Exchange Received!

I received a wonderful little package in the mail yesterday. Here is my needlebook from Terry for the Make A Wish Exchange. Isn't it wonderful! I love the colors. Now I have my own needlebook.



Thanks Terry for your beautiful work!

New Additions

We have lots of new additions up on the website. Here are just a few of them.

The new Gilded Dragonfly Scissor Purse from Just Nan is on its way here. This design is only available as a kit and it is a very limited edition. We only have a few that weren't pre-ordered so if this is one of those designs that you just have to have, you definitely want to order now because we won't get any more of these.
There are some new designs from Rosewood Manor. And a Garden Grew is a beautiful sampler with a large and varied collection of flower and animal motifs. The chart is a full 22 pages long and is in nice large print.
We also have a few new designs from Shepherd's Bush including Scatter Freedom and Scatter Sunshine. These are absolutely adorable with their cute little buttons from Just Another Button Company. Great Summer projects.

Be sure to stop by and pick up your Summer stitching goodies.

Cherry Blossoms

I was pulling together my materials for my new travel project, Cherry Blossoms Fob, and I decided to go back and check my pics of my Cherry Blossoms Biscornu. Strangely, I couldn't find the pics of the finished biscornu anywhere. I could have sworn I had some pictures up here but I can't find those either. So, new pics of my finished biscornu with the materials for the matching fob. The Cherry Blossom biscornu was a kit that included everything. The Cherry Blossoms Fob is a Teenie Tweenie chart that comes with the little pearls. The fob chart calls for Weeks Dye Works overdyed floss but the biscornu used ThreadWorX floss. I have a good length of the ThreadWorX floss left from the biscornu kit and I am hoping to substitute that for the WDW. Hopefully there will be enough and then the two pieces should match perfectly.






Of course, I took so long to get my materials together for this that I won't be able to start on the new biscornu kit right away. The new biscornu kits have arrived and I am looking forward to stitching the Baby Shamrocks Biscornu. And then, of course, I need to stitch the Baby Shamrocks Fob. The Cat Lover's biscornu is adorable too. I have a few cat lovers on my Christmas list who just might appreciate that cute little design.

Sandcastle birthday cake

So - I finally finished the sandcastle cake. There was a good deal of seaweed but no black bubbly things (I think those are egg cases for some sort of sand shark). The kids had a great time at the party and when it came time to have cake and ice cream - they ate all of the cake decorations. They weren't too interested in the actual cake. They were thrilled that they actually got to eat "rocks".

Lessons learned from this include:

Fruit roll ups dissolve into something that looks like swamp tar when the humidity level is high.
You CAN eat those realistic looking candy rocks.
Gummy fish stick together nicely when the humidity level is high.
Kids will even pass up chocolate if they think they can eat rocks instead.

Sandcastles

My young son will be having his birthday party this week. He has requested a sandcastle cake. I already had the sandcastle bundt pan and thought I could just make a sand-colored cake - Spice Cake - and it really wouldn't need too much decoration. The cake pan has quite a bit of detail. Of course, my son had a different idea - he feels that all cakes need to be decorated. So - I pictured a nice sandcastle like Mirabilia's Seaside Kingdom - nice bright sand, some sparkly beads, a few shiny shells, some ribbon flags. Yeah. That's what I thought. My son looked at it and said, "Yeah Mom, there isn't nearly enough seaweed and those bubbly black things that we find on the beach." So I drew some seaweed on the picture. Still not enough. Drew some more seaweed. Still not enough. Finally I got enough seaweed and "black bubbly things" on it. Now it looks a whole lot more like a mud pie. I'm thinking I might just make a huge batch of brownies and mash them up. This should be interesting.

Helen (Stitchingranny) commented on my last post about her method for taking projects with her when she's out and about. I'm going to take some of her suggestions and keep a project with me. I'll take something small - the Cherry Blossoms Fob that goes with the Cherry Blossoms biscornu. Its nice and small so I won't cry too much if I do get something on my fabric and have to start over. I have some of the over-dyed ThreadWorX floss from the biscornu kit left so I can make the two pieces match well. Thanks for telling me how you travel with your stitching, Helen.

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads.

My Grand Plan

So here's my Grand Plan for Summer stitching. I need to get two name trees done for Christmas ornaments. I also want to finish 3 Twinklings WhimZi ornaments to keep on hand for those "surprise" gifts (you know, when you hadn't planned on shopping for a person and they arrive with a gift for you). I also need to do one of the Sweetheart Tree nutcracker ornaments as a Christmas gift (can't say here which one). I have an exchange due at the end of the Summer and I will probably sign up for one other exchange during the summer. I think that's all for obligation stitching. However, I do have a huge amount of obligation knitting.

Then - the items I would like to stitch just because I want to stitch them. First, the new Gilded Dragonfly Scissor Purse from Just Nan. Also, I really like Slicker Parade from Xs and Ohs. And I want to do one of the Mini Mandalas from Chatelaine. At some point, I would really like to try my hand at one of the HAED designs. AND, on top of all of that, an email from Mirabilia this week hinted that the company re-organization may be completed soon so the Mirabilia charts will be available again.

Baseball ends next week so I think I'll start off with stitching the Sweetheart Tree nutcracker. This week I'll get everything kitted up. How do people bring stitching with them when they're out and about? I can bring knitting and I have passed time waiting for practices or appointments knitting, but I don't think I could stitch. First, I'd be worried about getting something on my fabric. Second, how do you keep track of your threads and chart? How many places do you go that you can lay out your chart and pick through your threads to get any stitching done? I'm really curious how people achieve this. I would love to figure this out. Any thoughts?

Nora Corbett Designs

A new series of designs from Nora Corbett - Letters from Nora. The first three designs in this series have been release and they're really cute. These designs are all stitched on 32 ct Waterlily Linen with Crescent Colours threads. You can get more information on the materials for these designs on our Nora Corbett page.

Happy Summer

It's been a long time without a post!

In the last 6 weeks, I think I have been to a dozen school concerts, plays and award ceremonies and I feel like I have attended 100 little league practices, scrimmages and games. Needless to say, there has been little stitching going on. I've really only had time to finish a couple of exchange pieces, do lots of planning for Summer stitching and kit up my Summer projects. I can't wait to stitch.


I did finish off a biscornu for Kate for a Make a Wish Exchange. I based the piece on a design from Elizabeth's Designs. My pictures were pretty poor, but you can see pics on Kate's Blog.



There have also been some really great new releases in the past few weeks. The Dragonfly Scissor Purse from Just Nan was really very popular and sold out months ago. Nan has designed a new scissor purse - a limited edition kit. This piece includes beads, pearls, swarovski crystals, and is trimmed with metallic gold cord. The really neat feature on the scissor case is a thread called Gilt Sylke Twist. This is a thread with a silk base that is wrapped with the thinnest gold threads. Imagine the shimmer and shine of this thread!

The Gilded Dragonfly Scissor Purse and fob are stitched entirely with Au Ver a Soie silk - no conversions are given. We hope to have the silk packs available by the end of the month. The silk packs will be approximately $69.00 (they include the gold twisted cord). We will only have as many silk packs as we have Dragonfly Scissor Purse kits. The estimated release date for the Dragonfly Scissor Purse is June 25.

The new shipment of Barnabee's Bride kits is expected sometime next week. We will only have a couple more that have not been reserved so be sure to order soon if your heart is set on having one of these beautiful boxes.

For those of you who haven't yet started When Barnabee Met Bella, we will also be getting the silk packs for this design. The colors of the silk really pop on the lilac and blue backgrounds.

We also have a couple of new Christmas Eve Courier designs from Nora Corbett - Cupid and Vixen. These are the fifth and sixth reindeer in the series. Two reindeer left - unless she does Rudolph too!

Off I go to put my Summer stitching goals in writing! Can't wait to start!!!