A Little Rain, Stitching, Sewing, And Eating

After being away from home for a couple weeks, its been hard to get back into any sort of routine.

Although, I do find being retired means there isn't much of a routine, which is weird to get used to.

We had a huge thunderstorm with hail and really dark clouds yesterday.

I love how fresh and red things get around here when the rain comes!

I'm so slow at cross stitching, but I started this piece using a method I saw on a DMC video HERE.

It's a half cross stitch so it takes half the time...my kind of stitching!

It doesn't have quite the beauty of a full cross stitch, but I wanted to try it. I like it so far, especially 

because this is kind of a big project (for me) and I'm not sure I'd finish it if it was a full cross stitch.

I've also been doing some embroidery and applique using the Have A Latte fabric by Clothworks.

There's also this ruffle just waiting to be added to a project. I do love ruffles!

I made a salad (with a few changes from the original recipe) that even got the approval of the hubby. 

It was so yummy!

(The original version is HERE at Creme de la Crumb.)

Salad Ingredients:

 12 ounces bowtie pasta, cooked

6 cups spinach leaves, washed

1 cup Craisins

1 cup pine nuts, chopped cashews, or sliced almonds

2 4-ounce cans mandarin oranges, drained

Dressing:

1 cup teriyaki sauce (I used Yoshida, but you can use your favorite brand)

1 cup rice vinegar

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

2 tablespoons sugar

1 cup vegetable or canola oil

Mix the dressing ingredients and refrigerate until ready to serve the salad.

Cook the pasta and cool. Add to the rest of salad ingredients.

Toss them all together with a little or a lot of the dressing and serve.

I had the hubby barbecue some chicken that I'd marinated in terikyaki sauce to go with this.

It was delicious!

My Cross Stitched Tammy Bags Are In Season

Madame Samm of Sew We Quilt and Mary from I Piece 2-Mary have totally kept us all in stitches.

Cross stitches that is!

With beautiful designs by Brooke Nolan and Cori Blunt, we've all come together for

this blog hop to show how stitchy we can be when adding their creations to a Tammy Bag or a pinny.

It's been such fun learning this counted cross stitching thing that Madame Samm

promised me was relaxing. It really has been...after a few learning hiccups here and there.

With the right tools, even I was able to cross stitch.

Just don't look close! I've learned that I'm not so good at counting which means there

are a few stitches that aren't there that should be or are there but shouldn't be.  

Seeing those little tiny holes was a must, so I bought three pairs of glasses from Readers.com. 

Two reading and one pair of reading sunglasses. In a moment of rushing to clean up my sewing

room, I threw out the mailer they had arrived in WITH ALL THREE PAIRS STILL IN THERE! 

Slap my head...I thought it was empty! I was sick about it!

Luckily, another gorgeous pair arrived a week later and I was back to work on my project.

Whew!

With DMC Thread, DMC Aida cloth, a Q-Snap frame, and my Beam N Read, 

I stitched like crazy and actually loved it!

Then there the magnets...couldn't have done it without them, either!

They held the paper pattern and needles just perfectly in place.

You can find them at Ms. Appleheart's Shoppe.

Once I finished the cross stitching, it was off on an outing with my hubby to take pics.

I had so much fun taking photos of these little bags!

Cori's pinnies are adorable!
I tried my hand at turned under applique...not pretty..so I embroidered the little bird to create mine.

This Tammy Bag has some angora thread on it, but it washed out in the photo.

Trust me, it was a beautiful touch to the stole on this bag!

I added a zippered pocket to the back of this one. I love those scalloped zippers!

With quick trip away from "Dixie" to a warmer climate, I made this bag, too.
I love those DMC purples!

Shall we just say this blog hop has been one big learning adventure for me!

Look's who's hopping and stitching with me:

January 9, 2015

Sew Peace To Peace

Sun Shine Quilting

How arT you?

January 12, 2015

Living with Purpose

Grammie Q's

Stitchin By the Lake

Ipiece2-Mary

Just Let Me Quilt

January 13, 2015

Lovelli Quilts

Quilted Delights

Cheryl Wilkinson will post to Ipiece2-Mary

Just Because Quilts

Stitchen' My Life Away

January 14, 2015

Jane's Quilting

Lisa In Port Hope

Brookes Books

Leslie Schmidt will post to IPiece2-Mary

Creativity Amongst Chaos

January 15, 2015

The Quilting Queen Online

Needled Mom

Bumbleberry Cottage

Moose Stash Quilting

Amy Stitches

Sew Incredibly Crazy

Meadowbrook

January 16, 2015

Kwilt Krazy

Selina Quilts

Hill Valley Quilter

Lakeshore Stitches

Malini's Quilting Adventure

Julia Plunkett will post on Sewwequilt
It Seams To Be Sew

January 19, 2015

KrisLovesFabric

Ga's House

Secretly Stitching

Creatin' in the Sticks

Grandmama's Stories

WHY-KNOT-KWILT

CeLynn's Sunflower Patch

January 20, 2015

Sewn-Seabees-Crafty-and-Vintage-Musin

Buzzing and Bumbling

Karamino's handmade

Quiltscapes

Quilt N Queen
Stitch and Quilt

Sew We Quilt

I'm Counting Stitches Over Here

I was away from my sewing machine for 10 days...that's a LONG TIME!

It feels so nice to have my sweet machine close by again.

It was such a painful separation, but luckily I had something to keep me busy...

Family, Monkey Boys, food, and this new-for-me-to-learn-thing called

xxxxxxxCOUNTED CROSS STITCHINGxxxxxxx.

That Other Lady said it is relaxing.

Hopefully, that will happen sometime soon.

Thankfully, there are blog tutorials and videos to help...whew!

I've even had sweet ladies give me hints while I was staring at the threads in a craft store.

One of the best things I learned last week was how to separate the embroidery floss.

For YEARS my threads would end up in a jumbled mess when I tried to use just a strand or two.

NOT ANYMORE!

I found a video that showed me how to pull out one strand at a time without creating a 

knotted pile of threads. It was just what I needed to start this cross stitching journey!
(I know, you long-time cross stitchers are shaking your heads that I didn't know this.)

This was the video I watched showing how to separate the threads:

Why am I learning to counted cross stitch in my old age? Good question!!!!

It's all because Madame Samm got us all fired up with amazing patterns to cross stitch for a blog hop.
Check them out on her blog at SewWeQuilt.com!

She's also going to be sharing lots of hints and tricks on how to cross stitch.
I'll definitely be needing all the help I can get!

I've been practicing on Merry Christmas Grumpy Kitty
by Brooke Nolan, Brooke's Books Publishing.
It's a freebie pattern you can find HERE.

I think this is upside down, but it really is Grumpy Kitty!

I was so happy to be back with my sewing machine, so I finished my daughter's Christmas pillow.
We had gone shopping at Quilted Works weeks ago and she'd picked up this cute wreath pillow kit.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time to sew it while she was visiting so I finished it for her.

Now back I go to that RELAXING counted cross stitching thing.