Liebster Blog Award

I am so excited; I received the Liebster blog award from Danielle at Peace, Love and Stitch. I also just reached 20 followers which is awesome!

Liebster is a german word meaning favourite, dearest or beloved. The Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other new bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers, to help spread the word about their blogs and to help them gain wider recognition.

The Liebster award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting.

1. Choose 5 up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers to award the Liebster to.


2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.


3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blog so they know about the award.


4. Share 5 random facts about yourself that people don't know about you.


My award recipients are as follows:



1. Lara’s Loose Threads I love this blog, she is a great stitcher and is a Tudor history buff.



2. Gracewood Stitches Gracewood is a designer of cross stitch patterns that I just love and her photos of the animals and beauty around her home always inspire me.



3. Raven’s Stitching Nest Fun blog, love her stitch work.



4. Tickled Pink in Stitches Great stitching blog and love her photographs of her adventures with friends and family.



5. The Musing Badger Fantastic stitcher, love her work and her choice of designs.


My five random facts about myself:

1. I’m a collect-a-holic that collects way too many things. My collections include, wax seals, cobalt blue glass, antique needlebooks, children’s horse books, Victorinox swiss army knives and a few others things.

2. I’m an equine artist who draws and paints horses. As soon as I could hold a pencil I was drawing horses and I haven’t stopped since.

3. I’ll be 40 at the end of this year and I’m still a big kid. I have two giant tubs of Lego sets and add to my Lego collection every so often. There is something completely fun about breaking open a new box and putting a set together.

4. I met my husband Steve on the internet about 13 years ago. He is from Australia and we chatted for ten years before he came to visit for vacation and we fell in love. We’ll be married two years in September.

5. I’m in a wheelchair, have been since around 4th grade. I have a condition that’s named after me and so far medical experts haven’t found anyone else with it. I had my foot amputated in 2003 and almost died from my condition in 2008. I’ve outlived the Dr’s predictions for me for 25 years. I’m expecting I’ll live to be 200..hehe.





I actually got some work done too last night and I really like how the purples are blending. I can’t wait to get this one finished just so I can start May. I saw the floss list and gathered up my thread and just love the colors. I swore I’d only stitch these Cottages in the month they are in but they are too addictive..lol.

April Cottage Start and Floss Toss

Here is the original floss toss colors, which are nice but I didn't care for the browns. The striped roof was okay but I didn't care for it, as well as the dark purple for the shadow of the roofline. I decided to add more purples...

Ok here is the floss toss I'm going with. For the roof I'm using Weeks Cocoa which I had left over from the January Cottage. I am keeping the Amethyst and adding DMC 210 for the shadow of the house. I've added 208 for around the windows instead of the darker brown 420. For the "April" and possibly the flowers I'm using Weeks either Purple Majesty or Ultraviolet, haven't decided on that yet. I think it's a better blend of the purples. 

Here is a detail of the roof that I started yesterday. I did a row of cross stitch and a row of satin stitches at an angle. So now the roof is still "striped" but it's more subtle as I'm using one color and now it sort of looks like basket weave.

Here is my progress on Ink Circles Art Nouvea Love Letters as well. While waiting for the fabric for April to come I managed to get more done on this one. There was a bit of an issue with the Gentle Arts Peacock called for in the pattern as the ones available to me at my LNS were half very dark blue and half the actual peacock color it called for. Tracy Horner (the designer) on Facebook answered my question about it and  graciously suggested using Weeks Blue Topaz as a replacement as the dye lots for the Gentle Arts had changed quite a bit.

Yay March Finish!

March Cottage Finish!

Detail of the border and sheep.

Love the WDW Envy..yummy green.

Vincent one of our cats, basking in some early Spring sunshine.

A frequent visitor to our birdfeeder, a Eurasian Collared Dove. They've been cooing non stop now that the weather is warming up.

Yay! I am so happy to finally finish March Cottage. I spent most of February sick with an awful cold and cough which is now all gone. I tried stitching while sick and of course made mistakes I had to frog. I pushed through and finished the last bit this morning while watching The X-Files on Netflix instant. (Huge X-Files fan..hehe).

I recieved the April Cottage chart and specialty threads from ABCStitch but they must have run out of fabric as they noted in the package that it was to follow. This SAL must be pretty popular I don't doubt they've gone through a LOT of Lambswool linen.

I thought I'd share some pictures of things other than cross stitch..lol. The lovely Flame Point Snowshoe Siamese glowing in the sunshine is Vincent. He's my husbands best bud, although he likes me too. He is the most mellow cat I've ever met, nothing but the vacuum phases him. He hasn't got a mean bone in his body and he and our other cat Sage keep us entertained daily with their wrestling and running through the house.

We keep a few birdfeeders in our yard and get quite a few birds coming in for a bite to eat. With the snow we had earlier in February and now with the warmer Spring coming these Eurasian doves are pairing up and cooing all day long. They hang out on my neighbors' roof and come down for feeding. Our warm Spring days went away though and it's now a week of rain here in Southern Oregon. If only my fabric would get here it'll be perfect weather to huddle down and stitch!

Finally some progress!

Well I think I'm in the homestretch now with March Cottage. This cold really knocked me for a loop and had me so sick. I still have a bit of a cough but it's getting less. This cottage feels like it's take twice as long as February just because I tried to stitch while I was sick and ended up frogging a few times to fix mistakes.  Hopefully I'll get it finished here in the next week or so. I can't wait to get April Cottage, it is so dang cute and I love the clouds. They just make it pop.

I had a nice outing with my best friend to a few craft stores although I only ended up getting a couple of fat quarters of fabric. We are planning for another Shop Hop at end of April thru the beginning of May for the middle of Oregon. We're going to go through our craft stashes and find things to sell to fund our trip. Hopefully we can get enough for gas and snacks..lol. I have a ton of cross stitch kits and charts that I need to put up and sell. I'm thinking of putting up an Etsy shop or just going to directly to Ebay.

It's funny how tastes change over time and things that you dearly loved a few years ago now aren't your favorite or you've moved on to different designs. I used to buy tons of Gold Petite Mini's from Dimensions, I have gobs of them and although did stitch a few I have WAY too many so hopefully those will go to new homes. I remember when I was younger not being all that keen on samplers or on more antique style stitching. Now I LOVE them and find them so adorable.

Oh and while I was out with my friend we stopped at my LNS Middleford Alley Yarn and I found they had a few My Big Toe designs fobs and marking pins. I picked up a gorgeous Mini fob in purples with a butterfly charm. I also got a set of blue marking pins as well. I'll post pics of these soon. I emailed My Big Toe about a matching set of accessories and they are happy to put them together for you through your LNS. Next month I'll go and order up my set which I am just obsessed with. I've just discovered embroidery scissors and only had my simple little pair with a cracked handle. I now have a couple of pairs of titanium scissors (love the colors) and want fobs for those. If it's sparkly and colorful I'm all over it..lol. Always good to have something to look forward to after this nasty cold. Spring is on it's way I hope!

Down for the count

I am seriously down with a bad cold which either my husband gave me or I gave him because we both have it. Coughing, sneezing, fever the whole bit. So no progress to be had on my March Cottage sadly. Despite our illnesses I did recieve a lovely bouquet of flowers from my husband and in the mail (from myself.hehe) I recieved my bundle of Valdani stash. I found it for an amazing price online and it's SO yummy.

Sorry if the photo is a bit dark it's a dark and dreary day here in Southern Oregon. Our unseasonably warm spell came to an end with about half an inch of snow that melted away. We now have dark grey skies and rain in the forecast. I am off to make a pot of tea for the sick hubby and me. Happy Valentines and I hope to be back in the pink soon.

March Cottage progress

Here is a bit more progress made on March Cottage. I really like how the green's are turning out. I speculated on changing the peach to purple, but seeing April Cottage and the use of purple in it I can stick with the peach.

I'm hoping to start on the borders soon and get the windows finished. The Weeks Dye Works Pecan that came with the chart from ABC Therapy didn't have as much color variation in it, so I used another skien I had of it with more color changes. I like how the roof came out. Those little sheep are just adorable! My neice who is 3 loves Shaun the Sheep and couldn't help humming the theme as I stitched them up..lol.

March Cottage start..

I received March Cottage in the mail on Monday and got to start on it yesterday. My husband and I got a couple of days to go and have a little getaway and while we were away I visited a lovely cross stitch store in Grants Pass, Oregon. Unique Lee Yours is a wonderful shop with a terrific owner. We got to speak for a while as I got to look around the store. I of course had to buy some threads to add to my stash while I was there. I'll post pics of them soon. The store website is here if anyone would like to stop by http://www.uniqueleeyours.com/ .

I wish I could say I was further along on March Cottage but I've been watching too much of Downton Abbey. I watched the first season on Netflix and now I'm watching the second on PBS.com. Hard to keep your mind on your stitching when you're glued to this beautiful show.