My first and last floss tag

Well gang, I had stitched this little guy for the Monthly Finishing Challenge, and during September our challenge was to make a floss tag. This month I've seen some really lovely tags. If you go to the challenge page, you'll see some really neat stuff. And I like my tag, too.

My problem? Cutting that hole in my stitching gave me the willies. I know, I know...we cut away fabric for hardanger, too, but that's different. There are wonderful little kloster blocks giving us a feeling of security. Sticking my scissors in that corner there and making a hole just felt wrong. So I don't think I'll be doing that again...Just call me a weiner.

But if you'd like to test your nerve, Staci has the best tutorial I've seen. Go there if you're courageous....

More pictures of my kids for you to endure

The weekend started off with us having the girls cross country team here overnight after the football game on Friday. It was "Freshman Hill" Saturday, (the hill is up here in the mountains) so all of the non-Freshman girls slept here and then left at the crack of dawn Saturday morning to "prepare" the hill. That means finding hiding places for popping out and ambushing freshmen with shaving cream, silly string and water balloons as they run up this super steep hill. The coach is there too, and he makes sure it's all in good fun, and then they all go out to breakfast together.

Shortly after they left, I got my tailgate party stuff together and drove to John's college meet in nearby Waynesburg, PA. He ran a respectable race - still not at his PR from 2007, but 1:30 faster than his last meet. He'll get there...

We had a wonderful time at the tailgate party, despite being drenched by rain for quite a while. But it cleared up just in time to have a bite to eat and a nice visit with the kiddo. And I was sad to see him get on the bus to head back to Allegheny.

And as for the pictures? The one that looks like a homeless person in running shorts? The one giving the thumbs up? That's my son. I truly hate that beard.



I stitched a little on Sunday, once it cooled down! Early Sunday afternoon I worked a soccer game and it was blazing hot and humid. But later in the day the air changed and I sat on the porch and finished this. It's for the Monthly Finishing Challenge and it'll become a Floss tag. I've never done a floss tag before, and I'm so, so apprehensive about hammering that grommet into this nice little bit of cross stitch! But I figure I'll just have to take the plunge.
I also finished playing around with the floss and fabric choices for the Yahoo group sampler SAL. The more I stitched this, the more I liked it. So now I'll cut a big piece of bone lugana and get a start on Part 1.

And these pics are just for fun. I bought these pansies in April, and they were beautiful. I have to admit that they struggled a lot in July and August, but look! They came back beautifully this week. I love pansies.




And I guess that's all for now, gang. I have a busy week ahead with payroll and a big project for our homeowners association and our school's cross country invitational. September really does fly by!

A bad case of Start-itis

It's one thing having a few WIP's around. I can deal with that. But the other day I was looking around at the little piles of boxes laying around my house. Plastic tote boxes, little wooden boxes, adorable square tins...and each one is housing some kind of project in some stage of stitching. And then I began opening some of them and yikes! I found projects that I had totally forgotten about. This is bad.

So what did I do??

I started two new projects.

This first pic is some test stitching for a Yahoo group SAL sampler. I'm trying out some silk threads and some fabric to see if I like the colors and coverage. I think I like this...The fabric is 25 ct. bone lugana, which is a little bigger count than the fabrics that I usually use. But I like the look.

Next up is a little freebie by Waxing Moon. I started it a couple days ago, but put it down to fool with the sampler project. That's some Picture This Plus fabric that I had in my fabric stash.

And here is another motif from Souvenir Sampler. I didn't quite finish it. In fact, I was too doggone lazy to even finish the thread.

I seem to have the attention span of a gnat these days. It's like a form of Stitching Attention Defecit Disorder. Maybe I'll try to treat it with chocolate. Yessss. There's the ticket.

I'm SO out of titles, but I have lots of pictures

I swear I must have just typed ten titles for this post, but not a one of them made sense. Really...the part of my brain that searches for snappy titles must be on vacation today.

Or maybe it's still recovering from this past weekend. Let me tell you about lack of sleep. As I get older, it gets more and more difficult to recover after a couple nights of minimal sleep. I've always needed a good 8 hours, and I really struggle on any less.

Don't worry. My lack of sleep isn't due to anything bad or unhappy. We just had a crazy schedule this weekend, with a couple of unexpected complications that meant some weird hours.

Colleen had a fabulous cross country meet this weekend - She finished second in her race with a personal record time of 20:24.

Oh man...if she can consistently run in the 20 minute area....it'd be so wonderful. She wasn't the only one that had a good performance, because her team won the meet! Yay for our girlies!

We hung around to watch the college meet that followed the high school meet. She actually would have finished well in that meet, too. Not top 10, but certainly top 20. I think it was a real morale booster for her.

Oh, and we had a visitor in our yard Saturday morning. Well, I should say that he started on my porch. Scary? Yes. I think it's because I had grilled some salmon a couple of nights before, and maybe the grill smelled fishy? But he sniffed all around my grill, then he walked up the steps and looked in my sliding glass doors (Thank goodness they were closed - that wimpy screen barely keeps out the bugs). Then, finding nothing there, he decided to tear up my garbage can.



I stitched a little this weekend, too. I finished this for a SAL with my Yahoo group:
The design is from Quaker Faith, Hope and Love, by Midnight Stitching. I stitched it on a fabric sample of 35 ct. dyed from Vicki Clayton (luuuurrrrve her stuff!), and the color was called Quern Stones. (MUST-HAVE-MORE) And I used Crescent Colors silk in Mer Blue. Heavenly. I swear it almost stitched itself.

And have I shown you this before? I don't think so. I had finished this Altoid tin for the Monthly Finishing Challenge in August, but I never got around fo finishing the inside of it. And since I had made it with Dianne (giver of many tins!) in mind, I didn't want to show it to you until I had totally finished it and she had received it. Well, I finally got off my fanny last week and finished the inside and sent it off to her. The little teacup is from LK's Tea Crazy.

Well gang, I think that's it. Snappy title or not, I'm glad you visited!

A little stitching, a little blathering

Well gang, I'm slowly working my way back. Some form of organization (and sanity) is returning to my home, and I've had a couple of spare moments to play with my stitching.

Here's my latest contribution to the Monthly Finishing Challenge - this month's challenge was a scissor fob, which I barely finished in time before August ran out. And it's very simple. After going great guns with those scissor pockets, I felt like I just phoned this one in. But really...who needs a giant scissor fob? I took these motifs from DT's Souvenir Sampler (yes...I've unearthed it again), and I just happened to have received some fabric samples from Vicki Clayton's Hand Dyed Fabrics, so it all worked out! I used those plastic pellets for stuffing. I like the heft it gave to the fob. And now that I've had my first experience with these devils, I've learned a valuable lesson about preparing your work surface before you try to fill anything with this stuff or you'll be picking pellets up from your rug and from between your toes for days. In other words, I should have used a box top or something as a work surface to catch all of those little escapees.

From time to time I've been working on a biscornu kit that I had bought for an exchange with my Yahoo group. But July kind of confounded me, and I didn't finish it in time to make the deadline. I can only work on it in small spurts because the "over-one" stitching really tires my eyes out. But I love the colors and I feel as if I'm coming into the home stretch on this one. Today is a lovely, sunny day, and this will be a good project to take out on the porch.

And like I said earlier, I took out Souvenir Sampler again. Thursday evening I accomplished this:

Good God, it took me over 90 minutes! But here we have another valuable lesson! When stitching Celtic knot style stuff, don't get all cocky and think you can stitch all of one color and then all of another. There are like a million possible mistakes you can make, which you may not find until you've worked your way all the way around. And then you get to rip it all out. Yay.

So...here we are, back for another school year. Johnny went back to college on the 21st - and shall we talk about stress? He was really worried about whether or not he'd make the cut for the cross country team, so arriving for xc camp was not the happy experience he had last year. And you know how kids can be...that stress and anxiety spilled over into so many other things. (As in how he talks to and treats his mother.) But in the end, he ran a qualifying time - Phew. Academically, he's got some tough classes, with Organic Chemistry topping the list. (He about died when he realized how much those books were going to cost him.) I just hope he stays healthy and keeps up his grades. Did I mention that he had a 4.0 last semester? What? I forgot to brag blog about that? I must be slacking.

Colleen went back to school on the 25th, and Senior-itis started by... oh...let's say the 27th. I hope it'll pass though - she's got a great schedule and she's running well, also. Other than the normal high school aggravations, she should have a very good semester.

We had her cross country team here yesterday morning for breakfast. On Saturdays they do "fun runs", and they try to get off the town roads and head to the mountains and our country roads. So a couple times each year we invite them here and then have a big breakfast afterwards. Over the past 6 years, I've become pretty good at making breakfast for 40 hungry teenage runners. I've discovered that the key is not stressing out over it too much, because these kids will eat anything and love it. And boy-oh-boy, can they put away a meal!

Well, that's all I can think of for today. I'm going to get dressed and head outside for a walk. No running today, because yesterday in one of my more elegant moments, I fell down the steps and landed on my right knee. And now it complains loudly when I walk down steps. I think another day off is in order, and so I'll walk and listen to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on my MP3 player and look like a laughing lunatic as I walk down the road.

The neighbors love me.

Decisions, decisions

So...Do I post to this blog about everything EXCEPT stitching because I'm just plain out of time and energy everyday, or do I step away from the computer and go sit on the porch and stitch for a little while?

Even though I know you're all on pins and needles and wanting to know what's going on here at Crazy Lake House...My guess is you can wait. So I'll see you tomorrow.

Winding down

Or at least I think I am. Then again, in lots of ways I'm gearing up. So lately I'm that type of person who doesn't know if she is coming or going.

It's a very weird feeling.

For instance, the light at the end of the Long-College-Summer-Break tunnel is getting closer and brighter. Today, rather than spending a lovely cool afternoon on the deck with a needle and thread, I worked with John (DS) at hauling the Mt. Rushmore of Laundry out of his room. Then washing, drying, folding, sorting out the threadbare and the stained stuff, and packing the good stuff. I think it's finished, other than some bedding and buying some basic toiletries and groceries. (He's on his own to pack electronics. No way. I won't touch them.) I'm partly melancholy about his leaving, and partly relieved. The melancholy feeling is because I love his sense of humor and he has a quick wit and intelligence that adds so much to our family life.

So the relief part? I guess it's just a little less of the daily aggravation of living with teenagers.

I mean....do they thing that we love to be told that we're wrong about every blessed thing all the time? Or do they really believe that if they work, then they are entitled to do absolutely nothing around the house because they are too tired?? Like too tired to pick up their own crap spread all over the house?

So yes. I look forward to less aggravation.

As for the gearing up part - Colleen (DD) begins her senior year in just one short week. Fall is always busy for us, with cross country meets for both kids and booster meetings and soccer refereeing for me, And now we'll add her senior project into the mix, and all of the honor society stuff and other school functions and Yes I WILL RUN IN THAT 10K AT THE END OF SEPTEMBER OR DIE TRYING.

Can you see what I mean?

And obviously I haven't stitched a single thing in weeks. I feel like I don't have a creative bone in my body lately.

I sure hope my creative bones come back soon.

My dashboard

Yikes. I get sad when I log into my Blogger and get to my dashboard to see that my own personal blog is last on the list. Meaning that I'm just a total slacker at updating my blog.

I'll get to writing a decent post soon. Life has been a bit overwhelming for the past couple of weeks. Work, my mother, my kids. It gets crazy. And then I get into that cycle of having too much to write, but can't get to it, and then when I do get to it, it seems dreadfully dull. So I put it off. And so on and so on, but I'll get inspired soon, I just know it.

Well, before I sign off and go type, type, type pages of meeting minutes (ugh), I have to thank Erica for the su-wheet "Brillante weblog" award. How very nice of her! And she obviously is referring to past entries, because the lameness of my recent stuff is far from brilliant.

So thanks Erica! And I'll get to passing the award in the near future!

Hm. Very little stitchy news this week.

So I'll tell you about vacation - the short and sweet version.

We ate.
And we drank our wine.
And we saw beautiful sunsets as we finished our wine.

One of us played golf.
One of us didn't.
But there were plenty of lovely places to walk and run every morning.
Then the kiddies came.


And we all had a good time and came home!

The envelope please...

First of all, thanks a bunch to Mar and Cheryl for sending me this award. It's pretty special to receive this kind of thing from two people whose creativity I admire and whose wit I envy! Thanks to you both! And if you're reading this and aren't familiar their blogs...STOP READING HERE RIGHT NOW AND GO VISIT THEM.

Then when you come back, check out my five nominees:

Faith Ann has a blog called Stitch and Stuff. She stitches things that are impossible to me - I don't have the patience for picture-style stitchery, so I really admire stitchers who can manage these kinds of project. Plus she's a fellow runner who has set some great goals and is meeting them. Way to go, Faith Ann!

Nic's blog is A Girl as Mad as Birds. Wonderful stitching and check out her sidebar. WOW! She's a finishing maniac!

Take a run by Tina's at Stitching in Texas. I love her header photo! Nice blog with wonderful photos of her garden, her flea market finds and her stitching.

To see some beautiful stitching and finishing, click over to CathyB's at With Needle and Thread. I love all of the photos of stitching - they are exactly my tastes, and she sets them beautifully among quilts and things. Wonderful!

And last but certainly not least, I nominate Julie who writes October Eves. Julie is a stitching buddy who also is pretty darn good with a camera! She snaps pictures wherever she goes and we get to see the world through her eyes. And her stories are priceless - her latest is post is a gem!

Now, if you awardees want to carry this on (but no pressure - do whatever floats your boat), here's what you need to do:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Put a link to the person you got the award from.
3. Nominate 5 blogs.
4. Put links to the blogs.
5. Leave a message for your nominees.

I promise...

This'll be the last one for a while. I really need to move on with my stitching life. Variety, variety, variety. But anyways...I enjoyed stitching the other pockets, but this one was particularly fun because I really had to wing it.

Let's all tell the truth - there's nothing more exciting than looking at something and deciding that you absolutely can figure out how to make it on your own - and then you actually do it. I've had lots of those types of delusions of crafty-greatness that have gone down in flames. So for one to work out? Heavenly.


By now you'll have noticed that there is no ribbon or other closure attached. Oh yeah...I was kicking myself and thinking I'd have to take it apart. But I was on vacation and I was determined not to stress over anything, so I just put it away until I was home again.

So I came home and started fiddling with my box of buttons and ribbons and came across this button!
Which totally worked. I'll tell ya - the stitching gods were smiling on me with this little project.

The "H" is because it's for my friend Hella, who lives in Germany. The fabric is from a grab-bag, so I know it's 28 count, but that's about all I can tell you. The design is from "Elegant Breadcovers II" by Carolina Cross Stitch and I'm guessing it was published in 1985 and probably OOP. I adapted one of the monogram breadcovers to suit my needs. And the threads are DMC.

I have to run. Piles of after-vacation work are still staring at me, even though it's 2:30 in the afternoon and I've been working all day. But I have to thank Marianne and Cheryl for a couple of great awards, which I'll post about just a little later. And I'll tell you about my fabulous vacation. Folks - I didn't have to cook dinner even once. So till then...

Scissor pockets rock!

Besides, they're so useful! Where else should we keep our scissors? Certainly not sitting out in the open where every Tom Dick and Harry (AKA Dave, John, and Colleen) can see them and use them. So everyone needs a scissor pocket. Or many scissor pockets.

And Julie, especially needed one, because in my opinion she really needs to get with the program and collect more scissors.

Just kidding, Julie. Well maybe not really because I think that everyone should always have more scissors. So I wouldn't want you to feel left out...

I'll convert her, yet.

So, here's the front. It's taken from a chart by Twisted Oaks Designs' French Monogram Collection II, stitched on white aida, and stitched with CC Ruby Slippers.

Back:


Side:


In other news, I went to Erie again yesterday, but this time it was to meet up with Hella and her wonderful 3 children for a day of shopping, eating, and hanging at the beach. Such a dear friend and such lovely kids. I say kids, but they're in their teens and twenties.

Our vacation starts SUNDAY (!) so, I had better get my butsky in gear and get some job-related work done. I don't know if I'll have a chance to post before we leave, because if I have any spare time, I. Must. Make. More. Scissor. Pockets.

Oh. This is bad.

Thanks to all of you

Thank you, everybody, for all of the kind words that you wrote in the comments of my last post about losing our old girl, Penny. Each one comforted me is some way, and made my loss a little more bearable. So, thanks.

Here's something I've learned over my 50 years: It's amazing that a few words offered by (relative) strangers can do so much to support someone. But it really is true. It makes me realize the importance of my words, whether they're written or spoken, and whether I'm talking to a good friend or any person on the street or on the internet. I hope I'm always as kind to others as you all have been to me lately.

Ah well. More about the dog. Well, actually, it's more about me. I absolutely can not believe that I'm saying this, but I've been thinking that I want another dog.

Yes. That's me talking.

Me, who complained for 14 years about dog hair and dog slobber and dog farts, and having to lug 40 pound bags of dog food up from the car. I'm the one that cried no fair that I had to do the afternoon walks in the middle of winter. I'm the one that had a complete breakdown when the dog chewed my Emie Bishop hardanger "Noel" bellpull. I'm the one that felt sick when I saw a $20 bill chewed up under the kitchen table.

I swore that when this dog was gone there would be no more pets. It's been my mantra for the past several years. So I ask you...have I completely lost my mind??

I guess time will tell.

Anyways, on to other things.

I don't have any stitching to share today. I've had a couple of projects in the works, and I'll share photos later. Remember my scissor pocket from a couple of posts ago? Well, making scissor pockets has become my latest addiction. I've finished another one, and started a third.

Hm. I think that's a good excuse to buy more scissors. You think so?

Tomorrow I'm driving back to Erie again to meet up with Hella, my friend from Germany, and her kiddos. We'll do a little shopping, then head to Presque Isle to hang out at the beach for the rest of the day. I don't know if we'll hit a cross stitch store or a quilt shop, but whichever we decide, it'll be a treat for me because, as you know, I'm from the Land of No Quilting, Stitching, or Craft Stores.

Well, I'm already in a beachy state of mind, so...Later, dudes.

A tough day

We had to put our old girl down this morning. Penny was 14 years old, and a part of our family for almost all of those 14 years. Her last few months have been very difficult, and we knew it was time.

She could be ornery.

She chewed everything,

She never came when we called her, unless we were furiously waving a handful of salami. Penny loved salami. And peanut butter.

She was a dumpster diver. Well, a garbage can diver, anyway.

She hated men in baseball caps.

But she had a sweet and gentle soul. She liked people and loved nothing more than to be petted and fussed over. She never once growled or bit or snapped at us or our kids or our guests (well...as long as they took off their ball caps). She would let you do anything at all to her, and she was sweet and trusting all the way to the end. She laid down when I asked her to, and she put her head on her paws, and that was that.

And that's the part that breaks my heart.

Scissor pocket

Here's another project from The Monthly Finishing Challenge. This was some stitching that was in my basket of UFO's, probably from 2007 sometime. It's a freebie from Papillon Creations, called Tiny Little Quaker, and the fabric is from Picture This Plus. I don't remember what thread I used...




Easy? I can't begin to tell you. It was like making a pinkeep, only easier.

The cool thing about this challenge is that I'm seeing other styles of scissor pockets, too, and there's one on over on Andrea's blog, The Craft Room, that looks like a lot of fun.

That does it. I absolutely need more hours in my day. And days in my week. And weeks in my month. And so on and so on.

Come and gone

Well, there goes another holiday weekend. I look forward to them so much, and then they fly by. I think we all really need FOUR days.

Friday was rainy and dreary, so all of our 4th of July stuff was postponed. But it's no problem when you are a stitcher, right? I was able to finish this:
That's a freebie from Blue Ribbon Designs, found on the Hoffman SOS website. You can get one for yourself here. The fabric is some kind of tan linen that I had in my scrap stash, and I used the recommended Crescent Colours threads. I've seen it stitched in DMC also, and it was very nice either way. I have some neat watermelon fabric, so I'm guessing it'll become a flat fold, unless I come across a perfect (and cheap) frame for it.

So on Friday I stitched the afternoon away, and watched the second DVD of the HBO series John Adams. I hadn't planned it, but it was very appropriate for the day!

Had a late afternoon run in the rain, which was just lovely. No - I'm not being sarcastic. As long as there is no lightning, running in a summer rain is really quite nice. Then we went to a couple of picnics in the evening...eating between the raindrops.

There were more parties and picnics (and eating) on Saturday, and by Sunday we had had our fill of picnic food, so I made a turkey breast with all the trimmings for dinner.

But...back to speaking of running, pop on over toFaith Ann's blog and give her an AttaGirl! Over the weekend she did a 5 mile run. I can't explain why, but five miles feels huge when you're working your running program. It makes you feel like you made it and that nothing can stop you now. Pretty awesome.

Next in the stitching lineup: A biscornu for an exchange, a scissor pocket for the Monthly Finishing Challenge, and I want to catch up on the Brides' Tree SAL. I'm a month behind, and I hate being behind. And there's always Tree of Life...waiting patiently.

All of this and vacation, too? It'll be a miracle.

Last night's sunset

Last night as I was coming home, from the neighbors', I saw this from the field across from my house. Ran in to get the camera, but the batteries were dead. Grrrr!

This is what I eventually photographed:

Not much is happening here at the O'Neil house this week.

The kids are going in different directions between cross country practices and jobs and friends, so they're not home much. Dave is spending most of his leisure time at the golf course. I've been working, putzing in the garden (whenever it's not raining and that seems like always), and plugging along reading The Blind Assassin. This book is really dragging, but for some reason I'm determined to finish it.

We've been to several graduation parties and they've been great fun, but I have to say that I've been disappointed because NONE of them have had cake! What's wrong with parents these days? Oh...there have been desserts. Brownies, fruit, cookies. But no cake!

I've stitched a little while watching TV. (Mostly Netflix). I'm working on that new Blue Ribbon Designs freebie. I finish-finished Tea Time. I changed my mind about finishing it as a pillow, because I saw this perfectly perfect sized box at JoAnn's last week, so I used the fabric I had bought to line the outside and inside of the box, and did a very un-fancy job of mounting the stitching to the box lid.


And I seem to be stuck on a "tea" theme, because I finished another little project that I'll show you later. (Ooooo. Mysterious.)

Is anyone else looking forward to the holiday weekend? My neighbors asked me to judge the yearly kids' bike parade. Each July 4 our community has big goings-on, and the day starts with a bike parade in my neighbor's circular driveway. It's kind of crazy...mostly because some kids don't get that it's a parade, not a race, so they fly around this fairly small circle as fast as they can, trailing balloons and streamers and whatever else they have attached to their crazy bikes. Then there's the inevitable crash and tears. But it's all followed by a treat bag and prizes, so it's all good.

Then we have field races, swimming races, boat races, jumping contests, a tug of war, an egg toss, water balloons, treasure hunts, and hot dogs. Almost everybody gets into the act - even those of us who aren't fast runners or swimmers can manage to toss a water balloon or act as an anchor for a tug of war!

Ah well. Time to get to work. Have a great day!

Erie - The Shore Next Door

Well! Colleen and I spent a wonderful day in Erie this past Friday! She liked both colleges (Gannon University and Mercyhurst College) and afterwards we had some time to explore Erie. Non-college highlights included a visit to a nice little cross stitch shop (Stitchin' Stuff - small but a good selection), and a short drive to Presque Isle State Park with a walk on the beaches of Lake Erie! After we left the beach, we had a terrific dinner at a place called Joe Roots. Grilled shrimp and a rice pilaf to die for.

Then it was just a short drive to Edinboro for our soccer weekend. The girls lost all three games, but we had a fabulous time anyway, probably because we don't take it too seriously. Our chances of winning are slim. The girls just go because they like to play and because it's good experience. So each evening we had a lot of laughs, mostly over crazy, silly stuff. There's nothing as wonderful as a group of sweet and funny high school girls and their wacky parents.

And now it's back to work. But a quick photo first! Teatime is finished!
I had edited the photo to remove my name and date, because I entered in a SAL thing...it's a long story. But then I couldn't un-edit it. Anyways, I have the perfect finishing fabric. In fact, I used the fabric when I chose my floss colors. So it'll be a pillow sometime in the near future...