September IHAS and TUSAL post

I apologize if the pictures this time look a bit odd, but I had to tak them with my phone camera as my regular camera is being used for work purposes. My boss has finally relented and is letting us set up an Ebay store to sell the craft books that are not moving in the store. So, I'm the one taking all the photos of the books in question to do a massive upload as the goal is to "open" the virtual store on Oct. 1.

To my shame *snickers* I found myself purchasing a couple of HAED patterns. I blame Demeter at Sense and Stitchability for Clara finding her way into my cart followed quickly by Rochelle. This is unusual for me because I normally don't go for the "cartoonesque" patterns at HAED, but these two were just lovely. Also for those that didn't know, there is now an Official HAED Stitchers Group out on Facebook as started by Michele herself. It's interesting and I joined as quickly as I could.

I didn't get as much stitching done this weekend as I wanted. I mean, hubby was away playing with his friends all weekend, leaving jsut me and the cats. Perfect time to start stitching right? Saturday, I started the commission piece, hoping to at least get the dress done, and I spent fifteen minutes putting stitches in before spending another fifteen tearing those same stitches out. So I worked a bit on the groom, settled the frustration down a bit, and then managed to restitch the sleeve and back. Finished all but three white stitches at the top of her sleeve *dances*. Also talked with the lady I'm doing this for. I told her I'd reached hour 60 on this, and that what I can do is throw the hours out, we agree on a fair price for it, and that's it, or I keep counting hours and present her with a final bill. She decided to agree on a price, and I have to confess that it's much more relaxing now that I don't have to track every minute of this.



Haven't done the confetti filled flowers yet which is in her hand and arched above them, but I'm getting there. Honest!

Officially, this is the only piece I worked on during the weekend, but the next two, I worked on at the doctor's office. I had to go in for my week 28 work, which was a diabetic test. I have no idea what the premise behind this is other than to get the baby as wired as possible on sugar so they're beating up on Mom for the rest of the day, but after drinking about half a can of soda syrup cut with sugar water (only way to describe the taste, I swear), I had to sit around for an hour until they were ready to tap a vein. So, knowing this in advanced, I took my Mill Hill kits with me as they went along very nicely in my stitching box.



Didn't get much done on the Haunted Mansion, but then I picked it up when I got tired of doing the Moonlit Kitties.



One of the kitties has finally put in an appearance, and it's slow going because every other stitch is a bead, so he's a bit like a checker board there.

Now my TUSAL jar. As you can see, a lot of whites and creams because of the dress. A bit of gray there is mostly from the groom, but the oranges and browns are from Kitties.



An idle question for those that add pictures to your journals (which is like everyone I know and follow): What do you use? Photobucket recently seems to have more bugs than a flophouse apartment, and I'm getting tired of it locking up on me all the time or just not working (which is why my pics are so large when compared to the others).

Now with Pictures!

*grins* Yes, I now have those pictures I promised a couple of days ago:


The commission piece. As you can see, Butt Bow has been achieved! Now it just needs the backstitching to be done to really make it stand out. More of the skirt is filled in too.


Next up is the Moonlit Kitties. More of the orange sky has been added as well as the little house. *grins* And typical me, somehwere in the top couple lines of that sky is an extra stitch.....


And after much difficulty and fighting with photobucket, the begining of "Haunted Mansion". This is the gabel over the front window.

Small Labor Day update

Well, I was going to upload pictures but Photobucket's being a pain with their matienance going on, so pictures will have to come later.

First off, I managed to get even more of the skirt done on the commission wedding piece, but best of all.... the butt bow is done! It needs backstitching but it's done! Now I can adjust the skirt shades in and around it to fill as needed. Woohoo!!! (Mainly because I can't take the time to tear everything out to redo the entire thing to locate the stitches I've lost/gained in the skirt.)

Next, I've worked a bit more on my Mill Hill kit "Moonlit Kitties" and true to form, I managed to pick up a stitch somewhere so that's going to be a bit of adjusting there. *shrugs* Ah well. It wouldn't be one of my pieces if I didn't have a stitching mistake somewhere in it. *laughs* I've also started another Mill Hill kit. This one I'm gonna have to be really careful with as it's called "Haunted Mansion" and it's a picture of a haunted house complete with Glow in the Dark thread. *grin* It looks really fun even if it's going to drive me nuts with the stitching.

Now a fun stitching story. I work at a little Mom'n'Pop craft store. A couple of months back, I had a customer come in to brouse our Oriental patterns and she commented that she had some cross stitch kits that had never gotten off the ground because she wasn't sure exactly how to start them and complete them. I told her at that time that if she ever wanted, come back in when I'm working and I'd give her a free cross stitch lesson. (One of the other employees apparently had been less than helpful with the advice of "You just make an X with the thread.") Well, she called today to see if I was in and if I had time to help her. I told her to bring her new kit in, and I'd explain what I did, and she could modify that to her tastes. So, she brought her kit in, and I gave her about ten minutes worth of advice as well as a quick demonstration on this kit I had purchased for just such a thing. She was very grateful and I told her to feel free to give me a call or stop in when I was working and I'll be happy to help her out at any time. She promised she would, if only for the backstitching.

So, I'm glad I got to introduce someone to cross-stitching basics, and I hope she has a great deal of fun with her new hobby.