Part Three is Done! Yay!

As of 4:45 PM CST, I am 1/4 of the way done with Deep Blue Sea!  All four Coral Motifs from Part Three are done!  And of course, I have pics of each one!

Top Coral Motif:

Right Coral Motif:

Bottom Coral Motif:

Left Coral Motif:

Here is a pic of the whole piece as of right now:

I'm hoping to be able to give Persephone some love right now.  Maybe I can get the bottom half of her tail done!  I've gotten the fabrics in that I've chosen for Merchant Mermaid, Enchanted Mermaid, and Villia Mirabilia.  I'll post some floss tosses when I get close to finishing Persephone and maybe yal can help me pick my next Mira!  Also, I'm just 3 followers away from 50!  I will hand-dye an fat eighth of fabric for one of my followers when I reach 50!  Any color/ fabric/ count you want!  When I make it to 100, I'll do a fat quarter!  Thank you for following me in my stitching journey!  TTFN!



First Day of Spring!

Well, it's officially the first day of spring!  Spring came roaring into San Antonio on the heels of some frightening thunder storms and tornados.  Today was beautiful but it is supposed to storm again tonight.  I spent the last week in Lousinana getting almost no stitching done.  I did a lot of drinking and eating though! 

I used the afternoon sun to finally get some progress pics!  I'm making some decent progress on Persephone but I'll be putting her away for a couple of weeks so I can get part three of Deep Blue Sea done. 

I messed up somewhere in the bottom of the tail.  I'm still not sure if I want to fudge it or fix it.  And Here is Deep Blue Sea as of this afternoon. 

I'm hoping to finish the Coral motif on the right side tonight.  Here is a close-up of the top motif.

These motifs are fun to stitch so far.  They have a variety of specialty stitches and threads.  I'm having a lot of fun with them right now.  Til next time... TTFN!





St. Patricks Day is Coming a Little Early This Year!

Hello Everyone!  It has been a cold, rainy dreary few days here in San Antonio.  Because of that, I have no new pics to show you. :(  I've made some progress but the light is just not good enough to take pics.  So instead, I'm going to share some recipes :)  Next Saturday is St. Patrick's Day but my family is celebrating today.  I'm cooking Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes, Cornbeef and Cabbage, Colcannon, and homemade Irish Cream. I hope that if you try these recipes, you like them as much as we do!

Corn Beef and Cabbage (**and Colcannon**)
 2 Cornbeef briskets (i get the biggest ones I can find so I have plenty of leftovers for Cornbeef hash)
1 large head of green cabbage
1 cup of Jameson's Irish Whiskey
1 16 oz. can of Guinness
4 cloves of garlic

Place all ingredients (except cabbage) and the cornbeef seasoning packets in a large roasting pan and braise for 4-5 hours at 250 degrees.  Turn the meat over after about 2 hours.  Remove from the oven and set aside.  Cut the cabbage apart into small leaves and rinse.  Place in a large pot over medium heat and add two ladles of the juice from the Cornbeef.  Cover and simmer until it reaches desired wilted texture. 
**To make colcannon, mix some of the cabbage with mashed potatoes.**

This cornbeef recipe so sooo good and the scent will drive you crazy while it's cooking!  The alcohol tenderizes the briskets and it eventually cooks off so it won't leave you drunk after eating :)

Homemade Irish Cream
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1 cup of heavy whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon of coconut extract
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
3 tablespoons of chocolate syrup
1 and 1/4 cup of Jameson's Irish Whiskey.

Mix all ingredients in and blender.  Keep refridgerated and shake before serving.

I hope everyone enjoys these recipes!  First sunny day, I'll take some pics and show some progress!
TTFN!

In Like a Lamb...

Happy first day of March!  It is an absolutely beautiful day here in South Texas.  A pretty (but cloudy) 80 degrees!  Windows are open and fresh air in coming in!  I have had very little time for stitching the last few days but I do have some progress to show!  First, Persephone. 

I'm very close to being completely done with my color conversion and I will publish it here as soon as I get it all figured out. 

And here is Deep Blue Sea:

All I have left on Part one is backstitching so I am doing a little work on part three, more backstitching, then back to part three.  I had to break it up a little!

Now that I've shown you what I'm working on, let me show you all of my new fabrics I've received recently.  They are really wonderful!  This first one is a Sparklie's Solitaire Opalescent linen in 32 count.  I'm going to put Nora Corbett's Trick or Treat Fairy from the September 2008 issue of Cross-Stitch and Needlwork on this one.

This next one is a Silkweavers 28 ct opalescent called Mystical Seas and I absolutely love it!  Can not wait to see Nora's next mermaid because she will probably go on this!

And this last piece was hand-dyed by my friend, Jenetta and I LOVE it.  It is 28 ct jobelan.

I'm leaning towards Mermaid of Atlantis for this one but I may change my mind.  Thanks for reading and TTFN!



Happy President's Day!

Hello Everyone!  For those in U.S. Government jobs, I hope you're enjoying your day off.  The husband is taking me to lunch in a little while. :)  I have to admit, I have not stitched on Persephone hardly at all this week.  I've finished all of part two of Deep Blue Sea, minus the Jessica Shells with Topiary Princess perle.  I'm also trying to get caught up with Part one now that all of my Glorianas are in.  Here is Part Two completed as of Saturday morning:

I really love the fabric!  The more I use it the more I like it!  Here is a picture as of this morning:



While I really love the Blue Grass and Blue Hawaii, I don't really like the Deep Blue Sea Gloriana.  According to the chart supply list and a couple of other websites, Deep Blue Sea is supposed to be a dark teal similar to DMC 3806.  Mine is exactly DMC 500.  I could have saved myself $7.50 on a skien of silk because it is exactly the same color as the DMC 500 with little to no variation.  I think I'm going to take a trip to the LNS this afternoon after lunch to find something a little more teal.  I just don't love the green and I don't care for working with Glorianas in general so switching the thread would be better all around. 

In other happy news, tomorrow I'm going to pick up my Shimmering Mermaid from the framer!  Super excited to get her done and on the wall!  I choose a thin gold frame similar to one of the kreiniks and I thought it looked great for her.  yay!

I'm close to 50 followers!  Yay!  When I reach 50, I'm going to give away a stitcher's eighth of my hand-dyed fabric to one of my followers.  Not sure what color yet.  I've been experimenting and I have several wonderful colors.
TTFN!

Updates and Ideas

Hello Everyone!  I made a lot of progress on Persephone this week.  I've finished the top half of her tail.  I'm almost done with the plastic surgery and the color conversion.  When she's closer to being done, I'll post it for anyone who wants it.

I really love how she's coming out.  I'll probably put her aside this week to work on a small project and play catch up on Deep Blue Sea.  Speaking of Deep Blue Sea, here it is:

Only 4 more tiny starfish to go!  And my Blue Hawaii Gloriana came in this week so I'm going to start filling it in.
This week, I found a beautiful hand-painted teacup from Thailand at Good Will.  Some of the treasures that end up there make me sad.  I'm planning to turn it into a pin cushion using a small design from Joan Elliott.  I dyed a scrap of linen to match the teacup and I think I got pretty close.

I wish the pics were better this week It is a dreary and cold day here in San Antonio and I didn't have very good light.  Well, TTFN!

A UFO Invasion!

Hello everyone!  Hope everyone had a lovely week!  I got a little stitching done on Persephone but mostly worked on Deep Blue Sea.  I spent two nights in the Urgent Care with sick little boys so I got a lot of stitching done in the waiting rooms.  I'm still chugging away at Persephone.  She's slowly getting the rest of her tail.  I think once I'm past this part I'm cutting out, it will be faster because I can follow the chart instead of improvising as I go.

I got a quarter of the way through part two of Deep Blue Sea.  It's slow going because there is a lot of over one stitching in this part and I'm stitching on a 32 dark colored opalescent. 

Thanks to Deborah, I now have the petite silk lame so I'm filling in the gray curlyques.  They are VERY sparkly and the picture just doesn't do them justice.  And here's a close-up of my tiny over one starfish. 

Aren't they cute?  And only 12 more left to stitch!

My friend Jule is making me pull out a UFO and stitch on it once a month.  It is Shores of Hawk Run Hollow by Carriage House Samplings and I'm stitching it one over two on 40 ct linen.  She's just started this one so a group of us are going to meet once a month to work on this one or other UFOs. 

The fabric is not as yellow as it seems in the picture, I just had terrible lighting today.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but I substituted all of the NPI silks for overdyed cottons.  I really like the way it is coming out, but it is rather boring to stitch.  TTFN!