lots of sitting time = a new finish

I know, two posts in the course of a few days is unusual for me. With all my recent purchases I started feeling sorry for my older, unstitched charts, so I pulled one out, not expecting to finish before my new, irresistible goodies came in the mail...but my DS's baseball schedule this week consisted of --practice, game, practice, day off, and game, which gave me about 9 hours with my butt planted firmly in a folding chair, and therefore I am showing off my latest (unironed) finish. This is Pennsylvania Pillowe from

Notforgotten Farm, done mostly with the recommended threads on natural linen, except for the black for which I substituted an overdyed. Question: should I try to "age" this by dabbing a tea bag or splashing a little coffee on it, or leave it as it is? I kinda want to try but I am afraid that the black will bleed horribly and ruin it. Opinions anyone?

I have nothing else to show of my own, but DD got out her sock animal book again and whipped up this cute little squirrel. I think this is her best animal yet. She told me that his nuts are detatchable so I asked if he was married, lol.

That's it for now. Happy Spring everyone!

bunnehs, broken resolutions and an award

Happy St. Pat's everyone! It is amazing how many hoops I have to jump through just to get a little computer time, now that DD has taken to getting up at the crack of dawn to do homework. I am sneaking a little update in at work (I know, I am a bad person). I really don't have a lot to show for the past two weeks--I am coming to the end of my bunny stitching obsession, having finished and pillowized the bunny for my friend's DD, and embarked on a bunny for my DS, who rather wistfully asked if he was getting a bunny for Easter when he saw me working on the friend's....

DS's bunny is a freebie from 2009 from By the Bay Needleart (thanks to Catherine for pointing this one out to me) and will also be finished as a small pillow, once I acquire another skein of the GAST that I ran out of with a few dozen stitches to go. Does anyone know of a DMC conversion for GAST Apple Cider so I can hopefully avoid making the trip to my LNS? I have no self control and I know I will emerge with an armful of charts in addition to the floss...I have been on a spree lately on evilBay (Blogger WILL NOT let me upload this the way I want, i.e. not sideways, so please just turn your head at at a 45 degree angle) and before you hoarders protest that this is not that much stash, I will add that I have another 10 charts winging their way to me in the mail right now. So much for no new stash-buying.

Speaking of the mail, I have received a few other goodies I wanted to show--this pretty is from the Please Pass the Biscornu 2010 exchange received from Shay.

I would show you the ones I sent to my partners for the past two months but I seem to have difficulty remembering to photograph things before I put them in the mail, so...if you are really curious, check out the PPB 2010 blog--fortunately the recipients did post pictures. I also received this from Lisa F. for a floss exchange for the ILCS Yahoo group. I love getting stuff in the mail!

I did feel a little bit guilty about all the new charts, so I put some stitches into my Quaker Row. Progress is not as much as I had hoped but at least it's a little closer to completion.

Finally, I wanted to thank Cyndi (www.cyniminsobsession.blogspot.com) for my first ever blog award:

From what I understand, the rules are:

1) Accept the award. Check.

2) Thank the person you received from. Check.
3) Link to the person you received from. Check.
4) Put the award on your blog. Check.

5) List 7 interesting things about you others might not know (I know Cyndi said 10 but I have seen 7 elsewhere, and I'm going with 7). Here goes. We're defining "interesting" very loosely.

--I lived in Japan at one time and taught English for 6 months.

--I have such an extreme fear of spiders that I will not stay in a room if I see a spider on the wall/floor/anywhere else.

--I volunteer for a website called DogsIn Danger that lists adoptable shelter dogs from all over the country.

--My parents named their dog after me (remember I said "loosely")

--I love corn mazes

--When I was in high school I wanted to train horses for a living

--I used to be a devoted runner (B.K.--before kids).

6) Pass on to 10 others. Here is my cop-out. If you are a reader, give yourself this award. I like every blog I read, and I read a lot, so I cannot single out just 10 I think are deserving!

Thanks for reading my blather, and as always thank you for comments, I appreciate every one!

Spring

I can tell that spring is finally approaching--things are starting to bloom around here, I hear a nagging voice telling me that it's high time I thought about getting my vegetable garden started, and I have a strange compulsion to stitch chicks and bunnies.

Thank you all for your suggestions for bunny freebies--after much searching I discovered this Beatrix Potter-ish bunny on the gazette94 blog. I usually hate working on aida but I had this scrap left over from long ago and thought it was perfect for an Easter design. It's hard to believe that I used to stitch almost exclusively 14 ct. aida--it is almost painful to use it now!

With spring being in the air I have been unusually scatterbrained too--I have no less than 5 small pieces going simultaneously, the bunny being one of them. Three are for exchanges and the last is a new LHN that I have put so few stitches in it is really not worth showing. I have managed to make some progress on my Quaker Row. Does anyone else think the squirrel looks a little crazed? My DD had a "pet" squirrel we used to see all the time in the local park that she named Rabies, because he would always let us get a little too close to him, and would chatter and run up and down the same tree like he was being chased by something. This squirrel and Rabies definitely have the same nutty (pardon the pun) expression...

For some reason the kids and I were discussing our favorite blog dogs the other day (you know who you are, Happy, Rory, Abby and Teddy) and they asked if our pups could be my blog dogs. The problem with photographing my dogs is that they will without fail stick their noses directly into any camera they see, which makes it somewhat difficult to get a good photo. Julius, on the other hand, is much more willing to pose for a picture, so we decided to designate him official Blog Cat. Look for Julius updates in the future!

That's all for now folks! Thank you for all your comments on this and other postings and have a great stitchy week!

giveaway winners

Hi folks, just a quick post since I'm pressed for time right now, but I promised to draw the winners of the giveaways today, so here they are, according to the random number generator:

Giveaway #1 (Goode Huswife charts): Shelley

Giveaway #2 (quilts): Terri

Please contact me with your mailing info ladies! I'll be back tomorrow (hopefully) with a stitching update.