Been forever I know

Yes, I'm alive.

Yes, everyone's still alive.

The toddler is now in preschool.

And this is what's been taking up most of my time: A Night Off and A New Dress.

Yes, I have a story published, and I'm very excited because it will be the first of many, I hope. I still cross stitch, crochet, and belly dance whenever I get a chance to get back to it (which unfortunately is far and few between times), and I've recently added knitting to my resume.

Not sure when I'll be able to post pictures of things I've done, but you've probably noticed the bio and picture has changed. That's because I've started a second blog for my writing. The Kingdom Crier is going to be a bit more rambling than this one and will update more frequently, probably about once a week. So, if you're interested in my writings and ramblings, that's the blog to follow. If you want to continue with my craftings, then I'll do my best to get a post up sooner or later for you on this one.

Take it easy everyone!!

Still alive, I promise

I'm still alive! Not stitching much 'cause well...

The little one is almost 2 years old and is getting into everything including art. (Don't worry, that was Crayola non-toxic finger paint.)

I had to completely restart the Pirate Map cross stitch as it just had too many mistakes to unpick, and I've also been working on a cross stitch for a friend in exchange for a chain maille bracelet. I'll try to get some pictures of what I've been doing but it's very easy to forget about the blog when I'm chasing after an energetic 2 year old,

Winners!!!

Congratulations to Birgit who won the Sampler and Patty Antle who won Persephone.

I've e-mailed both of you for your postal addresses, but if you've changed your mind about what you've won, lemmie know and I'll redraw for that prize.

Sorry it took so long to get the winners posted, but we've had a crazy time between the weather and plumbing problems serious enough to rate having to dig up the front yard and replace the pipe, leaving us without water for about a week. That's all been taken care of, and now it's just getting to the destressing part of things.

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!

Last Update of the year!

Okay, first up, I'm participating in the "Grow Your BLog" party this year:

I plan on giving away a Mirabilla pattern, Persephone, as I have two of her accidentally and thought it may be a good thing to do.



*grins* Just in case people wanted proof that I indeed have two of them.

So! Stitchy stuff! *grins* I haven't been doing a lot of it because the daughter is 1 year old on December 14th! *throws confetti in the air* Hard to believe that she's so old. Where did the time go?

But I have managed to get some stitchery things done.



Her birthday fairy is almost done. Just have to finish the backstitching and then its on to the borders and her birth information. After that, it's just a matter of framing it to hang.



This may not look like much now, but it's a start of a ship sampler for my dad. I was farther along but had to rip out the sails because I was missing stitches somewhere and couldn't find out where.



This is a little Mill Hill bead kit that I am so very slowly finishing. *laughs* all that's left is beading and backstitching on this and then to figure out how to mount it on something. What, I don't know yet.

And I will finally leave you with two pictures of Gen sitting up in her daddy's office chair.

Small update

Just a small update since I haven't posted since earlier this month. Wow, where does the time go?

Managed to hit two belly dance classes this month, with last Thursday being the last one. We started learning a neat drum solo number that seems complicated until Zattana started breaking it down for us. *laughs* Then it was pretty easy. At least the first little bit I learned. I unfortunately am going to be missing belly dance class for at least two weeks if not a month for the simple reason that what I thought was either food poisoning or a stomach bug over the weekend turned out to be my gallbladder acting up enough that it needed to be removed. So, yeah. No belly dancing while the belly's still recovering from emergency surgery.

It honestly wasn't that bad. The surgeon and nurse both said that it was normally an outpatient procedure, but since I arrived via the ER (after hitting Urgent Care to see why that spot on my abdomen was still sore when everything else felt fine and the doc there told me to head to the ER so they could verify it was only my gallbladder and not appendicitis.) the hospital admitted me for the night, put me on fluids and antibiotics, and the next morning, my gallbladder was removed. My parents were worried about me (they live about two hours away), but I knew they were all right with the surgery when they showed up last night and my mom joked about "ranging shots" when she saw the three little incisions from the laparoscopic surgery. I'm doing all right, not doing any stitching at the moment because the pain killers make me a bit light headed when they kick in and I don't want to miss count anything. (They're the same ones prescribed back when I gave birth so I know they're good and non-addictive. Plus I only have to take them on an 'as needed' basis.)

Hopefully, I'll heal up quick and I'll be back to shaking my tail feathers and stitching up a storm.

Back to belly dancing

Tonight was my first time back to belly dancing in over a year and a half. Lordy, I forgot how much it was fun it was. I'm stiff and sore but all in a good way. There was only three of us in the class and all of us had belly dancing experience before so Zattana decided to forego the easy lesson she had planned as she had expected total beginners to attend the class. We did shimmies and shakes and had a blast.

I can't wait to go back next week and do it all over again!

An update, I hope

I just realized that I haven't updated in a while. Part of this is because my daughter's almost 9 months old and she's been keeping me on my toes. Another reason is that my old phone decided to overheat in an attempt to set my jeans on fire (not really but it was uncomfortable). So, I had to get a new phone that wasn't a so-called Smartphone.

To make matters even more fun, while I wasn't looking, Picasa, where I had went after Photobucket decided to act like a spaz, decided to change and now I have no idea how to add photos or if this will even work. So, here goes.

Last picture:



Latest picture:



As you can see, a lot more has been done to the December Fairy that will be my daughter's birth sampler.

I've also started two new patterns. One is a ship sampler for my father and the other is Mirabillia's Persephone.



This is the start of the sampler.



And the dozen stitches in Persephone.

and finally:



Three little guilty pleasures.

The first is a tombstone with two ravens, the second is a little Drac, and the third is an apple. I plan on making hair decorations out of them since I don't need magnets nor do I wear broaches too much.

Where Bloggers Create & TUSAL

I honestly forgot that Karen at My Desert Cottage was having a sort of party to showcase where bloggers created their things and blogged about them. So, here is a tour of my little (and I do mean little) corner of the house where I cross stitch and crochet. Excuse the mess, I'm not the neatest of people:



Here's my little corner. It's located in what we call our gaming room. Originally touted as the Master Bedroom, my husband and I decided to make it our gaming room where we can play board games and (most importantly to us) invite friends over for table top gaming. Our computer desks are here as well, making it sort of an office setting as well plus there's plenty of room for Gen to rattle around in now that she's crawling (although we do have to keep a closer eye on her since she's fascinated with cables).



The top is my stitching box holding threads for my current projects that came out of the general stash box. I have a few that I have specifically bought the thread for them, mostly my HAEDs. The bottom plastic tub has some of my general fabrics and some stitchery kits that I haven't gotten to yet. The middle tub just has some loose papers and things in it. At one time, that was my filing cabinet for my patterns.



My stitching cabinet with a few drawers open to show the things in it. The small plastic container on top is my traveling stitch kit. I take that to work with me since I offer free 5 minute stitching how to classes when a customer buys cross stitching things. It's mostly for beginners but if someone wants a few tips, I'm happy to share what I can with them. The green stitching box is the one that my one cat busted the lid off of by managing to pop the screws. I haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.



This is what the wooden stitching chest was suppose to replace but as you can see, I still have stitching projects in it. *laughs* I probably won't ever give this up and keep using it as well. It's currently sitting on top of my two drawer filing cabinet that holds my patterns and a few pattern books. No picture of that since I couldn't get a good one with it being black.



The view out the window to my right. It's not much of a view, just part of our roof and the large maple tree that's between us and the neighbors, but in the fall, that tree turns lovely colors.



The view from my desk where I do my stitching. It may not look like much now, but in the spring, those trees right there are dogwoods and redbuds. They're gorgeous, and I wish the blooms stuck around longer. It's also wonderful because this window faces west so I can watch the storms roll in.



My desk with my ORT jar off to one side. It may not look it, but I find I have plenty of room to stitch.

And speaking of ORT jars:



Here's my TUSAL for July! There are some threads in there from all sorts of projects.

ANd I'll leave you with a picture of the reason I don't have much stitching done and why the area is a bit of a mess. My supervisor who makes sure I'm doing what I should:

New stitching box!

My dad finished off my stitching box and he and my mom brought it over this evening!



A front view of it. It's study enough that I could sit on it and not worry about it collapsing on me.



The top drawer. Large enough I can probably fit my square foot q-snap frame in it without taking it apart.



Slightly blurred picture of the knobs. My mom picked these and the side handles out. Sorry 'bout the picture but I was taking them with my phone camera.



Side handles.



Gen in her bouncer next to the box for a size comparison. She's around 28" tall and 18 lbs here.

IHAS and TUSAL

Yes, this weekend was International Hermit and Stitch weekend, and while I didn't get any stitching done per se, I did get something stitchery related done. I spent Father's Day with my dad, playing in his wood working shop and getting more of my stitchery box done:



Two of the drawers in place.



The other drawers waiting to be assembled.



Assembling the sides of the drawers.



The drawer sides being held together for the glue to dry.



Just needs the knob on front and a bit of sanding on the top to be done.

All of the drawers need to be sanded on the top because when I was cutting the pieces with my dad's table saw (a first time for me) I didn't get all the pieces cut exactly so there's like a centimeter or two between the various pieces. I told my dad to go ahead and finish the box since it just needs that little fiddly bits for the drawers and then the knobs and side handles attached to be done.

On the stitching front, I have put together a small traveling stitch case to take with me to work to give free cross stitch lessons when someone asks. And as I won a small book of Oriental patterns by Joan Elliott from Sharine of charbella stitching, I decided to start one to relax in the evenings. She's only 4"x4" on 28 ct 2x2:



She's rather relaxing to stitch and my original plan was to make a bunch of these and put them on the cover of a notebook I had covered with fabric. Only I misjudged and the fabric was too pretty to cover. *laughs* That's what I get for buying pretty fabric. Next time, I'm going to do just plain fabric to attach my stitching to as presents for various people.

And finally, my TUSAL jar:

All sorts of postings

Here are the promised pictures but they have a bit more stitching on them than the last time. Consider this my WIPockalypse and my TUSAL post as well. Pardon the pictures. I had to take them with my cellphone as my computer doesn't acknowledge my camera at this time. I think I may need a new camera and memory card as the computer wants to format that whenever it's slotted into the computer.

First up is the December Fairy that is going to be the birth announcement for the daughter:



There is a sleeve, a wing, and most of her skirt. I changed one of the colors in the wing from Very Light Turquoise to Light Turquoise because I had originally misread the color number on it. I rather like it that way instead of lighter.

Then Oak Island Mystery, the one with the least amount done:



Have most of the rick in the upper left done and did a bit on the ocean at the bottom of the "beard".

And finally, Goddess of the Sea:



She now has a waist, part of her back, and I'm working on the shadows around the bust line. After that, I'm going to fill in the highlight because then it's just filling the whole thing in with a single color.

And finally, my TUSAL jar:



Very little stitching done since I emptied the jar back in March I think. Hopefully I'll be able to get more done in the future as there is now a nice nightly routine in the house. I get Genevieve down for the night and then stay up until around 11:30 (unless I'm wiped and then I go to bed with her) doing stitchery things or screwing around on the computer to unwind from the day before heading to bed. That's usually the latest she will wake up for a second time, not counting the stray middle of the night grumps due to a wet diaper and a bit of hunger. The middle of the night feedings are getting fewer and farther between and she's sleeping more through the night. Doesn't mean she won't get me up before the sun and keep me up however.

And speaking of the Diapered Diva (as a girlfriend nicknamed her), here's a few more pics of her at 5 months old for your enjoyment.