Woo hoo!!

So this came today! Last Wednesday I ordered the fabric and threads for Blue Ribbon Designs a sampling in the square and my order from 123stitch.com came today! I already had the chart so I got 40 ct. Newcastle cream fabric and all 12 Weeks threads (sooo preeeetttyyyy). I think this will be my birthday start on Friday. No matter what I am in the middle of, I always like to start something new to bring in the new year.

It will be my first project on 40 ct fabric, I am going to stitch it 1 over 2. Oh, and the fabric is serged, bonus! I dont own a serger (yet) so not having to tape the edges of my fabric is a nice treat.

I LOOOVE coming home to packages!

I also ordered the snowman snippet and accessory pack by Lizzie Kate. I already have fabric and a few of the threads for it. I was on the fence about it, but now that it's in my hands it is very cute!

Please excuse my pictures in my posts lately. I've been a bit camera lazy and have been taking and posting blog pics with my phone.

Well, off I go to do some stitching! Hope you are enjoying some post holiday fun!

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Christmas in review

Christmas came early to our house Thursday morning. Matt and I were spending the night at his mothers Christmas eve so we decided to do gifts to each other that morning before we got all busy getting ready to leave.

I was so excited to give him his gifts! I found a book of poetry written by Tupak that I knew he would love, a few other things and I also had a photo book made of all of our pictures from our trip to Jamaica! I created it at http://www.mixbook.com/ and it is awesome! Highly recommend this site for creating keepsakes!

Matt got me a cool hat to wear during the winter. He always says I need one and I never have any. Its brown and pink, I love it! He also got me the lego harry potter game for wii, its so fun. I got to play it for about half an hour that morning and had to make myself stop and get ready to leave.

Last but not least, he got me a pandora bracelet! It's so gorgeous and so perfect because I can buy just one or two charms at a time to celebrate those special days! On the bracelet is my first charm, a pretty heart with some bling in the middle. Friday, the 31st, is my birthday so Matt is going to take me to pick out a charm or two to add as my gift. I really want the cupcake charm, its very birthday-ish (and I love cupcakes)! They also have lovely wedding charms, so I am looking forward to getting one to add to my bracelet as our wedding day gets closer.

After dinner and gifts with his family, Matt and I went with his mom and her boyfriend to the 11 p.m. setvice that was held in the chapel where we are getting married. It was so beautiful and perfect! I'm so excited to be getting married there.

Now that christmas is over I can get back to all of my regularly scheduled stitching. It will be nice to take a break from stitching ornaments and gifts and work on what I want to work do and not what I am doing for other people. I know, selfish stitcher, that's me.

As a merry christmas/birthday treat for myself, last week I paid alittle visit to the 123stitch website. I ordered the fabric and threads for "a sampling in the square" by Blue Ribbon Designs. It's a lovely design with pretty spring colors to ward off the winter blues. Also, in the new year I will be participating in my first round robin, so that should be fun. I'll also have to be browsing for some baby knit, crochet, or quilt designs as my newly married cousin and his wife announced that they are expecting their first child in august!

But for now, its off to work I go....only three days this week!

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Sock knitting

I've been working on this for the past week. Its a sock. On double pointed needles...or dpns. I'm attempting to have the pair done in time to give to my friend, her fave color is purple, so I think she will like them. Plus I probably won't be seeing her to exchange gifts until closer to my birthday next werk so I think I got this, but no promises.

While I loooove the yarn, I'm not fond of the method. But my 40" circular needles are tied up in other socks so I had no choice. Its not so bad, just kind of fiddly with all the points in my way. The pattern is called "froot loop" from knitty magazine via ravelry. Its such a cute pattern, and super easy!

I will definitely be making a of pair socks for myself in this pattern.

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Nothin like waiting until the last minute...

After getting up super early and spending all morning cleaning the house, I stitched this today while Matt was out Christmas shopping. Its a design by Country Cottage Needleworks from the 2008 JCS ornament issue. I have yet to master french knots, so the snowman shall remain eyeless.

The original design is stitched 2 over 2, but I didn't have any 32 ct fabric. In order to make it fit on a remnant, I ended up stitching it 1 over 1 on 28 ct. I think he turned out quite cute and will make a nice pillow ornament. Most likely for my grandmother as she is a fan of snowmen.

Later in the evening Matt had a couple of his guy friends over to play on the wii, so I made myself scarce and enjoyed some quiet time stretched out on our bed watching tv and knitting a sock. I'm 3/4 of the way done with the first sock. I'll be amazed if I actually get the whole pair done in time to give to my friend for christmas. If not, I can always give them to her later as I already had an ornament made for her and something else, so the socks were just an extra I thought I would throw in when I found the yarn in my stash.

So again, another year when I have so many ideas/projects and its a race to the finish to see what I can get done!

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My attempt at organization

So part of my new years resolution is to be more organized or to find better ways to be organized. One thing I really wanted to do was find a better way to organize all the DMC floss I have acquired in the last couple years. Lately, I've just thrown the skeins in a small plastic bin and then only pulling the colors I would need for a project and putting it on a plastic bobbin, then using a sticker to label it. But it was always such a pain to dig through all that floss just to find one or two things, and then I didn't have them anyway!

So, my method was working for awhile despite some frustration. Until I began to discover that all my fancy stickers were drying out and falling off the bobbins! Leaving me with bobbins of floss and no idea what color they were supposed to be.

Then one day I stumble into Vonna, aka The Twisted Stitcher's blog. She has a section of tutorials about how to do different finishing techniques, but she also has a blog about how she organizes her floss . I had a very large "oh, duh" moment when I read her post.

After reading this post I was more than happy to veg out on my couch and wind bobbins. I now have four boxes of floss, two of which are nice and neatly labeled. I happen to think its sooo pretty now! All of my bobbins look so uniform with all of the labels in the same place and hopefully don't come off anytime soon.

Maybe someday I'll find myself in possession of a gorgeous thread chest, just like Vonna has!

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Christmas and Birthdays!

Whew! The holidays always seem so crazy around our house, and there are only two of us. Lord only knows if I'll be able to maintain my sanity once we have kids.

The holidays have also seemed to arrive pretty quickly this year. I feel like just yesterday it was Thanksgiving and I had plenty of time to get ready. This year I was a bit better in planning all my handmade gifts, but less in my shopping. So, yea, I am not ready.

Yesterday was Matt's birthday! I had planned to make him a nice dinner last night and kept asking him all week what he would like.....salad..he wanted salad....I am such a lucky girl! Haha! I am taking him out to dinner Friday night, so I guess he was just making sure to save room. I also got him a few gifts that I thought he would like. Myself, also having a birthday close to the holidays, I like to make sure I do gifts on his birthday to make sure he feels special on his day!

I got him a little sampler packet of cocktail flavored jellybeans, he LOVES jellybeans. He also has said a few times recently that he really likes the "Charlie Brown Christmas" soundtrack, but he lost his copy so I got him a new cd. And lastly, he had pointed out a game for the wii that he wanted over the weekend, I happened to see that the same game was on sale at Target this week so I went ahead and got it for him. I figure with the cold weather moving in, it will be nice for him to have a new game to play to beat boredom.

That's about all the excitement going on in my house this week. Only three more days of work and then I'm free for the Christmas holiday! I'm so ready! Ill probably be scrambling around on the 22nd to get everything I've got planned finished, but I am determined.

No pics this post of what I've got in the works, but I will show some next time!

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It's that time of year....

and tonight I was cleaning out some old pics from the laptop and found a dish that is definitely on the menu this week! Gotta break out the slow cooker for this one.

Last winter here in Maryland we had TWO blizzards...the first in December 2009 just before Christmas and the second in just the beginning of this past February. February's blizzard brought us to a record 50+ inches, and some much needed time off work. My office building was closed for a week..and I got paid because it was classified as a state disaster! Ahhhmazing!

So while stuck in the house for a couple days waiting for the snow to stop so we could begin digging out, we wanted some chili, but just werent in the mood for the same old, same old. Off to google and I found a yummy (read: easy) recipe for White Chicken Chili.

The ingredients below:

3 cans of Great Northern Beans, one package of white chicken chili mix, chicken broth, one can cream of chicken soup, and a can of rotel (or as many cans as you want depending on your love of spice), and half an onion all chopped up.

You'll also need some chicken. We like to use chicken tenderloins, but any chicken is good. I also like to boil my chicken before I throw it in the pot. I don't know about anybody else but I get kinda yucked out when I see all the chicken bits in my soup when it's cooked in the pot with everything else. So, I like to boil my chicken and then I shred it up with a fork.

I throw everything except the chicken broth into the pot with the boiled chicken. I check out how soupy it is at this point and add some of the broth.

If it's early in the morning before I go to work I turn it on low for 8 hours, but if I am home to supervise and can cook it up fast, I go high for 4 hours. Since your chicken is already cooked, you really just want some time for everything to sit in the pot, get hot, and marinate all together...very sexy. If the chili gets alittle less soup like for your taste, you can add more chicken broth.

This will definitely be served in our house this week! What does everyone else like to make to ward off the cold, wintery chill?