I love to stitch snowflakes! I did these using 16 ct aida so they would fit into 2" hoops for ornaments. I got the patterns for them from SamplerCrossStitch on Etsy. I used variegated thread on the one of the left and I like how it looks! I don't have room on my tree for these this year, I don't think, so I'm not sure what I'll do with them but they sure are cute.
It's a bit early for Christmas stuff in our household but I wanted to start on some Christmas stitching anyway. We won't put the tree up until after Thanksgiving, and in the new place, there are far less places to put Christmas decor. But I will definitely frame this up and hang it somewhere. Pattern is by SirenStitchWorks on Etsy. It says "A Blessed Yule" in Scottish. I'm actually shocked at how quickly it came together. I finished it in two days while watching true crime documentaries after work and on my lunch break!
This week has gone by kind of fast!!
I texted Mom and Dad like I always do in the morning and Mom said they covered the pool today. So the summer days of pool time are officially over for 2025. I don’t think I got into the pool as much as I thought I would when we lived there. And I can’t believe we’ve lived here for a month and a half already!
The end of another era- I closed out the first UFCU account that I opened back in…2009? So the only account we have left in Texas is the bills one, which we are slowly moving over. I think we should move it all over except what is due soon, with maybe about $100 extra in there, and then we can move that over after those other bills are paid. I’ll figure that all out tomorrow maybe. Then the ONLY thing left I have to do is get my car registered and since I can go to the DMV in Coldspring and get a copy of my registration, I should be able to get that done next week. I hope so, I’m ready to take these Texas plates off and hang one up in the garage. Allen hung his up in there already.
I found some more pics of some Perler Bead Sprites I've
done. I also can't remember when I did these but I found them on my IG so
thought they needed posting!
I did this one a while back and lost the top black
bead. I found it when I was unpacking my office.
In Hutto, we had rabbits all over the place to watch and fawn over. In Pueblo, it's squirrels.
The squirrels around our house are brave. They will get sort of close to you on the fence. They will come up onto the porch. They will chatter at you and then run across the top of the fence when you are trying to nail something onto the boards. When you throw a hammer onto the ground in frustration, they will laugh at you. And they also respond when you talk to them.
They're super cute, though, and I love watching them. I completed this cross stitch last night while watching Monk with Allen. The pattern is by lagodartgento shop on Etsy.
I have been thinking about doing some more perler bead art lately and it reminded me that I haven't posted a lot of my perler bead art. I did post most of it but there are some I didn't post that I did later, or just didn't get around to doing.
I made my nephew some little minecraft guys' heads one year just for the heck of it. One of the zombies didn't turn out so well, so I kept him for some reason. He's below, along with some candy, pizza, an onigiri and a cute bow I made. I was gonna make barrettes from them but never got around to doing it.
I'm not sure what Perler projects I'll do next but I alwasy get the itch at the end of the year and beginning of the next. Weird how that happens like clockwork every year!
So apparently, there was another rapture that was supposed
to happen last week. They are always going on about "The
Rapture" and then nothing happens. Not that I'm complaining, it's just
funny.
I did this to commemorate the occasion and finished it last
night. Pattern by Subversive Cross Stitch.
We are really enjoying Colorado! I am still getting used to the fact that we actually moved here. I have wanted to live here my whole life but never thought it would happen. The mornings have been cold and then it's been warming up into the 70s but without the humidity, it's REALLY lovely outside and I have finally been unpacking all of my faerie garden stuff and decorating the back yard. I'll have to get some pics of it later. I'm really excited about putting all of my solar stakes and lanterns and lights too.
I finished this one last night. I think he is so cute. I'm obsessed with his little feet! This is one of the last cryptids in The Witchy Stitcher's Cryptid Stitch Along. I have Bigfoot and the Popelick Goatman to do and I'll be done! These have been so much fun. Then I will start on the Supernatural Stitch-along! I think for that one, I'll just use regular aida. I had to keep getting this oatmeal aida and sometimes it was hard to find, and I did want them to match somewhat. Anyway, here is Hodag.
"In the heart of the Northwoods near Rhinelander, WI,
lucky visitors may come across a mysterious, mischievous beast known as the
Hodag. The Hodag resembles a large bull-horned carnivore with a row of
thick curbed spines down its back. It was said to be born from the ashes
of cremated oxen. The Hodag is rarely seen but often blamed for cheeky
tricks involving missing keys, sunglasses, and helping the "big one"
get away from anglers."- The Witchy Stitcher
Since moving into our little home, I have tried to make it as cottage-y and possible! I loved our home in Hutto, and it was much bigger and newer. This house was built in the 1940s and is small. I adored our home in Hutto. I really bonded with the house's spirit, and it was gutting to leave. But I really think that I will bond deeply with this house too. It has a lot of character and it's small but so homey!
I have been in the mood to bake and cook a lot lately, and not just convenience food, which is what I often go to after work if I'm tired or have a lot to to. One of my favorite comfort meals to make is Zuppa Toscana and bread. The soup I made, but the bread in the pic is a take and bake bread. I also made the garlic butter, but of course, didn't make the butter itself from scratch. I think this may be the best batch of Zuppa Toscana I have ever made and I think it was because rather than making cashew cream, which tends to get thick when you cool it and then you have to water it down to heat it up and that dilutes the flavor, I used vegan cream, and didn't have to water it down when I reheated so the flavor remained. This is such a great comfort meal!
I made these hobbit pies for National Hobbit Day, which was September 22nd. That's Bilbo and Frodo's birthdays. We ate these while watching The Fellowship of the Ring. Allen gobbled his up, but I had half of mine left for lunch the next day!
And I baked these low-sugar oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They are so easy and so goooood.
Well Happy October!! The move was... rough. The movers were AMAZING, but there was just a lot of other bullshit to deal with. If I get into it, this will be a mini-novel so...
But, we are here, and we are settled! We have done a ton of things around town, and found all the good food! Also, we are not live-out-of-boxes people and we are not procrastinators, so we are mostly unpacked (well, the boxes we are going to unpack for now anyway) except a few personal boxes here and there. The essentials are unpacked and settled. I have a few boxes in my office and in my office closet, and we actually do have a ton in the basement but they are out of sight or on shelves until we can get to them, and we will keep them there until we figure out what to do with the contents.
One thing that's a bit of a bummer... most of the walls, you can't get a tack or even a nail into. We had to get a concrete drill to drill holes for screws for hanging pictures, so I will not be able to put all of my stitches up like I had at the last house. In a way.. I'm not too mad about it because we did have A LOT. It was a much bigger house, too, almost twice as big as we have now, and I think maybe having the walls covered would make it look cluttered. Right now, we have big art on the walls, and it looks great. Nice and clean, and not overwhelming. So I'm okay with it and one day, I may find a place I want to hang some of my pieces. for now, they are in boxes or in my art portfolio (Which is just about full!). I MAY be able to hang a bunch in the bathroom but it has the CUTEST crane wallpaper on one wall, and I don't want to cover it, and the rest of the walls have some sort of covering that makes it look like brick. I tried to get a tack in... nope. Oh well!
I finally sat down to do a cross stitch a couple of weeks ago and between still getting settled and having downtime, I worked on it. It took a while, only because I was also distracted by other stuff. But with all the shit going down in this country, it sums up how I feel right now. The pattern is another collab between Subversive Cross Stitch and Very Cross Stitching.
Moving day is quickly approaching! We are scheduled to load up and leave on September 2nd, which is a week and from today. This move happened a lot faster than I had planned, and I didn't have the time I'd like to visit everyone before we go. I did have a couple of visits planned, one with the Belladonnas and one with Amber and Sherry, former coworkers and victims of Sears. I didn't get to have a final brunch with the Brunch Bitches of Taylor, but we did actually have several in this year, so I don't feel so bad about that. Everyone else.. well, the road works both ways, y'all. People who made an effort to see me, got to see me. Those who made zero effort and wanted me to do all the work... g'bye forever!
Maybe not forever but.. this move has shown me who really cares and who wants it to be about them all the time. As if I didn't know but still.. ANYWAY... that's not what this blog is about.
I finished this one last Thursday and now I have all of my stitchy things packed except for stuff for my next two projects, in case I get to work on them in the hotel while we are traveling or if I need something to do before the movers get to the house, since it's gonna take them longer than it takes us. I would say it's the last one I did in the house I grew up in but we all know I will do more cross stitching there when I visit. So I'll say the last one I did when I LIVED in the house I grew up in. Why do I chronicle these sort of sad things? I don't know...
This one is by SonOfACrossStitch. I did alter the patten a bit because some of the colors in the original pattern weren't going to show up on this sparkly aida. Can you see the sparkles?? I love it when they show up in a photo! I say this all the time so it was great to find a cool pattern that said it. I now need to find one that say "Die in a fire", because that's another Jonesey-ism.
For a busy packing time, I'm getting my stitches in! I love this one so much by The Gloomy Gremlin!
I have been plugging away at this Cryptids from the Cryptid Stitch Along by The Witchy Stitcher. I know these are meant to be on one huge piece of Aida but I just can't do that with my neurospicy brain, so I always do stitch-alongs separately and then one day I can create a collage of all of them! This is The Death Worm.
“The Mongolian Death Worm is a Cryptid reported to exist in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, East Asia. It is described as a bright red word with a wide body that is 2-5 feet long. The worm is the subject of many extraordinary claims such as the ability of the worm to spew forth acid that will turn anything yellow and corroded (and which would kill a human), as well as its ability to kill at a distance by means of electric discharge. The main antagonists ni the Tremors series, called Graboids, were based upon the Death Worm. There was a film released in 2010 based solely on this scary worm entitled “Mongolian Death Worm”.- The Witchy Stitch, Cryptid Wiki
Allen is out of town this week, and so I have been going through boxes, organizing, putting in piles to donate, and making more detailed lists. We are still set to close around August 20th, and then it will just be a matter of scheduling movers. Allen is pretty relaxed about all of it but I am on a mad dash to pack because we always have more stuff than we realize and while most of that stuff is in storage, I did unpack quite a bit here!
Well, it's on! We (I, actually) have started packing for our move! I sort of like packing, and I sort of hate it. I have also started organizing. So we have all these boxes in a storage shed, and in a bedroom here, and they are just numbered, and not really labeled, because we did a system where we had a list of what is in which box and the boxes had corresponding numbers. So I am going through each box and listing what's in it, and putting where it's gonna go in the house, because we are hiring movers to put the boxes where they need to go. I am kind of enjoying that bit.
We don't have anything scheduled quite yet because we don't know when they will be done with all repairs but I'm figuring we will be moving between mid-September and mid-October. That's a great time because it's hot as fuck here but it coincides with Autumn and they are actually going to be cooling down that time of year!
I have still managed to get some stitching in!
We LOVE The Mighty Boosh! I can't find many cross stitch patterns that I like, though. There are tons of Old Gregg ones but they are super elaborate and I get bored with very stitch-heavy projects. I did find this one by ShortAndLoudShop on Etsy.
This is a Stundew by Noctiflora Designs. I have several of her patterns but this is the first one I've actually done. I dyed this aida myself :) I stitched it up pretty quickly and it's just the cutest!
I have some great news... we found a home in Pueblo and our offer was accepted!!! We should close on August 20th!! EEP!!! So excited! There is a lot to be done, but the sellers have agreed to do it- plumbing, electric, foundation, and replacing the entire roof!
Okay, back to what this blog is about...
I created this pattern because I wanted to stitch this up, but since it's about simplicity, I wanted a simple pattern. I wasn't really able to find anything on Etsy that wasn't super elaborate, and the point of this quote is to celebrate the simple. It's credited to Tolkien in The Fellowship of the Ring. It's not actually in the books, but it's something Bilbo says while narrating his chapter "Concerning Hobbits" in his book "There and Back Again". I think it's a lovely sentiment, and my goal in life is to just live a simple, peaceful and happy life. We've had that for the most part for a long time, and I'm hoping that despite the chaos, hate, anger, etc going on, we can continue our simple life.
I did NOT want to get out of bed this morning. But... obviously I did :) I went to Hutto this past weekend to visit friends. We had brunch at Casa Jalisco in Hutto- Me, Krisy, Anja, and John. Leslie was out of town and Jules had plans. It was lovely, as usual, to see everyone. I also went and visited Laurie and Gene. They are my ex's mom and stepdad and we are still really close. It may be the last time I see them for a very long time. We had a great visit! Then I came back to Coldspring and I am working on a cute cross stitch by Noctiflora that I will post soon!
And OH MY HEART!!! I got a call on my phone from my sister's phone this weekend, and it was my sweet nephew. He asked me if I wanted to go see Weird Al on Friday. Awww :) I was like “Yes, I would love to, thank you so much for inviting me!” and then after a few minutes Sam got on the phone and said they had an extra ticket and she asked if he wanted to take his friend or Aunt Joanne and he said “Aunt Joanne!” THIS CHILD. Jason, his dad, said he would give me his ticket, way back in November, and I thought maybe they had forgotten and I wasn’t gonna ask about it, because I felt weird about it. But that was so cool and so I’m gonna work a couple of short lunches this week and leave a little early on Friday. It’s gonna be awesome! I love Weird Al and to be there for my nephew's first concert is so special to me. Even if he is a mean stinky pre-teen ;) I just adore him.
It's been a while since I posted but... Pueblo was FANTASTIC! We explored the city and looked at some houses as well. We didn't find a house that fit what we are looking for, so we will keep going. We had one picked out that we were IN LOVE with but it turned out to be a complete dump. That was disappointing but I know we'll find a place we love.
We found some great food and we can get almost everything we need at the shops in Pueblo. They have one called King Soopers, and it's Kroger with a different name, and I LOVE me some Kroger so I'm pretty happy. There was not a lot of traffic. And everywhere we went, we could get there within a few minutes! I love it and am really excited about living there.
We also went to a nature center that was just unreal! I can't wait to go back.
I am not sure I have ever lived in a time where we needed this mindset more than now...this is one of my favorite quotes from The Hobbit. Thorin said it to Bilbo as he lay dying. It's such a beautiful quote and I want it hanging in my home! The pattern is by CrossStitchForYou on Etsy. I actually started this in our hotel room in Pueblo and it's taken me a while to finish but I am really happy with it. I finished it last night!
Last night, we went to Chuy's after work. OMG. I love that place so much. Their margaritas are BOMB and they have the best beans and tortillas. I am going to mess the HELL out of Tex-Mex when we move. We are waiting on a loan approval so that we will have some buying power. Although the houses we looked at a couple of weeks ago didn't pan out, there are a bunch more houses for sale that we can consider. We have found a few we hope to go see soon anyway. Wish us luck!
We are going to Pueblo this weekend to check it out and see if we want to live there. I'm super excited! Road Trip! We have off Friday and I am taking Monday and Tuesday off as well so I'll have some time to rest up after the trip and the drive. Wish us luck!
I finished this one by The Bad Witch Crafts yesterday. I am not super happy with how it came out. It's not the pattern or the design, I just don't think it's my best work. I dyed the aida myself, and I don't think it was the best choice of fabric for this specific piece. The pattern is awesome and maybe I'll redo it on a better piece of aida later on!
So I think my Mom and I made a turtle friend! We have been feeding the fish and turtles in the pond and today, when we drove up on the little cart, the same little guy came swimming up so fast! I named him Tom Bombadil, because I am reading his poems, I love the character, and I love saying Tom Bombadil! He's so cute. We saw a couple of big-ish catfish too that we have never seen. It was really cool. After the fish and turtles amused us, we had a beer on the patio, and my dad finally joined us after doing some tractor stuff. It is such a lovely way to round out the evening.
Also, we are closing on our house next week! July 8th. This bit has been a whirlwind. We put the house on the market, got several showings, and got an offer within a week that we accepted. All the work we put in was really worth it! I'm very excited, and after that, we just have to find a house we can afford in Colorado. Maybe we will find one this weekend! I have been doing a lot of magic towards this so I think we will be there by October at the latest.
This cute little cottage core pattern was created by Stitch Sprout. I did this one on sparkly aida and I think you can actually see the sparkles in this one!
I admit I kind of stole this pattern. I saw it in a picture and couldn't find who created it so I could purchase it, so I just recreated it myself and since it's for me, I don't feel bad! Stay feral, y'all!
I got this pattern from Subversive Cross Stitch and was amazed at how fast I was able to stitch it up! I did this on Saturday, June 14th, which was the date of the first No Kings rally. They had a little one in Coldspring! I drove through and honked at them in solidarity on my way to the store. Allen had to go to Hutto to take care of some things on the house and we are sort of taking turns now because we are sick of driving back and forth almost every weekend. So it was his turn!
It makes me proud that 5 million Americans across the country protested the current regime, and let a certain someone know we are not standing for a leader who is trying to act like a king. We haven't had a king since 1776 and we're not gonna have one now. There are more planned for the rest of the year.
Anyway, this is a collaboration of Subversive Cross Stitch and Very Cross Stitching. There are some patterns by Very Cross Stitching in my 2018-2019 posts. I love them :)
Yesterday was Father's Day and we took Dad to Huntsville to a huge antique store. He LOVED it. Then we went to the CAT Cafe in Huntsville and had some drinks and a snack. Mom drove us around a little because Dad wanted to see a few of his old haunts. We went home and then went to El Burrito, but Allen stayed at home. But it was wonderful to spend Father's Day with my Dad and to see him enjoying the antique mall, driving around, etc. Happy happy days!
It's Friday the 13th! Ooohhhh spoooooky! Why? I don't know. There are lots of theories as to the origins of thinking Friday the 13th is "unlucky". It doesn't stem from the Friday the 13th horror series...
Anyway, I finished this cutie from The Bad Witch Crafts, once again! I'm not trying to toot my own horn by claiming I'm deadly talented. I just really liked this pattern. The bright red is done with the sparkly Etoille thread, but it's hard to pick up in photos, sadly.
It rained and thundered all day afternoon yesterday and it made me so happy. I collected some rainwater and put it out this morning. Allen was in Hutto last night to check on some things and he's coming home today. I miss him so much when he's gone.
