Look what I won!

Teresa of Teresa's Heartfelt Stitches recently had a giveaway for her followers and I was the lucky winner of a handmade stitcher's portfolio.  The fabric she used was just perfect and so is her finishing work.

The portfolio opens up and has a large pocket on the left side, 2 small pockets in the middle, and another large pocket and a clear pocket on the right.  Teresa also filled each of the pockets with special little treats, including an adorable box of chocolates, some mints, the cutest pair of Itty Bitty Scissors, an adorable counting pin, and Just Nan Needle Flutters kit.  All packaged up in a pretty pink envelope covered in hearts.

Don't you wish you were me??  Thank you so much, Teresa. Your lovely gifts will get lots of use.

I've been gifted with the Leibster Award

Astrid at Dragon Stitches by Astrid has gifted me with the Leibster Award. Thank you so much, Astrid!

Liebster is a German word meaning favorite, dearest, or beloved. The Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other new bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers to help spread the word about their blogs and to help them gain wider recognition.

The Liebster award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting.

1. Choose five up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers to award the Liebster to.
2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blog so they know about the award.
4. Share five random facts about yourself that people don't know about you.

My award recipients are listed below. Their blog names are links even though I can't get them to display correctly.

Teresa at Teresa’s Heartfelt Stitches is a lovely lady I was lucky enough to meet at a retreat last fall. She does so many beautiful projects, cross stitch, sewing and others. I recently won a beautiful portfolio that she sewed for one of her lucky followers to win. I’ll be posting pictures later.

Pam at Confessions of a Southern Stitcher is another wonderful lady I met at the same retreat. She does many lovely projects and has recently taken up quilting. Looks like she’s a natural at it!

Colleen at Threads in My Garden was one of my earliest followers. She loves to stitch, sew, quilt and garden.

Terry at Rosy Stitches just finished Dance of the Roses and it is gorgeous! She also does some lovely beadwork.

Melissa at Melissa's Miscellaneous Adventures just finished Mediterranean Mermaid by Mirabilia. Wait till you see it! Melissa also enjoys cross-stitch, baking, reading, sewing, and gardening.

And now the hard part, coming up with 5 things about myself:

1. My brain froze at the thought of coming up with 5 things, since I knew there were not 5 interesting things to share. I considered making stuff up.

2. When I am lucky enough to retire, or at least work part time, the very first thing I will do is get a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Or two!

3. Next to stitching, my favorite thing to do is to sail on Lake Winnipesaukee.

4. I love doing tai chi.

5. After being initially convinced that I would never spend the money for an ebook reader, since I only wanted ‘real’ books’, I ended up owning both a Kindle and a Color nook, and I can’t imagine a day without them.

Thanks again, Astrid!

IHSW Weekend

Very little progress to report this weekend.  First I ended up having to work all day Saturday, which I hadn't expected, and then the stitching gremlins came to visit. I ended up spending more time frogging than stitching. The first project had some eyelet stitches over 2 threads and they're almost impossible to remove.  Notice the messy blue flower in the middle. The blue section on the far left, and on the bottom both need to be removed and restitched.

When I got tired of trying to remove those I decided to pick up another project to work on.  This time I didn't have as much frogging to do, but since it was all over one I found it very frustrating to unstitch.  Might be time for new magnification! 

And yet hope springs eternal! It's a beautiful, warm sunny day here in NH, and I have an hour before I have to leave to bring my mom to an appointment.  Off I go to try one more time to get some happy stitching done.

March WIPocalypse Update

It's been a crazy busy month, but I did manage to make pretty good progress on my Sturbridge Box project since my last WIPocalypse update. During the last IHSW weekend I finished the stitching on the top, which I've already posted. But since it's so pretty I'll post it again here in case someone missed it :-)

I also finished 3 and a half sides:

Side 1

Side 2

 

Side 3

Side 4

Excuse the funky spacing.  Blogger has decided that it will look this way no matter what I want.

Now I need to finish up Side 3, then the scissor fob and scissor keeper. All of those should be finshed by my next WIPocalypse update.  I'd love to have the finish-finish done by then too.  Time will tell.

This is the first time in years I've only worked on one project at a time. I have to admit that it's nice to see visible progress on something, and potentially finish it in the same year I start it :-)  But I'm itching to work on something different now.

Off I go to look at everyone's updates.

 

Another great giveaway

Jennifer is hosting a lovely giveaway on her blog:  http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Ffeathersinthenest.blogspot.com%2Ffeeds%2Fposts%2Fdefault

Nataly's gifties

Check out the lovely giveaway that Nataly is offering on her blog: http://natalysneedle.blogspot.com/2012/02/gifties-for-friends-and-giveaway.html

IHSW Weekend

This past weekend was the International Hermit & Stitch Weekend, my favorite weekend of the month. I had a busy weekend, and not as much time for stitching as I hoped.  I decided on Sunday afternoon that I hadn't spent enough time stitching, so I ignored the housework and the laundry and spent much of the afternoon and early evening stitching.  I made good progress on my Sturbridge Box project.  I managed to finish the top and started on the first side. 

This has been a fun project to work on so far.  Now that I finished the top I think the rest of the stitching will go quickly.

Now I'm off to get see what others have been working on .... in between loads of laundry.

nook cover

Last weekend I finished a cover for my sister's color nook.  She has a hard cover that's become dirty and she couldn't get it clean anymore, but she liked the protection that it provided. So I made a cover for the hard cover, that can be removed and washed (or replaced) when necessary.  The only patterns that I could find for nooks were soft covers that provided no protection, so I made this up.  Next time I think I might do a couple of things differently, but it's ok for a first attempt.

I think I'll make one for myself, but with cross stitching on the front cover.

WIPocalypse 2012 - February Update

It's hard to believe how quickly the last month flew by!  Last week the Sturbridge Box stitcherama started and I've added that project to my WIPocalypse list.  I'd hoping to concentrate on it until the stitching is finished.  We'll see how that works out ;-)  Sorry about the fuzzy picture.

The only other WIPocalypse project I worked on this month was one night on the linen band bookmark.

Off to look at everyone's progress.  I love seeing what people are working on.

First finish of 2012

I finally finished stitching Poinsettia House by Little House Needleworks, the January Year of the Smalls project.  I'm probably the last person taking part in the Year of the Smalls to finish, but at least it's finished, which I can't say about all of my projects :-)  It was a very enjoyable stitch, as all Little House projects are.

Next up is to do the prework on the Sturbridge Box stitcherama project which starts on Saturday.  Since I'll be working on that for the next couple of weeks I decided not to do the February Year of the Small project.  And who knows when I'll get back to my WIPocalypse projects.  So many projects, so little time!