No update

While in New Orleans, my husband started to get a little tickle in his throat, which progressed into a cold. Not wanting to keep all this fun to himself, he then shared it with me. I haven't really stitched (or even had the energy to want to) the past few days. I'm just thankful this crud hit after we already got home, and on days that I don't have to go to work.
I may pick back up this evening. 

Vacation, needlework shop, and some stitching.

My husband and I went on vacation for several days to New Orleans. We went there on our honeymoon 6 years ago, and are only now going back again.
My first thought was to take Farewell to Anger with me, since that would allow to keep up with the 100 day challenge. Unfortunately, the plastic box that I keep it in wouldn't fit into the backpack that I was using as my carry-on, so I decided not to take it. Instead, I took The Palace Garden, since it takes up much less space.
During our layover in Houston, I decided to kill some time and stitch a bit. While I was stitching, a woman sitting nearby came over to see what I was working on, and we had a nice chat about cross stitching. It was nice to talk to someone about it in person. We discussed how intricate the patterns can get and how you can even turn a picture into a pattern, now.

In New Orleans, we stayed in the French Quarter, and since we didn't have a car, we didn't really venture far from there. There is still so much to see and do there, though, that we still had an amazing time. Just off of Jackson Square is a needlework shop called the Quarter Stitch. I remember stopping here when we were in town on the honeymoon, and I definitely wanted to stop in again.

We looked around a bit, and there is such a lot to see! The walls are covered in hand painted needlepoint fabric, and there were so many different designs around. I did find one that I really liked, but it was a bit outside of my price range. Maybe next time!
 

They also had some nice yarns available, as well. I haven't been doing much (any) crochet lately, so I didn't get any of the yarn, either.

The selection in this shop is great. There is so much to see. I found a small section with cross stitch patterns and kits, as well. There was a nice one of Jackson Square that I almost purchased, but since the purse strings were a bit tight (because we bought football tickets), I decided not to get it this time. Maybe on the next trip, though!

My progress on Palace Garden is minimal. I only worked on it for one day. The rest of the trip, I was simply too tired to do anything. There was a lot of walking involved! I'll post progress of it later, since there wasn't much done on it, and I don't have a picture.

4 weeks of 100 day challenge, and my floss cone!

My cone has arrived! It's awesome! I haven't had a chance to actually use it, yet, as I am still using an older skein of black that I already had, but I am just waiting for my chance!

I also have another week done in my 100 day challenge. I am still stitching at least one stitch per day, but usually a lot more. I got quite a bit done over the weekend.

Here is where I was with my last update:

Here is where I am after the weekend:

I got a lot done in 3 days!

On Friday, my husband and I are flying to New Orleans for vacation, and will be back on Tuesday. I will probably pack this up and take it along with us, mostly so I can keep up with the challenge! I am really taking it seriously!

Another Farewell update and thread sale!

Everyone has been waiting for the JoAnn sale on floss, going on right now. I was excited about it, too, until I discovered it was only going down to $.40 per skein. This is still a great deal, just not as awesome as I was expecting. Before going off to kit up a new project, I decided to check the other store websites, and I found a coupon on Michaels' website for 30% off, which would bring the floss down to $.39. Not a huge difference, but when you are kitting up a HAED with 90 colors, it does help.

In purchasing all those colors from Michael's, I have learned some things:
First, I hate the way they have their floss organized on the website. I ended up having to search each one individually. It was a pain.
Second, their shopping cart has a limit of about 50-ish items. I kept adding more after that, not realizing that they weren't adding, since it didn't say anything. I just happened to notice that it said 51 for a while. I ended up having to place 2 orders to get all that I wanted.
Third, their exchange process for online orders is a bit of a pain. I ended up getting 2 of one color and was missing another, so I figured it was just a simple mistake and they would just swap it out, right? No! The cashier had issues with it, and ended up having to call over 2 supervisors to ultimately do a return and exchange.

Also, my new project calls for a LOT of black thread. So much, that I bit the bullet and bought a small cone of DMC 310! Woohoo, so excited!

Now, on to my progress so far on Farewell to Anger.
Here is where I was with the last update:

Here is where I am now:

3 weeks into the 100 day challenge

It has now been 21 days into the 100 day challenge. I have still kept up with my original goal of doing at least one stitch every day. In fact, there was one day this week that I did only one stitch just before bed, just so I can say that I did it.

Here is where I was last week:

Here is where I am now:

Because of this challenge, and because I want to see how far I can go if I only work on one project for 100 days, I will be only working on this project until the end of January. At that point, I may switch over to another project for another 100 days, depending on how well I do. Who knows?!

Crochet Pattern - Philosoraptor

Here is my monthly free crochet pattern!

I was trying to come up with some ideas for crochet patterns, and a friend of mine suggested that I use some meme images for patterns. I gathered up a few and came up with some, the first of which was the Philosoraptor.

Here is the pattern for it:

INSTRUCTIONS:
Starting at bottom of pattern chain 208. Chain 3 to turn which will count as first double crochet of
first row. Double crochet in 5th chain from hook. Double crochet in next 2 chains to complete bottom
right solid square of row 1. Continue following pattern for first row reading pattern right to left. After
completing first row, chain 3 to turn to start next row. Continue following pattern until all rows are
complete. At end of row 58 fasten off.

MATERIALS (based on crochet cotton size):
Using Crochet Cotton no. 10: about 456 yds, steel crochet hook US size 7 or SIZE FOR GAUGE.

APPROXIMATE FINISHED SIZES:
Using Crochet Cotton size 10: width = 15.9 inches, height = 14.5 inches
GAUGE:
Using Crochet Cotton size 10: 10 squares = 2.3 inches, 10 rows = 2.5 inches