It's May!

I love new months so much. No matter how things went in April, it's a new month, a fresh start! Which is, of course, prime goal-setting time. So let's get going!

1. Finish stitching Santa's House, Poinsettia Place, Snowman and Friends, and You Have Stolen My Heart.

2. Read The Catcher in the Rye, Pride and Prejudice, Walden, The Help, Things Fall Apart, The Jane Austen Book Club, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Troy, Ithaka, and the Iliad. (And whatever I check out from the library on a whim. Cannot. Resist.)

3. FINALLY start those knitting classes.

4. Work on my ancient Greek, every day that health allows.
5. Blog more often - two times a week, at least?

I am so ready to do stuff. I started a new medication last week, and for a week I seriously couldn't get out of bed from being so sick. It was awful. I'm done taking it now, though. :D Oh, by the way, y'all should look into detoxing sugars and carbs and stuff. It's insane. Like, raisins taste like candy now, and candy seems awful.

Anyway, here's the scant progress I've made since last week. I only just felt like stitching again today, so it's not much.

See the difference? Yeah, I don't either. There's a few more stitches there, though.

I'm not happy with Santa's buttons, but they were driving me crazy so I started Poinsettia Place. Yayyyyy new start!

And now I'll sign off, to get a bit more stitching time in before bed! Happy stitching, y'all!

A VERY late IHSW update

Hello all! I made lots of progress on Santa's Village over IHSW, and I had every intention of posting on that Monday.... but I just felt so miserable! And then there was a flurry of discoveries and doctors. *deep breath* So I almost definitely have fibromyalgia. I'm torn between the misery of having chronic pain for the rest of my life and the joy of having a name for my multitude of symptoms. I'm not crazy, it's not in my head, and other people have the same pain I do. It's comforting. And kinda scary. Anyway, on to the stitching!

Here's Blushing Rose:

LOTS of pink. I'm enjoying this piece. :)

 And here's Santa's House:

Yep, it's so close to being finished that I can taste it. I finished the cross stitches on Sunday, March 17th. Then I spent fifteen minutes teaching myself how to make French knots (see scrap fabric in bottom right of picture) and proceeded to make Santa's eyes. Then I didn't touch the piece for a week and have yet to finish the other French knots. Sometime soon, though, I'll finish this up and start Poinsettia Place! (So excited!!!)

Here are some amazing giveaways that y'all simply must check out:
Awesome Giveaway #1
Awesome Giveaway #2

Happy stitching, my dears!



PS: I have been reading all your blogs and adoring them, I just haven't felt up to commenting. Know that I love all your posts and I shall try to do better with letting y'all know! <3

Popping in for a quick TUSAL

Hi there! So I noticed that today was a new moon and felt obligated to pop in and show my ORTs. I'll eventually get around to reading all your lovely blogs and such, but I have been beset by migraines and lots of other pains and I just don't feel up for much at the moment. Except a bit of stitching apparently, because I do have some ORTs. :) Mostly Blushing Rose, then recently Santa's House.

From above

With the pretty rose from Ben <3

All 2013 ORTs

Here's Santa's House, from CCN's Santa's Village. Finally making a bit of progress on it! :)

I didn't take a picture of Blushing Rose, because I have some frogging to do on it that I'm avoiding at the moment. I'll be back sometime with a more complete stitching update. Until then, happy stitching!

TUSAL and Books and Stitching!

February has been so busy! I celebrated my birthday (Warm Bodies was funny and cute, and my boyfriend didn't even think it was torture!) and then the next day went to Clemson for a best friend's birthday (WE SAW SNOW FLURRIES) and then came the Super Bowl (crushing, absolutely crushing). Then came a week that flew by in cross stitching (while listening either to War and Peace or one of my new Great Courses lectures), giving in to my mild addiction to the Sims 2, being in pain, reading, and seeing my Ben (<3). So here's the meager stitching from this week!


I finally steeled myself to stitch with overdyed floss for the first time. Santa's House is providing me with all sorts of fun challenges!

I also finished Mario on February 4th. So cute!! 

I read a good bit, too. I finished reading Northanger Abbey on February 3rd. It was a delightful book to read! Oh, Jane Austen's wit and vivacity at its highest. I'd call Northanger Abbey my favorite novel by her - of those that I've read, that is (Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility). This novel has the awareness of its being a novel about a hero and heroine, and it's all the funnier for it. Speaking of Jane Austen (<3), I saw the movie version of Emma (the one with Gwyneth Paltrow, if there's others). It was wonderful! I also saw Joe Versus the Volcano, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. A bit quirky, but wonderful nonetheless.

I also read The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green. On February 8th. In one night. Almost in one sitting. It was amazing. I laughed out loud a ton (and I never laugh while reading), then I sobbed for like an hour, at least, some while reading and some in the wake of finishing. It was the most amazing book and I know I'm going to have to own it, and read it all the time. I also felt healthier than I have in a long while after reading it, because, hey, I'm not dying. Anyway, READ IT. EVERYONE. Laugh and laugh and cry and sob and stay up until two.

In the currently reading area, I've got This is How You Lose Her and The Casual Vacancy, but I'm mainly focusing on Walden for now. Thoreau is tossing and turning in his grave right now, I bet. Poor guy thought things were bad then - they've gone even further from his ideal. Of course, I'm not that sure about his ideal being actually ideal. Seriously, this guy has spent fifty pages railing on everything and everyone and acting like he knows better than everyone ever, and I'm convinced he'd find cross stitching a terrible hobby. Thoreau also thinks there's no reason for telegraph communication between Maine and Texas - and now there's the Internet. Anyway, interesting book.

To wrap up this very long post, it's TUSAL time! I found some jam jars, so now I have real glass jars for my ORTs! :) The framed cross stitch was made for me by an aunt for the Christmas I was two.

And all my ORTs this year:

Happy stitching!

I'm back! With a slightly late TUSAL

Wow, it's been a while. I've hardly touched my laptop for almost two weeks... I blame my health and my self-imposed busyness. I have been going crazy in my room, organizing things and getting rid of things that seemed so important in high school and suddenly don't matter a bit. I even moved a bit of furniture around! I've had lots of appointments as well... even acupuncture! :o I've gotten some stitching done too, whilst listening to War and Peace. I absolutely love War and Peace and Anna Karenina. If I had to pick a favorite thus far, though, I'd definitely pick the latter. It's delicious.

Here's a late TUSAL update. :o I definitely would've posted it yesterday, but I was a bit nonfunctional. :/ 

It's more thread than it looks like, I promise.

And here's all of my 2012 ORTs!

I was a bit diverted from cross stitch by the discovering of this incomplete latch hook project in my closet, "Sunflower":

So, naturally, I immediately threw my energy into working on it:

Quite tragically, there was some manufacturing error and I ran out of both brown thread colors. However, the company was wonderful and yesterday I received this, for free, in the mail:

 The company shall no longer receive my wrath. :)

I've been working on Quoth the Raven quite a bit, since it needs to be finished and framed in time for Christmas. I love it. :)

I picked up Snowman and Friends for a bit, too.

I even started something new! How could I resist beginning Santa's House when I had the materials gathered? :) I love the pattern, I love stitching on linen, I just love it all. :D I'm thrilled to be stitching the entire series on this great big piece of linen!

Santa's Village: Santa's House
Began December 1, 2012

And I shall leave my fellow cross stitchers with a picture of my darling dog, who has taken over my bed since it was moved near the windows. :)

Starting and finishing and mounting, oh my!

Wow, busy days! Forty-eight hours after deciding to take a medical leave of absence from college, I was back home with all my stuff. Twenty-four hours after that, I was hanging out with my family in Myrtle Beach. A few days later, I was back home and busy with lots of cross stitchy fun, despite my body deciding that this week ought to be extremely painful (at least it made me remember why medical leave is a good idea). I then embarked on a crazed purging and organizing of my room, which is currently in a state of chaos. And now, on to the cross stitchy fun! :D

I spent Saturday (with the aid of my mom at times) washing, ironing, mounting, and framing "Darth Vader" in preparation for my darling's birthday on Sunday. He was quite happy and hung it up in his room as soon as we went to his house. :) But without further ado, here 'tis!

 

The mounting was quite an ordeal, but I think it ended up looking quite nice. I used a foamboard and a small army of straight pins. Simple materials, pleasant result. I'm quite excited to have had my first taste of finishing!

I also purchased lots of fun cross stitch supplies on Saturday at my local needlework shop, which I have newly discovered and which is the most wonderful place.

And on Sunday I bought this magazine from Books-a-Million! I simply could not resist. And I have been loving pouring over it, so no regrets. :)

I've also finished "Live, Love, Laugh." :D

"Live, Love, Laugh"
Began October 5, 2012
Finished November 30, 2012

And while in Myrtle Beach, I explored my grandmother's knowledge of stitchery. She has some lovely cross stitches hanging up around the house - how had I not noticed them before? And she even let me borrow several wonderful old books on stitchery!

Look what came in the mail a bit earlier this week! :) I'm quite thrilled. I jumped up and down when I saw the envelope with "Crazy Annie's Stitchin" on it.

Aaaand, I have a new start! This'll be for my brother for Christmas. It's on some red 18 ct. Aida from my little needlework shop down the road. :)

"Quoth the Raven"
Began November 29, 2012

In the world of books, I finished listening to The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, which is an amazing novel. I absolutely loved it! I'm nearly done with Brisingr, by Christopher Paolini. And December shall be the month of Russian novelists, so I am starting Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) on Saturday and shall be listening to War and Peace (also Tolstoy) while stitching. I hope to have time for The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) during December, but if not, January shall get a taste of Russian novels as well.

Happy stitching to you all! :)