Category: Frogs

Birthday Start and It’s a Big One!
Christmas · Country Cottage Needleworks · cross stitch · Frogs · WIPGO 2026

Birthday Start and It’s a Big One!

My Time Stitching3 Comments

Hello my blogging friends! I hope that you are well and that your New Year is going smoothly and that your weather is good. It has snowed every day in the month of January and February seems to be doing a repeat. It is snowing today but the temps are a little better than they have been. I am sick of winter and looking forward to Spring, which seems so far away. But, enough of all of that. On to the stitching.

I had a birthday about 10 days ago and celebrated by starting a new project. It’s a big project, not a big birthday, LOL. A project that has been in my stash for just about 11 years! In April of 2015, I received this wonderful package in the mail that contained my long-awaited Chatelaine kit.

Everything I needed to start the Fairy Flower Garden Chatelaine except for the DMC threads. Soon after receiving it, I had a surgery, recovery and hubby and I were always on the go. When I finally sat down to get this project started, the pattern was so tiny that it could not be read. And I think I was a bit intimidated, too. I had purchased the PDF, but the thought of enlarging sections and printing them out just wasn’t what I was ready for. So, it just sat in a project bag all of these years. Near the end of 2025 I decided that I would be starting this project on my Birthday in January 2026. Hubby gave me an iPad last year, that I found out I could use for cross stitch. A few months ago, I purchased an App called Knit Companion because I heard that it would also work with cross stitch patterns. Hubby loaded my pattern in and pieced the pages together for me. I would have never been able to do it, so I am so thankful for my personal IT guy 😉 For my Birthday, he gave me a Pen for my iPad so I could mark off my cross stitch easier than using my finger. So on my Birthday I hunkered down for some serious Chatelaine stitching.

This was going to take some getting used to for sure. But it went well. Slowly, with having to mark off on the iPad, but I really enjoyed stitching on this project. It didn’t hurt that all of the stitching I did, was with silk threads and few metallics. I worked on it for about a week and here is where I am with it.

I look forward to getting back to this project in between my WIPGO projects this year. I am stitching on 28ct Lugana in Antique White and I didn’t mind stitching on 28ct at all.

Speaking of WIPGO, I finished both of my January WIPGO numbers! Woo Hoo! The first number was 2 and that was my Big City Christmas which I had already been working on. So I worked on it until the 10th and got it to this point.

Just one more shop left to do on this one. But I switched to my next WIPGO call, #7, which is Mistletoad from Lizzie Kate.

This was a fun, quick project that I enjoyed working on. This pattern has been in my stash for many years along with the frame. Hopefully I will sit down one day soon and try to frame it myself.

First finish of 2026. And the first square on my WIPGO board taken care of.

I picked up Big City Christmas again and worked on it until I finished it.

It looks so good! I love it! I had already purchased a special frame for this and was so excited to pull it out and get an idea of how it would look.

Oh I was so disappointed that this frame didn’t fit the project. I was told when I ordered it that it would be for 16ct aida. The fabric was even cut at this shop. So I messaged them and they said it was for 14ct aida…Even if it was for 14ct aida, I should have the same amount of margin all the way around the design. Not all of the extra space on each end. So…the frame is being reordered and it will take 4-6 weeks. I gave the measurements of my finished piece, so hopefully it will be right when it does come in. It is a beautiful hand painted frame and it was the reason I decided to purchase the patterns. At least I still have lots of time before the holidays come around again. Anyway, the pattern is Big City Christmas from Country Cottage Needleworks (7 patterns) and it is stitched on 16ct Aida Swamp Monster from Laura’s Fabrics.

So that is what I have been up to. Lots of stitching, learning how to use my iPad with my cross stitch and now another year older. The next WIPGO numbers have been called and one is for a Nora Corbett letter. My fabric order came in for those last week and it is not going to work. More about that next time. Let me know what you have been up to.

Happy Stitching,

ginny

Angels · Frogs · Mermaids · New stash! · Nora Corbett · snowmen · Stitchy Gifts · Uncategorized

A Birthday Finish

My Time Stitching14 Comments

I celebrated my 50th birthday on Friday, and this weekend.  And the birthday present to myself was I finished Angel of Grace!  Woo Hoo!  Yep, finished her just before midnight on Friday for a great birthday finish. Here she is:

Finished Angel of GraceShe is Angel of Grace by Lorrie Birmingham Designs.  She is stitched on 28 ct Salmon and Gold Linen Banding, which was not fun to stitch on.  She is pretty much stitched as the pattern is charted, but rather than outline all the little squares that were left open on the dress, I decided to add gold beads.

Close up of basket on Angel of Grace

A basket charm, Austrian Crystals and 14kt butterfly charms were included in the pattern.  She really turned out beautiful, but there were many obstacles along the way on this one.  I truly wondered if I would ever finish her.  She will eventually be turned into a bell pull and given to my Mom for her birthday this summer.  I am just so happy to have her finished, and on my birthday 😉

So speaking of my birthday, here is how I celebrated all weekend:  I had a Stamping workshop at my house on Thursday night and the hostess brought me this:

birthday cakeYummy!  White cake, my favorite.  And I love that she had 29 put on it rather than 50.  She also brought me these:

HyacinthsBeautiful, pink, fragrant hyacinths.  My personal Spring!  Every time I look at them, and smell them, I know I am edging towards that much awaited day when the weather breaks and green starts poking though.  It’s a good thing I am in the basement right now as I don’t want to look out the window at this moment.  And a cute little frog key chain that lights up and croaks.

I spent most of my actual birthday on Friday, stitching.  My hubby and youngest took me out to Chinese for birthday dinner and then it was back to stitching until I finished the Angel-almost midnight, but I did finish her on my birthday.  Hubby bought me this:

New selphy printerMy own little personal printer and it’s wireless!  I had the earlier model, but the printer cartridge got stuck inside and it would have cost almost as much as a new one to fix it.  So now I have a new one and it’s wireless!  I love having my own personal printing for my scrapbooking.  And now I can print from the computer, too.  Awesome!

I also received a Gift certificate for 1-2-3-Stitch from a my sweet stitching friend, Annie.  I am waiting to see if they get the new Ophelia’s Pearl mermaid in so I can get that and her bead pack and threads.  That will be a super project to have in my stash.

On Saturday, my Friend, Carol, came over and we spent the day scrapbooking.  We did take a break for presents!

Carol scrapbookingShe gave me pink tiger ribbon (great for all of those zoo pictures I still have to scrapbook), Lindor Limited Edition chocolates (My favorite and in a pink bag :),  2 boxes of adhesive, (we scrapbookers go through a lot of that) and a set of Vampire Academy books.  I had not heard of them, but Carol knows I love vampires.  Can’t wait to read them.  And all my gifts were in a very nice re-usable shopping bag.  I love taking them to the grocery store instead of getting tons of plastic bags.  We also went out to Chinese for lunch and then back home to scrapbook.  While scrapbooking and having fun, this is what came in the mail:

shopping spree stashThe items from my Birthday shopping Spree at Stitches N Things. The thread is my missing thread for Biancabella.  The Snowmen Trio by Country Cottage Needleworks was too cute not to add to my stash. And the newest Mermaid Letters from Nora Corbett.  The “G”  is for Ginny of course, and the “I” is beautiful.  It almost doesn’t look like a letter.

And this was in the other package I received in the mail:

Frog pincushionMy Best Stitchy Friend, Johanna, sent me this adorable pin cushion.  It’s not small either.  It’s about 6″ tall and 7″ wide. The most adorable thing I have ever seen!  I love collecting decorative pins, so now I have a beautiful pin cushion to put them in.  I have to get a better picture of the froggy pin in the back:

Frog pinIsn’t it just the cutest?  And he is even wearing a birthday hat 🙂  I love it!

Blowing out the candle

So I had a wonderful birthday weekend and it wasn’t so bad turning 50.  And I finished the Angel!!!  Do you have a project that has been hanging over your head for a long time?

Frogs

Tree Frogs

My Time Stitching3 Comments

In case you didn’t know this about me; I love frogs.  Not real ones and not the mean ones that cause trouble on your stitching, but the ones that are cute and in pictures and stuffed animals and all kinds of other things.  A few years ago I bought one of those Bolo Bags and was originally going to do some flower design on it.  But a few days later, I knew just what I was going to put on it…

FROGS!!!  The pattern is a Funk & Weber Design called Red eyed Tree Frog.  Hubby made a mirror image for me and I stitched them both ways all over the bag. There is a total of 7 frogs on the bag.  Here is a close up of one of the frogs:

Isn’t he just too cute?  And I love the bag.  It’s great in the summer time when I go to the park or a baseball game or track event. I  Can throw a project in there, camera, sunscreen, snacks, whatever!  I believe the bag is from Zweigart.  Thanks for visiting today.