Not A Very Productive IHSW!

This weekend was International Hermit & Stitch Weekend (IHSW). Jerry was working and I should have been able to get a lot of stitching done. But I didn't. I don't even really know why I didn't. Part of the reason was because I needed to get a white pillowcase to use for my afghan. I had planned to go today to get one (I did, you can see it in the picture) but thought it would be ok to stitch a few days without it. It's to put the afghan (except for the part I'm working on) in so that it doesn't get dirty or messed up. Because the afghan is big and it will take a while to stitch it. On Sunday after I had stitched a little bit, I remembered I had a pretty new pair of jeans on, a dark blue pair. They've been washed twice but my color catcher still came out blue after the last wash. I checked the afghan and sure enough, there was a little blue spot on it. :( It's tiny and on the back, but I figured I better wait for the pillowcase to stitch any more on it. I thought about pulling out one of my HAED pieces but didn't want to be bothered with taking it out for only a few more hours on Sunday. Lazy, I know. Here is how far I got on the afghan before putting it away. This is the upper left block. Each block is 88x88 and it's stitched over 1! Those are some tiny stitches! This is going to take awhile!

On Saturday I did finish my April ornaments for the Christmas Ornament SAL and Halloween Ornament SAL The theme for the Christmas one was Trees/Baubles (ornaments) and the Halloween theme was stitcher's choice. I didn't put a hanger on the Christmas one because I will put a real ornament hanger on it so it looks more like an ornament. Both of my ornaments are from freebie charts I had in my stash.

I tried something new the other day that I read about on Facebook, making peanut butter. The one we buy has oil, salt, sugar and a few other unnecessary ingredients. We bought a 1 lb bag of peanuts. They do have oil and salt added to them but that's it. I dumped them in the food processor and about 5 minutes later, I had peanut butter! It's delicious!! It made exactly a pint jar. I was afraid it would be like making applesauce and I would start out with a lot of peanuts only to end up with hardly anything. Even though it still does have the oil & salt, not having the sugar is a big plus since Jerry is diabetic and loves peanut butter. It's also without the other extras that are in the jar kind. I was actually kind of amazed with how it turned out. Just peanuts, imagine that! :)

Is anyone watching the new show on Netflix Instant called 'Hemlock Grove'?

 They premiered the entire first season, 13 episodes on Friday. It's really good! We have 3 episodes left. I'm hoping we don't have to wait forever for season 2. I thought it would be more scary than it actually is. It kind of reminds me of the old Dark Shadows. Just kinda. It definitely isn't for kids to watch because they have some sex scenes and boobs. And they like to drop the F-bomb. If they used it any more than they do, I would probably quit watching. I don't like when they say it every other word. Thankfully they aren't that bad about using it. But it is really good. And they had the most disgustingly awesome transformation into a wolf!

Well, I think that's all I have to say today. It's a pretty short update for me. :) I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We finally had a few days without rain! By the weekend we are supposed to be in the mid 60s and 73 next Monday.  If it doesn't change before then. We have a chance of rain the next few days and then nothing through next Monday! Hopefully...

Thanks for visiting!
Hugs

Blog Giveaway!

Head over to Shaunterria's blog for a great giveaway! She's giving away a chart, floss and buttons for Santa's Stocking Store, a Santa's Village series design from Country Cottage Needleworks. I'm really hoping I win this one. :)

Stitchy Update!

It's been dreary and rainy for the last 2 weeks. We have flood warnings and some places are already flooded. We don't live too close to the lakes or river so we're ok but the rain is getting depressing. Last year we were in a drought and this year it won't stop. Can't there be a happy medium? I don't even want to think about the mosquitoes this summer! But, when it's raining it's a good time to get some stitching done. :) And I have been stitching and stashing! Not that I needed more stash!
A friend that I went to school with told me about the Salvation Army Women's Craft & Fabric Sale. I have never heard of it but apparently a lot of people have. We got there about 10minutes before it was set to start. The parking lot was full and there was a line across the whole front of the strip mall where it was. We got in pretty quick and headed straight for the stitching stuff. It was nice because they had tall signs on the tables with the different categories. I found a lot of packaged aida for .25c each. Jerry picked up a sealed package and showed it to me to see if I wanted it. It was an afghan cloth to stitch on! I looked them up online and it's $25. I got it for $3 !!! I wish there would have been more because a few friends on Facebook would have liked one. :( This is what I came home with. Emma was with us and got the big flower for her room for .75c and the stocking kit in the red box for $2. When we opened it we found out it makes 4 small stockings. :)

My friend told me there was still a lot of stuff left a few days later and they had added more that didn't fit in the beginning. So we went back and I came home with this. The big black piece and white piece are over a yard of aida! Fun! :)

Now, since I had this nice afghan, I needed something to stitch on it, right? :) I looked online and found several charts but most were for different sized afghans or the squares were different size. Then I looked on Stoney Creek and found the perfect design! I loved it more than the others I saw and it was the right size! It's called Tropical Island and you can see it Here.  I received it in the mail today and I'm hoping to start it this weekend during IHSW.

In my last post I shared my March Halloween ornament but I didn't have the Christmas ornament one done yet. Here it is. I'm working on my April ornaments now so I'll show them next post. :)

This morning I finished putting together a pinkeep wall hanging for my grandson. I stitched his name using the Lizzie Kate A-B-C-razy chart. He called me after school when he got home and saw it. He was so excited! He didn't know about it and he loves it. :)

And finally...I know a lot of people have been waiting to see Paradise finished. Here it is! By the way, it isn't actually framed yet. I just put it in the frame to see how it's going to look. Hopefully it will be in there in the next day or two. :)

I absolutely loved working on this piece! Part of what made it fun was doing it as a SAL with Katie. We both were finishing about the same amount each week and finished pretty close to each other. Katie decided to change the color of her letters. She didn't like the look of the black as much as I did. I love the way hers looks too! As we were working on them I kept wondering if I should have changed mine too but I really like how the black looks so I'm happy with it. I really like hers too though. Lol We are thinking about doing the Halloween one as a SAL in a few months. Here's Katie's finished Paradise!

Well, I think that's about it for now. Not much going on with all this rain. We finally got rid of winter and now this! Oh well, in the summer we'll probably be praying for some rain.
Thanks for checking out my blog and please leave a comment. I like knowing you were here. :)

Also, I haven't posted any picture-of-the-day pics for a while. I did finish March and am doing the April one now. If anyone is interested I will post those in a different post. I know I did get several nice comments on them before (thank you!), but didn't want to bore everyone with them all. So if you want to see them, let me know!