Chatelaine's Chinese Garden progress...

The fifth part of the Chinese Garden Mandala has been added!  This is the third moon gate image, which is upside down in the piece, so I flipped it for easier viewing here!

And here is the overall piece so far....

I'm really loving it on the black linen, and have not had much trouble seeing the threads, to my surprise!  Going to move on to the last of the Chatelaine Micro designs for the rest of this week. Happy Stitching!

Imagine my surprise.....

Yep, I was surprised to see my own words in the newest issue of Cross Stitch & Needlework! November 2011 issue, page 8 if anyone wants to know.....they have a Facebook page and ask stitchy questions frequently. The question was about designing your own patterns so I mentioned the ONE large design I have done and they liked my answer enough to publish in the magazine!  Here is what I said....
"I charted a long poem written by my late grandfather and his sisters in 1905 when they were children. It was about Uncle Charlie's horse "Kitty" so I added a little bay mare pulling Uncle C in his wagon and a blackwork-ish version of the house they lived in...all as a 50th anniversary gift for my aunt, and (since they are twins) another for my mom! It was loads of fun to chart and stitch (twice)! I need to do more originals I think."
and here is what I was talking about...you can click on it for a bigger pic.

Guess I've had my 15 minutes of fame now....back to my stitching!

September's tiny biscornu necklace

Well, the Labor Day holiday weekend was pretty busy, but I managed to stitch up my monthly tiny biscornu over the weekend so I can go back to the Chinese Mandala!

It is a little flower motif from the blog of Anne-Marie called Brodstitch. I stitched it over 1 so had to adjust a bit since it had fractional stitches. It is just about an inch and a half across.

It's September...can Halloween be far behind?

I have to admit I love stitching stuff for Halloween, just because of all the fun, funky colors! This week it was the Val's Stuff October Kitty Kalendar cat, poking his head out of a pumpkin. Only two more to go in the series!  Fabric is a 28ct Silkweaver Solo, suitably funky.

Speaking of kitties....we recently added to the menagerie when our local shelter had a special cat adoption day for only $10 each, which included all shots, tests and neutering! Picked the new boys up a little over a week ago, and have them confined from the rest of the pets until they get over the usual shelter colds.  They are brothers, about 6 months old, and silver tabbies. Meet Taliesen and Finn MacCool !  Tali and Finn for short, blue and red collars respectively. They are staying in the guest room and adjoining bath for now. Never had two kittens who moved so constantly, except when they are eating and purring like no tomorrow! Hard to take pictures of them together. Will keep trying!

Of course, our dog Lad is totally confused by them, and the older cats Cassiopeia (Cassi) and Leo are wary, but we hope for a smooth transition once the little boys are done with their surgeries. We are a four cat household again!