Winner of my First Blogoversary Giveaway!

For my first Blogoversary Giveaway, I typed everyone's name who commented on my Blogoversary post, then cut them up and shuffled the slips of paper around and around and around, and the name I picked is....
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Sharine!

She is a new follower on my blog and helped me get up to 100 followers!  Wow!  I am a new follower on her blog, too.  I'm sure the $10 gift certificate to 1-2-3 Stitch will come in handy, and I won't have to mail anything to Australia!

TUSAL #10 and two updates!

It's time for a new update on my ORT jar! You can see some shimmery threads from the Fairies. I have so many projects planned for next year that I think I'll need a bigger jar for the 2012 TUSAL!

The is the Plymouth Rock Chickens light switch cover that I am making for my mom. The little square in the chicken is where one of the screws goes to attach the light switch cover to the wall. This is a straggler from the Crazy January Challenge. I'm using a new hoop that came in a box of stash goodies on eBay. Thanks to Sarah Beth for explaining to me how to use it! (It has a metal ring in back with handles that you squeeze together, and a red plastic/rubber ring in front.)

My next update is the Violets Teacup, a freebie from Vermillion Stitchery. It has 7 different shades of purple and lots of quarter-stitches, so I'm going very slowly on this one and changing threads a lot! Now I wish I had started it on 28ct linen and stitched over 2, so the quarter-stitches wouldn't be so difficult. This will be for my grandma, but I don't want to wait until her birthday in December to give it to her. Hopefully we will visit her next month.

Has everyone joined the Crazy January Challenge for 2012 yet? Minna and Niina started a Crazy January 2012 Yahoo group, and now I hear they have an Ultimate CJC, where you start 31 projects, one for each day in January! Wow!

My First Blogoversary TODAY!

I've been watching the countdown for months now!  I'm so happy that I started this cross stitch blog last year and started following other blogs and joining Yahoo groups too. I have learned so much in the last year about cross stitching.  Ten years had gone by with no stitching, and I'm so happy to be back!  Since I'm still building up my stash with floss, fabric, and patterns, I don't have much to give away, so I will offer a $10 gift certificate from 1-2-3 Stitch instead!  Then anyone in the world can win, and I don't have to worry about postage!

To enter My First Blogoversary Giveaway, just leave a comment below for one entry. If you mention this giveaway on Facebook, leave another comment here with your FB name for another entry.  I will draw a winning name on Wednesday, September 28, at noon PST.

Happy Stitching and Good Luck!

Addendum:  I have noticed that lots of comments come to my email inbox with <noreply-comment@blogger.com> instead of showing your email address. I won't be able to contact you if you win. To change this setting, go to Design, Dashboard, then click Show my email address. Good luck!

Just for fun, here are pics of my 3 cats doing what cats do best!  These pictures weren't staged either! They always like to hang out together!

Bubbles is the calico cat, Billy is the brown tabby cat, and Blueberrie is the black & white tuxedo cat.

New Stash, New Start, New Update!

What a bargain I found!  I got all this on eBay for only $8.50.  There are 9 new pieces of 14ct Aida cloth in green, red, black, yellow, and blue, 4 new packages of waste cloth, and 100 skeins of floss (DMC, Anchor, and JP Coats).  There were also a couple of hoops, embroidery scissors, a floss sorter, and 2 Christmas ornament kits.  I also sold some things on eBay this week, so I actually came out ahead!

My new start is the February Violets of the Teacup Posies 2011 series by Vermillion Stitchery.  It has 7 different shades of purple.  I am stitching on mint parfait 14ct Aida.  This is a gift for my grandma.  She will be 99 in December!

This is the Plymouth Rock Chickens double light switch cover I am stitching for my mom on 14ct fiddlers cloth (she collects chickens).  I started this last January as one of the Crazy January Challenge projects and never got back to it.  Well, I'm not too late yet!  The piece of fabric is too small for a Q-Snap, so I'm using a hoop.

I joined the Facebook CrosstitchCrazy2012 group and also the Yahoo CrazyJanuary2012 group.  I have posted pics of some of my 15 new projects to start each day for the first 15 days of January in albums in both of those groups, and I will make a new page on my blog with a list of them too.  Everyone is so excited about choosing new projects for January, that it reminded me that I should finish some WIP from this year first!

To finish off this posting, I am including a pic of my sweet old dogs taken a year before they both died of old age.  Brandy, the Golden Retriever, was 14 in this pic and died at 15 years old.  Norman, the Cocker Spaniel, was 15 in this pic and died at 16 years old in his sleep.  We had the dogs since they were puppies, and they were inseparable.  We have lots of pics of them growing up with my kids.  After a few months, my daughter and I visited two different animal shelters and adopted two more dogs.  Thanks for sharing this memory with me! (I'm crying now...)

WOCS - Butterfly - finished!

I finished this cute butterfly for World of Charity Stitching. They are going to make a quilt with 36 butterflies in different colors with different fabric around each one. I am so happy to stitch these small squares and know they will be part of something beautiful.

"Butterfly"
Designed by Iulia Catalina De Rango
Started 8/19/11, Finished 9/15/11 

I was surprised to be mentioned by Connie Barwick at the Craft Gossip blog! You may recognize her from Crossstitch.About.com.

Linda and I both missed our SAL last Friday, but I got a little more stitching done tonight on "Trick or Treat" by Ursula Michael.  This lemon yellow color #307 is bright and cheery.  I love stitching with this color floss!  Do you have a favorite color to stitch with?

WOCS - Fairies - finished!

Hurray! I finished another quilt square for World of Charity Stitching. I found this design in a cross stitch book from the library, "Top 100 Cross Stitch Motifs" by Michaela Learner.  I used 28ct Zweigart opalescent evenweave fabric, and DMC Light Effects and Pearlescent floss to make it extra sparkly!  I hope the little girl who gets the fairy quilt likes my square the best! LOL.

"Fairies"
Designed by Michaela Learner
Started 8/26/11, Finished 9/12/11

WOCS - Fairies update #4

The Fairies are almost done! I just need to stitch the green fairy's hair and wings, then I will send it off to World of Charity Stitching to be sewn onto a quilt with other fairy cross stitch pieces.  This is the first time I have stitched on 28ct evenweave, and it's opalescent, too (perfect for fairies).  I really like this when it comes to 1/4 stitches so I don't have to pierce the fabric like I do with Aida.

Here is one of my favorite pics of our dog, Teddy.  We got him last August 2010 from the animal shelter.  He was 7 months old then, so that would make him about 1-1/2 years old now.  They told us that he is a yellow Labrador Retriever, but he seems bigger than that (maybe Mastiff?).  He weighs 100 pounds.  He sleeps at my feet all day when I'm working.

He's watching the kids walk home from school on the other side of the wall.

Floss on sale!

Hurray! I'm at Joann Fabrics and getting floss for my HAED, Flaming June. Bargain!

No black or white floss to be found!

I wondered why I could never find black or white DMC floss here! This was at least my 4th visit at this Michael's with no luck. I asked the cashier when they got their floss shipment. She said on Wednesdays, and every Wednesday, a "cantankerous old man" comes in and buys ALL the black and white floss! They have tried to tell him that he should leave some for the other stitchers, but he replied, "I'm a paying customer!"

Michaels

I'm on my way to Joann's now. Wish me luck!

WOCS - Fairies update #3

I finished the first fairy!  There will be another green fairy in the same square.  My oldest cat, Bubbles (9 years old) wanted to model.  We got her from a cage in front of a feed store in 2002.  She always hides when anyone comes over.  This is a rare site for strangers indeed, and I'm sharing it with you!

My first SAL - Trick or Treat!

My new cross-stitching friend, Linda of Stitchin With My Furbabies, invited me to do a Stitch-Along with her on "Trick or Treat" by Ursula Michael. She was so kind and gave me an extra chart, so we could stitch on it together. We plan to do our SAL on Fridays. There are 8 more Fridays before Halloween, so I hope we can finish by then. It will be fun to stitch it together. I have never done that before.

I went to a LNS today and bought 22ct evenweave for Flaming June. The finished size will be 14"x16", so the piece of fabric is 20"x22". I don't have any floss for it yet.

I love seeing pics of other stitchers' pets on their blogs, so I am including one of my favorite pics for you! All three kitties are eating together (Bubbles, Billy, Blueberrie).

Floss at Michael's!

No wonder I can never find the colors I need! This place is a mess! But I keep coming here because DMC is only 35 cents. I'm going to Joann's tomorrow. I went to a LNS for the first time today, and they charged 65 cents! Too much for me.

The happy couple, 50 years later!

Happy 50th Golden Wedding Anniversary to my mom & dad! They are going on vacation tomorrow to celebrate!

WOCS - Fairies update #2

The first fairy is almost done, just a little more on the wings and then backstitching. I am stitching very slowly with the DMC Light Effects and Pearlescent floss. I can't find my Thread Heaven; think the dog ate it!