Colleen is at work. Dave’s playing golf. I’m here alone. And we were just invited out to dinner so now I don’t even have to worry about cooking tonight. I’ll try not to look too happy about it. Oh well, what the heck. I’m ecstatic!
I hope that your weekend is going well, too!
John’s housing – lucky dog. First pic is as you come down the steps from the parking pad. Then you walk around the side of the house. And you find yourself on a lovely deck with such a view.
And the inside of the house is just as nice as the outside.
Then these others are photos that I just like. A cool mountain to the north of I-80 between Salt Lake City and Reno. Don’t remember the name and I left all of my maps with John, but I remember that its elevation was somewhere around 11,000 feet.
Some of us (me….on the hotel deck), behaved all nice and sophisticated, but some of us didn’t.
Some more scrumptious photos of our tea.
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And a sign that made me laugh out loud every time I saw it, which mortified my children, but it’s really and truly just too funny.
They just don’t understand me. I was glad to be home and with my husband who laughed like a nut when I showed it to him. He gets me.
One of the (many) things on my list to buy during the Heartland Shop Hop was an assortment of buttons. Happily, I struck gold at the very first shop on our tour, Stitch On in Lawrence KS. I knew what buttons I needed for this little HIH bell pull, but I made a couple changes and I like the buttons I chose even more. The sailboat had two little bluebird types around it in the model, but Stitch on had little seagulls! And fishies! I love ‘em.
Extra cute buttons! I know, I know. I’m going to change those threads to different colors that blend better with the fish.
And here it is, hanging inside and a bit faded by the flash.
You all may laugh at this, but today was the first time I’ve spent a full day of work away from the house in a few years. I’ve picked up another bookkeeping job and at this point I can’t do it from home, so I have to work in this fellow’s very busy body shop. I’ll tell you…I’m tired. I’m not used to being around noise and work-type people all day. Sheesh. I had to be nice. And respond to conversation. Completely not me. I keep telling myself to break out of this hermit-like existence I’ve created, but man – I’m exhausted. And hungry. Time to go throw together some leftovers!
We saw a lot of wide open and flat landscapes. And grouchy daughters.
And places for the good guys in westerns to hide while they wait to ambush the bad guys.
This was in Park City, Utah, and those are the ski jumps in Olympic Park in the background over Colleen’s shoulder. If you remember that I posted from there…you may remember that from the tone of my post I wanted to push those smiling children down that ski jump and send them sailing into the air.
Look at them smiling….like we hadn’t had a meltdown the night before. I got over it, though. And they survived the trip without serious scarring.
I lead such a fascinating life. Last night it was just me and Instant Netflix, so I settled in and watched TLC documentaries about Gunfighters. It seemed appropriate after our drive through the West, where it totally would have made my trip if I had seen a horseback riding cowboy come out from behind rocks in a landscape like this.
So anyway, last night I learned about Wild Bill Hickok, The James Gang, and John Wesley Hardin. And I discovered that between my trip with the kids and my trip to Topeka, I had actually been to many of the towns where these guys had had gunfights and gambled and robbed banks. And now those dangerous towns have some of my favorite cross stitch shops in them. I could’ve been looking at hand-dyed threads in a spot where Wild Bill Hickok had been playing poker. You have to love that thought.
But the big news is, last night I put the last stitches into this! And it’s even still technically Spring.
I decided to go with DMC 3033 for the snow after all. I wanted something whiter, but the whites just faded away into the lavender. I think it worked well enough.
Right now I’m going to work at making this house is presentable again, then I’m going to plop down with LoHaR later today. Although I love Lo, it’s not easy to ignore all of the new stuff that’s calling my name. Loudly.
Enjoy your Saturday, everybody!
Almost nothing feels as good as your own bed. Especially after a terrible red-eye flight (seats in the back row, thank-you-very-much), coming home and going straight to work, and then dealing with the time difference the next morning. My bed feels like it’s still calling me even today. But there are so many things to do on so many fronts. Work, kitchen, laundry, DUST. For instance, even though my husband is a wonderful man, would it kill him to wipe down a countertop every once in a while? Ewww. And he never, ever puts anything away. So I always come home to Crumbly Clutter world, and you can only imagine how it looked after I had been away for 8 days.
But I will not go on and on about a sloppy husband. I’m not particularly neat myself, and he could probably write loads of posts about my terrible habits.
So – time for Trip Stitching! Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. All of the long, flat roads were at the beginning of the trip, and it sounds nuts but at that point I was just way too nervous to stitch. And then as the days went on, the scenery became so interesting that I’d stitch a little but spend most of my time looking out the windows. Maybe if I ever do it again, I’d be more blase about the whole thing. No – I doubt that. But anyway, you ladies who when to camp with me in the fall will recognize this little thing. It’s a freebie from CEC that had been kitted up and given as a camp kit. The fabric is some kind of 9ct. linen and the threads are DMC. If I had made up this kit, I would have used a darker linen. I had to add some backstitching to the basket or it would have been nearly invisible.
I have some red and green homespun fabric that I can use to make this into something like a pin pillow.
Here are a few trip pictures from my camera. Colleen has loads more pictures that I can show you later. I just have to make her give them to me! This first one is my son and me. By the way, he seems to be enjoying his new adventure out there in Tiburon. He had to drive a work truck from Tiburon to Oakland during rush hour yesterday and said it was kind of hair-raising. But otherwise he’s enjoying kayaking in the bay, and he rode his bike from Tiburon to cross over the Golden Gate Bridge and back. It’s a different situation from his internship last year – not as many people and no work crew to hang around with. That was my biggest worry when I left – that he’d be lonely. But John’s usually pretty outgoing and I think he’ll make some friends quickly.
It’s easy enough to tell where we took this!
And I’ll have better pictures of our tea once I steal Colleen’s camera…
Finally, I want to make a list of all of the May SBQ participants and add it to my sidebar. My method is tedious though. Can anyone suggest a quick way to make a list of names that links those names to blog posts?
To work….
Where was I when this arrived at Julie’s? Darn! I would’ve loved to see it in person. Is that an awesome floss cabinet or what? Click on the photo to read her blog post.
You know, when I wrote this question, I really, really thought that my answer would be that I was a Process Stitcher. I love my time spent stitching and how relaxed it makes me feel. There are many things that I do that create this knot in my shoulders and neck, but not stitching. I’m completely at ease.
Still, if I examine the stitching lifespan of anything that I’ve completed, the finished stitching gives me my greatest pleasure. Here’s how I know, because this is what I do.
I stitch it.
I finish it.
I wash it, if possible.
I iron it.
Then it will sit on my ironing board till it’s completely dry, but I keep visiting it over and over. I return to look at it dozens of times and pat myself on the back each and every time. It’s like a magnet that keeps drawing me back to wherever it happens to be sitting and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Then when I actually finish-finish it? Heh. Over the top magnetism. I don’t want to leave the room.
And I’m getting to the point where I have more photos on my computer of my completed stitching than photos of my children. So what does that tell us? That maybe I need grandchildren… and soon? (Oh my – scary thought!)
So that’s my answer ladies and gents. I’m a Project Stitcher.
First of all, I’ll warn you – I didn’t take one single picture the whole time that I was in Topeka. I know. How dumb was that? All I can tell you is that I always get caught up in talking and shopping and scenery and then I completely forget that I even own a camera. Ah well. No regrets. I’ll just keep it all up here. (I’m pointing to my head right now)
Secondly, I was so lucky to have the most amazing hostess in Kansas as my personal chauffeur and tour guide. Julie shared her home, her friends, her stitching and her travels with me and that was what drew me to Kansas and that’s what would make me go back. Make no mistake, the shopping was great. Like out of this world great. But I would travel all of those miles and many more to spend two full days with such very cool women (or the occasional man) who share my passion for needlework and all things stitch-related.
So – just to give you an idea of how many miles we covered, I’ll show you a Google Map. We started early Thursday morning in Topeka (F) and made a giant loop that took us to:
Stitch On In Lawrence KS (B), Two the Point in Overland Park, Kansas ©, CC and Company in Blue Springs MO (D), Old Mill Stitchery in Liberty MO (E - no website!), and then back to Topeka to The Sunflower Seed(F).
Friday was another fairly early start day, because we piled back into the car again, purchases in hand, and drove to Abilene, Kansas to visit Picture This Plus (G), where we found the most amazing fabrics for our brand new charts and projects. It’s the most wonderful place. Fabulous shop models featuring their fabrics. Excellent selection of fabrics and threads. Staff and owners who were super helpful and as excited about our projects as we were. And upstairs there was a used book store and a coffee/sandwich shop. I’m not joking. I could totally move in there for a week. Or more. And I’d be cash-poor, but insanely stash-rich.
And all things considered, I was pretty well-behaved about sticking to my shopping list. I wasn’t an Ironman about it though, and what fun is it if you don’t spot a few impulse purchases along the way? And who could resist plunging into those fabrics at Picture this Plus? (Picture stolen from Julie’s blog. Because, like I said, I was camera-less) Judy and I came up for air long enough so that Julie could snap this picture.
Then Saturday was a little slower paced in the morning – just a trip to the Post Office to mail some of the things that wouldn’t fit in my carry on and some great hand soap that the TSA would have confiscated for its obvious bomb-making properties. And then it was back to the airport and home.
So – what the heck did I buy? Only enough stuff to keep me busy forever.
First up – fabric and threads that I bought just because. Just because I liked them and wanted to play around a bit. Some 18 ct. cork linen, some WDW linen, some linen with a design in it, some silks and some Carrie’s Creations cotton thread.
Next, some charts and fabric for those designs. You can see how much I loved designs from The Sunflower Seed. And that’s 11 ct. fabric for the Santa. And PTP fabric for TSS Welcome and La D Da’s Fear Not.
And finally, things that I went whole hog on. Chart, fabric, and threads. All the fabrics are from Picture This Plus. And you’ll see lots of GAST’s for Tis a Gift and Jenny Bean’s Gingerbread sampler. Silks for La D Da’s Live, Love, Laugh, and a new to me cotton embroidery floss form a company called Sullivan’s for the Silver Creek Sampler piece.
So what do you think? Maybe I wasn’t as well-behaved as I thought I was, huh? I ended up buying two La D Da charts not on my list. One of the shops had so many gorgeous LaDDa models and I truly could have bought them all, but I was the picture of restraint. And the Sunflower Seed charts were totally off my radar, but she’s a Topeka designer and I’ll always think of Topeka (especially when I stitch the Topeka chart…) and of Kansas when I stitch all of those sunflowers.
I’m not even showing you the stash that I brought home because it was free. Or pretty darn close to free. And some other odds and ends, like some little buttons so that I can totally finish Family Medley. A needle minder or two. A cool wooden thread palette.
And now I’m going to get busy and finish something so I can start something new. Oh, and I’ll answer my own SBQ later, too. I’ve been waffling back and forth about my answer, but I think I’ve settled on it. So I’ll be back soon.
Welcome to my version of the SBQ! Every first Monday of the month, I’ll post a question about some aspect of our stitching life and you can answer it in a blog post of your own. After you have answered, please leave a comment on this post, and be sure to include a link to your blog so others can visit and read your thoughts. If you don’t have a blog, you can leave your answer in the comment section, but I hope that the questions will help you see that you have a lot to say and will inspire you to create a blog of your own.
Before I move on to the Question, I want to thank Adrienne Martini, whose book, Sweater Quest, got me thinking about the big picture of why I stitch and why it makes me happy. Since her book was my inspiration to restart the SBQ, I know I’ll be pulling several of the Questions from things that her book made me think about. This first question was discussed at a recent reading hosted by Anna in Philadelphia.
Now….to the Question:
Suppose we say that there are two types of stitchers.
There are those who enjoy the “process” of stitching. They stitch for stitching’s sake and if something gets finished, so much the better, but it’s not necessarily the end goal. Primarily, it’s the application of needle and thread to cloth that makes them happiest.
Then there are those who are “project” stitchers. They move steadily through their projects, certainly enjoying their stitching time, but finding their greatest joy in the completed stitching.
If you had to pick one to describe yourself, which type of stitcher would you be? I imagine that we could all say that we fall somewhere in between, but really think hard about this and try to pick just one. And once you’ve decided whether you’re a Process or Project stitcher, tell us if your recognize that approach in other parts of your life.
