Tale of a Shooting Star…

Okay, so I did neither of the two things I said I’d do. Instead, I grabbed my camera and went downstairs to take some quick photos… As always, you can click on them to get to larger views.

Here is my progress on the Christmas Hearts bellpull. It’s about 50% completed now.

And here is my progress on the baby afghan. I originally started at the top, but decided to abandon the stars in favor of stitching the sleeping Pooh at the bottom. I’m a little worried about the amount of thread that came with the kit, so I want to make sure I get Pooh stitched in his signature colors first. The lighting isn’t the best because I didn’t have the sofa lamp on and the flash didn’t carry far enough.

Yes, I did get in some decent stitching time this weekend, despite the warm weather enticing Terry and I to go out and work in the yard, totally overdoing it so that we paid for it today. Which is a bummer because I wanted to go to the driving range today. I just hope that next weekend is nice, too. The weather here is unseasonably warm, with temps in the high 60’s for most of the day, into the evenings. I actually prefer temperatures in the 50’s for outside work so you can wear long pants and sleeves without sweating too much, but hey… it’s November and I can’t usually work outside, so I’ll take what I can get!

The warm weather is really throwing off my holiday instincts, though. By now, I’m usually well into my Christmas shopping. I try to get all of my shopping finished by Thanksgiving every year to take the pressure off of me during the months of December. I’m not sure it’s going to happen this year, though. I have very few ideas for Terry (he’s difficult to buy for); one good one for my mother, but it’s currently out of stock; and no ideas for my dad. I’ll have to talk to mom about that and see if she has any (not likely!). I’m going to be stingy with the stitched gifts this year. I had so much obligation stitching going on that I just didn’t want to make myself crazy with Christmas stitching, as well. I’ll start early next year so it won’t be a problem. I already have kits in stash, some even started…

Anyway, back to the reason I’m blogging – today’s stitching update. I’ve been moving along on the Christmas Hearts bellpull this weekend. I just finished band 8, I think, and I just started it Thursday night, so that’s pretty good for me. I’d really like to complete the stitching next weekend, if at all possible. I’m really driven to finish things right now, so I’ll keep going as long as I can with it. 🙂 Of course, I have another model coming in sometime this week or next, so I’ll want to put everything down and get through it as quickly as possible. I know… I’m crazy. What can I say?

I also worked for a couple of hours on the Pooh baby afghan. Unfortunately, the frogs ate up half of that time, as I figured out I had started Pooh bear in the wrong square on the afghan fabric. *sigh* That was a good hour of stitching wasted, just to rip it all out and try again. And with the warm weather, stitching on the afghan has made me quite warm. I think I may fold that one up and put it in my stitching bag until the weather cools down and I can actually enjoy the extra warmth of the afghan on my lap!

No progress pics, sorry. I just hate dragging out Terry’s camera to take them, popping the card out and dragging it upstairs to download, crop, resize and then upload the pictures. I think I’ll go back to using our first digital camera, the easy one. It would be much quicker for me to take WIP pics with it. Detailed, finished pictures will still require Terry’s digital SLR camera to get the best quality, but for WIPs, quick and dirty should do. In fact, if I really get my act together, I could add some progress info to my sidebar. I want to use progress bars, but I want to actually script it so that all I have to put in is the number and it will automatically build the correct progress bar graphic. I know how to do it, I just haven’t been really motivated to doing any sort of coding at home with everything I’ve been doing at work. But I will get try to get to it before the end of the year.

Speaking of working at home, I have some graphics work to do that I was putting off this week because I’m dreading it. I need to either bite the bullet on that right now or go write up some bills. Hmmm… wonder which will win? 😉

As promised, tonight I was able to finish stitching this month’s ornament for the Chartswappers JCS Ornament SAL. I went with a wild card this month – Love… Was Born at Christmas by Lauren Sauer of Forget-Me-Nots in Stitches. Of course, not having much GAST in my stash, I substituted DMC floss instead and some linen I had laying around. I also had to fake the number 5 , since the number 4 was originally charted. I didn’t make the best match, but it was as close as I was going to get at this point. 🙂

And now I’m off to bed, as my eyelids are sagging and my temper is starting to rise because I’m easily frustrated when I’m tired!

The set of models that I finished were sent back this week and received by the designer yesterday. They have received her stamp of approval and she seems quite pleased. Yay! Another reference for my list. 🙂

Today I’ll likely do some work outside since it is unseasonably warm. On tap for stitching this weekend are the Christmas Hearts bellpull and the probable finish of an ornament. I may also work on either the Pooh baby afghan or the Chatelaine Tiny Rose Mandala Garden. No matter what I do, I will try to take and post some progress photos by the end of the weekend!

Hmmmm… let’s see. Most of the major obligations are fulfilled, so I can be a little more relaxed about November.

• Start and complete this month’s JCS SAL ornament
• Start and complete Christmas Hearts Bellpull SAL
• Continue working on Sweet Dreams baby afghan
• Continue working on Tiny Rose Garden Mandala
• Continue working on Heirloom Memories Sampler
• Complete Baby’s First Christmas Ornament
• Start piece for SBEBB Garden Exchange

It’s an ambitious list for the month before Christmas, but we’ll be traveling up to my parents’ home for Thanksgiving, so the 3 to 4 hour car ride each way should provide some good stitching time, as well as the time we are there. I actually switched the scroll frame that Tiny Rose Garden Mandala was on so that it’s now a portable piece (before, it wouldn’t fit in my stitching bag). So, everything on the list is portable, except for Heirloom Memories Sampler.

I also got the placement of the stitching stand that Terry made for me just right last night so that I can still recline, if I want to. Now he just has to add extensions to the arms so that my work can reach me. 🙂

My goals for October were not all totally realistic:

• Complete current model stitching project – DONE!
• Start and complete this month’s JCS SAL ornament – DONE!
• Complete and finish Christmas ornament for SBEBB – DONE!
• Complete and frame Heirloom Memories sampler in honor of Terry’s mom – NOT EVEN LOOKED AT

In my own defense on the last one, there are a couple of reasons for it. First, my weekends in October were totally overloaded. Second, I’m not sure who is going to get the Heirloom Memories sampler! When I talked to Terry originally about it after his mom died, I asked if he wanted me to finish it for us. He replied that we should do it for his dad. Now, the most recent conversation is that it will probably stay with us. While that doesn’t keep me from stitching on it, it has been a bit confusing. Now I need to chart out the personalization and replace the cross that I had already stitched on there with a heart, as it’s what I would prefer to see.