In the Paraphrashed words of Garfield the Cat...

Whomever created confetti stitches should be drug out in the street and shot.

I put a couple of hours into Eagle today and his belly is coming along nicely, though I'm still surprised how light some of the colors are.



That is 201 stitches. Eesh. A close up shows how many different colors make that up.



Confetti is blah, but he'll look great in the end.

Oh, and have I mentioned I am insane? I bought my first chart from Heaven and Earth Designs.

Behold, Lust:



She is one of a set of the 7 deadly sins. I hope to do five of them. Avarice and Gluttony are nice, in their own right, but yellow and pink aren't my thing.

I figure she should take me, oh, about 20 years to complete. Yay, insanity!

There was a Girl who had a Horse...

...and Eagle was his name-o.

So, Marv turned Eagle into a pattern for me. From this:



to this:



Amazing work, right? Seriously, if you want a custom pattern done without buying the software, try Marv over at http://www.crosstitch.com. He's done two patterns for me so far, and I'm happy.

Seem like I'm stalling? I am. I only have 50-some stitches into Eagle so far.

Progress:



Not a blazing start, but it's getting there. The one thing I was worried about was putting a big dark bay gelding on a stormy looking background off of a picture that was taken on a bright spring day. The Aida, however, is nice and light in its variation of color:



I think I can leave him mostly as is without worrying about it clashing. To me, it's more like the sky right before a storm when the sun is showing through the clouds rather than a dark and stormy afternoon.

Wish me luck!

Night of the Living Craft Wench.

So, I'm sure you noticed I took another huge sabbatical. It happens, but I've been working on stuff, promise.

Without further adieu, Fantastic Creatures:













I filled in much of the vegetation and added Marty the Meerkat. Under Leo's chin is the beginning of Bert the Big-Horned Sheep. Still got a long way to go.

Murphy the Green Winged Macaw is going much better.

My newest work gave Murph a nose, err, beak.



Altogether, he's starting to look quite lovely.



I believe I could have him done in a couple of serious sit downs.

At the moment, I am working on cross stitching Easter eggs for my family members. They'll be posted as soon and I get them sewed together.

Also, I'd like to introduce two projects that I will be working on very shortly. They are both being designed by Marv from http://www.crosstitch.com and he is doing wonderful work.

Flying Eagle is a portrait of one of my best friend's horses made from her favorite photograph. I will post the picture when I start Eagle.

A Princely Nap is a custom of my 15-year-old Lhasa Apso.

Both of these projects are being done on hand dyed fabric.

Your Heaven's [not] a Lie.

As promised, here are updated Squishy announcement pictures!



The moon under the bunny is full of half stitches. I thought it might be too light, but it's actually coming out nicely.


The star wasn't cooperating with my flash, so I'm also posting one without the flash, since it seems to show truer color.

Flash:


No Flash:


As I mentioned, I picked this up again for one of my forums. The first week of every month, we stitch on a UFO, hoping to either finish it, or at least pick up our interest in it.

Since it was about a year since I last stitched on Squishy's bunnies, I think that would qualify. *sigh* I'm such a bad big sister.

Happy stitching all!

Ain't no Rest for the Wicked

So, readers from last year will remember that I was waiting on my cousin's baby to be born so I could finish her birth sampler. Savannah the Very Brady baby made her appearance soon afterward.



Her parents absolutely loved this. I'm glad I could give them a gift they can enjoy for a lifetime.

My brother, the Ninja Baby, now known simply as Squishy is already 16 months old... and I have yet to finish his birth announcement, but will be breaking it out on the first week of August to work on it for one of my forums.



I also started a smaller pattern for Squishy. It's a Dimension Gold Petite kit called Fantastic Creatures. It should come out looking something like this.


But at the moment, all that exists is Leo Lion.


For once, I've started something for myself. *Gasp* I know, so unlike me and my blog, but even a wench's fancy gets tickled once in a while. The pattern is called Horse Companions and should look like this.


However, only part of the shoulder from the horse on the right is stitched. This is roughly 350 stitches in.


So this catches things up. I have other projects in the wings, including Murphy the Green-Winged Macaw. True, he was meant as a gift for someone who is no longer a part of my life, I'd feel almost guilty if I didn't finish him.

Heaven isn't too Far Away.

I got started on Ninja Baby's birth announcement...finally. Okay, so I might have procrastinated a little. I mean heck, he's only 4 months old, right? Heh. The Very-Brady-Baby has one and she's not even here yet. *blush*

Anyhow, here's the start of a long process.

Star Light, Star Bright

A Star is Born is almost complete. The Very-Brady-Baby's birth announcement should be able to be given to her mom, sans name and date of course, on Sunday.

I'll also have to take pictures of V-B-B's presents from me and my wrapping job (quite creative, I think).

Any who, without further adieu, I present my progress.



Here are some close-ups of Mr. Teddy.



And these odd colored lines? That's the start of the words "a star is born."



I love this design. Feminine without the frou-frou. Perfect for this particular little family.

WIP it good!

I'm adding pictures of two of my WIPs today. The first is my green winged Amazon.

So far I've only got his tail done.


You may also notice part of the branch he's perched on. GW, as he is now known, is a pain but is definitely one of my favorites.


My other WIP is called A Star is Born. This is a birth sampler done for the very Brady baby-to-be. My cousin's wife is due in August.


I hope to have this done for the June 22nd baby shower.

Something Old, Something New... You Know the Rest.

For my old:

I'm recycling an SBQ question that I never answered. This one was suggested by Ternezia and is:

If you were a cross stitch designer, what would your design style be?

I think if I were a cross stitch designer, my style would be realistic wildlife. As much as I love dragons and unicorns, a beautiful tiger or deer is what will catch my eye every time.

Now for the new:

Baby D is home! He came home on Monday and things have been kind of whirl wind since then. Welcome home, little guy.

Also, I got a wonderful package from Mary at Confessions of a Craft Addict (link on the left) after winning a drawing for her blogiversary. Thank you so much! I can't wait to pull out my sewing machine and start on that bag while listening to my cd.

And something borrowed:

I found this meme on Incoherent Scribblings (also linked on the left) and decided to do it.

In a Word. One word answers for every question.

1. Where is your cellphone? - Desk
2. Relationship? - Wonderful
3. Your hair? - Red
4. Work? - School
5. Your sister? - No.
6. Your favorite thing? - Crafting
7. Your dream last night? - Weird
8. Your favorite drink? - Cappuccino
9. Your dream car? - Spyder
10. The room you’re in? - Computer
11. Your shoes? - Nike
12. Your fears? - Tarantulas
13. What do you want to be in 10 years? - Loved.
14. Who did you hang out with this weekend? - Matt
15. What are you not good at? - Math
16. Muffin? - Lemon
17. One of your wish list items? - Dragons
18. Where you grew up? - Midwest
19. Last thing you did? - Type
20. What are you wearing? - Pajamas
21. What aren’t you wearing? - Socks
22. Your pet? - Numerous
23. Your computer? - Gateway
24. Your life? - Happy
25. Your mood? - Fair
26. Missing? - Matt
27. What are you thinking about right now? - Food!
28. Your car? - Huge
29. Your kitchen? - Yellow
30. Your summer? - Far
31. Your favorite color? - Crimson
32. Last time you laughed? - Today
33. Last time you cried? - Weekend
34. School? - Gah!
35. Love? - Matt

And finally, the something blue:

My next project is the Carebear- Grumpy Bear. He's blue.

How the heck do you decide...

...what to cross stitch for a sibling when you don't know its sex? My mother confirmed today that she is due March 1st. The problem? The baby is breech and will not show what the heck it has going on below. That makes things tough for me.

I want to stitch something for the baby. Though she's an adult and doesn't need my permission (obviously) to have another child, I think she's worried that I won't be accepting of a sibling at 22. I think something as small as this would help ease her mind.

Does anyone have any clue?

Guilt Free January!

So I decided to post an answer to the SBQ:

Are you starting something new to celebrate the New Year or participating in “Guilt Free January?” If so, what are you planning on starting?

I haven't the foggiest to be perfectly honest. I want to start a couple of bookmarks for my mom (an avid reader) and Mr. CW's mom, but I haven't committed to anything for either one of them. I might just for the heck of it. The parrot for Mr. CW's grandmother is taunting me with its unfinishedness (okay, so that isn't a word. Feh.) and I'm getting a little tired of my hummingbird pattern.

I'm beginning to think that I'm one of those stitchers that have way more stash than I will ever be able to use. I even inherited my grandmother's stash. Eep!

Progress!

So have you ever had a time where you felt like it didn't matter what you did, you never made any progress on whatever you were working on? Yeah, that was the last few months for me.

So with 12 days left before winter semester starts, I finally made progress! Sweet Treats now has most of a hummingbird, part of the border, and two flowers. It's starting to look like something!

Also, back in October, I said I was going to do an angel for Mr. CW's grandmother. We talked about it and since she had birds most of her life, I decided to stitch a parrot for her (found on crosstitch.com). It still doesn't look like anything, but a big chunk of its tail is done.

So hopefully, I can keep up the pace and at least get Sweet Treats knocked out before school starts.

Happy New Year! And New Goals.

It's officially 2008. What does this mean? A brand new year, a clean slate, and a whole lot of possibilities. I hope the new year brings you much joy and plenty of time to craft.

As for me, this past semester in school kicked my butt, so I didn't get any crafting time in. Not my idea of fun, but hey, my GPA went up significantly.

My goals for January are much the same as at last update. I was given a subscription to artecy.com for Christmas so I think I'll have even more to keep me busy! Yay for permanent memberships!

I'm a bad, bad blogger!

Shame on me! I just realized that I hadn't updated this since I created it.





Here's what I've been working on:




Sweet Treats Counted Cross Stitch by Creative Accents. This is a picture of the kit, but not of my work so far. I need to take and upload some.

I've also since the last time I updated finished my Cat Nap latch hook by Natura.

Now that school has started, my progress on anything will definitely be slow, but I'm promising myself at least an hour or two on weekends to work on things.

Wish me luck!