An Olympic Update

Let's start with this:



JUST BRILLIANT! I was absolutely in tears, laughing as the 86 yo Bond Girl's chute opened over the stadium! And I just have to say, how lucky was the Queen to get to do a bit with Mr. Bond? YUM! And Corgis, too :) Also, so glad to see Prince Philip looking better, from being peaked at the Jubilee. The whole show was very well done; the boy & girl story was a bit cheesy, but the music more than made up for that, and I WILL be getting the soundtrack, since, essentially, that is the soundtrack to my life to date :) Zeppelin & Prodigy - great mix! I have to mention that I was also teared up at Danny Boy, and then God Save the Queen; wasn't aware those pieces had any particular pull on me, unless maybe it was the kids' singing that made a difference? Hmmm....

I was a little sad to see Sir Paul looking a tad melted - he needs to let his hair go natural, and be age-appropriate, so it doesn't draw so much attention to the southern reaches of his chin. And while I do love Hey, Jude, wow, enough with the NaNaNaNaNa bit - it's the Opening Ceremonies, not a concert. Anyway, good show, London - and the cauldron is AMAZING!


The week's stitching wasn't entirely Olympian, though I DID finish Part 1 of the L*K Very Scary Mystery - since Part 2 is being shipped from Norden to shops NOW, I figured I'd better get it done :) Again, I won't post the photo here in the main blurb, but you can see it here. I will think about doing the bonus piece this week, time permitting.


I also started Bone Cheeks on Wednesday; we had a network outage at work, and once I did the 10 minutes of offline work that I had, and cleaned my office, and played BeSpelled on my phone, etc., I broke out A New Project and put the first stitches into it. I then worked on it again Saturday at the July PINS get together, as the light just wasn't right for Very Scary (at least, not for the Loden on that Tin Roof fabric). Here he is so far:


And then, for the rest of the week, I worked on Iris Fairy, doing her hair & face - I really hate having faceless people looking at me, but I literally got to this part last night, so I WILL put her eyeball & mouth on TODAY. I tell you, those two colors for her hair (927 & 928) - hard to see on that fabric, especially when peeking around the thing every few minutes to see the TV screen :)


In other news, my JJs order from the 4th of July sale arrived, finally - I knew it would get held up by at least one of the fabrics I ordered, and turns out, it was COMPLETELY worth the wait for the 36ct Eek! from PTP, for Bat Banner - I couldn't have had something better dyed special if I'd tried - check this out:


And then here's the rest, the 3 Prairie Schooler charts I ordered, along with a mini freebie, the fabric to go with, along with the Bat Banner fabric:


DH had to go in to do month-end payroll Saturday morning, so I begged him to go do a floss run for me; he actually DID, if you can believe that! He did say, though, that he would never wear his Chelsea shirt into Hobby Lobby again...? So now I have 4 MORE projects all ready to go :) Halloween Rules is going to get realllyyyy mad at me :) It can stand in line behind Deep Blue Sea & Hummingbird, I guess.


This week, I will finish up Iris's face and then put her up again. I am planning to go to IHOP tomorrow - I will go vote on my way in to work - where I will either work on the L*K Bonus or Bone Cheeks - or both. Then, assuming I have Iris done tonight, or Wednesday, if I don't get all of the Kreinik in tonight, I will get Lady & Unicorn out, and work on her for the next little while. IF I can just chew through the confetti at the left-hand side of the new page, I do come to a relatively easy section - may not get there this go, though, we'll just have to see how it goes. The schedule's all screwed up this week with band camp, starting at 7:30 a.m. and ending at 9:00 at night, so we'll be eating late (yuck - I hate eating after 9), and then the mad dash to get school stuff ready this weekend for the first day on the 10th. I also need to decide on fair or no fair; DH and I were talking last night about really needing a long weekend at the beach in September, since it's been 5+ years since we took an actual vacation. Let's just say I need some sand & sea a lot more than I need the hassle of driving 80 miles three times for some possible recognition amongst the little ol' church lady crowd :) Guess I'd better decide...


Until next week, Happy Stitching, and GO USA!!

Another Monday Update

Hmmm, I appear to be all out of clever today, so boring title it is... I think it's due to the sun finally making an extended appearance after 14 days in a row with storms, some of them pretty bad in areas. Not that I am complaining, because after several years of drought, the rain is always welcome, as so many other parts of the country are finding out this year. But the storm that came through Saturday did knock out the internet for the better part of the day - not that big a deal to me, since I was busy, but I do so hate 15yos whinging because they can't play their games - especially as band camp evenings start this week, before full-on camp next week (14-hour days), then school starts on the 10th, at which time his computer gets moth balled... Going to be a busy couple of weeks....



SPOILER ALERT! IF you want to see the Lizzie * Kate Very Scary Mystery SAL, I have put up my start & progress photos here. If you don't want to see them, then don't look! At any rate, I did get some progress on Part 1, over lunch, a conference call, and then more than pictured last night (I got the owl done last night!). So far, it's really fun, and I love the colors so far - and am amazed that I can see the 35ct in my office. I didn't go to IHOP on Tuesday, so don't know yet if I can see it there, but I will test it this week.

Maybe the last skink in the area, though you can tell Beanie has gotten a hold of him at least once; the end of his tail is new. Damn cat, leave my lizards alone!

I did finally finish all of the Tuscany beads on parts 2 & 3; I was HIGHLY over-confidant of my beading abilities last week when I said I'd have 'em done Monday night. Ummm, yeah, I had 1/4 of it done Monday night - and it took one night each to done the other 3/4! Holy moley, it wasn't even that many beads, it was just going from the solid part in the outer corner, to the scattered ones in the lazy daisies and along the edge of Part 3 that seemed to take the time. Meh, whatever - at any rate, parts 2 & 3 are DONE, and with the beads in the daisies, I think they might now actually STAY where I put 'em, the damn things. For the record, I'd do French knots (or knots of any nationality) over lazy daisies, any day. Which will KILL ME if TW gets Illuminata done & released :) ANYWAY, here's Tuscany in all it's beaded glory:



And a wonky bead shot:



Speaking of Glory, it's DONE! Since I put Tuscany away late on Friday, I wanted to get Iris Fairy out, but just never managed to do it, since Glory was arguing with Very Scary about who needed to be worked on more (you shoulda heard them, screaming in the travel bag; silly projects, they are so cheeky). And not 2 minutes after getting DH to realize that yes, I was ironing it because it was done, he again laid claim to it: "That's mine, right? We gotta get that framed." Yeah, it's on the list... LOVE the colors I used (in case I hadn't already mentioned that 12-30 times):


And so, the week ended with no Iris Fairy progress. Chat Noir was actually starting to whine a little bit, too, and though Bone Cheeks is waiting slightly impatiently in the travel bag, after having been line-jumped by Glory, Spooky Row seems to have made it's way into the bag, too, so who knows what will get worked on tomorrow at IHOP? So what to do tonight? I still want to work on Iris, maybe for just a few days before Lady & Unicorn comes out - the calm before the storm, so to speak :) Give me something easy before I pick up the red beast again? Yeah, we'll see. Heck, I might get home tonight with something else entirely planned. We'll see what's screaming loudest when I get there. Until next week, Happy Stitching, everyone!

Incense & Peppermints - Another Monday Update

SO I went to bad with this song stuck in my head, woke up with it still this morning, and despite Seether at brain shattering decibels this morning, between songs, it was still playing on loop in my head. Not a bad earworm, for sure, one of my favorite songs from the era, but wow, is it persistent! The video linked is not much to look at - but it sounds good :) Enjoy!



In local weather news, it rained here, all last week. Fortunately, we did NOT get the deluge that parts of Texas got - 12-13" in and around the Houston area? YIKES! But we needed it, and it was welcome, and fortunately, the barometer head wasn't too bad, since it kind of stayed in the same spot for several days, though I could tell when the afternoon storms were getting ready to let loose :( Better than the 100+ days though, though between the heat and the moisture, we have a prickly pear who seems to love living in captivity - it's got two new paddles coming off of it since we dug it up and stuck it in a pot:



In stash news, my L*K Very Scary Mystery kit came in from Laurel's, along with the JCS Halloween book - I have started the Mystery, but I won't post any pictures yet, so I don't blow the surprise for anyone. I WILL post the picture of the kit - in this picture, the floss is sitting on the 35ct Tin Roof linen for the main sampler, and then the lilac piece top left is 30ct, for the bonus designs that comes with Part 1 :)



Also - the new Ink Circles Mandala is AWESOME!!! Will have to get a piece of the PTP Monster Mash for it, but I'll have to remember to get 28ct to match the purple I did Spirited Mandala on :) My 4th of July order from JJs is awaiting fabric, of course - the 36ct Eek! from PTP that I ordered for the AAN Bat Banner. They must have had the 32ct Lambswool needed for the 3 Prairie Schooler Halloween pieces I ordered. They hope to have their PTP order this week, so maybe next week, my Halloween Stash 2 will show up - and then I think I am stashed out for a while....


So when I wasn't working on the Mystery (which I started Friday at lunch, and worked on Friday & a little on Saturday), I was making decent progress on BC Glory - I worked on it Tuesday night and then again on Wednesday, I think - too tired/barometer-heady to deal with Tuscany. I am well over half-way, having the alphabet caught up to where I've stitched, and the sections of satin stitch in the red. I LOVE these two colors of Victorian Motto Shoppe floss with the DMC Variation, though I did wonder why they had it charted for the big letters to be black, and the bs letters to be dark brown? Umm, all of my letters will be black.



And then I did get parts 2 & 3 of Tuscany completely stitched. I will put the beads on tonight, I think I can get them all done, if everyone will maintain tonight. We shall see... Here's the stitching done:



My very loose plan for this week is: get the beads on Tuscany, then put it away. Part 4 is pretty big, so I want to start fresh on that the next time I have it out. I want to pull Lady & Unicorn out, but I may wait until later in the week, and maybe work on Iris Fairy for a day or two, and wait to see if I have any functioning brain cells later this week :) I will probably go to the Tuesday night stitch, and I NEED to work on Glory and get it done soon, but I will have the L*K with me, too, though I don't know if I can see the 35ct in the dim light we have there, even with my Mighty Bright. So who knows? I also have another From Nancy's Needle ready to go - one of the Stars that I have, can't remember now which one I pulled out. But the canvas is on the bars, and it's ready to go. Not that I NEED to start it, it's just an option :)

(one of the many peppers we've gotten of the Cajun bell - small but potent!)

Check back next week to see how those plans worked out :) Happy Stitching everyone!

A Slightly Cooler Update

It's 10 degrees cooler than last week, but still a bit much - but we are supposed to be in the 80s in a couple of days, with hopefully some storms popping up and dumping some rain. We'll see - could definitely use a day or two of solid wet.


The 4th was quiet - we did burgers on the grill, had a mountain of potato salad, etc. Didn't go see fireworks anywhere, and had the 50-pound chicken-dog trying to bury herself in the floor at the end of the hall (her bomb shelter) as everyone in the area blew stuff up. On Thursday, I got my 4 frames done, though I have to complete 2 when I get glass/replace glass in them (one had none, the other had plain that I want to replace with UV). You can see them starting here - 4 down, 30 to go (give or take).


On Tuesday night at the IHOP and on Wednesday afternoon, I worked on my Bent Creek Glory; since I did my own conversion for the threads from stash, I couldn't find a good variegated sub for the white stripe (forget what it called for - GAST or WW, probably), so was going to use the plain no-frills DMC 3033 for it. THEN, when I was rooting around looking at my DMC Variations stash, I finally found the color I had been looking for, 4150, that HL didn't have anymore - PERFECT choice! So I got the blue done, filled in the stars and did about 1/2 of the white stripe, and started a bit of the red. DH has claimed this for his when it's done (I assume that means he'll chip in on the frame):


I worked on Tuscany the rest of the week - I meant to take a couple of good pictures of the new prototype frame, but completely forgot. It works as well as expected; like any scroll frame, I lose the tension on the sides, so I do need to get a set of the clip-things to fix that. But the ability to attach the top & bottom just like a QSnap and then scroll it up & down - exactly what I needed to do! So of course, I then started this week's progress on Tuscany by beading the middle :) And then I started on the remaining half of parts 2 & 3, though have, so far, mainly touched part 3 (the weekend marathon of Walking Dead helped - that's a LOT of blue). I expect to get these two parts done this week, with beads :) Here's the overall:



And then the beaded middle:



This week, I will work on Glory at IHOP Tuesday night, and continue on Tuscany. I am awaiting my new stash, namely the Lizzie * Kate Mystery sampler, which may see stitches this week; we'll see, depending on how big the 1st part is, if I can keep up with it or not (since I WAS going to just throw it in the drawer for later. No, really, I WAS). 3 parts, I ought to be able to handle that. And leave the bonuses for later :) Uh-huh... If/when I get parts 2 & 3 of Tuscany done, I'll have to decide if I move on to Part 4, or get Lady & Unicorn out for a few more weeks. I also stretched the canvas for FNN Desert Star one day last week, so aside from still needing 1 more card of a RG thread, it's ready to go, too :) So check back next week to see what actually goes on - it's anyone's guess at this point!



Happy Stitching!

(No, I have NO IDEA what they are all waiting for)

It's a Scorcher - an Update

You might've heard - it's been HOT. Yeah, I know, it's summer. But, it's been HOT. All weekend, around 106 :( And air so thick you could cut it :( :( Code RED smog - yay! Fortunately, the power was working fine at the movie theater on Saturday, so we finally went to see Prometheus - good flick! And I might have DH talked into going to see Abe Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, too, next weekend :)

(melted straws!)

In stitching news (since it's too damn hot to have any other kind, really), I have a FINISH!!! Rainforest Crunch got done Tuesday night! I had 1 color to go in the last block when I left IHOP Tuesday night - and I finished that while watching Deadliest Catch!



I think I have the frame picked out already - bronze metallic with an earthen mat; we'll see if I can get it ordered, and arrived, CORRECT, in time to be a fair entry this year :)


I also managed to finish Part 4 of Secret Victorian Garden - not sure why the one corner took so long last week, when I did the remaining 3 in less time. Whatever. It's now done, beads included:



I did work on Glory for a bit last night, after putting SVG away - but as I will be working on it more on Tuesday night, and possibly Wednesday, in recognition of the 4th of July holiday, I didn't take a picture. I have about 30 stitches left of the blue :) Then I will fill in the stars and do the light (not white) stripe, before doing the red - mainly so I don't have red transfer on the light (3033? I think that's what I got) thread....



So this week, when not working on Glory, I will get Tuscany out again - and will take better pictures of the new scroll frame with fabric that's actually cut to size :) As I have Thursday & Friday off after the holiday, I also have framing to do - I have a t-shirt to mount into a box for a neighbor (which I've never done, but hey, how hard can it be?), and 4 things to get into the frames I bought at Michael's a few weeks back - Spirited Mandala, Tanglewood, Iris, and my last RR piece, RM Live Each Season. And hopefully, no more melting, not before August, anyway. Sure would be nice if we had fall again this year - that was awesome last year :)



I also got suckered into the Lizzie * Kate Mystery SAL (okay, Donna didn't really have to twist my arm very hard, once I saw that Laurel's Stitchery WAS allowing you to order JUST the charts, or fabric, or floss - you don't have to get the WHOLE KIT - which is my preference). I also took advantage of the 4th of July sale at JJs, and have 3 Prairie Schooler Halloween pieces ordered :) because you know me & Halloween :) I'll be sure to show you a pic of those when they get here - though, since I ordered fabric, it'll probably be a WHILE - good thing I have plenty to keep me busy, huh???



Stay cool and Happy Stitching!