Great Nephews, Stitching and a New Hobby!

Hello all my dear stitching, crafting friends!  Hope you are all doing well!  I have been a bit busy with a little bit of sickly in the middle.  My sinus's have been giving me fits and we had company last weekend.  My sister-in-law, niece, 2 nephews, 2 niece-in-laws, and 2 great nephews came to visit and it was wonderful!  Had not seen them since April of last year and goodness, that is way to long to wait!  Remember Adam?  If you have been reading my blog for a while you will remember that I use to baby sit my great nephew, Adam.  He has grown up so much and he is so darn cute!  Look at this face, covered with chocolate from a doughnut. 

I have missed him so much and I guess he has missed us too because when it was time to leave he had a fit!  Made Aunt Cindy cry like a baby!!!  Then my other great nephew who was only a few months old when they moved has grown a lot too.  We did get to see him some in December when him and his mommy came to visit but it still felt like forever!  Look at that adorable face!

Now on to stitching . . . remember that pattern that I was asking if anyone happen to have the pattern too a while back . . . I found someone who had it on 123 Stitch forums.  So it is finally finished and I am so darn happy to finally have it complete and hung on the wall!  

I also finally got "Stealing Oats" by Brittercup Designs from someone on Facebook and got it all stitched up.  I love it so much!!  I got off on my counting at some point but I made do and made it work!  

Now on to a new hobby!  I have been wanting to learn to knit for some time now and every time I try to, I get so frustrated!  So I decided to try again and guess what . . . I got totally frustrated again!!!!  LOL  So I started looking into Loom Knitting and decided to give it a go and I love it!!!!!  I am working on a scarf right now and am just loving the way it is looking.  I actually just bought some of the cheapest yarn I could to start practicing with but am really happy with how it is looking!  I do wish I would not have made it so wide but it will keep a neck really warm that is for sure!  LOL

Well I guess that is about it for this time around.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! 

Oh and don't forget that the Counted Wishes Festival is coming up in March on the 15th - 20th!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving that was full of many many blessings!  As for me . . .we had a wonderful day and it was indeed full of many many blessings.  My mom fixed an enormous meal with all the wonderful goodies.  My oldest brother and his wife and son were in from Austin.  Since they will not be able to be here for Christmas we went ahead and had Christmas with them as well which just added to the fun!  My dad and my second mom came over and joined us for the wonderful meal and we just all enjoyed our time together.  

It was also my moms birthday and so we had homemade German Chocolate cake for the birthday cake that was just superliscous!!   A couple weeks ago, my son asked me to design and stitch something with the part of the Bible verse that reads "With God anything is possible" and so I did and got his all stitched up.  Forgot to get a pic, but will post it next time.  I ended up stitching it several times though and gave one to my mom, one to my brother and SIL and then one to my nephew.  I done my moms in purple and here it is:  

Below is the others.   My  nephews is the one stitched in green and my brother and SIL is the one is red: (my finishing was not near as good on them because I did not leave enough fabric to work with though)

I also stitched my SIL this little Britty Kitty from the JCS ornie issue from a couple years ago:

In other stitching news I have also finished a gift for a dear stitching friend but can not show it off yet as well as got the finishing done on the piece for the Lizzie Kate Exchange.  I have had so much going on that this was the only exchange I joined this year.  Sure am gonna miss getting several wonderful stitching exchange packages in the mail this year!  That's ok, next year it will be on!!!!  LOL

Welp, that is about it for this time around.  Also want to let you all know that I have been visiting your blogs, just have not been having enough time to leave comments on all of them.  I know how much I love getting comments and hate when I can not leave them but since I am following over 200 blogs now, it get a bit hard at times!

Hope you all have a great weekend!!

What a Week!!!

Well this week has been . . . well Challenging!!! It is ending well though. I have not stitched since late Monday night, I have not been on the computer since early Tuesday, I have not watched TV since early Tuesday, I have not done lots of things since early Tuesday. Why you ask! Well, I am not going to get into a sappy story or anything like that but we did not have electricity. It was back on today at about 5:00 pm! Thankfully my daddy came to his 33 year old daughter and families rescue!! SAD, I know!!!

I could have stitched some but the wind was horrible out side and of course I just did not have good lighting inside, so stitching was out of the question!! The bad thing about being away from the computer for a couple days is that when I logged on today I found that there was over 400 blog posts to read!!!! Of course I was already a couple days behind before all this happened! LOL So, please do not be upset if you do not have comments from me on your recent posts!!!!

I did get one good thing accomplished though . . . we found a new home for all 7 puppies!!! That is just fantastic!! I was getting so sick of cleaning up tiny piles of doggy poop from every single corner (and in between) of this house!!! LOL I feel that they all got really good homes and will be very happy though and that makes us all happy!!!

Now, you are all going to think we are crazy but we do have a new member of the family. Yes, The ZOO pattern was created with my own family in mind!!!! LOL LOL LOL!! His name is Noah and he is 11 weeks old. He is a Border Collie / Heeler mix and is adorable!!! You might be wondering why we would get a different puppy when we had 7 to choose from. Well, Romo (our Chocolate Lab) needed a play mate. One that would be a large dog like him. Ever since we lost our dog Duke several months ago, he has been terribly lonely!! The puppies that our Belle had will not be very big dogs at all and so we have been looking for one that would fit well with Romo and Noah is what we found!! So here he is.So, now it is time to get off this computer for a while and let my fingers do some stitching!!! I am having severe with drawls from my stitching but I was having worse with drawls from all of you, my dear stitching blogging friends!!

I will be by all your blogs soon to get caught up, just remember that you might not get comments from me while I get caught up though!!!

Beautiful Saturday!

Happy Saturday to all my wonderful stitching friends! I hope that you are having a wonderful and blessed weekend!!! The weather here in West Texas is absolutely perfect today. It is nice and cool out with a slight breeze and the sun is shining. This is a great thing as I don't get to brag about our weather very often!! LOL

I have put up a new Christmas cross stitch freebie on my freebie blog. Hope that you all like it!

I have been working on "Four Friends" mostly this week. I have made some great progress on it and just love this pattern. It is really a fun stitch and of course when there is a story behind it, it is even better in my opinion. Of course, I can not show a pic of it though as it is for a exchange. I also stitched and finished a little something else this week but can not show that either as it is a gift for a friend. So sorry there are no pics this post.

Have you heard of the Freecylce organization. I am sure that most of you have. Well that is also something that has been keeping me busy this week. There was not a local group for my hometown and so I requested several weeks ago for a group to be set up for me to take care of. So it finally got approved and is all set up now. Now, I just have to figure out how to get the word out and get members and get them active! LOL They have some great flyers that I am going to post around town as a start. I know that this could and hopefully will turn into a big group and will take some time to keep going, but that is ok. I think that Freecylce is a great thing and I believe in what they stand for!

In other news, I guess it was my daughter's turn to be sick this week. She has been ill most of the week. She had the vomiting thing going on for a couple days but it has ended with just a horrible sore throat. Finally got her into the doc yesterday and got her started on some medicine, so hopefully she will be filling all better by Monday! Her and I was suppose to be going on a school trip this weekend but we had to cancel!

Well that is about it for this time around! Thank you all for your continued wonderful comments on my blog and for visiting me! You all ROCK!!!!

Animals, Stitching and a Giveaway!!!

Just when you think things are getting to be NORMAL and you are getting into a routine, something has to get in the way. My son spent 3 days at home this week running fever. We were not even sure why he had a fever but he is all better now and was able to go back to school yesterday. I hate it when my kids are sick! My daughter went to the local fair last night and ended up riding to many rides and lost her pizza. LOL She was really embarrassed but I think by this morning she was over it! At least until she gets to school and her friends start telling everyone what happened! We will have a good time teasing her for the next couple days though!

I have started stitching the "Four Friends" but of course can not show you that since it is for a gift. I still have not decided how I am going to finish it though. I did get my Lizzie Kate exchange in the mail the other day. It has a ways to go but hopefully I will be able to post pics of it soon.

In other stitchy news I have created my first Quaker Sampler. I love it and hope that you all do too. I am going to start stitching it this evening. I have created "Stitchy Gifts - Series 2" and have one of them finished but have decided that I am going to wait a while to stitch more of them because I am really excited about the quaker design. It was going to be Christmasy but then I decided that I just wanted it to be an everyday sampler. I am going to try and wait to show it to you all though. I may give a sneak peek of my stitching progress next week though, we will see. I know there are a lot of quaker fans out there and the more that I get into the quaker style, the more I understand the addiction to it!! Anyway, I hope to have it finished and released by the end of this month!

A while back Sandy sent me some Linen's and I just love them all but have not had a chance to stitch on them and try them out. So, I am stitching the "Four Friends" on 32 count linen and now I also understand why everyone just loves linen. At first I started using 2 strands of floss though and it just looked like crap but then I went to 1 strand and I am just loving the way it is looking.

We have a new member of the family. Yep, another one! LOL My MIL come and got my husband and I this morning and told us there was something in her room she wanted us to see. So, we go in there and on the side of her bed is a little lizard. I picked it up and we immediately found something to put it in. We at least wanted to keep it and show the kids when they got home from school. Well after googling a bit, we figured out that he is a House Gecko and so we have decided that we will try to keep him and give him a good home. My husband has wanted a lizard type pet, even though he wants one of those big ones that you can walk on a leash, he will have to settle with this little dude!! He is really cool! Here is a pic of him.I also finally have pics of all the puppies and kittens to share. It amazes me how much alike all 5 kittens look!
Oh, before I forget . . . there is a great giveaway going on over at Dip Diddly Designs. Nicole will be having a weekly giveaway for the month of October, so make sure and stop by and check it out!!!

It Was Worse Than We Expected!!

Well, we are home from the hospital and my husband is doing great, except for being absolutely give out! As the title says, it was worse than we expected though, but they were able to fix him up with stents. He ended up having to have 3 stents put in, making him have a total of 4 now. (only 31 years old) We were expecting one . . . maybe two but not 3! The right coronary artery was 100% clogged and 1 stent took care of that one! There was absolutely nothing going through there at all! I wish I had a scanner, I would show you all the pictures that the doc gave us of before and after, it is amazing! Anyway, then the left coronary artery was clogged in two different places. The top was 70% clogged and the bottom part was 50% clogged and that required 2 stents. The stent that he received in 2005 when he had the heart attack was placed in the circumflex artery and it was working great. That was the only artery getting a good blood flow through it, which as you can tell from the pic below is a very small artery compared to the rest and gets its flow from the top part of the left coronary artery!! So we are very blessed that we were able to find this all out and get it taken care of! I got this image from the Texas Heart Institute. So, even though it was worse than we expected, he is all fixed up now and his heart is in great shape. There is a little damage to the bottom of his heart from the heart attack and a bit on the top from this blockage but that can be improved over time!! We are so thankful that we were able to get all this done and that the hospital and doctor are working with us on the financial end!! They have been amazing as far as that goes. The nurses were all amazing and wonderful as well!

I just can not put into words how thankful I am that we got this done and was able to prevent another heart attack!!! If he would of had another heart attack, the doc said that IF he would have lived through it, we would have been looking at open heart surgery instead of stent placement.

So anyway, I just want to thank you all so very much for your kind words, your encouragement and most of all your thoughts and prayers!!

I am over 350 blog post behind according to Google Reader . . . EEEEEeeeeek!! So, please do not have your feelings hurt if once again you do not have comments from me for the last weeks updates on your blog!!! I will get around to getting caught up on reading all of your blogs but the commenting may not!!

Again, thank you all for being so wonderful!!!

Tuesday is the BIG Day!!!

Hello all my dear stitching friends!!! I figured that I better get off my booty and give you guys an update on things!!!

The doctor appointment went great for my hubby Friday. We where hoping that this doctor would have a "Lets get this taken care of now" attitude instead of the "Lets do a ton of expensive test and then end up doing a heart cath anyway" attitude. Guess what, he had the lets get it done attitude and we go in on Tuesday morning for the Heat Cath. If there are any problems they will hopefully be able to get them fixed while they are in there looking around unless of course it requires more than stints or something! Back in 2005 when DH had the heart attack the artery causing the attack was 100% clogged but there was another that was 80% clogged that the doctor did not fix!!????!!!???!! This is one reason we do not go to that doctor anymore. So we are praying that stints will be all that is required! Thank you all so much for your prayers and thoughts and I ask that you continue to do pray for us!!!

On the stitching front . . . I have decided that I need to stitch something for pure pleasure for just a bit. Something that is for DH and I, instead of a model of one of my designs, so I have picked a new design and got it all kitted up last night and started stitching it. I should be able to have stitched in several days time. It is the new freebie from The Holy Needle. Given everything that we are going through, this verse/saying is just perfect and something that we must remember!!!!!
Here is a progress pic. Sorry it is not very good. My daughter has her camera with her and she is away staying with my dad and his wife. So, I had to use my phone!I have made some updates to my web site! I have improved it greatly due to Sandra from Joyful Expressions. She has been doing this for a while and has given me some great suggestions to improve me web site. She is the reason that I decided to offer PDF's of my designs. These are now available for Instant download!!! Yep, as soon as you make your payment, you will receive access to the PDF file!!!! I have also included the stitched area size on each description. Another great suggestion that she had for me is to include Anchor thread colors on my patterns. So, I am in the process of doing that!!!! I think Sandra so much for all the help she is offering me.

I also want to thank Lisa! Lisa has been so wonderful to me. She is willing to stitch just about anything for me and has offered a lot of great suggestions for me to build up my customer's. She is such a dear and special friend as well. If you do not visit her blog, you gotta! She does such beautiful stitching and she has an awesome family!!!

I would also like to invite my Christian stitching friends to join a great yahoo group! All the ladies that I have gotten to know from this group are just awesome! Anna, the leader, is really working hard to build up the activity in the group and the members. So hop over there and check it out!!

Click to join christiancross_stitch

Well I guess that is about it for now! I will update after Tuesday to let you know how things go with my husband procedure!!! Thank you all for the wonderful friendships and the thoughts and prayers! You are all so wonderful!!!

Hubby, LK, Giveaway and more!

Again, I want to thank each and everyone of you for your prayers and support for my husband and our situation. We have found a doctor that is willing to work with us on the money side of things and pray that he will be able to do some tests and give us some answers. We go see this doctor on Friday. It is a bit of a drive for us but it will be worth it. The sad thing is that I am broke and there are lots of hobby shops where we will be! LOL Oh, well . . . maybe next time!

Kathy received my Lizzie Kate exchange package and she loved it and that makes me incredibly happy! I stole the pic from her blog because it is soooo much better than my pic of it! LOL Anyway, I stitched the Live, Laugh, Love pattern of LK's which Kathy says is one of her favorites! I finished it into a pillow.I also have to share my other blog with you all. I feel that there are some of you who would like this blog and some who will not, and that is ok. Inspiration Korner is a blog that I have had for many years. I stopped posting on it the first of the year but I am being moved to start posting to this blog again. So, feel free to stop by and visit!

You gotta check out the awesome giveaway at Lori's!!! She has got a great lot goodies up for grabs, you don't want to miss it!!!

I have been doing some stitching but no pics of that at this time. I am working on one of my designs and have stitched a couple ATC's. Hopefully, I will remember pics before I send them out this time!

Well, that is all for this time around. Hope you are all having a great week!

He Is Finally Better!!!!

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments and for those who prayed for my son. I am very happy to report that he is doing much better now! He has still been having some headaches off and on but the rash, fever and all the other stuff is now gone.

I really don't have a lot to report stitching wise right now. Have been doing some but it has just been the model stitching of my designs and I have not taken any pics yet. So, those are to come.

I have been a little busy creating a web site for my designing. I am really happy with the way it is turning out. I am still working on it and at first will not have a cart and check out or anything like that but there are other ways of taking care of business. The banner at the top of this page will take you there or you can just click here! Check it out and if you have any ideas for improvement, I would love to hear it!!

I do hope that you will all forgive me for not commenting on your blogs lately! Things have just been crazy around here and with me trying to get things going for my designing business I have not had a lot of time to visit blogs and when I do, I am not taking time to leave comments. So please know, that I have been to your blogs to visit, just have not had time to comment! I have even found a few new blogs and have not even had time to comment on theirs. So anyway, please forgive me, but know that I am keeping tabs on you all! LOL

Well that is about all this time around. Hopefully the next post will include pics!!!

Happy Stitching!
Cindy Mae

Scarlet Fever is NOT fun!

This week has been crazy. My son has been a sick baby. I say baby but he is 7 years old, but when he is sick like that he is my baby! LOL Anyway, after a couple trips to the doctor we FINALLY figured out that it was Strep Throat and Scarlet Fever! NOT FUN!!! Although I do thank God that it was not Meningitis!!! Even so, my son has been so miserable! His limp nodes where so swollen that his neck has been hurting for days. He has not been able to move it from side to side or up and down. One side you can even see the swelling with out looking for it! I took a couple snaps of him and his rash.
He is feeling better now. He has not ran a high fever all day and the rash is actually almost gone. His neck still hurts but is getting better. He finally ate food today so that was a major mile stone.

So, if you have noticed that I am behind on my blog reading, you are very right!!! I will get around to getting caught up in the next few days!!

I have made a couple new post on my design blog! One of them is a pic of my first model piece finished. And the other is a NEW FREEBIE!! Yes, another 4th of July piece but this one is designed to be finished into an ornament or pin cushion, something like that. It has a front and back and I think that it is really cute and hope you like it too!! While there make sure and sign up as a follower so you will always be the first to know about my designing adventure! LOL

Also don't forget about my upcoming giveaway! Check out this post for more info! Pass it on and get a second entry!!!

Well that is about it this time around. Sorry no other stitching to show this week but my model piece is all the stitching time I had. But I enjoyed stitching it, so thats ok! Pray that you all have a wonderful and Blessed week!

Happy Stitching,
Cindy Mae

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

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