TUSAL, Gifted Gorgeousness and it's IHSW

 So far my blogging and stitching plans are working of course I have now cursed both of them.  I am making progress on both but not stressing myself out.  I think my brain has finally settled into this "new" and I'm not thinking too hard on "what happens when I have to go back to the office".  Based on an email from the Secretary (of Agriculture) my "when" sounds like it's still a ways off and even when we reach that point, it will be very different than before.  He is reinstating our old telework policy that allowed for up to four days of telework per week and they're doing position reviews to see which ones can be done virtually (obviously the majority can as we've been doing it for a year now).  My direct manager is all on with the four days of telework, and hopefully upper management will be too I did hear that our Director said that managers had better have a very good reason for not allowing maximum telework so it sounds promising.  

Looking back at my stitching  "journal",   was March 13th.  TUSAL is hosted by Sharon at It's Daffycat and is a just-for-fun collecting SAL.  What do you have to collect?  All those little snips of thread or yarn or what-have-you that you normally have hanging on your pants leg  throw away.  Instead of throwing them away, put them in a decorative jar and on the new moon, post a picture.  I'm a little late but fortunately, this isn't a high stress SAL.  Here's what's in my jar right now:

I added quite a bit of frog fuzz this month. It really is leaning towards darker/earth tone colors right now, except for that splash of blue Kreinik, isn't it?

check-in is the 15th of each month, but our lovely hostess, Jo at Serendipitous Stitching keeps the check-in open until the end of the month.  What is Gifted Gorgeousness?  It's our chance to thank everyone that has given us stitching gifts, or to show things we're stitching as gifts or anything else you can shoehorn into the theme of "gift".  I have two focus pieces that fit perfectly in this SAL as they are both gifts.

Goldie is charted by Heaven and Earth Designs and is a gift for my MIL and her husband.  I was coming to the tail end of her rotation time in my last post but will show from the beginning of her rotation time.

She started here the 1st of March and when her 10 days were up, she was here: LOTS of blue was filled in, there was some frogging and restitching, lots of body stitching and all that brown in her face.  EXCEPT the majority of the "brown" is DMC 934 which is actually a green, "Black Avocado Green" according to the DMC website.  It is things like that color choice that lead me to ask no questions when stitching a HaED pattern.  Should a green work, not in my mind, but it does.

After Goldie came off the frame, Japanese Zen Moss Garden went on.  This one is a gift for my son.  It was here at the start of its 10 days:  

and today it's here:    I finished the Buddah - that took the better part of a weekend, I'm not sure why it gave me so much trouble - added some of the "stones" in the water section, and started the fill-in of the center - lots of Rhodes stitches and Algerian eyelets.  It will be on the frame today and tomorrow and I am aiming to finish the center fill-in and maybe add some beads.  Chatelaines can be very heavily beaded, like all those swirls around the sandy center, so I add the Delica beads as I go, so I'm not facing days or weeks of beading at the end.  I'll roll a piece of quilt batting or sometimes a tea towel into the top scroll bar to keep them from damaging the fabric - if I use a tea towel it also provides a nice dust cover for my stitching.

This weekend is also March's   What is IHSW?  It happens on the third full weekend of each month and is permission for you to take time for yourself and stitch while knowing stitchers around the world are doing the same thing.  No set amount of time, no minimum or maximum number of stitches, no specific project, just stitch when you can from your Friday to your Sunday night. You can participate in blogland or the Facebook group.  As I mentioned, Zen will be on the frame today and tomorrow.  Sunday I'll fill in leaves on Temperature Tree and then work on my secret stitching piece.  Once that piece is done, I'll spin the "what next" wheel for my rest of the month stitch.

I have also been knitting and crocheting but I keep forgetting to take pictures.  While I'm not working on it right now, I did rip out what I had on my Heavy Metal Shawl.  I just wasn't happy with how it was working up - I did get a new needle - a Hiya Hiya Sharp (my favorites) - so am hoping that will make some difference when I start it again.

Hope everyone is well and has a chance to hermit and stitch this weekend.

Well, that was rougher than I thought

As a just-in-case, if you can, take at least the day after your second COVID vaccine off from work  housework just being human - I sailed through my first one with a sore arm and about a week later very swollen lymph nodes on the shot side lemme tell ya', that scared the pants off me!  Got to the CDC's website to see if it was a side effect of the vaccine - yes in about 11% of the cases (and mostly women report it - I wonder if that's because we're so attuned due to self-exams and mammograms or if it really is more common in women) and can take two to six weeks to go away.  PHEW!!!.  Anyway, figured the same for the second.  HAH! Within hours, arm pain.  Then the flu-like symptoms hit - for me body/joint aches, fatigue and a fever.  Suffice it to say I was fully down for the count for one day and just so "blah" on the second as to have been useless.  I woke up this morning feeling just fine and yes, the last two days were worth it.  None of the stories should keep you from having the vaccine because your mileage will vary - the nurse that did my shot said she had a slight headache and The Hubs had a sore arm - just be prepared for the possibility of side effects.  

So stitching:

Japanese Zen Garden from Chatelaine was at the very end of its rotation time when I last posted.  When I put it away it was here:

I finished the stitching in the lower right corner and some of the backstitching in both corners and, fixed a Kreinik error in the upper corner - used the wrong color - and started the Buddha representation in the right center.  I'm doing it one over one so it really doesn't look like much right now.  All in all, not bad progress during the rotation.

I then pulled out Temperature Tree by Stitchin' Mommy and got it to here:

It is done through February 22nd.  The January 31st leaf used a color that didn't show up in 2020's tree at all - for the 32 to 35 F range - and it was used in four leaves in February.  The next three leaves in February will show the end of winter at my house.  We may get a cold day or two, like this weekend, but we won't have any more extended cold snaps.

After I finished working on the tree, I started a new piece, but as it's a gift and I'm not sure if the person it's for reads this, so I'll hold off showing it until it's been gifted.  I will say, it's a small, I'm about half done, there's an awful lot of stitching for a small, and I have thoroughly enjoyed working on it.

Goldie went back on the frame Monday of this week and I put in 362 stitches that evening.  I was watching a lecture series put on by the Oxford University Museum of Natural History on early life and was not paying as much attention to my stitching as I should have been because Tuesday, I spent most of my stitching time frogging...  For her, I'll show a before and after...

Before

Today

You can see the ghost of some of the ripping in the lower right.  The ghost area and the stitching to the immediate left of it in the "Before" picture is what was ripped.  There's still a bit to put back and I hope to get that done today.  As I missed three evenings of stitching, there won't be as much progress as previous month's.

I almost forgot - I have a check-in for .  WIPocalypse provides us with some incentive to finish up those WIPs we might have hanging around.  Melissa at Measi's Musings is our host and all the information can be found here.  Zen and Goldie are my WIPocalypse pieces this year, but it's a flexible SAL so I can add as I need.  There's a one-month challenge going on this month, but as I missed three days of stitching, I'll wait for the next one.  Also, if you're participating in other focus SALs, you can count all of that towards your WIPocalypse month challenge.  Melissa also gives us writing cues each month and February's was:  What SALs are you participating in this year?  I loosely participate in several.  I say loosely as I seldom make the posting deadline like this one or forget about it but do it anyway like IHSW - International Hermit and Stitch Weekend but I am trying to get better at each of those things.  So this year, I am trying to keep up with WIPocalypse, Gifted Gorgeousness hosted by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching, and International Hermit and Stitch Weekend. I'm also trying to keep up with TUSAL (Totally Useless SAL).  I would love to join other SALs but it's still so up in the air as to when they'll start wanting us back in the office, I hate to commit to more and then fall flat as that is totally demoralizing.

I had more to show than I thought, hopefully that keeps up.

See you in a couple weeks.