Two finishes!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

This week I had two finishes: Autumn Band Sampler and Sleigh Bells Ring both by Little House Needleworks.

For Autumn Band Sampler, I left off the alphabet as I am not the biggest fan of the alphabet in cross-stitch and hubby definitely does not care for the alphabet. I also added another leaf to each of the trees and extended a few branches to take up the space where the letters Y and Z were supposed to be. I really loved the fall colors in this piece, and I am quite pleased with how it turned out :)

Click for what it was supposed to look like

I also finished Sleigh Bells Ring, a Christmas ornament by Little House Needleworks. The horse and sleigh are too cute :) This is going to be a Christmas present. I will have to finish it into an ornament, but at least I have one present almost done this year.

And last but not least, today is my one-year wedding anniversary! Hard to believe I have been married for one year already :) We will be going out to our favorite restaurant tonight to celebrate :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

July IHSW

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I spent a lot of time stitching, read a little, made vidalia onion jelly (tasted good out of the pot), and was a mosquito magnet at the dog park :(

For IHSW, I worked on Moyland Castle. I finished the left half-circle garden and started the top right triangle. The half-circle gardens are quite pretty with all the purples and greens. I can't wait to see how it looks when I finish all four of them. I better get stitching then :)

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to seeing everyone's IHSW progress!

Happy Dance!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Last week I finished Melody by Nora Corbett. Happy dance time :) She turned out really cute, and I loved her bright pinks and oranges. I did make a few changes. I made her eyelashes thicker and darker (two strands of DMC 3371 instead one strand of the light brown used for the backstitching), and I used orange beads in the orange petals by the big green leaves. The pattern called for the petite gold ones used in her wings. I liked the bigger, more blingy orange beads :)

Melody:

And some close-ups:

After I finished Melody, I was going to work on a Christmas ornament. Unfortunately, I could not find a big enough scrap of fabric in the color I wanted. So, I started working on Autumn Band Sampler by Little House Needleworks and placed an order to 123 Stitch for more fabric. I ordered 3 different colors, so it will be awhile before I run out again :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Japanese Garden Update

I hope everyone had a great weekend!

This past week I worked on Japanese Garden. I finished up the last tree and the last corner ornament. Yay! The corner ornaments were getting a little boring, but I finished them, and now it is time for the border and the cute bridges :)

Tree

Whole thing so far

This week I will be working on Melody, and I hope to finish her wings, head, and arms. We will see...I have been a little distracted with reading :)

Have a great week!

Eventful weekend

We had a busy, eventful weekend.

Saturday morning, hubby, Mandy, and I drove to Augusta, GA to visit my sister. My car thermometer topped out at 111F/44C on the way there. I believe this is the hottest weather I have ever been in. It was like an oven. Needless to say, we all stayed inside. Sunday, was my niece Harper's baptism, and then afterwards, we celebrated Olivia's (Harper's older sister) 2nd birthday. Olivia is such a cutie.

Harper:

 The birthday girl, Olivia:

After the party, hubby, my dad, and I went to a fish store in Augusta, and we noticed some dark clouds forming and heard a few rumbles of thunder. Whatever...just a thunderstorm even though the last forecast I saw was for 100+ temps and no chance of rain. On the way back to my sister's, my mom called and said there was a severe thunderstorm warning and a chance for hail (I am still skeptical that the weather will be bad). My parents leave right after we get back. We get our car packed up, and are almost ready to head out, when my brother-in-law says he hears hail. I run out to the car to throw one blanket over it, and the second blanket blows off. I run back into their garage, and just stand there while it hails for the next 10-15 minutes. The hail slowed down briefly, but then picked back up with even larger pieces, at least 1 inch in diameter. Ugh!! I cringed every time I heard the pinging of hail off the cars, and it was loud. My parents made it out just on time-they only had a few pieces of hail.

Finally, it stops, we take a bunch of pictures, examine the damage, and then head out in heavy rain. We drive for 15 miles on the interstate, and it starts hailing again (pea-sized this time). Fortunately, there was an exit, and we got off and took shelter at a gas station (along with several other cars). We leave about 20 minutes later, drive a bit more, and then there was one more bout of hail (this one wasn't so bad). Eventually, we made it back home safe and sound. Unfortunately, I was unable to tell if the hail actually dented my car. It was dark when we got home, and it is raining this morning.

Now for cross-stitch:

I finished July last week by Little House Needleworks. This is one of my favorite months so far because I loved the cute pink and blue flowers in it :)

I have also been working on Melody by Nora Corbett. I love the pinks and oranges in her dress. Here is my progress thus far:

I am stitching her on a light green-blue fabric. The picture does not show the fabric color very well.

I hope everyone has a great week, and enjoys the 4th of July!