Ornament Stitching Insanity!

First off – Belinda of Blue Ribbon Designs, who taught my class at Stitcher’s Hideaway a few weeks back, has a gorgeous stitchy giveaway happening on her blog.  Absolutely beautiful little sewing companions.  So hurry over there and enter to win one!

It’s been a wild couple of weeks – lots of get-togethers for birthdays, stitching, and such.  Probably the most epic part of the last couple weeks was my amazing win on a penny slot machine at Mohegan Sun the first weekend of November.  I put $40 into the machine, and less than 10 minutes later, I walked away with this nifty ticket in my hand.  All of which, I might add, was won on ONE spin, which put me into an epic number of bonus spins, which payed out 13 times my betting amount (which happened to be the max bet on the machine… essentially $3 per spin).

I might add that I was not the big winner of our group.  One person walked away with over $1,000 on a penny slot that night!

So yes – Star Wars penny slot at Mohegan in the Casino of the Sky.  Go play.  You may get lucky.  🙂  As you can see – yes, you can actually win something on those machines.

I have been a crafty queen lately.  Lots of different projects.  I’m in rapid rotation mode these days trying to get stuff done.  Right now I have the following on my plate:

• Rachel’s UFO Round Robin Piece (Mirabilia’s Queen of Freedom) – due to mail home on Monday
• Rahenna’s UFO Round Robin Piece (Dimension’s Oriental Butterfly) – due to mail off Dec. 6th
• Life’s A Stitch ornament/Christmas Exchange – which I just discovered I missed the mailing date for (for some reason, I thought it was by Thanksgiving)
• TWCOE (Teresa Wentzler Christmas Ornie Exchange) – due by Nov. 24th
• Rhode Island Stitchers Ornie Exchange – Dec. 4th
• aaand… gifts.

My holiday gift shopping plans for this year can be summed up thusly:  I never know what to buy anyone, and I’m sick of the gift card route because it feels like a cop-out.  So I’m making ornaments for family.  And that’s what they’re getting.  🙂  I have ideas for most of the ornaments I’m making.  Right now it’s just a matter of budgeting time to finish them.

So yes.  I’m all sorts of ornie crazy right now.

I know what I’m finishing for the Life’s a Stitch exchange.  I know what I’m doing for the TWCOE (why yes… it is a Wentzler ornie!).  I have an ornie picked out for my mom.  Otherwise, I’m undecided.

Thankfully, there’s a big long weekend coming up for Thanksgiving in which I can do a metric asston of stitching.  I still have three vacation days for the year, so should I need to take time off to finish up, I will.

I am making progress, though!  I’m quite happy (and why is my Q key sticking?!?)  First off is “By the Full Moon” by Ink Circles.  This was published in this year’s Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue.  It’s also been developed into a larger piece, called Masquerade (which yes, I bought this past weekend with part of my casino earnings).  I also personalized the back.  Samhain, for the non-Pagan folks reading, is the religious holiday on Halloween that I celebrate.

I also have an ornament completed, but not yet put together.  It’s one of the squares from Belinda’s “Pocketful of Peppermints” sampler that was the teaching sampler at Stitcher’s Hideaway.  I’m figuring that this ornament will go to someone in my family.  I just haven’t figured out who yet.

Tonight (and on the train tomorrow) I’m going to crank progress on the Life’s a Stitch project, since that’s now overdue.  I expect to get it done very shortly and hope to get that mailed off on Saturday.

Friday night I won’t be able to stitch – we’re going to a performance of “The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged)” over at Fontebonne Academy, where our good friend Tone has served as director for several years.

And at some point this weekend, Erich and I are going on a good ol’ fashioned date to see the new Harry Potter movie.

Gah, busy busy busy!