Yep, it’s pretty swampy around these parts, since it HAS NOT STOPPED RAINING FOR 9 DAYS. But, after lots of tornado warnings and time spent loitering in the lobby of my building at work, the blue sky appeared again for the first time since LAST weekend. Because it’s so wet, we lost power, off and on, last Monday, all through the night, and then this past Friday, we went to get our carry out pizza and came home to a dark street again; either all the new stuff from the ice storm wasn’t completely watertight, or lots more trees have come down since the ground is completely saturated. At any rate, we all got a good nap in before it came back on at 9 PM Friday night – which kind of threw off the whole weekend, which went by FAST 🙁 On top of that, Tuesday was hell day at work, for no good reason, so I sat on the couch, fell asleep, and got up and went to bed. Good riddance to last week! BUT then THIS:
These are the same color that bloomed first last year….
In stitching news, on the days I was able to stitch, I made GREAT progress on my beaded Growth Rings! I am probably about 1/3 done – I’m about 3 rows up from the center on the middle section, but as I haven’t gone all the way out to both sides, I’m guessing. How much farther would I be if I’d had those nights with power issues (even though I did get some both of those nights – just not very much)? Here it is:
Growth RIngs by Ink Circles – on 28ct evenweave, using DB982 & DB986 instead of floss 🙂
And the obligatory detail shot:
I also made progress on my music piece – I have 2 notes and one word left, and it is DONE! My travel bag is ready for a rotation 🙂
Stoney Creek’s Beautiful Life, on 32ct jobelan, using DMC & GlissonGloss silks.
And that’s the progress for the last couple of weeks! Since I’ve been working late every night (somebody’s gotta do the work, and I guess that falls to me, since no one else cares), I’m surprised I’m getting much time in, by the time everyone gets fed and such. But we’ll see how it goes the next 2 weeks on Project Randomizer Pick #4:
The Kid the younger is leaving this Friday for 4 days in Orlando at a DECA event, so I may not go to IHOP this week, since I’ll have to help him make sure he’s got all of his “professional” clothes together, ironed, and packed so they don’t get mangled. We’ll see – depends how much of it I’m going to have to supervise getting washed… Otherwise, I’ll be plugging away – so long as the juice stays on – on Gato Negro. Until next time, here’s the results of the never-ending April Showers:
No update last week, I just didn’t get to it. Working late, busy as soon as I got home, etc. So once again, I’ll jam two weeks into one update – it will be photo-heavy 🙂
The Blue & White Dutch iris are popping out; the purple & gold ones are already done, but I don’t think I got any pictures… Ignore the weeds – they are growing GREAT!
When I finished with Desert Mandala a couple of weeks ago, I got out Samplar 4 Saisons, which is on my To Finish list for this year. I have the bottom 6 pages to go – which sounds like a lot, but it’s not that much, really, now that I’ve got the majority of the tree done; the motifs go pretty quickly, once I figure out how to work them. I’ve worked on it sporadically over the last couple of weeks, and have almost a whole page of Winter done, as well as more tree trunk – I’m trying to work a couple of threads of tree for every few of a season that I do, so I’m working different spots on different pages in the same sitting. Here is where it was last night:
Anagram Diffusion’s Samplar 4 Saisons – HDF Ex. Wattle N Daub (tree & border), Ex. Lily Tutters (Autumn, lower right), Ex. Flannel Dark (Winter, lower left). Not shown in this shot: Ex. Mud Brick (Spring, top left), Ex. Milligrubs (Summer, top right). On HDF linen – 36 or 40ct.
I’m going to have to think about how to hide the path of thread on the backside from one snowflake to another, when I get around to framing this…
New to the bird collection – a Blue Grosbeak, who was on the ground under the feeders all weekend.
I have a FINISH to show you – Magical Butterfly got its very last bead on Friday night (5/16); it took me a couple days longer than I had planned on; there are more beads on this than I thought, I guess, especially since it’s not that big a design (about 8″ square?). Putting the 15/0s on in place of the Kreinik French knots was a so-so decision; they don’t really show up very well, especially as they sit at intersections of stitches. There’s no way Kreinik knots would have fir, though, IMO, even if I could have done them well & consistently, not to mention, I would have needed another spool of the 085 for sure, and maybe another of the Purple Mambo color – I love that name. I did end up getting a 2nd spool of the Vatican gold – even without the knots, I still needed 1 1/2; JE is usually very good about having the qty required down, but these were off. SO if you plan to do this, AND do the knots in Kreinik instead of beads, buy 2 of each.
Joan Elliott’s Magical Butterfly, on 28ct Masquerade from PTP.
Since Butterfly was stuck on the floor stand while I was at IHOP on Wednesday, I had a new start in the travel bag 🙂 Ever since Donna at By The Bay started releasing her Funky Flowers series, I’ve had in mind to do a set of 4 – two landscape, two portrait. Of course, I plan to do both Irises, and then a purple one and a red one to make the 4. After finally deciding on fabric (Waterlily jobelan), I got the border designs Donna released for free for her Flower Gardeners, and got a start on the first Iris, Caroline:
BtB Funky Flowers – Caroline.
That’s the stitching news for the last two weeks. This week, I am continuing on with 4 Saisons, though I don’t know how much stitching I’ll actually get in the first part of the week; this is the last week of school, and the Band Kid has a concert tonight with his Symphonic band, and then again tomorrow night, the Trombone Choir is playing pieces throughout the Wind Symphony concert. He only has a few finals to take this week, and doesn’t need to be there when he’s not testing, so this is his break before he starts work with his dad over summer break next Tuesday. I already told him he’s spending his first check on clothes – tired of seeing the same 2 shirts and shorts.
Hard to believe Memorial Day is a week away; we had to turn the heat on again this weekend because it was chilly and worse, damp, since we had a pretty constant drizzle all day yesterday. I tell you, it looks a lot like summer on the North Sea around here – everything’s green & wet. But we are due to be back to hot & steamy by the weekend; hopefully the last couple of days of rain & cool will help with the rain deficit we supposedly have. I just know I have stuff coming out of the ground all over – the lilies along the driveway have stems up now, and my Asiatic lilies are about to bloom; the cannas are coming up, so hopefully I got those split up & back into the ground soon enough to get them grown this year. Peppers are coming this weekend; I also need to find a spot for cucumbers. And for Mother’s Day, my 21yo bought me a blue Hydrangea, which is now planted out by the rocks:
I don’t know who I’m kidding – I am clearly just too damn busy on Mondays to get a minute or two in to get this in; of course, since yesterday was Send Repeat E-mails Day, I may have maxed out my word allowance long before I even thought about this… So anyway, continuing last week’s theme:
Edith Wolford, we meet again!
It took almost 6 freaking weeks, but I have FINALLY finished Part 3 of Desert! Holy crap was this part humongous – which, unlike the last couple of parts on TTM, doesn’t really COVER a lot, while actually covering a lot of ground, if you know what I mean:
Chatelaine Desert Mandala – Part 3 DONE! Ruler shown for scale…
Man am I glad that is DONE – the next 4 parts ought to be a veritable walk in the park! Beaded RATTLESNAKE anyone??? I think he’s next – he might be Part 5; I forget now…
The Rust Iris came back – yay!!! It didn’t bloom last year, so it must’ve been one that the mature parts went to the pitch pile when I divided them…
I am still creeping towards the end on Magical Butterfly – I got lots of Kreinik in on it last Thursday at IHOP, though you can’t necessarily see it unless you look close to see all the backstitching on the bottom-left wing. I don’t think I actually touched any DMC on Thursday…? Anyway, it would be great if I could get the stitching done this week (which you know will then force me to put the beads on it):
JE Magical Butterfly on 28ct PTP Masquerade.
In other news, on my day off on Friday, I finally finished the painting that I started last fall; we just opened the downstairs room a couple of weeks ago (and fortunately it didn’t immediately set off another polar vortex – I really don’t ever want to hear that term used in my vicinity again 🙂 ), so one of the 3 doors I needed to paint, I could get to again. And the other two, the metal-clad ones, were plenty warm. So mission accomplished! I still have to paint the laundry room, when DH is here to help me move the washer & dryer around. Soon, it’ll get done soon 🙂
And then, Friday evening, we had the last Jazz Band concert of the year, at an outdoor jazz festival in a nearby town. They had food trucks, and all kinds of things going on in the city center park, and the jazz concert had a pretty good turnout. We played first, and there were a few hundred people there then; by the time the bigger schools’ combos came up, the place was packed! Here ‘s the kid playing his solo again in the Count Basie tune – his music blew off the stand as soon as he started to play, so what he didn’t have memorized, he improvised:
Trombone solo!
This week, I have decided I’ve earned the right to work on something EASY, so I got Samplar 4 Saisons out. Hopefully I can move it closer to done, since it’s on The List for the year. I wanted to get Dragonfly Tile out soon, but need a break for a few days first 🙂 The next couple of weeks are packed with end-of-year school stuff – band awards, band concerts, making sure the Kid cleans out his book bag and turns in the work he’s done but hasn’t turned in, etc. And yeah, that work thing… And for the record, it looks like we jumped right on into Summer, as it’s been over 90 the last couple of days. No smog yet, so still good! Until next week, Happy Stitching!
