Monday's Update - on a Tuesday

Because I've had a few days off, and well, I've been busy :) It's been in the 80s here for the last week, and today's pollen count: 9369. You know, 1500 is considered extremely high; so over 9000 is considered what, INSANE? Yes, yes it is, and EVERYTHING has a 1/4" coating of yellow grit, because the pines are already popping, too, a few weeks earlier than normal. But hey, maybe we'll just get it all out of the way and part of April, we MIGHT be able to go outside without a HAZMAT suit...

SO, as for what I have been busy with, OTHER than work - ummm, work, strangely enough. Laundry, dishes, laundry, some very light cleaning, that kind of thing. But in between loads, I did manage to have a FINISH :) A Spirited Mandala is done - in just a bit over 2 weeks, which is probably a personal best on a design of this size. But like most things Ink Circles, it just flowed so nicely, it was just so easy to go from part to part to part. I already see a black suede mat and a shiny black frame on it - unless the black makes it obvious that my thread isn't actually black (939, reallllyyy dark blue). A fun stitch, I highly recommend this design from the 2011 JCS Halloween Special Edition Book :)

I also continued on Lady & Unicorn, and made some significant progress in the confetti section. I found a pleather thimble at Hobby Lobby on Friday (I was in there gathering threads for JE Autumn Fairy - one of several JEs that I am starting to kit; because I don't already have a drawer full of kits). Bad thing is, I assume it's geared for a woman's thumb, and it won't go over mine; I want it for my middle finger, but for that, it's just a smidge too big. I need to see if I can cinch it up a bit - gotta find a sharp needle around here, see if I can get it through it to take a small gather in it. Anyway, you might not really be able to see a great bit of difference, but I know how many of those single blanks I managed to get filled in before I had to again give the fingers a rest. Here is the week before:

And now, the overall width and then the area I'm working:

I will keep on with L&U again this week - I really do want to get this Page 6 done, and get a good jump on Page 7, before I put it up and concentrate on some other things. IF I can just GET to Page 7, I do have some large areas of 1-2 colors, so I can make up some time that I've lost on this page of confetti goodness. Tonight, my last evening off before going back to the funny farm, I'm going to stitch at IHOP, and will likely work on Rainforest, now that the mandala is done. Or I also have IC Florin & Guilder in the bag - I had a piece of 36ct PTP Fog in with those, but got my mini sampling of the month yesterday, and in it was a piece of 32ct Earthen, which I like better - and both designs will fit perfectly on it, and I ought to be able to see it a bit easier in the dim light at IHOP. I didn't know if I'd be able to see the 36ct without my Ott light, and I hated hacking into a fat 1/4 for those two small pieces, so I was kind of waiting to see what my FOTM would bring in 32ct :) Glad I waited, though that mandala jumping the line helped there...

And one last note, just to keep the peace around here - for those who don't follow football, Chelsea FC is the last English team in the Champions League (thanks to firing the coach - though he was nice to look at as he stood on the sidelines, not coaching), and also, our continued good thoughts go out to Bolton player Fabrice Muamba, after collapsing during a match on Saturday with a massive heart attack. And kudos to the press, who honored the wishes of the family to NOT make a freaking media circus out of the whole thing, and for NOT having the cameras trained on the events as they unfolded on the field - too bad we here in America can't have the same respect and show a little dignity. I blame OJ/Paris Hilton/Lindsey Lohan for this country's incessant need for video of train wrecks...

Well, sorry about that, I felt a rant coming on. So I'll just end it there with a Happy Stitching to everyone! And HAPPY SPRING!

Purple Haze & The Artificial Time

Yes, it's my favorite time of year again, when we start daylight saving. Bah humbug! Cutting a foot of the bottom and sewing it onto the top does not a longer blanket make. Anyway, a little cranky for the next few until I get adjusted. Someday, when all I have to get up in the morning is ME, I will stay on REGULAR time all year round (or move to AZ, where they do this already). Considering I was seriously dragging ass last week, this week's not looking too promising - or at least won't until Friday, which I have off, through next Tuesday!! Ahhh, some days off, and THIS TIME, I will NOT have a crud :) Unless the artificial time does me in, coupled with the pollen that has all of us sneezing the last few days...

 

(Booger's Violet)

As for purple, it would seem all I worked on this week was purple :) First, Iris fairy finally saw daylight again, first time since the impulse to start her last year won out. I LOVE these colors :) Not particularly liking dragging the Kreinik through the stitching to get those wing veins on (this is 32ct fabric - so hand dyed, probably closer to 34? It's a tight fit - hope the beads fit, or I'll have to swap 'em for 15/0s), but it looks really cool :) JE does such a good job making the wings appear translucent with shadows from the objects behind. Next time she's out, her hair and face...

And also of note - thanks to Lisa completing the Crescent Moon Dragon and now working on another JE, I was compelled to start getting kits together for more JE projects (because, you know, all my kits start with spreadsheets); I have the four Seasonal Fairies, Fire & Water Goddess, and Poppy Fairy all beginning to be kitted up, 4 of them having fabrics already (the Silkweaver debacle last fall helped me out there tremendously :) ), and Kreinik & beads ordered for one from JJ's spring sale this weekend (along with a pile of DD silks for Deep Blue Sea).

Speaking of stash, I got some more beads in, from Beadies Beadwork,  again split between Sparkly Hummingbird and Deep Blue Sea, and my fabric for Hummingbird is dyed & paid for, so hope it gets here this week - it would go well with this post if it had been here in time.

Since I am actually getting a tax refund this year (yeah, the boys are off the hook in having to flip for who gets to black-market an organ), I have fabric picked out for Deep Blue Sea - I just gotta decide if I want to lose my mind and go opalescent or not...

Okay, back to the purple - I guess that stash interjection was from the haze part... So in my local group, Jackie & Tricia have both completed the Ink Circles Halloween Mandala from last year's special edition JCS Halloween book, one as charted on tha great PTP Voodoo, and another on a green (Eek? I thing that's what she used). It just happened to occur to me that I had this great piece of purple fabric, an RAK from Laura, that I had set aside to do a couple of my favorite blocks from Boo! Club on, to make into a flatfold. Well, I got it out of the cabinet, just to measure - and woohoo! It's big enough for the Mandala!!! So off to HL I go for floss. I am glad I took the fabric in with me - I was going to just go 310, but when I laid the skeins down on it, it looked really flat :( Not quite happy, I tried a few other colors, including blood red, which might have worked for a more sinister design. I settled on 839, which looks like a really rich black on this fabric :) So Friday, I put the first stitches in, and plowed through almost half of it - and one complete skein of thread - by Sunday afternoon. Obsess much? Yes, yes I do  - but it's so purple!!!

I have the mandala in the travel bag - I think I will be able to see it well enough to work it at IHOP on Tuesday night. As for the main focus of the week, I am getting L&U back out, now that my fingers have had a rest (of a sort) - and I found some of these at HL when I was getting thread, too, so this will help immensely! As I have a long weekend coming up for myself, I may try to get the mandala done, too. Assuming I don't sleep the entire time, of course... I gotta rest up for end-of-quarter/end-of-year panic for the two weeks when I get back...



On that note, Happy Stitching to everyone!

Windblown - an Update

All I can say is, if the tornado season is this bad, this early - you know, WINTER - it's going to be a long spring... Just awful, awful weather Friday & Saturday, though at my house, it wasn't bad at all, despite the sirens going on & off for a few hours. I guess there was another bad storm that came through after I'd gone to bed; for a change, I didn't hear it. But unlike someone in my house, I did NOT sleep through any of the sirens... My thoughts continue to go out to all of those in Indiana and Kentucky that saw such devastation, not to mention even more in Alabama, where they haven't recovered from the big one that destroyed the city of Tuscaloosa last year, much like the Xenia tornado of 1974, which I very clearly remember....



On to the stitching stuff...

First off, a stash report. BEADS! I got a group of the delicas I need for Deep Blue Sea, and a few of the last ones for Sparkly Hummingbird, all from About Beads. I really like their packaging, slightly easier to both store and use than the tubes that I get from FMG. I just have a few crystals left to get for Hummingbird, and the fabric for it is dyed and will hopefully come to me this week from Rose at FaeryFire Fabrics. Not that this is getting started anytime soon, of course...



I managed to get 3 squares done on Rainforest Crunch at the Tuesday night stitch-in at the IHOP, despite the place being in total chaos for National Pancake Day, so the place was mobbed by people looking for free food - and gypping all the servers out of tips to go with. No offense IHOP, but it's really kinda crappy to make all the servers just kill themselves for zero recompense. We've been going there for going on a year now, and of course, there were people there who probably won't step foot into the place again until next year when the event repeats - so whatever the goal is, I think you missed... Anyway, despite the stares from people who were waiting & waiting for a table, who didn't understand why we weren't leaving (uh, sorry, we're PAYING customers), I rocked through 3 more blocks - I am really enjoying this, if you can't tell :)



And then, Lady & Unicorn. Confetti, confetti, confetti - will it ever end? Holy cow! Literally, for 6 days, all I did was 1-2 stitches here, tie off, move, do 1-2 stitches, tie off, etc. Not until I ventured down onto page 11 on Saturday did I do more than 3 stitches of the same color - I do have some big areas coming up, if I can just get to them!!! You may not be able to tell much from the small pictures here in the post, so it might be easier to go to the album to see what I managed to do.
Here is last week's:



This week's:



And then a detail shot, showing all but a couple of the upper holes FILLED IN finally on this page 6:


BTW, the yellow thing that I started to extend down onto page 11 will be a lion some day :)

This week, I am probably not going to go to the stitch in - I need to get the $#%$&@% taxes done, now that all the W2s are reportedly at home. I also need to take a small break from L&U, just a couple of days; my thumb is realllyyyy sore from pushing the needle through all of that, and the skin on the side of my middle finger needs a day or two to toughen back up, before I spend a lot of time putting the eye of the needle through it repeatedly. I need to get a leather thimble to wear on that finger when I work on this thing - a band aid just isn't tough enough. So I think I am going to break out the old Iris Fairy tonight, and work on her for a bit, until my thumb ache goes away.


I also need to get outside this coming weekend - the yard has been completely taken over by weed, so the daffodils and tulips I have up can't be seen, really. Since it's been so warm & wet all winter, it's time to mow, already; not my job, thank god - I'd be forced to buy some goats... So enjoy a picture from LAST year :) Happy Stitching to everyone this week!

(yes, a picture with a ghost image :) )

Liverpool Wins the Carling Cup - an Update

And no, I didn't watch the game ONLY because my boy Andy Carroll was playing - it was a really good game, right down to the PKs! Poor Cardiff - you boys couldn't have done anything more than what you did. And for the record, I don't actually care if Andy is a 30 million pound flop....



So anyway, moving on to the reason for updating...



As mentioned last week, I got Tuscany to a stopping point, with parts 2 & 3 both half done, minus beads. That was a good place to stop, and will keep me from being burnt out on all that blue :) I put the last bit in on Wednesday night, then packed it up for a while.


Tuesday night, I went to Stitch Night at the IHOP, and tried to work on my Ink Circle ornie - but it was too hard to see that purple fabric in there, so I only put a couple of lengths of thread into it before shifting to something else.


That something else was Rainforest Crunch, which I also worked on for a bit on Wednesday, after I stopped on Tuscany, and for a few minutes on Thursday night, as we had a band concert to go to, and got home late. And I also worked on Rainforest at the February PINS get together. It goes pretty quick, though I DO have to look at the chart more often than I have been, and stop assuming I know what I'm doing :)



And last but not least, Lady & Unicorn finally came back out - I discovered it's been over a year since I took an actual photo - the few hours I worked on it in 2011 weren't logged in any way, I just remember doing it. Sadly, Friday night I was realllyyyy tired, so I basically stared at it for 4 hours, put in MAYBE 10 stitches. And it doesn't really look like I did much more than that on Saturday or Sunday; I know now why I put it down - OMG this section is just confetti hell to the Nth degree! Damn pomegranate tree, why do you have to be so difficult??? Not to mention, I wasn't very accurate marking off where I worked the last time - so it's been a little brain-intensive trying to fill in some of the little gaps.


Since it looks pretty much the same as it did when I started, here's a pic of the chart - I did the ORANGE bits, which looks a LOT less in the photo than it felt getting them in there...


So this week, keep on with L&U, see if I can plow past this section without any bloodshed. Nothing else specifically planned - I plan to go to stitch night again, and still have Rainforest in the bag, so I assume that's what I'll work on. Because, you know, I'm pretty good at making & following plans lately :) Happy stitching this week to everyone!

FBHS Concert Band pre-LGPA perfromance, 2-23-12 - my trombone player is the 4th from the left - and he just turned 15 on 2-26...

President's Day - an Update

Yep, President's Day, again. For some, making a long weekend. For me, just another Monday, without even the chance of something cool in the mail :( At least I didn't have to get the grouch up this morning, which was good, since I didn't get up, either, not right away; barometer head did me in this morning, so I gave the Excedrin some time to work before making it upright. The jury's still out on whether moving at all was a good idea... At least the sun's out - a nice change after 2 1/2 days of what looks to me like Ohio weather :(



So on to the important stuff - stitching :)

I continued on on Tuscany, and am working parts 2 & 3 in conjunction (you know, all that pesky counting and such - not my strong suit, which is why I do so much COUNTED thread work) (). I really do think I need to get a set of scroll rods ready for this - there are a LOT of beads on this that I desperately want to put on, and where with MTM, I could position it in the Qs to avoid the majority of the middle parts that I beaded, and was just very, very careful with the ones I did put under the clamps, this one is just too big, and I know, as long as this one will take, I will break one or worse. So, after I get this right-hand section of Part 3 done, I'll be putting this away, and hopefully next time I work it, I'll have it on a scroll, and then I can BEAD these parts :) :) :)

Here is is as of right now:



I don't know if I'll be able to get this done tonight, or if it'll take a couple nights. But whatever, as soon as I get this section done, away it goes, for now. Time to make good on my promise to L&U :)



I also started a new small, an Ink Circles Halloween ornie chart from 2010, By The Full Moon. I am using fabric leftover from Murky Manor, and thread for the moon, as well, CC Baby Chick. Not much of a start, but I only had a few minutes on it.



And that's the progress for the week. As I said, as soon as I get to a stopping place on Tuscany, Lady & Unicorn is coming out for an extended visit, because I did not touch her at ALL last year, except for a few hours only at the very beginning of the year. Bad, huh? So, sometime this week, I'll be back in a sea of red confetti hell :) At least I'll get a break on Saturday - the February PINS meeting is Saturday afternoon, I can't wait :)

(the neighbor kids - how they taught their dogs to NOT bark, I have no idea...)

In other news, besides having a couple of great RAKs in my mail box, I stashed :) OOPS. I am now collecting Chatelaine Deep Blue Sea - and was THRILLED to find 7-8 of the silks already in the stash! Yay me! AND I have some of the beads already on order with About Beads :) And more in my cart at Beadies BeadWork. And some for this and Sparkly Hummingbird on my list for either Art Beads or Fusion Beads :) Because I don't have an order with FMG coming up any time soon, so... Oh, shiny!









Okay, on that note, Happy Stitching this week to everyone!

Stalking the Mailman Pays Off

While I was expecting one package, my Mini Fabric of the Month from PTP, I was pleasntly surprised not one, but two days in a row by a couple of great RAKs!!!

Pictured from the bottom up - a DMC chart from Kay, then 3 Camus International charts in the Celtic Gilt Pillow series from Mel, topped off by my two piece of PTP fabric in Fathom (l) and Discord (r). Thank you so much, Kay and Mel, they are all much welcome surprises! Here's hoping the USPS doesn't go completely under :)

Winter Rears Its Ugly Head - an Update

Well, not too ugly - just freaking cold. None of the white stuff, though there is a chance for it in our area tonight, but since it's supposed to be 62 on Wednesday, it shouldn't cause too much panic. I have to say I have gotten spoiled having the last few weeks in the 50s and 60s; yesterday's 18 was AWFUL, and the wind on Saturday was brutal. Yes, I will admit I am a wimp - I did move south for a reason... And since everything was blooming here, we HAD to have a cold snap; poor trees & daffy-dils...



Saturday, we combed the area for a box to put Fireweed on; the music boxes I found last fall were a bust; they had no square ones, only oval and rectangles, which I didn't want to "make work". So I may be forced to order something from Sudberry House; wonder if anyone ever has them on sale? I just want something a little nicer than the do-it-yourself boxes I get from HL or Michaels, I don't feel like finishing a box for it, I want one already finished. So back to the waiting-to-be-finish-finished pile it goes...


So, got a little caught up last week in the latest craze, and came up with this little number:



Because, you know, have spreadsheet, will create :) Though I must admit, my iPhone had a little trouble with this over-1 on 28ct - might need to do 2 strands on 22ct for the next one. Because yes, there will be more :)

Of course, the main focus of the week was Tuscany Town Mandala, which I started on Monday, and worked throughout the week. Here is Part 1 completed, except beads:


And here is where I stopped last night, working parts 2 & 3 in conjunction:


I did some color changes to the blues on Friday night; since I am not using the NPIs, I took the DMC equivalents given, and didn't like the grouping of blues. I did NOT like the 3844 light border (not even close to the NPI it was listed for, which just so happens to be in MTM, and which I have a bit left over - but I wasn't going to use it and then run out, because I know they differ from dye lot to dye lot). So I picked a dark blue, 823, for the border, and worked that series of colors in - 820 was one of the other conversions which I left. So I have 823, 824, 826, and then 517 for the "peacock blue" one. Hopefully this darker border will work with the overall. I like it, I think, so far, everything works together okay. I just knew as soon as I picked that 3844 up that I couldn't use that - too bright for me! It goes in my World Tree, but I don't think so here...



And that was it for the week. About the same planned for this week - continue on TTM, and I'm not sure what for a travel piece, depending on if I go to stitch night tomorrow, or if I have to do something with DH for stupid Hallmark Holiday #1 :( On that happy note, good stitching to everyone this week - and bring on that spring!

What a Letdown - an Update

Yep, was really pulling for the Patriots yesterday, because, well, they are the Patriots. And, well, if they had won, my Cecilia's order woulda been 40% off - but since they lost, I'll have to be content with my 25% discount :) And no, I didn't watch the game - after the yelling at the TV that went on yesterday during the Chelsea-ManU game, I was definitely done with sports. So I caught up on Downton Abbey :)


While Chelsea was getting no love from the ref yesterday (it's all for ManU, as usual), I was finishing the dome on St. Paul's Cathedral :) I have to say, this is one design that the backstitching looks better from a distance, it gives the proper illusion to the work that you just don't get up close...


Last week, I finished Fireweed - such great colors in this, even if they don't really photograph well. Now, to go find a box it will fit in - there's a local shop that has music boxes that were designed to have something mounted in the lid - I just can't recall if any of them were square. I'll get up there in the next few weeks to find out...


And since that was almost done on 2/1, and because I got my serged fabric back from Jackie C. at the Tuesday night at the IHOP, I was compelled to start Rainforest Crunch. I wasn't sure I was going to like the 18ct linen for this, instead of the mono canvas, but so far, I am liking it - and it's easier on the threads! I put it on stretcher bars like canvas - not sure that thrills me; as loose as the fabric is, I hope it isn't all warped when I'm done. It may come off and go on Qs at some point, or it might not :) Here's the start on the center block:



While I was NOT watching the game last night, I WAS winding bobbins - for Tuscany Town! So you know what I'll be doing tonight, right? STARTING TUSCANY!!! So we'll see if I have to skip this week's Tuesday night, because I'm too busy with TTM :) Check back next week to see!


Happy Stitching this week to everyone!