Here’s a good view of the stitching room:

There were about 40 people in attendance and it is wonderful to spend the weekend with people who just love stitching. The theme for the weekend was “Lucky 13″

There were four leaf clovers, elephants, lady bugs and other symbols of luck.

And now on to the swag:

A small sampling of what was given out: needles, 3 charts and some thread from Dinky Dyes, a specially made trivet, two lanyards, loufa, elephant pincushion, counting pins, bubble bath, two pairs of scissors, laying tool, a beaded fob, a thread holder and a custom thread pallet. Plus, four exclusive projects with all the threads and pieces for finishing. Wow, can you believe that haul?

Here are the class projects from the weekend:

I’ve finished two of the four projects so far!

In February, I went to the Nashville Market and hung out with some other crazy designers:

I also went to the Houston Rodeo cookoff:

By March I was stopping to smell the flowers:

And in April, I did some spring cleaning on the office closet:

In May, we took a big step and decided to move to Austin – which started the really crazy part of the year (so why did I clean the closet in April?).

Over the summer, I went to the Alamo (twice)

And got really tired of unpacking

In October, I got to meet up with Elizabeth Talledo of Dames of the Needle and some other cross-stitchers at Messina Hof (a winery near central Texas)

In November, I went to the International Quilt Festival in Houston

Where I bought dragons

And finally, in December, I rode a mule to the bottom of the Grand Canyon

And did the usual family, holiday and birthday stuff.

Stitching finishes:

Advent 15: Stockings

Advent Ornaments 16-24 (10 designs)

Iris Biscornu

Dragon Tattoo

Hopping Over

Briar Rose: Page 5

Unpublished rose design (Ok, I finished this one yesterday, but I’m going to count it anyway):

An unpublished ornament, an unpublished dragon motif design, and two other unpublished designs.

Stitching worked on, but not finished
Unfinished dragon design:

Unfinished Cheshire Cat:

So that is 20 finished pieces and two other pieces in progress.

Relocating made 2010 a crazy year – moving is hard work. It also somewhat derailed my designing in the summer, since I went about a month without stitching at all. I’ll close with two goals for 2011:

1. Get the Cross Eyed Kat website back up (I took it down in April, not knowing that life was about to change)
2. Get some of the screaming designs out of my head and onto paper if not fabric

Happy New Year!

And you never know what trouble two designers will cause!

One thing about moving is getting used to climate changes. Now, Austin isn’t that far away from Houston (about 180 miles), but the climate is different. It is much drier here and I already know that the temperature gets higher in the summer. But what is the fall and winter like? So far we’ve had mostly really nice weather, but this past week it has been warm and muggy.

I’ve been walking in the neighborhood (for some reason, Nike thinks people will only use their app for running and not walking) and I’m starting to see faint signs of color in a few of the trees. There are lots of live oaks around, so those won’t have color, but I’m hoping that we will get some fall color here. One sure sign of fall is Halloween decorations! A couple of houses have things hanging in the trees or great big blow-up cats in the yard. Maybe next year we’ll be settled in enough to join in on the decorations.

Apparently my picture of my office fooled everyone into thinking that we’re all unpacked. We’re not, we’ve just reached that stage where we don’t have too unpack every night. I imagine we’ll do another round of unpacking in Novemeber when we try to find all of the Christmas decorations!

Meanwhile, I’m taking the break in unpacking to get back to stitching. I’m finally making progress on the next Briar Rose.

I’m really liking how this is starting to come out. I have to cite Teresa Wentzler as an early influence on my stitching, so I have absolutely no fear of fractional stitches and backstitching (although I’ll leave the blended colors to her). I do have some ideas brewing for some simpler designs as well, so never fear.

Keep your comments coming! I’m really enjoying reading them all!

I hope everyone is enjoying The Needlework Show; I always love to see all the new things that are coming out. Be sure to ask your local shop to order any designs you like!

If you leave a comment in any of these posts, you’re entered into the doorprize drawing that I will do at the end of the show!

I’m not really running away, I’m just going to a stitching retreat for the weekend! I’m counting down the hours. Last night I was a tornado of cleaning and packing. We have company coming in on Sunday, and I won’t be home to do anything else. The husband will have to care of anything that needs it! And feed Mocha!

The big dilemma when going off to a stitching retreat is what project(s) to bring? I packed the Cheshire Cat, along with two more Advent Ornaments, one of which is half-way done. I also packed four new ornaments (a set of three knotwork ornaments and another). I’ve just picked out the thread for these (Dinky Dyes silk!) so I’m all excited to work on them. Then while I was working on the computer, I ended up in my “Incomplete” designs folder and saw a dragon that I had charted two years ago (could it be that long?). The poor dragon languished because I didn’t know what color it wanted to be, so I couldn’t pick fabric and threads for it. It finally told me – Green! And I had the perfect fabric for it. I’m going to do my color testing on it this weekend and try out the new Kreinik holographic threads.

So my tally for the weekend is eight projects packed, with at least four pairs of scissors. I’m going to play with Enchanted Lair fabric, Dinky Dyes silk and Kreinik holographic threads. And that’s not even counting the three projects we’ll get at the retreat!

T-minus 62 minutes!

For the record, I stitched the “Oak Tree Biscornu“, but didn’t do the finishing. Also, for the record, stitching with white thread through two other white threads on white fabric is hard on the eyes, but I like the finished effect.

This design has a different knotwork design on each side and uses Celtic knots to give the impression of an Iris. It uses Dinky Dyes silk thread (including two new colors that will be available at the Nashville Market). This design is being released at the Nashville Market, so look for it at your local shops in late February (or ask your shop owner to bring it home from Market for you!)

Here’s an obligatory first picture of Mocha:

She’s not sure about all the papparazzi flashes going off.

Here’s a picture of an ornament I did for an exchange:

The one in the middle, not the one in the upper right corner of the picture. The “Love” ornament I stitched in December of 2000, and I’d guess it is from the 2000 JCS Ornament issue. The one I did for the exchange is, of course, an original Cross Eyed Kat design. It will probably be commercially available in the summer of 2010. I’m doing several of these little four-square designs for next year. This ornament is finished as a needlebook, and I’ll probably add a couple of other “stitching things” to the charts. Currently, I’m stitching on a spring-themed version of this for a class I’ll be teaching in March on different stitching techniques with overdyed threads. When you’re a cross-stitch designer, you end up stitching on off-season designs!

Thanks for all the comments on Christmas ornaments. It was interesting to read Mel’s comments about not wanting snowy stuff in Austrailia, because here in Texas, the weather could be cold or hot. I often wonder if people in more nothern climates decorate houses with icicle lights. Would you want icicle lights if you’re likely to have the real thing? On the other hand, we did have a white Christmas one year in the Rio Grande Valley!

Nashville market is coming up soon, so here’s my current stitching to do list:
1. Spring 4-square and any accessories
2. Dragon design (close to finishing this and really loving how it looks)
3. 15th Advent Ornament
4. Design and stitch project “T” if possible
5. Cheshire Cat (not a priority for Nashville)

Note: that design won’t be out until October – it still has to be finished!

Cross stitch designs are like any other creative endeavor, sometimes they have to be cajoled into showing themselves, and sometimes they just show up on your doorstep! The more restrictions, the harder it can be. The Advent Ornaments not only have thematic restriction, they are also a set size, with a set fabric and a semi-restricted color palatte. Beyond that, they have to be Cross-Eyed-Katish. I know I want to do a Santa for the series, but what does that Santa look like and how does he fit into a 46×46 square area? These are the questions to ponder. Personally, I cannot sit in front of a piece of paper and tell myself to make a new design. I have to have some inspiration, anything from an idea, a word, or a doodle. Many times, I’ll have design ideas rolling in my brain for months or years before they are mature enough to put on paper. If only there were more hours in a day, I’d doodle more and get more designs out!

As a random aside, I came across these while piddling in Walmart the other day:

And I did smile.