A mountain of magazines!

A manga-loving friend of mine gave me about 2 or 3 years worth of Shojo Beat magazines yesterday.


The mountain!

She said I could do whatever I wanted with them so I decided to look through each one and pull out any articles on Japan, their culture, crafts, and recipes :)


My stack of articles with Hello Kitty sticky notes with websites I want to visit for cute Japanese fashion!

I only kept one issue that had an article about shojo author Osamu Tezuka and his manga Princess Knight from 1953.

What do I plan on doing with these mags now? I will be dropping them off at my local Goodwill tomorrow. I'm sure manga fans won't be disappointed because the articles are missing from the mags when all the manga series are intact ;)

In other news, my aunt and I were leaving for work yesterday morning and we looked over and saw 20+ robins in a neighbor's front yard! Hark the start of Spring (hopefully)!

Librarians ROCK!

Guess what? I got the best news today; it brighten up my work day for sure! You know how I was on a mad search for Rosaline Woodbridge: or A Midnight Visit by Hannah Maria Jones? Well, a friend of mine who is a librarian at one of my local universities was able to ILL it for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so happy! Just goes to show that librarians have mystical powers ^___^ The book should come in next Friday!! I'm so giddy over a book.

I haven't had the time to stitch on my sampler today, but I hope to work on it tomorrow. I think I might be able to finish it up this weekend, which leaves the border.

With being so close to the end, I'm a bit sad. Overall, I liked working on this sampler. It was my first project on linen...I don't think I can ever go back to Aida fabric after this.

I have two more Anagram Diffusion patterns in my stash O_o"


Four Seasons Sampler


Les Arts

I don't think I will attempt either one for the present. They are quite large, about the size of my Elements sampler or larger! I love the look of red/white thread on olive green Belfast so I will most likely pick those colors again when I start one of these samplers :)

In other news, I ran across this bit of Jane Austen goodness! Emma is being re-adapted by the BBC. I can't wait to see it later this year. I loved the latest versions of the other Jane Austen films that the BBC put out in 2007 when I was in England and I'm sure that the newest version of Emma will be fabulous!

Well, I'm off to bed. I've got to stop by the library tomorrow to pick up my hold on The Tudors season two! I'll be watching that while stitching on my sampler.


Thanks to everyone who commented on my sampler!

Sweet dreams!

Dragon progress!

Much to my surprise, the dragon isn't as fearsome as he seemed in November when I had a head cold and couldn't see straight! I've got all of the white areas done on the body that make up his wings and scales. Now comes the rest of his red body and the flames shooting out of his mouth O_o"



After I finish him up, I have a small motif to the left.......and the crazy border around this sampler to finish......as Scarlett O'Hara says, "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow," or in my case, the day after that or the next, etc., etc. ^____^

In other related stitching news, my aunt and I stopped by Books-A-Million after work to browse the craft magazine section. I couldn't resist the latest issue of The Cross Stitcher.



They have a lovely pattern for Quaker motifs that you can stitch to make notecards! And since the issue is geared towards Spring, it has a very adorable bunny design called Bunny Hop ;)

Also related to stitching is a website that I found randomly last night when I was researching Regency sewing patterns. This antique auction website has some gorgeous purses! My fave is the pettipoint purse dating from the 1940s....but who has $450 to drop on a purse?!?! Not me, though it is a beautiful piece of stitching! While you're at this website, check out the other ladies' accessories, especially the lace and hats.

I hope everyone has a great Friday!

Talk about well-loved!

I was reading a post on a Blog of a Bookworm and decided to share a few pictures of a set of books that were well-loved by my sister and I when we were growing up! They were given to us by our aunt Snowbird.


Little House on the Prairie bookset!! LOL If this isn't well-loved then I don't know what is ^___^


Back of the box set :)

Like Ms. Ingrid, my sister and I were blessed with a mother who knew the value of reading. We made trips to our local library every other Saturday, coming away with armfuls of books!

I was browsing at Books-A-Million over Christmas looking for a set of the Little House books and they now have a set that has color illustrations?!?!?! I'm jealous! I can't wait to pick up this set for my cousin Emily when she gets older. She already loves to read so I think this set will be great :)

Other well-loved favorites of my childhood:

The Little Princess

A Secret Garden <-- I loved reading this story while listening to a tape of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker/Swan Lake! Yes, I know, I was a strange child ^__^"

All American Girl series (especially the stories of Molly and Samantha)

Any fairy tale collections!

As an adult, I still like to browse the kids section of my local libraries and pick up some of my favorites to reread them! My favorite authors are still my childhood faves likes Frances Hodgson Burnett, Louisa May Alcott, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Charles Dickens among many others :)

Happy Reading everyone ^____^

Marie Antoinette goodness!

I found this link through Twinkle Pink's blog!

A new magazine by Somerset called Marie! Looks great and if my local Barnes and Noble has it I will mostly snatch it up, LOL even though I don't create art at all. LOL That gene passed me completely :)

Blasted dragon!

On my last day off from work, I got all of the backstitching done throughout the sampler so now all the names of the zodiac, etc. are in place :) Now I have a small motif in the lower left corner to stitch and to finish the crazy dragon beside that!!

I won't even talk about the border! I started it in the upper right block....it's going to take a couple of eons to finish it around the whole sampler!!

What will I start after finishing this sampler?

I was thinking about this one....



Autumn Acorns #PAD27 by Patricia Ann Designs. One of my stitching resolutions for the New Year's was learning more specialty stitches. This design features one of my favorite themes the Fall season and includes specialty stitches such as the smyrna cross, square rhodes, alternating scotch stitch, and modified kloster block.

It is small design measuring approx. 5" x 5" so it shouldn't take too long and it will nice to learn a new stitch every night that I plan to work on this sampler!

Patricia Ann Designs also has a lovely one called Winter Holly, which would be another nice sampler to stitch up and display during the season.

I found Autumn Acorns at Hobby Lobby in their clearance section about a year ago, unfortunately they haven't had a good cross-stitch clearance section since that time :**(

In other news, I received a comment about the toile I found at Wal-mart. I found a nice store online that sells toile! Wow!! Gorgeous examples of toile, but so expensive! I can see why someone could spend $200 for a couple of yards of toile, especially when a yard is $60 on this website O_o" But I figure that if the fabric is well used then it is definitely worth it ;)

Speaking of toile, please go and check out Fashion is My Muse! The lady who writes this delightful blog makes some gorgeous mixed media artworks with toile :)

Happy Stitching everyone ^___^

Stitching update!

I'm sure everyone is sick and tired of hearing about books for the moment so I will try not to mention them in this post....if I digress, please forgive me ;)

First off, I just finished the Eau block of my Elements sampler! Tomorrow I will be backstitching areas around the whole sampler that I decided to wait to do until the end. Hopefully, I can get all of that finished tomorrow so I can finish up the Feu block during the rest of the week. Remember how I mentioned being sick in November with crazy head colds? Well, I stopped working on the last couple of motifs in that block so now I have to go back to them!! (sigh) Oh, well....I have to tackle the dragon sooner or later!


Sorry about the blurry photo!

Second of all, thanks to Ms. Ingrid for her comments on my ramblings about books! LOL And there I go talking about books....sorry O_o" To answer your question, where do I keep them all? I have a storage unit for them. When I read a whole bunch of books, I pack them up and store them away until I have a nice, big house/apt to display them all. My book collection always reminds me of the scene in Disney's Beauty and the Beast when Belle is gliding across the bookstore in town! LOL Everytime I see the scene when the Beast shows her the library at his castle, I want that library!!! Gliding ladders and books up to the ceiling is definitely my idea of geeky heaven!

Right now, my bookshelves contain books on art history, history, various classics in literature, and some of the antique books I have purchased. LOL One shelf is devoted to books I have bought, but haven't read yet. I have a bad habit of doing that....but I hope to get better at finishing more of them before buying again!

Where do I buy my books from?

1. eBay = great source for obscure titles and classics that are no longer in print
2. Amazon = I have a love/hate relationship with this site, I always come away with too many books, especially when I was just looking for one title (see previous posts!)
3. The Mad Sampler Company = an online family-owned book company that deals in new and used craft books! You never know what they are going to find to put up for sale :)
4. Rose Tree Crafts = an eBay store that I love! The lady that owes this store deals in Japanese craft books! The great thing about Japanese craft books is the fact that are very well illustrated so even if you can't read the text, you can follow along easily!

Ms. Ingrid also wanted a link to the Huntsville Museum of Art. The museum is in Huntsville, Alabama, which is at the top of the state. The city of Mobile where I live is located at the bottom of the state so planning a trip to see friends and the museums in Huntsville is an ordeal. My sister and I usually take a few days off from work and drive up that way so we have time to enjoy ourselves.

Here is the schedule for the Royal Holloway Victorian painting exhibition. I checked to see if there were any museums showing the exhibit remotely close to Ms. Ingrid in Ontario, Canada and the Yale Center for British Art, Yale University (New Haven, CT) from May 7-July 26 is the closest that the exhibition is going to get to Canada.

Enough rambling for the night, I hope to have a photo of my sampler later this week if my stitching timeline goes according to plan!

Happy Stitching everyone :)

Historical shojo romance!

I have been keeping an eye on eBay for a couple of years for these books to come up for sale! They came up recently and I was bidding like crazy to get them for my book collection!


Rose of Versailles (Berusaiyu no Bara) by Riyoko Ikeda was written between 1972-73. The story is the fictional story of Marie Antoinette and Oscar François de Jarjayes, one of her personal guards.

The first two volumes of this series was published in North America by Frederik L. Schodt in 1981. They were the first 'translated' manga volumes by the U.S. branch of Sanyusha. Interestingly enough, they only translated the first two volumes so the manga is incomplete in English. Fans of Riyoko Ikeda's works can only hope that her manga series will be eventually published by an U.S. company in the future.

Luckily, you can still get the manga from Amazon.ca and Amazon.fr because the manga was published in French! You might be able to find used copies of the anime in France, but they lack English subtitles. My French isn't good enough to watch them!

Yes, I know.....extreme geekiness!

Is there an AA group for book addicts?!

I was looking on Amazon for a copy of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell and by the end of my browsing, my cart was full of other books!



I bought some Gothic novels, two of which were mentioned in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, which was in fact a satire of Gothic novels that were so popular during that period.



I also came away with several novels by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Bibliobazaar is a great company that publishes classics and hard to find novels. They had two collections of Burnett's books so you know I was going to buy them!


More Frances Hodgson Burnett!

I have an antique copy of The Shuttle, but I didn't want to ruin it by reading it so I thought I would get a recent copy of it to read :)

My sister saw the Amazon boxes when they came in the mail and she said, "Ok, Jefferson!" <-- LOL A reference to Thomas Jefferson who was a book addict as well!!

The amusing part is the fact that the Wives and Daughters hasn't come in yet because it hasn't been 'released' yet by OUP. I think I might cancel my order on it and get a Penguin copy of the book instead!

Happy reading ^___^

Yummy French toile ;)

Look what I found at my local Wal-mart?


Beautiful pink toile!

I usually never shop at Wal-mart, but my mother needed to go by the store today for a few groceries and I wondered to the fabric section while she was looking at some skillets. I found this gorgeous 'decorative toile,' it is thicker than your normal cotton fabric so it would be great to make a pillow or two ;)

I love toile, but I can't find it that often so I lucked out on seeing this toile at the store!!