Life With Jules, and other stuff

Butterflies VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

To all of my friends in the path of Sandy, (no, not this Sandy although she has been a bit of a “hurricane” lately) please seek shelter and stay safe! A lot has been happening in my life over the past couple weeks. I have accepted a new job and start on Nov 5th! I am still with the State and keep my benefits, however I will be receiving about $7,000 more in salary per year. I am beyond excited and a little sad. I am sad to leave all of my new friends at DOC. Although we will keep in touch and a few of us plan to still get together for card night. I am excited because it is a position working with veteran’s. This is something I have been wanting to do for quite some time now. And now for the WIPocalypse update! I worked on Coming Home for the Holidays in my SAL with Lana. I am sooo close on this one. I need to do the detail work and contact Dimensions for replacement floss.   I worked on Medallions :   I am not too happy about the new skein of floss (Aqua Clouds by Si...

Well, I spent most of last week and through the weekend on Butterfly Shamrocks Wreath . Remember this piece? Butterfly Shamrocks Wreath as of 3/7/12   Well, this is what is looked like when I took a picture Sunday afternoon:   I did a bit more stitching on it after taking the pic and plan to work on it a little more tonight. With persistence, I should have it done by the end of this week. I have stalled out on Medallions again. I am a little annoyed with how the color is on the new skein of floss. I know, and am sure, dye lot has something to do with it. I am going to try to use the 3rd skein I have when I finish the Wreath. Hopefully, by cutting it differently, I can get the effect I want. Otherwise, I need to purchase more floss and hope for the best. Last, but certainly not least, a very big WELCOME to my newest followers! I don’t say it often enough, but I am thankful to have you all perusing my blog from time to time.

Well, I managed to finish almost the entire Caroling Snowman design last night. I started the backstitching, which is all I have left. This is where I finally put it down: I will probably finish the backstitching today, so I am calling this my first finish of the year as well! Yay!!!! I spent a little time on Butterfly Shamrock Wreath on Sunday and this is where I left off: I reported for Jury Duty on Monday morning. We went through the orientation process. One panel was called (my name was not on that list). The next panel was called (again not me). Then around 10am, the Jury Room Supervisor announced that if you weren’t called for either panel or filled out the form you were excused for the year!!! Yay!!!!!!!! I was sooooo happy. Oh, when I went to Barnes & Noble Saturday evening to get my magazines, I also picked up this little fella: He was yummy! Until next time…

A little late in the day, but here is my post for today’s S & T: Sometimes my sister comes up with the cutest arrangements! I am not sure how she got them to stay on the tulips, but the flowers, but they are either glued on or stuck on with a piece of wire. They sure do make the tulips look fun and cheerful and brings a touch of spring! Hope everyone is having a drier evening than we are. It began to pour about 3 hours ago and has not stopped yet! Our roads are rivers, yards are lakes, and the driving conditions are horrible, but the sound of the rain coming down is wonderful!!!!

…is finished! Yay!!!! Here are some pictures: Cirque des Carreaux, P.1 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL I am so glad to have this page done. I began working on it about a year ago. It should be completed by Summer 2011 and then I will have it professionally framed and shipped to my mother for Christmas this year. Now, I think I may spend the rest of the evening working on the Butterfly Shamrock Wreath   ...

Yesterday's post was a lead-in to today's. My dad and I went to the Withlacoochee River State Park (about 10 miles from our house) on Sunday. We have driven through there before and he took my niece there a few years ago, but I had never been able to take any pictures until now. Here are some of the critters and creatures I (we) saw (be careful - that last creature can be especially dangerous, LOL LOL LOL):

Well, the temps have been a bit more normal for us lately. Currently it is 70 degrees, but very windy. We did have 2 solid days of rain storms late last week. I spent most of the weekend working on Butterfly and Shamrock Wreath . Here is a progress picture: I have to say that it started to bore me a little, so yesterday I switched to Christmas stitching. I have one more card insert done for my mom. I will post pictures of them after I complete 3 more. My goal is to complete 4 of them this month since I wasn't able to do any in February. I am also posting my TUSAL update. Most of the clippings are from the Christmas Design SAL, Coming Home for the Holidays , and the Butterfly design. There are also some scraps in there as I cleaned out my floss a bit more this last month. Here are two pictures, one is in "auto setting" and the other is in "pop art 1 setting": I did add a "box" to the side bar (on the right) called "Giveaways". I plan to use ...

I must confess I am so used to DMC floss that trying something new made me a bit nervous. The Great Pumpkin Conspiracy calls for several SilkN , by The Thread Gatherer, colors and therefore I purchased (all but one of) them while at Silk Road Needle Arts in St. Pete a few weeks ago. I finally started using them and have found that I really like them a lot! I believe the owner made a comment something like "You're in for a treat!". LOL!!! Here is an update of where Great Pumpkin stands: The (brown) fabric you see in the background is actually a quilt I have had since 2001. It is falling apart at the seams and I have been trying to find somewhere to get it repaired. I love it so much! I have also done some more work (and will go back to it in a little bit) on Butterfly and Shamrocks Wreath . I have almost completed the butterfly and will move on to the wreath part next. I am trying to save the middle, where the saying is, for last since it contains so much backstitch. He...

Well, I decided to start the Butterfly Shamrock Wreath from "The Cross Stitcher” magazine (April 2010 issue). I really like the way the butterfly is looking so far, just not the many, many color changes. Here is a picture of what I have started: Stitched on White 28ct Charles Craft Linen using Recommended DMC floss I also want to share an update on my design for the Christmas Design SAL over at Yoyo ’s. Here is a picture: After taking the picture last night, I settled in and did a bit more stitching on it. I now have some of the horse filled in and some of the dog as well as more of the half-stitching across the middle of this section. I will post another picture when this section is complete. I received the 5th part of the HalloSAL that I am participating in and hope to work on that mid-week. We’ll see how it goes. I am hoping to leave the last week of March for some card inserts since I wasn’t able to get to them last month. I also w...

My niece, Ariel, turns 12 today! I wish I could spend the day with her, but alas she is too far away. She lives in MI with her dad (my bro) and I live in FL. So, I wrote her a poem and mailed it in a card that I created for her using a small cross stitch pattern. Here is the card and poem: Flutterby Butterfly Beautiful little girl Unpretentious, but with style Truly amazing, Talented, and bright Epitome of her daddy, but Really coming into her own Feel the wings behind you Leaving a childhood too soon You really shouldn’t let life Be a flutterby.

My niece's 12th birthday is in a couple of weeks and she just loves butterflies. I found this free pattern on Alita Designs . It's called Assisi Pattern 01. I thought that it would make the perfect stitched birthday card for my niece. Here is a picture of the completed design (before being transformed into a card): This is what the design looks like in the "Pop Art 1" mode on my camera. See how the color pops compared to the next picture!!! This is the same design in normal mode. 14-ct. Aida cloth (White) DMC Floss #746 (3 strands) and #902 (2 strands) for the X and #310 (2 strands) for the BS Design by: Alita at Alita Designs And here is the card: It took a little bit of doing, but I managed to get everything lined up just right so the entire design would show through the front. Now, I just have to scribe a short poem to place inside and this part of her birthday will be complete. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I have done a little bit of stitching on my Christmas Design for...