Nice try, Aunt B

This is not stitchy related, but stems from her comment on what she got from the Hershey Chocolate World.


I can not tell you what you have been gifted with from that institution, at least not til Christmas. I love you dearly, but I can't tell you that. It would ruin the surprise. But we opened the cow tin, so you probably aren't getting that one, LOL. But they might make more. And it's not far to drive to get there.

You should have come with us instead of going to West Virginia to buy the puppy some girlfriends. . .

But I digress.

Day 3 of CATS

I realized I hadn't finished the retelling of my story about CATS.

Saturday came WAYYY too soon. I think we could have spent another week at Hershey and it wouldn't have been long enough. We got up and carried all the bags out to the car, then checked out of our motel. It was a bummer, because I realized I can't say when I'll get up there again. And it's so nice. If I had a job that was more, how do I phrase this, transferable across industries, I would think about moving up there. But come to think of it, our company does have an office up near there . . . HMMMM.

Anyway,they were selling the Dazor lights from the classroom for $99, so Mom wanted one. They marked them down from $349, so it was a good deal, and they are nice lamps. She also wanted a stitching frame from Images Stitchery, so we bought that and got it and the lamp out to the car.

Then we were off to Hersheypark. They have a great gift shop there, full of Hershey's stuff. We went crazy. I bought scandalous amounts of chocolate. We had to get something for my brother for putting up with Robbie all weekend. And we bought something for my dear Aunt B. And of course some chocolate for ourselves. I also got a really cute t shirt with a chocolate soldier.

Realizing that our time was running short, we went back to the Lodge and I got to sit and stitch for a while. It was nice, but sad. I don't want CATS to end. I don't want to not have that experience. I loved it. I've loved CATS every year. It hurts my heart.

I still don't have all my purchases put away. It was a lot to absorb.

SBQ

Oh boy, we have another one:

What are your favorite online stitching supply sources?

I tend to be very selective of who I shop with online. For one thing, living in the DC area, we have a lot of LNSs around that I would hate to lose by shopping exclusively online. For another, I worry that my credit card information will be compromised. I realize that it should not be a huge consideration, because the credit card companies themselves don't seem to care, they just pay the bill and then hike the interest rates up higher, but I don't want someone using my cards. So I tend to be very exclusive in who I deal with.

My favorite online site is Needlecraft Corner. It's a local shop--well, kinda local, in that it's in Baltimore--but I don't like making the drive too often and I am too stupid to figure out how to get to the Inner Harbor tunnel, so I tend to order by email. She has my CC info so I don't even have to give that. Plus, Drema is super nice, and knows her stuff. Our only disagreement is with the Anchor vs DMC floss issue.

Next to that, I use 123stitch.com. She has a much larger selection of charts than anyone I can order from otherwise, and seems pretty nice. Plus, she hosts the message board I go to, and it's sort of not fair to use her resources and not give her business.

I also like www.sewandso.co.uk for all my European kit needs. It's very expensive for an American to shop there, but it's a good site and I get tired of stitching the same things as everyone else has in their stash, so it's a good resource. The kits come in a week, and I don't have to pay VAT or import duty.

And lastly, I have Ebay. I know a lot of people don't like Ebay. I don't know why. I find it fascinating. There are kits and charts on there from before I got heavily into stitching that I wouldn't find right now if I looked. I found another copy of the first kit I ever stitched, which I mucked up badly. Someday I will restitch that kit. where else could I find these things? If you have a store with a good clearance section, it's not the old kits and charts, and even if you shopped stash sales, you have to keep in mind, this is stuff people don't like. I find it's mostly baby stuff, which I won't stitch, or the dregs of the old stuff. Not like Ebay-that's business folks in addition to regular people. You can find gems on there. TREASURES. For reasonable prices. Can't beat that.

The exchange ornament is finished

It took me a couple hours to do this last night, but I managed to get it done. It's not my best work But it's still pretty good. I did it as a no-sew ornament. I now have to wait til it dries, then pack it in with a couple other ornaments and some Halloween candy.

I will have to put the pic of what Lorna stitched for me up.

Something very odd is going on

I don't know if it's the spirit of the season, or if I am just so unorganized or what, but I have lost the fabric, floss, and specialty thread for one of my projects. I took the magazine out of the baggie I had it in last Thursday because I had kitted it up with Anchor and was really not happy with the Anchor, so went to get DMC for it. Now the bag is gone. I know that the dogs didn't take it of course, but I don't have it and I sure would like to know where it went. Eyy yiy yiy.

I downloaded the new issue of Gift of Cross Stitch. I haven't liked most of the newer issues, but this one has a really cool design of an animal chess board. I love animals quite obviously, so this was a good one for me. But I am not buying Gloriana silks-not at 20 colors at $5 or $6 a pop. So I headed off to Michael's last night, bought me all the colors in DMC (there was a conversion) and tried to find evenweave. They didn't have it in the right size, so I bought aida, then realized this morning that part of the pattern is over one, and so can't be done on aida. But I have a large piece of evenweave I bought back in the days when I was trying to kit up the Janlynn Autumn Sampler that I can use. I was thinking about using the return of the Yorkshire to get some, but I can always find a smaller piece for the project I had that evenweave saved for. Not like I'm in a rush to have a project. Especially now that I've misplaced that kit. Where could I have stuck it? I looked in all the likely spots. It ain't there.
Speaking of projects, I am working busily away at my turkeys today. I have most of the wording done, just have one of the turkeys to do and the beading. I think it should be done by the end of the week. I don't know how much I can work on it because I have to work on my Halloween exchange ornament. That was due out two weeks ago, and I didn't send it. But I do have some cute little ornaments to put in the box for her and some little things for my partner. I hope she's not too angry. I had to buy a ruler at lunch today, and I realized it was stupid to try to use sticky board to mount ornaments--it does not work. So hopefully tonight I can get that washed, ironed and finished, and that's off my plate.

A near-disaster

I have a little Secret Needle Night kit listed as a WIP. It's an older kit, from October 2005. It was one of the things that I was working on right around when my grandmother was killed, and I've avoided doing those things for a long time, because they have really bad connotations. New Birth of Spring was one of them, and this was another. It was in the mailbox when I got home from going to see the Focus and pick out what of her possessions we could salvage, picking Chancey up at the fire department up in Hagerstown. I tried to work on it, but at that point, my mind was in what I call the, "Hmm?" phase, as in, "Hmmm, so this is what it's like to have your safe little world implode, rather like riding one of those playground carousels." Anyway, I couldn't do it, and put it in the boxes in the basement, I haven't even looked at it in two years, but I started working on it the other week. I am trying to be cowgirl tuff, as my darling aunt puts it. I finished New Birth of Spring this summer, and that was good therapy for me, because I got a lot of thinking done, but this was harder to work on. No dang wonder I put it down, it's hard to deal with the death of a loved one while working with Fancy Fur--I know that sounds like I am being flip, but I couldn't do it.

Anyway, I was humming away on it, have one of the little turkeys nearly done, didn't take it to CATS because I wanted to do other things, so I grabbed it up to put in my work bag yesterday, got to work and realized the fabric was not in the bag. The directions were, my work bag was full of the fibers, but no fabric. Well that just made me sick. I checked my car, not there, checked under my desk, went and rechecked the car, thought, maybe it didn't actually get into my work bag and was home, (which I have to admit, even in my mind made no sense because I SAW it go into the bag and even wondered if that was the best idea), and then last night accepted it was gone. I figured it probably fell out in the parking garage and one of the stockbrokers from downstairs took it or else the janitors threw it out. And that made me sick to my stomach.

This morning I walked out to go to work, put my bag in the car, and then, for some reason, looked over to where I had been parked yesterday morning. There was a paper/fabric thing lying in the street. I went over and it was my piece! And it wasn't ruined. I am really surprised at that because it was out all night and there was a car parked in that spot last night, and it could have dripped fluids down on it. It was a little damp from the dew, but otherwise intact. YAY! I am so relieved, but I think this is a message that this needs to be finished before we have any other mishaps.

CATS, day 2

Friday dawned chilly in Hershey. The car seats had not dried out yet, which made it real uncomfortable to drive even the little bit from the hotel to Hershey Lodge, so we put down an afghan I had in the trunk to sit on. We got over to there, and had nothing to do til 2, when my Nutcracker Christmas class started. We cruised the shopping mart for a while. Mom was in love with a Stoney Creek angel afghan. I bought that for her, but I don't know when I'll get it done, as I don't really like angels, and I can't afford the afghan, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. She had also found a chart she liked at Gitta's so I bought that for her.

We headed down to the lodge lobby to meet up with some stitchers from Texas. That was a lot of fun and an enjoyable way to pass the morning, stitching quietly on the couches and chatting. They were working on designs from My Big Toe, and Debbie, the designer, had come along with them. My online pal, Chris, showed me her Q-snap covers, which I think I may buy as they seemed really practical. They were going on the tour of Hershey, so we got separaated because I couldn't go, so we headed to the stitchers' lounge for a bit of stitching.

My class with Marilyn from Stoney Creek was really good. There were a lot of specialty stitches in it, though. But I figure if I ever get the nutcracker done, I'll worry about those stitches then. It does use the turkey stitch, which I don't know how to do. Marilyn showed me, but I still don't get it, but I was thinking, it's not going to be such a bad thing if I don't master it. I don't like the way it looks--the nutcracker looks like a hippie, dang it--so I may substitute Very Velvet for his hair and just give him a tighter do, or else some other fiber from Rainbow Gallery.

And then we stitched in the stitcher's lounge, from 5PM to midnight. It was sheer bliss. I worked on Summer Ball, by Sandy Littlejohn. I didn't make a lot of progress, but I had a good time stitching it. It's a massive project, and I anticipate it will take forever, but it's back in rotation now, so should be better.

I also discovered this designer, JAR Designs. Their website is www.jardesigns.biz, and their designs are neat. I think they are fairly simple, but there's a high impact to them, and I like that. I bought Christmas Memories and Halloween Horrors. I can see Christmas Memories on a gold flecked aida or evenweave. Halloween Horrors will be a harder choice of fabric, but I can figure something out. When in doubt, I guess there is always grey. But I really liked their stuff, and I realize, without CATS, it's going to be hard to see new stuff from them, and that's a little sad. But I wanted to share, because I like their style.