Book Review: Paranormal Romance

Me and My Shadow by Katie MacAlister


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Hey what can I say.... I LOVE IT!!!!! Started reading it at 6pm wed and finished at 4am thurs a 10 hour reading marathon... there were just so many good scenes in the book, but I gotta say Magoth "stole the show". The scenes in the woods getting whacked with May's tail and the nakid "butt cheek" leather pants/chaps... Oh and him and Drake's mom talking kinky sex toys... LOL

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Sad News of Needlework Note...

Today I read on her blog and on her YUKU message board that Teresa Wentzler is closing TW Designworks permanently. It wasn't that much of a surprise; as back in May 2005 she had decided to take a leave of absence from cross stitch designing and concentrate on traditional artwork design. It looks as if her artwork design side of the business hasn't been as profitable as she'd hoped either.

Like the others who posted their heartfelt thanks and condolences on both her blog & message board; I too am sadden to hear of the closing of TW Designworks. But not the end (I hope) of her designing all together. I too, along with the other members of the TWBB, was hoping for Illuminata as her one last needlework design project. Perhaps with the burden lifted off her shoulders of the business end of design, Illuminata may still be finished and for sale on "PatternsOnLine.Com". The world of needlecraft design is losing it's brightest star. In my view no one will ever come close to matching her rare talent.

It's hard to imagine that 13 years ago (1996) I stumbled across Camelot, English Cottage, and English Garden Samplers in the clearance isle at Michaels craft store. And the rest they say is STASH history. It was Teresa's detailed designs that got me stitching again and becoming part of the family known as the TWBB. Thank You.

Brightest Blessings to you Teresa and to what ever your future may hold.

Crossing my fingers and knock wood…

Today my OEM copy of Windows 7 came in the mail. I’ve been told by a techie friend of mine that because I’m going from Windows XP to 7 I'll be re-installing my system, probably from scratch… Goddess help me I hope not… but just incase, it might be a couple of weeks before I’m able to post here again…. Yea I’ve got that much stuff to re-install. So you’ll either see a stitch update from me by this weekend or not.

In the mean time…. Happy Samhain to all my Pagan friends and Happy Halloween to everyone else!!!!!

Stitchy Finish - Summer's End - and another French Mystery SAL

Summer's End, originally uploaded by Jan J..

Name: Summer's End
Type: Counted Cross Stitch
Finished Chart Size: 17" x 17" (43.18cm x 43.18cm) on 14ct. Fiddlers Cloth
Leaflet/Kit #: E-mail PDF Chart
Designer/Publisher: Pamela Kellogg, Kitty and Me Country Crafts / CraftSoft Inc. © 2004
Finished: October 23, 2009
Misc. Info. : A Stitch-Along Project in 4 parts. Created for Pam's bulletin board group, at http://pamkellogg.yuku.com/ Started September 2004. I plan to finish this as a pillow. The french knots on the butterfly and red berries have been replaced with Mill Hill glass seed beads - #00479 & frosted glass beads - # 62023.

For anyone who still drops in from time to time, I finally got around and finished a WiP, Summer's End by Pam Kellogg. Believe it or not I managed it in 5 years 1 month... LOL

I already have another to take it's place. A new free SAL is being offered by Annick Abril – La Gazette du Marquoir -“The Gazette Sampler" http://www.annickabrial.com/ Look under 'Mon Marquior' on the main page.

It's in 27 parts starting this October. It's a French site, so if you don't speak it you'll need to Google translate it. According to the information on her message board. The chart size is 411 wide x 430 high.

Because she uses her own hand dyed floss. The best I can do is go with DMC Color Variations floss (Art. 417) as the closest match.

While I'm looking for a new job, I thought working on my projects would keep me from getting depressed. And who knows I might get a few off the WiP list and onto the Finished list.

Book Review: Wicca, New Age, Inspirational

The Witches of Dixie by Laura Stamps


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The book in my opinion should have be named “A Witches’ View on Life” for the 4 separate but intertwining stores of the 4 witches by any other name is in fact the author. These stories are not totally fiction but in reality the interests and loves of the author, Laura Stamps. After reading her LiveJournal blog for so long and then finally getting around to reading her first book, which she recommended long ago (sorry it took so long – L.). It was as if I were reading yet another facet of her quite interesting life. This book is not so much an urban fantasy as it says on the back cover; but in my view more a collection of thoughts, and inspirational messages. I found several spells, chants, and rituals that I liked and plan to tweak them to my needs.

The only down side to the book is that the first two sections were written in 3rd person view point; and for some reason that grated on me and I had to push myself to read past that and finish the book.

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