WIP photos

See my WIPs?

Spooky is on PTP Monet. It's not as blue as the picture seems to show, but it's so much fun to stitch. I'm putting it aside to work on the lions. Which are coming along. I got some good progress made on them last week. I hadn't been stitching on them at all, but, when I was at Mom's with no errands to run, and no desire to make errands for myself, I got a good bit done. You can now see he's a lion cub.

The chart is really tricky. A lot like a Stoney Creek in that there are a lot of color changes. I am thinking about doing a stitch and park, but still, it's a lot of floss, and I've had to frog a few times. I think Mama will be a little easier to stitch since she's bigger and therefore, not so many color changes, but I haven't really started her yet, so trying to keep realiztic.

Froggy went a-visiting and we did rip, um-hunh

Housekeeping note first: Pumpkin asked what fabric I am using for my Boo Club. I chose PTP's Monet in Aida. It's a blue-y purple. They had a special with the fabric and the charts, either Kermit or Monet. I priced out fabric and thread specials and it seemed a better value. I liked the purple more than the green. The special is still on their site in case anyone is interested.

I blasted out of work at 5 yesterday, glad to not have to work at my PT job and looking forward to stitching, got home, started stitching, stitched for an hour, and realized I had miscounted. AAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK.

If there is one thing I hate doing, it's miscounting with hand-dyeds. OMG.

Fortunately, it was an easy fix. I had just miscounted the position of some little squares, and it's in a color I don't foresee running out of, because, I don't know about y'all, but I am always scared that I'll run out of a color, go to the LNS to buy another skein of it, and get a dye batch that does not match (this happened with a Crescent Colors skein of Bunny Honey. The one at my regular LNS was greyish dark brown, the one I ran out of was like an 842--I ended up getting another skein from the place I ordered the first one from that matched better. Thank God I remember minutaie like that). I know there are ways to meld them together, but, in my own way, I am anal-retentive to a fault and that fault is that I no likey melding colors together.

I am almost finished with "Spooky" now. I think I'll hold off on starting to look for fabric for it til I get closer to the end. That way, I'll be able to figure out how to "finish the story" better, so to speak. Plus, I am working hard to deal with determining wants vs. needs--I want the Mary Beale Advent sampler, I need the Burda Hardanger book I bought for $6 on Ebay last week, LOL. But, now that I've found Equilter.com, it's easier to do that. With a small selection, I tend to buy more because I have to have "something," but with a big one, I can be a little choosier. I'm wierd.

I think I can do this . . .

The Boo Club, that is. I actually have the top two rows of border stitched, and some of the letters of "Spooky."

I was delighted when I got home last night and walked into a house that smelled of garlic in the most magical way possible. SO had made yummy dinner for us: chicken, peas, and macaroni and cheese. I left the mac and cheese for him. I am on a diet, and mac and cheese is not on that diet. And I am realizing I LIKE veggies better than the starchy fatty side stuff. They don't make me feel like sludge.

But I'd kill for a burger . . .


Anyway, hockey was on last night, so we watched that. It's nice to have a hometown team that is good, though I am not sure if they are really my "home" team, since where I live is more in the Baltimore area than the DC area (I'm not kidding you, most of the people I work with have NO idea where my county is located, other than vaguely waving west--I live in the north, but this is a small detail-- and saying, "it's over that way and you live in the country.") But, when a team other than the Redskins does well, I support them.

And the Caps disappointed us. Though Varlymov (I don't know if that's spelled right, I was stitching, not paying attention to spelling) did a heck of a job keeping the shots on goal out, the other guys played sloppy. 7 penalties. Ovechkin wasn't even doing that good. Accckk. They had better suck it up and do better. We need something good out of our sports franchises.

But I stitched. And I like these Boo Club charts. I didn't realize they were so big, til I actually started stitching. But it's nice. It's a nice change from the detailed stuff and the afghan. The thing I think that I like the most is that it's a good stop and start project; no major counting that can't be interrupted, and the individual little words will be good finishes. And I realize that I WANT to keep working on it. I can not put it down! That is huge considering it intimidated me like it did. I think I actually glowered at my boss when he came to see if I was doing OK at lunch (we moved to a new office and it's taken a little getting used to), but I was STITCHING. Happily. With hand-dyed products. And I have to keep going, in case I lose momentum. And enthusiasm.

I probably won't have this finished for Halloween. I've got too much to do between now and then, and, with the hand-dyeds, this isn't exactly a summer, take to the beach type project. I already know it's going to be a wallhanging. So that means I should start going through my stash to look for fabric to use, right? I think I have Halloween fabric . . . I think.

I am formalizing my game plan for my year of stitching freebies project. I have decided to hold off til January so that it follows calendar year, not the theatrical year it would have followed had I started after the fair, like I originally planned to. It just makes more sense, and I can spend the 4 post-fair months finishing UFOs. I should be able to put a good dink in those. I realized, with chagrin, last night that I was supposed to finish the Dimensions geisha for SO last fall, then for Christmas, then in February, and she still is sitting in a bag, waiting for her tree to be completed. I am now into my 9th year on this project This is getting to be ridiculous. She will be finished before Halloween. I swear it.

Slowly easing into it . . .

The Boo Club Lizzie Kates, that is.


I posted a few weeks or so ago about how frustrated I was by the Christmas ones. I couldn't space them, couldn't count them right, and was getting frustrated. I actually shoved the project in a bag, and haven't looked at it since. Someone (I think it was Suzanne) said to start counting from the top, but I was so irritated, I didn't want to look at it. Not then, apparently still not yet.

Anyway, I have the Boo Club supplies and floss, and I spent too much money on that stuff to just shove these in a bag and pretend they don't exist and I am not going to be beaten by a set of charts other people managed to stitch. Plus, I needed something smallish to stitch, and these needed to be moved out of the family room because the kids are coming over this weekend, and small children and stitching supplies can be a bad combination, so I decided that I'd do the Boo Club.

And it's not bad. I just have the tippy top row halfway done. It's different. I'm so used to starting in the middle, I am suspicious and a little stubborn when I start elsewhere. But I'm doing it. Anything is better than how I was doing it. When I actually follow the directions and not try to do it all mysel's like a demented cowgirl, things go easily. Whoda thunk?

What I've been doing . . .

It's done. I put the last stitches in this afternoon. I went home with a sick headache, probably aggravated by the fact that my co-worker walked in the door and started whining because, as part of the move, they're taking our water machine and the coffee machine, and she didn't know what she'd do til we moved offices. Um . . . buy water or coffee on the way in? Or from the deli downstairs? I realize our economy is tough, but filtered water or coffee is not a guaranteed perk of the job, nor is it worth whining about. And the pain was so bad that I swear my clients were sounding like the teacher in those Snoopy specials, and I just figured I'd do better in my bed.

I have a couple other WIPs, but they're downstairs, and I am too raggedy-feeling to go down and get them. I'll try tomorrow night.

It's time for the Derby, y'all

This is my most favorite sporting event of the year, the Kentucky Derby. I think I've made myself clear about the fact that I love horses. Thoroughbreds in particular--even when I was collecting model horses, the Thoroughbreds were my favorites. Probably the horse thing was what led me to the University of Kentucky. At least that's what led me there, Kentucky made me stay. I fell in love with it. This is the time of year when my adopted homestate (yes, dear SO, even though I wasn't born there, a good percent of my heart still resides in Central Kentucky) sheds the stereotypes and is the center of all that is awesome and elegant in the world. But I'll let y'all in on a secret, it's pretty stinkin' cool the rest of the year, too.

Anyway, since I'm not stitching today, and it's Derbytime, I thought I'd attempt to enable you by showing you some of my favorite Thoroughbred kits and charts. So, in celebration of the beauty of a horse doing what it was born to do in an elegant fashion, put on your finest hat, tipped over one eye, pour yourself a mint julep, cut a slice of Derby pie (or chess if you worry about copyright), and find a future champion to stitch!

Mother's Pride by Dimensions


Standing Proud by Xs and Ohs



Majesty in Motion, by Stoney Creek



Horse Companions by Janlynn Corporation


Dimensions Silent Meadow (available from Sew and So)



Lanarte (this is on my wish list)


DMC Misty Morning (available from Sew and So--this particularly reminds me of summery mornings in Kentucky)


DMC Playtime's Over--

The end of a long week

I don't know about you guys, but I am so glad it's Friday. I have thought it was Friday since Wednesday . . . maybe cause I needed the week to end. It's been a stressful one. Between moving offices and my natural resistance to change, in addition to having to deal with a bunch of nonsense at my part-time job and I popped off my pinky nail yesterday (the one I just had repaired two weeks ago), I'm a little more stressed than normal. But it will be OK. I get to spend the next couple days with the twins, I will try to take them to the dog park, if it's not too rainy, but not too sure about that. Robbie tends to be a littlethuglicious around other males (including humans--pretty embarrassing when I was single, dog parks are said to be great places to meet men, and he was up in their face, growling) and Chancey is a little sketchy on the dog park ever since she got jumped there.

I got some new stash yesterday. I have been trying to be good as far as that goes, but sometimes, a gal's got to spend some money. I ordered Sweetheart Tree's Irish Blessings Sampler, Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes by Green Apple, Bent Creek's So Happy, Primitive Needle's Earth Sampler, and The Second Litter of Cattitudes. I love the Earth Sampler; it's very sweet and cheery. At one point, I was collecting Cattitudes, and have gotten off track, but they are such really cute designs and these are religious. One says, "Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God." That is perfect, especially since I spend so much in the car, seeing nature at its most beautiful times (the one redeeming feature of my commute has been that, my heart was so happy that morning at Christmastime, when I listened to the Nutcracker while the sun was rising. Truly magical). The Cecily Parson rhymes were so cute, and they have guinea pigs on them. Adorable guinea pigs, could you resist? The Bent Creek is cute also, but I am confused in regards to the designs she references on the package. Is she doing a series and I am too stupid to figure it out? I don't know. All I can do is stitch, I guess . . .