Thank You, WIP's , Exchange Stitching & Monarchs

I want to Thank all of you for your condolences on my dear friend Fred. He truly was a wonderful man. I am sad because I could not attend the services for him and be there to comfort my friend Debbie. They are in New York and being my DH was out from work the past 8 months (he just went back last week) it just wasn't possible for me to fly there. But I was there in thought.

WIP's-
 I was reading my dear friend Lisa's blog  and she mentioned that she was going to try and keep track of her WIP's (works in progress) to inspire her to get them done. The idea is if you see them you will finish them. so I figured that was a good idea and dug out the ones I have. I know I have 4 however 1 is missing and I can't find it anywhere lol I am sure it will show up someday.

The Magic Of Summer

Designer: Charles Wysocki

Dimensions Kit

This is my oldest WIP and the first thing I ever cross stitched 12 years ago. What the heck was I thinking???? LOL This certainly is NOT something a beginner should start with but I fell in love with the design. This has also become something my DH bugs me about by saying "Are you ever going to finish that one???" Grrrrr men! They don't get it! I do want to finish it and now that I am a more experienced stitcher it is not as overwhelming to me. It is on 14ct aida which I no longer stitch on but I got this far with it so I will force myself to stitch on aida lol

Grand Abecedaire

Designer: Gazette94

This was fun but it got a bit monotonous because it was so big. I am an "instant gratification" person when it comes to stitching and this was taking forever lol  I am also off by one stitch on the top right design but I didn't notice it until too late. Like the "stain" on the piece??? Sigh......I use stretcher bars to stitch with. This piece was so big I had to roll it up and then tack the excess to the bars. I also left the brass tacks in the piece. I picked it back up a few months ago and had to move the fabric to continue the design. When I removed the tacks a few left a small "rust" looking spot. So I looked up online how to remove that kind of stain and it said use lemon juice and salt. So I did and the darn spot is still there. I suppose when I am all done and wash the piece that water stained looking area will be fine but the darn "rust" spot will remain. I am glad I used DMC floss on this. I know they sell something to wash stitched pieces so I will have to pick some up. I will finish this as I am almost done at this point.

My Lady's Quaker

Designer: Jardin Prive

As soon as I took this one out of my closet I thought "why didn't I finish this??" So that night I started back on it and I have the half circle on the top left complete! So I will be working on this one first.

 As for the 4th one it was by a French blogger and if I can find the pattern (which is probably with the missing piece) I can tell you the name of it. It was a Christmas design which was heart shaped. In the heart were 2 deer and 2 hardanger hearts . The bigger  hardanger heart was in the top middle of the design and the smaller hardanger heart was at the bottom point. It was the first time I tried hardanger and it actually came out nice. I stopped working on it because I was off a stitch on one side of the design and for the life of me I couldn't find it. I decided to walk away from it and try again but alas it is missing lol Oh and that was about 4 years ago!

 I've completed my exchange stitching for 3 exchanges out of 4. One isn't due to be mailed until March so I am ahead! Yeah!!! I just have to do the finishing work on them. I will start the last one in a day or so. I already have a design picked out for it.

 I am finally getting back to normal here. With my DS on winter break, the Holiday's and DH being home my routine was messed up. Now the house is quiet and it is just me and the dogs :)

I almost forgot about the Monarch's! A few weeks ago we were expecting a cold snap. I had been seeing a Monarch butterfly flying around my yard and figured I would go check out the milkweed and see if anyone was on there. Sure enough there were 3 huge monarch caterpillars. I knew they would die in the cold so I got my cage ready, cut off all the branches with leaves on the milkweed and brought them inside. As I was setting up the food in the cage I came across 13 more caterpillars in different stages! Some were tiny! I knew I did not have enough leaves to feed them all so I emailed the president of the butterfly club I belong to and asked her if she wanted to adopt some of them. She said yes and that the speaker we were having that weekend was from the Butterfly House and she would ask him to bring some Milkweed for us. So I now have 6 Monarch Chrysalis's in my cage which I still have here in my craft room! They are taking longer to hatch because the weather is cooler. I will take some pictures of them when they are born.

Have a great day everyone!

Thanks for stopping by!