Coffee and Cross Stitch

October.

Well.  It's October.  I don't know how, but it is.

The month of September flew by so fast, and I'm already terrified that I'm going to blink and it'll be Christmas morning.

September is always a busy month for me at work, which doesn't help as time flies on by.

However, I was able to finish Halloween Delivery --

 

I love that pumpkin in the middle.  I'm not quite sure why, but I do.  Might be the dark burgundy shade...makes it kinda look purple....

I love the flowers that creep down the back of the buggy....

And who doesn't love a raven drawn buggy?  I love this piece, and I'm looking forward to stitching some more of Paulette's creations!  I can't decide if I want to frame this piece, or make it into a little pillow...decisions, decisions.....

That's all I have for you today, guys.  I'm spent.  This week was rough. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to fully recharge and be good as new :-)

Happy Friday, everyone! 

Goodbye Summer. | Cross Stitch

How is the summer over already??  HOW???  I feel like we just got out of that horren winter (side note: i heard through the grapevine that the jet stream moved, and we're in for winters like that ALL THE TIME NOW??????? i'm moving to costa rica.), and here we are on the cusp of fall.  Le sigh.

I had this post all ready and waiting for a few final touches, and then I got sick.  Really sick.  Sick like I don't normally get until say, late October or even March.  Three weeks of congestion and coughing is not fun, and I don't recommend it.  Also, steriod antibiotics and me do NOT get along.

Ugh.  Anyway.

So much of what I had written is like, so two weeks ago, so I'll instead give you a snip of what I've been stitching.  I have some super-secret-on-the-down-low projects going (I know...again...), so the big reveal of that shiz will be soonish. 

Until then, it's all about Halloween/fall stitching.

I went rooting through my stash the other day, and picked out this lovely piece from Plum Street Samplers:

It's called "Halloween Delivery" and is very reminiscent of something out of an E.A. Poe poem...perhaps it's the gigantic raven drawing the carriage....or the little one on the wheel.  I can't know.  I do know that all that black does get boring, so the pumpkins were a welcome change when I got to stitch in color.

I am kinda obsessed with this carriage for some reason.  That purple valence just kinda adds to the creepiness, doesn't it?! 

What are you guys working on?  Have you done any fall/Halloween stitching or craft projects yet?!  

Speaking of which, I need to decorate for fall....

 

Beggar's Night | Cross Stitch

In amongst all the travel I did recently, I was able to find some time to stitch.

Not much time, but some.  I've actually been reading a lot more, too, which is fabulous.  I miss it.  I'm in the middle of about six books, so when I was sitting on the beach on Monday, I made some headway on Elizabeth I.  Yeah.  You read that right.  Elizabeth I.  Because I'm a nerd & stuff.

Here's my latest WIP report on Beggar's Night:

Got the urn done, and all the leaves.  Now I'm onto the raven, starting with its tail....

Have a wonderful weekend, my friends!!

 

Halloween in May | Cross Stitch

I know what you're thinking - we barely (and I mean barely, since it's still not really all that warm, even though we're more than halfway through May...) made it out of winter alive, and I'm talking about Halloween already.  We celebrate Christmas in July (well, I do, anyway...in fact I'd celebrate Christmas year-round if it were socially acceptable...as it is I just took the holly garland off my staircase railings.....moving on...), so why not Halloween in May? Right?!

I don't know why, but this past week, I've been obsessed with Halloween pieces, so I pulled a few to stitch.  Maybe it was the heinous weather I had to endure while in the Chicago area last week, as demonstrated by the below screen shot...

Awful.  Just awful.  By the way, it never hit 52 degrees that day.  In fact, it SNOWED on Friday morning.  SNOWED.  Reason 847 not to move to the MidWest.  Ever.  Unless by undue force.  Or really just ever.  Being landlocked kinda freaks me out.  

Anyways.

 Regardless of whether or not you're on board with me in celebrating Halloween in May, these pieces are pretty awesome.

Up first is one of the smalls from Stranded Jacks, a graph by Plum Street Samplers.  I did three of the smalls last fall, and I decided it's about time I finished the last two.  A Halloween whale totes a teeny tiny jack-o-lantern on his back, over an orange and black sea.

Seriously you guys.  The whale's tale is striped.  I can't.

Next up is Beggar's Night from Threadwork Primitives.

 Loving that white pumpkin.  Keep an eye out for my WIP updates on this one - there's a raven off to the right.  Yep.  Raven.  Wicked awesome.

Memorial Day is almost here (RIGHT.  I can't believe it, either.), which means SUMMER is coming. Thank the good Lord.

What have you guys been up to?  What are you all stitching or sewing or scrapping or doing or making?  Are any of you going somewhere for the long weekend???? It's been so long since I've checked in!  I hope you all have a fabulous start to the week!  

Non-traditional Halloween Smalls | Cross Stitch

Plum Street Samplers is quickly becoming one of my favorite designers.  Paulette has been coming up with some super cute designs recently, and I've had to grab every single one of them.

One of her graphs which came out last year (but I didn't get it until this year) is called "Stranded Jacks".  It's five different Halloween smalls, which can be stitched as one piece all in a row, or each individually as smalls.  I chose to do them each individually.

They're not your typical Halloween graphs, that's for sure, but they are super cute.

They're not named individually, so I've been naming them as I go.

This one I just called "31 October", but I feel like it needs something more...

(I'm semi-obsessed with that anchor, btdubs....)

This one I named "The Pumpkin Sails at Midnight"...

And then this one, I named "Merwitch Floats Over Pumpkins"...

Wicked, cute, right???  They all have traditional Halloween elements, but then that flair of the open sea.  Who knew this could be so cute & clever?!  

I have two more to stitch up, then I'll finish them as smalls and display them....somewhere....no idea where....

(PS - Paulette is having a Christmas stitch-a-long, if you're interested in joining!  Click on the link for her blog above!)

Halloween Eve | Cross Stitch

I know I keep saying it, but I just can't believe it's fall already.  Yesterday was the official first day of autumn, and I celebrated by burning my Autumn Wreath candle all day (yes, all day. i'm obsessed with that candle.), and finally, finally finishing the framing for one of my favorite Halloween pieces: Halloween Eve.

Pretty cool, right????  OMG.  I'm serious - this was one of my favorite pieces to stitch, a close second to my Quaker Christmas II.  The patchwork pumpkin is pretty damn cool.

The frame is by Priscilla's Pocket - each one of their frames is hand finished, which is perfect for this piece to give it that rustic feel.

Here's the bottom corner detail ~~

I mean, you can see the brushstrokes and everything.  LOVE.

I just lovelovelove this frame.  It's so unique and fits this piece perfectly.

If you have this graph in your stash, you probably noticed something different about the entire top of this piece - I cut out the sampler portion of it, and used the letters to stitch my initials instead.  I talked about all the changes I made and other fun stuff in this post here, and you can find the info on my fabric choice on my Fabric & Floss page. 

Now I just gotta find a place to hang this.  Decisions, decisions.....

Happy Monday!  Create something beautiful today!! 

 

Witch Hazel | Cross Stitch

Hello, my friends.

It's been far too long, so let's get to it.

I've been doing some pretty crazy amounts of creating lately, including this fun cross stitch number, named "Witch Hazel" by With Thy Needle and Thread.

Wicked cute, right??  I love the 'fraidy cat ;-)

This I stiched as a model for the shop - it was such a fun stitch, and really got me in the fall/Halloween mode.  

As it's 90 degrees today in Philly.  Go figure.

Happy Thursday, my friends!  I hope you have a wonderfully creative day!! 

Much love ~~

Halloween Smalls | Cross Stitch

Well, it's officially August, which means any day now, we'll have Halloween candy shoved in our faces when we walk into the grocery stores.  My mom actually told me the other day that she saw it in the Giant already.

Totally inappropriate.  

I do love fall and Halloween, though.  Mostly I like the fall fashions - I get to wear my skinny jeans and riding boots again after a hot summer - but if I could, I'd move south in a heartbeat.  The winters just make my entire body hurt straight through to the bone, and quite frankly, I'm over it.

But that's neither here nor there.

What is here, is a new Prairie Schooler Halloween graph that's TOTALLY cool.  It's a chart of smalls, and each one is cuter than the next.  It's called Boo Moon.  And I love it.  

Being the former owner of a small black panther a black cat, naturally, this had to be the first one I stitched.

The best part about these smalls is you only use two colors - the dark brown (3371) and the orange (937).  Only one uses a third color, which is a yellow (729).  I decided to stitch these on 32 count Ale by Picture This Plus, instead of the cream/white that's called for in the graph, which helps add to the creepy feel of each small.

Because no black cat is seen on Halloween without a witch close at hand, this one clearly had to be next ~

So great.  Love her cape blowing in the wind as she scares the crap out of the moon.

Have any of you picked up a fall/Halloween piece to stitch??  The season will be here before you know it!!!

Much love ~

 

Happy Halloween!!

Good morning, all!  I hope you're having a wonderful day so far!

For those of you who don't know, I'm a Philly girl, and our region was rocked pretty hard by that crazy b, Sandy, Sunday and Monday.  NYC & the Jersey coast were pretty much destroyed.  Please keep all of the people who have power outages and property damage in your prayers.  I was fortunate in that I don't have any property damage and I didn't lose power at all during the storm.  

With all that downtime, I was able to get a good amount of stitching done.  I worked on my sister's wedding gift, and I started some of my Christmas stitching, too.

graph from JBW Designs

I've been keeping you all updated in Instagram, and seriously sometimes legit forget that I have a blog I need to update, too!!!  Sheesh!!!

I know it may seem early to be posting Christmas stuff, but I always feel like I get so far behind with my gifts & stitching, that I have to start earlier this year to make sure I get it all done!

I have done some pretty cool Halloween stitched pieces, however, like Halloween Eve, Skeleton Crew, and Eat, Drink, and Be Scary.  So, although Christmas is my FAVORITE time of year, I do enjoy all the fun Halloween graphs that are out there, too :-)

Well, peeps, that's it for this Halloween morning.  I'm waiting for the delivery guys to get here with my dining room table (it was supposed to be delivered Monday....), and then it's back to work for me.

Also - if you havent already, hop on over to my friend Catherine's blog - she's hosting a giveaway sponsored by The Strawberry Sampler in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!! :-)

Much love ~~~

 

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Good Golly Miss Molly.  I had NO idea how much time had passed since my last post until just now when I sat down to write this one.

Atrocious.

Since I post to Instagram so often, I think I forget that I'm not actually creating posts here, even though I'm creating a photo diary of what I'm up to.

And it's been crazy, let me tell you.

I took a little time off from work, now that the insanity has died down, and was able to get a few things accomplished.  Not as much as I wanted (nor near as much as I had planned out in my imaginary planner), but I was able to get a few important things done.

Number 1: I FINALLY got myself a dining room table & chairs.  It's about GD time, right?!  I decided just to bite the bullet and get the table I wanted.  No one wants to spend that much money at one time, but, let's be serious, it's been over a year since I moved into this house, and I have yet to be able to eat a meal properly.  Or invite people over. Now I just have to wait for it to be delivered and I'm golden!  (Wait.  Maybe I should have kept my dining room empty....now people are going to want to visit me......)  

Number 2: I was able to finish the bridesmaid's mini-albums to give to the girls from my sister's wedding!!  Woop woop!  I can't wait to give them out, since they're each unique (they all have some pictures that are the same, but many are different and specific to that person) and relive that great day with them all!

This is a pic I posted to Instagram which has a sampling of the pics & pages I put into the second album.  Fun, right???  I had such a blast putting these together!

Number 3:  Since I finally finished the mini-albums, I was able to start on the big album that I'm making for my sister, which includes all of the pics that I used for each of the girls.  To clarify - each girl got some pics that are the same for all; then each girl got pics that are specific to her that the others didn't get.  Example: there's a pic of Mags & Hay that each of them have, but I don't, nor does E, but my sister does.  Make sense?!  Good.

And then there are specific pics of my sis at the shower, that none of us have.  We love you, Bean, but I don't need 900 pics of you opening your gifts.  Nor do the rest of the girls.  Nor do you, quite frankly, but I did give you some.... ;-)

Number 4:  I've done some serious stitching.  Like, serious stitching.  I finished these 4 little fun ornaments ---

 

graph from Blue Ribbon Designs

graph from Blue Ribbon Designs

graph from Blue Ribbon Designs

graph from Blue Ribbon Designs

Now I just have to do the finish work on them & hang them on my feather tree!! Yay!  All of these were stitched on 32 count Echo from Picture This Plus.  Echo, next to Haunted, is one of my FAVORITE fabrics to work with for Halloween pieces.  It's AWESOME.

I also started this fun piece -

 

The Town of Halloween by Primitive Hare

 

This is a super fun graph by Primitive Hare, and it's from the Halloween issue of Just Cross Stitch.  It only has 2 colors -- black and a greenish-grey -- so it's easy and a quick stitch!  Love!

And lastly...
Number 5: I got out my Halloween decorations.  For some reason, I thought I had way more than I actually do, but that's ok.  All the more reason for me to hit the sales on 1 November so I have more stuff for next year ;-)

 

my mantle ;-)

 

I have two really fun Jim Shore pieces, seen on both ends, and some garland to go with my absolute all-time favorite fall candle -----

 

I LOVE THIS CANDLE

 

And that's all she wrote!!!!  I seriously don't know how this week flew by so quickly.  I guess all that stitching and scrapbooking took up more time than I thought!!

I hope you all have a wonderfully crafty fall weekend!  Do something creative this weekend!!! :-)

Much love ~~~~