I have none. Seriously. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
I just went out on eBay, bid on and won a larger (19-hole instead of 11-hole) version of the clear flower frog with milk glass footed vase that I showed off in my previous post.
I really need to learn a little self-discipline. Did I mention that I have more stash on the way? Yeah, some self-discipline would be good, although, in my defense, I first started the in-transit stash order a couple of months ago…
I totally can’t seem to keep up with blogging. I spend WAY too much time on Facebook. I can’t help but get sucked into the games. It’s my competitive nature; I just have to get in there and see who I can level up past. Yeah, I really need to start cutting back.
I’ve also started exercising. Right now I’m doing 25 minutes at a time (once a day). I was originally doing 30 minutes when I was exercising before, but I have been working myself pretty hard, so I go until I can’t easily go any longer and that’s at the 25 minute mark for me right now. I’ve exercised 5 out of the last 7 days and I actually feel guilty about not having done it today, so I think that’s a great improvement. In fact, I actually really enjoyed it yesterday. I must be feeling ill. 😉 I really need to do this, though, for multiple reasons. One, I’m starting to get serious about my health. Two, I’m hoping that it will help with my headaches. Three, the migraine preventative that I’ve started has weight gain as one of its most common side effects and I really don’t want to go there if I can possibly avoid it.
Speaking of the migraines, I’ve been doing okay lately. We changed my anti-depressant medication over a month ago to something that should also help with the pain and I’ve seen a positive increase in my mood as a result, which is lovely, as I thought I was already doing well to begin with and didn’t even realize that I had further that I can go. In addition, I saw a neurologist two weeks ago and have started a preventative medication. We tried this one 6 years ago or so and I didn’t find that it helped any, but I feel like the migraines have shifted in nature, so I’m trying to be positive. There are actually multiple directions in which we can proceed, if this one doesn’t work. I’m on a really low dose of the anti-depressant; the neurologist said that it’s common for people to be on 3 times the amount I’m taking, so we have a lot of wiggle room there. We can also increase the preventative medication a good bit. I haven’t even finished ramping up on the full dosage of it, as currently prescribed, so it’s hard to tell what’s having a positive effect right now. It could be the anti-depressant switch, it could be the addition of the preventative, or it could be some combination of the two. Regardless, while the frequency of my headaches hasn’t decreased (I’m still getting several a week), I haven’t needed the heavy-duty migraine abortant medication in a couple of weeks and I’ve actually only taken two doses of Excedrin Migraine in the span of a week. Now, if I could stop the muscle spasms in my trapezius muscles that have been nearly constant over the past week or so, I could probably get an even better handle on the headaches. I have a muscle relaxer to take, but I’m nervous about developing any sort of dependency, so I’m trying not to take it. I might have to check with my doctor and see if I’m just being silly.
And now to the good stuff. Purchases and their associated photos! Hooray!
First up, we have the designs I bought from Jennifer of Always Time to Stitch. She saw that I purchased one of her punch needle designs from Stitching Bits & Bobs a couple of weeks ago and offered to sell me another one, along with her copy of Just Nan’s Summer in the Square, which she saw on my wishlist. Now I only have Autumn in the Square left to finish that set (*hint-hint*). 😆 For the punch needle design, I chose Jennifer’s lovely Beach Cottage. She said that she was inspired by the scenery she took in during a trip to the Caribbean a few years ago. I absolutely love the colors, plus the sailboat on the water.
Next, we have the materials I bought from WalMart to sew up a project bag for my first canvas work design. None of my plastic mesh bags are large enough and the larger ones aren’t the proper dimensions anyway. I want something square to be slightly larger than the stretcher bars and the associated supplies. Walmart didn’t have a whole lot to work with, but I was feeling desperate to kit this sewing project up and too lazy to plan a trip out to the nearest JoAnn fabric, so I took what I could get. The white flower patterned fabric is actually a canvas fabric that should wipe clean. The black with white polka dots is for the lining.
The same day I went to WalMart, I stopped by my LNS (Strawberry Sampler) to drop off Brush Em with Molly (she’s building me a custom frame) and pick up a couple of things. Molly had set aside Quaker Pendants I by Milady’s Needle at my request, so I grabbed that and a couple of threads that I needed to kit up a couple of projects. Of course, I didn’t like the color of fabric that came with Quaker Pendants I (it comes with a dark ivory, even though the models look like they were stitched on antique white), plus I wanted to do the one design in purples (of course), so I bought some 36 ct. antique white linen and two colors of overdyed purple floss, only to get home and find out that I already had a cut of 36 ct. antique white linen. *sigh* I bought the 32 ct. dusk linen for a project that I then ended up kitting up with a different fabric. But hey, it’s purple and I’m sure I’ll use it elsewhere. Or just pull it out and admire it every once in a while like I do everything else in my extensive stash. 
Florin and Guilder are the latest releases from Tracy at Ink Circles. I just happened to find them in the window and had forgotten that I wanted to buy them, plus I was pleasantly surprised at the price, so I added them to the pile. Finally, you can’t really see the scissors, but they are a cute little pair of purple scissors with a matching plastic sheath that they snap into. I just thought they were sweet, which is why they jumped onto the pile, but then I got them home and realized that they actually cut really well and have tiny tips. Bonus!
And now the last acquisition for this post. I actually have a mail order coming soon that’s been in the works for a couple of months, which is why I say “for this post.” 😀 I’ve been reading about people buying flower frogs to hold and display their scissors for a while. I don’t really visit antique or thrift shops, so I just decided to break down and troll the internet. I ended up making some finds on eBay and buying one. This one has a milk glass vase that was made to go with the clear flower frog insert. It’s really sweet.
Turns out, much to my chagrin, that my collection of scissors is larger than I had thought. Eep! So, now I need to find another one. Hahahaha!
Okay, that’s more than enough from me for now. I finished a small stitched piece today, but it’s a surprise gift, so I can’t show it off yet. Besides, I’m way late for bed and have to get up early to drop my car off for a software update in the morning. TTFN.
My dearest, precious, little Brain: We need to have a little talk, you and I. I appreciate your decision to decide to kick into overdrive and start really firing on all cylinders all of a sudden. But, can you not do it at night, please? I find myself rolling over and jotting down all sorts of notes just to capture everything you’re coming up with, but it comes at a price. Now, I think that this may be related to the steroids I’ve just started taking for the poison ivy and, if so, I have 8 more days of steroids to go, so you and I need to find a compromise if I’m going to get through this with my sanity intact. I’ll give you between 8 AM and midnight every day to just go nuts. Process as much as you want. Throw as many magnificent thoughts, to dos, reminders and all sorts of marvelous things that I might otherwise forget at me as you can possibly create. Because I really do appreciate your incredible power and I’m getting a lot out of these sessions with you. But midnight to 8 AM is time to shut down and take a break, okay? Do you think you can do that?
Please and thank you.
Yes, it’s finally finished. I should have had it done more than a week ago, but I had a lousy week and didn’t put in a single stitch. Fortunately, we had our monthly stitching night on Friday, sponsored by my LNS (Strawberry Sampler), so I had an excuse to get out of the house for a while and do some stitching. Unfortunately, I ran out without the backstitching color, so I ran out about 20 stitches shy of completion. I sewed on all of the tooth charms, though, so it was all ready for me to put those last stitches in the next day.
My framing order was also finished by Friday and one of the girls from the shop brought both pieces with her so I wouldn’t have to go to the shop to pick them up. Wasn’t that nice? I’ll take pics once I hang them up. I think I actually have spots for both of them. However, this post is about a happy dance, so here is Hinzeit’s Brush Em:
I talked to another shop gal Friday night about doing a frame for it, so I’ll take it in at the end of the month and we’ll go over what I want. It should be ready to go by the beginning of November, no problem. Even if the framer is still backed up from the May framing sale. Someone told me that they had over 300 pieces come in as a result of that sale. I do not envy the framer! She does really lovely work, though.
So, what’s up with the doggy drama, you may ask? Well, at least those of you who didn’t see my Facebook status updates a couple of days ago. Our poor miss Abby started throwing up Wednesday night. I didn’t worry too much at first because Lily had a similar stomach upset a couple of months ago and all we had to do was withhold food and water overnight and then she was fine. No such luck with Abby, though. We withheld food and water overnight with her, but the next day, she was still throwing up. After she threw up her dinner an hour or so after eating it, I finally called the vet and talked to the vet on call. She had us keep the food up and try giving her some Pepto Bismol. Unfortunately, all I had were the chewable tablets. We cut them up and tried to feed them to her in cheese (after she refused to take them plain). She ate them, but then threw them up about an hour later. I tried again and the same thing happened. So, we gave up and I called the vet first thing the next morning to try to get an appointment. There was only one doctor in that day (the one who was on call the night before, fortunately), so we had to drop her off in the morning. A couple of hours later, the vet called me to talk to me and see what was going on. We went over what had transpired since I had last talked to her and she decided to do some x-rays. An hour or so later, she called again and said that the x-rays showed significant inflammation in her intestines. She wanted to do a couple of more things, including a barium swallow to make sure there was no blockage anywhere. Poor girl, I had to do one of those a couple of years ago and it was NOT FUN. The vet was wonderful about keeping me up to date and running any procedures she wanted to do past me first. After she told me that she wanted to do the barium swallow, she asked if I wanted an estimate. I said no. I mean, I’m not going to skimp on the dog’s healthcare, so it doesn’t really matter what it costs, honestly. It’s hard to fathom that people would choose to withhold proper diagnosis and treatment of a pet because it’s expensive.
Anyway, Terry stopped by to visit with Abby at the vet and get an update on his way home from work. The vet actually took him back to see her and showed him the x-rays, talking about what she had found and what they were going to do moving forward. She was hooked up to an IV and had a catheter in, but Terry said she was calm. They actually kept her overnight, which was hard for us. I think that it was even harder on Lily. She’s not used to not having her sister around. When I loaded Abby into the crate Friday morning to go to the vet, Lily hopped in with her. They always travel together in the same crate, so Lily did not understand at all when I dragged her out of the crate and closed the door. Once Abby was gone, she went around the house looking for her and whining a little bit. She settled down, but Terry reported that she was quite upset when he had to leave her alone while he took me to the stitching get-together. She was so excited when we brought Abby home Saturday morning, she was jumping all over her and getting in her face. I actually had to keep her away from Abby until she calmed down because Abby was still a bit sluggish and a little off. By Sunday morning, though, she was all bright-eyed and bouncy. It was such a relief to have her home and feeling better.
We have all sorts of meds to give her for a few days while her intestines heal, which has been difficult for me to keep straight. She has one that coats in the insides of her intestines and we have to give it to her an hour before she eats or gets any other medication. I’m having a hard time keeping on top of everything, but it’s only for a couple of more days.
So, that’s our latest doggy drama. We still have no idea what caused the inflammation. I guess we’ll have chalk it up to some sort of bacteria. All that really matters is that she’s feeling better! And I have to admit that, while the bill put me off a bit, I am continually amazed at how much cheaper veterinary care is compared to human health care. Abby’s barium swallow only cost $330, whereas I don’t even remember how much mine cost, but it was probably easily 10 times as much.
I am very grateful for a clinic full of competent vets and caring technicians, all of whom care for my beloved girls as if they were their own.
I have to admit that my clicky finger has been going a little crazy lately. I blame this latest binge on Missy. She recently finished her Snow Queen’s Slipper by Carolina House Designs and showed it off on Facebook. I just couldn’t resist; it’s so sweet! So, I went out and looked to see who had the design and found that Bobbie at Stitching Bits and Bobs was running another sale (seriously, when is she not running some sort of sale?), so I just had to grab the kit. While I was at it, I figured I would click around the clearance section and see what I could find. So, I picked up a Victoria Sampler Hearts of America kit for Maine that I will probably try to stitch up quickly for my FIL and his wife before we travel up there (hopefully in a couple of weeks). If I’m lucky, I can get it finished and made up as a pillow or a wall hanging or something before we leave. I also snagged a punch needle design by Always Time to Stitch at the bargain price of $1 and Keslyn’s Frozen Star for 50% off. To round out the order, I decided to try a skein of Carrie’s Threads silk in Lumiere de Cheryl. I have tried her cotton floss, but never her silk. I also wanted to see what the new Florimell line from Gloriana was all about. I was surprised to find out from the tag when it arrived that it is an overdyed Soie d’Alger silk.
Sorry for the mediocre picture, but I think forgot to open the blinds in the craft room and didn’t want to use the flash. Let’s face it, this was a slap-dash kind of photo. Hopefully, you get the idea.
I also have some stitching progress to report, but since I’m almost done with the piece, I’ll just wait until it’s done to show a photo. I’ve been working on Hinzeit’s Brush ‘Em so that I can get it in to the framer (mental note: call to check on the status of the pieces I dropped off in May during their sale) and I have all of the main stitching done and less than 50% of the backstitching left to finish. I should be reporting a happy dance soon, I hope!
For all of my friends in the States, I hope that you had a lovely 4th of July weekend. For all of my friends in Canada, I hope that you had a lovely Canada Day weekend. And for everyone else, I hope you just had a lovely weekend, period. 😉
I was having trouble getting out of bed Tuesday morning. I mean, SERIOUSLY having trouble getting out of bed. So, Terry comes up and tells me that he has something that might help wake me up. He happened to go out to Amazon.com and saw that they just dropped the price of the standard Kindle – by $70!!! So, yes, I have finally reached the breaking point, at which it makes sense to go for it. I have no more space on my bookshelves and no room to add more. And while I haven’t reached the end of the physical books that I have left to read, the significant change in price point and recent negative effect that holding physical books open has had on my wrists made it irresistible.
So, I have a Kindle, a case and a lovely skin for it, all for the same price as the Kindle less than a week ago.
So, here’s a shot of the front and back of my new (and newly skinned) Kindle:
The skin is called Moon Tree, from DecalGirl.com. They have hundreds and hundreds of skins for the Kindle 2, so it was quite difficult to make a decision, but this one kept grabbing my eye every time I saw it, so I bought it. It’s not on perfectly straight, but it’s mostly close. There might be some sort of art to applying the decals, but if there is, I don’t know it. 😉
Anyway, I’m tickled with it. I loaded a ton of free books onto it and started one today, even though I have other things that I should be reading.
I started Hinzeit’s Brush Em a couple of weeks ago, realizing that it needs to be done and framed sooner than the Heirloom Memories Sampler. Besides, with the odd ways I’ve been feeling lately physically, I thought it might be better to work on something that doesn’t take much concentration. At this point, I’m more than 50% done:
Photo removed. See the finished piece here.
I can’t manage to get a decent photo, for some reason. I’ve used my floor lamp and a flash, but neither illuminates the piece well, especially when you consider that it’s stitched on white fabric. Maybe next time I will try laying the piece against a white background, instead of the dark blue of the sofa.
In other news, I went to Fireside Stitchery in Frazier with a friend on the 9th. Bonnie was nice enough to drive up from the DC area to spend time with me and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Bonnie has the patience of a saint, considering it took me hours to do a color conversion on a single counted canvas design. I may be good at changing colors in cross stitch designs, but with all of the manufacturers and types of fibers available for counted canvas work, it’s much, much more challenging! Add that to the fact that some of the colors were out of stock, especially right in the ranges I was looking at, and I’m not 100% sure what we pulled together will work. Only time will tell. Fortunately, Fireside is less than an hour away, so I can go back if things don’t look right once I get started stitching.
Since I’ve never done counted canvas work, I needed everything. I chose to start with a design from Deb Bee’s Designs since Debbie was the one who starting me down this road with her wonderfully designed panel for the Lady’s Reticule project for the Savannah retreat. I went with Aquamarine from her Glitz & Glamour line. The aquamarine colorway is really quite lovely, but I decided to work with purples, instead. I was rolling along, picking fibers in a light lavender that all worked well together, until I got down to the last few fibers and ran out of luck. I tried and tried for a while, then gave up and decided to try for a deep purple conversion instead. That was even harder, so I switched back to the lavender after a somewhat brief and feeble attempt.
Here’s what Bonnie helped to decide on, after I got stuck trying to choose an overdyed silk and a couple of solid colored silks to go with it to finish off the design:
The colors are very pale, so it’s hard to see them, even though this picture was snapped in good daylight. I think I’m going to have to adjust the white balance on my camera. I don’t think I’ll use the lilac Au Ver a Soie pictured under the skein of Waterlilies. I may not end up using the Splendor in the lower right corner, either. The remaining fibers work together fairly well, even though the sheen of the Fyre Werks looks like it doesn’t match anything else at all. Trust me, it does. 🙂
Bonnie and I spent about the same amount of money, which was alarmingly easy to do. And, of course, the store doesn’t have any sort of automation to their pricing or inventory systems, so we had to wait while the owner wrote up both of our orders by hand. While we were waiting, there were two spinner displays on the counter containing lovely hand-painted charms and buttons which drew my attention. I found several that I liked and I could have easily dropped quite a bundle on them, but I limited myself in the end to just two. I will probably go back for one of the dragonfly charms because they look like the ones that Just Nan was putting out for a while. This little frog button was just too cute to pass up:
But my favorite find was this dragon, lurking underneath another dragon painted in a different set of colors:
You can see why that fellow just HAD to jump into my basket.
And finally, here’s a picture of the entire haul:
The three darker purple fibers in the top left area are a few from my attempt at the darker color conversion which were just too lovely to turn down. The tack kit that I found is awesome. The tack pusher is magnetized so that the tack heads won’t slip while I’m pushing them into the stretcher bars. Brilliant. And the canvas is what’s rolled up in the tissue paper. The last bit is the skein of Leah’s overdyed cotton floss at the very top left corner of the photo. I pulled it because I thought it would match some of the Leah’s pearl cotton that I had at home, but alas, it does not match. 🙁 For some reason, the color numbers of Leah’s floss don’t match the color numbers of their pearl cottons. Some matched, but some very obviously did not. Quite disappointing, really, but what can you do?
Now I just need a project bag for this whole design that will also fit the canvas once I mount it to the stretcher bars.
Thanks for coming up, Bonnie! I definitely needed your expertise and it was really nice to catch up with you again after Savannah. I’ll have to come down and return the favor sometime.
… and I think I may have won! It’s probably too early to declare victory, but I put a paving stone on top of the seed pail yesterday afternoon. A couple of hours later, I heard Mr. Squirrel attempting another robbery. He was able to get the handle of the pail down (despite the fact that I had wedged the paver up against it), but no further. He gave up surprisingly quickly. I’m not sure if that’s because he knew that resistance would be futile, or if he needed to go off and hatch another plan. He did come back a little bit later, but his attempts were even more brief that time.
I may yet end up coming home to an open pail because he might conceivably get enough leverage on the side of the lid opposite the stone to flip it off of the lid, but I think that the weight might just be too much for him.
Honestly, I would just let him have as much seed as he likes, but when I went to fill the feeders yesterday, there was a solid layer of sunflower seed hulls at the top due to his piggishness. Having to scrape all of those hulls off and throw them away just so that I could get to the viable seed is what sealed his fate. I might consider getting a squirrel feeder at some point because I do love those wacky, clever little vermin, but for now, he’s going to have to find food elsewhere.
Sorry, buddy. Human: 1; Squirrel: well, I’ve lost count. You may have won countless battles, but you lost the war. You came close, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Is unpicking even the word I want to use? I guess technically it does meet the criteria of frogging. There was just no restitching involved afterwards, as would be implied by the term reverse stitching.
I know, I know, no one has any clue what I’m talking about. I’m referring to the decision that I made around the delicate question of what to do with Phoebe’s Christmas stocking. I truly appreciate all of the input that I received at that time. I’m almost afraid to say that I went against the majority and picked her backstitched name out of the stocking today. It’s been sitting on a chair in my little reading room for months now and I happened to walk by it today and thought “today’s the day.”
I know that I’m at peace with my decision because I didn’t feel any strong twinges or pangs of regret while doing it. While it’s not the decision that many of you would have made for yourself, it’s one that I feel comfortable with and that’s what really matters in the end. The only thing that I regret is not having a picture of it with her name still on it. I guess that was from the period before I became so obsessed with cataloging my finishes photographically. I am contemplating my options for the future use of the stocking. I had a brief thought of tacking a piece of fabric to the top where Phoebe’s name used to be, with the names of all of my girls, past and present, stitched on it. If I’m able to tack it loosely enough, then the personalized portion can be remove and replaced, as needed.
On a side note, I have to say that I am really impressed with my craftsmanship. The backstitching was nice and tight, with no gaps in the longer stretches, and was actually a little challenging to remove at some points. Go me. I’m also really glad that I thought to initial and date the thing in a very pale color at the very bottom of the toe. I almost didn’t even realize that it was there. It’s hard to believe that I completed that stocking in January of 2002 and haven’t managed to do a single one since. In my defense, though, I think that there is a HUGE difference between stitching a needlepoint stocking and a cross stitch stocking, especially considering that the cross stitched stocking kits I have for me and Terry are done on 18 count aida. That’s a whole lot more stitching.
At any rate, my final thoughts as I look at the stocking now are that there are 5 dogs in the scene. I hope to be so lucky as to be blessed with the companionship of 5 little furbabies through my lifetime, if not more.
I spent several hours between Saturday and earlier today, working on the hardanger section of Heirloom Memories Sampler. I finished up today, so I thought it was a good time to take an update photo before I rolled up the hardanger section and moved back up to the top. It turns out that I’m not as close to finishing as I had thought. I originally figured that all that was left was the hardanger, personalization, silk ribbon work and bullion roses. Yeah, not so much. When I scrolled back to the top, I realized that I didn’t do any of the stitching at the top that goes between the ribbon work and bullion roses. Oops.
Oh well, no matter. I still made good progress this weekend, after not having touched this piece in over 5 years. I’ll take it. It’s all I can do to resist the serious temptation to start or work on something small for a quick, gratifying finish, but I really do want to get this one done by the end of summer. I have realized, though, that I actually have to start and finish Brush ’em and get it framed by November, so I may actually have to kit that one up and get started on it soon. I want HMS to be done and framed by Christmas, so it can’t be too far behind. It will be interesting to balance the two against each other, but hopefully it will help to keep me motivated.
Blah, blah, blah. I ramble too much. Here is the picture:
