Hard Week

I am sorry that I have not been around the past weeks time.  It has been a hard week for sure.  It all started last Wednesday morning when we received a call that my brother had been taken by ambulance to the ER.  He had went unconscious and we did not know if her was alive or dead and 6 hours away.  My mother and I waited by the phone to trying to prepare for horrible news.  

The news was not horrible but was defiantly not good either.  Mom prepared to make a trip to Austin to be by his side.  The rest of the week and through the weekend was touch and go.  We would hear good news and then they would come back and give us bad news.  Long story short, my dear brother Bruce, at the age of 47, passed away Sunday morning.  He had a massive stroke and also suffered brain damage when he lost consciousness and was without oxygen until the ambulance got there.  

I will miss him greatly.  He was a Harley man through and through and drove 18 wheeler's for most of his life for a living.  He was 13 years older than me and as a child we were not very close because of that but as adults we were very close and I loved him so very much.  

This has been an extremely hard loss for my mom, 2 other brothers and I.  My dad is not his biological dad but had raised him from the time he was 5 years old for 17 years of marriage to my mom, so he was his "dad" and this has been very hard on him as well.  

I will miss him and have a hard time realizing that I will never hear his voice again or braid his hair or hug him.  BUT he did have health issues before this and suffered from a few other problems as well.  I know that God is holding him in His arms now and that he will never feel pain, sadness or anything like that again.  For that, I am so thankful.

This is me and my three brothers several years ago.  From left to right:  Me, Roger, Bruce and Bill.

Thank you for listening.  I have fell very behind on my blog reading and have decided that instead of wearing my self out trying to catch up to just clear my google reader and go on.  I hope I have not missed out on to much! Hopefully I will have a stitchy update next time!  Have a blessed week!

Back Up and Running!

Cindy Mae Designs is back up and running. Thank you for your patience and I am so sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused anyone!!!

My First IHSW Went Great!

I actually got a lot of stitching done this weekend for the International Hermit and Stitchers Weekend!  I am pretty happy with the amount of progress I made on both pieces.  I honestly could have done a little more but my arm was killing me by Sunday evening.  We done some major trash hauling Saturday morning and my arm was already sore from throwing trash out of the back of the pickup and stitching was just adding to it!  LOL  That is ok, so on to my progress pics!

I also finished stitching the little ornament last week and forgot to share a pic of it on Friday.  I did not stitch the words, since I am not French or the border on it simply because it is going to be an ornament for the Christmas Tree and that would have made it too large for what I am wanting.

I LOVE the way it turned out, this is such a pretty piece.  The church is my favorite part of it!  Once I actually get it finished into an ornie, I will share again!

Also, I am up to over 170 followers and that is just awesome!!!!!!  I am so excited about that!  Even though I just had a giveaway not long ago, I decided that once I hit 200 followers I am going to do another giveaway.  I have a lot of charts and some other goodies that I really need to go through and I can not think of anything better to do with them than offer them in a giveaway!!!!  

Ok, that is it for this time around.  Hope everyone has a wonderful and Blessed week!!

Cindy Mae Designs is Down

I am so sorry for the inconvenience but Cindy Mae Designs is down at the moment.  Hopefully it will be up and going within a couple days!  Thanks for your patience!

1st Pre-IHSW Post

I am super excited to be a part of the International Hermit and Stitching Weekend this weekend!!!  I have decided to focus on 2 of my WIP's and only those.  Nothing new!!!  I am going to be working on my Words of God pattern and this is what it looks like right now:

My other focus is going to be "He Is Risen" which is a free design that you can find at the bottom of this page right here!  This is another one of those freebies that I have wanted to stitch for a long time and finally started on it a couple weeks ago but then got caught up in other stuff and it got pushed to the side.  I figured the IHSW would be a great time to focus on it as well!  This is where I stand on this one right now:

I was asked about the freebie Christmas ornie that I am currently working on from my last post by a couple people.  You can find that freebie right here and I am stitching it with DMC 115!

Also Cindy Mae Designs is down right now but will hopefully be back up and going within a day or two!

Well that is about it for this time around, I will be back Monday with an update from my weekend stitching!!! Hope you all have wonderful and Blessed weekends!!

IHSW, Some Progress and HELP?

Hello everyone, hope you are having an amazing week so far!  It is hump day, so its half over.  We got the task accomplished of pulling carpet from our bedroom this weekend and thank God that is over!!!!!  Now this next weekend we have to barrow my moms truck and make several trips to the dump . . .no fun!!!!  

I am hoping to be able to be a part of the IHSW (International Hermit and Stitch Weekend) though and get a bunch of stitching done, or at least more than this last weekend which was NONE!!! 

 I have started stitching on a small Christmas freebie this week though and here is where I am on it this far:

I am going to finish this into an ornie for the Christmas tree!  

Now on the HELP part.  After pulling carpet this weekend I done a lot of sorting through stuff and found a WIP that has been forgotten about.  I know this was a freebie design and I think it was from the Holy Needle but I am not entirely sure about that.  The bad thing about it is that I can not find the pattern to it anywhere!!!!!  I would love to finish this piece now that I have found it.  Does anyone recognize it?  If so, do you know where I can get the pattern to it?  Does anyone have a copy of it that I could barrow?  Here is where I stand on the progress of it: 

Oh and one more thing . . . especially for all you quilters out there or those of you who are like me and enjoy adoring other people's work and hobbies.  Stop by and check out Janyie, the Texas Quilt Lady's blog!  She does amazing quilting work.  She is so talented and I am sure that many of you talented quilters would love to visit her blog.  

Happy Thanksgiving to My Canadian Friends & Another Giveaway!

Just wanted to wish all my wonderful Canadian friends a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend and Day and stay safe.  Eat lots and be Blessed!!!!

Also, my friend Lisa is having a giveaway on her blog.  Make sure and stop by and follow her and leave a comment to enter the giveaway!!!!!

My First Wall Hanger Thingy Finished!!!

So I am not very good at sewing but worse than that is the fact that my little sewing machine is on its last leg and just don't do a good job.  I was so excited when I thought of and then found that stuff you use for fixing hems that uses the iron instead of sewing.  It is not that expensive and it works!!  But I did not use it to fix a hem or anything like that, instead I used it to finish my latest finished stitching piece.  I have never done a wall hanger type finish and have wanted to for a while but due to my sewing machine not working very well I had not done it.  

BUT I really wanted to finish my last piece that way so I started thinking that I was just going to hand sew it and then the light went off and I thought about the iron on stuff . . . found it  . . . . tried it . . . and this is the result.

My finishing skills still need some work but I am pretty happy with how this turned out!  The design is from the August 1996 issue of The Cross Stitcher and was created by Ursula Michael.  I love this little design and thought is was so cute when I seen it.  

If anyone knows this design you will probably notice that I did make some changes to it and the reason for that is because I messed up on measuring my material!  LOL  So the "Who's got my" part was made much smaller and that in turn required a few more changes to make it all fit and allow me to finish the way I wanted to!  Overall, I am still happy with the way it turned out!

Well I am ready for the weekend, I think.  Hubby and I are going to be pulling carpet out of our bedroom which I do not mind so much, its the moving of the furniture that I am not looking forward to!  We have to get it done though.  The allergies are just too bad to keep it in.  We pulled the carpet out of the kids bedrooms and living room a long time ago.  The kids rooms had tile underneath so that worked out well and we have just had concrete floors in the living room and hall way since then.  Since then I have gotten to the point where I hate carpet.  It is soooo hard to keep clean, especially with animals!!!!  Concrete don't look that pretty but its much easier to keep clean and sure is easier on the allergies.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend full of tons of blessings and stitching!!!!

The Winner Is . . .

I LOVE being able to offer this giveaway and one of my favorite things about it is the fact that I have found some new blogs to follow which means more stitching friends which means . . . Awesomeness!!!  One can never have to many stitching friends!!!!

So without further ado . . . the winner of the giveaway is . . . 

BETH from Beth's Blog!!!!!  

Congrats Beth!  Please send me your mailing address so I can get your package sent out to you!

You can send it to cindymaedesigns@gmail.com

Thank you to everyone who entered and spread the word around.

Giveaway Ending Tomorrow and New Finish

If you have not already done so, make sure and check out the Give-a-Way post and sign up!! It will be closing tomorrow night and I will do the drawing Thursday morning and announcing the winner!!!! Also remember that you will get an extra entry for "Liking" Cindy Mae Designs Facebook page and for sharing it on your blog or facebook page!!!

I have done a new design but am not able to sale it yet as I want to get permission.  For anyone who is a hunter or whose other half might hunt, you might really like this one.  We are BIG fans of The Bone Collector show with Michael Waddell and my hubby asked if I could stitch his logo for him . . . so I did and we LOVE the way it turned out.  I sent the team an email last week and going to see if I can get permission to sale the design for anyone who might be interested.  For now I can share a pic of the finish with you though, so here it is!

For anyone in the market for some Linen Fabric, I have an ebay auction up you might be interested in. I don't do Ebay much but I need to buy myself some new fabric and so I am selling a large part of my Linen because I just don't stitch on it. I prefer Evenweave or Aida.  This is a great lot of Linen so go check it out!

Well, that is about it for now!!!  Hope you are all having a great and Blessed week!!!