March Recap

Recap:

Read:
1. The Poison Belt by Arthur Conan Doyle
2. The Land of Mist by Arthur Conan Doyle
3. The Disintegration Machine by Arthur Conan Doyle
4. When the World Screamed by Arthur Conan Doyle
5. Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
6. The Hanged Man by P.N. Elrod
7. Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens by Robert Gottlieb
8. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
9. A Home of Her Own by Keli Gwyn
10. Young Sherlock Holmes: Stone Cold by Andrew Lane

Crafts:
1. Jibunyan amigurumi
2. Lala amigurumi
3. Kitsune amigurumi
4. Sailor Moon amigurumi
5. Onigiri amigurumis
6. BB8 amigurumi
7. Whisper amigurumi
8. Charmander amigurumi
9. Espeon amigurumi
10. Chuthlu amigurumi
11. Kiki amigurumi
12. Jellyfish amigurumi

Cross Stitch:
1. Blackberry Jam pattern by The Sweetheart Tree ~ finished

Another busy month, crocheting for a little while before work each morning has helped me to complete more projects :)

In terms of books, I finished reading the Professor Challenger series by Arthur Conan Doyle. While they were interesting, I felt that none of them held up to the first book in the series, The Lost World, which even now makes me laugh. (If you have read the book, you'll know why I laugh when I think of the ending of that book!)

I quite enjoyed The Hanged Man and The Watchmaker of Filigree Street. I hope Elrod gives us another book in the The Hanged Man universe and that Ms. Pulley continues writing because her first book was interesting. I loved the clockwork octopus stealing socks and other articles ;)

Next month I hope to crochet some more amigurumi and (fingers crossed) finish the strawberry cake pattern by CCN.

Can anyone else believe that tomorrow is April?! I can't.....it seems the year is flying by.

I wonder what April Fool's joke my coworker will try to pull tomorrow. Here's hoping he forgets about it :)

Until next time >___<

March Amigurumi Roundup

Good evening! Here's my amigurumis for the month. My favorites are the Star Wars themed ones, BB8 and Yoda.

The Yoda doll is from the crochet kit I received for Christmas. I didn't realize it was going to be so tiny until I had finished stitching the head, looked at the instructions and saw that he would be 2 1/2 inches tall.

My only complaint about the kit is that is comes with quite thin yarn. I think it might be sport weight yarn though I am not entirely sure.  I do know it wasn't the best yarn to work with as the thickness of the yarn varied as you stitched.

The kit came with an E size hook. I didn't use the hook provided, but used one of my Clover Amour hooks that Amanda had gotten me :)

I think I will make another Yoda in the future with my usual yarn and a H hook and see how big he becomes :)

Until next time >___<

Cherry Cake stitching

I spent the day stitching on the CCN cherry cake pattern. I completed the border and lettering and started the cherry motifs on the right. I'll pick it up again next week for my Frolic stitching project :)

Tomorrow I plan on doing some baking. A few months ago I found a container of Bird's custard powder at Whole Foods and decided to pick it up. I found a recipe for a custard cake that I would like to try out. I hope it turns out alright as I don't have the required size pan for it.

Afterwards I hope to crochet another amigurumi before Easter dinner at my aunt's house.

I hope you are enjoying a great weekend so far :)

Until next time >___<

Spring Package

Hi, everyone! I received a package in the mail today from my friend Amanda. It was a Chinese New Year/Valentine's Day/Easter combination package.

I received a plethora of bunny goodies such as little erasers, wooden mini banners, and table lights. Lots of yummy candies....never say no to chocolate!!!

I loved everything :) I think my favorites were the good luck monkey figurine, the Yankee candle scented like chocolate cake, and the Disneyland Starbucks mini cup.

Amanda made a beautiful handmade card to with the package!! Love the scatter confetti inside the front of the card :)

Thanks for making a rainy day special!!

Until next time >___<

A Stitchy Sunday

A lazy day spent with crocheting a little bit and then working on one of my WIPs, the cottage cakes by Country Cottage Needleworks.

I started to work on the border area of the cherry cake design. I switched colors from DMC 666 to 321 for the cherries as I didn't want it to match the strawberry cake portion of the design.

I love working on CCN and LHN designs. I'll have to make more time to work on these cakes in the future.......maybe as a change from my Sampler 4 Saisons WIP.

Have a good work week :)

Until next time >___<

Blackberry Jam Pattern - Happy Dance!

Since I didn't get to go to the Fairhope Arts and Crafts Fair today, I spent the day doing laundry and doing a bit of cross stitching.

I was able to finish The Sweetheart Tree Blackberry Jam pattern this afternoon.

I'll have to see if The Sweetheart Tree has any other berry designs as I liked stitching this design. Now my beading isn't the best, but at least they look like berries to some extent.

This pattern will go into my stash of 'unfinished' projects. I'll have to think how I want to finish it.

Hope you are enjoying a lovely weekend!

Until next time ^___^

Azaleas in Bloom!

It's almost spring when azaleas start to bloom around Mobile. We have been lucky to see them in bloom this year because rain usually gets to them first.

Here are some azaleas in our front yard. So pretty!

I was hoping to go to the Fairhope Arts and Crafts Fair this weekend, but I didn't feel well today. If you go to Fairhope this time of year, their azaleas are in bloom and they have quite a display of them around town.

The fair is open tomorrow from 10 to 5 so head that way for a lovely day of browsing arts and crafts and viewing the blooming flowers everywhere :)

Until next time ^___^

Sugar Rush Doughnuts Return!

Yet again my coworker and I stopped by Sugar Rush and got doughnuts for our department after doing some work downtown. We got several Reese's doughnuts, French toast doughnuts, and apple fritters.

Of course, I ate my usual Reese's doughnut. You can't go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter.....it's a perfect combination. Much like raspberries and chocolate or peppermint and chocolate or bananas and chocolate..........chocolate goes with a lot of things. If I was allergic to chocolate it would be a sad world.

Until next time ^___^

Sugar Rush Doughnuts!

Last week my coworker and I decided to stop by Sugar Rush, a donut bakery that has several locations in town. Having never been to one, I was pleasantly surprised by their selection. I ended up getting their Reese's doughnut (upper right corner of pic) while my coworker got two of the maple bacon doughnuts and two apple fritters.

I would say that maple bacon doughnuts are not necessarily a southern culinary invention, but by the name and the flavors combined in the doughnut, you would think so!

So if you are in the area, stop by the one of their storefronts. Their doughnuts are delicious!

Until next time ^____^

Pensacon 2016

My sister and I went to Pensacola last month for Pensacon, a sci/fantasy convention. We were quite glad that they hold this convention in the winter as the day was nice and cool. If they held it in the summer, ugh......it would be unpleasant.

We had decided to go for two reasons: 1) a lot of authors and a few of the actors from Star Wars were going to be there and 2) we wanted to see if the convention would be worth it to sign up for their artist alley next year.

I had preregistered our tickets earlier in the week. When we got there.....the prereg line was insane. It literally snaked out into the parking lot area. The parking lot was reserved for vendor and volunteer parking along with food trucks.

While waiting in line I kept hearing a song I recognized and it was one of the songs from the Ghostbusters movies. There were two men dressed as characters from the movie. Gotta love geeks!

As we neared the table where we could get our badges, I looked over and saw this lovely group of people wearing handmade crocheted beanies. I loved the R2D2 beanie!

The first place you enter when you get in the convention center is the artist alley as it is located on the floor above the bleachers while the main dealers' area was in the bottom (court area) of the convention center.

We weren't impressed by the artist alley. Not that the art was bad because it wasn't, the location was just hideous. The lighting was poor and the booths were far apart from one another. If they had lit the area correctly and put more tables beside one another it would have been great.

I saw this hilarious sign on one of the comic artist's tables:

 
After going around the artist alley, we made our way down to the dealers' area, which was extremely busy and crowded. Walked around once and decided to go find the autograph rooms, which were located in another part of the convention center.

Almost all the celebrities were in the same room while a few others were out in the hallways with lines (yet again) snaking all over the place with people in line to meet actors.

We went through the autograph room once, too nervous to actually walk up and get autographs. So we went around again and my sister got a signature from one of the actors from House of a Thousand Corpses (extreme gross movie which I will never watch again).

I went up to the table for Clive Revill to get his autograph. I had been debating whether to have him sign something Star Wars since he was the original Emperor Palpatine or for his role as Rogozhin, the Russian ballet director in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. I decided in the end to go with Sherlock Holmes and brought my copy of the DVD to get signed.

Each actor/actress table had an assistant to take cash for autographs and when I handed my DVD cover to the assistant, he said he thought Mr. Revill might like it because he hadn't got something like that all day.

I think I might have stumped Mr. Revill for a few minutes. He looked at the cover, read the back of the cover, looked at the front.......and then suddenly quoted his first line from that movie to me. I couldn't help laughing.

I can only hope to have a memory like that at 85 years of age. Absolutely amazing. I would have loved to stop and chat with him, but I am shy so I scampered off like a bunny after getting the cover back from him. LOL You would think at my age I would be more talkative, but nope. I am hopeless with strangers.

I was hoping to get my copy of The Witches of Echo Park signed by Amber Benson, but she wanted $40 for an autograph. Who knows? Maybe she would have signed the book for free, but the sign for $40 was off putting so I didn't even step up to her table and ask.

After we got our autographs, we went back down to the dealers' area again to get a few books signed. Sherrilyn Kenyon was having a book signing at 1pm so we got in line for that. She was late by about an hour because she got mobbed by some fans of her books when she was trying to leave a restaurant.

I didn't mind waiting. While I kept our place in line, my sister went across the way to a book booth to get my Star Wars books signed by Troy Denning and Kevin J. Anderson.

Shortly after getting my books signed, Mrs. Kenyon showed up. We were escorted a few people at a time to where she was doing her signings. Having never been to one of her signings, I was surprised. She was sweetheart and would give everyone who came up a hug and chat with them. There were a lot of ladies in line who had met her at previous book signings so she would ask how they were doing, etc. Don't you just love personable authors?

After running around all day, we decided to go to lunch at McGuire's Restaurant, an Irish pub. Yum, yum!

Overall I think we had a lot of fun despite not being able to meet Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) who had to cancel because of scheduling issues (possibly because filming for Star Wars VIII had just started)!

I don't think we will ever sign up for their artist alley unless they change some things, but we would definitely go again to meet celebrities and authors :)

Until next time ^____^

Rainy Day Stitching - Blackberry Jam

My Friday Frolicking was yesterday, which was great because it was a dreary, misty rain kind of day.

I finished backstitching everything except for the leaves in the center and I stitched the eyelet stitches around the design.

I started to bead one of the blackberries, but it looked wonky so I think I'll start back on them on another Frolicking Friday when I haven't been stitching all day. Maybe then the instructions will make more sense :)

I wish I was better at sewing. I would love to make this into an applique for the front of a recipe book :)

Until next time ^___^

Blackberry Jam Progress

Hi, everyone! After spending the morning at the library and grocery store, I pulled out my Blackberry Jam pattern by The Sweetheart Tree. I was able to stitch all the leaves and start backstitching.

I am loving this pattern. The fabric can play tricks on your eyes, but otherwise it's a great fabric color for a blackberry jam pattern. It reminds me of gingham blankets used for picnics or picnic baskets :)

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!!

Until next time >___<

February Recap

Recap:

Read:
1. The Last Dream Keeper by Amber Benson
2. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
3. Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
4. Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata
5. Some Chinese Ghosts by Lafcadio Hearn
6. Shadowings by Lafcadio Hearn
7. Edo, the City that became Tokyo by H. Mack Horton
8. Fantasy Lover by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Stitching Finishes:
1. North, East, South, West by Alessandra Adelaide Needleworks

Crafts:
1. Year of the Monkey plushie
2. Cactuar potted amigurumi
3. Kirby amigurumi
4. Cactuar amigurumi
5. Ultros amigurumi
6. Twin Star Kiki amigurumi

A busy month, but productive. I finished the compass design by Alessandra Adelaide Needleworks and still managed to crochet a few amigurumi.

For the month of March I hope to spend more time crocheting amigurumi and devote my Frolicking Fridays to cross stitching. I hope to finish Blackberry Jam by The Sweetheart Tree this month :)

Until next time >___<

February Amigurumi Roundup

A lot of gaming amigurumi last month. My favorite are the Final Fantasy cactuars (the green ones on either end).

The one that gave me the most trouble was the Twin Star Kiki. His dress required surface crochet. When I read that in the pattern I was confused and with no instructions, I did the next sensible thing and Googled.

He turned out alright though I think when I make his sister Lala, I will shorten the dress so it doesn't bunch up around the feet.

Until next time >___<