T-Minus 4 Days – an Update

4 days until school starts, that is. 4 days until we have to start the early-morning whinging when I try to get a certain 15yo UP and MOVING! Last week’s band camp wakings were rough, though he was just getting back onto a DAYTIME schedule after spending the entire summer up all night, sleeping all day. Speaking of band camp, this year’s Flowery Branch High School Marching Falcon’s show looks like it is going to be realllyyy cool – they are doing music from a band I grew up with, Styx. The Kid needs a trombone upgrade, which we’ll try to get done before the first game in 4 weeks. Here is their show shirt:

The Olympic Medal count as of this morning:

Country Medalists Gold Medal Silver Medal Bronze Medal Total
See names 31 17 14 62
See names 28 14 18 60
See names 16 11 10 37
See names 4 16 15 35
See names 2 12 13 27

Sure hope we end up with more than China when it’s over. And way to go Michael Phelps! Beat that, anyone!

Again, I apologize for the photos on this page not automatically linking to their high-res versions – the links are THERE, I’ve removed & re-added them in, but they just don’t go 🙁 Stupid HTML, or stupid Multiply, which hasn’t been cooperating with FB lately, either. IF you want to see these (my) photos in high res, here is the link to the original, Multiply, post, and clicking on them there will take you to the high res….

Okay, on with the stitching bits, which, despite stopping to watch the TV every minute when my favorite events were on (swimming, diving, rowing), I did get some in 🙂

First, I finished up Iris Fairy’s face, as I mentioned last week. MUCH better with a face 🙂 I also did a bit more on the right-hand start of the irises, so I could finish up her Kreinik hair. Next time, I should get down to her dress, and/or work on those irises more.

Also, over in The Stitcher’s Village social area, I made a Joan Elliott group, with various discussions, if you’d care to check it out 🙂 If you haven’t been there (or not recently), you have to have a separate account than the one you get the newsletter from, in order to participate in the social area; but we have a LOT of great discussions there, LOTS of pictures, and all kinds of goings-on. Follow the link above, and enter through the Tea Shoppe, at the bottom right – unless you need to do some shopping first, like at PTP or Laurel’s 🙂

Speaking of Laurel’s, since the 2nd part of the L*K Very Scary Mystery is on its way to me, I finished up the Part 1 Bonus chart – the fabric came out a bit grey in this photo, as it was very overcast when I took it; it’s actually a very subtle lavender, and the thread is WDW Onyx:

So now I am ready for Part 2, which should be here this week 🙂

I also worked some more on Bone Cheeks this week – he now has teeth 🙂 Though they are kinda hard to see on this fabric, until I get the black done around them….

And finally, the main focus of the week, once I put Iris away, was Lady & Unicorn. I spent a couple of nights filling in blanks in the confetti – and no, you can’t really see where those were. So by Saturday, I decided to cheat, and started working on some of the sections of continuous stitching! I will regret later leaving all those blanks to fill in, but I needed to make some forward progress, so I did 🙂 Here is the area I worked on Page 7:

And here’s a shot with the chart for comparison – all the pink highlighter is what I did last week:

This week, I will continue with L&U, and Bone Cheeks at lunch, if possible, as well as Tuesday night at IHOP (weather & barometer-head permitting). DH and I really need to do some work outside – those irises aren’t going to divide themselves, apparently – as well as get that Kid some school clothes this weekend – a tax-free weekend in GA, so we’ll have swarms of people to battle through 🙁 We are also keeping an eye on the Gulf – we want to go to the beach for a few days in September, which will negate me going to the fair (and all the hassle to go with), IF we can manage to avoid the hurricanes. We will see…

Well, that’s the news. Happy Stitching this week, and here’s hoping we pull ahead & stay ahead of China in the medals!!

Incense & Peppermints – Another Monday Update

SO I went to bad with this song stuck in my head, woke up with it still this morning, and despite Seether at brain shattering decibels this morning, between songs, it was still playing on loop in my head. Not a bad earworm, for sure, one of my favorite songs from the era, but wow, is it persistent! The video linked is not much to look at – but it sounds good 🙂 Enjoy!

In local weather news, it rained here, all last week. Fortunately, we did NOT get the deluge that parts of Texas got – 12-13″ in and around the Houston area? YIKES! But we needed it, and it was welcome, and fortunately, the barometer head wasn’t too bad, since it kind of stayed in the same spot for several days, though I could tell when the afternoon storms were getting ready to let loose 🙁 Better than the 100+ days though, though between the heat and the moisture, we have a prickly pear who seems to love living in captivity – it’s got two new paddles coming off of it since we dug it up and stuck it in a pot:

In stash news, my L*K Very Scary Mystery kit came in from Laurel’s, along with the JCS Halloween book – I have started the Mystery, but I won’t post any pictures yet, so I don’t blow the surprise for anyone. I WILL post the picture of the kit – in this picture, the floss is sitting on the 35ct Tin Roof linen for the main sampler, and then the lilac piece top left is 30ct, for the bonus designs that comes with Part 1 🙂

Also – the new Ink Circles Mandala is AWESOME!!! Will have to get a piece of the PTP Monster Mash for it, but I’ll have to remember to get 28ct to match the purple I did Spirited Mandala on 🙂 My 4th of July order from JJs is awaiting fabric, of course – the 36ct Eek! from PTP that I ordered for the AAN Bat Banner. They must have had the 32ct Lambswool needed for the 3 Prairie Schooler Halloween pieces I ordered. They hope to have their PTP order this week, so maybe next week, my Halloween Stash 2 will show up – and then I think I am stashed out for a while….

So when I wasn’t working on the Mystery (which I started Friday at lunch, and worked on Friday & a little on Saturday), I was making decent progress on BC Glory – I worked on it Tuesday night and then again on Wednesday, I think – too tired/barometer-heady to deal with Tuscany. I am well over half-way, having the alphabet caught up to where I’ve stitched, and the sections of satin stitch in the red. I LOVE these two colors of Victorian Motto Shoppe floss with the DMC Variation, though I did wonder why they had it charted for the big letters to be black, and the bs letters to be dark brown? Umm, all of my letters will be black.

And then I did get parts 2 & 3 of Tuscany completely stitched. I will put the beads on tonight, I think I can get them all done, if everyone will maintain tonight. We shall see… Here’s the stitching done:

My very loose plan for this week is: get the beads on Tuscany, then put it away. Part 4 is pretty big, so I want to start fresh on that the next time I have it out. I want to pull Lady & Unicorn out, but I may wait until later in the week, and maybe work on Iris Fairy for a day or two, and wait to see if I have any functioning brain cells later this week 🙂 I will probably go to the Tuesday night stitch, and I NEED to work on Glory and get it done soon, but I will have the L*K with me, too, though I don’t know if I can see the 35ct in the dim light we have there, even with my Mighty Bright. So who knows? I also have another From Nancy’s Needle ready to go – one of the Stars that I have, can’t remember now which one I pulled out. But the canvas is on the bars, and it’s ready to go. Not that I NEED to start it, it’s just an option 🙂

(one of the many peppers we’ve gotten of the Cajun bell – small but potent!)

Check back next week to see how those plans worked out 🙂 Happy Stitching everyone!






Purple Haze & The Artificial Time

Yes, it’s my favorite time of year again, when we start daylight saving. Bah humbug! Cutting a foot of the bottom and sewing it onto the top does not a longer blanket make. Anyway, a little cranky for the next few until I get adjusted. Someday, when all I have to get up in the morning is ME, I will stay on REGULAR time all year round (or move to AZ, where they do this already). Considering I was seriously dragging ass last week, this week’s not looking too promising – or at least won’t until Friday, which I have off, through next Tuesday!! Ahhh, some days off, and THIS TIME, I will NOT have a crud 🙂 Unless the artificial time does me in, coupled with the pollen that has all of us sneezing the last few days…

 
(Booger’s Violet)

As for purple, it would seem all I worked on this week was purple 🙂 First, Iris fairy finally saw daylight again, first time since the impulse to start her last year won out. I LOVE these colors 🙂 Not particularly liking dragging the Kreinik through the stitching to get those wing veins on (this is 32ct fabric – so hand dyed, probably closer to 34? It’s a tight fit – hope the beads fit, or I’ll have to swap ’em for 15/0s), but it looks really cool 🙂 JE does such a good job making the wings appear translucent with shadows from the objects behind. Next time she’s out, her hair and face…

And also of note – thanks to Lisa completing the Crescent Moon Dragon and now working on another JE, I was compelled to start getting kits together for more JE projects (because, you know, all my kits start with spreadsheets); I have the four Seasonal Fairies, Fire & Water Goddess, and Poppy Fairy all beginning to be kitted up, 4 of them having fabrics already (the Silkweaver debacle last fall helped me out there tremendously 🙂 ), and Kreinik & beads ordered for one from JJ’s spring sale this weekend (along with a pile of DD silks for Deep Blue Sea).

Speaking of stash, I got some more beads in, from Beadies Beadwork,  again split between Sparkly Hummingbird and Deep Blue Sea, and my fabric for Hummingbird is dyed & paid for, so hope it gets here this week – it would go well with this post if it had been here in time.

Since I am actually getting a tax refund this year (yeah, the boys are off the hook in having to flip for who gets to black-market an organ), I have fabric picked out for Deep Blue Sea – I just gotta decide if I want to lose my mind and go opalescent or not…

Okay, back to the purple – I guess that stash interjection was from the haze part… So in my local group, Jackie & Tricia have both completed the Ink Circles Halloween Mandala from last year’s special edition JCS Halloween book, one as charted on tha great PTP Voodoo, and another on a green (Eek? I thing that’s what she used). It just happened to occur to me that I had this great piece of purple fabric, an RAK from Laura, that I had set aside to do a couple of my favorite blocks from Boo! Club on, to make into a flatfold. Well, I got it out of the cabinet, just to measure – and woohoo! It’s big enough for the Mandala!!! So off to HL I go for floss. I am glad I took the fabric in with me – I was going to just go 310, but when I laid the skeins down on it, it looked really flat 🙁 Not quite happy, I tried a few other colors, including blood red, which might have worked for a more sinister design. I settled on 839, which looks like a really rich black on this fabric 🙂 So Friday, I put the first stitches in, and plowed through almost half of it – and one complete skein of thread – by Sunday afternoon. Obsess much? Yes, yes I do  – but it’s so purple!!!

I have the mandala in the travel bag – I think I will be able to see it well enough to work it at IHOP on Tuesday night. As for the main focus of the week, I am getting L&U back out, now that my fingers have had a rest (of a sort) – and I found some of these at HL when I was getting thread, too, so this will help immensely! As I have a long weekend coming up for myself, I may try to get the mandala done, too. Assuming I don’t sleep the entire time, of course… I gotta rest up for end-of-quarter/end-of-year panic for the two weeks when I get back…

On that note, Happy Stitching to everyone!