I love color

I do.  I love color.  I find color is often what draws me to a sampler.  And with Ann Grant, that's certainly true.  To the extent that I couldn't tell you exactly what is in the sampler, only that it has amazing colors.  Here's where I am on Ann right now.

I was going to be brave and do the whole border, inner and outer, before tackling the inside.  But then I gave up.  Couldn't resist seeing what the inside looks like.

Eyelet letters go slowly, but they are pretty.

See the letter T?  It's hard to tell from the picture, but the fiber used for that letter (and the G too, I think) is a new favorite.  It's Gloriana Pecan, and has the most amazing shades in it.

I also managed to go to my LNS this past week with friends and pick up one piece of framing.  (More to come fairly soon from what I hear.)  Here's Hallow Eden.

Don't you love the frame?  I stitched it on 40ct River Willow with the called for fibers (except for one DMC color).

Busy week around here.  Let me just say that when I said the boy child could do the high school musical on top of SAT prep, preparing for the NYSSMA audition, the usual orchestra stuff, jazz, and of course school work (I'm probably forgetting something else) -- I must have had rocks in my head.  I'm having a nervous breakdown just worrying about him getting everything done.  Argh!  This week and next week are crazy busy, but then the musical will be done and that will help a bit.

Mia on the other hand.  Ah, the life of a cat.  One of her new favorite things to do is to pull the quilt down from the back of my stitching chair and settle in.

How can one resist that face?  She's such a sweetie!  But she's a definite "attack cat" when it comes to strangers.  lol!  She has a reputation, both with strangers to the house, and at the vet's.  Knowing that she's been that way since she was tiny reassures me that no matter what I did bringing her up, she would have been an attack cat.  But she's a sweetie under all that fierceness.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I so enjoy being a part of the blogging community!  Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Snowing?!

Ack!  It's snowing outside!  NOOOOOO!!!!!  They haven't called for much if any accumulation.  I hope they're right!  It's snowing pretty hard right now!

Anyway, thank you for all the birthday wishes for the boy child.  I think he had a good birthday, despite having to do the first session of an online SAT prep course.  Poor kid.

I have a finish to show off.  Here it is.

Jenny Bean Creation Sampler by Shakespeare's Peddler

40ct Vintage Pear (or what was called for)

fibers as called for (GAST)

It was a fun stitch.

And here is my new start.  I'm excited, but I'm also thinking -- oh no, it's really big!  lol!

It's Ann Grant by Shakespeare's Peddler.

Sorry for the dull pictures -- as I said, it's snowing outside!  Anyway, I'm using the called for fabric (Sand Dune) except in 40ct.  And I'm using the called for fibers as well (a mix of AVAS, NPI, Belle Soie, Gloriana, and Threadgatherer).

Here's a picture of the boy child contemplating his birthday cake.  It's actually a cookie cake -- he's had cookie cake for his birthday for years now.

And here is the furry friend, all comfy and cozy.

That object under her head is one of her new "toys."  See if you can figure out what it is.  :D  Mia claimed it for her own.  

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I always enjoy visiting with you!  The boy child says thank you for all the birthday wishes too!  Have a great week!

Quick addendum:  Merumo is having a raffle of beautiful miniature quilts on her blog to help the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  Please go to her blog and help out -- you'll get a chance to win a gorgeous quilt in the process!

A boy and his cat

The boy child got a new friend this year.

She started out very very tiny, but the boy child loved her anyway.

The two friends became very close as the days went on.

And the little tiny one grew

and grew

and grew.

The two friends did lots of sleeping together.

But they did other things together too.

like eating,

opening Christmas stockings,

play fighting,

And just hanging.

I still think their favorite activity is sleeping though.

Happy 17th birthday,  Mr. boy child.  I love you.

Let there be light

Actually, I'd love some sunshine.  :D   Anyway, with flooding issues (twice in one week) and other things going on, I only got a bit done on my JB Creation Sampler.

It's a fun piece to stitch though.

I'll be stitching on something secret for a while so progress will be slow.

The girl child came home yesterday for Spring Break.  Not sure how long she'll be here, but we'll take what we can.  Here's a poster advertising one of the shows she was in.  She's the poster girl!

Pretty cool, huh?

And speaking of performing, remember when the boy child was in Battle of the Bands?  Well, he was, with his jazz band -- a little group that the kids formed, not connected to the school's Jazz Ensemble.  Here are some clips of them performing.  They're not bad!

I hope they work.  Don't know how to make them bigger.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I always enjoy our visits.  It's almost spring!  Yay!

Triple whammy

Please excuse the lateness of this post.  You see, we've been busy around here.  Our basement is flooding -- second time in 4 years.  And it's supposed to rain again Thursday.  (Please let the forecasters be wrong.)  We don't have a sump pump so we have to go down to drain things ourselves periodically with other kinds of pumps.  Ugh.  And broomwork.  You get the idea.

That's the first whammy.  Second whammy: the furnace stopped working again.  Yup.  In less than a month, I believe.  Same day as the flooding.  Luckily it was an easy fix, and it was covered by our contract.  Whew.

Third whammy:  our phone stopped working.  Also today.  Apparently there's a "major outage" in our area.  Uh huh.  No comment.  (We'll discuss that one another time.)

Ok, enough of the whammies.  Let's get to the good stuff, right?   What am I working on, you ask?  Well, I needed a quick fix.  So I stitched this one up.  Still need to finish it, but I will some day.

In the Sweet by La D Da

supplies from kit

I stitched it in memory of Lisa Roswell.  I didn't know her well and never had the chance to meet her in person.  But she was a friend and a sweet, wonderful person.  My prayers go out to her family.  She will be sorely missed.

Next up is this one.

Jenny Bean Creation Sampler by Shakespeare's Peddler

40ct Vintage Pear

GAST fibers as called for

Can you tell I got my market stash this week?  I'm enjoying this one, although I'm also yearning to stitch Susan Rambo and Ann Grant.

I won a lovely prize from Sylvia of Running with Needles and Scissors.   The lucky woman got to go to that huge French festival in Paris that everyone went to recently.  Aiguille en Fetes?  Is that right?  (Too tired to go look.  Sorry.)  She brought back a magazine to give away.  Well, I won!  And guess what?  Sylvia sent a lot more than just a magazine.  Look at this!

You can see the magazine peeking out there, but you can also see a bunch of wrapped goodies and some linen!

Look at the yummy goodies!  Yum!  Talk about a chocoholic's dream come true!  And then there was the mag and linen.

Look at that!  A lovely magazine!  And the linen -- Gander linen that I've been dying to try!  Two pieces in two different colors!!!   In a perfect count for me.  And one of them is the perfect color for a project I want to stitch too!   Sylvia, thank you soooooo much!!!  You have made me very happy!  And you also made two boys in the house very happy.  lol!  They swooped in quickly after the picture session to try out the chocolates.  I'm making us go slowly with the chocolates, but they're still going fast!

Finally, the TUSAL.  Here's my jar as of today for the March TUSAL.

Pretty, huh?  That's all due to Frances Eden, I think.  :D  A bit of other things too.

Here's Mia relaxing in the father type's t-shirt drawer.

I tell you, she has the life.  lol!  

Sorry if this post has been all over the place.  I'm a bit punchy and exhausted from the basement mess.  I hope you all are having a better week than I am so far.  Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.