Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day!

Boyd's Bears Starsley Family. Robert, Chase, Adele, Lucy w Munchkin, Sara Lynn, Tessa and Corey

I hope everyone is having a nice Memorial Day weekend! The rain and cooler temps the past couple days have given way to sunny & 80* temps today. While we enjoy our family, friends & cook-outs, hopefully we all remember to take a moment and remember and thank all of those who have served our country!

I finished Lizzie Kate's Boo Club, but forgot to take a picture! All the blocks and borders are done, all it needs are the buttons! As soon as I have it completely finished, I'll be sure to get a picture.

SanMan SAL Calendar October, November & December

While doing some "cleaning" (more like rummaging, but cleaning makes it sound like I was getting someone accomplished) I found the 2010 SanMan calendar piece I had been working on last year. I had finished up to September and when we moved, it got packed away and forgotten about. Luckily sometime after moving I saved the October, November & December patterns when they were released. The last month I shared here was July. I had August & September done and then finished the year off by finishing October, November & December this weekend.

SanMan 2010 SAL Calendar Bell Pull

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend & thanks for stopping by! Nick

A Long Time Coming

Well, it has definitely been a while since my last post, and unfortunately, a while since I've really stitched anything. Work has taken up a big chunk of my time, even with 2-3 days off, I rarely find any time to stitch. I also haven't really "felt" any of the project's I've started lately. I pick them up when I do find time and just don't have the enthusiasm to work on them or get much done. Hopefully I get my mojo back soon! I do have a few things to share since I've been gone from blogging though...

Here is SanMan's calendar piece for July. The pattern is charted for the ice cream to be brown & pink but I added the white-ish color to make it a neapolitan ice cream cone. It's hard to believe this is the last week of July! The year, month & summer have flown by!

I'm also working on the June & July SanMan blackwork pieces. I can't wait to start on July, its a really nice stars & stripes theme in dark red, blue & gold.

I also finally found a frame for Hot Stuff! I got this on sale for $1.91 at Hobby Lobby! It was a little scratched up so it was in the home decor clearance aisle and with another so much of a % off the clearance price cost almost nothing! I liked the look of it being a little ruff, so I took a piece of sandpaper to it to give it an even more beat up look. Sorry for the bad picture, I hung it in a hallway to get a picture and didn't use the flash since it always showed up in the glass.

I feel terribly behind and am going to try to catch up on blogs so I can see all of the fun everyone else has been up to! Maybe I can find something that catches my eye & lights a stitching fire under me! lol Have a great day & thanks for stopping by! Nick

Lemonade & Hacked E-mail

Thank you everyone for the comments on Hot Stuff! Hopefully this weekend I can get it framed. Until Sharon mentioned painting a frame red, the thought had never crossed my mind. Well duh, of course it would be much easier to paint a unfinished or white wood frame than spend forever looking for the right red frame, especially since its a standard 8x10! lol

Here is SanMan's June calendar piece "Fresh Squeezed", the calender is 1/2 finished now! I redid the backstitching in darker colors and I like how the blue ice cubes show up but still don't care for the yellow. It's weird in the picture you can really see the outline but when you actually look at the piece it's still really hard to tell the lemon slices from the lemonade, the flash must make it show up better. Now I'm all caught up with all my SanMan SALs, just waiting for the June blackwork and next Inky Dinky snowman to be posted.

SanMan's Fresh Squeezed

Also I wanted to let everyone know that my e-mail was hacked yesterday evening. An e-mail with no subject and only a link in the body (to an online pharmacy ???) was sent to everyone in my address book. As I was just telling Shari, I almost never use or check my e-mail so thankfully most of the address in my book were old or are stored address from store websites or newsletters (so their e-mails don't end up in my spam folder). I had tons of "mail undeliverable" e-mails because the message wouldn't send to Yankee Candle or Barnes & Noble! lol I did e-mail the bloggers whose e-mail address' I recognized on the list but if I missed any I just wanted to let you know what was up and that I'm sorry you were bothered with that pesky junk! I reported the problem to AOL, changed my password and changed the setting so that e-mail address aren't automatically saved to my address book when I send an e-mail.

Thanks for stopping by & hope everyone has a great day! Nick

Fresh Squeezed June

Happy June 1st everyone! I know I say this every month, but where did the time go? lol I hope everyone had a safe and fun Memorial Day weekend. I've worked everyday since last Tuesday so I spent most of my weekend at work, though I did enjoy a cookout/bonfire at a friends house Saturday night and a fireworks show Sunday night. Even though Memorial Day was yesterday I still want to say a big "Thank You!" to all of our veterans, those who lost their lives in war and those currently serving. I have several family members who are/were veterans, from WWII, Desert Storm and the current war in Iraq.

Since I have been so busy with work there has not been much time for stitching, though I did get the March square in the SanMan Inky Dinky SAL done. It was a quick and relaxing something to stitch last night. For now the snowmen are blind, but I will give them Mill Hill seed bead eyes when all 12 are done so I don't have to iron over the beads.

I also wanted to start the June piece for the SanMan calendar, but of course I only had one of the colors needed. It seems every new project I am missing several colors, so you would think I would have all of them by now! lol The piece is titled Fresh Squeezed, and is probably my favorite so far. It's a little glass of lemonade filled with lemon slices and ice cubes. I can't wait to start it!

Since I couldn't stitch, I washed my Baby today. It's been probably 2 weeks since the last car wash and boy could you tell, or at least I could! lol The only thing I didn't do was sweep the inside out, otherwise she got a complete cleaning. Now my Baby looks brand spanking new, I even got the wheel brush and rim polish out and deep cleaned the rims and took the license plate off to clean behind it and clean the plate as well. After all you can't have a dirty U of M plate! lol

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a great day! Nick

Sweet May Treat

Here is SanMan's May 2010 calendar block, a colorful lollipop. It was nice quick stitch, a good way to get back in the swing of things since it's been a while since I did any stitching besides blackwork. I actually finished it off earlier today before I went to work, after posting this morning.

Here are January-May so far. I think if at the end of the series each month ends up being a food/treat, as they have been far, I'm going to find a cool font and stitch "A Sweet Year" across the top above January's block.

That's it for now, just a quick update since it's been more than a week since my last stitching post. Thanks for stopping by! Nick

No April Showers Here

Happy April 1st everyone - it's hard to believe 1/4 of the year has passed already! To celebrate the first day of April, and just in time for Easter, I finished the SanMan 2010 Calendar piece for April, a cute chocolate bunny! I finished the bunny this afternoon while sitting on the porch swing.

SanMan 2010 Calendar - April

Poor blind bunny, the eyes are supposed to be French knots. Well, I can not make a good French knot to save my life so I will put two Mill Hill seed beads there. I totally forgot to do so before I took the pic. EDIT: I also just realized I forgot to backstitch the whiskers! Yikes, this poor bunny! lol

All 4 months released so far.

It was an amazing day here today, its been in the low 70s the past two days, so I have just been sitting around outside soaking up the sun. I wish I could take Baby out for a ride in such nice weather but she still needs her oil changed and everything before she's ready for the road. The problem is the Chrysler dealer requires any mechanic that works on a Crossfire to be specially certified to do so, and the dealer only has 1 such certified mechanic. So it's tough to get an appointment not only when he is scheduled to work, but to find a time when I can get over there and they have an opening! My mom had to call earlier to rub it in that when she left work for lunch and to run a few errands, she did so in her car with the top down. lol

I haven't done any other stitching since finishing the candy cane Piglet ornament. The SanMan blackwork pattern for March was also released so that will be my next start. Here is a pic of the first two for January & February. The snowmen are blind for the same reason as the bunny! lol

Hope everyone else is enjoying their week so far, and thanks for stopping by! Nick