October 31st

Wishing you a FUN Halloween!

love Annette

New project!

Hello lovely friends! Oh how I've missed you all.
Wanted to pop in and tell you I'm still here and have been stitching. Since my last post I told you we had a scare with my husband but all was clear that was early April. We were told soon after that they had seen something and he needed another test. Finally he had that done and again - HE's Clear!!! BUT my Aunt took a turn in her health. She is now terminally ill - she's my late moms only sister.
All the whole time I've poured my heart into my stitching. Stitching in hospital waiting rooms and home no matter where it helps me be calm.
On a much happier note - I started a new project. I have fallen in LOVE with Lavender and Lace & Mirabilia designs. I had some in my stash from years ago and even my mom had started picking them up for me when she had seen them. Funny thing is I purchased one that I had seen Carolyn Mazzeo stitch on Floss Tube and she stitched a conversion of it and that's what I've been stitching.

 "Celtic Autumn" by Lavender and Lace

28ct Lambswool Jobelan, DMC threads and Sulky Metallic thread instead of Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Thread. 

If you can see the photo of the chart its in tones of blues. The conversion I'm stitching is in tones of beautiful greens and ambers charted by Janet Granger. And I added her holding fall leaves (which was charted by Jennifer Janney).

There's tons of beading. I beaded some of the top rows and one finished square motif. Holding off on the rest till I get her all stitched. 

 Progress as of today

This is a project or WIP that I'm also working on a summer needlebook themed Mermaid/Sealife
The mermaids are charted by  "Maidens of the Sea" - With My Needle by the lovely Ellen Chester.
The Seahorse, seaweed & coral are charted in a book (I got from the library) - "Four Seasons in Cross Stitch by Janye Netley Mayhew & Nicki Wheeler.
I will try to post again soon - so much to share. At least I was able to get this posted - LOL!!!
Hope you all are stitching! With my Love and Appreciation - Annette

Blooms, a Finish & new Start!

Hello lovely friends! We've been having gorgeous weather here in California. Today was the warmest day yet - 86. All the other days and coming week - 70's! Just Fantastic! This is the time of the year that I have pretty blooms to share with you. I love that the roses are all in bloom. I have a new finish and a new start as well. WOOHOO!!! I took these photos on my new IPhone. My last cell phone lasted a good 6 years LOL!

 Angel Face Rose

 ??? Can't recall the name of this Rose - LOL!

 Peace Rose

 ??? Don't know the name either of this Rose but it's Beautiful 

 Blue Bearded Iris

I've had my eye on this praying it would bloom and it did!!!

"Midnight Ride" by Blackbird Designs

Threads: GA - Onyx (1+ skeins), Garden Gate (2+ skeins) and

Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe - Lavender

This fabric is very special! This was gifted to me by the sweet Ali of With Needle Thread and Basket blog.

The fabric had  belonged to Ali's grandmother Jean. I actually won it in a giveaway Ali had. She had asked if we were to win what design would we stitch on it. It's a beautiful rich orange red color. I knew Midnight Ride would look amazing. I won! So I started this project after finishing Sojourner. When I started stitching I tried 2 over 2 and learned very quickly that the fabric count is probably 25ct. I frogged what I stitched and tried 2 over 1. Much better. Somewhere I did try 1 over 2 and 1 over 1 that didn't work.

So 2 over 1 is what I ended up stitching. I love it. I think I am going to make this an ornament and not on a box. But we'll see and will share when I am done. Oh I have plans for the rest of the fabric. Nothing is going to waste. More on that later. 

Okay so now it was time to start on HAED (Heaven and Earth Designs) - "Gingerbread House"!

oooooh Good Lord! First of all I had kitted up all the threads before. I am using a candy box to store them.

I had bought 28ct evenweave a huge cut. But I started looking at all the pages of the chart 108 of them and started having doubts. Why? Because I knew after seeing lots of you stitching on your HAED's that most of you were using 25ct Magic fabric. This Magic fabric has the grid printed right on it. Mine did not. When I bought my fabric I thought "Oh NO I don't need grids". Ahem...... looking at all those pages I decided YES I DID! I didn't want to waste tons of time trying to figure out where I left off and where I would be stitching this HUGE design. Okay what to do??? Last week I finally learned of Floss Tube. I've heard many of you mention on your blogs this Floss Tube but had no clue as to what it was. It's on YOU TUBE and there I typed in "Floss Tube" and hit enter. OMG!!! That's a whole new world or I should say another beautiful community of cross stitcher's and more.WOW! I actually found a video of how to stitch a grid on my fabric. YES I stitched my own grid. HUGE Thank You to Jennifer Apodaca! God Bless her - her video #19! I stitched my outer border all around 780 x 570. As I stitched and got closer to the end I had done extremely well. Till I learned I was off 1 thread - URG!!! Stayed up waaay to late in the evening. Went to bed and woke up in the morning (Saturday) and found my error after 20 mins. sigh....... Then I needed to stitch the lines in the inside. Took all day Saturday and thru Sunday. And that was only several lines just to get started to place that first stitch. LOL!!! So here we are:

 LOVE LOVE LOVE all the colors!

 I used Sulky Sliver Metallic thread (Joann's and had coupon). OH MY WORD! Have you tried this thread? It glides and its strong. No splitting at all. I may use this thread in other projects because its fantastic and beautiful. These photos don't capture the sparkle but it does.

Close up I started in the upper right corner. 1 over 1 Full Cross Stitch 

I gridded mine as Jennifer said to do. The inside grids I am stitching each line as she did but my squares are in 20's not 10's. Safe to say I love this project. So sorry this post is long. But so much to share.

Hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather and if you have snow - Hope you get to get cozy and stitch! 

Thank you for stopping by!

With my love and appreciation - Annette

Easter Greetings

Finished my Easter project yesterday and just in time!

Prairie Schooler

28ct Lambswool linen & DMC threads

Wishing you Easter Blessings! 

With my love & appreciation - Annette

Presenting Sojourner

Hello lovely friends! I am so thrilled and excited to share with you my first large finished & framed sampler - "Sojourner" by Theresa Baird. I finished stitching this last week. The next day I framed this myself. I had a frame that I had bought from a Thrift store a few years back thinking that I would use this for another project (Christmas Garden by Blackbird Designs) but that project hasn't begun yet! So just by chance the frame was a great fit for Sojourner. I cut a foam board that fit the frame, glued a thin batting to it, positioned my sampler, used lots tiny pins to secure it to the sides of the foam board while carefully stretching it & keeping it centered. I am really happy how it turned out. Started in June 2015 - Finished March 2016. I made my goal to have this sampler done by April 5th. ALL DONE!!!

40ct Expresso by R & R Reproductions. All silk & DMC threads.

 Queen stitches for the strawberries. These were my very last stitches for the sampler.

 

Our weather here has been sun and rain. Planted lots of veggies and so far they are doing great. Fingers crossed we get to harvest them this year. I have been stitching a new project and hope to have it done before Easter. That's only 1 week away. Happy Spring everyone!!!
Thank you for your visit. With my love and appreciation - Annette

Recap of January & February!

Hello sweet friends! It's been too long since I've been able to post. Lots of catching up with you.
The last few months have been a blessing & horrific. I'm just going to dive right in with my news.

Back in January I had seen on Gay Ann Roger's website that she offered Ladies of Downton geometric motif charts. After hemming and hawing I finally went ahead and ordered them. Yep all 3 of the ladies. They are sooo gorgeous. Well I had made a card and sent it Gay Ann thanking her for her beautiful designs. To make a long story short - Gay Ann asked me to design cards for each lady with photos of her motifs. What an honor for me! I did make them!

In the mist of making the cards our son Nicholas, one afternoon, started choking and was throwing up every 3 mins. He was able to breath and talk but kept telling me he felt something was stuck in his throat. He was having lunch at the time right before he started getting ill. Took him to ER arrived before 6:00pm and at 8:00pm the ER doctor said he was calling in the specialist and her team. At 10:00pm they operated on him.
Nicholas had a piece of meat stuck in his esophagus. The doctor thinks that Nick ate something (the day before) that his esophagus constricted close. Okay got my son all well. Kept making cards at home in between (kept me calm).
Week following we had a scare with my husband. My DH had a regular checkup and blood work. Got the call back saying he needed more tests. They thought he could have cancer. Took him to the hospital for a procedure. 2 days later we got the call - He's all clear. OH thank the Lord!!!!

Then follow up appt for our son. He needed more tests and had a procedure done too. So far all tests have come back clear. We don't know why he had the reaction that he did. Still in the works.

SO I am not sure when I have gotten all the stitching done that I did. I had my projects in totes that came with me to all appts and ER too!!! Stitching has been my saving grace.
Having shared with you I am so sorry to be so behind on commenting and visiting everyone's blogs.
Please forgive me.  OH before I forget Gay Ann Roger HERE has her sale going on right now. She has extended the Ladies of Downton charts till March 6th. Then is retiring them as the series will end on that night here in USA.

Sojourner by Theresa Barid of Hearts Ease Exampler Workes

40ct Expresso linen by R & R Reproductions

All silk threads.

Had this photo that I had taken but lost track of the date - sigh....

"The Shores of Hawk Run Hollow" by Carriage House Samplings

36ct Vintage Meadow Rue by Lakeside Linens, All NPI silk threads

Block 1 complete

HRH Shore's -  Block 2 complete

 A Gift by Nicola Parkman of Hands across-the-sea-samplers.com

Freebie HERE

The linen was a gift from Becky on Instagram who hand-dyed this herself!

 Finished as a zipper pouch.

I sure have missed getting to visit with you! Hope you get to stitch while watching the Oscars! I enjoy live from the red carpet seeing all the gowns and jewels!

With my love and appreciation - Annette

Welcome 2016

Happy New Year to you! We had a fabulous Christmas. Hope your Christmas was wonderful.
We stayed home for Christmas. Christmas Eve we had Mexican food (bought from restaurant). Christmas day we had Italian food. My son Nicholas cooked in the beginning of the week - Stuffed shells & Lasagna rolls that he froze. So the day of  Christmas I just needed to take them out of the freezer to get room temp then bake them. Dinner was great. All I had to do was mostly chopping veggies - awesome! Super relaxing day with family. Now up till a few days after Christmas I hadn't gotten to stitch. Went about 2 weeks no stitching but had a great time preparing for Christmas. One major accomplishment is that this year I completed a mini scrapbook - Journal Your Christmas. And as of today All completed.
Will share more of that on another post. I haven't taken photos of my book yet!

On New Year's day I started a new project "Shores of HRH". I joined a group of a few ladies on Instagram for a sal. The goal is to stitch one block every 2 months. The hashtag is #hrhshoressal. I've had this kitted up since 2012. I plan also to continue stitching "Sojourner". These are my main 2 projects for this year. This way I have plenty of time to also fit in other small projects.

"The Shores of Hawk Run Hollow" by Carriage House Samplings

36ct Vintage Meadow Rue by Lakeside Linens

All NPI silk threads

Here I made floss tags for my silk threads. Made tags, attached the label of silk, punched holes and all went on a ring. I like to have the labels so in case I run out of a color I have the color & lot numbers to reorder.

Progress on Jan 1st 2016 (sal started)

Progress as of Jan 3rd

Before Christmas I received this beautiful stitched angel ornament and card from Vickie!
Thank you so much Vickie!

On Christmas morning I opened my gifts from Lee. Oh yes I was a good girl and waited! Lee sent me so many beautiful goodies. I got hand lotion & talcum powder which both smell incredible - Roses! A darling robin stitched tag, a bag of trims and magnetic clips (which I have wanted). I love the colors of them.
Thank you very much Lee - I love everything!

This was the show stopper - a gorgeous pincushion cube Lee stitched. Each side has a wreath representing each season.

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

I absolutely love it Lee - Thank you from my heart. 

Santa (me) brought me these gifts - just what I was wanting, lol! Coloring book, card and markers.

My sister gifted this darling chart ( I really really wanted this one) and cute snowman buttons. 

Thank you sweet sister! 

Hope you are enjoying the new year and are getting to find stitching time. I wish you lots of blessings for the New Year. With my love and appreciation - Annette