Quick update on Mini Owl Cross Stitch

I was able to work a bit more on the Mini Owl Cross Stitch from HAED.  It helped me not get any more patterns during Cyber Monday. 

Here is what I have done.

That is 1150 stitches on it.  I think it's coming along nicely.  I recently redid my storage containers and now have the mini owl in one side of my double storage container.  There is another cross stitch pattern and floss on the other side.

It's working out pretty good.  I'll update more later.  Thanks for reading and for all your encouragement. 

Wow! November is almost over!

News Alert - I survived Thanksgiving!   Perhaps I should say that I survived the leftovers also.  So what did I have?

I made:

Slow Cooker turkey breast with gravy
sweet potatoes
Delicata Squash
fresh cranberry sauce which I took some of and mixed in with cream cheese for a cracker spread
Lil' Smokies

So here are the pictures.  Nothing super great looking but the taste....yummmm.

3 lb. turkey breast

 

Gravy that was cooked with the turkey breast and then strained.  It's cooking down further on the stove.

Delicata Squash with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves

What do you do with leftovers?  Make some refried rice.   Peas, rice, Lil' Smokies, spices.

Of course with such a full stomach, I sat down and picked up my yarn to work on my crocheting.  I managed to finish up the first skein of variegated green, or green tones as it was called, and am now working on the solid green.

I think I posted this picture before but it is the order of the colors I want.

You will notice that the skeins are different sizes.  The variegated colored ones will give me about 5" when worked up.  I will crochet the solids to about that size also.  I get bored with crocheting so then I put it aside and pick up the cross stitch again.

Here is my current progress picture for the Mini Owl.  This is a little over 800 stitches.

Of course I also had to pick up another cross stitch since it is a Christmas one.  It's on the floor stand which, to tell the truth, I took the picture of from across the room.  Yes, I was being lazy.  I think you can still see a little bit of the picture which is a snowman on a sled.

It's back to work tomorrow so I'm going to quit here and get back to crafting.  :)

Everybody be safe and have a great day.

TOOT TOOT -- TOOT TOOT

Yep that's right.  I get to toot my own horn.  Way back I mentioned that I was testing another pattern for The Quilt Pattern Magazine.  They just notified me that it would be in the December issue so I can now show it to you.  It's called "Anybody Home?" and it is by Sharon Kirkpatrick.  It was so much fun to do.  

Isn't it cute?  What's not to love!

There isn't much else to report right now.  The holidays are coming and I'm working on a couple of projects that I can't show yet but when I can I will.

I've also decided to crochet a lap robe for me for home.  This will be an undertaking because I'm terrible at crocheting.  This is nothing but the basic and no pattern.  No pattern basically because I can't follow any patterns.  I am going to do this for me so it will just be single crochet.  I hate tying off so it will be do one skein in one color and then when I have to, I'll tie in the new skein.  LOL.  I am starting with a variegated green and when that ends I will pull out the other skein which is the red/white/green variegated one that I posted before.  It will be sort of Christmasy   Perhaps that will keep me going on it.  

I'll post pictures of it when it gets large enough to get a good feel for it.  Now it's back to some more cross stitch and some crocheting.  Gasp!  Did I really type that I'm going back to crochet?  LOL.

Everybody have a great day and a safe holiday.

Hugs to all!

Progress and goodies in the mail

What a hectic day.  It has been so busy that I forgot to post some things.  This is a quick post to catch up.

I had some goodies come to me this week.  For one thing, a new quilting ruler/template came.  The simple 7/8th ruler.  I saw a demonstration of this on YouTube and it convinced me to get it.

I also ordered a mini cone of the black/brown DMC floss since I had decided to use three strands in my Mini Owl HAED. 

I also discovered that I use that color in one of my applique blocks.  This will be a good addition to my DMC cone thread.

I am also working on my Gnome and Critters Christmas.  It doesn't look like much yet since it is the background more.  As you can see by the picture, I will soon be getting into some colors.  Can's wait for that.  I have some days off coming up so hopefully I can make progress on it and the other projects.

I need to get to bed so everybody have a great night/day.

Another use for fabric boxes

I just had to take a break from work today and share with you another use for fabric boxes.  You have seen my boxes that I made and today I found, thanks to the Dean of the Graduate School at NIU, another use for them.  I had been showing the larger size box and had left it on the persons desk.  The Dean came out of his office, saw it, and said "What's this?  A hat?"  Of course, being the kind of guy that he is, he had to put it on.  Sigh.

At least it has a use now.  LOL.  Yes I love where I work.  You never know what will happen.  :)

That's it.  Just wanted to share another use for the fabric boxes.

Enjoy and have a great day.

Sunday Squirreling

It's Sunday and, as usual, I'm squirreling.  I start one thing and change to something else.  My solution?  Work on more than one project at a time.

I don't have cross stitch progress pictures to share with you because they are boring.  Even *I* think they are boring.  I had to restart the Gnome Critter Christmas AND the Mini Owl.  So those are the two I am working on.  My goal is to do 300 stitches on the weekends in any combo of those two projects.  During the week?  Not sure what is a realistic number of stitches between work, gaming, quilting and cooking.  I'll report back on that.

On the quilting front I *do* have a picture to show you.  In the clean up the sewing area process, I discovered some blocks that I had done a LONG time ago but never put together.  I should have thrown them out.  I did such a terrible job on them.  I still had 9 of them so I put them together today.  Then I unstitched them and put them back together again since I messed up on the placement that I liked.  Pretty bad when you take pictures of the layout you like and you STILL mess it up.  Welcome to my life.  LOL.

Anyway, here it is.  I have a lot of trimming or something to do in order to straighten it out a bit more but it will eventually become a wall hanging.

I hope everybody has a great Sunday.  I'll chat later.  I still need to get my cross stitching done for today.  :)