March plans

I can not believe Finish It February is almost over. I'm proud I didn't start anything but my Bride's Tree ornament, and I just worked on WIPs. I picked up Magic Hat again; hopefully I will get that done, but not sure because I hate working with that stupid Light Effects floss I chose.

I am making March Month of Smalls. I have several cute little kits, mostly the freebie kits from British magazines, to work on. I want to get them started before I lose them, which, given my track record, is highly likely.

I did get the paypal notice to pay Silkweaver for my SOHRH fabric. Yay! And I also bought a Solo to do something I've had in my stash for almost 4 years--I bought it the day after I bought my car because I wanted to accumulate stash before the first car payment came due because I didn't think I was going to be able to afford stash. The very idea makes me laugh now. Do you know how much money I would have saved over the last four years if I had just followed that line of thinking? And you know, I have always managed to make that payment, even when I was unfortunately unemployed. Anyway, that still tickles me when I see this chart. Not to mention, I note with pride I didn't lose any of the buttons in all this time. I deserve a pat on the back for that, because nothing TICKS me off more than losing buttons, or else finding random buttons and having NO CLUE what I bought them for. But if I get the fabric for SOHRH, I am putting other stuff aside.

Bought the floss for SOHRH

I went out at lunch yesterday and bought the floss. I bought DMC floss, because, well, the fabric is expensive, I just bought a bunch of stuff, and, frankly, I am too cheap to spend for the silk floss. HOHRH turned out pretty darn great with the DMC, so I am not worried about this. I am just hoping I picked the right fabric. I bought something called French Vanilla Swirl: http://www.silkweaver.com/fabric/signature.html . It looked good in the picture. I am bummed that Dower Legacy Linen doesn't come in a good color for this piece, cause that was great linen. Oh, well, can't have it all.

I have a suspicion I will have to do a lot of custom converting on this. I know that CHS does a great job converting to DMC, but there are some that are a little "off". I know that DMC 927 was listed as a blue and a pale jade green. Hrrrh? So I pulled DMC 772 for that section. But I also got 469-472 as well, just in case. And they had another funky color as a dark blue. I pulled 924 as well. 924 is a dark blue, if nothing else, that is a dark Williamsburg blue.

I am really customizing this one. So far I have decided that I am switching the wording on the center square and the house square. It just makes sense. And then flipping 12 and 8, and 1 and 11. And then altering the wording on the memorial square. I guess if I am going to do that, I should start looking for some sort of appropriate quote, shouldn't I? I think it is going to look good like that. There should be a balance of color, the verse would flow as:

"Beneath the blue of Heaven's dome, Lies the sea that fish call home, The moon above will guide my love, while he's far away from me, I'll wait for thee, my love at sea, Light the way, come what may."

That would sound good, right.

Guess what I have in my hot little hands

SHORES OF HAWK RUN HOLLOW.

And it's beautiful. I think I am going to make some changes to it to make it more personal and flow a little better for me. I don't know who that person the sampler is in memory of is, and it would be more relevant to me to change the wording to say in memory of the watermen.

I ordered fabric for it. I would have loved to have been able to buy a piece of that same Dower linen, but no one had it in the color I wanted. I bought a piece of Silkweaver instead.

More Good Stitchy Mail

I have been getting lots of good packages. I got Secretariat in the mail, along with the running horse kit, on Tuesday. My order from Picture This Plus came last night--I love that little cat and dog. Finally, a designer that realizes that our pets do talk to each other, which I have suspected for YEARS. One of the ones I bought was called "Remember" and it's a tribute to the pets that we have lost. It's just the dog and cat looking off to the side. Very peaceful, but so beautiful. It might be kinda cool to frame that with a copy of the Rainbow Bridge poem. Or else a list of the pets that passed through our lives. Hmmm, will have to think on this one.

I am almost finished with the mouse. My father had surgery yesterday and I used the time in the waiting room to finish the tree branches, with a little bit of frogging. I just have to do the backstitch on this little guy now and he's done. I can't believe he took such a large chunk of the month. Oh well, at least I truly did make it Finish It February in that the only project I started was for the Bride's Tree SAL, and I finished that. Along with this, that is two finishes for the month. I promised myself to only work on UFOs and WIPs this month and I am doing really good, despite the fact that the new Cross Stitcher got to the stores, and it's got plenty of really cute small designs. I even found a sweet design of bears that Brea would love. But I can't work on that til March, as much as I want to get it started for you, B!

I will post a review of this magazine. It's one of their better issues, actually. Free Margaret Sherry kit, cute little bears, pretty pillow, nice issue.

Good stitchy mail

I got home last night and these ( http://www.needlecraft-corner.com/dg-withmyneedle.html ) were in my livingroom. Aren't they adorable? I looked the pattern over and it doesn't seem devastatingly hard. The finishing, though, is beyond my skillset, so I am gonna take everything over to my LNS and have them finish everything. I think that is the best idea because why put all that work into the piece and then screw it up in the finishing? It is over one, though, so it might take a while to do.

I also got my box from Lena Rose. Someone on a board mentioned that Designs by Lena Rose was going out of business and was offering grab bags. I am like a fat girl on a Cheetoh about grab bags. I always have been. They were $15. Well, I spend $15 on nonsense, so $15 on stash is nothing! And that was a well-spent $15. There were several good charts I like, plus some I can sell (we are getting closer to a new computer, Dell has them on sale for $600, so I can get selling), but there was ALL KIND of fabric and specialty threads in there, plus little Mill Hill kits. We are talking Kreinek, Rainbow Gallery, Weeks, perle cotton, I mean GORGEOUS stuff. I got a nice big piece of green aida, and not a crappy green. This was a green you could stitch bunnies on or chickens. And a roll of white aida. If nothing else, I can dye that.

I've been itching to dye fabric again ever since I got my box of dyes out the other week. I have to find my instructions, but I want to do some more. I love doing it, it really is creating art. I finally have good dyes now. I was thinking of doing a piece for a beach scene, and maybe a peacock color. And the surprise element too, because you never know how it will turn out til it is finished. So, I plan on doing that really soon. Maybe Wednesday, since I am off that day.

Leetle bit of clarifying

Just wanted to make sure that it was clear about taxes and Robbie. He isn't taxed, as far as I know I am not even required to have a license for him. What happened was that, to adopt him, I had to fly down to Texas, due to airline regulations about heat, and then I had to have him neutered. My mom had to loan me the money to pay for all that--it cost $100 more to have him neutered in Texas than here. So I want to get him paid off and her paid back--I keep having these annoying dreams they will repossess my "son" for some unseen reason that makes me declare bankruptcy and he ends up staring in a Capital One commercial. I know, silly . . .

My boyfriend thinks there has to be something wrong with me if I am not stitching. I didn't do any all Friday, and then just did a little bit yesterday. With football season over, we are geared up for NASCAR, which starts today (Go, Junior and Tony, go!). So it's pretty much habit to watch the race and stitch. Yesterday I just wasn't that into it. I guess because I am stitching piney tree branches and that gets SOOO boring. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful green, there's just A LOT OF IT. I am pretty sure I will be using up the whole skein of 3346 to do these tree branches. But when it's done, it will be so pretty.

Lost my stitching mojo

I haven't stitched in a couple days. I am not sure why. I am trying to finish the Hollie mouse by the end of the month, but not sure if that will happen. It's funny, I thought I could have all these great finishes this month, but so far, I am having a not-good time stitching a tree branch. But I want it finished. I know this is just a couple days funk. I've been busy and then when I get home, I have been too tired to work. And I have been stressing about my income tax. I was missing one of my W-2s; it never got to the house. I finally managed to get a hold of the payroll person to ask for it, and she was like, "I mailed it out on X date." OK well I didn't get it, and I need my W-2. I was a little traumatized because last year I owed a great deal of money to the state, and was so worried that I didn't pay enough taxes. I was paranoid for no reason because I sat down this morning and did them online. It was quicker to do both online than my state taxes on paper.

So they are in now, I already have the dates when the refund will be in the bank, and I only HAVE to make a payment of $200 for Robbie, so I should have enough to get my SC subscription renewed, plus take the little dogs to the vet (which is gonna be really fun because the only medical information I have about Robbie is that he was neutered in August, he broke a tooth and it was root canaled, and he got a rabies shot in June of 2006 in another country. His shot record is in Dutch. My vet doesn't speak or read Dutch. Other than that, we'll probably just have to guess based on his sister. Woo hoo!

I probably will buy a little something stitchy, even if it's just the supplies for this:
http://www.123stitch.com/cgi-bin/itemdetail.pl?item=02-1496

These are the colors I want for my sewing room. Isn't this pretty.