Sistine Chapel Panel 40 Finished and summer vacation!

I put the final stitches on panel 40 this morning.  This is the first panel of my Sistine Chapel design.  There are 45 panels in all!!  I did a small happy dance and then pulled out Panel 28 to stitch next.  The pattern calls for you to stitch it in a certain order.  This next panel that I will be stitching has a lot of threads.  They took up one whole thread box and 1/4 of the another.

Graduation:

School is out for summer!!!!  You do not know how happy I am.  This has been a very hard year.  Graduation was last weekend and they had a chair with a cap and gown on the stage in honor of my student who passed away earlier this year.  I broke out in tears during graduation when they called his name.  It is just an amazing feeling to see all my little ducks who I have pushed and prodded for the past 4 years walk across that stage and get their diploma.  For graduation day, all the teachers wears gowns and our school colors while the students wear their cap and gowns.  We were able to graduate 807 seniors in 1 hour and 45 minutes!!!

Each year, I make my seniors a pillow case with name embroidered on it.  They LOVE them.  Here is this years fabric.  When my juniors realized that I would not be teaching their senior math class, they were not happy.  They have been with me since 9th grade and they feel they have EARNED a pillowcase.  So I told them if they finished the year and would graduate, then I would make them a pillowcase.   My husband just doesn't get it.  He doesn't understand why the all love a pillowcase.  I tried explaining that it is a personalized gift that they can actually use, and he still doesn't understand.  

Summer Plans:

Last summer I set several goals to get finished by the end of summer.  This year, my plan is be lazy!  I am too tired right now to come up with any goals.    We leave for our vacation soon and I am actually looking forward to it.  We are going to Minneapolis, MN for 4 days.  DH is going to golf and I am going to the Mall of America.  We plan on catching a Twins Baseball game.  Then we are off to Sheboygan, WI, where DH is going to golf.  I am meeting up with my friend, Kim R, and we are going to spend the afternoon together.  Kim lives in WI and I haven't seen in her in a couple of years.  After WI, we are headed to Chicago, IL for 3 days.  DH sister lives there.  Not sure what we will do there but we will be headed home Saturday afternoon.  We will drive until DH gets tired then we will find a hotel for the night.  WE plan on being home by 2:00 pm on Sunday.  My mom is going to dog and house sit for us.  The boys love her and she doesn't mind staying at the house.

Amazing Art work and Sistine Chapel update!!!

If you are a regular reader, you know how much I LOVE disney!!!  There is a little duck in the autism room at my high school that loves Disney as much as I do.  I pop down to that room as much as I can because we have very interesting conversations.  This little duck is an amazing artist so I asked him if could draw the queen of hearts for me on a ceiling tile to place in my room.  We had several conversations about his because he prefers the red queen from the Johnny Depp version of Alice in Wonderland.  I like the queen of hearts since I am an "evil teacher" and my last name is Hartwell...it seems fitting....

I finally convinced him to draw the Queen of Hearts by offering him a copy of my Disney on Ice pictures (which he loved)... This is what he drew and painted for me:

I LOVED IT!!!!!!  He did an amazing job!  Since he is leaving for a Disney trip on Friday, I made a personalized Disney autograph book.  He knew when he finished it, I had an present for him so as soon as it was done, he called my room to let me know.  He LOVED his gift!  I LOVE my ceiling tile...all is well in the world!!!!!

Here it is....page 5 of panel 40 completed.  One more page left and this panel will be finished.  I will have 44 more panels to go!  

Happy Anniversary to me!!!! Plus a Quick Question

Seven years ago today, I married my loving husband!  It was the first sunny and dry Saturday for the month of May!  Beautiful day and beautiful ceremony!

My husband has excellent taste in Jewelry.   He did such and awesome job!!!!  I on the other hand sucked...I have no idea what to get him.  He likes Golf (which I am no allowed to buy golf equipment).  That's it!

Can you tell I have lost weight???? Here I am in Rome wearing this little black dress....

Here I am in the same black dress on my anniversary 15 lbs lighter than I was in the Rome picture.  Just wondering if you can tell a difference or not.  Please excuse my puppies head!

Sistine Chapel page finished and update

Happy Mothers day to all the mothers of fleshy children and Moms like me of Furry children.  My boys gave me some beautiful pink roses and wonderful card!

I finished page 4 of Sistine chapel!!!! So happy!!!  Below, the finished page, I started Page 5.  It is coming along very slowly but it is fun to stitch.  

 One of the people are finally finished!!!

Disney, Augusta and Summer Ball Update

I have several stitching updates to show off.....

Here is my Disney Table runner!  The snowball is much easier to see now that I have it outlined.  I have Huey, Dewey, Louie, Donald, Daisy and Pluto left to stitch on it.

Last week I showed my Augusta in the tutorial on how to park threads.  Here is the design with another 1,000 stitches in it.  I dread working on it because of all the confetti stitches but once I get started, I really enjoy it!

Last page of Summer Ball!!!!!  I have actually been using this as my car project. The green is very easy to stitch at a stoplight.  I worked on the hair and picture this weekend.  I am so happy to be working on the last page of this design!!!!

How to Park Threads

I get several emails when I post pictures like this one asking, "How do you stitch this way??".  So I thought I would do a picture tutorial of how my mind works. I hope this helps a little.  The design I chose to show you is my Mystic Stitch - Augusta the 13th hole. As you can tell I like to stitch in a stair step process because it is easier for me to keep up with 10 x 10 grids.  Please feel free to email me if you have any questions.

As you may know, I am a math teacher so when I look at a cross stitch chart, I see a coordinate grid. I see 10 x 10 grids and that is how we start.  

1.  Start in the upper left hand corner 10 x 10 grid. The first symbol here is a square which is DMC 310.    

As you can see I am picking up in the upper left hand corner where there is already a thread hanging from a previous stitching round.  I use that thread and stitch every square symbol in the 10 x 10 grid.  

2. Carry that thread into the 10 x 10 grid below the one you just filled in, bring the thread up into the bottom left hole and drop the thread....as you can see in the picture below, I have a black thread started in the next grid.

3. find the next symbol and start the process over again.  If you see below my next symbol is an *.  This is color 3371 and I will stitch all the * in my current grid.  If you look at the picture above, you will see that I have a brown thread waiting for me to pick up and use to stitch.

As you can see below, I have filled in all the * symbols and now have to move on to the next symbol.  Which is a ).  I have a thread already there and will just fill it in.

If you need to see the grid for the ), here it is......

The process is continuing.  If you notice below, I have several threads in the bottom 10 x 10 grid, this is because I was at the bottom of the page and I carried over from the left 10 x 10 grid to the grid on the right beside it.  I hate wasting thread so that is why there is extra threads.

 Filled in 98% of my 10 x 10 grid...just have 2 more squares to go!!!

Here is the filled in chart in case you want to see it.

All filled in!!!!  I have stitched my 10 x 10 grid and can move on to the next one!!!!!!

I truly hope this helps some of you with understanding on how I stitch my BAP's.  You now have a small glimpse into my stitching mind!!!!