Saturday, September 3, 2016

So much to share........come read our news!

Well hello friends.
Is there anyone still around that reads my blog anymore? Since I have been gone for such a long time I am sure there are some that have fallen off . You know when I use to have my other blog A stitchers Ramblings I had over 500 followers. But then I realized someone had stolen my blog name when I took a hiatus and I had to change it to this one. Any Who. So much to share I will have to break this up into a few different posts. Lots of stitching to share so that will be for another day .

What have I been up to???Back in March we had to put our sweet dog Licorice down, yes unfortunately. She had a spine injury from a slipped disc we believe it was from jumping off the bed. We noticed she was having trouble walking and I took her to the vet and xray showed some spacing between the disc so we put her on steroids, but the next day she lost all use of her back legs. It was so hard for us to make the decision. She was our last remaining dog and was our special girl.
This is her look like Please Mom just get over here and pet me LOL. She is missed still and it was hard those forst few months the tears never stopped. But I knew that our home had to have a dog in it and so I started my search for a rescue.... Looked for weeks we even were up for fostering that was untill this puppy showed up on a local animal shelters website.

When I saw her, I swear I thought I was looking at Licorices sibling, which would be impossible seeing Licorice was 9 years old and born in California LOL So I showed her to my Husband he knew there was no talking me out of this Hahaha Good Man!!! We drove two hours north of us and the minute we saw her we knew she was coming home with us. She for sure has Schnauzer in her as did licorice but at 5 months old she is already the same size licorice was full grown, we are curious to she how much bigger she will get. She is almost 18# now!

Her name is Ari and she is about 20 weeks old. A good puppy she is. House trained when we got her YAY!!! And LOVES our cat and the cat loves just the same well maybe not as much LOL But Our hearts and home is filled with love for this sweet pup. The story is from what we were told was that her litter mates and two older dogs were dumped on a rual road in the upstate South Carolina. found by a person driving that road. That were EXTREMELY young when they were found. Nursed, vetted and then placed into foster, she was in foster for three weeks and then we found her.

So that is life right now. I will come back next week and share all the great stitching and stashing that has been going on here since I last posted a blog. Until then I hope everyone is doing well and if you comment I will always respond :)
Stitching Hugs
Natasha

Thursday, May 12, 2016

A long over due update and Stitch MAYNIA!!!! Picture heavy

Good Thursday Morning friends ...... I am back!! well technically I didn't even go anywhere LOL. A month and a half since my last post and I have a lot to share in the way of stitching and crafting. First off I want to thank each and everyone of you that left condolences on the loss of our furbaby Licorice. Your kind words meant a lot to me and even though the pain is fresh I think as each day passes out hearts are slowly healing. People keep asking if we will be getting another dog. Husband and I are still not sure. There will never be another Samson or another Licorice so we want to be sure of it if and find the dog that fits in with our life we decide, also he or she must like cats. For now we have decided to take the summer dog free and go on small day/ overnight excursions. So far we went to Folly Beach for the night which was great! Ate at our favorite taco shop and drank margaritas And we took an overnight trip to Asheville for our anniversary which was fantastic!! Not having to worry about getting back to the room or back home has been something we have not experienced in 16 years :) Our Cat Emily is easy, fill her bowls up enough for the night and she is good to go. So answer is eventually we probably will get another dog I think our life and our home needs it but for now we are enjoying the freedom.

OK, so what have I been up to?? I am sure some of you that are on facebook and follow the Group Stitch Maynia are aware of the May stitching challenge going on... but for those that are not. The concept is, in the month of May starting May first for the first 15 days you start a new piece.... so that ends up to 15 NEW starts in 15 days... Sound crazy?? I thought so and so I just had to join because who doesn't like a little crazy in their life right?? LOL So one week before the 1st I picked out my 15 starts I was on a roll the first week starting a new piece at the crack of dawn. But then I had to go back to work and it was busy and I was to tired to even think about stitching. So I have not stitched on any of my pieces since Friday. Here is a photo of my basket of WIPs/Starts

And do you see those pretty little project bags? That is what I have been making since Monday. 6 made in two days. OMG people let me tell you how easy they are. I usually keep my projects in ziplock bags or those palstic zippered pouches which is fine and all but I have been wanting some pretty bags to store my things in, so when I saw a youtube video on how to make these I was like " okay I can do that" Y'all know who Vonna is?? The Twisted Stitcher well she has a few video tutorials on you tube. This is the one I watched to learn how to make a project envelope. How to make a project envelope

Here are a few close ups of my bags

Are ya'll headed over there now to check it out? I hope so and I hope you make a few.

Ok so whats in my bags?
Day one: Sunflower House by Blackbird Designs

Day Two: HUSTLE by Satsuma Street This is such a fun piece to stitch the colors are so bright. This is a gift for my husband

Day Three: Give Thanks by My Big Toe Design JCS Sept/Oct 2010 I LOVE LOVE this design. The letters are just beautiful it is a great piece to stitch

Day Four: I am a Stitcher by Cherry Wood Design

Day Five: Be Merry by Lizzie Kate Cross Stitch Crazy magazine Nov14/195

And last is a Round Robin I am working on. There are eight of us doing the Friendship Sampler by Carriage House My heart is the green heart I still have to stitch my name and then it will be on its way to the next stitcher :)

Well that was LONG but I hope ya'll enjoyed the post and get some inspiration to make yourself a couple project bags :) As always take care and I hope you have a wonderful weekend ....
Natasha

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Floss Winner and Saying goodbye is the hardest part of loving something so sweet.

Saying goodbye is the hardest part of loving something so sweet. And it's even harder when it is so sudden. Licorice you gave us almost 10 great awesome years. We will miss you sweet girl


this face was also the same sweet face

That did this last winter Hahaha
But gosh we still loved her :)


On the 14th I took her in took have a growth on her rear end checked. It was a fatty tumor but given the area it was in they wanted to remove it. So I scheduled it for April 12th. Well on Friday we noticed she was favoring her left hind leg and was having some difficulty getting up and down the stairs. So I called Saturday morning to see if we could move the surgery date up, they asked me to bring her in on Monday for a re check. By that time she was still having trouble going up and down the stairs and was not jumping in the chair. So they did some xrays did not see anything really out of the ordinary they gave us some rimadyl and muscle relaxers. This morning she has even less use of her hind legs I carried her down the stairs to potty gave her food and medicine. We left around 11:30 to do our taxes and when we returned home her back legs were completely dead, she was dragging them . So we rushed her into the vet. Even in all this pain she was still giving us tons of kisses.... sweet girl till the end. The vet suspects that a slipped disk hit her spine somehow. Medical treaments were an option but it was a 50/50 chance and in the meantime she would have to go through with not having the use of her legs and IF the treatment DID work she would have to crated when we were gone to prevent her from jumping and that was not a life that was meant for her. So now she is free from pain and though our hearts are hurting they are so full of the joy she gave us


There were only 5 of you that entered so I told my husband to pick a number 1-5 he said 5 So Von on the dry side I will be emailing you sometime this week. My heart is heavy so it will probably be after the weekend....

Friday, March 25, 2016

Springs Promise, WIPs and Floss Tube

Happy Spring! Spring has truly sprung her pretty little head here in the Southern part of the U.S along with her lovely Pollen (insert sarcasm) We have a TON of pine pollen and like they say down here, It doesn't snow it pollens LOL. For the better part of March everything will be covered in a fine yellow dust and when I say everything it's EVERYTHING. But you know what I am not complaining, though it may sound like it. I could be covered in that cold white stuff all my friends in Denver,Co are getting, but some spring skiing does not sound half bad right about now. If my husband told me tomorrow we were moving to Colorado I would start packing yesterday :)

So thank you to those that left comments and I hope those that follow me have been able to locate me on the new blog. What have I been up to lately?? Well for starters I have a FFFFF-FINISH I started this piece sometime back in December I think. I decided to stitch this 1 over 1 on 32ct and just love how small it turned out. You will be seeing a lot more projects coming off my hoops done over 1. I LOVE over 1

I picked my colors as I went. the pink (primitive Roses), yellow (Buttercup) and variegated white are all from Nancy HERE



Next up is this lovely chart that was so thoughtfully gifted to me by a fellow stitcher during an exchnage I was in. Springs Promise by Black Bird Design. It is the first leaflet in their Loose Feather Series. I plan on charting my last name at the bottom instead of the "springs promise" I will put the begging stitches in that today before I go to work tonight. Just to say I started it :)


Have ya'll heard of FLOSSTUBE?? If not let me tell you about it. It is a bunch of cross stitch you tubers that upload their videos to you tube and talk about their WIPS, UFOS, finishes and basically anything stitching related. I started watching a few months ago. I like to listen to the videos as I stitch. Much better than listening to the doom and gloom on the news, because lets face it sometimes you need a break from that.

Well there are some really great floss tubers out there like A TON. So I thought what the heck I'm going to do a video. So a few days ago I sat down in front of the computer and rambled along about my stitching and my weekend stitching get together. If you would like to watch you can go HERE

I say I am going to do another video but not on a regular basis. It was different that's for sure. The reason I like blogging is I have a tendency to ramble and this allows me to TALK AND TALK without feeling like I am boring the socks off people LOL

So folks there you have it the longest blog post since forever and I hope you stuck around till the end because I am going to have a little giveaway.... Nothing super fancy I want to send a skein of Nancy's floss off to someone who has not had the pleasure of stitching with it. Butter Cup and did I mention all her skein are 20 yards. She has an EBAY store so if you fall in love with her floss like I did you can go buy more HERE


Leave a comment you do NOT need to have a blog just leave your emai so if I choose you I have a way to contact you. I will pick a name on Monday. Wishing you all a safe and happy Easter!!

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Sweet farm animals and stitching time

Hey Ya'll I hope it was a good weekend for you. I have had a busy one. I usually work Saturdays but took this one off because a sweet friend was having a GTG and I really wanted to attend. So I meet up with 20 other crazy sweet stitchers. We ate to much talked alot and laughed till our bellies ached or maybe that was from all the tasty food LOL Who knows.

I stayed till around 5 and then I drove to my girlfriends house about 1 1/2 hours from the GTG decided to stay the night and had a great time visiting with her and her son. This morning we went to a rescue facility that she volunteers at .... as you can see from the pictures there is no lack of cuteness from these animals LOL They also house two EMUS a ton of waterfowl, a domesticated racoon that they are trying to get back to a wild state, about 20 pigeons, some quail and just recently they took in some roosters from an illegal cock fighting ring. They also have a duck called Ming-Ming that does not think it's a Duck you can read about them here HERE and HERE
1st picture is a big old beautiful turkey
2nd picture is sweet Yana the goat
3rd is our group photo from our stitching get together. So blessed to have this group as my stitching sisters.
And lastly is me getting some goat love from sweet baby Lola OMG if you can't tell from my HUGE smile I was in heaven hugging this sweet girl :) It was a great weekend and a much needed one!!! I hope you enjoy this post and please go read about Izzie's Pond amazing the work they are doing for abandoned animals


Now I am going to kick up my feet get ready to watch the Walking Dead and get some stitching time in. Wishing you all a wonderful and blessed Sunday night.

HUGS from your stitching sister
XXX

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

New name same blog

Good evening crafty friends... Just a quick post to let ya'll know I've changed my blog name. A few years ago it was alerted to me that someone else had taken over my blog name when I closed down my original blog and when I decided to start it up again I picked the same name with a slightly different spelling.

Well sometimes I see posts from this other blog and they are weird with nothing to do with crafts... So after many years with the same name I needed a slight change :) So welcome Sew Nuts seems fitting LOL....

I hope ya'll are having a great week so far. I will be back with some pictures to share of what I've been up to soon.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Starting a new hobby

OK so how many of us have fabric that we've been collecting for finishing work?? I always pick up fabrics that catch my eye for finishing off my stitching into little pillows and ornaments and such. Well recently I have been intrigued with the idea of quilting. A sweet stitching friend of mine has been giving her sewing machine a good workout by making aprons, sewing machine mats and quilt squares. So last week I started watching youtube videos. My favroites so far is
Missouri Quilt Company
Missouri Quilt Co

SHINY HAPPY WORLD
Shiny Happy World

Fon's and Portter Love of Quilting
fon's and portter

A friend of mine had a sweet baby back in January and yesterday I finally made it out there to pay them a visit. OMG what a precious baby. My friend was born to be a mother and sweet Grace was meant to be her daughter... seriously I mean this. I walked into the house and my friend had the baby wrapped in a swaddle hooked to her and was pulling a blueberry crumb cake from the oven that she backed with blueberries from her garden and eggs from her ducks. She lives on a small little farm with her husband. So immediately the sight melted my heart but my heart was melted by the sweet soul she and her husband created. Was a blessed baby this is to have so much love being spilled on her.

So last year when she announced she was pregnant I immediately started stitching her birth sampler. I choose American Baby Sampler by Willow Hill Samplings. I believe this pattern may be OOP. This is such a simple design and I've stitched this once before fo my cousins boy who is now 7. I can see myself stitching this again for future babies :)

Okay so here are some pictures of the finished piece. If you notice the corner pockets...since the piece was so small instead of trying to tackle a hanging piece to use on the back I jut added the corner pockets in which they can just use a dowel rod and hang it from a picture hook. But in my next finish I will try and do a hanger on the back.
Starting out...

First time EVER doing a binding... so much easier than I thought it would be!!

The corner pocket

The finished piece

What a joy it was to work on this. And it was greatly appreciated.... Next up is this. This is going to be a birthday gift for my brother.

So if you have ever thought about trying your hand at quilting go ahead and do it. It is easier than you think :D

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Quick fly by with progress pictures

Good Morning friends.
I hope your weekend is starting off to a good one. So far mine is great, having a peanut butter and banana smoothie and putting a few stitches in on this lovely little piece before I head into work in a few hours. I should be doing a few loads of laundry but this is so much more fun LOL
Here she is the progress on Quaker Garden by BlackBird Designs.32 ct over one. I am sure many of you have seen this chart before it is unfortunately OOP but I was granted a loan from another generous stitcher so as I stitch this I stitch it with thankfulness


Like I said this is a quick one... Thank you for the comments and actually taking the time to read this little blog of mine. I had made a promise to blog more often and I hope to hold true to that promise, might not be daily or weekly but it will be done :)

Take care and have a great weekend!!!
Natasha

Monday, February 8, 2016

Weekend finishing

It's Monday the Broncos the Super Bowl WooHoo and I have some finishes to share. For the first time in a long time I gave my sewing machine some attention. I did have some major issues with it though, I broke three, yes three needles. In all of the years 6, I have had this machine I have never broke a needle and then WHAM!!! I am taking her in next Monday to get serviced, I will admit that since I have had it don't ever remember taking her in to be serviced. So this is LONG overdue and I think once it's done it will be like a brand new machine.

Okay, back to my finishes. How many of you follow Vonna at Twisted Stitcher? I love her blog and she recently posted a youtube video tutorial on finishing a small pillow. I have finished many pillows in the past but she gave some tips that actually made my finished pillow look a lot better than in the past. She is very detailed which I like. I am much more a visual learner. I wish more people posted video tutorials.

Here is a partial view of what I finished. I can't show the entire finish as it is part of an exchange and even though my exchange partner does not read my blog you just never know.
It is from an older Praire Schooler chart. The buttons were my Mothers. I had fun stitching and finishing this one.

Next finish was a fabric box. I found a tutorial on this blog Seaside Stitches This was my first time sewing a fabric box. Gave me some fits but it's done, not perfect but done. Again buttons used were my Mothers :)

Lastly is one of my many current WIPs I have going. This is Quaker Garden by BlackBird Design. I was able to get a lot stitched on Saturday. I had someone work for me and I was able to attend a GTG at our local library. I am so glad I was able to attend, I had a ball. It always gets my stitching mojo flowing being with other stitchers.

This is being stitched on 32ct over 1 on an unknown fabric. I think the finished size is going to somewhere around 6 5/8 by 2 7/8 Have I mentioned how much I LOVE stitching over one :)

Well friends that is all I have for today. Thank you for taking the time reading my blog and leaving your sweet comments.

Monday, February 1, 2016

Amazing what you forgot you had

It has been fun posting my stitching that I have finished over the years. It is amazing to go through my finished drawer and see things that I have long forgotten about. Makes me realize that I need to get some of these pieces hung on my wall :)

I am condensing day 3. 4 and 5 into one post.
First up is Garden of Life by BlackBird Designs. I have quit a few of their patterns, many I bought YEARS ago before they became so sought after. I am not sure if you are familiar with the Fans of BlackBird Design Face Book Group. But there are a few kind ladies in that group that have been loaning their OOP charts. Which I think is a wonderful thing to do since these are so hard to find and most of the time fairly expensive.

Though occasionally you can find someone selling theirs for a steal. Last week Quaker Garden was up for sale for the whooping price of $8. Who ever that kind person was THANK YOU. I did not buy it but there was a whole bunch of people interested.

Next picture is this cute Recipe for Love design. I have no clue who the designer is or when I even stitched this . I think I need to start placing the year I finish stitching in the pieces so I can remember LOL If anyone out there knows who is the designer please let me know :)

Lastly is a beautiful piece that I received about 6 years ago from BeckySc She used to have a blog and I believe she still does I just can not access it, you have to be invited. But she had the most beautiful finishes and was the fastest stitcher I've ever known. If anyone knows how she is please let me know I have thought of her often.


Well folks that about does it for today. I do believe that was my longest post in awhile. The hubby and I are going to go for a hike today since it will be close to 70 here in South Carolina.
Thank you for all your lovely comments and visiting my blog today.
Take Care and Happy Stitching!!!
Natasha

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Day 2 of my stitching challenge

Good Morning faithful friends,

Today is technically Day 3 but I missed yesterdays post due to Birthday celebrations so I will double up on a post here in the next few days. Todays stitching is a piece I stitched for my 10th wedding anniversary Crazy to think that this April hubby and I will be celebrating 16 years of marriage!! They say time flies when your having fun I guess they are right!!

This is Always & Forever - Cross Stitch Pattern
Little House Needleworks

Floss and fabric unknown, as is the case with most of the things I stitch LOL


I am currently working on three WIPs. Tomorrow I will share those because one is a sweet little birth Sampler for a dear friends newest addition Little Grace. I hope to have that stitched and sewn up into a pillow by the time I meet her in person next week ..

I wish you all a great day and love in stitches!
Natasha

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

I'm back and stitching up a storm

Hello Faithful followers. It has been awhile hasn't it?? I know I have been MIA for some months but I am back and hopefully blogging more on a regular basis :)

Over on Facebook there is a challenge going on where someone tags you to post a photo of your stitching for 7 days and you in turn tag someone else and they do the same. I took that challenge because I rarely if ever post my stitching on my face book. A lot of my non stitching friends probably don't even know that I stitch or do other crafts.... I have never been comfortable sharing on my personal Facebook page, I know silly, so I am trying to break out of that. I want to share my love for crafts and hopefully I can encourage some one else to start stitching

So this is my Day 1 photo. I am unsure of the designer or name of the chart. I stitched this about 6 years ago and I plan on taking it to get framed next month.

Another challenge I will try this year is to challenge myself to finish ALL my WIPs this year... YIKES!! That sounds scary already LOL I have a few that have been hanging around way to long and they really need to be finished.

So if you stick around you will be seeing a lot more posts with updates here soon. Stayed tuned for tomorrow when I present another stitched piece from my unfinished pile

Take care and happy stitching
Natasha