As one of my friends on the Cross Stitch Forum mentioned, it's easy to blame the Crazy January Challenge for my startitis.  That's right, I have a new project started. In my defence, it will be part of Lady Kell's Xmas Xstitching Challenge and a gift for my Grandma (I think). Of course, I already had a couple other things in mind for her that are half started, but no matter! 

This one is entitled Homeward Trail in Winter from the January edition of CrossStitch & Needlework. I'm using a 28 count fabric that I've lost the tag too. It might be Jobelan? It was a gift in an exchange last year and it's lovely to stitch on, so I'm very happy with it. I changed the fabric since my Grandma loves blue and has a lot of blue in her house. She tends to favour blue/silver decorations, but is happy with all Christmas decorations as far as I know. Her house always looks wonderful every year, that's for sure (she said with natural bias)

Here's the original design. I'm not too scared of the specialty stitches since I've tried out a few things thanks to the wonderful Abi Gurden and friendly folk over at The Stitch Specialists. She designed the heart I completed a week ago. I really like the look of this piece since I live over 9 hours away from my Grandma and this design somehow makes me feel like I'm on my way to her house. Perhaps from the Christmas song I'm looking through the woods to Grandmother's house. The point is, now I have another WIP! 

Speaking of WIPs, here is the sorely neglected Angelic Melody. I have put a few stitches in her, most notably part of a wing, but lost some interest again. It's definitely become more of a burden, which is unfortunate since I do love the look of her. Maybe since I failed her this past Xmas and the way things are going she'll be this Xmas' present! Although I do have a kind of goal. There's a local fair at the end of August and I'm thinking of entering her if I can get her finished up well enough. She may not be good enough since I'm not thrilled with some of my cording, but that can wait 'til the xstitches are all finished. 

Here's part of the reason why Angelic Melody got put down again. The Siberian Forest QS was screaming "me! me! me!" while I was trying to be good, so after a rough week I spent a day off working just on this. I'm still not sold on parking since I seem to take forever to figure out what stitch I'm on, but I am getting there. Hopefully as I work on more HAEDs I'll get better. 

And last, but by no means least, I've been RAK'd!! A wonderful friend from CSF, also a pen pal sent me this chart from my wish list! I'm still extremely excited about it and have a huge grin on my face as I write this. I need to look at this chart every time I have a rough day at work since it brightens my mood every time. I have a plan for this and the Bailey Basset chart I ordered last year.

I was at my local Good Will store just to see if I could find some of these stitchy goodies some CSF members have mentioned and I scored big time. A 58"x58" piece of 18 count Anne Cloth! I've had some in my wish list at various ONS', but never got up the courage to buy it because of the cost. Now I'll be set for a while. I think I've figured out how I can fit Adobe White (above) and Bailey Basset on about 36x28 pieces and I'll have a long piece left that I might be able to use as a table runner for a gift for my parents. One of my xstitch mags has this 12 days of Xmas design for a huge piece of fabric. It calls for evenweave or linen naturally, but with Anne Cloth I might be able to work it so I can fit a piece of the pattern in each square. And if that doesn't work, well, a bell pull might be a great idea. 

Oh, did you want to know how much I paid for the Anne Cloth? Well the sticker said $4.99. However, somehow I got the cloth and a hardcover book (sticker $2.99) for $4.87! The Anne cloth is unhemmed, but I happened to see a sign for "sewing" at a nearby house and I'm hoping she'll be up to hemming the fabric so it doesn't fray while I'm stitching. In fact I should really get all my pieces of fabric taken care of. Plus some pants need real hemming, my basting abilities aren't that great, and there's a skirt and pair of pants that really need to be taken in. 

What's that? Too many ideas and not enough time? You're not kidding! Hopefully I can get it all taken care of on my days off. There are a few coming up, just not together. But a day off is always better than working. 

Happy Stitching!