5 Questions

I am feeling brave and following in Cathy‘s footsteps with this one.

Anyone may ask me five questions. They can touch on any subject and while I might have to think about them for a bit, I will try to answer every question that is asked of me. Just leave a comment to this post with your 5 questions.

This should be an interesting exercise. You’ll learn more about me and I will learn a little about you, based on the questions that you ask me.

Fire away!

Posted in Life in General | 11 Comments

I Was a Contender

I submitted a couple of pieces into the Small Category in the Silkweaver Showcase and two of them made it into the list of Finalists! I’m quite pleased, as I did not expect any of them to make it as finalists. I didn’t win, but I’m excited just to have made it this far!

In addition, Ami also had an entry in the list of finalists for the small category, Carol had two finalists in the large category and I think that Christine had a piece that took 2nd place in the medium category!

Congratulations to everyone! 😀

Posted in Stitching | 12 Comments

Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?

Yes, believe it or not, I have managed to get in another finish!

Here is what has been my other travel project since before CATS in September! But, it’s finally done, with my own color conversions/changes, errors galore and the addition of our initials in the pink heart.





The pink heart is done in some unknown color of Gloriana silk and the purple one is done in a Needle Necessities cotton. The design is called Never For Granted by My Mark Designs.

Now I have no travel projects started. I can’t actually start one on the move; it’s a little too challenging for me, so I will try to make a quick start on one or more small pieces tonight. Or maybe I’ll take a nap. Or work on entering more inventory into QuickBooks and my storefront. Or none of the above?

I should log off and do something, anything, at this point. 😉

Posted in Stitching | 10 Comments

Barnabee’s Quest Has Begun!

Thursday was the official start of the SAL on Just Nan’s design called Barnabee’s Quest. Woohoo! I’ve loved this design and have owned it and been dying to stitch it for YEARS. I am so glad to have finally started. 🙂

Because my stitching time is usually limited to only an hour or two a night and even less lately with everything that’s been going on, I started Barnabee on Wednesday night. A day early, I know, but for once I actually felt like stitching and it was either pull out Bonsai and Buddha for a day (totally not worth it) or start Barnabee’s Quest. I almost felt guilty about working on it for 3 days, until I saw Carol and Leslie’s progress from last night. 😆

So, here’s my start:





I know that the picture stinks, but it was 1 AM when I finally stopped stitching on him tonight, so you get the best I could grab at the moment. There will be others, no worries. 😉

Three days of stitching and I feel like I didn’t get too far along, but then I’m a slow meticulous stitcher, so everything takes me longer. I had a lot of trouble packing him up when I was done tonight, though. I might have to change my rotation to more of a “when I get sick of this design, I’ll move on to this design” kind of rotation. When you don’t get a lot of time to stitch, it’s hard to put things down and move on when you are still enjoying what you are working on.

Before I started Barnabee on Wednesday night, though, I had my second finish for 2007 (the first being Rose Basket for Cathy’s RR on Monday/Tuesday). So, allow me to present to you Just Nan’s Snow Faces, finished in the corresponding WhimZi frame. It is now gracing my cubicle at work, just in time for all of the dustings of snow that we’ve been getting over the past week or so.





This has been one of my travel projects for a little while and I had trouble locating some of the colors in my stash, so I am glad to have it finished. I should have my other travel project finished by Valentine’s Day; just in time to frame it for Terry. I expect that I may even have it finished by the time I reach Cathy’s tomorrow, since I’ll have the whole hour-long drive to sit and stitch.

Speaking of tomorrow/today’s event, it’s nearly 2 AM now and I really need to get to bed since I won’t be able to sleep in much. Tah!

Posted in Stitching | 14 Comments

February Stitching Goals

  • Start Just Nan – Barnabee’s Quest
  • Start and complete one Christmas ornament
  • Work on Dimensions – Bonsai and Buddha
  • Work on Chatelaine Designs – Stitching Leporello

In addition, I finished Never For Granted by My Mark Designs.

Posted in Stitching | 3 Comments

January Stitching Goals in Review

  • :mrgreen: Finish Cathy’s RR
  • :mrgreen: Finish The Sweetheart Tree – Vintner’s Sampler

I actually managed to finish Vintner’s Sampler before the end of December (after I had already set my January goals), so it doesn’t quite count.

Posted in Stitching | 1 Comment

Made in America, 9 PM Tonight on the Travel Channel

For all of you U.S. readers, if you want to see John Ratzenberger tour one of the Gore-Tex fabric facilities and do a segment on the company that I work for, tune into the Travel Channel tonight at 9 PM EST/PST. Our company will be the lead segment.

Posted in Life in General | 2 Comments

We Loved You, Barbaro!

While many of you from outside of the United States may have no idea who Barbaro is, this special horse and 2006 Kentucky Derby winner has been fighting for his life for over eight months. He broke his leg at the Preakness last May with a strange misstep that made everyone cringe as he suddenly started limping and his jockey jumped from his back. People rallied behind him as surgeries were performed and setbacks overcome. Just when it seemed like he might finally be going home, Barbaro experienced yet another setback. And pain that his owners could not and would not allow him to endure.

Today, Barbaro lost the war and was put down. The specialty center where he was being treated all of these months is about 20 minutes down the road from my house and I watched his story with interest. My heart sinks a little lower today with his loss, but I am glad that his owners did the right thing for him.

Rest in peace, big fella.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/more/01/29/barbaro.ap/index.html?eref=edition_us

Posted in Life in General | 6 Comments

Cathy, Your Baby’s Coming Home!

By “baby,” of course, I mean your round robin from last year. I’m sorry that it took so long to complete Catherine Michele’s part, but it was mighty complex. I swear, if it had been for anyone other than you, I probably would have quit a long time ago. But I didn’t, it’s finished and I think it actually turned out quite nicely. All I have to do now is to add the personalization on both squares. You’ll see it in person on Saturday and I hope that you will be pleased.





While I’m posting photos, I finally finished the Peace and Comfort design that I stitched last September into a bellpull for my grandmother. I presented it to her at a family luncheon last Sunday, in honor of her 87th birthday.





Note: The cording that forms the hanger was just arranged so that it would fit on the scanner. It isn’t magically formed into that shape or anything. 😉

One other note: this weekend was supposed to be Christmas ornament SAL weekend, but with everything going on and me trying desperately to finish Cathy’s RR, I didn’t have time. I will try to stitch up an ornie quickly sometime this week, if I can. And the Barnabee’s Quest SAL starts this Thursday, February 1st. And I have a check-in with my psychiatrist tomorrow afternoon. In addition to all of that, I’ll be placing my initial orders for the ONS this week, so it will be a busy week! WHEW!

Posted in Stitching | 9 Comments

I Freaking ROCK!

Sorry, but I just had to pat myself on the back. I’ve been having terrible, anxiety-ridden dreams flashing back to my days of flute auditions for competitions when I was in high school, except in these dreams, I sucked. And um… well I didn’t, in real life. I won’t go on and on bragging, but I was #1 in Pennsylvania and #4 on the eastern seaboard (and that’s partially because I didn’t have enough time to practice – put it this way, the girl who got second chair, I beat in a previous competition).

Anyway, enough of the ego stroking. The point was that all of these dreams prompted me to put down my stitching after an hour and to go up and pull out my poor, neglected flute. It took a few minutes to get warmed up, but then I was flying through pieces like I haven’t in years – literally. Seriously, I didn’t play most of the time that I had my braces (which were on for a year and a half or so) because I had just finally perfected my embouchure and I didn’t want to screw it up by having to relearn how to play with metal plastered all over my teeth. Once the braces came off two years ago, I played a couple of times and that was it.

The bottom line is that, after not having seriously played for over 3 years, I picked it up and sounded awesome. Thus, I freaking ROCK! 😆

Posted in Life in General | 9 Comments