March 2015 TUSAL

Here are my ORTs for the month!

And here are all my ORTs from my 2.5 years of stitching! :) I'm going to need to start squishing them down soon!

And here are two of the pieces I've been working on!

Bookworm Fairy

Started January 22, 2015

Favorite Pony

Started January 8, 2013

I'm hoping to finish Favorite Pony by the end of the month. It'll be a little tough since I don't get all that much time to stitch, but I think there's hope! I've also gotten a little further than this picture shows.

Happy stitching!

February 2015 TUSAL

I hope y'all had a lovely Valentine's Day! Unfortunately, the love of my life attends college in Florida and my college is in North Carolina, so we didn't get to see each other. We did Skype for over three hours though. :) This week I finally had a bit of snow for the first time this winter! Just a tiny bit of snow, and like an inch of ice. I'm envious of those of you who are getting multiple feet of snow and get to stay home and stitch!

Here's my TUSAL jar with the month's ORTs! I've been working a lot on Bookworm Fairy - that's all the blue. I also had two small finishes - an old WIP and a quick bookmark for my little, Anna Catherine. This week is Big/Little week for my eating house (kind of like a sorority). I'm a sophomore, and I was paired with a freshman. All week I shower her with anonymous love and gifts, and then there's a big reveal on Friday night!

Anna Catherine's Bookmark

Started February 13, 2015

Finished February 18, 2015

Flowers in Purple Vase

Started December 25, 2012

Finished February 7, 2015

Bookworm Fairy Update
Started January 22, 2015

Happy stitching!

January 2015 TUSAL

Hey y'all! Just a quick TUSAL post with some ORTs that have accumulated since the last TUSAL check-in. At each New Moon I empty my jar of ORTs into my vase, which holds all of my ORTs ever (I started stitching in 2012 so it's not all that many yet).

So here are my ORTs for this month:

And here are all my ORTs ever, including this month's:

Happy stitching!

Lots of Updates (FNWF, TUSAL, etc.)

It's been a long time since I could squeeze in a visit to the blogosphere! Some highlights of the past couple months:

-I returned to Davidson College for my sophomore year

-I read my first Platonic dialogue in the original Ancient Greek

-I watched a ton of Star Trek: Voyager

-I finally started reading A Game of Thrones

And now for stitching updates!

I participated in Friday Night with Friends for the first time last night and did some serious stitching on Little House Needleworks's Famine Relief Chart (Love One Another).

Before:

After:

I'm also quite overdue for a TUSAL update, so here are all my orts since I moved back into school:

And here is the progress that's been made on Tardis 3D since I last posted a picture of it!

After such a long absence from the world of cross stitch blogs, I was crushed to find out just yesterday about the death of Debbie of Debbie's Cross Stitch. She was an amazing person. I found her blog not too long after I first started cross stitching and would check it every day. She inspired me, and she always replied to my comments. When I started my own blog, emulating her, she always commented on my posts with encouraging words. I pray that she has found eternal peace.

Hummingbird Duo and TUSAL

I'm coming up fast on finals, but I still have some time for stitching! (Probably because I'd go crazy otherwise!) Here's what I've been working on lately, while listening to David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell (which I would highly recommend). All I have left are some Lazy Daisies and a whole lot of back stitching!

And here's my slightly late TUSAL update!

Happy stitching! :)

TARDIS and TUSAL

I've started listening to A Tale of Two Cities while stitching, and I'm really enjoying it! I've made lots of progress on Tardis 3D, stitching away to Dickens:

Here's a (somewhat late) TUSAL update, too!

Happy stitching! :)

August TUSAL Update

Here's a quick Totally Useless Stitch-a-Long update real quick, from my brand new iPhone. :D It has a beautiful T.A.R.D.I.S. case. :) Not a lot of stitching this month. Blame it on my new love of knitting that's jockeying for my time. And I'm leaving for school in a week and a half! :O Lots to do, but I'm excited. :)

It's been too long... TUSAL and stitching

So here's some of what I've been up to lately, interrupted slightly by three weeks of visiting family in Myrtle Beach and then New Hampshire. I'll put up my knitting as soon as I figure out how to manage a good picture of it, haha. It's gotten really long, and I've used up the ball of yarn I bought. It's not quite as long as I want yet, though. Less than a foot to go. Then maybe I'll try to learn how to make a matching hat!

Visit Heather's blog to enter her great giveaway!

I finally got around to some finish-finishing last Sunday. I'll post proper results once I get around to finishing what I started!

I have a new cross stitch start, "Love," a bookmark from Stoney Creek's X Marks the Spot book.

And here's my ridiculously late TUSAL (blame traveling):

Total so far this year. :)

Newest Cross-Stitch and Needlework
magazine in the background! :D

A late TUSAL update and lots of stitching

I tend to go for long periods of time without really using electronics, and these past few weeks have been one of those times. I didn't even think about posting! Not to mention I've been in Myrtle Beach this week visiting family, which was loads of fun. :) The last week of May I was beset by a wave of ennui, and I attempted to counter this by putting down everything I've been stitching lately and picking up Shell Collection. Here's the progress I made:

Then I decided to stitch something for two of my best friends' high school graduations, and I started the day before their graduation, which was last Saturday. Needless to say, these'll be slightly late presents. They're just generic heart shapes, but in pretty thread that I won from Shebafudge in a giveaway. I'm calling them Graduation Heart 1 and Graduation Heart 2, respectively:

And now for a slightly late TUSAL update. It doesn't look like I have all that many threads for this month, but it feels like I stitched a good bit, so maybe looks can be deceiving. I worked on the Graduation Hearts (which I'm going to put in refrigerator picture frames), Shell Collection, You Have Stolen My Heart, and there's also some progress on Poinsettia Place that I don't have a picture of right now, from before the ennui. So here's my monthly ORT jar and then my 2013 one, the former with my journal in the background (it's my third one since December - I write a lot):

And that's all for now. I'll be back for an update after the weekend, which I think is IHSW, even though there isn't a post about it yet at Joyce's blog. Happy stitching!

It's TUSAL time!

First, I'll show off the tiny bit of stitching I've done since my last post:

Yeah, I've been busy doing other things. My ORTs reflect that as well. On the bright side, so far this month I've read:

The Catcher in the Rye

How to Save a Life

Looking for Alaska

The Autobiography of Henry VIII.

So that's something! I didn't adore any of those books, but they were good. I didn't really like The Catcher in the Rye, though.

Anywho, here are my TUSAL pics!

So far this year!

Well, that's it for now. I'm going to go enjoy the lovely day! Here in the South Carolina midlands, we're in that precarious span of time where it's sunny and warm but not 100 degrees outside. Gotta enjoy it while we can, in a week it'll be HOT. Happy stitching!

April TUSAL (and stuff)

I'm back from a nice long stay at Table Rock State Park in a tiny cabin with no cell reception or internet, and I feel so refreshed. I needed a break from the tomb of my room so desperately, and a break in the routine of medical leave. If I'm going to feel bad so often, it's nice to feel bad away from home every once in a while. :) Anyways, some pics!

First, here's my Dad's birthday gift
(well, the cross stitch part of it).

I started this on April 1, while I was on my family vacation. This is how far I am now! It's "Best Friends," from a Stoney Creek book, X Marks the Spot. I'm making it for Ashlyn, who's been one of my best friends since elementary school.

Here's this month's ORT report, along with some of this month's current reads. If you look closely, you can see three layers - the bottom one being Santa's House, the middle being Blushing Rose, and the top being Best Friends.

Here's all of this year's ORTs so far, in a new container! Pretty vase that came with some pretty flowers that my boyfriend once got me. :)

The view from the top of Table Rock. :)

This was the view from the little patio of our cabin. Can you believe this gorgeousness??

Well, I guess that's about it. Happy stitching!

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!