It's been a while

So much for the thought that working from home would get me blogging more.  I've been stitching and crocheting and knitting and reading blogs and watching floss tube but I haven't been posting.  Mostly it's boiling down to I think that because I've gone One-at-a-Time it will be boring to see the same thing over and over.

While it may be boring to blog about, OAAT has been wonderful for my productivity.  In May I stitched every day but one and logged 116.5 hours of stitching time.  30 of those hours were finishing up Candy Nutcracker and the rest were for Sweet Pea.  When I posted last, Sweet Pea was here:

and on May 31st, I finished her/them I have always thought that this looks like a mother celebrating her child

Here's a better idea of what the fabric looks like:

This picture is still not very good as the green is more vibrant and there are areas of gold sparkles (you can see them in the before photo).  Not sure why it doesn't want to photograph, but it's 32-count Water Color Meadow by Sunny Dyes Fabrics - I really like their fabrics and they provided wonderful customer service helping me choose a fabric for this piece.  I used all the called for threads and beads.  Mom has requested it be made into a pillow so once I have the baby's name and birth day I will finish it up.  I'm thinking of doing a narrow border around the piece and printing the baby's name and birth day on that piece and then the main pillow color (which I have no idea of yet).

Having finished Sweet Pea, on June 1st I started Vintage Baubles by Shannon Christine Designs:

This is the toe area.  It's stitched on a 28-count white Jobelan with the called for DMCs and Kreinik (so much Kreinik).  The blank spaces in the pink and green ornaments are for beads.  I finally found a store that sold the colors I needed in less than massive quantities and am just waiting for delivery.  This stocking is going to sparkle.  This is another piece with fairly limited colors but the designer does a wonderful job combining them to make it look like there are more.

I have taken a little time from stitching the last couple of days to:

learn to knit socks.  This is about 1" of ribbing.  And no, you haven't seen any other knitting on this blog, I know how, but I'm not a knitter.  EXCEPT that years ago, I got it into my head that hand-knit socks were absolutely necessary and I was going to learn how to make them.  I've read books, watched videos, etc. but never felt ready to jump in and then I saw a You Tube video that used a 9" circular needle rather than DPN (double-pointed needles) or Magic Loop and it all suddenly made sense.  I bought a circular needle, grabbed one of the numerous balls of sock yarn I've stashed (I will, someday, have very warm, comfy feet all winter with all the socks I will knit from the yarn I have stashed) and started.   Maybe it's the video, maybe it's the needle, maybe it's my mindset, maybe Mars is in retrograde, I don't know, but it was all so much easier than I had thought.  I had added another little bit of ribbing after I took this picture but ended up tearing this all back and starting again as there was an error that I couldn't fix.  I'm okay with that as the next try will be better than the first.

My office has started Phase I of a three phase reopening but our director said that she doesn't expect any of us will be called back under Phase I or II and we should expect to work from home through June.  Each phase is two weeks and moving backwards is possible.  Based on previous HR issues, I was honestly expecting an all or nothing situation so am pleasantly surprised by the slow and cautious tone that has been set so far. 

I hope you and yours are all safe and healthy.