Stagnant… Yet Vigorous – an Update

No, seriously, that’s what a statement issued for my area actually says about the C-R-A-P-P-Y weather we are expecting this week (because the last few months have been so pleasant, I guess):

This statement, from Weather Underground app on  my iPhone.
This statement, from Weather Underground app on my iPhone.

I’d say that I’d be on the look-out for Jim Cantore, but since The Weather Channel is located here in Atlanta, chances are good that he might be here anyway, since there’s not much going on on the coasts at the moment 🙁 Atlanta proper was on target to break the 101 year-old rainfall record – we had storms come through last night, so I wonder if we did? Though, to be honest, that’s as measured down at the ATL airport, which is 62.7 miles south of me (yes, I did trip it out for expense reports) – they did not get the 7+ inches of rain in 6 hours that we got back in May, so if Atlanta records are being broken, I’m pretty sure they are equally or more broken up here. The mushrooms are growing mushrooms 🙁 And my poor pepper plants – the Cajun bells don’t seem to be too hampered, I have at least one that could be picked right now, but it’s not gotten red yet; the others are looking pretty sad. I gave them food yesterday – and then it rained like hell for a bit, so probably washed it all away 🙁

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Suffice it to say, I am damn sick of rain. AND we haven’t even had a hurricane go through yet, though as cool as it is, maybe we can hope that it won’t be warm enough to generate the systems they were predicting this year. I would gladly send some of this out west where it is needed for the fires in Colorado, Arizona, and elsewhere. Anywhere from Texas on can have some of what we are about to receive….

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Fortunately, with the dismal weather, there’s really no reason to not stay in and stitch 🙂 Lucy the Chickenshit Dog won’t go out if there’s a rain drop anywhere in the state (Dummy, of course, could care less), so we can’t even go for a walk – unless we just don’t take them with us. So, stitching it is. And, after I finished Amethyst Snowflake, I was more than ready to break out one of my By the Bay Cove series charts – Autumn is the one that jumped into the Qs first, and it didn’t even wait until IHOP Thursday, it MADE me start it at lunch on Tuesday:

By The Bay Autumn Cove, on 28ct jobelan, using DMC as charted.
By The Bay Autumn Cove, on 28ct jobelan, using DMC as charted.

This seasonal series has the same bottom portion, basically – hills, BIG tree to the left, 2 houses and smaller trees, and a ship in the cove; just the leaves on the trees and the sky change between the 4 seasons. I plan to just have 1 frame for these, and switch them out each season, once I get them all done 🙂 This one, Autumn, will have silks in it when done – the fall-colored leaves were charted for WDW, but I converted those over to HDF silks instead, just because 🙂 I expect each one to be fairly quick (of course, now that I’ve typed that out loud, I am SURE I have jinxed myself).

The butterfly bush has grown a few feet in the last couple of weeks... No butterflies yet, it's too damn wet :(
The butterfly bush has grown a few feet in the last couple of weeks… No butterflies yet, it’s too damn wet 🙁

During the week, I continued on with my IC RYO One Lonely Family piece, and am glad to report that I have the border 2/3 or more done, and am getting it filled in slowly but surely! I’ve been working this slubby linen long enough now that it’s not bothering me too much – mostly only when a black stitch is really fat and the fabric shows through it over a particularly large slub. All in all, it’s looking really good, IMO – it’s almost electric on the grey, though this picture doesn’t really give that impression:

Ink Circles' Roll Your Own SAL - One Lonely Family colorway, including blends of the 3 colors 915/3607/3609.
Ink Circles’ Roll Your Own SAL – One Lonely Family colorway, including blends of the 3 colors 915/3607/3609.

So far, a fun stitch, though not nearly as quick as last year’s Halloween mandala ended up being – which reminds me of the 2nd Halloween mandala that I haven’t done yet. Tracy needs to SLOW DOWN with the designs!

And speaking of Halloween, guess who released MORE designs that i must have? Yep, Prairie Schooler! These are on my WIsh List as of one day last week when I saw them:

  62813psboo 62813psdouble 62813trick

 

I wonder if Double Double will have a companion piece released at the next market, Toil &Trouble? Isn’t there another one coming up in the next few weeks? No matter, so long as JJs has it by the Labor Day sale, I’m good – yay, MORE 3371 & Lambswool jobelan!

Dew-covered clover...
Dew-covered clover…

That’s it for last week. What are the plans for this week? No idea. I AM looking forward to a) short work week, b) Wednesday night at IHOP (since Thursday is a holiday), and 3) a 5-day weekend to recoup from my boss being gone for 2 weeks. I WAS looking forward to being outside some, doing… whatever (NEED some purple petunias for the flower bed at the foot of the steps), but that won’t happen before Saturday, it looks like 🙁 DH will be taking his mom home this weekend, since he has to work Friday – I assume the Kid will go with, because it’s a lonnnggg drive back by yourself. I will be on dog duty, I guess. I think I will put the RYO away for a bit, and either Halloween Rules or Halloween Quaker will come out – I am ready to work on Halloween stuff! I also need to be thinking about whether or not I’m messing with the fair – I need to get some frames regardless, because the pile is getting out of control, but it’s whether I feel like going through the hassle of taking stuff over to the other side of Atlanta or not… We’ll see, I have weeks & weeks to think about it. Because I work better under pressure.  Meh, whatever… Happy 4th of July to all of my fellow Americans, and Happy Stitching to EVERYONE!

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The Spirit of St. Louis – an Update

Today in 1927, Lindbergh began his transatlantic flight in the Spirit of St Louis. How far we’ve come since then… And then news of the last A-10 sortie in Europe last week closes one of my own chapters, I guess, from my time at RAF Bentwaters/Woodbridge in the U.K., with the 81st TAC Fighter Wing, 81st Equipment Maintenance Squadron, Corrosion Control – a.k.a. the Paint Barn. Strangely, it’s much easier to look back on it and appreciate it now than it was at the time – for the record, painting jets is NOT an easy job, though as I was probably 90% attitude at the time, it was a lot easier then than it would be now 🙂 Now, there’s probably not enough ibuprofen tolerance to get me through a day of that… Which is why we have days like Armed Forces Day and the upcoming Memorial Day, for those who didn’t come home…

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So, moving on…

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A couple more Critters:

One of those 2 Jays again - these must be juveniles, as small as they are...
One of those 2 Jays again – these must be juveniles, as small as they are…

Last week, we had some decent weather finally, though I wasn’t out in it a lot – I was inside, working on my Ink Circles Roll Your Own SAL piece, trying to get some color into the black frame 🙂 You know, it’s one of those designs that you can get to any number of stopping points and say “It could be cool to just stop here”. But of course, you rarely ever do that – it’s just neat to have a design that you COULD do that, or a myriad of other things. When I wasn’t at the last band concert of the year, I worked on Flower Garden through Friday night, and got to here:

Ink Circles RYO - over-1 on 32ct cream linen, using DMC in the Flower Garden colorway...
Ink Circles RYO – over-1 on 32ct cream linen, using DMC in the Flower Garden colorway…

I needed to work on something else a little BIGGER, so on Saturday, I got that ol’ Chat Noir back out, and while waiting for the awful storms to get here (6″+ of rain Saturday night – and yeah, no more canopy over the deck), started back in on getting some holes filled in. In between chores on Sunday, I continued to work on him, though there’s not a lot of visible progress – just like L&U, only yellow instead of red 🙂

Chat Noir, on 22ct aida using DMC. Filling in lots of yellows & Oranges - pages 2 & 3. Page 1 is now "officially" complete. Chart by Jeanne Bonner.
Chat Noir, on 22ct aida using DMC. Filling in lots of yellows & Oranges – pages 2 & 3. Page 1 is now “officially” complete. Chart by Jeanne Bonner.

That’s all the stitching I did for the week. I did, however, receive an awesome RAK, from Chris Wilson; apparently, she’s been acquiring threads – who knew? 🙂 So, in the hopes that some might find a project, she sent me a HUGE bag full:

Bag o' Floss from the Cowgirl from Hanna, Indiana! Thanks, Chris - given time, they will ALL find their way into fabric :)
Bag o’ Floss from the Cowgirl from Hanna, Indiana! Thanks, Chris – given time, they will ALL find their way into fabric 🙂

That’s the news from here! Hoping to see the sun this week, though I think we have more storms coming for the long weekend 🙁 I have Friday off, too, so a 4-day week, followed by a 4-day weekend, followed by another 4-day week 🙂 The Kid is out of school on Thursday – late this year! So YAY free child labor all summer! Though, since he’s usually just rolling out of bed by the time I get home from work, it’s not really worth the trouble. I will keep working on Chat Noir this week – would like to complete all of page 2, and get a dent into Page 3. I wil be at IHOP on Thursday, plus our May PINS is Saturday (Vets eat free! at Loretta’s), so not sure which travel piece(s) will get worked – we’ll see what grabs me at the time. Happy Stitching this week!

Hammock Rat II
Hammock Rat II

Is it? Could it be? The SUN? An Update

After record-breaking rainfall AND record-breaking low maximum-temperatures last week (66 as a high on May 6 – that broke records, since we are usually in the 70-80s by then, or higher, NOT 60s), the sun decided to come out yesterday! It was windy, and cool, but the sun WAS out, and man was it nice! A good Mother’s Day, all in all – we actually cooked out on the grill TWICE yesterday – hamburgers for lunch, bar-b-que chicken for dinner 🙂 We had the windows open – we rarely get to do that in the spring, since by the time the pollen is over, it’s too hot and we’re on Month Three of A/C running 24/7. I was given the gift of music for Mother’s Day, via iTunes 🙂

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PMGabbWM5s

In stitching news, I worked on a few different things over the week, including a new (yes, I know – I’m bad) start. But I’ll get to that later 🙂 First off, an update on Thursday night’s progress on Whoo’s There? from Prairie Schooler – we now have a house 🙂

PS Whoo's There? on Lambswool jobelan.
PS Whoo’s There? on Lambswool jobelan.

I continued to work on Samplar 4 Saisons, and completed another row of pages; I think I have 6 to go, out of 15? Though, now that I have the branches of the tree about 90% done, the motifs for the last two seasons will go quicker, as will the tree trunk, the next time I have this out. And since I have put it away for the time being, I actually ironed it and took a picture of the whole thing:

Anagram DIffusion Samplar 4 Saisons: Ex. Mud Brick (Spring, top left), Ex. Wattle N Daub (tree & border), Ex. Milligrubs (Summer, top right), Ex. Lily Tutters (Autumn, lower right), Ex. Flannel Dark (Winter, lower left)
Anagram DIffusion Samplar 4 Saisons: Ex. Mud Brick (Spring, top left), Ex. Wattle N Daub (tree & border), Ex. Milligrubs (Summer, top right), Ex. Lily Tutters (Autumn, lower right), Ex. Flannel Dark (Winter, lower left)

And a detail of the Winter color, which I wasn’t sure was going to contrast enough with the tree color, but now that I have some in, I like it 🙂

 

A close-up of the winter color going in - Ex. Flannel Dark, which you might recognize fromt eh model of Ink Circles' Growth Rings....
A close-up of the winter color going in – Ex. Flannel Dark, which you might recognize from the model of Ink Circles’ Growth Rings….

And, speaking of Ink Circles, it would seem that I fell into another SAL, this time, Tracy’s Roll Your Own SAL, where you get to pick your own colors for a mandala design 🙂 And strangely enough, besides the combo I came up with after 45 minutes in Hobby Lobby on Friday, there are a couple of others that have been posted that I am “prepared” to do, as well, one in PURPLES, of course, and one in greens, to go with mine, titled Flower Garden 🙂 This is what it ought to look like:

Ink Circles Roll Your Own - my color choices, called Flower Garden.
Ink Circles Roll Your Own – my color choices, called Flower Garden.

And well, because I may or may not be entirely right in the head, surprise, I’m doing MINE over-1 on 32ct linen 🙂 On a piece that I could fit all three that I have kitted on together 🙂 And after a few hours yesterday on it, here’s where I am already:

IC RYO FLower Garden, over-1 on 32ct cream Belfast.
IC RYO Flower Garden, over-1 on 32ct cream Belfast.

It was actually pretty cool before I started putting color into it 🙂 And nice to not be using variegated threads, so I can go //// and then \\\\ if I want! ANd speaking of flower gardens, look what showed up in mine this week:

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And here are a couple more that also emerged….IMG_4606 IMG_4617

And these:

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So, this week, I will put more color into my Flower Garden, though I probably won’t work on it all week – I think Chat Noir needs to come out and get some attention, before I get out the Halloween Quaker. I also think one of the projects I have closest to finishing (or quickest to finish, maybe) is PC Romeo, so that may come out soon, too, and see if I can’t add it to the list to finish this year 🙂 We’ll see – I want to work on everything at the moment, so it’s really hard to choose 🙂 I won’t get any progress on my travel pieces, as we have the last band concert on Thursday, Music of the Orient, so I won’t be at IHOP this week. So check this space next week to see if anything I planned to do actually happens or not 🙂 Happy Stitching to everyone!