Good thing I prepared

I am blessed to have electricity, heat and internet right now. There are homes around town right now who are out. I also don't have to be at work. 

I woke up to this.

We got a foot of snow overnight and this afternoon we have high winds to create blizzard conditions. We even got thundersnow last night. I am glad to be home. My door decoration flew off. I will need to retrieve it after things have died down. 

I knew the storm was coming so I stocked up. Megan from Canoe Ridge Creations was doing the same thing. I got to meet here this weekend. I was up in Decorah for a wedding and stopped at the LQS. I thought I recognized her, but to be sure I kept staring. I am pretty sure they noticed my staring. I mentioned to my friend that it was a blogger, but wasn't sure if I should say something. Well I did and I'm glad I did. It was nice to meet her in person after reading so much on her blog. 

I have today to work on my cross stitch. I won't make it for Christmas but that is ok because season 3 starts on January 6th. I HAVE to have it done by then.Yes, I know I sing that song a lot. 

My plan is for 2013 to be the year of 'not buying and finishing'. I am little burned out on quilting. Over stimulated and burned out. Does that make sense. It seems like I see something and everybody has it and I want it. It is also an expensive hobby. I'm going back to my general crafting and cross stitch roots. I signed up for The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery 2013 Sampler. I lurked last year on flickr so this time I decided to join. It is on sale right now so check it out.

The fabric they suggested was tea dyed linen. I do not like linen; I am sticking with aida. I picked oatmeal because it was the darkest before beige. Beige seemed a bit too dark and flat. I hope the light colours show up. From looking at the picture it should be ok. 

OK, off to cross stitch. May have an update later tonight.

Make a demo

If you are making a gift for someone, make a demo. I found out the hard way. There was much unpicking and redoing for this project.

It is a baby height chart. I picked up the idea from this post. The link to the tutorial had been broken. Anyway, here are some pictures of my version. There is a wonk to it and  my first attempt at machine binding did not go well. Now the whole world sees my mis-mitered corners. The back though looks fantastic! I used the Frixon pens for the straight lines at inch increments and really like them. I would make this again. . . now that I've done it once.

Christmas, Christmas time is near

The Chipmunks Christmas song has to be the most annoying song ever, but it is catchy! I find myself wanting a hula hoop every time I hear it.

Christmas time is near and I have been cross stitching like crazy. I HAVE TO GET THIS DONE. I am terrible about keeping project/gift deadlines. I figure it is because my work life is run by deadlines so what do I care about my hobby deadlines. This time though I do care and I WILL get this done.

So I still have to add the people in and I haven't done that yet because I would have to keep looking at the pattern. I have been schlepping it around everywhere for the last week. I have cross stitched in several different libraries as I kill time for wherever I need to be that evening. Does it look three dimensional? I am worried now that the contrast isn't working well enough to make it look 3D.

I have started doing some Christmas decorating. I used an idea from Pinterest to make my door hanger. I love the stitched ribbon. Is there a term for that? I have a pair of shoes that are black and the stitching shows. I really like that look. The pine cones came from Emily's yard. I'd had them for a year in my garage, but then realized that they may have been full of bugs so I washed and baked them. The smell in my kitchen was lovely. True woodsy smell. Speaking of Emily, she has done a ton on her deer. I don't have pictures; I keep forgetting my camera.

Last weekend I was at Home Ec in Iowa City. Cute store. Very eclectic for lack of a better word. One of the sales staff had a cute scarf and she said she had made it from fabric in the store. Very cute fabric, but it is jersey. I bought some and want to make an infinity scarf out of it. I have never sewn jersey before. A friend of mine said I probably have some hand sewing in my future. I anticipate that as well. The fabric is from somebody up in Minneapolis called Ten14 Textiles. It is organic, blah blah. I don't care about organic. I just thought the pattern was nice.

I thought my last picture of the yarn didn't do it justice, so I took another one. I think this one turned out better. As you can tell, I still haven't started on the scarf. I will get there.