TUSAL

There are bits of BoaF Mystery Sampler, Hawaiian Garden Mandala, Socks and Underwear - Santa 2010, and iStitches Mystery in there. I have had to tamp it down a bit so that there was more room.

I Leave for a Few Days and...

We have not only an earthquake but a hurricane! Honestly not sorry I missed either one. We had no damage from the earthquake but MIL and her husband were only a few miles from the epicenter and had lots of breakage - no structural damage, but pictures knocked off the walls, dishes out of the cupboards, etc.   We had a large tree come down and the power was out for a few hours due to the hurricane, but again, no real damage. But FIL and his wife live in Virgina Beach and they had some water damage and little bit of wind damage. All in all we were all very lucky. I have not heard from DS who lives in New Hampshire. When I talked with him last night they were moving all the items on the lower shelves onto higher ones as the store he works in is very close to a river and they've had flooding before. I was hoping he might have the day off so that he wouldn't have to drive 45 miles in the weather, but they were still scheduled to open today.

Had a good trip, if anyone is looking for beautiful beaches to walk along, I highly recommend the Orange Beach/Gulf Shores area of Alabama. I didn't get to see a lot of it as I was training, but there were miles and miles of white sand beaches. Then on to Atlanta for the Fire-Rescue International conference. DNephew the fireman/emt would have been in heaven and I told him that if I go next year, I'll take him with me. I've never seen so many fire trucks, ambulances, rescue vehicles in one place. The show went well considering our display and handouts didn't arrive. Seems they didn't make it out of the office before the earthquake and when the building was closed the next day, no vehicles were allowed in or out so when we arrived in Atlanta on Thursday, our display was still sitting on the loading dock in Washington, DC. Since we can only ship two day delivery, we told them to not send it and went into panic mode. Fortunately, there was a FedEx Office store in the convention center and we could print some handouts and make a few displays for the table.

I didn't get any stitching done while gone, but I did do some last weekend.

Here's where I started on Hawaiian Garden Mandala:

 And here's where I was when I finished stitching Saturday night:

And here's my progress on BoaF mystery:

An August Saturday Morning

Not the most original post title, but the brain is running slow today. I do need to ramp it up a bit as I have a lot to do the next couple of days. I'm traveling again next week. I fly out Monday for two days of training in Alabama - giving not taking last count was 63 attendees so should be lots of interaction, then fly to Atlanta to spend two days standing at a booth at the Fire/Rescue International Conference - it's actually put on by the International Association of Fire Chiefs. I've got the floor plan for the exhibit space and it may take me all of the two days just to find our booth!! I fly home Sunday morning and back into the thick of things on Monday. Anyway, the Hubs seems to think he's helpless when I'm gone don't know how he survived as long as did on his own if that's true, so I'm making extra casseroles this weekend, so he'll have something to eat even though I know I'll hear "There's nothing in the house to eat" around Wednesday... And somewhere in between the cooking and cleaning, I've got to get myself packed for two very different events and make it all fit in one suitcase.

As this is a stitching blog, I'll talk about stitching. I didn't get too much done this week, but some progress is better than no progress.

I did finish part 1 of iStitch's SAL:



Stitched on 30-count R&R Reproductions Espresso with HDF's Cloud silk thread

There was progress on BoaF mystery although it's not really a mystery anymore:

Despite it looking like the picture I posted in my last post, there actually is progress. The red flower on the lower right side now has berries, two leaves and some red on the flower yes, it took me a week to stitch just that. By the time I got home at night it was all I could do to stay sitting upright, never mind stitch.

I did a little more stashing this week. A.C. Moore has DMC on sale for 5/$1.00! And if that wasn't wonderful enough, a coupon for 30% off total purchase popped up in my email Thursday, so that works out to about $.14 per skein! I finished kitting up Cricket Collection's Three Gables, Elegant Pumpkins from the latest Just Cross Stitch, Calling Birds from the Christmas Preview and By the Full Moon from last year's Halloween issue.

I had a weird cut (8"X26") of PTP's Haunted in my stash and it's the perfect color for By the Full Moon. I just have to decide which end to cut. One end is more dark green/grey/purple with the other having more purples and some white. I'm leaning towards the purple end, but may do both and then I'll have one to give to DSIL.

The difference shows up much better in this picture, but the colors are more true in the previous one.

And just to prove that they're not always brats of course they did start fighting just after the picture was taken - someone must have breathed wrong:

Trouble and Spot napping

Catching Up

Thank you everyone for the comments on my framed Egyptian Garden and Santaberry Pudding. Jill Rensel's framing makes my stitching look so good! I do send all my framing to her, whether it's matted or not. For very good reason, she's known for her mats, but I know that my stitching is being treated well when I send them to her - one of the big box stores? I've had good jobs but I've also had disasters. Jill has an amazing stretcher/mounter and the packaging is nothing short of an art in itself.  Anne Marieke - I don't think my WIP list is complete - I really need to do a thorough search of the house and not just the den for the others.

We took Egyptian Garden to its new home today. My in-laws were totally blown away! They took down a painting and hung it immediately. It is so gratifying when a gift is so well received!

It's been a couple of weeks since I posted, and I've been fairly busy stitching. I joined the Chatelaine SAL over at The Stitch Specialists Yuku group. I chose to work on Hawaiian Garden mandala. It's been a WIP for two years and I'd really like to get it to halfway by the end of the year I haven't finished part 1 so that may be a bit of a stretch. I bought the pattern and kit right before the Hubs and I went to Hawaii. I stitched to the first round of blue Petite Treasure Braid hard to see but just near the large white squares while I was there so it will always be a special piece for me.

Here's where I started Saturday afternoon:


Hawaiian Garden by Chatelaine
Stitched on Summer Sky Jobelan with threads as charted by designer

 and here's where I finished up Saturday evening mostly beading and metallic work:

As usual, the colors are much more vibrant in real life and oh my! does it sparkle. And the fabric is a mottled blue not white as in the first picture and definitely not the greenish shade in the second.

I stitched on Socks and Underwear - Santa 2010 one day this week during my commute. Not a lot done, but it did make the person next to me laugh when they peaked at it.

I was able to sit myself down almost every night this past week and stitch for about an hour on BoaF mystery. Not a lot of progress but it's getting there:

And now for something new. I was blog surfing the other day and found a new SAL at iStitch's as though I really needed something else to work on AND this one has a deadline - you have to send a picture of each finished part to get the next part... Forgetting the whole "I don't have time to stitch something else" issue, I signed up. The first part was released Friday, so in an effort to keep up with this, I took it with me this weekend we *finally* got to Virginia Beach, got the boat out, cleaned it (about 2 hours worth) and spent the day on the water. I have almost finished the first part which includes the outer border and one small motif.

I pulled everything from my stash. The fabric is R&R Reproduction's Espresso and is a leftover cut. The thread is HDF's Cloud. I ordered one of her conversions on a Chatelaine a number of years ago. Unfortunately, I did not like the thread, so instead of making myself miserable working with materials I didn't like especially on such a large piece I ordered the materials kit from European Cross Stitch and put the HDF fibers away. I'm still not thrilled with the thread, but as this is a fairly small piece, I think I can deal with my dislike.

And last, but certainly not least. DMIL had an UnChristmas present for me when we went over this morning.

This is a Vera Bradley messenger bag in Citrus pattern. This is an older pattern and old style messenger bag (somewhere around 2006). DMIL said that one of her coworkers was showing these around the office before she put them on Ebay and she thought this color was me. It is bright and I do have this bag in a different color and have almost worn it out, so this was a great gift (of course *all* gifts are great).

Trying Again

Hopefully the picture will show in this post. I resaved and posted in a different format -  should be clickable also.

Santaberry Pudding:



Shepherd's Bush's Santaberry Pudding
Framing by Jill Rensel



Squeeeeeee!!!!

Yes it's a very undignified sound but very close to the one I made this morning when I opened the email from  Jill Rensel. It's a good thing I was in my car (in the train station's parking lot NOT driving) when I opened it  as I'm sure the people around me would not have been amused. My pieces are done! I am soooo pleased with both of them. The pictures are huge, but when I made them fit the screen they weren't very clear.
Shepherd's Bush's Santaberry Pudding is just 100% "Jill Rensel".

July Recap, August Goals and Annual Goals Update

Let's see, for July my goals were:

• Finish part one of BoaF No
• Stitch two rows on Christmas Elegance Never even pulled it out
• Finish Lizzie*Kate's Socks and Underwear - Santa 2010 No again
• Finish-finish the last four Secret Needle Night projects YES!!!
• Finish parts 3 and 4 of Tree of Stitches Stitched 3 or 4 additional eyelets...

Looks like that puts me squarely in the "Did Not Meet Expectations" category.

I suppose I should be a bit more realistic for August:

• Finish part one of BoaF
• Stitch on Chatelaine's Hawaiian Garden 5 nights

Yes, I think that's going to be it for August.

I have redone my 2011 Goals. My brain still hasn't figured out that I no longer live 2 miles from the office and that my stitching time is significantly less than it was so my original 2011 goals were much too optimistic.  My updated goals are over to the left there. They're still a bit optimistic, but one does need to stretch a bit.