ago Brigid Ashwood had a kickstarter for a calendar of her designs.  Well I love Celtic designs and when I saw that it also included a Celtic wolf cross stitch I had to go for it.  Then I decided to just go for broke and get the coloring book too.  Altogether it was $45 + shipping and the pattern is from heaven and earth designs so I figured the pattern is about $19 which is their normal price.  I was bummed though because they said it was an exclusive design but it's actually the wolf guide design on the site just a little smaller.  It's okay though because I'm going to change it to match the picture in the calendar.

This is the cross stitch:

And this is the calendar pic:

I will probably just change the designs of the 4 medallions.  The coloring book patterns will probably get changed into cross stitches too later down the road.

I did some stitching as well.  And actually I got a lot done on Paradise.  I feel like I'm making great progress on it finally and have almost another page finish.

Last time I only had s few letters:

Now I have more color:

Close up:

The row row of stitches above the random stitch is where the page ends.  I should have it done in a couple of days.  

I also made some progress on Halloween banner green although not as much.

Last time:

This time:

I should take pics with my dresses on more often lol it creates a fun background!  Speaking of which I can see my schoolbook in the background as well so that's my cue to get back to work.  Thanks for stopping by!  I'll see you next month!

Home Sweet Home

Hello everyone welcome back to my little slice of the universe.  I promised I'd be back with an update about what I've been up to with my move and to show you some stitching.

Well I'm happy to say we've moved into a house finally.  We're renting it for 6 months in North Hollywood, CA.  It's basically someone's attic he converted to a private apartment to use while he was back from the navy.  Now that he's retired he rents it out.  It feels so good to be settled after being in hotel rooms and his moms house for over 6 weeks.  It was very stressful as well because after we arrived we kindve kicked my dmil out of her house because her boyfriend doesn't get along with us.  Long story but they just decided to get a hotel while we found a place to live.  We had a house lined up but it fell through at the last minute because we decided we simply couldn't afford it until I found a job.  I've applied to several schools as a receptionist and got my first call back yesterday.  I have to go Monday to take some proficiency tests and typing tests and we'll go from there.  It's about half an hour from my house so its a little far but I'll judge on if I'm willing to make that drive after I go up for the tests.  

Our house we got is small but cute.  We have 2 magicians as our downstairs neighbors but we haven't met them yet.  I'm only bummed because we can't get a dog.  So I'm glad it was only 6 months and I'm really hoping we can buy a house after this.  It came fully furnished too which is nice but it means we have to pay storage.

Tiny bathroom!

Sorry the photos aren't the best but I love our little patio.  I'm actually writing this from the chairs as we speak lol.

My mom is coming down for Christmas and I'll have my first Christmas off in 6 years!  I'm excited about that.  Our tree was in the front of the storage unit too which is great but our decorations are in the back so I'll have to buy more.

My stitching has gotten better now that we're settled.  I finished the color on paradise that I started in the car.  I'll show it next post.  But I did work on something else.  Ready?

Yay Halloween!  This is the green panel and the left half of the design.  I'm starting to get into the massive amounts of black.  But this is what I finished in 3 days while at dmils house.  It's fun to be stitching something simpler and different.  I doubt I'll get it done before Halloween but I'm not putting a time limit on this one :). Hopefully my next post will be the other two panels finish finished.  I worked on some of the mounting before we moved so I just have to assemble and hand them.  Maybe later today.  Thanks for stopping by I'll see you at the end of the month!

Gifted Gorgeousness September

Hello again welcome to crazyville!  Things here have been nuts.  I'll have another post in a couple of days about that and some other projects but this is just going to be Paradise.  

I have not made much progress at all and, in fact, I haven't even touched it in a week.  Too much going on lol.

Last month I was here:

Sorry bad photo

Now I'm here:

Definitely not much progress it its all good :). The wedding is in 3 weeks so we're looking at maybe having it done by their first anniversary lol.  I'm going to ask if she wants to see a progress pic, the mockup or nothing at all lol.

Thanks for stopping in I'll have a more detailed post in a few days with some new stuff!

We Made It!

We're here in sunny Southern California.  We drove for 4 days with a one day stop in New Orleans going across 7 states.

We had to drive through 8 hours of Florida and went through

then hit

And stopped in New Orleans.  The whole drive was around 10 hours.

We grabbed some gumbo

And stayed the night there, then stayed the next day.  We stayed at the Wyndham and the beds were soooo comfortable.  We hit cafe du monde for beignets 

 

They were soooo good!  Then we hit Pat O'Briens for drinks

And had a great lunch at a place called oceanas.  

I had the oysters and he had a poboy.  After that we went and did a bit of shopping and walked downtown to mail some things we bought.

Then we went to the hotel bar for happy hour and I had another Bloody Mary and a margarita.  They were good but I liked the Bloody Mary at Pat O'Briens better.  Hubby had a couple of beers and tried some he had never had.

Then we grabbed some dinner and walked down bourbon.

We stayed another night then hit the road in the morning.

Before long we were in 

It took about 8 hours.  Our original plan was to drive to San Antonio and go to Seaworld.  Unfortunately they were closed because they were only open on weekends.  We had figured this out in New Orleans though so we didn't have any surprises.  We stayed the night there and went to Texas Roadhouse because hey it's in the name and it's one of my favorite chains.  Instead of Seaworld we just hit the road again and were planning on staying in El Paso.  But we got to

And kept going to

And stayed in Phoenix.  That was a looooong driving day.  I think we drove for like 15 hours.  We were meeting a friend for lunch there so we stayed the night and slept in a bit.  Then after lunch we took off again and 6 hours later we are in 

We got in last night, had some dinner and went to bed.

We've found a house today we love so cross your fingers please that we get it.  I would have a cross stitching room!  Next up we're working on finding a job for me so cross your fingers for me there too!

Lastly cross stitching!  I didn't get much done on the car ride because paradise was too small to see with the jostling.

This was my set up.  I didn't get a better pic but that's all I got done.  However I did make progress on swirling peacock.  Stitching in hand on a larger count white fabric with bigger holes helped.  I finished a column and the moon in the next column.

This is the last time you saw it.

This is now.  Sorry for the blurriness it's hard to get a good pic of this one and it was in the car ;)

The moon is all kreinik

As well as the gold on the peacock eyes. The blank spots are where beads will go. I love doing every stitch on this.  Alright I'm off to job hunt thanks for stopping in!

Here's some pretty road pictures for you and fraggle rock!

It's hard to see but it has fraggle rock graffitied on it lol