Happy New Year 2015!

Hello everyone and happy 2015 to you all.  Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me on reading this blog!  I had a very wonderful year in 2014 mostly because my son joined our sweet family.  December seemed to race by and I was busy visiting family and friends while we were home in the US.    I am pretty proud of the fact that I had 12 finishes last year (almost 13)!!

For 2015 I set a very crazy stitching goal for myself...it's to only work from my stash and not buy anything for an ENTIRE YEAR!  Yes you read that right.  I found a group on Facebook and thought that I could be ready for this challenge, so here I go.  So far 6 days in and I have kept the promise.  BUT I did buy a few things that I am waiting to arrive in the mail before 2014 ended ;).

Here are a few new stash acquisitions I received before we went home in December...

This is Thea Gouverneur's Paris kit.  I've had my eye on this kit since I first started stitching but it was always out of my budget...until it went on an amazing sale at Keepsake Needle Arts!

I also picked up this Elmo pillow kit from the sale that I thought was needlepoint after all the fun I had on my Chi Omega pillow earlier this year.  But it turns out this is a yarn cross stitch kit.  I'm sure my daughter will love it all the same when it is finished.

Also this year I have signed up for the YOTA Year of the Acronym SAL challenge again.  In the past it has really helped me dwindle down my WIPs and I will show you some progress soon.

Here is my latest start...

I know at this point it just looks like a postage stamp but this is my owl birth sampler I have started stitching for my son.  I think I had put a few stitches in it last fall and then stopped to focus on Medieval Lady.

I hope you all are enjoying the fresh start of the new year and I can't wait to see what you are up to stitching wise.  Happy Stitching and thank you for reading:)

YOTA December and I want Santa's Mittens

Happy December!  I still can't believe it's almost the second week of December and almost Christmas!  I'm a little late but I have been diligently working on my Year of the Acronym piece Medieval Lady...and she is so close to being finished 😄.  I'm writing this from my iPad so I don't have the "before" but here is where I am now...

The lighting is horrible because it's really late here but you can see her in her almost completed self.  All I have left to stitch are the flowers in the border and then add beads to them and to the cloak and the jeweled part of the dogs leash and I will be all done!!  Oh and I ran out I'd DMC #797 with only about 10 stitches left.  But I am looking forward to being able to pick them up soon when we get to travel back home to Michigan for Christmas this year!  Here is an image of Santa wearing Michigan mittens that is my theme for us this year.

After a bit of googling I found out that they sell these mittens in lots of colors at www.michiganmittens.com .  For those of you who don't know, Michigan is unofficially known as the mitten state because the Lower Peninsula is shaped like a mitten.  We Michiganders even have an odd habit of explaining to someone who is unfamiliar with where a city is located by showing them and pointing to the equivalent location on the "map" on our hand.  

I am really hoping that Santa brings me a pair of these cute mittens ;).  I also hope that I can find the time to finish Medieval Lady before the end of the year to make her my 13th finish of the year and get her framed while I'm home.  How are your Holiday plans coming along?  I hope that you find a little time to stitch during this busy time of year and happy stitching!

  

12th Finish of 2014!

Hello!  I have a small finish to share with you.  I completed this back in September or October and I don't know why I haven't shared her ...

This is Saint Kateri.  She is a present for a friend who chose her confirmation name after the saint.  I got the pattern as a freebie from the blog Do Small Things With Love.  I changed the colors a bit but this only took me a few days to finish.  I still can't believe this is my 12th finish this year!  I still have no idea how to finish her up?  Do you have any suggestions?  Until next time happy stitching!

YOTA November Progress

Hello everyone!  I can't believe it's already November.  I really need to write some posts about some fun Nepali cultural events I got to experience, but I guess I'll s. Thanks for stoe those for later.  Today is the first Saturday of the month so it's time for my Year Of The Acronym or YOTA post. 

This month I stitched only on Medieval Lady so there is loads of progress.  After September I was worried that I wouldn't finish this design by the end of the year so I decided to focus my efforts on it instead of making some new starts. 

Here's where I was last month...

And here is all the progress I made in October!

I think the most obvious progress is on the Celtic braid and that I completed the outer edge of the border.  

This design doesn't have very much backstitching.  But I tend to leave that for last and then a force myself to do it to finish or abandon it all together.  So I decided to start the backstitching early this month.  Here are some close ups of where the backstitch helps put the design into focus.

I also started both of the shields and tassels in the upper left.

And started the veil attached to the lady's hat (I still have a bunch of white to do there) on the upper right corner.

On my last post I received so many encouraging comments that the dirt I couldn't wash out wasn't noticeable.  It is there but it doesn't photograph well.  Now that I've touched all four walls, I think the dirt is far enough away that if the frame is cropped tight you won't see it.  But here is a photo where you can see one of the stains.

Yesterday was Halloween and here are some decorations I made using my Cricut cutting machine and the October 31st cartridge.

This year I had two back to back days of trick or treating with my little ones and now I am completely exhausted.  Hopefully a good night's rest will do the trick ;)  

Thanks for stopping by and I can't wait to read what new and old projects you've been stitching on.

YOTA October Progress

Hello out there!  This Year of the Acronym post is a bit late but I figure posting now is better than never.  This month I didn't get quite as much done as I would have liked on Medieval Lady...  I did finally muster up the guts to try to wash her.  Unfortunately her worst stains were barely changed at all and did not disappear!  I think that is really why I stopped working on her a bit.  I thought why invest more time in something that won't look its best when finished... But then I changed my defeated attitude and decided to keep plugging away at her so that I can try to finish her by the end of this year :)

Overall you can't see any progress because I worked entirely in filling in areas that were white.  I figured I would move away from all of the bright colors and get the boring white on white stitching over with.  But it got REALLY boring not using any of the pretty flosses in this design.

I filled in all of the white on the fur lined vest and cape of the lady.

I've already moved on to using other colors this month and I can't wait to see the progress I can make to show you for next month!  Until then...Happy Stitching!

Oslo yarn shop

My Mom is a very big knitter so when she visited us when we lived in Norway I had to take her to a yarn shop.  This is Tjorven garn (yarn) in Oslo.  It is located opposite the T-banen or Train/Metro station in the Majorstuen area of town.  Knitting is VERY popular in Norway.  

Norway is well known for its fabulous wool sweaters.  And Norwegians love to pass the long, cold, dark, winters knitting!

The sale priced yarn below is 28 Norwegian Kroner which give or take the exchange rate comes to about $6 a skein.

Here are some ads on a tall pole outside the shop.  You can also see a bit of the scene on the street :)

Do any of you also knit?  I have tried it a few times when I was younger but unfortunately I just can't get into knitting.  I guess its for the best since I have so many other projects that need my attention.

Happy Crafting!

Baby ads...

I really have been meaning to incorporate more cultural tidbits into this blog: here is a tiny one.

So far when I lived in Africa and Norway and I'm sure I will find one in Nepal, I've seen some very cute Advertisements featuring babies!

This one was on display in downtown Oslo...

And this one was in Gombe district or the equivalent of Downtown Kinshasa...