Holy Icicles, Batman! An Arctic Update

Some may have noticed that I apply the descriptor “Arctic” to any number of things that imply temps are not at my optimum operating range (80-82 F), but this time, I mean it! According to local reports, this is the longest stretch of below-freezing weather in 30 years (or, a decade longer than I’ve been here). Okay, I know that what we’re having doesn’t really compare to points north, but considering building standards vary by region to account for local norms, suffice it to say a deep freeze – even without precipitation of any account – is just as bad here as it is in places where the thermometer reads even lower and the snow drifts are to the eves. And, did I mention, I freaking HATE winter, and moved south for a reason? At least, unlike all those winters in Ohio, it won’t stay cold for months & months; it will warm up here, and get cold again, and warm up, and repeat 🙂 But I’m still over it….

In an attempt to stop dwelling on the fact that my feet are cold, here’s the stitching report 🙂 As I had a good case of barometer head again last Thursday, I did not go to IHOP, so the only thing I worked on all week was Lady & Unicorn. This is where it was when I updated last week:

After another week, which included a couple of good days of 8-10 hours on it, it now looks like this:

And though I didn’t quite complete Page 7, I did do enough on surrounding pages to now be officially over the 1/3 mark – and it only took 7 1/2 years! 6 1/2 if you don’t count the year it never got touched 🙂 Here is a picture showing the chart – 3 pages that I’ve been working on in this section; the brighter yellow is what I’ve done the last 2 weeks:

Here it is by the numbers:

Lady & Unicorn: Sense of Hearing (smaller) – 318 x 410 = 130380.

1 full page of chart: 95 x 74 = 7030 stitches per page. Pages 5, 10, 15, & 20 are only 95 x 22 = 2090.

Calling #7 complete (the remaining blanks balanced by what I’ve done on 8 and 12, above), that is 6 full pages and 1 partial end page, for a total of 44270+. One third of 130380 is 43460, so you can see, I’m past that! WooHoo! It sure doesn’t feel like it though 🙁 I will be much happier when I reach the halfway point 🙂 And hopefully the next 1/3 won’t take another 7 1/2 years, though, to be honest, losing a year when I didn’t touch it, and then the first 18 months I wasted trying to get parking to work for me seriously skew the numbers. I hope. The Lady and her pipe organ are the simplest elements on this entire row of pages; when I get down to the next row and over to the right, the Unicorn will also be relatively simple – but there’s all kinds of confetti hell between here and there 🙂 So we’ll see how the next third goes….

So, now that it’s back to the old grindstone and vacation is over, I’ve put up L&U for now. It’s time to work on the first of those items on my To Finish list, Iris Fairy. It ought to be a downright cakewalk after plowing through a couple of thousand stitches (maybe 3000+?) on L&U 🙂 Also, our 21st anniversary is Saturday; we’re going to dinner, but other than that, it’ll be a quiet day as it usually is (as we continue to recoup from year-end & holiday hooha). Until next week, Happy Stitching, and stay warm!!