February...

Is, if yesterday's weather is any indication, going out like a lion! Thunderstorms! Who has thunderstorms in February? and wind?!?! OMG the wind was horrible, maybe not as bad as last weekend's but I wasn't walking from my office to the train station in it last weekend!!!

I'll do my February wrap-up posting later - when February is over. I've still got 3 days to do a few things left on my stitching to-do list. I can *hear* you you know - quit the snickering!!!

I did finally sit down and work on Egyptian Garden Sunday and Monday last week - hard to remember/believe that Monday was a holiday and that's a very sad statement. Anyway, here's my progress through Monday evening:

Egyptian Garden by Chatelaine
Stitched on 32 count Belfast Sand linen



There are a few more cross stitches to add but it's mostly speciality stitches left to finish. TONS of eyelets and rhodes stitches. I don't mind them, but they do become a bit boring after about the 15th one.

Stashy stuff should be appearing in a my mail box next week! Karen at Wasatch Needlecraft sent out my Blackbird Designs yesterday, Sarah Elliot's Home Port is on back order, Stitching Bits and Bobs sent out my first order yesterday (mostly fiber, but a couple of charts and the BBD book) sans the Summer Sky Jobelan and my last order (fibers for my Market orders) is "being processed". I was a bit upset by that as I'd asked them to combine orders for me as they charge ridiculous shipping charges - I'm sorry, it's thread it doesn't weigh that much and I know you have to pay for envelopes and packing and charging exact shipping is a pain but others do it. I know if I was that upset I"d take my business elsewhere and I threaten all the time but I do have to watch the pennies and she has really good sales (of course so does Drema at Needlecraft Corner) but I really dislike her website and lack of a shopping cart. 'kay enough of all that! I've got stash coming and life is good!!!

Discovery

I made a major discovery yesterday - I"m getting old! Of course, I knew that, but it was really confirmed yesterday. We had a wicked wind storm yesterday and the power was out for almost 5 hours. I was actually rather happy about it as it made the house *very* quiet and I figured I could get some quality stitching time in. Pulled up to my frame to work on Egyptian Garden and realized that despite the room being very bright with sun light, I still needed my OTT lamp to help me see!! I put one length of thread in and pulled out Shepherd's Bush's Santaberry Pudding. It's stitched on Heatherfield with perle cotton and is super easy on the eyes. A perfect no electricity project.

Here's where I left off in January:

And here's where I finished yesterday - right before the power came back on:

I've made one change from the pattern - the lettering is charted in blue but the cover model certainly wasn't stitched in blue so tossed a few other colors and the Hubs liked this one best. Hmmm, some of those letters look a little wonky, hopefully they'll straighten up a bit when I do the finish ironing.

I also did a band on Just Nan's Christmas Elegance but forgot to take a picture. I may have to do some frogging as I misread the chart and used the wrong color for the backstitching. It looks okay, but may be a bit too heavy. I'll make a final decision when I get a bit further along so I can see how it works with the rest of the piece.

Barring any power failures, I"ll be working on Egyptian Garden today and tomorrow, although I may switch over to another Shepherd's Bush Holy Night for a while.

Web surfing is the killer of all good intentions. I was zipping through Karen's (Wasatch Needlecrafts) Nashville update and saw three more projects that I couldn't live without. It does help that she's offering a 15% off on all Nashville releases right now, so soon I should be getting: Primitive Traditions' Sarah Elliott's Home Port, and Blackbird Designs' Wild Lilies and Gathering Baskets. I zipped over to Stitching Bits and Bobs to get the threads while they were still on sale and then to ABC Stitch to get the fabrics. I wish I could find one store that carried everything. I know In Stitches in Alexandria does, but by the time I drive up there (and deal with all that traffic around Woodbridge) I'm worn out. Besides this way I don't have to get out of my yoga pants and sweatshirt...

Confused!

No, not me, but that is actually unusual, what's confused is my Christmas cactus. Here's what it looked like last night:

It has two open flowers and a bud almost ready to open, it's beautiful, and apparently it has no idea that Christmas doesn't occur in February!!

Survived

"Survived", that's the best I can say about this week. Still not feeling 100%, still sick and tired of the ridiculousness that work has become, and still hating the fact that I'm being set up to fail on a work task.

That's all okay though, it's the weekend and I've got a chocolate cake in the oven - a new recipe, chocolate cake with a sweet cream cheese filling swirled through it. Topped with nuts and fudge frosting

This is right out of the oven. Has to cool at least an hour before frosting. No, it's not even close to being good for us, but we'll survive that.

Not a bit of stitching has been done since Sunday. I've been too tired on the way home to do anything but read and when I've gotten home, well let's say Hubby's skills as a househusband leave *lots* to be desired.  Here's where I stopped on Sunday -

I'm going to start on the outer border today, although it's a small area, like many of Martina's patterns, it's very detailed.

I decimated my Christmas money today in a stash buying spree. I read that the price of Sampler Threads (from Gentle Arts) are going up March 1 and I had quite a list of them to buy. A ONS is having one of their constant sales so I ordered all the GAST, WDW and Crescent Colours I needed for a freebie seasonal bird series from Waxing Moon Designs, the two new Little House Needleworks Christmas ornaments, and Blackbird Designs Anniversaries of the Heart #10 Pumpkin Farm. I also put in a preordered for Blackbird Designs new booklet - I've never ordered one before, but I've also missed out on a lot of really cute patterns because of the omission. I also ordered a couple of pieces of fabric from ABC Stitch Therapy - I really miss not being able to hop in the car and drive up to see them

ACCKKK!!!

I had the most beautiful, Pulitzer prize winning post all set to publish and it was eaten! I'll never be able to recreate it!  Since I can't recreate it, I"ll just post my TUSAL and be done....

To see last month's go to my Yuku blog at http://sue61408.u.yuku.com/ Photos are just so much easier to post here.

January Recap

I'm home sick *again*! I was feeling a bit better on Monday, started feeling a little "puny" (as my Grandmother used to say) yesterday and woke up this morning miserable again. DHubs made a trip to the store and picked up a huge bottle of Robitussin(however you make the copyright symbol) and some grapefruit/tangerine juice for me. I'm hoping the nasty medicine ( I HATE Robitussin with a passion but it works) will finally clear the chest congestion and stop the cough if not I fear I"m on my way to bronchitis.

As I wasn't planning on writing about the plague I've caught, I'll get on with my recap of January's stitching. This is all pulled over from my Yuku blog, so hopefully it posts okay here.

EGYPT GARDEN-Stitch sides including: columns (1), ibis and papyrus (2 1), cats (2) and far away palm trees (2 1)
 WINE A BIT-Stitch
HOLY NIGHT-Start Started January 2, 2011
AUTUMN AT HAWK RUN HOLLOW
-Start Started January 8, 2011
CHRISTMAS ELEGANCE
-Start and Finish Band A Started December 31, 2010-Finished Band 1 January 16, 2011SANTABERRY PUDDING
-Start Started January 1, 2011
EIGHTSOME REEL-Finish two rounds

I knew the starts would be easy and I really did start five as I did part of part one of Chatelaine's Winter Watergarden, the rest of it, well not so great. I almost finished one round of Eightsome Reel but haven't touched it since the beginning of January. I'm almost tempted to trash it, but I've got almost half of it done and just can't get it through my head that tossing it would be okay.

Egyptian Garden? Well, I'm just more plans than I realistically have time. Yes, I could have stitched more on that if I hadn't taken five evenings to work on new starts, but well where's the fun in that?!?!

I suppose I should start a gadget or whatever Blogger calls it for my February Goals rather than doing it all over on Yuku. I've got all afternoon to figure that out...