2008 Goals

1. Finish DH's Stocking
2. Start my own stocking
3. Participate in another round or two of F&S
4. Bride Tree SAL
5. Finish my two WIPs (the zebra and the dolphins)
6. Various gifts for family
7. Stitch gold dolphins for DH

Mostly some small projects and starting early on gifts so I have time to finish them. I will be stitching when I have the opportunity, which at times will be more than others. I hope you all have a wonderful new year ... can't wait to see what 2008 brings us :)!

Stocking update and F&S

Here is the most recent picture of DH's stocking. I was able to do a bit of work on it before Christmas and hope to work on it a bit more this week before I have to go back to work again.

In other news, I also am almost finished with my squares for the Fair and Square exchange ... they should be at the post office on Monday to be sent to Mary Kathyrn. I will post pics once I have found out that she has received them. So that's about it in stitching for me. Have a wonderful night!

Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to take a quick moment to wish everyone a merry Christmas! We have a full house here ... both sets of parents, sisters and my aunt and uncle and expecting a few friends for Christmas dinner as well. We've been busy preparing Christmas dinner. I hope you have a wonderful holiday. I've made a bit more progress on the stocking for DH (unfortunately not enough to actually be finished this year) so look for more updates in the next few days. I will leave you with a picture of our nativity scene.

Merry Christmas!

Wedding sampler and ornament exchange

Well, I've actually been finished with this for a few weeks (the wedding was last weekend) but I've been slow downloading pictures to the computer to actually blog about them. I ended up doing a significant portion of the sampler while I was on my ship (most of the celtic boarder). It's a combination of various patterns ... the border and internal knot from Celtic Cross Stitch by Gail Lawther and the verse and alphabet from United In God's Love printed by Praying Hands and designed by Mary Scott. I hope you enjoy it!



Here are the ornaments that I received from the ornament exchange I was a part of this year. It was a mixed craft exchange ... so I received a nice variety of ornaments. My favorite is the Santa at the bottom ... both the front and the back were stitched.

Finished ornaments

Well, I did my first finish today that did not involve framing. I finished the ornaments for my ornament exchange on time (they need to be sent out by next Monday) which is great since I'm getting underway again. So without further ado ... here's all four when I finished stitching them.



The next series of photos are the ornaments finished ... with the fabric that I chose for each one as the background. I hope you enjoy them.

The blue and silver one ... I really liked the fabric for this one.


The gold and white.


The original red and green. It was tough finding fabric for this one.


The other red and green with slight darker colors. I really fell in love with the fabric for this one.

In other stitching news, the stocking has been pushed to the back burner between these ornaments and the wedding sampler I am working on. I don't have a really recent picture of it at the moment but I will share when I take another picture and get some more work done. The wedding is the 15th ... so a few more weeks to finish it. I got a little bit of work done while I was gone, but there really isn't too much time to cross stitch when I am underway a lot. I have a bit more time at home coming up so once I finish this wedding sampler I will get back to working on the stockings. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving (at least those in the US) and is getting ready for the winter holidays. God Bless!

First Ornament and Stocking Update

Let's see if blogger wants to upload pictures again. The first is the first ornament that I have done for the exchange. Ahhh ... success, finally. I'm thinking about doing the other three ornaments that I need to do for this exchange with the same pattern but changing the colors around. I have decided that I like the effect of the metallic thread but really don't like working with it. I had originally planned to do all of the green in the metallic, but decided to go back to regular floss for the large snowflake. I'm thinking about switching the colors on the next one and doing a blue and silver one as well. Different but same basic principle.

And here is the most recent photo I have of DH's stocking. Haven't worked on it too much lately with my schedule ... hopefully some more this weekend. What do you think? I can't wait to finish this section and move on to the bottom part. At this point, I should have them done by the next Christmas I'm home which will be in 2009 I think ;). Have a great night!

Old UFOs

I wanted to show you all some of my UFOs ... many of these were started before I went away to college (which was in 2001) so that shows how old they are.

The first is a dolphin cross stitch (I was really into dolphins back then ... still like them and look forward to finishing this at some point in time)


The next one is a zebra ... eventually it will say "I hear yays better than nays"

Help Please

I have signed up for an ornament exchange. I have picked out the design that I would like to do and the thread ... however I am stuck at how to finish them. It needs to be simple, since I don't have a lot of time. Any suggestions would be most welcome. I look forward to hearing from you. Look for an update in the next few days on DH's stocking as well.

Have a great night!

Stitching Blogs

I just wanted to thank everyone for the warm welcome. No updates on stitching at this point since I am out in the middle of the ocean currently with very little time or space for my stitching. I don't exactly remember how I found many of the stitching blogs but started searching the internet for stitching related things this past summer. I love seeing other people's work and being able to share my own. There will be times where there are long gaps in my posting ... if so that probably means I am underway or just incredably busy at the ship. Some future goals:

1. Finish our stockings
2. Wedding sampler for one of DH's shipmates (Dec)
3. Ornaments for a christmas exchange
4. Hopefully a square for the Fair and Square Exchange (I'm still debating about the next round)

Have a great night!

Work in progress

As I stated in my initial post, I have been working on a stocking for Christmas. I am currently working on the one for DH and hope to be able to finish it and one for myself by Christmas but am not counting on it since I won't have much time to stitch in the next few months. Here are some photos to show some of the progress I have made. I haven't taken one recently, so it's not completely up to date. These are from the Cross Stitcher, designed by Joan Elliot. I am working on the Gingerbread Stocking for DH and planning on doing the Angel Stocking for myself.

Past Work

Here is a sample of some of the work that I have done in the past. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture prior to framing it ... so have to try to prevent the reflection from the glass. This is a piece that I did for a couple at my church for their wedding. It was a lot of fun, and done in about two weeks (not the best planning on my part).

Blogging Cross Stitch

Well, this is my introduction to blogging about my cross stitch. I decided that this need to be a separate blog from my regular, keep people up to date type blog. My mother and grandmother introduced me to cross stitch when I was young. I have been making cross stitch as gifts since I was about 10 years old or so. I hadn't stitched a lot while I was in college but have gotten back into it in the past few years while I was in grad school. Currently I am working on Christmas stockings for DH and myself. So hopefully I can get them both finished within the next three months, however at this point I am not counting on it ... not with the other part of my blog name ... the Navy. So I will keep you updated with photos and such as I continue my work. Welcome to my blog :)