Top 5 Tuesdays - Catch Up and This Week

So I decided to do a bit of double dose last week's and this week's Top 5 Tuesdays, so warning...picture heavy! Last week was a free-for-all, so I'm going to go with my favorite Jasmine Becket-Griffith charts in my stash. At least 60% of the HAED charts in my stash are JBG charts, so this was a hard list, and I've been lucky enough to be RAK'ed more than once with JBG charts, so again, hard to choose (and I hope that no one feels left out)! My favorites change constantly too (well, other than these first two), so if I do this list again, it will probably be completely different!

My absolute favorite is Belle of Bonaventure and it will be my next JBG start once I finish Alice and the B's.

And then Voodoo in Violet will be either right after Belle (or at the same time, depending on how the mood strikes me):

Granted, HAED is not even close to charting all the Unseelies, but I would love to do all of them together. Right now, there are only two, Wrath and Sloth:


Another favorite and probably the start right after Belle and Voodoo, will be Max Color Frost Dragonling...a RAK'ed chart (from one of my favorite people on the planet):

And then, last but not least, the Season Fairies...Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, which I will probably do all at the same time:





Now for this week's Top 5...movie-themed charts. Almost every single chart in my stash is probably movie-themed because they are all Disney, so I tried to find either non-animated Disney movie-related charts or non-Disney anything. It was a hard list to compile, that's for sure, so I had to fudge a bit. Fudge #1...A Summer Ball. This is currently in my WIPs, but I absolutely HATE working on it, so I may never finish it. But it does remind me of almost every single Austen movie ever made, so there you go:

Neni Designs took to the Kinkades like crazy, so I managed to scoop them up, including this one of Pirates of the Caribbean:

I also have an old HAED, Shakespearean Fantasy, so it is a movie compendium in itself:

I think I've mentioned once or twice that I'm a huge Cap fan although, from a cross stitch perspective, I only have a few charts, including this one:

I also finally took the plunge and got the Hocus Pocus chart from Tilton Crafts, so it will round this list out:

Weekly Stitching

Before I left for Dallas, I did start back on Suteki. I left off on her on May 31 of last year:

I FINALLY finished the row on Saturday:

and made it a bit into the next row:

I think that the second row won't be as confetti'ed as the first, but I decided to start back on Happy Haunts today so that I might have some progress to show for The New Stitchy Start Blog at the end of the month.

I am still on the fence about the April A to Z. Right now, my stitching mojo is strong and I'm itching to get back to Alice and the B's. Plus, I'm going to have a lot of extra work in April because of a co-worker's vacation days. I have so much on my plate right now and I'm not happy about the signup process for the challenge this year (be it Facebook or commenting daily...which just sounds like even more work). I'm going to take the week to decide, but it means I'm already ill-prepared and behind. I'll need to buy thread and fabric and kit it up and will at least need to get some kind of a head start, so when work bogs me down, I won't get too far behind. I'm just not sure my head is in the right space to be working on a challenge right now. I figure if I can't decide, it probably means I shouldn't start it.

I'm back!

Just a few highlights before the full treatment...

I got to play with a planetary model and stand in the "known universe" at the Perot.

I got to control the playlist at the Hard Rock in Dallas...I bet I'm the first person ever to play a Take That video on their screens along with numerous Duran Duran songs, Blasphemous Rumours by Depeche Mode (twice by accident) and a Cure song!

I got to stare at a Monet for half an hour and was forced to glance at a Pollock for two seconds at the Museum of Art.

And, of course, I got to spend almost two hours with the best band in the world, Duran Duran!!

All in all, it's the best week I've had in a long time and my very first good trip to Texas! But now I'm back at work and life sucks again.

What is wrong with me?

Although I'm less than a week away from seeing Duran Duran, I'm in a HUGE Take That mood right now and this doesn't help!

I feel like such a traitor!

Top 5 Tuesdays - Time-Related Charts

Thankfully, I still haven't had to go outside my stash for these posts...at least not yet! Don't forget to go over to Kate's blog to see her post as well as to get the links for Tiff and Emma's...they all usually do WAY better at this than I do!

Granted, my view of the three fates are three ugly hags sharing an eyeball (too many Disney movies), but I absolutely adore this HAED pattern from Jasmine Becket-Griffith and I'll do it one day, although it's not high on my JBG to-do list. Nothing says time (or rather time's up) like fate!


This next one was the first HAED chart I bought that I realized was dithered and that they had changed over their charting method (I still miss the old ones, especially on the JBGs). Obviously, anything related to Doctor Who is time-related and I'm a total Doctor Who girl. I've been watching it since I was a kid, although I haven't kept up much since the new doctor took over (I'm still grieving over the loss of David Tennant):


Speaking of Doctor Who and new doctors, I bought this Clouds Factory chart before the switch and since twelve is now about to leave, I guess it's a good thing I didn't buy the replacement! I'll just wait a bit more to see how long the next doctor lasts!


Once Upon A Time...my absolute favorite TV show (and no, I'm not ready to accept that we might be losing Snow and Charming next season). I started this chart a while back but ended up scrapping it (my first trash project ever). The fabric was too soft and I had the "brilliant" idea to use metallic thread on their fairytale counterparts and it was a total disaster! One day I will do this chart again (the right way):


I just recently added a project to my stash that's not really my style, I but I loved the artwork so much, I couldn't help myself. I don't think anything is time-related as much as life and death, so here you go:

Weekly Stitching

I didn't get much done through the week, but I had another really great weekend, at least stitch-wise. I left off here last week:

And almost finished the second page of the row tonight:

I'm not sure why I'm flying through her so quickly, but it's motivated me enough to want to continue on, at least for the week. I'm just not sure yet. With Duran Duran coming up soon, I've got to shift focus. Plus, I've got to decide what I'm going to do about the April A to Z Blogging Challenge. I'm leaning toward doing it, but I won't be doing it the "commenting" way and certainly not the Facebook way (obviously).

On the pup front, it's all sunshine and roses, except when I'm trying to stitch...this is what I have to put up with:

Speaking of pups though, today was Bam's 7th birthday (or as close as we can figure). It's really more an anniversary of his adoption date and a guestimation of his years, but it counts! It seems like only yesterday when I brought him home!


We also went from thunderstorms and possible tornadoes this week to this:

Granted, by the next afternoon it was all gone, but it was real snow with very little ice! That's practically unheard of around here! It was a crazy week, that's for sure!

Top 5 Tuesdays - Quick Stitches

Sorry, I'm a bit late! When it comes to quick stitches, the definition is a bit sketchy for me...if you count a HAED quick stitch, those puppies take months, so I'm going to go with ones that I could probably finish in a week or so.

One of the first designs I bought from Neni wasn't a Disney kit, but rather this one:

I'm not really into owls, but I liked this one and I do plan to do the glasses in purple instead of teal. It's pretty small, so it would take no time at all and I would probably hang it at work.

I have always been a HUGE fan of Calvin and Hobbes (I always said, that if I would have had kids, I probably would have had a boy that was a cross between Calvin and Cartman). I have all the books (well, I used to until it got replaced with the deluxe box set), I have a C&H sticker on my laptop, and I've had a newspaper cutout on my bulletin board at work that is probably forever old (it say's "If I grow up to be some sort of psychopath because of this, you'll all be sorry!"), so it made sense to stitch a C&H project:


There was a very simple Sleeping Beauty Pattern that I found on Etsy, and I just had to have it (although I may never stitch it because it will need to be done on dark fabric):


When I used to stitch one project at a time (back in the pre-blog days), after each major project, I would always do a Disney ornament as sort of a post-workout cool down (although there is nothing relaxing about these things, I find them quite annoying and difficult actually). I still have several in my stash though that maybe I'll do one day:

The finished ones hang in my office at work:


And lastly, I recently bought several patterns from Etsy that was buy two, get one free, so these are what I went with:



Any of these would be great for my office (or my computer room) as well.

As a bonus, I have another kit that I bought that I can't bring myself to stitch until I actually go to England (and house plans have skewered those plans for a couple of years, but maybe someday soon).

Stitching update

I seriously cannot believe it's been since February of last year since I touched Maleficent. I left off at the third row finish here:

I started back on her Friday night and worked on her most all weekend. I was kind of proud of myself because I finished almost half a page in less than three days, but it doesn't look like much:

I'm going to continue on with her this week and hopefully will have more to show by next weekend. For some reason, the dithering isn't bothering me as much as it used to...at least not yet.

When it comes to everything else, time is passing very slowly and super-fast at the same time. I haven't had a payday without a house payment yet, so it doesn't feel like nothing's changed on that front and no decision has been made on my job title either. But the possibility of an available building lot that Matt might go ahead and buy and sit on until I'm ready was discussed last week and I spent a lot of time tinkering with my perfect floor plan and scouring the internet for design ideas.

Monday is Amber's 40th B-day! I can't believe my baby sister is 40 years old! How does that happen so fast? Seems like only yesterday my parents brought that little bundle of joy into the house and I spent several years trying my damnedest to torture her! Good thing she forgave me (eventually) because I don't know what I'd do without her now!