Welcome to the Grow Your Blog party!

Greetings and Salutations! I'd like to welcome all of my visitors to my little corner of the internet. My name is Tazzy aka Ladynero and I am a cross stitcher, a novice crocheter, and a beginning belly dancer. This little blog, while focusing more on my stitchery and crochetting, also occasionally features my belly dancing experiences. There is going to be a lot of pictures in this (sorry, I enjoy showing off a bit) but I hope you enjoy your little stop in my corner.

As I have irregularly participated in the WIPockalypse in the past two years, let me snag a challenge from the WIPockalypse creator, Measi: "This month’s topic is a proper one for the beginning of any adventure: Introduce yourself, your projects, and any goals you have for the year."

My name is Tazzy as I said. I was born and raised in the Midwest United States. I'm happily married with one daughter and two cats (who enjoy seeing what Momma's stitching as well as playing chase the string!). I'm a beginning belly dancer, and hopefully things will work out between home life and my work where I'll be able to get back to shimmying and shaking. I work at a little mom'n'pop craft store that specializes in a little bit of everything and where I get a majority of my needlework supplies and crochetting things. I'd like to get all of my current projects finished this year and distributed to their recipients before starting anything else new. I am an irregular blogger, but I try to update once a month (emphasis on try). I'm not one to talk about what happens to me personally, mainly because I started this blog for my needlework and belly dancing to share with everyone else, but I enjoy reading the various comments left on my posts.



This picture is a couple of years old (I was actually in my first trimester of pregnancy when this was taken. It was my last performance. For now). It was for Memorial Day when the troupe went to perform at the local Veteran's Center. We had one older gentleman in a wheel chair that kept moving closer and closer for our performance. Claimed he couldn't hear the music. I doubt any of us believed that excuse but we didn't call him on it.

As to why I'm not getting more crafty projects done or doing belly dancing much anymore, well, here's my excuse:



Meet my daughter, Genevieve. She's 13 months old, active as all get out, and only gives me a few hours at night to get anything done, but there are times when I'm just worn out after a day of playing and chasing her around, that I can't summon the energy to pull out a needle and thread.However! I have managed to get some things started and worked on. I won't go through and show you everything that I have started because that will take a lot of pictures. Yeah, I'm a bit of a serial starter, but a few of my projects only have a few stitches in them (Persephone, a few HAEDs, and a few things that are aimed for the UFO piles for now).



First up is a blanket I'm crochetting for Genevieve. Been working on it a while, but it's a nice relaxing project that I don't have to think too much about in the evening. It's a modified ripple blanket to shrink it down from full sized to a lap blanket. When it is done, it will also be the perfect size for her crib.



This is HAED QS CLara by Hannah Lynn. I'm doing all the black first and then going to go back and color it. A friend of mine saw this when I was showing it off at work, and she fell in love with it. So I promised her I'd stitch it for her if she followed her dreams (She had a habit of letting a few things hold her back). I haven't had a chance to work on it lately as it's 1x1 on 28 ct Monaco and that gets a bit hard on the eyes in the evening, but it will be worked on.



The start of Joan Elliott's Fairy Godmother on Silent Night by Under the Sea Fabrics (wonderful lady who does hand dyed fabrics. Highly recommend her!). This is going to be hung up in Genevieve's room when it's done and I get it framed. I'm also debating on changing the hair color of the Godmother from blond to black, just to be different. Ah well, I'll get to that when I get to that.



This is the start of a sailing ship sampler from Cross Stitch and Country Crafts issue Jan/Feb 1989 which tells how old this is. The water's green and I offered to change the colors for my dad, whom is the giftee of this one, but he liked the water as green. So, green water it is.



This is Barbara Baatz's December Fairy on 14 ct Aida, dyed by Color Cascade Fabrics based out of Australia (another great lady who does gorgeous work). The fabric is an odd size, but there is some beautiful marbling on one corner that I'm doing my best to get involved in this. I'm making this into a baby announcement for Genevieve with her name at the top and her birth information at the bottom. The border that is going to be done around the fairy will be repeated at both top and bottom but turned at 90 degrees to be more horizontal than vertical. The fairy herself is almost completely done. There's just some back stitching in the garlands that need to be done and then I can focus seriously on the borders.



This one is actually for me. It's Joan Elliott's Goddess of the Sea from the Design Craft kit. I do wish they had included 28 ct fabric instead of 14 ct, but if wishes were horses then beggars would ride. Ah well. If I decide I don't like this as it is, I may just get the pattern from Joan's website and redo it. But we'll see.



Here is my jar of ORTs for the TUSAL that Daffycat runs for the fun of it. This is a bit over a years worth of thread ends and leftover threads from kits. I never know what to do with the extra threads from kits, and I can't exactly add them to the skeins of DMC I have due to color differences at times, so I throw them in here to be used later or to be tossed out for the birds to use in their nests come springtime. I think I'm going to wait until this is full before dumping it out this time. Last time, there wasn't really that much to make a difference.



I had a lot of fun making this with my dad. It's my stitching chest where I keep almost all of my cross stitching WIPs. I designed it, and together, over the course of a couple of weekends, we put it together. My mom picked out the handles and the pull knobs, surprising me when they brought it over. I use it constantly and am starting to get a few drawers that still stick to loosen up due to the constant use *laughs*. Now I just need to get small boxes made to hold my bead containers and my kreniks.

I'm giving away two prizes this time. You don't have to be a follower of my blog to win, just have to be comfortable giving your address to a complete stranger *laughs*. First, I don't have a picture of (sorry, my phone's battery died), but it is "Jane Pattison 1806" by Shakespeare's Peddler. It's a sampler reproduction, and while it looks nice, I'm not one for this sort of sampler. So, I thought I'd pass it along to whomever is interested in winning it. The second winner, by random drawing, will receive a copy of Mirabilla's Persephone. My boss knows I enjoy Mirabillas so she went to a needle show and bought a copy of Persephone for me. Only I had already ordered it with fabric from another supplier, thus giving me two. So, one will go to a lucky person.



How to enter: Just leave your name and address in the comments and if you want to be in the drawing for either of the patterns or both. I'll draw a random person on February 15th to give everyone plenty of time to enter as I know there are a lot of blogs in this little party, and I don't want to exclude anyone.

And finally, I'll leave everyone with a picture of Genevieve in her CEO position, sitting in her daddy's chair at his computer.



Happy Blog Hopping!