The End of April - an Update

Well, this year's flying by, just like last year did :( Can't believe tomorrow will be May already! My kid has 3 weeks of school left (or less). Then I will have unlimited free child labor again :) Well, I guess it's not really free, what with the WoW account and the lame internet that we pay too much for to power WoW. But 2 1/2 months of not doing laundry or unloading the dishwasher - totally worth it :)



Last Thursday, we had the Spring Band Concert; can't believe that's the last for that, too, though I do finally get to hear the Kid play steel drums at the last BPA meeting next week. You can see more photos and videos of various performances on the FBHS Marching Band FB page.



On to the stitching bits - a finish, and sampler/HDF month continue....



At Tuesday's night's stitching at IHOP, I made some good progress on Guilder. I also worked on that Saturday, at the April PINS (which, as always, was a great afternoon, and over way too soon). I was to having it done when we wrapped up at Loretta's, so I finished it Saturday after dinner:



During the week, when I wasn't at IHOP or at a band concert, I kept on with Quaker Halloween, wanting to get those two motifs finished, which I did:



This really is a fun piece, if I didn't have other things hollering at me, I could do another page :)



When I finished that last motif on QH, I put it away, and on Sunday, I finally got Samplar 4 Saisons back out, and started in on the tree. Which doesn't look like a lot, but as there are also a group of leaves that I had to go add, I feel like I did a lot more than you might be able to see...



This week, I will continue with 4 Saisons, try to make a decent dent in that tree before putting it up. For the rest of April, I think I will work on some of the other pieces I have that don't get much attention - Celtic Banner, Noah's Sub, Romeo. Then June, I think back to the two Chatelaines, in a desperate effort to NOT start Deep Blue Sea or desert or Hummingbird. Maybe if World Tree and EGS come home soon, the guilt of having all these big projects going will prevent me from starting 3 more :) Or maybe not! Me & best laid plans = not always the expected result...


On that note, Happy Stitching to everyone!

The Fun Never Stops - an Update

Yep - it's Monday. Again. Ho-hum. And it's a chilly one, too, with wind from the north :( But maybe the wind will blow the last of the pollen out of here, so we can get past sinus season....



So on to the good stuff :)

(you'll notice his nose is YELLOW? That's what happens to nosy dogs who want to inspect the stitching - they get COLORED ON)

I worked on both Guilder & Rainforest Crunch a bit through the week. At Tuesday night's stitch in, I worked on Rainforest, though I have to say, the two blocks I worked on wanted to fight me the whole way. Not sure if it was a case of barometer head again, or just a comprehension issue; either way, I got the two blocks DONE, and only have 1 left on the top right corner:



And then Guilder saw a little action during a conference call that only requires me to listen along. Not much, but any little bit helps:



And then, my main focus of the week was again, A Quaker Halloween. I now have 2 1/2 motifs more completed:



Also this week, my fabric arrived for Chat Deep Blue Sea - which is slowly inching up the Must Start list :) This is a piece of Surf, a hair darker than the usual, from Sunny Dyes Fabric, on 28ct jobelan - here is a preliminary floss toss (still missing a few silks and most of the metallics - and more pearls coming for the oysters in Part 4 :) ):


This week, I will keep Halloween Quaker out long enough to finish both of these motifs that are started, and then I will put it away and get out Samplar 4 Saisons (as the month of HDF continues). I am planning to go to stitch night tomorrow, and maybe get a bigger chunk of Rainforest done, or more of Guilder; who knows? We also have PINS this coming Saturday - I can't wait! Happy stitching this week to everyone!

WTH? Another Monday Update

So, let's start off a Monday with smoke; yep, blew out another hair dryer :( THIS time, the cord decided to give up the ghost - too much twisting all these years I've had it, finally shorted it out. Oh, well, time for a new one, I guess. And then it was an even worse than usual retardapalooza out on the interstate - it's landscape tuck season again, and you know they are always in the fast lane. And apparently the woman in the Hyundai was so late, she didn't have time to turn her lights on OR use her blinkers. At least I didn't see anyone putting makeup on in the car this morning, though I did see someone reading AND eating. I guess EVERYONE is back from spring break now...



So anyway, now that I'm safe in my little brick-enclosed cave for the next 9 hours, I can get on with the important stuff :)



First, the latest on Mary Wigham - I almost have Page 3 completed :) I am actually looking forward to the next time I have this out, as the next big motif on the right side is going to be in BeRedded! Here is where it stands as of Saturday afternoon (needle pack there for scale):



Tuesday night, I thought I would finish my IC Florin, and I got very close, before the old barometer head decided to intervene. So I finished it up as soon as I got home on Wednesday :) And then, spent a few minutes during lunch on Thursday to start Guilder right below it:



And lastly, but certainly not least - the much-neglected A Quaker Halloween made an appearance, when I put Mary away on Saturday :) Still not a big fan of HDF single strand floss, regular or premium - but I do enjoy this design, and it's MUCH easier to work on the 40ct with my glasses (which might be why I didn't get any further on it than I did when I put it up way back whenever). I do wish this chart was a hair smaller, just so there'd be less pages/motifs spread over multiple pages - I know I'm in the minority there :)



And that is it for last week's accomplishments. This week, I will keep on with Halloween Quaker - don't know if I'll go across or down, or both :) I am also planning to go to stitch night tomorrow, so will likely work on Guilder (or Rainforest - whichever one is screaming the loudest). It would seem that this is turning into not just Sampler month, but HDF month, as well, since Mary, Halloween, and Samplar 4 Saisons, when it makes an appearance later this month, are all kitted in HDF :) AND since Vikki will be in Atlanta this weekend, for a yarn show, so no stitching goodies with her :(, I guess that's appropriate. I may run over Saturday to meet her - depends on what else is going on.



Well, I guess that's it. Just as a side note, I have taken over 1100 photos with the new Canon :)

Sugar Rush - an Update

Yep, it's that time of year again - chocolate as far as the eye can see. Though I don't really eat much of it myself, and the Big Kid doesn't that much, either. We did find Easter Smarties, though - those are one of my favorites :) The boys won't touch jelly beans, either, so none of those, except the Nerds ones that I will probably liberate around Wednesday :)



We had family down with us this past week, and it was a good time, though a certain grumpy dog I know might beg to differ - Grandma was in her chair (her command post) the whole time, so we had wandering dogs pouting, unless we were eating. The boys were at the lake with their Aunt P, and both are FRIED - I heard the water wasn't too bad once you got used to it, but I am just not going swimming in a lake in April, so I'll just take their word for it.



As for this week's stitching, there wasn't a lot, being busy visiting and everything. But I did finally get over the frog hump on Mary Wigham and mover her a bit along. The frogging took one night, and then putting back in what I took out - and then realizing how big that particular motif was, I'm glad I stopped where I did last fall! Here is the overall:



And here is the area I worked - that circular green & purple motif is the one I had to change colors on (the purple works MUCH better). There are initials in the middle of it, but you can't see them very well, they are that great BeLaced color that I have another motif done in that DOES show up :)



Saturday, in between running around and not having slept well the night before (thanks to whiney dogs), I was too tired to work on MW, so I got Rainforest Crunch out, and got 3 more blocks done on it :) LOVE these colors - I will be sad to see this thing done, especially knowing that if I sat down to work on it, I could have it done THIS WEEK - but I want it to last. Here's the top row, left half:



This week, I will keep Mary out for a bit longer, but I do want to get Halloween Quaker out somewhere along the way. I plan to go to stitch night tomorrow, and will probably finish up Florin (and start Guilder? Maybe :) ) - unless Rainforest calls to me. We are also expecting a cool down this week - only in the 60s on Wednesday or Thursday - I'll freeze after all the heat we've had! On that note, Happy Stitching this week to everyone!

April Already? An Update

(I apologize - these photos USED to be clickable for the large original on my Multiply blog, where all of my photos are housed, but for some reason they don't do that now - I don't know if it is a Blogger issue or a Multiply issue. But you CAN find all of these on my Multiply, if you want to see anything BIGGER! Just another case of the HTML out to get me....)

Well, those 3 months just blew past... Of course, I've been busy, so it stands to reason, I guess. The 15yo is happy - he's on Spring Break this week, which means he's that much closer to summer break - and I'm that much closer to not having to get him up!! I think the worst of the pollen is behind us, too, even though it is normally just getting bad right now. Can't put the Claritin away yet, but almost...



On to the week's stitching. On Thursday, I finally, FINALLY, finished page 6 of L&U!!!!! I can't believe it took me 3 weeks and more to put in roughly 2700 stitches! At the rate I'm going, 1 page a year, makes this a multi-decade project :( But it seems that working on it for a few weeks in row, while not necessarily a good thing for my fingers, is the only way to work on it - it takes me so long to warm up to and get a pace for it, that when I had the timed rotation, I was putting it away just when I was getting in the rhythm. That obviously won't work. SO now I know. Here is page 6 done:



And then I unscrolled it to get a shot of the whole thing to date:



And yes, I put it away right after that :)



On Tuesday night at the IHOP, I got some more stitches in on IC Florin - I only have 1 color left to go on it, I think:



I don't think I'll be going to the IHOP this week, as I expect the family to be here before I get home from work tomorrow.



And then, since I finished with L&U on Thursday, I decided to work on Growth Rings over the weekend, do a little beading in celebration :) Though I didn't touch a needle on Saturday - doing some cleaning, took 150 pictures, vegged on the couch, mostly :) But I got a few hours in on it:



This week, I will pull out Mary Wigham; I've decided to work on just samplers for the month of April, since I have some (all) that have been neglected - MW, Samplar 4 Saisons, Halloween Quaker. I'll see if I can make a dent in any of those. Not sure how much stitching I will actually get in this week, with family here; since I am working all week (was going to take Friday off, but since I missed last Thursday thanks to a dead car battery, dammit), I won't have time to visit a whole lot, though we all know Grandma is coming to see the grand kids - 2-legged & 4-legged :) Of course, that chocolate-laden rabbit will be here this weekend, so the whole place will be a on sugar high Sunday & Monday (if we can keep Grandma from eating all of it :) ).



Happy Stitching this week to everyone!