The Screaming Stitcher

Holiday weekends are always very busy in my neighborhood.  About half of the houses here are vacation homes, and over the summer holidays almost everyone returns to their houses by the lake, so our little community’s population more than doubles in size.  And since the road in front of my house takes people to the little beach and playground, there are lots of people walking and biking by.  I look forward to these weekends.  Peace and quiet is lovely, but watching people have fun and seeing the families and kids and bikes and strollers makes me really happy, too. 

But anyway, amid all of this you will remember that I spent a lot of time on my porch this weekend.  The weather was picture-perfect and I had almost all of Sunday to myself.  So I was happily stitching away, looking up every now and then to pause and give my eyes a rest.  Also, when I look up I see the field across the road and the lake glittering just beyond it.  It’s really very pretty.  And I like to people watch, too, so when I hear people I always glance up for a bit.

So Sunday afternoon my little neighbor boy, Chris, was standing in his driveway by his car, waiting for his dad and sister to come out of the house.  He was just fiddling the way that a 5 year old fiddles.  Kind of amusing himself and daydreaming while he waited.  And while he was fiddling around and I was enjoying Lo, I glanced up from my stitching to see a good-sized bear come barreling out of the tree line in the field across the road.  See in the picture below where I wrote “Right Here”?  That’s where I first saw him.  And he was running at a fast clip across the field and directly at my little neighbor boy.  (That’s me and my mom in 2008, by the way)

So I stood up and started screaming, “Christopher!  Run into your house!  Get into your house right now!”  But he stood stock still, probably wondering why his crazy neighbor lady was yelling at him and wondering what on earth he had done wrong.  I shouted again, but he didn’t move, and the bear kept coming.  Finally I screamed, “Chris, get into your car NOW!”  And I think that then he saw that the bear running towards him and he jumped through an open window and into his car, and the bear passed his car and just kept going.

At that point his dad came running out of the house and of course his first thought was that Chris was in trouble.  While the dad, Jim, was running out, he had seen a black blur going past the car and had thought it was a big dog.  But Chris was in the car and shouting, “Dad, a bear!  A bear!  I saw the bear!”  And I tried to explain, but I was kind of shaken and scared and at a loss for words.  Right then, Chris was actually making more sense about it than I was! 

In retrospect, I realize that with so many more people around for the holiday, somebody must’ve been hiking behind the woods and probably scared up the bear, who was sleeping the day away behind the trees.  No doubt the startled bear was running away from a person or a dog or whatever, and not at my little neighbor.  So I didn’t think that the bear was out to attack Chris, but I was afraid that the startled bear wouldn’t see the little boy standing near the car and who knows what a frightened animal will do when it encounters something that startles it even more?

Well anyway, everyone knows how loud I can scream now.  Those kids don’t know it, because they’re too young, but when my kids were younger and swimming in the lake and fooling around or doing something dangerous, I was the LOUDEST mother on the dock.  People in boats down the lake could hear me yell (my command of choice was, “Hey!  Knock it off!”) I’d see boaters look up startled from their canoe paddles and fishing rods…I could sound pretty commanding.  But poor little Chris, who only knows me as the lady who sits on the porch and sews and buys his Cub Scout popcorn, boy – was he ever surprised!

Meanwhile, his family is treating me like I’m some kind of hero.  And that’s really totally crazy because I didn’t actually do anything and it was just lucky that I happened to sitting on my porch, enjoying the day and stitching.  And it was lucky that I happened to glance up at that moment.  It wasn’t like I catapulted out of my chair and over the deck rail, covered the 50 feet faster then the bear, flew over their retaining wall and flung my body in the bear’s path.  I just yelled like a maniac. 

Or maybe I did all of that and I’m just not telling you about my superpowers…Or maybe Lo has some kind of supernatural thing going that senses bears and that made me look up.  Yeah.  That’s it.  And now whenever I look at Lo, I’ll think about that bear.  And when I’m really old and someone asks me about the Lo sampler, I’ll be able to say, “Funny story about that sampler….”

Completely Maddening

 

I was this close to finishing LoHaR this weekend, and then I ran out of thread.  And since I just recently almost broke my arm with patting myself on the back about altering colors in another design, you would think that running out of WDW London Fog and needing to substitute something else for these….oh…FIVE and a HALF letters, would be just a little bump in the road.

But NO.  I couldn’t make myself do it and decided that I needed the exact thread I had been using.  So I’m waiting for the Postmaster to put one little skein of thread in my mailbox.  Happily, Mary Kathryn over at Handcraft Online had a free shipping weekend, so I ordered my one skein and didn’t get stuck paying more for shipping than for the actual thread.

I knew that I needed two skeins of thread for the lettering, but three?  I don’t know what I could’ve done to use less.  I don’t carry threads from one letter to another unless they’re very, very close to each other, so maybe it was all of the starts and stops that ate so much thread. 

I had an more excitement than I bargained for this weekend.  More later!

Sometimes…

Stitching inside isn't even an option. It's such a perfect day. Warm, with a slight breeze. The winter is just a distant memory.

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!

Spring Violets thread conversions

A couple of you have asked for my thread choices for Hands to Work's design, Spring Violets. I'll start by referring back to the photo:

Since this is charted for threads that I didn't own (Needlepoint Silks and Northern Lights overdyeds), and since in my opinion the DMC conversions were not only inaccurate, but unattractive, too, I had to wing it.  (Really?  Dark blue violets?  No.)  AND I wanted to use a light purple for the fabric, instead of a dark linen.  I had had quite enough winter darkness for one year and I wanted something that yelled "Don't despair! Spring is just around the corner"!  Luckily, because I had a couple of years' worth of Floss of the Month selections here, I could go to my thread boxes and pick around. 

So, starting with the borders - I used GAST Harvest Basket (golden brown), DMC 471 (bright green) and Old Willow Stitchery's Christmas Thyme (medium green).  You could also use GAST  Dried Thyme.  It's almost identical.

The snow is DMC 3033.  The green layer is OWS Christmas Thyme.  The brown layer is WDW Kris' Bon Bon.

The flowers are OWS R.I.P. Purple, and the lettering is in OWS Plantation Purple.  If you like my choices, but can't find the OWS threads, you could use any two variegated purples here, one lighter (flowers) and one darker (lettering).  I'll bet there are tons of nice choices out there.  The flower leaves are OWS Christmas Thyme and DMC 471. 

Finally, my fabric was 28ct Lavender Bliss Jobelan.

Julie was my inspiration for this stitch, and when I was in Topeka, we took photos of her piece, my piece (still unfinished at that point), and the original design.

I should tell you that Julie's fabric (far right) is gorgeous.  It's actually much more subtly colored than you might think from this photo.    And we saw two (maybe three?) different versions of this in the shop hop stores.  One on stitched on a light background fabric, one done on the darker fabric, and the third one is playing around the edges of my memory.  Julie...do you remember? 

With my limited experience at recoloring someone else's design, this was a good piece to experiment with because of its limited number of colors. I did a bunch of experimental stitching and ripping, but curiously enough, it wasn't frustrating.  I actually really enjoyed the process.  (Isn't that too crazy for a Project stitcher like me?)  It felt creative and freeing.

Do you all remember Anna's Swirly Gig Challenge from last year?  That was another good one to recolor.  And we all had a good time with it, so I guess what I'm saying is that if you haven't recolored something, give it a try! 

Probably the end of the pictures

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.

A day without photos

My posts have been kind of picture heavy lately, so I thought I'd give you all a break.  Today will be all about the writing.

First, I should tell you that you're reading the blog of the World's Biggest Whiner, because you may remember that yesterday I whined about how tired I was after a full day of working with other people, and bless your hearts because you all commiserated with me.  But you may not feel as sympathetic when I tell you that I only have to do this one day a week.  Yeah.  So.  Has your sympathy for me gotten up and walked out the door?  Because I really don't deserve it.  What I need is a slap in the head and to be firmly told to get over it.

Anyway, working in this auto body shop is much different than any other place I've worked.  The shop owner is incredibly neat and tidy.  There's not a spare piece of paper on his desk.  It's very, very organized and his office is a clean and pleasant work environment.  I've known this fellow for years and years, and I didn't expect it to be dirty, but I'm surprised by how pleasant it is.

The activity level, on the other hand, is kind of crazy.The office phone rings constantly and there are all sorts of people going in and out of the office all day.  Pop music plays out in the shop and it's quite loud, and it's not playing in the office, but it's still there and I'm just not used to that much noise.  It's also a little more - um - salty - than places I've worked before.  On the one hand, it's kind of interesting, but I hope that these guys soon realize that a woman as old as their mothers is sitting at the desk and hearing them talk.  I'm no stranger to a good string of curse words, but sometimes...well, you know how men talk.  Especially if a really cute girl brings in a car and bats her eyelashes?

It's a stunningly gorgeous day here in Southwestern Pennsylvania.  It's warm and breezy and the air smells and feels wonderful.  A perfect day to sit on the deck and stitch.  Maybe after supper?

I hope things are just as nice in your neck of the woods today!

Buttons make my day

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!

More Pics from Our Trip

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.

Cowboys

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!

Home Sweet Home

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….

Last post from the road

Today is the last day of this very long road trip.  We've checked out of our hotel here in Tiburon and we're not flying out until late tonight.  So we're hanging out in this very nice library and I'm catching up on email, while my daughter is updating her facebook stuff.  (I think she was suffering from fb withdrawal, but the shaking has stopped now. And don't even get me started about the insane amounts of texting that these children do.  I'm shocked.) Then grocery shopping and one last dinner with John then on to a plane for home.

So...Friday took us to Reno. We stayed in a casino hotel.  Kinda crazy.  Very smoky.  I was too beat for gambling, but the exercise facility and spa were just the ticket.  We ate our faces off at a seafood buffet, then John and Colleen fiddled with slots for a while.  We slept in a bit the next morning, knowing that we didn't have a super long day on the road, and ate like crazy again at the breakfast buffet. 

Saturday we arrived here in Tiburon and it's a beautiful, beautiful place.  John's housing at the research center is super-nice and peaceful and quiet. And the excitement of San Francisco is just a short ferry ride away.  So that's what we did Sunday - took John over to Fisherman's Wharf to see all of the tourist attractions and craziness there.  Fun, fun, fun!

Monday Colleen and I did some girl stuff, including having tea at the Crown and Crumpet.  When I get home I'll have pictures - it was so great. 

And this computer is about to time me out, so I'm going to finish up and hit Publish!

Oh, thanks to everybody who commented on my earlier post.  I truly appreciate your funny comments (a girl on the road always needs a good laugh!) and your wishes for safe travels.  I feel really good knowing that all of those good thoughts for me are out there! 

Next post - HOME!

Blogging from the road

Well!  All I can say is that I have a new found appreciation for those of you who blog while you travel.  I don't know how you manage it!  Updates and photos and menus?  If you can do it, you're completely awesome.  I'm not so awesome.

We've just finished Day 3 of the cross country trip, and I can honestly say that by the time we pull into wherever we are for the night, I'm played out.  Tonight I've logged in because I'm waiting for the laundry to dry, so I'm hanging out in the hotel lobby instead of going upstairs.  Plus we all needed a little bit of space and time away from each other.  Things were getting kind of testy.  At least with some clean laundry we may be testy, but we won't be so smelly.

Day One saw us leave Meadville and head west until we got well past Chicago and into Ottawa IL.  (Thanks Linda for the Chicago traffic tip!  We purposely hit Chicago after 10PM and it wasn't too bad)  Day Two saw us leave Ottawa and drive on to North Platte Nebraska.  Today finished in Park City Utah.  Tomorrow should finish in Reno Nevada, then we should have a relatively shorter trip into Tiburon California.

I've stitched a little bit - a CEC freebie stitched on 18 ct. linen that's simple and easy to see.  It's hard to stay focused though - truck traffic and young drivers and a speed limit of 75?  It all keeps me a little jittery. 

OK, off to get the laundry and then time for bed!

Where was I?

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. 

My SBQ Answer

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.

Heartland Shop Hop!

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:

View Larger Map

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.

May Stitching Bloggers Question

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.

Heartland Shop Hop

It was amazing!  Everything I could have hoped for and more. I'll tell you about it tomorrow, after I get the May Stitching Bloggers Question posted.  Right now I'm going to put a couple stitches into "Lo" so that I don't feel too guilty about neglecting it this weekend.

Re-starting Stitching Bloggers Question

Just last week I finished Adrienne Martini’s latest book, Sweater Quest, and although it was about knitting, it spoke to me because its questions and its philosophy could apply to most creative work, and in particular to handcrafts.  Adrienne explores why knitters knit, and we stitchers could ask ourselves the same question.  Why do we stitch?  And we can address this in many different ways.

Then that got me to thinking back to when we had the Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week, and I realized that I hadn’t seen it for quite some time.  It turns out that it’s been sleeping for a while (a couple of years, anyway).  Like so many of these projects, it’s not easy for one person to keep it going.  Life gets in the way, or things change, or we go off in another direction.  Anyway, I contacted the SBQ’s previous host, Renee, who was very gracious and told me to go ahead and run with it again. 

I’ll be making one big change though – I’ll be asking a Stitching Bloggers Question of the Month. 

So, starting with the first Monday of May (May 3) , I’ll be asking Questions again, and I’ll post one each month for you to think about and answer in your own blog.   I may recycle some of the previous questions, too, because some of you may be new to blogging  and you haven’t seen them before.  And some of you long time bloggers may find that now your answers have changed, too.  I know that for me,  many things have changed in the past two years.  You too?

And now I’m leavin’ on a jet plane…

Look out Heartland Shop Hop - Here We Come!

The Crack of the Bat!

If you live in or near Pittsburgh, you might be interested in coming to a Pirates Baseball game on Sunday, July 25 at 1:35PM, because it’s a Stitch N' Pitch Day!  Look, I know that the Pirates have a dreary record right now.  That 20-0 loss the other night was amazingly awful.  But we can sit in the stands and eat a Primanti Sandwich!  Watching the game may only be secondary to the stitching fun we could have, but it will be fun. I plan to go.

If you’re interested, you can buy tickets here.

Lo

This weekend I actually stitched the word “Lo”.  So it’s official.  And now that I’ve stitched the first two lines of the song, I can hear it in my head.  Furthermore, (I’m going to get all dreamy on you here) I feel as if the energy of this project has shifted now.  There’s a different energy when I start a project, when I’m in the middle of a project and when I’m close to finishing something.  I like all of those feelings, but it’s invigorating when I know I’m coming into the home stretch, and I’ve hit my stride and it just feels so good.  I’m grateful that Jennifer has been stitching this with me, otherwise I may have tossed it in my To Do box and it could have been there for a very long time.

I’m actually feeling pretty good about another project, too – Spring Violets.  I’m working my way around the border, and as soon as I get that darn snow figured out, I’ll be golden.  No pictures of that today, though.

I had a wonderful day this past Friday, when I met with Carol and Linda (no blog – yet)  in Pittsburgh.  We took over a corner table in a Panera Bread (by a window for good lighting) that morning and stitched and talked till well past lunch.  These get-togethers are always nice for me because I don’t have any stitching friends out here in the middle of nowhere.   Sometimes it feels like it’s just me and my computer screen.  Not that I don’t appreciate you all out there in blog land – Just that in-person contact is so much fun!

My list for the Heartland Shop Hop is getting longer each day.  I wasn’t going to check a bag for the flight – figured I could get by with only my carry on.  But now that I’m looking at this list?  I may need to rethink that.