MISSING!!!

Hello!  Twice in one week!  Better right this one down on the calender.  Ya never know when it might happen again!

I mentioned last time that I would show you some of the other things I have stitched on during my blogging hiatus. And so I shall.

 December is the busiest month of the year for me as a custom picture framer.  Anything I might personally get finished between Thanksgiving and Christmas is put on the back burner to await the end of the holiday rush. The same goes for Connie and Mary Ann's finishes.   And thus it was for Plum Street Samplers  Harvest Delivery.  I finished the stitching on December 1st, snapped a couple of pictures and took it off to the shop to await it's turn for framing.  That turn was supposed to happen last week.  Supposed to being the operative words here.  I was all set to play with some corner samples which is one of my favorite things to do and I was pretty excited about having the time to do it.  I took my happy self to the back room, walked over to where I keep the pieces waiting to be stretched, brought the bag down off the shelf, opened it up and... nothing.  It wasn't there.  I looked again.  Still nothing.  I got the ladder and climbed up to get a  better looksee in case it had fallen out and being the short person that I am I couldn't see it.  NOTHING!  At this point I was a bit surprised but not too worried.  In the hustle and bustle perhaps I moved it somewhere else.  I began a systematic search of all the places I might have moved it to.  There aren't that many so it didn't take long.  I still couldn't find it.  And to make matters worse I realized that Connie had finished Plum Street Sampler's Thankful for Thee right about the same time and it was no where to be found either.  At this point I was beginning to worry a bit.  Never in 11 years of framing have I lost any art that has been entrusted to my care.  EVER.  I decided to quit looking for the day thinking that maybe they were staring me in the face and I just wasn't seeing them.  You know how you look in your cupboard for something and you can't find it and then you ask your husband to look and he reaches right in there and pulls it out and acts all smug?  That was the theory  I was going with anyway.  Over the weekend I searched my bags of stitching stash here at the house.  Perhaps I had brought them home to stretch, and didn't remember since that's not something I normally do.  Nothing.   Tuesday I searched the shop once more,  then came home and again looked through my stuff.  Nothing. At that point the only place I hadn't looked was down in my craft room and I couldn't get to it until Dan moved or actually put all the Christmas boxes away and he was teaching a night class so it wasn't going to happen that evening.  Fast forward to this evening.  During dinner I was telling Dan my sad tale of woe regarding my missing pieces and how the only place they could be was in the craft room and how there was no way for me to check there because he'd piled the Christmas shit stuff in front of the doors and I'm not supposed to lift anything heavy right now and and and....lo and behold he moved the boxes to the side and voila!  There they were! (insert fireworks here)  Laid out on my craft table just waiting for me to find them.  Whew!  On the one hand talk about a sense of relief, on the other hand what kind of idiot doesn't remember bringing them home and putting them in the craft room!   I swear I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached.   While I'm forgetting things I guess it was too much to hope that I had forgotten I'd already stretched the 2 pieces but alas I had not which I suppose is for the best since I see that Connie has forgotten a couple of stitches on the "A".  And so without further ado may I present that which was lost and is now found.  Drum roll please....

Connie's:

Mine:

stitched on 40 ct meadow rue using the called for fibers

And with that I think I shall call it a night and go stitch on something.  Have a great evening!

Take care till next time!

Julie      

Happy New Year! A brief update

Well hello there and Happy New Year!  I should probably apologize for my prolonged absence but I'm not going to.  I have done it before and promised to do better and have never lived up to that promise so I don't see the point.  I have missed telling you all about things though if that is any consolation.

Now the question is where to start?  Do I back clear up to Fall Retreat and give you the promised blow by blow?  I don't think so.  I doubt you are still interested at this point.  I should at least mention Adam and Marcia's wedding though.   It was a beautiful wedding and the weather couldn't have been more perfect.  The fall color was at it's peak when we were there and it was gorgeous!  Our flights were uneventful if a bit crowded which kept us from sitting with each other.  We all shed a lot of emotional tears that weekend.  Except for the bride.  She managed against all odds to keep a stiff upper lip as she didn't want to ruin her makeup!  They had a beautiful first dance together to the Kip Moore song Hey Pretty Girl and everyone had a wonderful time at the reception, so much so that it was extended for an extra hour.  I enjoyed seeing my kids and their friends all grown up and having a great time together.  It's rare to see and it did this mom's heart good although it is a bit bittersweet as I know it will be a long while if ever before I see it again.
Adam and Marcia honeymooned in Mexico and had a wonderful time just hanging out at the hotel pool.  Married life is agreeing with the 2 of them and they are as happy as a mom could hope for.   The following 3 pics are courtesy of Jennifer Gulley Photography.

Aside from the wedding there really hasn't been a whole lot going on.  Abby and Joe are still dating and having a good time together.  Abby said just the other day that they have been dating for 9 months now. That shocked me a bit as I didn't think it had been that long.  They took a trip to Purdue and took in a football game this fall and not too long ago they traveled to St. Louis for a Penguins hockey game.  Abby is a huge Penguins fan.  I don't get it, she's the girliest girl ever and she loves hockey.  She's currently trying to arrange a trip to someplace warm.  Think she'd mind if I tag along?  Warm sounds good right now!

New Year's Eve 2013

Amy has had the busiest and most stressful semester of college yet.  In addition to working at the ball park this fall, she was working in 2 different research labs, carrying a full load of classes at college, and working on everything involved in applying for graduate school.  And lets not forget she was chosen to present her poster at some big psychology conference in Nashville in November that she had to be prepared for.  It was a lot to handle and I received many panicked phone calls from her over the course of the last few months.  She was sure she wasn't going to get everything done and if she did it wasn't going to be good enough.  Something was going to have to give and she thought it would be her grades.  I did not believe that would be the case though and I was correct.  She earned the best grades ever although I am not sure how they could be better than ever before since her gpa was already 3.9999....her presentation went very well and she has already been offered 2 interviews for grad school.   I was hoping this semester would be a calmer one but then I remembered we have to get through the interviews and then wait to see if she gets any actual offers.  Then and only then will things be less stressful unless of course she isn't offered a spot at Lincoln.  Then my personal stress level will be off the charts!  Note:  As I am adding pictures I realize I do not have anything recent of Amy.  My bad.  I will have to remedy that next time she is home.  If I can catch her when she isn't becoming one with the couch like she did all xmas break.

Christmas was okay this year.  I won't say great as Adam and Marcia were not able to be here this year and when you compare it to last year which was awesome, this year was just...there.  It was good but nothing special.  This year the kids and I gave Dan an aquarium.  He has had a little 5 gal. one at work and he dotes on those guppies of his so I thought he would enjoy having one here at the house.  I was right in thinking he would love it.  But he's having a little problem...can you see what I'm talking about?

Rootbeer colored water is not a normal condition. Apparently his piece of driftwood is releasing tannins into the water and until he can get it cleared up he can't put any fish in it. (that stuffed fish is as close as he has to fish in this aquarium)  So he keeps replacing the water.  By now I think we could have filled up an entire swimming pool.   I keep telling him to remove the darn thing and soak it in a bucket but that would be too easy!  He was also advised to boil it for an hour but we don't have a pot large enough to do that so I suggested we put it in the cooler and poor boiling water over it and let it soak.  Nope.  Silly man just keeps changing the water.  Someday he will have fish in his aquarium, but I don't know when that day will be!

I've been doing some stitching here and there.  I stitched and framed Nimble Netty from Jeanette Douglas.

I've worked on Tuscan Rose

before:

after:

and several other pieces I don't have pictures of right now so I will save them for next time.

I've also worked on the retreat piece but I can't show you that one until May.

And before this morphs into a novel I'm going to call it done and get it posted.  No promises on when I will post again since I will be working on retreat stuff from now until May but I will see what I can do.  Until that happens you all take care and keep on stitching!

Julie
 

    

    

And the winner is....

The random number generator chose comment #4....Pamela!

Pam I will be emailing you shortly.  You have 24 hours to respond at which time I will choose a second chance winner.

Thanks everyone for participating!

Julie

Ort Containers and a Giveaway!

I see another month has gone by with no posts.  Boy does time fly when you get a few years under your belt! I'd be interested to know why that is.  The cause of my absence this time is completely of my own making. I bit off way more than I could chew with a project for retreat.  Fall is our no frills retreat but I generally come up with something for the ladies to use as an ort container.  Last year if you remember it was the coffins.

 This year I made my own pumpkin patch! (click to enlarge)

 A few months back I saw a cute pumpkin pin cushion on Pintrest and I thought to myself, self, that would make an adorable ort box for retreat.  And wouldn't you know it but my own self said ya know, it certainly would be a great ort box.  So I set about gathering some supplies to see if I could make one.  I'm going to let you in on a little secret here...I am not particularly good at sewing.  This project required a bit of sewing, in the round no less so I wasn't exactly sure I would be able to pull it off.  I didn't have any directions to follow so I just had to wing it.  And when I was done I had a passable copy of the original.  Meet Hamish, my very own pumpkin dude.

   Now a smart person would have written down exactly  what she had done as far as how large I cut my pieces of fabric.  But,  and here's another little secret for you...no one has ever accused me of being smart.  So when a couple of weeks went by before I was able to gather enough supplies to make these cuties en masse, I couldn't remember what I had done the first time.  So back to the drawing board I went.  I think I made 6 of these before I got the size correct.  Note to self:  one should write down important information for later use because as one gets a few years under ones belt one tends to forget said important information.  Here's another little tidbit for you.  Making one or 2 of these was fun.  Making 46...not so much.  Big time sucker!  Especially when I had 15 customer finishes to do and one ornament to stitch and finish for our exchange at retreat.  It wasn't that hard it just took a lot of time due to the many steps involved but in the end I did finish the little dears with 3 days to spare and I stitched and finished my ornament and got 12 of the 15 customer finishes finished.  All in all I think I did okay, however don't ask me about my house and the state it's in because it's not good.  But I'm slowly working on getting it back into shape. Thanksgiving is going to be here before I know it and I believe I was elected to have everyone here again so getting the house clean is my next big job.

I made a few extra pumpkins to sell so I could recoup the money that was spent but I also set one aside for a giveaway.  I haven't had a giveaway in forever and I thought this might be just the ticket.   Here is the pumpkin dude up for grabs.

He could be yours if you follow a few simple rules:

1.  you must be a follower of my blog.
2.  you must leave a comment on this post only and you must include your email address or your blog address so I can reach you.  
3.  if you share the giveaway on your blog I will put your name in twice if you let me know in your post.

Everyone is eligible as long as you are a follower including those not in the States.  I will draw the winner on Sunday Morning the 13th of October.  You will have 24 hours to respond to the email i will send after which I will choose a new winner.

I think I will call this post done and leave the retreat report for next time.  Thanks for all the wonderful comments on my Fair results.  I appreciate them.  Thanks also for hanging in there between posts.

Take care till next time!

Julie

State Fair Results

Hello!  Anyone still out there?  I'm hoping a few of you are still hanging around despite my lack of posts.  I have no excuse other than I am a bad bad blogger.  Shame on me!

Not a lot to blog about today.  Work is good.  Dan is good.  Kids are good.  Dogs are good.  I started looking for something to wear to the wedding.  Figured if the fat hadn't magically melted away by now it wasn't going to happen so best suck it up and find a suitable outfit.  So far I haven't found anything that is making my heart beat with excitement.  Of course the chances of that happening are slim to none so not a big surprise.

Been busy planning  spring retreat.  Fall retreat is just a few weeks away.  St Charles Market was good.  I enjoyed chatting with the designers and other shop owners and took a wonderful business law class.  Been stitching quite a bit but haven't taken any pictures.  I'll have to do that soon.  In the meantime I thought I would share my State Fair Results.

I have never submitted anything to any fair, county or state prior to this year.  Since I stitch upside down or backwards or however you want to describe it, I always figured that it wouldn't be worth my time.  Not because I needed to win to make it worth my time but because I figured they would disallow it because of the stitching being different.  But last year I heard there were very few entries in our State Fair in the counted cross stitch division and I vowed to myself that I would give it a try.  And then I promptly put it out of my mind until this spring when I talked about it a bit with Connie and MaryAnn and then let it drop again.   Finally in July I brought it up one last time, Mary Ann said her stitching was not good enough to enter so she wasn't going to do it.  At which point I thought maybe I would wait till next year.  And then I got to thinking.  How many other stitchers think the same way?  My stitching isn't good enough, I stitch backwards, what if something happens to my stitching...there are a multitude of ways one can talk oneself out of entering.  Believe me, I thought of them all.   But then I remembered the reason I was going to enter in the first place.  A lack of entries.  If folks don't enter it's just one more way that our favorite hobby is disappearing.  Shops are closing, big boxes are reducing inventory, fewer entries at the fair, fewer shops showing up at market, fewer designers and on and on.  So after waffling back and forth for a full day I went home and hopped on the computer and looked at the entry form only to find that the deadline was that day!  No more time for procrastination!  I called Connie and told her we need to do this and we need to do it today!  I more or less brow beat the poor woman into agreeing to enter!  And then I tried to decipher what the entry forms were all about and when I couldn't figure them out I got on the phone and called a friend of mine that works the fair and thankfully in spite of the fact that she was driving back from Indiana that day, Laurie was able to talk me through it and (this is the best part)  she's still talking to me!  I think I called her 5 or 6 times that day.  Poor Laurie.  She was a good teacher though and I was able to help Connie when she called me with questions.  Once the online paperwork was submitted the next hurdle was getting everything labeled properly, packed up safely and delivered to the pick up point an hour and a half away.  That required a few more calls to Laurie.  But it was all good.  Until I dropped off our stuff and they asked if it was okay to stack the pictures. I almost snatched them back out of the ladies hands but I restrained myself and calmly said I would prefer that they not stack them as damage can occur to the frames that way.  To which the witch woman replied that I had them packaged well enough that it shouldn't be a problem.  Just as I was about to leap over the table to retrieve our entries, Dan grabbed me and pulled me away from the old biddy  woman saying they would be fine and we needed to leave.  Once we got back into the car the panic set in.  OMG!!  What Had I Done!  The control freak in me was having a major meltdown!  Our stitching was no longer under my control.  It was not a pretty ride home.  So I did the only thing I could do at that point...I contacted Laurie, told her what the lady said about stacking them and begged her to let me know as soon as she could that everything arrived safely.  I am happy to report that they made the trip in one piece and in good shape and once again Laurie saves the day! Then the waiting began.  Laurie promised to call once the judging was done.  Oh, I should mention that Laurie is not a judge, just a volunteer that helps where needed.  A few days passed before the call came.   And while I was not really expecting to win any ribbons for the reason stated above,  I was pleasantly surprised to hear that I had.  Connie also won with her 3 entries.    Connie and I planned to attend the fair but the weather was excruciatingly hot the day we were supposed to go and I've been having problems with my hip since the fall I took before the shower so we opted out of going.  It would have been nice to see the other entries though.

So you might ask if having gone through the process once would I consider doing it again?  I would and I plan to again...next year.  I'm going to see if I can brow beat a few of the shops stitchers into entering next year too.  The more the merrier right?  After all if people start seeing more entries in our division maybe more will come back to stitching.  That's my thought anyway.  So I challenge all of you to enter your local fair, be it county or state.  Not because you want to win a ribbon but because you want to expose the general public to our craft.  Winning is nice, but in the end the judging is all subjective and should be taken as such, not as gospel.  I stitch to please myself.  Not to have someone validate me in some way.   So, start thinking about what you want to enter next year and expect me to bring the subject up again come next summer!

Take care till next time!

Julie  

Shower photos, Stitching and RIP Sophie

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Today is my day off and so far I've been pretty productive.  It's probably going to be all downhill from here though.  I seem to lose steam after about an hour, get distracted by the computer, a good book, a craft project or stitching and then nothing else gets done.  But I did get a lot done in that hour and a half that I was productive so I don't plan to feel too bad if nothing else constructive gets accomplished today.

Lots I could tell you about since my last post.  The shower/reception for Adam and Marcia went well I think. They seemed to be happy with it anyway.  It was a kitchen themed shower and their wedding colors are teal and tangerine with a lovebird theme.  

 Everyone was asked to bring a favorite recipe to put in the happy couple's recipe book.

There were a few hiccups along the way.  Dan forgot to take the sandwich buns out of the freezer the night before when he was asked to do it and I assumed it was done so the buns were frozen up until about an hour before the shower.  Luckily it was really hot out and they thawed pretty quickly in the car.  I won't bore you with every little detail.  I'll let the pictures do the talking for me.

Centerpieces

I borrowed the vintage canning jars from everyone I could think of.  In order to make sure that everyone got their own jars back, we wrote on the reverse side of the love bird tags whose jar it was and how many they donated.  Connie did all the hand writing as she has beautiful penmanship and she tied all the bows because I can't tie a decent bow to save my soul.

The jars on the table with the nuts and M & M's

The favors.  My friend and neighbor Margaret
 crocheted all 40 of the dish cloths

The favor basket

the gift table

gift table

Recipe for Love 

Cupcake table

another angle

tower up close 

Abby made the mints with my sister and mother's help

The guests of honor

Wearing their estrogen and
testosterone aprons that
Connie gave them. 

I want to thank Connie for co-hosting the event with me and for all the time and effort she put into it.  THANK YOU CONNIE!  I couldn't have done it without you.  Thanks also to Margaret, Nancy, Jan, Lynn, Carole and Connie for the use of their canning jars.

Now that the shower is over I need to get the craft room all clean and shiny.  Adam is coming back the end of this month for his Bachelor Party.  Part of that celebration will take place in my craft room.  The guys want to come back to the house after their other activities and do some old fashioned gaming and Adam has decided the craft room is where they will do it since the Christmas Village takes up the rest of the basement these days.  The craft room is currently a train wreck so I'll be spending some time down there today and see what I can do.  Dan and I worked for a couple of hours on Sunday and went through a bunch of boxes of old school plan lessons of Dans.  I decided if we were going to clean we were going to CLEAN.  He had some seriously old crap in those boxes.  Most of it hasn't been used in 15-20 years but he still kept saying, he'd be in trouble if he ever had to teach it again.  Me?  I'm thinking if he hasn't needed it in the last decade he probably isn't going to need it anytime in the next decade.  And it would be extremely outdated anyway so most likely not usable at that point.

Dan and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary on August 2nd.  It was very low key as we are trying to save as much money as possible for the wedding expenses.  If you all remember last year, the man gave me an onion keeper.  This is what I received this year.  Gotta love a man that knows exactly what a girl needs!

I've been doing some work on our Spring Retreat.  Got the theme nailed down, am working on various goody bag ideas and I've found a designer willing to design our project.  I can't say who it is until we announce registration but I think it's going to be an awesome collaboration.

Mary Ann, Connie and I are heading to St. Charles for market in 2 weeks.  From the list of exhibitors it seems like the vast majority will be needlepoint designers.  While I love to look at needlepoint, we don't carry it in our shop as there are plenty of other stores that do in our area. I'm sure we'll find some wonderful treasures to bring home but I wish more cross stitch designers were attending.  I've said it before and I'll say it again...everyone needs to attend, shops and designers alike or this wonderful resource will disappear forever.  So if you have an LNS near you or know a designer, please encourage them to attend.

Been stitching every chance I get.  Some I can share with you and some I can't.  I can't show you my ornament/pin pillow for our retreat exchange.  That will have to wait until after fall retreat.  And I have another project I'm not ready to share yet.  But I can show you my progress on Heritage Sampler by the Nebby Needle.   It won't be long till she's done.

 And I have put a bit of time into Midnight Watch too.

I'm feeling a bit manic about my stitching right now.  I have so much I want to work on and there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to do it all.   I need to remember to take a picture of my Cinnamon Christmas all framed up.  I'll share that next time as it is at the shop.

Dan, Connie and I took a little road trip this past weekend to an antique shop in a small town about 25 minutes from Omaha that also carries rug hooking supplies.  I needed some wool for a craft project I'm working on and couldn't find anything in town.  The shop was in an outbuilding on a farm.  It was so nice to be out in the country.  The barn cat came out to greet me and there were horses nearby.  I was in heaven.  The shop was nice too.  They were having first Saturday of the month open rug hooking.   Pretty interesting stuff but not something I would like to do.  Connie thought she might like to try it though.  Did you know they call their "orts" snippets?  They need much larger ort containers than we cross stitcher's do!  

My mom's dog of 14 years passed away last night.  Sophie didn't have much of a personality, mostly she just sat there and blinked, we always suspected she had brain damage.  She was much more accurate at predicting when there was going to be a bad storm than the weather guys.  And she had a stuffed rabbit that she nursed on every morning like clockwork. Mom has had to fix that nasty thing a million times over the last 14 years.  But mom adored her and is devastated at her loss.  Rest in Peace Sophie.  You will be missed.

And with that you are now pretty much caught up with the doings around here.  I need to get this posted, throw the sheets in the dryer and head downstairs.  I hope you all have a great Wednesday and take care till next time!

Julie

What I did Wednesday!

Good Morning!

I'm not sure I can say that I met my goal completely but...I did get some stitching done.  I ran into a bit of a snag though.  Tuesdays, So You Think You Can Dance is on.  A person (me) cannot just listen to them dance like you can a regular TV show.  And boy was  the dancing good last night.  Lots of talent this season!  But I digress.  I had to stitch madly during the judges comments and the commercials.  And then there was the whole dog issue last night.  Between Rags thinking she needed to be cuddled half the night (she's been sick) and Kallie walking all over me because she was stressed out from the fireworks...well it made for some challenging stitching.  So progress was made but not as much progress as I might have liked.

 
Now I have a different problem.  Maybe some of you have it too.  Now all I want to stitch on is Midnight Watch and the heck with Golden Ice and Heritage Sampler!!  But I need to get Golden Ice finished and I want to work on Heritage Sampler too!  So for those of you that do a rotation...do you have any tips or tricks to actually making yourself put the current project down to pick up what's next in the rotation?? Cuz I totally suck at it!

Today I am supposed to go out and get the paper products for the shower.  Plus I need to look for colored sugar in the correct colors.  I am trying really hard to get out there and get it done but I think I'd rather stay at home and stitch while doing the laundry.  Some company would be great but everyone I know is working.  Anyone wanna pop on over and go with me?  I'll buy you lunch!

Guess I should get myself pulled together and head out so I can get home and get the laundry started.

You all have a wonderful Wednesday and take care till next time! And if by chance any of you picked up the Take it out Tuesday Challenge, I would love to see what you got done!

Julie