A finish, prizes, and a cat no longer a kitten.....

Lots to show you today.  First off, Susan Rambo is finished!

Susan Rambo

from SANQ, Spring 2011

40ct Meadow Rue linen

called for NPI with substitutions

Ok, so I'm showing you too many pictures.  But isn't she pretty?

I'm loving her!  

I ordered a cat bead from Melanie of Moonraker Lampwerks and asked Melanie if she could make it look like Mia.  She makes such cute beads -- she even has cute full body doggie beads.  So I asked her if she could make a full body cat bead of Mia in addition to the cat face bead.  Melanie told me that the tail of a cat bead is too weak for any rough treatment, which is why she doesn't make the full body cat beads anymore.  But I promised I would take good care of it.  Well, Melanie did a great job!  I have two cute Mia beads now!

Melanie caught all the little black spots all over Mia perfectly!

The Mia cathead bead fob is now on my scissors.  Love it!  And the full body bead is proudly on display.  Thanks again, Melanie!

I also won a few prizes recently.  The nice ladies from In the Company of Friends had a giveaway on their blog and I was one of the winners.  I won this wonderful little booklet.

Thank you so much, Julie and Becky!  I love it!

Cecelia of the Threadgatherer (who makes those yummy silks and ribbons and such) had a giveaway for some chocolate/brown Silk 'n Colors fibers and some of her German Chocolate Bath Salts.  And I won!

Aren't the silks yummy looking?  And the bath salts smell good enough to eat!  Thank you so much, Cecelia!

And I won a wonderful giveaway from Deborah of Cranberry Samplings!   Just look at what I won!

I so enjoyed opening all the packages!

This is the main attraction.

How gorgeous is that!  And inside is

Such beautiful lining in the box!  And look at all the sewing goodies Deborah gave me too!  Plus this

Look at the gorgeous pin pillow!  You can see some of the beautiful buttons that Deborah included too!

Thank you so much for my lovely prize, Deborah!  I just love it!  

Last but not least, guess who turned one year old yesterday?  Yup, our little Mia is no longer a kitten.  Here is a pic of our Mia when we first got her.

She was so tiny, she could fit into a kleenex box!  And now look at her.

Definitely larger than a kleenex box!  lol!  I can't believe she's a year old!  I have to stop calling her baby cat.  

Mia definitely has a thing about the girl child.  She doesn't know what to think of her.  She will hiss at her, even scratch her or growl at her.  But she will also settle down and sleep on her.  Very puzzling.  I have the feeling she vaguely remembers the girl child from when she was tiny, so is confused about who this person is.  Poor girl child.  Poor Mia.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope everyone has a great week!  Oh, and congrats to Rafael Nadal for equalling my idol Bjorn Borg's record of 6 French Open titles yesterday.  Congrats also to Li Na (Li is her last name, you sports broadcasters, you!) for being the first Chinese woman to win a grand slam title.  Wimbledon is looking to be a good one this year!  

Happy birthday, Mia!

Lots of pictures to bore you with.....

First off, I got back to Susan Rambo, even with secret stitching going on.  I'm pleased -- I really want to finish her up.

Susan Rambo Sampler

40ct Meadow Rue

called for NPI with substitutions

She's soooooo pretty!

I love how she's coming out.

Next, my TUSAL report.  The new moon is June 1, so I'm doing it now.

Like my bunny pincushion?  I'll have to show you my pincushion collection sometime.  This one is by Lori Ann Corelis.  I love her work!  The antique strawberry hanging from it is from Kathy Barrick.  Isn't it cool?

You can see our rhododendrons blooming too!

Remember last week when we helped the girl child move her stuff around at school?  Here are some pics she took of our wanderings in town after the move.

At the Indian restaurant.

Yum!

Sated.

Walking around town.  (I'm hiding behind the father type.)

Doing some shopping.

Saying goodbye.

Pretty good, huh?  Took the girl child a while to send me the pics, so they're a week late.

I don't know if you can tell from the pics, but the boy child got an extreme hair cut.  Here he is in all his shorn glory.

(He wasn't cooperating.)

Here are a couple he took of himself.  Works much better.  (He doesn't like having his pic taken. (Like mother, like son.))

Never thought I'd say this, but I miss his long hair.  :D   At least his senior pictures have the long hair in them.  (Why do they take senior pics at the end of junior year?  Is it like that at all high schools?)

I think I've remembered everything.   Told you I would bore you with pictures.  :D   Sorry!

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day.  Don't forget to remember and honor those who have served and are serving our country.

Mia says to take a nap.

fun, fun, fun!

First off, here is Susan.  She's coming along slowly but surely.

This pic was taken with a flash and the rest were taken with just my ott lite.  (It's rainy today.)

She's pretty, isn't she?

I love that duck in the middle!

So is that the fun, you ask?  Well, Susan is fun to stitch, but no.  That's not what I was referring to in the title.  And you will want to throttle me, cause I'm going to tell you about the fun, but I don't have pictures of the fun -- except for a few.

This weekend was a two day class at my LNS with Jeannette Douglas.  It was a fun two days too!  Jeannette taught us a new piece called the Island of Hope Sampler based on her research of Ellis Island.  She requested that we not show too much of the piece since she's hoping to teach it at another location next year.

But I figured I would show you a small part of my sampler to give you a tease.

I think the lovely star quilt motif is one of my favorite parts of this design.

Jeannette is such a lovely person, very fun, and a wonderful teacher too.  We got to work our way down the sampler, doing a motif here and a motif there and learning new stitches and techniques along the way.  It was great to be able to stitch on the sampler as we went along.  Jeannette also showed us a slide show about herself and her family, her designs, and of various places where she has taught.  At the end was a lovely slideshow of sampler collections and stitching tool collections she has visited.

Of course we also got to shop.  lol!  I picked up a few things, of course.  I so want to stitch this piece of Jeannette's.

As is so often the case, the picture doesn't do it justice at all.  For one thing, it's not stitched on white linen.  There are also smalls to go with the piece.

Jeannette showed me how easy it is to do the finishing on the box top and the smalls.  She says she is another one of those who would rather be stitching than finishing, so she likes easy finishing.  Which is good!

And there was a model of this piece that one of our class mates had stitched and which was framed.

Once again, the picture doesn't do it any justice at all.  IRL, it's spectacular!  Beautiful colors (red, ladies!), wonderful stitch design.  It's so neat!  So of course I had to get it as well.

I'm so glad I took this class.  Jeannette is a wonderful teacher and so much fun to learn from!

Finally, I won a prize from Catherine of Bramblewood Stitches.  She and her family had gone to Williamsburg, and while there, she picked up a cute bag to give away.  But she gave me much more than just the bag!

It had goodies in the bag as well!

She gave me some charts -- and she really picked well, she knows my tastes!  Also some chocolate (yum!), some stationery, a lovely piece of linen, and some fibers that look very very Williamsburg in color!  Thank you so much, Catherine!  I feel so spoiled!

I forgot to mention last week that the boy child's NYSSMA score wasn't that great.  He got a 95, an A.  Not good enough for All State.  But that's ok.  The boy child doesn't seem to mind.  He's just happy to be done with NYSSMA auditions for good.  :D

I will close with a picture of the two friends in a position that the boy child seems to enjoy.  I think Mia enjoys it much less.  lol!

Poor Mia!

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi!  I enjoy our visits.  Have a great week!

Happy day after Mother's Day!

Hope everyone had a good Mother's Day!  I did.  :D

But first off, let me show you my progress on Susan Rambo.

She's so pretty!  Although I do think the squirrels look a bit hunchbacked.

And like they have weird, pointy helmets on.

I used 931a for the color for the squirrels instead of my substitute for 603 (931), since I thought it looked more squirrel-like.  (It looks a bit more purple IRL.)  I've just about come to the conclusion that I may do the same from now on -- just use 931a for all the places where it calls for 603.  I've also discovered to my consternation that the yellow-brown used in the wreath around the parent's names to me should be much greener in color.  I get the sinking feeling that the piece shown in the SANQ mag must be the original and not the model?  Dunno.  Anyway, that same color was used in the grass under the squirrel.  I subbed  the lighter green from the border instead.  I wish I'd realized this before I stitched that wreath. Hate that yellow-brown color on the wreath.  But I'm way too lazy to frog it.

As for Mother's Day, it was a gorgeous day here so we took advantage and went wandering around our favorite antiquing town, Cold Spring, NY.  (Not Cold Spring Harbor.)  The boy child should have been studying for his music theory AP exam, but what the heck.  I think he was about as ready as he was going to be.  We had fun wandering around and looking at the antiques and the people.  Sat by the riverside for a while too, but it was a bit too windy and chilly to stay long by the waterside.  We also went to Barnes and Noble to check out the written word, so that was nice.

Guess what the father type got me for Mother's Day?  (How did he know what I wanted?  :D)

You should be hearing squeals of delight about now.  Yes, my very own, antique toy Singer sewing machine!  I love it!  It's in great shape too!  Came with the original box and clamp.  Even had a little pack of needles and a little key.

Mia has been very curious about it, as you can see.  I think the main attraction for her, though, was the wrapping material the clamp was wrapped in.  She thought it was the greatest toy.  lol!

I got to talk to the girl child by video chat for Mother's Day as well.  She managed to make me cry with her little Mother's Day post that she sent me.  She's busy writing final papers for college and worrying about possible summer jobs/internships so no time for her to come home.  But at least we got to talk.

Can I just put in a slight off-topic here and say wow?   Novak Djokovic is unbeaten so far this year in tennis.  He's managed to beat Nadal in their last three meetings (all finals), their last one being on clay, Nadal's surface of choice.  Wow.  I'm impressed!  He's 32 and 0 so far in 2011.  The French Open should be interesting this year!

Sorry about that.  Now for something more on topic.

Here's the boy child torturing Mia by picking her up in a bag.  She'd been doing her usual thing of enjoying hanging out inside the bag.  Don't think she was pleased to be up in the air.

Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  It's a pleasure to read your comments and to talk with you all.  Hope you have a great week.