Out of practice

Holy Cow!  My last entry was 9 days ago.  You'd think I forgot how to type or something.  I feel like I have an awful lot going on right now and although I've enjoyed keeping up with your blogs, updating my own seemed like too much work.  (Selfish, much?)

BUT, April looks like it's going to be a fun month and maybe I'll have so much to tell you all that I'll snap out of my blogging funk. 

I promise I'll be back soon.

More Spring Violets

This design is such a delight to stitch!  Between the joy of stitching this and our wonderful, warm sunny weather over the weekend, I may have banished those winter blues for good.  You know what else always makes me feel better?  Being able to sleep with the window open.  It was still warm last night, so we left the bedroom front window open slightly and it was heavenly!Otherwise, there’s nothing new here at my house on the lake.  Dave came home safely, but there were no jewelry boxes in his golf bag, so I guess I didn’t train him all that well.  (Lesson:  If I blog about it, it probably won’t happen) Colleen is back at school after her trip to Florida.  And John is home for his spring break for a week.  Oh!  Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for him.  John had a good interview for an intern position with a research project in the Chesapeake Bay.  I know it’s his first choice,  and I’d be really happy to have him that close to home.  For me, 3 hours by car is much better than all the way across the country.  Which, incidentally, is his second choice.  A summer counting and measuring mackerel, and based in Seattle. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I know this is a re-run, but here's one of my favorite Irish Blessings.

It was a freebie called Irish House Blessing from Tanya,  The Sampler Girl released in 2008.  I think.  I know that I stitched it in January, 2009.

Now I had better get to work.  I just can't count of finding that Pot 'O Gold, so I had better do something to earn my paycheck.

Totally adorable

I saw this last week on another stitching blog. I have to apologize because I bookmarked the video, but not the blog. I think it was Chiloe? Anyway, it's totally adorable.


Maggie and Mildred from Holly Klein on Vimeo.

Started Spring Violets

Jennifer and I are putting LoHR on hold for a couple weekends (It seems like everyone went South this March except me!).

So after my cleaning bash over the weekend, I started Hands To Work's Spring Violets. But why is this photo so dark? I used a flash and everything, and it was much brighter in my photo software, but then I uploaded it to Blogger and....ewwww!  Suddenly it's so dinghy!

If you're familiar with the design, you'll notice that I've totally changed its colors. I'm kind of rethinking the color of the violets, though.  Too similar to the letters maybe?  I'm going to look for something a little darker.  Maybe more blue-violet.  Or should I go lighter?   Also rethinking the color I chose for the snow.  I was using GAST Oatmeal, but when I get into the white sections of the thread, the stitches get lost.

Oh - here's a not-so-funny thing. During the weekend cleaning I came across several small cuts of fabric.  Some of them were together, some of them were in odd places.  So I decided to start a box of ornament sized cuts.  Well, do you remember that I had a piece of Lavender Bliss picked out especially for this Spring Violets project and when I opened it, there was a chunk taken out of it?  And I didn't remember ever using it?  STUPID ME!  I found that chunk - it's about 5X5.  And there's not a stitch on it.  What the heck?  Why did I do that?  Sometimes I want to hit myself in the head.

Anyway, I have to thank Tommye for the cool Sunshine Blog award!
How sweet! Tommye creates beautiful scissor fobs and counting pins and needle threaders, among other things, and you can see some of her useful art over at her etsy shop,  TJB Designs.  My favorite?  The counting pins, hands down.  I use them and I luuuuurve them. 

And now I'm supposed to pass this on to 12 other bloggers.  How difficult is that??  Choosing only twelve of you is impossible.  So I'm going to take the easy way out and say that if you read my blog, I'm giving you this award! 

Today is my last full day alone, because Dave will be home from his golf trip sometime tomorrow.  It's been a relaxing few days and I've completely enjoyed having full possession of the TV remote.  And I've been sleeping at least an hour later each morning because the house is so quiet!  But I've also missed my goofy husband, so I'll be glad when he's home again.  Of course, he knows that jewelry always makes a good "Honey, I'm Home" present.

I have to blame someone!

So I'm going to blame Julie for causing the disaster in my crafty space today.  We were talking on the phone the other night and she mentioned the perfectly organized stash of a mutual friend (Sue...no blog) and how she was going through her own projects for a Cross Stitch Garage Sale. (Click over for more info.  Looks like fun and it's for a good cause)

Coincidentally, Dave left at 4:30 this morning for his yearly golf trip, and I'm looking at a 5 day stretch of being all by myself in the house.  Well!  My wheels started spinning and I decided that today was the perfect day to do a little cleanup and cleanout myself. 

Oh Good God.  After a couple of hours I almost gave up.  These things always snowball on me.  Little projects turn into major catastophes.  But since only weenies give up so easily, I kept moving.

Before I knew it, I was moving furniture and washing walls and tearing up closets that I had no intention of even opening, let alone reorganizing.  But what the heck.  If I'm moving it, I might as well clean it, and then I might as well clean the space it left behind before I put anything else there.

Needless to say, I spent long hours today with floss in my hair and fabric stuck to my shoes but now things are (mostly) put away in a semi-organized fashion, and I can see the floor again.  And it needs sweeping.

Wait.  Do you actually think I'm going to show you pictures??  Not a chance.  I have some pride...

Family Medley - Finished!

Although I'm still not sold on these buttons. Since this is an older chart, I was thinking that the buttons it calls for would be hard to find. So I pulled a couple buttons from my stash and tried them out.  I thought I could make do, but the problem is the buttons needed for this design are so tiny and not ones that I think I can fudge.  I don't know....I may try to order the charted buttons. The Silver Needle usually has a good supply of buttons.  Or else I'll just stitch them in.  And that's a wooden bell pull from my stash.  It was probably meant for another project that I abandoned long ago.

Speaking of being abandoned, Colleen was home for a whole 4 days of her spring break. She's actually with her track team on a bus to Florida as I'm typing this. When she leaves, it feels like there's a hole in my heart. I get over it quickly enough - like within a day - but all through yesterday I was weepy and sloppy.

And then that led to me tearing apart all of the stuff that I had neatly (well, not really neatly) stored away in my stitching desk and making a complete disaster out of my office/sewing room.  I wasn't in the mood to stitch any WIP's, and none of my kitted-up stuff was making me happy and so all I accomplished was making a huge mess.  Then I went downstairs and watched TV. 

Did I mention earlier that a dear friend sent me Hands to Work's Spring Violets in the mail?  And I'm waiting on a piece of Lavender Bliss Lugana, which should arrive in the mail any day now.  Of course I had a lovely piece of it here.   Perfect color, perfect size.  And when I opened it up, evidently I had cut a big hunk out of it.  Funny though, I really don't ever remember using it for anything!

OK....which one of you sneaky stitchers came into my room, found my Lavender Bliss (and believe me, finding anything in here would be a real feat), and cut a 5 X 5 square out of it??  Fess up.  You'll feel better about yourself.

I'm always the last one to see these things

I don't have anything stitchy to talk about or to photograph today, but I came across video this on Neil Gaiman's Journal and I thought maybe some of you are as out of the loop as I am and haven't seen it yet.  And even so, it was too much fun to keep to myself.  By the way, I love Neil Gaiman.  He could seriously be my new boyfriend.  Well....that is....as long as he's handy with a snowblower.

Dude....

Dude.....Where's my deck?

So, let's get this snow talk out of the way. 

These are figures from my dear husband, the Official National Weather Observer for Chalk Hill, PA:

Yesterday he measured 40 inches of snow on the ground (a new record).
In the month of February we received 96 inches of snow (another new record).
So far this winter, we've had 166 inches of snow (already a new record and there's more winter to come)

And this is him in all of his cuteness:

Even though this was yet another snow weekend from hell, I stitched a little on Lo.  It was a nice break between shoveling and staring into the grey/white/black landscape and feeling ultra gloomy.

So, I managed "Rose Blooming".

 

And during the week I put a few stitches into Family Medley.  Just a bit more wording and I'll be finished!  

See you next time!