Time Just Goes to Fast!!!

Hello all! This past week has just been so busy and when I think back I can not even remember half of the business! Does that happen to anyone else? I sit here and I think about certain days and know why they were busy and other days just leave me wondering where the time went! LOL

I received some awesome mail! I won the giveaway that Lori held a few weeks back and WOW oh WOW did she send some great stuff!!! What an awesome package!!! There were a ton of great charts and some needles too! This pick does not show it all, I mean it is all there but you can not tell because it is buried! LOL Lori, thank you for such a fantastic prize package!!! I was so surprised and happy at how well the Quaker Halloween Ornaments went! Thanks to all of you who purchased them and I hope that you truly enjoy stitching them. I would love to see some pics of your finishes!! Since those did go over so well . . . I am now working on some Quaker Christmas Ornaments! I hope to release these in the next month or so. I hope that everyone likes them just as much as the Halloween ones!

One of the things that kept me busy this past week was my hubby. We had his birthday and a doctors appointment all in one day. The doctors appt went fantastic. He was given a clean bill of health and told that he is now free to do what he wants to do! GREAT news and a wonderful birthday present for him!!! We had a wonderful dinner that night to celebrate his birthday and clean bill of health! About the only stitching that I can show you is the card that I made him. I have been working on some model stitching of upcoming designs and my Lizzie Kate exchange piece so I can not show either of those yet. So, here is his card:Thank you all for your continued thoughts and prayers for my husband! You have all been so awesome through all of this and I thank God for each and every single one of you!!! If I have not been by your place in the last week or so, don't worry, I am making my rounds and trying to get caught up!!!

Hope you are all having a wonderful week!

14 Years Old - EEEEeeeeeek!

My beautiful darling daughter is now 14 years old!  Today is her birthday and I just can not believe how time flies!  And for those of you thinking another birthday . . you are right!  My sons was week before last, mine was last week and now my daughters is this week!  Expensive month April is!  LOL  

Anyway, Happy birthday Candice Mae!  I love you with all my heart and I pray that you have a fantastic birthday and that God just blesses your socks off today and for the rest of your life!!!

Here is how I finished the piece that she designed and I stitched.  She knew when she designed this piece that it was for her birthday card.  She wants to frame it and hang it on the wall now!  I think that there might have been a  couple people not so sure about her design.  If you look at it closely, you can tell that she has a shirt on that is the same color as her hair.  You can see a little shoulder and then her hands in front of her chest.  So, she is holding her arms in front of her and you see the sleeves and hands.  Hope that helps!  Anyway, here it is finished as her birthday card.  I really did not do much beside find a cute frame to put around it.  I did not want to take away from the girl!  Oh and YOSH means OK!

Now I want to mention an awesome giveaway that is going on over at Daffycat's place!  She has got two giveaways going on that are for some her own hand dyed fabric and let me tell you, it is gorgeous!!!  So you gotta go on over there and check it out!

Well, I guess that is about it for this time around.  Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week!!!

Happy Stitching,

Cindy Mae

Busy but Good Week!

First of all I want to thank everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes! I had a great birthday!I have not been thanking everyone for their comments by email because I have just realized that half of them don't even get to where they are suppose to go! So, I will just thank you all right here! You are all such wonderful friends and I really love all the comments that you leave, they truly mean a lot to me!!!

It is the Totally Useless SAL update time! Make sure and check out the link to this SAL, because it is not like most SAL's! This is different, creative and just great!!! Anyway, here is my update!I received my package from Sharon! I won this giveaway a few weeks ago and actually received this package on my birthday, so that was exciting!!! I love it all! The fabrics are fantastic!! I just love them both and the hand dyed floss is beautiful. I was really excited to see the pattern as it is Lizzie Kate! I love Lizzie Kate and I just joined the Lizzie Kate exchange, so this just adds to my patterns that I will be able to stitch up for this exchange! Thank you so very much Sharon!!!!

I did get a bit more done on Wedding Spots! I love the way this is turning out and I can not wait to finish it and surprise my brother and new wife with it. I know that he will not be expecting anything from me and especially something hand made, so I am excited!

I have also started WestWinds! I just love this design! I have not done much on it, but I have started the tree trunk anyway!I have almost received all of my ATC's from the WOCS ATC birthday exchange. Once I receive them all, I will post more pics! Don't forget to check out the new ATC birthday Exchange that I have started! Remember these things are very quick to stitch and put together and the best part is they are lots of fun!!! The sign ups for this exchange will close on May 1st, so if you are thinking about joining, just go for it!!!!!

Well that is about it for now! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!!

Happy Stitching,

Cindy Mae

Great Mail and Lightening!

I have had a great mail week. I have received more ATC's from the birthday exchange that I am in on the WOCS boards! Here is the first set. These are from Lorraine and Nicola. They are both just to precious! I love them both! Thank you ladies!

This next one kind of blew me away! I did not expect all of this. This one is from my dear friend Paulie! She not only sent me the cutest ATC but she also stitched me a birthday card with a Britty Kitty, which I love and her granddaughter stitched a little Fairy for me as well!!! She also included some patterns that she had told me she would send me along with my ATC. Paulie, thank you so very much!!!

Just to mention my new blog again! This is the ATC birthday exchange for stitching bloggers! Now I know some of you may be thinking that you don't have time for another exchange or something but keep in mind these are very small and can be stitched, put together and ready to mail in just a couple hours time. Just to mention it again. The sign up ends May 1st and then we will start exchanging in June and will go through May of next year. I have not had many people sign up yet so come on and join us!!!!!!

Now back on to the mail stuff if you are still with me:
I also received a card from another friend, Sheila just because she felt like sending it! Thank you Sheila!!

I also already received my ebay auction that my dad and his wife bought me for my birthday. I did not take a pic of it but I got a great lot of all 18 ct fabric and one piece of 28 ct linen for when I get the nerve up to try it again. I got that piece just because I could not resist the color! LOL I would like to try stitching something on a piece of clothing of some sort so I also got some wast canvas.

I have made a little progress on Wedding Spots even with all the birthday going ons this week. I like the way this is turning out so far. I think it will be a really pretty piece when it is done and framed. This picture does not do it justice, I need to start taking my pics outside in the sun light, they turn out so much better.
And then just a few more pics to share. These are from video that we took of a lightening storm we had here this past week. I just paused the video and took a screen shot so they are not the best quality but they are sure awesome!



Well I think that is about all for now!! Thank you to everyone who visits me and leaves me comments!!!!

Happy Stitching,
Cindy Mae

Growing Up

Ok, so I have decided that the more I try and blog on a schedule the more I don't want to!  LOL  So, from now on I will just post when I feel like it!  LOL

My baby boy turned 7 yesterday!!!  I can not believe how time flies!!  My daughter will be 14 on the 28th and then I will be 33 on the 23rd . .  eeek!  So April is a busy and expensive month around my house!  LOL   Anyway, John had a great day yesterday.  He will have a party to invite friends on Saturday but he got his presents from family yesterday!  We got him a new bike!  He loves to ride his bike, he loves the outdoors.  When he came in from school it was sitting in the living room but when we were walking up he seen presents sitting on the table through the window so he did not even notice that bright green bike!  LOL  When he did notice it, he was so excited and started jumping around.  This bike has the front and back breaks.  My husband explained that if he only used the front brake it would cause him to flip.  Well I don't think that he believed daddy!  He was going really fast and what does he do . . . he uses just the front brake! (He had to try it, right?)  Next thing you know he has handle bars jabbing his tummy and has a pretty bad scraped up elbow!  But he is fine now and now he knows that daddy was not telling him a lie! LOL  Anyway, here is a pic of my handsome little man on his new bike!

He is so funny when you tell him to smile he makes crazy faces that you can tell are forced smiles! LOL Anyway, I let him pick what he wanted stitched for his birthday card, so here is the card that I made him.

I have started on "Wedding Spots" for my brother and new bride but have not had a chance to take a progress pic, so I will show that next time!  My dad told me that I had some money to spend on stitching goodies for my birthday so off to ebay I went!  I found a great ebay store with a ton of great 18 ct Aida for a great price.  So, I am looking forward to receiving that!

Don't forget to check out the new blog that I made.  This blog is for an ATC birthday exchange group that will last 1 year.  If you would like to sign up, please do!  The more that better.  If you are not sure what an ATC is then you can find a like on the left of this blog or on the right of the new blog to give you an idea.  I also have a few example pics on the new blog as well!  So make sure and check it out and sign up!!!  ATC's are a lot of fun to make and they are also very quick to make!

I would like to thank everyone for the comments on the stitching of my daughters design!  I would also like to thank you all for the wonderful comments for my dad and step-mom for loosing their dog, Tazy.  They are doing better now but miss her like crazy!  

I have not been very good about responding to everyone's comments but please know that I really appreciate every single one that I get and you all mean so much to me!!!!

Well, that is about it for now!!!

Happy Stitching,

Cindy Mae

Lossing my touch

I first want to say thank you so much to everyone who left comments on my last post about the giving and stuff. Every single person totally agrees with me that it is ok to give charts and things to other people! There were only two people who said they would NOT be offended if a handmade gift was re-gifted to someone else. I honestly never thought about it before, but I see what they are saying. If I give someone something that I made for them and they just did not like it but knew someone who would just love it . . . well I think it would be ok with me too! I said in my last post that I would rather them put it in a drawer rather than re-gift it, but actually YoYo , Ranae and Carolyn are right. I would rather my work be appreciated and "showed off" rather than thrown into a drawer. I would appreciate and email or something letting me know that they were going to pass it on to someone who would truly love it! I think that would just be respectful! Anyway, thanks again to everyone who responded.

Now onward to other stuff! Here lately it seems like I have been getting lots of stuff in the mail, which I am not arguing about at all! I just love it, I mean who don't! Anyway, to start with I received my gift from the drawing that Amy had on her blog! I was so excited to open, as I don't win things very often . . . well almost never! Well let me tell you, Amy out did her self! If she had this stuff pre-selected to send to the winner, then it was just meant for me! The pic is below and I must say that the Praise His Name chart is my favorite!!! I have been wanting a chart like this forever! It is huge though, so I am going to wait until I can afford a good scroll frame!I signed up for a birthday ATC exchange on WOCS forum and I already received my first one! My birthday is not until April 23rd! Claire sent this to me. Now as far as I know she don' t blog, but if she reads this one I want her to know that I love it and this is my very first ATC to ever receive!Beth had left a comment on a post and mentioned the Stitcher's Bible. Well sweet Sandy let me know that she had the book and that if I wanted it she would send it to me. So very graciously accepted her offer! I received it this week as well! It is great and I think it will help me start moving on from just regular cross stitch and aida to bigger and better things!I have also recently decided to give swap bot a try and join a Biscornu exchange. I love Biscornu's and think that are just too cool! Anyway, I got to goofing off with a blank piece of graph paper stuff decided to see if I could create my own design. Well every thing fancy that I tried went terribly wrong so instead I ended up with this (below) and then I even messed up of the stitching of it! LOL Anyway, maybe I will try again! Do you see the mistake?Now, I know this is a long post but one last thing. Have you ever had one of those patterns that just gave you a hard time! Well I had one this week and it has got me to thinking that maybe I am loosing my stitching touch! (thus the title of the post) I started on this little pattern four times before finally getting it right. It is such a simple little pattern too!! Anyway, I finally got it right and the pic below is the finished product of a birthday card for my step-mom! Now the kids had a hand in this one. My son drew on this inside and my daughter just had to write on the front! LOL Anyway, it turned out really cute. I do want to NOT take credit for the flower though, it is an iron on patch!
Well, I think that is it for now! Hope everyone has a wonderful and blessed week filled with lots of stitching!

Happy stitching,
Cindy Mae