Are You a Flower?

Remember that line in Bambi when he asked the skunk if he was a flower? Well I could picture him asking the same of this butterfly.

The adorableness of this knows no bounds!  And it only took me 4 days to stitch!  It's hard to see, but the flower is being held by its stem in the little fawn's muzzle.  Too bad it doesn't really show up in this picture.

Next up is either the centre tree, or the turtle. I can't quite decide which, but for now I will just enjoy this sweet little fawn, and his little fluttery friend.

Little Raccoon and a Very Late Tusal

One more panel of this seemingly endless project is complete.  And he's pretty darn cute!

He took me about 10 days to complete.  I don't know what it is about this project, but I am so easily distracted when I try to work on it. I end up picking up my iPad and checking Facebook, or playing a game, or even just watching TV with my project sitting in my lap, which, trust me, is pretty unusual.  Usually if I'm sitting, I'm stitching.    But one more panel has been complete.  I think I am now officially 1/2 way through this project.  Hopefully the second half goes faster.

And now for my April tusal.   I completely forgot about it.  Better late than never, huh?

Sorry for the bathroom pic, but it's after 2 in the morning and that seemed like the brightest part of the house to take a photo. 

Well, I've got a date with an adorable fawn.  I'll post pics as soon as I'm done.

~Rai Rai

Who? Why a Jr. Pepe Le Pew, That's Who...

Ok all in unison... Awwwwwwww.

So far, this little guy is my favorite!  I can just picture him saying "Ah, oui, she loves me, she loves me not" as he plucks the petals from the flower.  Of course the final petal will always be a declaration of "She loves me!"

And it's true, I do.

Next up, I'm going to do the raccoon.  I've discovered that it's a bit of a pain trying to do the panels on the right, as there is just SO much blanket to fold over and keep a hold of while stitching. So, I will finish the panels on the right hand first, and then slowly work over to the left.  As of the completion of the next panel, I will officially be half way through this project.

Honestly, I just want it to be done so I can go back to working on my dragon, which I sometimes hear calling me. 

So far this little guy took me a week to complete.  Hopefully the raccoon goes just as fast, although he has a lot more colors, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say 2 weeks, but we'll see.

Enjoy Pepe,  and his little red flower.  He was a delight to stitch.

~Rai Rai

A Little Chipmunk, Just in Time for Spring

I finished this little darling late last night.  Adorable is the word that immediately jumps to mind.

I took stock of this project and realized that it has taken me 2 months to get only 4 panels done.  That's it!  I'm pretty shocked by that realization.  I'm going to try to up my stride a bit and see if I can shake a leg on this.  I don't want this to be a 6 month project. I still have my dragon laying on the sideline and I'm itching to get stuck back into that.

Next up is an adorable skunk.  He's lots of patches of one color so he should be pretty quick.  Hopefully I have something to show off in a week or so.

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, I offer you a little Chipmunk, just in time for spring....

~Rai Rai

No Updates, But a Question for You All

I'm just sitting at my computer, enjoying my first full day off in 10 days, and I was having a peruse through the blogs that I am following and I noticed now all of us have a certain "style" of stitching.

For example, I am neurotic about always starting at the top left hand side of the piece I am working on.   I've noticed many stitchers prefer to start at the bottom and work up.  I've also noticed there are stitchers who start in the exact middle and then work outwards.

Which are you, and why?

For me, it makes the most practical sense to start at the left and work across and down. This way I can see the pattern take shape, almost as though it were coming off of a printer.

So, talk to me! Where do you usually start in a pattern, and why?

(Oh, and I should have an adorable chipmunk to show off in a day or so)

~Rai Rai

Oh, and since there were no photo's in this post, I thought I'd leave you with this...

Panel 3 Is Complete

Behold, my little squirrel.  Just look at those adorable little eyes!

Next up is a chipmunk.  I find the browns are the least favorite colors for me to work with, and I found that this little guy dragged a little.  Now that he is done, I think he's cute as a button, but it just felt like such a chore to sit and stitch this particular panel, for some reason.

Tonight I resolved to finish it, and I stubbornly sat there until the last stitch was in.

Unfortunately, I believe the chipmunk is more of the same colors, but after that, it will be on to the brighter colors I prefer to stitch with.

I don't think I'll even get to him until the weekend, but I hope he is a fast stitch.

Fingers crossed.

~Rai Rai

March TUSAL

It's that time again to show off my odds and ends, otherwise known as the monthly TUSAL.

For those of you who don't know what the TUSAL is, you can click HERE to go to the original source.  On many blogs, I've seen that clever little TUSAL .gif and link, but I cannot seem to upload it onto my blog.  Does any of you fellow bloggers have any tips for uploading here? 

In any case, here is my March TUSAL.

My friend Kari, who is one of the girls who I stitch with on Sunday afternoons, was surprised when she saw my TUSAL glass. She thought it was just a little water glass until she saw it in real life when she came to clip Ruin's claws.  She made me promise to take a photo of it next to something so you could get a sense of the size of it.  So here it is posed next to my thread box.  It was literally the biggest vase that I could find.

I thought I would have the squirrel panel to show off to you all tonight, and I did try to get it done.  I'm switching over to night shifts, so I'm trying to stay up until 5:00am, and thought that would be plenty of time to get the final leaves finished and the backstitching done, but I didn't quite finish the leaves, and now with night shifts starting, it might not be done for another week.  Oh well, this panel had a lot of thread changes and is, I think, the busiest panel of them all.   If I get a chance to work on it throughout the week and finish it, I will be sure to post pictures stat.

Well, that, my dear fellow stitcher's, is all I can seem to manage tonight.  I've made it to 4:42 am, so my goal of staying up until 5am fell a bit short, but I am just too dead tired to carry on.

I'm off to bed to dream of baby woodland creatures.

Goodnight all.

~Rai Rai