Making some real progress now!

I have made great progress on the next square of the afghan. I should be able to finish it this week. I am working on the globe. I am still wary after screwing up that last square, but so far, I am OK with this one.

Photos of My New Finishes

This is Warm Water Wash. Finally it's finished. I will never do another one of these charts again. They are cute, but way too much work. Aunt Susan can stitch mine.
This is the little towel I made with a freebie from Count Your Blessings. It was fun to do. I don't know what I really need with a towel like this, but it seemed like a good way to use the freebie. And it fit!

Two more squares left

I have two more squares left on that afghan, other than the last Merry Christmas. The fact that the Santa in the chimney square is off by five threads is bugging me, and it did not help that Mom said it would not do well in the fair. I can't see that anyone but me is going to notice that it's five threads off.

I bought two new magazines today. Not much that utterly impressed me in them, but my tastes change so someday they might. I didn't have a lot of time to read the letters. That is my favorite part. I am going to send them a photo of HOHRH. I thought about sending them the one with Chancey in it, but it would probably not get published. I don't know, I may reconsider. My dog is really frigging cute, and she deserves to be in a magazine.

Santa's Journey WIP

I am tired of Anchor 1030. I am also off 5 squares on this last block. That super-cheeses me. But I am not picking it out. I am tired of dealing with this square and no one is going to notice if it's off.

Lost my Stitching Mojo

I think I temporarily lost my stitching mojo. Hell, I lost my mojo for pretty much everything this week. I was OK earlier, then got really, really pissed on Wednesday--I am sorry, no man is going to have me all stressed out and despondent for 8 months over what he said to me, then take me back, act like it was no big deal, then dump me again, and walk scot-free, so I told him off via text message. I gave him back a small iota of the self-doubt, the anger, and the pain he gave me and I am NOT ashamed of myself. And then last night, I was so depressed that I ended up calling up the radio station and requesting Faith Hill's Cry, and then got to bawling on air. Brea said it was OK, it was a moment, and we are allowed moments. And I am sure there will be more, but I got to get my mojo back. The scale was back under 190 pounds for the first time in a long time, and that is good. And I don't need to worry that if it creeps up over that mark, some a-hole will dump me. I may be a fat girl, but I am a bee-you-ti-ful, single fat girl, and I don't need to be moping.

Anyway, I am working on a little Lizzie Kate freebie my LNS kitted up called Let It Snow. It is going to be an ornament. I think with my new budget, I will be doing a lot of my own ornament finishing. I need to learn how to do it. I like this design, it's just a little fiddly cause it's small fabric, and, although my fingers are usually adequate for holding, this is a little much for them. Surely it can not be that hard to finish ornaments, right. Though the quilt store is probably sold out of snowflake fabric. I will figure it out.

Rashad is working on my logo for By the Tail of the Tabby. I know it's gonna be cute. He is a good artist. Now to just get the time and sit down to apply for my business license. Hopefully, Maryland is not going to be too anal about the fact that I am dying fabric and require environmental licensing. I am dying fabric by hand in my dining room, not in industrial sized vats. But that is a road I will cross when I have to.

The Blessing of Stitchy Friends

I am not good at words sometimes, but I needed to stay this. My stitchy friends on 123 Stitch are truly a blessing. I have been dumped by my ex again. I will not go into details about it, but my friends are so kind. And so supportive. This morning, I was so depressed, I was sobbing going down the road, but now, I am OK. Pissed at him, but I am OK. I did nothing wrong, and they tell me I am a good person who deserves better. I know this, but sometimes it's good to go to a place where you can grieve freely, and then people cheer you up. One of the Australian ladies even said I could come down there. Woo hoo!

I will not be broken, I have too many souls willing to hold the pieces of me together when I can't do it myself.

Warm Water Wash is done

I am choosing to look at the positive today. Warm Water Wash is finished. I really was quite tired of it at the end. I still have to sew the buttons on, but the stitching itself is finished.

And I finished another square on my Santa's Journey afghan. There is way too much cat hair trapped in it, so I may have to shave it.

la la la, I am not stitching

It is UFO Tuesday, and I am not stitching. I intended to, but I stopped in to Borders and Barnes and Noble (I am stoked I finally found that frigging card, and I saved $2.93 tonight, woo hoo), and I read the magazines I bought--Cross Stitcher is good this month--but haven't stitched.

I am almost done with Warm Water Wash. I hate it now. I am tired of working with overdyeds. I wonder if anyone else has a love/hate relationship with them. They are like those finely bred horses at riding school, exciting to work with, and I feel like a more competent performer with them, but there are times when you just wanna stitch and not pay attention to the pattern you are making with the thread, just like there are times when I want to just ride a plain old horse. Nothing fancy, just reliable. And i don't think I am doing a Raise the Roof project for a while.

In my seemingly aimless searching through the boxes in the basement (AKA, the land of Don't Go There, where I have learned to perfectly balance boxes in a configuration that would impress those contortionists at the circus), I found the piece of blue linen Debbie M sent me for BOAF Remember Me on Halloween. So glad to have that linen. I am stitching that in workhorse DMC.

And I bought a rice steamer tonight at Target. I am going to start dying thread and fabric and I won $50 in the phone QC bonus at work, so ended up there. I think it will be a neat thing, I just have to accumulate some thread

The Importance of Winning a Stitching Show

I learned a valuable lesson from Woodlawn. I did not win a ribbon, but I realized I don't need ribbons to affirm my talent. I have friends who care about me, who saw all the work that goes into things, that support my efforts. Which is not to say that I would have not been tickled with a ribbon, but, let's be honest, there is only so much you can do to improve your stitching. My stitching all faces the same direction, it's clean, I had it professionally framed and chose a challenging piece. I can't do any more than that. And if the judges didn't choose to reward it with a ribbon because it wasn't "perfect", oh well. There is nothing I can or would do better on it. And it's given people a lot of pleasure, plus I value the comments made by people I know or at least know of than judges I have no knowledge of.

Anyway, it was a nice day at the show. It was warm, and I met with Pat, Pam, Karen, and Bluedragon. Lots of fun!