LeNouveau's coming along....

I hope everyone has had a great weekend! Other than stitching I haven't been doing much other than the usual housework and laying low. My allergies have started like gang busters so I've been avoiding going outside. We had a beautiful afternoon on Saturday but Sunday was a very overcast, cold day. It's been the wet kind of cold around here for the last week.

Well I've been working all week on my LeNouveau Sampler. I'm so happy that the castle is complete. I went ahead and completed most of the inner garden backstitching which just makes it pop! I'm ready to move onto the other half of butterflies and alphabet part but I've still got to finish the right side of the garden gate and topiaries before I can do that. I also ran out of Kreinik 202 #4 braid so I've got that on order.....I hope it comes in soon.

I hope everyone has a great start to the week! Again, thanks for looking :)

Neighbor's Cat has finally driven me CRAZY.......

I really have to share this funny story that happened between me and the neighbor's cat this weekend. I will say up front that NO the cat was not harmed at all by my crazyness!!!!

Just to give you a little background on this cat and our relationship. We're still not quite sure if the cat belongs to our neighbor or not. Anyway, my husband hates this cat. I mean really hates this cat!! We are cat people. We have one indoor cat and really want more. But this outdoor cat for some unknown reason really drives my hubby crazy. The cat used to come up to our backdoor and look through the glass at our cat. Needless to say our cat did not like this too much. She must have felt her privacy was impeded on!! So what does hubby do, he goes out and buys this thing call the Skat Mat. I didn't even know they made these things, let alone sell them to the public! This mat is electrified which you can set at different settings. I'll give you three guess what the settings are. So hubby is so excited he puts this thing outside in front of the back door and sure enough a few nights later this cat gets zapped. No more cat at the back door.

Well you would think this cat would learn to stay out of our yard! Nope, he insists on taunted my hubbie to no end. I just laugh and say "it's a cat, what do you expect! Just leave it alone it will go away." But no way, my hubbie has to get his point across to this cat. This has been an ongoing battle for sometime now.

So that brings you up to to speed of the events leading up to this Saturday.

My sister and I went out shopping. It was they day I got to pick up my Nashville Market haul and my sister got to go to Archivers for her scrapbooking fix!

As I drove into my driveway I noticed the neighbor's lovely cat in the bed of bushes in front of my house. It was scratching at the ground looking around. I guess he was hoping no one was watching. Didn't even notice the big metal motorized object that's moving closer to the house.

I said "there's the neighbor's cat" and she was said "ohh how pretty"...

I tapped my horn to get it's attention and maybe scare it away from the house. I don't have a problem with the cat but I thought "oh'o hubby better not see that cat". I was looking out for the poor thing. Did I mention this cat has this "I'm the king of the jungle" quality about it.....like most cats.

Anyway, the cat looks at me and proceeds to squat where it just scratched.

I said to my sister "did that cat just squat? I know that cat didn't just squat!!!"
She's say's "I think it did.."

Well I kick it into action, I don't want this cat using my garden bed as a litter box! I learned my lesson a long time ago about these types of things!

My sister say's "hey throw this at it"

I promptly grab the half empty water bottle she hands me and proceed to jump out of the car. I was lucky I put it in park. I'm maybe 20 feet from this cat and it looks at me as I jump out. I start running and windup for the throw.

At that same instance, I hear myself say "Why don't you go take a crap in someone else's yard".....as I throw this bottle, which goes in the opposite direction that I intend it to - misses the cat all together. Lands on the ground about 10 feet from the thing.

I must have scared is because it took off like a bat out of he$$ and didn't even leave any presents in the hole it had dug.

As I gather up the water bottle and head back to the car, my sister thinks this is the funny thing she's ever seen. I'm glad I could accommodate her with my humor....It was funny!

I wonder if I really scared this cat off for good! I guess we'll have to see! I'm really glad I didn't hit the thing - I would have felt really bad which DH would have just rolled his eyes at!!

LeNouveau Sampler WIP

Well I guess I have to admit it to myself. I do have a lot of "big" project WIP's. I didn't realize it until I started to pull out my projects when I finished Earth Dancer.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Celtic Autumn was going to be my next big WIP to finished, but I can't get motivated to work on her......So I pulled out my Mirabilia LeNouveau Sampler. This is a pretty big project, but the stitching is going fast. I started this piece sometime late last year. She's coming along pretty good. I substituted Kreinik 202 #4 for the DMC #5282. I don't know what you think, but Kreinik is so much easier to work with than the DMC metallics in my eyes!

Picture taken February 18, 2008

I'll keep you all posted on the progress of this piece in the future.

Thank you all for continuing to follow the progress of my pieces. I really appreciate all of your encouraging comments!

Huggs, Malinda

Nashville Market Stash

I picked up my stash from Nashville Market this weekend. I wish I could have bought one of everything! Since I couldn't do that, I put in my request for a few items with my LNS. This is what I got requested:

With My Needle - Alphabet Samplings Book- If you haven't seen this, you've got to check it out! I love the idea of having a booklet of sample alphabets! I can't wait to start this one :)

Dinky-Dyes / The Cat's Whiskers - Winter Wonderland - You can never have to many Biscornu patterns. The silk that came with this pattern is so pretty and soft. I started this one yesterday and finished in the evening.

JBW Designs - French Country Lark & Cat

Crescent Colours - Snowball; WDW - Beachcomber; GAST - Bluebell

There is a lot of nice new releases that came out in Nashville. I can't wait to add more to my stash.

Earth Dancer is finally finished!!!!

After I don't know how many years, I can finally say she's done!! Now I don't know what to do
with myself - LOL! I'll have to wait until later in the year to even look into having her framed, but that's alright. It'll will give me a chance to decide what I want. I know I don't want her matted - but I'm not sure what look I want for the frame. I may have to puruse Sarah's frames for a while until I find the right one.

and the WINNER is..........

Meddlingkid (Jen)!!! Congratulations!! I'll get the Paris Ornament in the mail to you as soon as possible. I really enjoyed the OWOH experience! I've still got to find the time to go back and look to see who won on the other blogs! That may take a while since there were over 260 bloggers who participated - WOW!!!! Thanks to everyone who participating in my drawing.

On a stitching note - I've been working on my Le Nouvaeu Sampler by Mirabilia. I'm working on the top portion right now (garden area) and have 1/2 of it done already. I'll post a WIP picture of it this weekend. I had to get another card of the ecru suede for my Earth Dancer so I haven't worked on it since the weekend. It should be completely finished this weekend - I hope :) I pick that up tomorrow along with all my goodies from the Nashville Market! I can't wait. I'll share stash pictures soon too.

One-World-One Heart Giveaway

My first give-away, I'm so excited!!! I decided to participate in the One-World-One-Heart Give-Away this year.

Please visit One-World-One Heart to read all about it. It's a great way to meet other bloggers and artisans from around the world. Here's some information.

It is a blog-wide giveaway event. The original idea behind this was to bring bloggers together from around the world who may never ordinarily meet. It closes the gap of the blog community and enables us to interact, discover new and wonderful people, and in the process possibly win a prize or many prizes along the way. Last years event had nearly 100 participants and many connections were made because of it......friendships that are still going strong.

I'm giving away (and this was hard - I love this piece!!) my Paris "Joyeux Noel" Ornament. I hand stitched it using Gentle Art Sampler & Weeks Dye Works Threads on a very pretty kelly green hand dyed linen. The back is a pretty faux suede blue. It can also be used as a door or cabinet hanger - use your imagination - it can go any where and can be displayed all year long.

I've only got one rule - You must have an active blog to participate. All you have to do is leave a comment to this post. Tell me your name, where your from and your blog name so I can visit :) I'll draw the winner the evening of February 13 around 7 PM EST. Good Luck! Thanks for coming to visit :)

Another Earth Dancer Update

Hello fellow bloggers!

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last Earth Dancer update. I have to admit when I first started cross stitching on linen I stumbled onto all these beautiful patterns and fell in love. I was so glad I learned how to stitched on Linen, but I also got a little too ambitious! That's why you are seeing all these "big" WIP projects coming out on the blog. Believe me I don't try work on really big projects - at least not now. I usually work in hand so there's only so much linen I can handle that way. Fortunately Celtic Autumn is a piece I can stitch in hand, but it will eventually need to go into a Q-Snap and into the stand. Enough of that - now to the good stuff.
I made a lot of progress on Earth Dancer this weekend. Most of the beading is done. I think the suede fringe will go quickley once that's started.

WIP Pic taken 2-4-08:

Detail on the dress front - I really like how this was designed :)

I also visited the Lazy Daizy this weekend and picked up some nice stash....

Work Basket Quaker Evens. Already finished the August Quaker (stitched on cobblestone cashel linen stitched with Water Lilies - Fur silks)

Thanks for looking and encouraging me so much! Until next time - Malinda

Earth Dancer Update

Thank you to everyone who commented on my Earth Dancer WIP! Here I am working diligently on my Indian. Bruce decided to catch me in action and as usual he couldn't sneak around to take my picture when I'm wasn't looking :)




I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I worked on her last night and got most of the beading done on the breast of her dress! It looks so pretty! Sorry I don't have an updated picture right now, but I'll add one sometime this weekend. I think once I finish the beading on that part of her dress all the other beading will fly by - then off to doing the suede cording fringe that's all around her dress. I'm already contemplating the compainon piece called Spirit Dancer by the same designer. I think it would coordinate quite nicely with this piece :)


I finished my Fair & Square piece for Melissa which will hopefully go in the mail early next week. I'll share a picture when she's received it.


Other than that, I haven't been stitching on much else. I pulled out my Celtic Autumn UFO to work on when I watch TV. She'll replace Earth Dancer in the stitching stand but until then I'll stitch her by hand. Here's a small WIP picture so you can get an idea of where I'm at with her:
Thanks for looking, until next time...Huggs, Malinda