Finish, pack up and send secret stitchingI may have only made 1 goal out of 3, but I sure did get a lot of other things done! 🙂
Is it really Friday? Working from home all week and have my various problems has led to a complete lack of time awareness on my part. Wednesday and Thursday already felt like Friday, so now that it’s here, it feels strange. 😆
We’re hoping to have good sailing weather tomorrow. I’m going to go to WalMart at some point and buy an inexpensive Gazelle elliptical to help with the exercise issue. I want to be able to work out on it while I’m watching tv at night. Of course, I need to convince Terry to take the CrossBow gym down into the basement so that there’s room for my elliptical. He hasn’t used it in quite some time, so I think I should be able to talk him into it… eventually. It won’t be lonely for long, since we will be finishing the basement this winter.
Still stitching, but less today. Everything I picked up, I was bored with. Including other hobbies. Quite annoying, really, but now I’m settled in my stitching corner for the night. 🙂 We will probably be sailing tomorrow, so nothing but the usual month-end goal check and next month’s goals will probably be posted. Sunday, though, I should have some more stitching to show off.
Now that I’ve had my nice little whine (anyone care for some cheese with that?), I can update you on what I’ve been stitching and how things are going on the stitching front.
I still have start-itis pretty badly. Being part of the Halloween SAL on the Wonderful XS World Yahoo! group doesn’t help. I’m addicted to the designers’ quick and easy ornaments. The first one I stitched was from Periphaeria Designs, called Skull Crossing:
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I didn’t stitch the border around the ornament because I figured out too late that one of the bats was in the wrong place. So, I folded it over on itself so that only the skulls showed on the front and the bats on the back. It helped cover the mistake a little better, but the ornament is less than 2″ wide.
Next up was a design by Helga Mandl called Beware of Cat. I stitched this one on dark grey fabric that I hand-dyed myself:
After that, I stitched up another design by Helga Mandl called Frog Spit. I think this one cursed me because I could not seem to put in a single correct stitch on Wednesday. I’m glad I’m finished with him; he’s uber-cute!
And then another by Helga called Guess Who Day. Love, love, LOVE the bright blue in these quirky witches’ shoes:
I made a little bit more progress on Betsy’s Butterfly Wednesday night, but I had to frog a bunch first. We went to JoAnn’s after my psychiatrist appointment so that we could pick a pattern for Terry and then get all of the fabric for both of our Renaissance styled costumes. Friends of ours that we’ve known since college got married a few months ago and are have a wedding reception in late October. They are really big on the Renaissance fair scene, so costumes are optional.
We chose a gorgeous royal blue velvet that is so soft, it feels like it could just melt in your hands. Yummy! Here’s a scan of the dress that I’m going to be making for myself, and a scan of hubby’s costume (the one on the left), as well.
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I also bought some DMCs that I needed and I had a little stash splurge on a purse that I’ve had my eye on in The Stitchery catalog for some time, but I hadn’t seen it with a purple hydrangea on it. I snapped it up with no time to waste:
I also bought some more fabric for potential dyeing, or just for the heck of it.
And, speaking of dyeing, I went to the grocery store the other day, picked up 4 more colors of RIT Dye (black, royal blue, teal and wine) and played with them. These are all solids, except for some that I dyed in a primary color, then wadded up the fabric and dunked in the black dye briefly. I forgot to take photos and don’t want to bother with it now. Sorry. 🙂
I think that’s more than enough for now. Next time, hopefully I’ll have even more stitching to share!
That’s right, today I actually feel normal. For the first time in about a week. It feels so good to just be normal.
I know that most people think that I’ve been doing okay, since I’ve been blogging a lot. The truth is that I’ve had a terrible time of it lately. I started Abilify, an anti-psychotic mood stabilizer, last Wednesday (I think) and by Friday, I was cycling up into a hypomanic state. By the time Tuesday rolled around, I was in pretty bad shape. I was manic like I’ve never been before. I literally, seriously could not stand or sit still for any period of time. I was just uncomfortable inside of my own body, no matter what position I tried. I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. I was all over the place – baking, cooking, cleaning, stitching, trying to work from home, the whole nine yards. On Tuesday night, I finally cracked. I was tired of being tired, but not being able to nap because I couldn’t lay down. I was tired of not having enough energy to sit up straight. I was tired of the whole thing, so I just broke down into inconsolable tears. At that point, I had Terry call the psychiatrist’s cell phone (it was 9 PM-ish) and I talked to him about what was going on. He explained that I was in a “mixed state” and that instead of experiencing euphoria, I was anxious and agitated. Not surprising, since I paced the first floor of our house the entire time I was on the phone with him. So, he called in a prescription for Zyprexa to help bring me down from the mania. We had to drive nearly an hour each way (keep in mind, this is around 9:00 PM; it was a long night) to a 24-hour pharmacy to pick up the pills. I also had to go in and see the psychiatrist yesterday as a follow-up.
We discussed the meds I’m on and what other alternative medications there were. I have to say that I’m not convinced that the Abilify didn’t spark this whole episode, but the doctor seems to think that this episode would have happened anyway and that I’m just not on a high enough dosage of Abilify. We talked about other drugs and I decided that since the Zyprexa brought me down nicely (I started feeling pretty normal yesterday), we’ll try it as an additional maintenance medication.
All of this means that I’m really going to have to start exercising. Abilify is the only drug out right now for treatment of bipolar disorder that doesn’t have significant side effects of weight gain and sedation. I saw a relatively cheap elliptical at Walmart, so I think I’m going to go get it sometime soon. Hopefully, starting an exercise routine will help prevent the weight gain. Hopefully…
BTW, all of those posts? Written ahead of time. I cheated. 😆
We’re less than a month away from this year’s stitching festival in Hershey. Some have said it’s the last one, so I’ve decided to live it up while I still can.
I will be driving up on Thursday, staying Thursday and Friday nights and hopefully attending two classes on Saturday.
So, who else is going that I can meet up with?
I know that Cathy is going. 😀 And Suz, too. Anyone else?
I think that I’m starting to get excited, just like Cathy! I want to get to the market early on Thursday to see all of the wondrous items before all of the shops are picked over.
If they do continue the stitching festival, I would love to have OSL there, sharing a booth with someone. I can’t wait to see Sandie Vanosdall again; this time as one of her model stitchers instead of just a rabid fanatic. I can’t wait to see my Blackberry Heart model framed, too! 😉
So, if you’re reading this and planning on going to Hershey, please leave a comment so that we can arrange a meeting at some point. Hopefully, Cathy will be up to another dinner at Friendly’s at least one of those nights.
I have to admit to being on a tiny bit of a shopping binge right now. I bought some fabrics from Silkweaver that will go nicely with some future BAPs. I also bought a new tennis racquet on a whim on Sunday. We were in WalMart and I saw the cutest Wilson racquet that has a beautiful, purple and white scrollwork design on it. And the proceeds benefit breast cancer research and it was only $22, so I went for it. The photo shows it as pink, but believe me, mine is PURPLE. 😀
I played a little bit against the shed doors (which are made of thick plywood that won’t dent), but it’s too hard to keep a real rhythm and I didn’t want to lose any more balls after the first one I didn’t want to retrieve from the weeds. 😆 It’s a great racquet. Unfortunately for me, I pulled out my 15+ year old Prince racquet and it still hits like a charm, as well. It felt good to get back into the swing of things (pun definitely intended) and I remembered the delicious sound of a solid hit against the center of the strings of my old racquet. It needs new grip tape, though. I had replaced it in high school with cushioned tape (purple, of course) when I was playing on the tennis team, but it disintegrated in my hand, so I pulled off the “new” tape and the original tape and am now down to bare graphite. That way, I’ll have two good racquets. I just never figured that the old one would still be in great condition. Who’d a thunk it? 😀 And, of course, Wilson makes pink “Hope” tennis balls to match.
So, now we need to find some tennis courts nearby. There are several schools in Oxford that we pass on the way to and from work. The local YMCA is also just down the road and I think they have courts hidden behind the main building.
I really need to be exercising so that I can feel better, both physically and mentally, so I’m looking forward to future tennis games against Terry. 😉
Okay, I’m being really bad right now. I have WIPs that I should be working on, but I seem to have a serious case of startitis lately. Do I care? Not really. It’s about time I work through some of this stash. 😆
I am finally about to get into my kit storage box because I made Terry move his model boat that was sitting on top of it. The thing weighs a few pounds and is pretty fragile, to boot, so it’s been keeping me from fondling my kit stash until now. I pulled out a hardanger kit from Nordic Needle – Flower Garden. I love the colors in this and ended up getting in on sale a while ago. I started it on Friday and by Saturday night, I had all of the satin stitched motifs finished. Now I have to do some eyelets, chain stitch and lazy daisies before I cut and weave.
In addition, I bought some used charts from Mel and they arrived last week. So, on Saturday, I decided to start stitching on one of the Elizabeth’s Designs Little Leaf Designs named Betsy’s Butterfly. I don’t have enough to bother scanning it right now, but it should be a pretty quick stitch. You’ll see it soon. 🙂
Finally, I tried hand-dying some fabric using the squirt bottle method suggested by Meari (smart cookie that she is) some time ago on her blog. They are all blends of pink, purple and blue, but the one which is predominately is my favorite.
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Despite feeling like he** on Friday (Terry and I seem to have brought a flu home from work, plus I’m experiencing side effects from the antibiotics) and living on the couch, I did manage to curl up in my stitching corner and do a few things.
First, I just had a little S.E.X. at Silkweavers’ and the package arrived today. I decided to kill the start I already had made on the needlebook from Cherry Blossom Spring by The Cat’s Whiskers Design Studio and redo it on the Pink Shimmer fabric that I bought. I restarted it on the new fabric on Friday afternoon and I think it’s going to look really nice when I’m done.
After making a start on that, I finished the little scissors fob that I made up to go with my Alyssum Scissors Pocket. I used and modified some of the motifs from the pocket design. The finishing didn’t go as smoothly as I would have liked, but it was probably because I wasn’t feeling well and it’s done, so I’m not going to fuss.
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Hey everyone! I finally made thumbnails of all of the latest Crescent Colours Belle Soie silks and entered them and the latest Dinky Dyes silks into the storefront. You can see them all on the front page!
Also, while you are there, please scroll down to the bottom of the left sidebar and cast your vote in my poll.
