TUSAL Ort Report for February and BAP Challenge update

My ort jar doesn't seem to be getting any fuller. It travels with me back and forth to my fiance's house, and I think the vibrations of the car must be shaking the threads into a more compacted state. I swear there was stitching done this month!

Most of my stitching time this month has been dedicated to the Gyrafa Sampler I'm doing for BeckySC's BAP Challenge. It still doesn't look like much to me. I've decided that I really don't love the colors of this sampler. It's far to dull. But I'm fascinated by the fact that the sampler is about a giraffe, so I'll stick to it. I'm basically stitching it one page at a time. There are 8 pages and I am entirely done with one page. So just over 1/8 of the way through. I think I will keep working on this one until Friday, at which point I will put some time in on some thank you gifts I'm making for some of my wedding assistants (you didn't think I could make it all the way through a post without mentioning the word "wedding" did you?). I took two photos of Gyrafa, one of the whole thing, and one a little more closeup of the most finished section.


In non-stitchy news, I had to take the littlest guy in to have his little unmanning operation. (why is he still here? He was supposed to move into a nice, shiny new home shortly before my grandmother passed away. Sigh) Unfortunately, I waited a wee bit too long for this operation, and he discovered the joys of spraying the week before his operation. In a word, disgusting. But he seems to have gotten over it now, thank goodness. He had to spend several days away from the other cats, and the day after I brought him back home, I discovered this for the very first time:

I think Lucky might have missed him a little bit.

Well, that's it for now. I'm fighting something nasty in my throat and nose right now. I'm not sure if it's a cold or if it's my allergies as I was doing some more cleaning/sorting last night and I'm allergic to dust mites. Whichever it is, I don't feel very good, and I'm starting to sound a little nasty too. Hopefully, it will pass quickly.

Don't forget to check my last post for the names of the winners of my de-stashing giveaway.

And the winners are...

Sorry it's taken me so long to getting around to this. Life has been a little busy here recently. I've pulled the names of the people interested in each package, and randomly drew a name for each package.

The winner of the "Nature Package" is Southpaw Stitcher.

The winner of the "Celtic Package" is Ellen of Cross Stitch Passion.

The winner of the "Sampler Package" is Margaret of Days of a Sampler Lover.

The winner of the "Fantasy Package is Cleejoow.

The winner of the "Theresa Wentzler Package" is geekyHeather.

Congratulations, ladies! Please email me with your full names and mailing addresses. If you get them to me by Friday afternoon, I will do my darnedest to get those packages in the mail by Monday. I hope you enjoy your new patterns, kits, and fabrics. Thank you to everyone for playing along.

WIPocalypse, February check-in

I an't believe it's already been a month! Where does the time go? (possibly into planning a wedding, but who knows!) I am happy to announce that there have been several items marked off my WIPocalypse list, even one that I didn't know belonged on the list! IF you want to learn more about the WIPocalypse, or see what others are working on, go here.

I think I'll go in reverse order here. This week, I spent a little time working on my Sarah Johnson reproduction sampler. I got this little piece several years ago. It's only a little larger than 5x7, and I quickly stitched almost all of it. I ran into difficulties when I a) ran out of the color of silk I needed and b) ran out of stitches to put in the piece except for satin stitches. Satin stitches tend to bore me. Especially the kind of free form satin stitches that were needed to stitch the leaves on this tree. Sarah has spent a loooong time in the ufo pile. Here she is when I finally picked her back up:

And here she is, finally finished as of last night:

See how little was left in order to finish this piece? Shameful really. But now she's done, and ready for a frame. Hooray for the WIPocalypse to inspire me to finish something!
This month, I also found this ornament and finished it off:

Another Sarah, Sarah Hatton McPhail, went from looking something like this at the beginning of the year:

To a complete finish earlier this month:

I also started, and finished, three other pieces. I'm not sure if those count for the WIPocalypse or not. But hey, they are FINISHED!!!
I made a small bit of progress on my BAP challenge piece as well:

It still doesn't look like much, but still, progress is progress. I think this month's stitching goal will be to continue working on my BAP piece, work on several small gifts for people who are helping me with my wedding, and MAYBE finish off one of these little pin pillow or ornaments that's lying around waiting for finishing.

Don't forget about my giveaway. There are still a few days left to join in, if you'd like. You can read about it here.

BAP progress and another finish

Hello, hello! Since my last post on the 25th, I have been working on two stitching pieces. First off, I started (and finished, gasp) "Breath of Spring" by Blackbird Designs. I stitched it using the called-for threads on 36 count Aerial fabric from Picture This Plus. I trimmed it using some Prima lace and the backing (which I forgot to take a picture of) is from Blackbird Designs Blueberry Crumbcake. Here it is:

I have also made a good bit of progress on my Gyrafa sampler for Becky's BAP Challenge. This border is a wee bit boring, and I'm looking forward to moving on to other parts of the sampler. The main part of the border kind of blends in with the fabric in this photo. I like how subtle it looks, though.

The tan part of the border stretches out a good bit further, but you couldn't really see it in the bigger photo I took, so I suppose you'll just have to trust me!

In other news, the wedding preparations are moving along in good order. I picked up my dress this weekend, this time in the proper color. On Sunday, my brother, sister, mom, dad, and sister in law all joined me in a rather crazy (but fun) day of wedding work. My brother showed off his musical skills and we discussed potential ceremony music (some serious ideas and some not so serious). My sister, sis in law, and I worked on the centerpieces, which I am happy to say are now complete. We talked about shower plans. We raided Dad's studio for props that could be used during the ceremony/reception. We even found another bird cage! I've almost completely finished addressing the invites, with lots of help from Alton. And the honeymoon plans are moving ahead as well. There are still a million things to do, but I feel like we've entered the more fun stage of the planning (ie, the part where we get to think about all those sweet little details instead of worrying about the big issues like where and who is available to help us). I am about to start working on a little stitching project for a few of the people involve in our wedding, so there MAY not be a lot of progress photos in the near future. Oh, except for the photos of what I stitched for Mom. I'm still waiting on images of those, and will share as soon as I can.

Don't forget about my giveaway. You can find it here.