And.... It's Done!

Yes, it's done. After 3 1/2 years, Knotgarden is DONE! Though there must have been a year in there it didn't get worked on because it sure felt like only 2 1/2 years from start to finish :( Without further ado, here's the whole thing:


And then here are a couple of shots of the beads - which of course do not photograph nearly as nicely as they actually appear:



Good thing this was a holiday weekend, because it literally took every minute I had to get it done, though I did ALL of the remaining beading Sunday afternoon & evening. Of course, if I hadn't had all of the Christmas decorations to put out, and running around Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I would have been done sooner, but I guess these other things have to get done, too...

And yes, that is all I worked on for the week, so poor Yellow Santa did not even peek out of his bag, let alone get a stitch in. We'll see what happens on him this week. I WILL put time in on Anne's London, finally - it's been waiting not-so-patiently on the dining room table for WEEKS now. And then, my remaining goals for the year are to finish the Birds of a Feather SAL, and Tree of Stitches, which ought to be doable, assuming Christmas Crazies don't interfere too much :) Or this big pile of beads, some of which are for a far-distant Chatelaine, and others for some jewelry:



Now, if you've been following along, you might have seen me post a few new albums to the Multiply pages, like one for Tuscany Town, and Growth Rings. So you might gather from that that I'll have some new starts coming up. You'll just have to check back after the new year to see, but I can safely say that finishing TWO Chatelaines in one year - which either equals or tops finishing two TWs in one year - deserves a bit of startitis, IMO :)

Happy Stitching this week to everyone!!

Turkey Week - an Update

So just to start off, get the whining out of the way - last week SUCKED. Tuesday night as I was coming home from the IHOP, my car acted funny for a second; but I couldn't tell if it was the engine, or me losing traction, because it had just finished dumping rain, and I was too busy looking at the road to spare a second to look at the tach to see if it was spinning up because I had no traction. SO anyway, DH was out cold when I walked in the door - he'd been to the doc for the pulled muscle in his back, muscle relaxer was doing it's thing - so I let it go, chalking it up to the water on the road. But by the time I got 1 mile down the road the next morning, though still wet out, I KNEW it was something with the engine, misfiring like it does when a certain vacuum hose goes bad, which we'd just replaced again a month or so ago. So back home I go, and call DH, who really doesn't have time to deal with it, having been out for 2 days with his back.

As he's on his way home, he calls to tell me HIS Check Engine light is now on, and he can't go over 30mph - on the interstate. WTF???? TWO cars - on the SAME DAY? I know I have some bad karma following me around from somewhere, but this is just ridiculous. So to sum up a very long story, my car now has new plugs, coil packs, and one of the coil pack "brains" is new, too - I am going to knock on wood and say nothing else about it... DH's car is still down, because no one can tell us what kind of transmission is in it - including the yutz's we bought it from - so we don't know which kind of speed sensor goes in it; it's either the $20 pop-in/pop-out one, or it's the $280 one you have to drop the pans to get to; one dealer told the Chevy guy across the street that it doesn't have one at all! Nothing like ambiguous engineering...




Add to this some really unpleasant family news concerning events from this past May that came on Thursday, which, while not unexpected nor much of a surprise, still, when it's in your face, it's just enough to get your blood boiling, you know? So last week sucked, and I'm seriously hoping this other car thing gets resolved without too much financial hemorrhaging - at the rate we're going with cars & dogs, Christmas ain't happening this year... Which is all my fault because I finally ordered the beads I've been trying to save up for for months, so I can do IC Growth Rings finally. Just like the last time we went on vacation, the week we mailed the payment to the condo owner, the fridge blew up. I didn't think $60 worth of beads would tip the cosmic scale so much - but I guess I was wrong... When the only working car is the 20 year old toy with 185K on it, you know you've pissed off somebody...



So anyway, BEFORE things went to hell last week, I worked on my yellow Santa at Tuesday night's stitch in, and now have a teddy bear and a bag, as well as one mitten:



I have also, in between holding lights and staring blankly at torn apart engines, have turned the last corner into the homestretch on Knotgarden. And if I can keep the last-minute frogs away, I am SO CLOSE!!! And I was right, doing that 4th corner was a nice break from topiary pots & black gates, so I'm hoping this last little bit will go quickly! Here is last week's:



And now this week's:



And surprise, as I was finishing the last of the silks, the woven Scotch stitch bottom center, gee, what do I find but one of Martina's lovely chart errors. So I had to take it out (easy enough - just irritating), and move it all left one stitch, and start again. If I could see any of the other 3 sides, I'd have seen it right away, but as they are all wadded up under the clamps, I had to rely on the CHART. Silly me. I do have to say that she's consistent - as old as this chart is (2001 according to the chartpack), she's still making the same simple mistakes and not correcting them from then until now...

So this week, being a short work week and a long weekend, I hope to make great progress on Knotgarden. Thursday will be a stitching day, ONCE I get the massive meal done, and Friday, it's time to get all the Christmas stuff out and up - so I can spend the next month trying to keep the dumb dog's tail under control around it. I missed the November PINS meeting this weekend, due to being the third hand/light holder while working on the Zoom Zoom again, so I didn't get the stress relief I needed. Hopefully I can make up for that this weekend by not leaving the house. I won't be doing any shopping until the car thing is done, with whatever, if any, is left of my Christmas funds. And I don't know about you, but I think I am ready to be done with 2011...

Did you know that Dammit I'm Mad is Dammit I'm Mad when written backwards? Awesome, huh???

On that note, Happy Stitching this week to everyone!! And yes, sometimes stitching really IS the only thing that keeps me going...

Another Year, Another Update

Another year older, as of yesterday. Meh, whatever :) It's not a speed limit year, so no big deal, nice and quiet. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes! I also got a couple of goodies from friends - Chris in Indiana sent me a card with a piece of purple fabric from Faery Fire Fabrics (she's used their fabric for one of her recent Joan Elliott masterpieces) - which is so pretty, I've e-mailed Rose to see if she'd dye me a custom piece of jobelan for Sparkly Hummingbird Garden, since she has JOBELAN, my favorite, AND she'll do a custom 28x28 piece for me! I also received a surprise box on the front porch Saturday, from Amazon. In it were the Magical XS book and a very cool David Garrett CD, both from Mel! Thank you so much, Mel - and the 18 yo even gave the DG CD his stamp of approval, despite it having a GnR song on it (because November Rain is one of my favorites) :)

Thank you, my friends!

On to the stitching...

I did a little bit of work on the Yellow Santa - I did get his face on him during lunch on Monday, and did the tree and started the teddy bear between Tuesday night at IHOP and one other lunch during the week. It's really helping doing the same design the 2nd time by having it in other colors, and doing it in a different order - I started with the tree on the red one.

And look - I am tackling that 4th Giant Green Corner on Knotgarden and thinking it's going to be done soon :) I forgot about the little egg part - I started that while watching DWTS on Monday, and then, Wednesday, moved over to the left-hand border to further the Rhodes stitches and the Scotch Stitch there in the center under the gate. Then I started the first of 6-7 different greens:

SO I feel pretty confidant that that will be done this week, and then I'll flip it over to work on the 4th outer edge. I can smell a finish coming - but if I go getting cocky about it, it'll be completely frog-ridden - so I might need to sneak up on the finish, surprise it into completed :)

And that's the update for the week, and the plan for this week. Though I have to say that Anne's London is getting louder & louder from the bag on the table - I really want to get it out and put soem stitches into it, but I want Knotgarden done MORE, so... And you know how I said I wasn't kitting up Hummingbird anytime soon? Well, I have all but 1 DMC, already bobbined up and in a box, and I have half the beads on order. Because I am a compulsive kitter :) Though I don't consider that a problem, so long as the checkbook holds out :)

Happy Stitching this week to everyone!

Veteran's Day 2011

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."
- John F. Kennedy

"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."
- Elmer Davis

"Freedom is never free." - Author Unknown

"The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war." -Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

Thank you to all who have or are serving.

No More Artificial Time - an Update

Ahhh, the time change! I know I am in the minority, but I do love getting my hour back in the fall! When getting up at 6:15 is really getting up at 6:15! Being a night owl, I could care less about it being dark not long after I'm on the way home from work; my car comes equipped with lights, and I'm not afraid to use them! I'll even use them *gasp* when it's RAINING! Wow, what a concept, right?



In stitching news, I finally got my %$#& replacement threads for Birds of a Feather; so far, my prediction that the original ones would show up immediately upon receipt of the new ones has not proven out :) So maybe they really did disappear. At any rate, Part 2 is now officially DONE (the key goes to Part 3, so while I was behind, I was also ahead - because I'm awesome like that!). I think once I get the hill the house sits on done, the rest will go quick - it's just getting past that last little tree that's going to drive me over the edge (I knew doing this & Tanglewood at the same time was tempting fate):



I also started the Yellow Santa, to go with the Red one that I finished last week. Between the Tuesday night at the IHOP and a few lunches, I got a good start on him. This one is on 18ct - the red one was on 14. I'll scale the embellishments back a bit, too. I need to go to my various fabric stores to find the perfect fabric for backing these when I get the set done. Might have to get a few pieces until I find the ONE :)

(yes, I am breaking my own cardinal rule about having a FACELESS HEAD - hopefully today at lunch will fix that, before I give myself the willies)

And lastly, guess who finished side 3 of Knotgarden??? Yes, yes I did!!! I am actually kind of looking forward to the Giant Green Corner #4 - only because it ISN'T a black gate, and because I get to use the pretty Silk 'n Colors for the Rhodes again :) Is that a light I see, there at the end of that very long tunnel??? I think maybe it is....



Secret Victorian Garden and Tuscany are really screaming at me to get this done. And if I get BoaF done, and maybe Tree of Stitches, as well, by year-end, or by mid-January, let's say, I might just start BOTH of them in January. Which will make Desert pout, but considering I just bought Sparkly Hummingbird Garden for my birthday, well, Desert ought to feel pretty confidant that it'll be started first - it'll take me a while to kit up SHG, with all that PTB and BEADS! Ewwwww, sparkly!

(and no, I will NOT be doing mine on black - I'm thinking something purple-y, like Lissane's)

I don't know about your house, but around here, people are already harassing me about Thanksgiving; apparently I've starved them all since last Christmas, and they've been waiting these 11 months for another full meal. I'm just looking forward to a couple of extra days off :) And NOT looking forward to the shopping that I KNOW I have to do (though Amazon might as well just reserve a delivery guy for me :) ) This has been a really nice fall this year, and did I mention that I love the time change???



Happy stitching this week to everyone!

Halloween - an Update

I wish the kids were still little on days like today; everyone rushing home, trying to get some food into them before it's time to put on the costumes they've been told to put up a million times since they were bought (my kids would not even hear about Mom's ideas for home-made ones, they had to have store-bought, non-dorky ones. What's wrong with being a Lego???), getting them ready to go, so when the magic hour arrives, off we go trick or treating. Now, I get to take the 14 yo to one of his friends, and leave them to their own devices for a few hours, with the caveat that if he is calling from jail, he has to call his dad. Ahhh, good times... I should have bought a bag of Butterfingers though.



They decided to do the pumpkin contest at work again this year - which they decided to tell us on FRIDAY. Ummm, people, genius sometimes takes a few days to percolate, so a WEEK might have been a bit more helpful. So I guess I will let someone else have a go this year, since I am the undisputed Pumpkin Master up until they stopped doing it 2-3 years ago. I still wish I could find a picture of my Pinhead pumpkin - it really was the coolest ever. But since I can't find that, here's a couple others I've done in the past:

The Alien (painted blue/green/grey, with hard-boiled eggs inset, painted metallic black)



Cinderella's Carriage (in a fish tank w/4 white mice that were the horses before the clock struck 12)



And since it's Halloween, I of course had a finish - on a CHRISTMAS piece - this weekend :) The first of the 3 Santas is done, except for a couple of other embellishments that will get attached after it gets finish-finished into a stuffed stand-up. But I want to try my best to get the other 2 done (a yellow one, on 18ct, and then a blue one on 22ct) and finish them all together - so knowing my speed & luck, they'll be done in January :) Kinda like a couple of Christmas things from last year, huh?

 

(you can see details of the embellishments I added, starting here.)

I also worked on Knotgarden this week, and have the 3rd gate almost done; might be able to finish it up tonight and move on to the 3 topiary plants Wednesday night. The question is - can I get this done by the end of the year? I really hope so. It just depends on how long it takes me to get through this 4th corner, though after all these gates, it ought to be a nice switch :)



And that's it for the week. During lunch and tomorrow at the Tuesday night at the IHOP, I will start my 2nd Santa, and then keep on on Knotgarden until I just can't stand the green for another minute. I am waiting for Cecilia's to invoice me for my Online Needlework Show order (IC Metamorphosis), which also contains the replacement threads for BoaF - so until that actually gets here, I don't have that to switch off to (though I could do that left-hand tree, I guess). That's the plan - we'll see how it works out.


Happy Halloween, everyone, and Happy Stitching!

 
(as much as I love the original J. Carpenter Halloween, Rob Zombie's re-make is actually pretty awesome - if you go in for gratuitous arterial spray and that kind of thing - which of course, being a Tarantino fan, I do :) )

My Calendar Says October Still - an Update

Yep, the calendars all still say October, but it's definitely looking like November here - the leaves are about half changed! That NEVER happens here in October! And last week was cold; we had frost warnings for a couple of nights, though my cannas are still in bloom, so I guess it didn't get that cold down in the hole our house is in :) We are back in the 70s this week, but I'm just really surprised at having FALL this year, instead of summer one day, winter the next. No idea what that means for the winter we're going to have...? Have I mentioned how much I want to go to AZ????


In animal news, Lucy managed to keep her stitches in ALL WEEK - we took ALL 3 OF THEM out on Saturday, so she is now cone-free :) Still needs a bath - smells like she was in the animal hospital, you know? But we spent all our animal-bathing time on BEANIE instead. I was lying in bed Wednesday morning, dreading the alarm going off, when I suddenly had a 20-pound oil-soaked cat jump on me. Apparently, Beanie stayed in the garage overnight, and at some point during the night, probably chasing a critter, he managed to land in the remains of the last oil change that DH hasn't taken out yet. So of course, I go into panic mode, because no one else is up at 6 a.m., and am trying to wash the cat with the soap I had in the bathroom - which was pretty ineffective, as you might imagine. Meanwhile, the dogs are both losing their minds because it sounds like I'm killing the cat, so the boys both get up to come see what's going on - and two of the three of us have to get showered and get going. Needless to say, it was NOT a good morning. And I was already cranky before that all went on.


That's also when the cold snap came through, so the temps dropped and stayed down, so though he desperately needed more washing after the Big Kid did what he could after I left for work, it was just too cold to risk it. But I did finally get him bathed yesterday, and he's now all clean again - his beard and feet are white again, and he's FLUFFY :) And it didn't take the entire industrial-sized bottle of Dawn to get it done! But we'll have that around for whatever else needs it, as I can't stand using that stuff for washing dishes...

So on to the stitching bits already...

I have another finish - Mill Hill Halloween is done, as of 1:30 a.m. Friday night/Saturday morning! it took 6 hours total to get all those beads on - I do think Boo House had more beads & less stitching than the other 3, but at any rate, had it done in exactly 1 week :) Here's Boo House:


And then the overall:


I do wish I had seen all 3 of these together in detail - Boo is the oldest of these 3, and the sky is charted in blues instead of the greys the other 2 use; it sticks out to me a LOT, but I assume it'll stop bugging me eventually. OR, if I'd gotten a bigger piece of fabric and 3 more kits, I could have balanced it out by having another older one w/blue sky somewhere else. Oh well, it's done now :)

Tuesday night, I went to IHOP for the Hooty Girls Stitch In :) I worked on my Santa ornie some more, and then worked on it a bit more on Sunday evening, as I didn't have much time to stitch over the weekend. He now has a face - I wasn't about to leave him with no eyes!


Saturday, we had our October PINS get together, and we presented our host & hostess with the Chickens; I think they were both very surprised, and I know Loretta herself was almost crying. So a well-received gift :) And considering all the re-decorating they've been doing the last month, the timing couldn't have been better; in addition to the new wall paint that was there last time, there are new chicken things all over, and lots of wrought iron pieces hanging throughout - the blackwork bits on Chickens are a perfect compliment. I couldn't have planned that any better if I had tried. I'll be curious to see where it ends up, though she did say she was going to take it home and look at it for a bit before bringing it back to find it a home in the restaurant...


While at PINS, I worked on my BoaF SAL - that should have been done a couple of months ago, if I hadn't gotten hung up on these Halloween things. I got the tree in Part 2 done, and would have finished Part 2 completely, except I didn't have the rest of the threads with me, so the 2nd bird is all that's lacking to finish this part:


And then, when I got home, I tore the place apart looking for those threads - I was completely stumped as to why they weren't in the bag with the whole kit. I can't find them, they are just gone. So either the ring they were on slid off into the trash can I have between couch & table and we never saw them when it got emptied, or an animal has them stashed somewhere, in which case I probably don't want them back. SO I get to order 10 new skeins of WDW - which won't match dyelots, of course, and a couple of them, I only need a length or two. Dammit. I don't lose stuff. But on the bright side, in my effort to find them, I did get the remains of recent finishes put away, and got things a little straightened up on the table.

So, this week, since I am stopped on BoaF until I get the threads ordered (along with that new Ink Circles chart, Metamorphosis), I SHOULD work on Knotgarden - I want that done so badly I can taste it. Until it irritates me again, of course. So I might have to switch off this week, but I HAVE to work on it; maybe I'll get past the hump that's driving me nuts... I'll keep on that Santa, too, when time permits; I'd like to have the set of 3 done this year, but it's not going to happen, not as lon as this one's taking. So next year, probably :)

And that's all I've got. Happy Stitching this week to everyone!

Mid-October - an Update

My favorite time of year, especially after the weekend we just had - 75-80 during the day, blue skies as far as the eye can see, cool nights :) Convertible weather, of course. But they are predicting a frost later this week, and highs in the 50s! A bit early, but hey, you know what? This is the first actual fall we have had in years, so I'm not going to complain!



Of course, it's also that hated season - ad valorem tax season, since DH's birthday was yesterday, and mine's in a month :( Which is why we ALSO had to take the damn dog to the vet, TWICE. A week ago Thursday,  Little Kid took Lucy out for her usual morning thing, and when she rushed inside to get her treat, her leg was gushing blood. So on Friday, for $400, she got some stitches, and we still aren't sure what she stepped on out there, in a place she's been a million times. The cut, which was about 1 1/2" long and a good 1/2" deep - thankfully missing all the important stuff in there - was clean, so it had to be glass, and we did find a broken bottle (the kids/rednecks like to aim their trash at the storm drain on our property line, so we often have crap laying around up there, but it's all pine straw & kudzu, so it's also easily buried). Anyway, by Monday, she had all of the stitches out, despite bandages, and 2 (TWO) Cones of Shame on her head. So after we realized the bandages weren't going to do it, we took her back on Thursday to get restitched - for another $140. The Most Expensive Pound Puppy she's turning out to be. But I think she figured out, after having to go back the 2nd time, that we aren't messing around, so she had damn well better leave them alone. I figure by tomorrow & Wednesday, it'll be healed up just fine. Damn dog...


So when I wasn't thinking about encasing a dog in concrete, I had a FINISH! Yes, Murky Manor is DONE!!!! I took pics with my phone, which have better color, but they are fuzzier than my camera pics - so I'll post one, and the rest are here, including a few detail shots of beads & buttons :)



I finished that before dinner on Friday, went and had a celebratory margarita, and then came home and broke out the last of the Mill Hill Halloween houses, and got cracking on that. Boo House seems to be going pretty quick - there isn't quite as much stitching in it as Haunted Library, I don't think. And it doesn't include GITD thread, so of course, I had to add some, so it matches the other two :) I even got a half-assed picture of the GITD bit, here. And the overall as of right now is here.



I also managed to get the Chickens framed; our October PINS meeting is next Saturday, so got it done just in time to give to them then!



So for this week, I am going to keep on on Boo House - I hope to have it done by the end of the week, as quick as it's going so far. I would also like to go to the Tuesday night stitch in at the IHOP - we have rain moving in tomorrow, so we'll see how the barometer head is doing. Then Saturday, the PINS meeting, and that night, Gwinnett Gladiators Hockey starts, so we have dinner & game tickets courtesy of my employer :) The kid also has a band competition on Saturday - I love how band stuff seems to ALWAYS coincide with my stitching stuff. Well, sorry, I'm going to have to miss this competition, this time. With the holidays the next two months, no idea when we'll be able to get together again, so this might be the last chance to get this to the owners of Loretta's this year.

Well, that's about it from here. Happy Fall, and Happy Stitching to everyone :)

Columbus Day - an Update

Columbus Day - AND Thanksgiving in Canada; and yet, I have to work :( KNEW I should've gotten a government job when I quit working for the government many years ago... And to make matters worse, we don't even have a google doodle today;what's up with that??? It's kind of a big deal, and not only here in the States. My kid has school today, but only because they have "fall holidays" coming upstarting on Friday - he gets Fri, Mon & Tue off. Because they've been hard at it for 2 WHOLE MONTHS, and everyone needs a break. Really???? Whatever....

Speaking of Kid - he had his first HS Band concert last week; here he is, all dressed up:



And a row of 'bones before they started. I should have recorded a couple of the songs they played, but I didn't. I will next time.


On to the stitching for the week, which, this week, only involves ONE thing. Yes, it's true, I only worked on 1 project all week - do you believe that? That one thing was Murky Manor, and while I didn't finish it, I am THIS CLOSE < > - I WILL finish it this week :) Here's last week:


And now this week, leaving just a corner of the house, a bit more grass & fence, and the rest of the tree, then BEADS :)


And really, that's it for the whole week! Monday saw no stitching because of the concert, and the rest of the week was lots & lots of green :) As for this week, I will work on MM until done. Then, even though I have Anne's London sitting here, and of course BoaF & Knotgarden are both in need to getting done, I am sorely tempted to get my MH Halloween houses out and do the 3rd one - I'll have it done in under 2 weeks :) Not that it or MM will get framed in time for this Halloween, but that's beside the point...

I also have the frame for the chickens here, so that's on my To Do list for the week; I have to add fabric to 2 sides to get the piece stretched, and I didn't feel like getting the sewing machine out this weekend, or it'd be done by now. But I have until the 22nd before the PINS group meets at Loretta's again, so technically I have time :) So look for that photo probably next week.

That's the news - happy stitching this week to everyone!


(Dummy and his new toy, the nekkid chicken)