Still Here – an Update

Well, it’s been a while. Winter has come and gone, and spring, too; even though the calendar says it’s still spring here, the thermometer definitely says summer as we are headed to 100 this Memorial Day Weekend.

But let me back up to Winter, and specifically, Christmas. We were lucky enough to have both boys home at the same time for a day – it’s the first time they’d seen each other since Big Kid left for boot camp 3 years before:

It was good to have everyone here for a little while, though it was looking like a used car lot outside since we already have too many vehicles for 2 people as it is 🙂

As far as my health goes, still working through the steps for triple negative cancer – 16 rounds of chemo done, modified radical mastectomy done (again), radiation done this week and in the process of healing now, 6 rounds of Xeloda to go, and then hopefully I am done with this. All this for stage 1A – I’d hate to see what stage 3 or 4 entails. I assume it goes without saying, I am damn tired of this.

In stitching news, I have been stress stitching still, when able. As usual, I did a few last minute Christmas gifts – bookmarks for all the kids. I found a design for Stephen King’s IT on Etsy, so had to do that for Big Kid. I apparently didn’t take a picture of them finished, but here they are with their backing fabrics:

I had one more start rather than working through my WIPS – I just wasn’t quite ready to go back to anything already going yet. So, I dug through my Joan Elliott’s and went to start Fire Goddess – but the very first thread I needed, I didn’t have in my kit. That’s a first. I also needed a Kreinik for her, too, that I forgot about. So I ordered the Kreinik from String Theory, picked the DMC up when I was out, and started Earth Goddess instead. And worked on her until she was done. I have never put so many beads on a JE before – the metallic arch around her head is kind of insane. She is on 28ct Marshmallow Fudge (lugana, I think) from Silkweaver:

I was surprised I completed this, as I did think that arch was never going to end…

After I put Earth away, I was going to get English Garden Sampler out, but as I was going through drawers looking for it, something else jumped out at me instead – my Thea Gouverneur kit for America, or “Murica! as it will be known. I got a start on it, did a large portion of a page, though it’s mostly the blob that I’m told represents Old Faithful, in front of the Capital Building:

After I was ready to put this away, THEN EGS came out, and I worked on it for several weeks. I put it on a scroll frame and went back and added all the beads up to the point I had gotten to up to that point – there’s a LOT of beads in the border – holy cow! If I was using Mill Hills, I don’t even know how many packs of the pearl color you’d need – 3 or 4? But I converted to delicas, and hope my 7gr tube will be enough. I did the skinny border under the fountain scene all the way through the over-1 alphabet and topiaries, to the lower peacock and beginning the lower garden & gate. Of course, I worked the side borders down as I went, too – this thing has sooo much border! When I got to a stopping point, I’m down to the last 1/4:

I also started a By The Bay design at the January PINs that I was able to go to, but I don’t have a picture of it yet; I will try to remember the next time I have it out. I almost forgot that I’d finished that Lone Elm Halloween Resurrection before, and just happened to have this BtB in my bag – so there you go 🙂 Save the Stitches wasn’t very happy, but it’ll get over it…

I am currently working on my Chatelaine Tuscany Town – I’m working a couple of parts at once; the inner outside border – the never ending trees border – and the right side building section. It’s good to get back to this, because I’m finally to the buildings, which are my favorite parts, and on the downhill side of this massive project, but it also cures the need to start another Chat WIP, since I have multiple kits hollering at me. Here is where I am at the moment – we’ll see what I can do over the long holiday weekend:

That’s the news from here; maybe the next update won’t be 6 months from now – but then again, maybe it will. Work is kinda nuts, too, but hopefully there are some good changes coming as I am finally moving into the role I’ve been trying to get to for 5 years now – I think I will finally get to do the data integrity work full time that I’ve been juggling with the change analyst work the last several years. My work life has been less than desirable the last few years, so hopefully a couple of months down the road, things will be much improved on that front.

Until next time, Happy Stitching 🙂