Tuckered out

I haven't been stitching very much this week. I am almost ashamed to admit it, especially since I have that beautiful sewing room, all my own. I'm just tired. Traffic was horrendous all week, with no real excuse other than the wind was blowing, and I was just worn out. I think the fact that the days are so short is probably contributing to this. It's one thing to get home and it's 6:30 and the sun isn't nearly ready to set, and then to get home at 6:30, feed the boys in the cold dark, and then have to cook and all you see out the window is the cold dark. Am I the only person who feels this way?

I did do some stitching yesterday while the Cowboys were on. I had stitched at work at the box office all day--you can't sell tickets to sold-out shows, so the phone calls were pretty short--and then came home and worked on my Prairie Schooler Autumn Leaves. It's very slow going when you cross each x individually. VERY SLOW. I was working a row at a time, because I didn't realize that there was variegation in the colors, but I popped my skein of Pennywort under my Dazor last night, and there's a little difference in colors. Not major, but it's there. So I am back to one at a time. The conversion is pretty good--I am using the small deer motif in the center instead of what they showed, and I changed the color of the mother deer to look more like how deer look here in the winter. It's more like Queen Stones. I am planning on getting some stitching done on Wednesday and Thursday, when I am off anyway. Hopefully I can make some really good progress.


Pumpkin asked about the snowman in my finishes post. That is by Midnight Designs, and is called Heartstruck Quakers. There are two designs included in the chart--pretty good deal that! I am wanting to do all the Heartstruck Series, but this took me a while to accomplish, LOL.

Thank you for all your comments about my stitching room. I am so grateful to have the space. That's also our guest room, so if you all want to come over, we have space. I told SO that you all approved of the room, and he said, "make sure they know you have a dyeing space in the garage too." Y'all, I have a dyeing space in the garage, but I won't make you suffer through photos of that, because, well, right now, there is other stuff on the counter, too.

My sewing room

OK, so SO showed me how to do this. This is my new sewing room. Our pull out couch with my stufties on it:





The closet doors with some patriotic hangy things my aunt finished for me last year. I love patriotic stuff and I like having them there.






This is my bookcase with most of my charts on it. I've hung my finished wallhanging for Kitty Cat Dreams on there too, til we get my pictures hung up.



The coffee table with my evolving art project of floss in it. On the right is one of my favorite books, a book about Maryland schoolgirl samplers. In the early 1800s, a woman ran a stitching school here in my new town. She's buried at the church up the street from me.



My pride and joy, a very old nightgown that was hand made, even the lace, and lovingly repaired. I imagine this was the maker's wedding nightgown. It must have been special to have been saved and loved like this. I know it is for me, and I hope it is there for happy times like it probably was for her.




And the detail of the bodice. How lovely. One of those things you must have or your life is not quite the same.

Can it really truly be?

I have pictures. They're not the best, because I am still working on learning how to size photos and get them from camera to PC (I'm slow about these things), but these are some things I been working on.

There is a lot more finished on my geisha, LOL.

The kitty box went to England two months ago. My partner liked it. I liked it. I think these Dress It Up buttons are a great buy, as long as you can alter them to fit fabric. SO cut the shank off and drilled two holes through the button to attach it. I like it better than the spider on the original, don't you.

The snowman guy, I'll be making an ornament out. Now that I have all my finishing fabric here, this is easier.

I will try to post photos of my stitching room for you to see. Right now, I'm going to work out and then start dinner. We tried to go see the illumination on Antietam National Battlefield, in Sharpsburg, MD. But it was snowing and the roads were slick. They'll probably hopefully redo it next week. I can't see that anyone got there. It took us 45 minutes to go 15 miles. There were three MAJOR accidents, on bridges on the way. There are a lot of bridges on the way to Sharpsburg, so we came home. NOT COOL.

It pays to console yourself

I stayed at my mom's house last night because I worked at the theatre til 10, and it would have been another hour trip back to our house to go home, then to get up this morning to leave the house at 6:30, that would have made me a zombie, woke up SO, and just generally made for an unpleasant day on the whole. I still didn't get to bed at a reasonable hour--the twins were messing with each other all night, all hyped up, and then somehow the cat got involved. We didn't get to sleep til 2, and then up at 7:15. ARRRRRGHHHH

Anyway, before I went to bed, instead of sulking over those beautiful Double-flips I posted yesterday (it helped that I focused on how exhausted I was after sorting through those piles of charts last weekend, not to mention the whole charity aspect. I mean, come on, charts or food for starving children or cats?), I started looking through some of the boxes that were left at the house. I am searching for a Vermillion Stitchery pattern that I vaguely remember seeing in the vicinity of these boxes, and figured, since I do these sorts of things, I stuck it in the boxes. Of course, though, because that would make something of a sense, I didn't do it, so I didn't find the chart. DARN IT.


But I did find some charts I misplaced. Yay! And they were good ones. There was an issue of Classic Cross Stitch, with a cool Halloween design, and some cat charts. And, and this brought me infinite joy, a Lanarte kit of a Lippizan stallion. That's been AWOL for a few years, although that was more a function of it was an early birthday present to myself in 2005, bought and delivered right when my grandmother died in October, and so I don't really remember much of what I did for that month, and I don't think I'm responsible for whatever I did. So I have this kit back! Yay. It always makes me feel better to have one of my horse kits close. Is that wierd?

I finished the apron for Mom's Miss Penny doll last night. I am really stoked about that. She's cute, but I don;t like her. Too fiddley. I'll have her finished by Wednesday, though.

We're in a recession, I am on the sleigh . . .

and they come up with this to tempt me.

Frickety blank blank double fudge, oh my bob, let me kick something here.

I want this. I want it. Oh, son of a gun, I want this. And yet, I understand that I don't need it. I understand I have too much stash. I understand that I work too much and don't have time for stitching, at least not right now.

And yet, I want it.

Off to the post office today

I will be a mailing fiend at lunchtime today. My Secret Sister packages are out the door. One to Tracy, my SS, who was so kind as to adopt a deaf dog in Georgia, even though she lives in Wisconsin. The dog was very close to being put to sleep and she truly is a very kind person to do that. Tracy will be getting a few dog charts, and some dog fabric, as well as a Nora Corbet pixie, and a couple other small things. I put an ornament in there for her to put a photo of her new furbaby, Murphy. And the twins sent her dogs bandannas. The twins feel nothing says, "It's Christmas; let's party" like a festive bandanna. Much better than those antlers I have--Nikki looked like the poor dog from the Grinch, and Robbie prefers that, since he is a famous dog, and Google-able (I may have thumbs, but he gets more Google hits than me, and so is better . . . at least in his mind).

The other package is for my other Secret Sister, Wendy. We belong to a little stitching group that is a fun group of girls. As luck would have it, we share a birthday, and now we're Secret Sisters. How cool is that? I found her some cute primitive charts, and put those in a nice box I got at AC Moore, along with an ornament that I think she would like.

I have one more exchange to do, but that's not due til New Year's, so I have some time. But rather exciting to get something out on time!

Getting settled in

Do you think you can look at stash so much you lose the urge to do cross stitch? If so, I think I'm there.

My aunt was up for Thanksgiving, and she brought up a load of my stuff to SO's house. I then had to arrange my stitching room, i.e, actually put the stuff away that has been sitting in various boxes all over my house for the last God knows how many years. I had to rearrange my binders of charts; they had been relatively well-organized, but I fell a little behind lately.

I spent the better part of Saturday night organizing. SO kept checking on me. I am sure I was a sight, with my charts all spread out around me, flustered, on the verge of tears, LOL. It was like I would think I had all the bunny charts together, and then I would find one in another binder, but it was a fight to get the chart into the right binder. And then I wasn't sure how I wanted to file; I handled such rough decisions like, "Does 'Angel of the Harvest' belong under 'religious' or 'fall'?" And then all the random charts. But they are all together, and most of my charts are in them, and it gives me a little bit of satisfaction to see them lined up in rows on the bookcase.

One bummer, I had planned to bring my rolling drawer thing up to store fabric and floss in, but it was too wide to fit how I had it pictured in the closet, so I'll be getting another one of those. My mom can use the one I left at the house to store her clothes in.

SO did ask me why I bought all these charts. I had to sit and think about that. I mean, when you initially think about it, it does seem rather foolish to spend this much money on stitching. Even when you factor in the whole, "Well, better this than illegal substances or therapy," it still kinda falls apart. Therapy just costs most of us the co-pay, or else we don't go 'do' therapy. Illegal drugs are pretty self-explanatory. So I was thinking, because I could have probably funded my 401K a little better by being more frugal. But then again, with the economy this bad, and the stock market so bad, that would have been a waste of money. At least this way, I spent the money, and it's still around. So I told him it was an investment.

I still have my magazines to go get, and my fabric. And the kits. But I am getting there. I even have a pretty little coffee table for in the sewing room. It's very cozy in there.

And I finally got to use my stitching light. We were watching the Redskins get trounced yesterday (woo hoo), and I pulled out a project of Mom's (over one, this one) and used the light. SO looked over at one point and said, "Do you realize how small that is?" I nodded and told him that it wasn't even something I picked! Mom picked a little doll that you have to put together. She's very cute, but I'm not handy at putting things together. Fiddly things get to me. The worst part was, Lily, my little black cat who is typically a living angel, knocked the box with the supplies over when she was acting a fool and leaping around the livingroom, including a rinky-dinky little charm, and I can't find the charm now. It's probably down at Mom's--that's where she knocked it over at. So I have this thing with no charm that is tiny, and I have to do multiple accessories. I finally had to put her down, or else some nonsense was occurring.