Here Comes Peter Cottontail…

Posted on March 12, 2008 by Jenna Magee

Hippity hoppity, Easter’s on its way! And I have the bunny to prove it:





Posted in Stitching | 13 Comments

Stitching Progress

Posted on March 10, 2008 by Jenna Magee

I decided to be bad yesterday and start a new piece. I kitted up Just Nan’s Peter Cottontail and worked on it for a good chunk of the day. I even skipped working on the laundry – bad me! I am at 75% or more on the piece, so I didn’t bother scanning a WIP photo, since it will be done and framed hopefully by the end of the week.

I still can’t seem to accomplish much stitching during the week because I am still tired when I get home from work and having to take naps half of the time. I wonder if I am setting a bad trend here and letting my body get used to all of that sleep? I am going to have to work on staying awake and hopefully my stitching will entice me, particularly this close to a finish.

Otherwise, on the stitching front, I love the Butterfly Heart design so much and am finding it such a quick stitch that I am considering doing it in a rainbow of colors – orange, yellow, green and blue – to add to the pink and purple ones that I have now. I’m just nervous that I will burn out partway through and be sick of the design before I actually manage to finish all of them. We’ll see, but I think I’m going to do it in a set of dusty blues next. First, I have to get some more fabric. Believe it or not, I don’t seem to have much in the way of white or antique white. I’m not sure how that happened. Shopping, here I come!

Posted in Stitching | 4 Comments

Another Butterfly Heart Happy Dance

Posted on March 8, 2008 by Jenna Magee

May I present Butterfly Heart in purple:





I’m not sure what to work on next, but I can’t seem to kit up Peter Cottontail yet, so he will have to wait. Perhaps I should work on something that I have already started? Hmmm… to be good, or not to be. 😉

Posted in Stitching | 7 Comments

SBQ – Used Charts and Kits

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Jenna Magee

This week’s SBQ is recycled from January 4, 2005 and is:

After you stitch a pattern or kit, what do you do with it?

I will keep a pattern or kit, if I think that I might stitch it again. However, lately I’ve been trying to pare down my stash, so I will often offer it on my blog to whomever might want it and reuse it. That said, I haven’t had enough finishes lately for it to even be an issue. 😉

Posted in Stitching Blogger's Question | 1 Comment

One Star’s Light’s One Year Anniversary

Posted on March 5, 2008 by Jenna Magee

On March 1st, One Star’s Light Needlework Supplies celebrated the one year anniversary of our grand opening.

As the proprietress, I can hardly believe that the time has flown by so quickly and I nearly let this occasion slip away. I would like to thank everyone who has purchased stash from us in the past year.

In order to reward our customers, we are offering 15% off of all orders from now until midnight Eastern Time on March 12th. To take advantage of this discount, use the coupon code 1YearAnniversary when you check out.

Thank you for helping to make this business a success!

Posted in Shop Talk | 8 Comments

Weirdness

Posted on March 4, 2008 by Jenna Magee

I’ve been tagged by both Meari and prajantr for this one, so I guess I’d better do it.

Here are the rules:

1. Once you are tagged, link back to the person who tagged you.

2. Post THE RULES on your blog.

3. Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.

4. Tag 7 people and link to them

5. Comment on their blog to let them know they have been tagged

7 Weird or Random Facts About Me

  1. I have this thing about eating things in rainbow order. This mostly applies to candies, like Skittles, M&Ms, Smarties, you name it. I have no idea where this came from.
  2. My eyes apparently change color, according to Terry. I traditionally thought that they were blue-grey, but Terry says that they often look green, so that’s what color he considers them to be.
  3. My legal name is Jennifer. However, at the tender age of 1 1/2, I declared that I was to be called Jenna. And it stuck. 🙂
  4. I can never have acrylic nails because my nail beds are too irregular. My ring and pinky finger nail beds are properly curved, but the rest of my nail beds are relatively flat. I was told by a manicurist that acrylics wouldn’t stay put on a flat nail bed.
  5. I love almonds. Love ’em. L-O-V-E, love.
  6. I’m starting to like the colors pink and red more than ever before. But my favorite’s still purple. 😉
  7. As a baby, I accidentally scratched my mother’s corneas and created scar tissue so that she could never wear contact lenses.

I’m not big on tagging specific people, so if you’re reading this, you haven’t already done it and you feel so inclined, consider yourself tagged.

Posted in Meme | 1 Comment

Laundry and Bills

Posted on March 3, 2008 by Jenna Magee

My two favorite things in the world. 😆 After indulging in a stitching day all day on Saturday, I spent Sunday doing a pile of bills and an even bigger pile of laundry.

First was putting away approximately 4 baskets or more of clean laundry that’s been sitting around in various places anywhere from 1 week to several months. Yes, you read that correctly. Some of my whites have been sitting on the floor for months. So long that some of it was summer wear. How embarrassing; I can’t believe that I’m even admitting it in public. Anyway, it felt good to have all of those stuff off of the floor and out of the seriously over-stuffed laundry basket. I then started on the dirty clothes and a pile of towels that has been growing and waiting to be laundered for a long time. What can I say? We have quite a stockpile of towels for just two people. 😉

With the sorting and putting away of all of those clothes out of the way and a start made on the small piles of dirty laundry, I then settled down to write out the batch of bills due around the beginning of the month. Bills tend to come in two lumps; one big one for the beginning of the month and a small batch for the middle of the month. I also had the quarterly water bill and the annual county tax bill to write out this time around.

While I was at it, I wrote out the forms to submit my psychiatrist bills for reimbursement from my insurance company. My psychiatrist decided some time ago (prior to my becoming a patient) that she no longer wanted to deal with all of the paperwork associated with accepting various insurance plans. So, the paperwork is instead on me to submit for reimbursement. Not a big deal; I’ve just been putting it off for a while. I hope that I won’t run into any issues, as I would love to get some money back. Don’t get me wrong, my psychiatrist is totally worth the money, but considering I’ve put out more than $700 out of pocket already for 3 visits, it would be nice to get recoup some of those costs, if possible.

I feel pretty accomplished having gotten so many less than exciting tasks out of the way and I was even able to fit some stitching in at night. 😀

Posted in Life in General | 7 Comments

Butterfly Heart Happy Dance

Posted on March 2, 2008 by Jenna Magee

I actually finished it last night, but here it is – Just Nan’s Butterfly Heart.





I opted to not add the beads and I also omitted some of the design at the top between the antennae because I felt that it didn’t really make sense. It just seemed like design filler to me. Finally, I skipped the little bit of backstitching that there was in the design. Most because I’m lazy. And I couldn’t find the shade of green called for.

I immediately started a purple version to go with the as-charted pink version. 😉 That might be a happy dance tonight. If not, it should be sometime in the next week.

Posted in Stitching | 15 Comments

Needle to Fabric!

Posted on March 1, 2008 by Jenna Magee

Yay! I’ve finally gotten back to stitching, after not having placed even one stitch since late January. I can barely believe myself that I went that long without stitching. Once I started this afternoon, I just couldn’t stop. I’m now at least halfway through Just Nan’s Butterfly Heart. I knew that a new project would help and I find myself savoring every stitch. Hopefully, I’ll have a happy dance to report soon.

We had a great time out last night. It’s always nice to act like grown-ups. 😉 I also had a nice conversation, sitting next to my friend Tricia, who is also the wife of the guy that I’m working closely with in my new position. I got some reassurance from her that he is feeling relieved that he finally has someone capable to help him. All in all, it was a nice night, even if we ended it a little early because I needed to get back to pick up some prescriptions at my local pharmacy. It’s all good.

Posted in Life in General, Stitching | 3 Comments

Bested by RSI

Posted on February 29, 2008 by Jenna Magee

Yesterday’s RSI pain spread across the two shoulders, incorporated the neck and spawned a headache by this morning which kept me from working. There was just no way that with the continued pain I was going to go back to the same activity that caused it in the first place. Not to mention the fact that my laptop seems to be requiring anywhere from 1 to 4 clicks in order to register a single click. Not ideal conditions when I am already in trouble. So I stayed home and slept. And took some Excedrin to quell the headache and some of the pain. Now I’m only on long enough to check my email (both home and work) and do a couple of quick things. I don’t want to aggravate the RSI any more than I already have. Which means I might not be blogging this weekend, in favor of stitching, hopefully.

On a more happy note, we’re going out with a group of college (and work, as we all work for the same company) friends tonight for dinner. With that said, it’s time for me to sign off and go take a shower, as I have some errands to run before we leave for dinner. We’re going to Hibachi and getting an early start to dinner so that we can take advantage of the early bird special to reduce costs, as some members of the party are a bit strapped in the financial department right now. Besides, 50% off dinner always sounds good, if the timing is manageable. 🙂

Posted in Life in General | 5 Comments