special stitches

Remember the Susan Greening Davis sweet tin class piece I had been working on, oh not too long ago? I took a small break from it for two reasons. One, I’ve been so involved in my Little House Needleworks designs and two, I’ve been psyching myself up to attempt the “dreaded” interlacing double herringbone stitch. Quite a mouthful, ugh? Photographed below is where I stopped.

And finally, below is where I am today with the interlacing double herringbone stitch in place.

I was quite proud of myself for getting this stitch complete in only one afternoon, and with a bad hand too (I’m injured, long story). I have to admit, there were a couple of people that had hell to pay in order to understand this stitch. I mean, over, under, over, under, under, over, under; UGHHHHH!!! Luckily for me, this stitch appreciated my efforts and it clicked. Of course, there was some playing around on the second interlacing pass at first, but I managed. I think it looks really nice. Besides, it is my first time on this. :D The empty column to the right of this special stitch will be filled with the cloud filling stitch. It reminds me of lattice. I’ll post more on it later.

I leave you with Mr. Funny Face. I caught him playing at the sink. When we ask Cameron, ‘show me your funny face’, these are the faces he gives us. Faces only a mother could love.

Talk soon!

stitching, movies, reading = favorite things

This is such a sweet stitch (frog attack forgotten). I have since started the border and I’m waiting to start the second flower…again. I may start on her blouse next which is done in Old Blue Jeans by CC. It will be so cute and fresh. I’ve been invited to participate by adding photos to this blog so I will be posting there soon.

I am on disc 3 of Whiteout by Ken Follett. The drama began as soon as it started and it continues to grab my attention. I especially like the Scottish accent of the reader because that connects me to the characters. The story does take place in Europe so the accent helps capture the environment. The man nearly drowning was a little hair raising and some of the language used gives a chuckle. It's all good though.

Since Jose has been out for the summer we’ve been watching a lot of movies together. We’ve seen all these movies hundreds of times before, but we’re huge fans so it never gets old or boring watching the same things over and over together. We’ve decided to watch movies that extend the trilogy, more like a series. So far we’ve watched all the Alien movies. We just got done watching all six Star Wars (I always cry at #3) and next on the agenda are the Superman movies. Awhile back it took us a month to watch all ten seasons of Friends, but we had a fabulous time together. We laughed soooo much! Next week me and my son have a movie date. Mom is going to babysit Cameron during the day so we can have an afternoon mother/son date. We’re going to see the new Star Trek movie. Can’t wait!

Talk soon!

frogs stink!

Last night I posted about the frogs attacking The Sampler Lady. Of course, I brought it upon myself by not stitching when I was more coherent, but anyway I started ripping the threads out last night and still wasn't done by morning. Today I spent the afternoon ripping more threads. The entire left side flower is officially ripped out. I had just as much stitching complete on that flower as I have done on the right side. Thankfully the frogs are done ribbitt-ing around my linen. I think the worst part of frogs is the ruined thread. Can't reuse it, for obvious reasons. The thread looks dreadful (photo above). Anyway, I'm done venting about that. Now I can start stitching again.

To make this a more pleasant return, I went to the library this evening (Jose tagged along) and checked out four books on cd. I am getting ready to cozy up in bed and listen to a story. I've never done this before so I'm a little jittery at the anticipation. The audio books I checked out are:

Watchers - Dean Koontz
The Associate - John Grisham
Whiteout - Ken Follet
The Navigator - Clive Cussler

I'm beginning with Whiteout. I also checked out two DVD movies. Rush Hour 3 ("Do you understand the words that are comin' outta my mouth??? - Chris Tucker to Jackie Chan. I love this line.) and Fried Green Tomatoes (This movie is wonderful!). Enjoy your evening. Talk soon!

LHN and a Gibbon???

I finished hand-sewing The Traveling Stitcher to the pre-finished needlecase and project keeper. The needles design gave me some trouble and I had to use my seam ripper, but all ended well. I am pleased with everything. At first I was going to sew the project keeper design on the underside of the flap, but decided not to. Mainly because the floral/coral design is only on the flap and no where else, I didn’t want to hide such a gorgeous, yet small, piece of fabric. Anyway, I sewed mine onto the biggest portion of the keeper; the backside of the pocket. This was such a fun design to stitch and I highly recommend it. I noticed on this blog that some have changed up the colors which add interest. Anyhoo, the verse on this piece stands true to me. I do bring my stitching everywhere because you never know when you’ll need it. My motto: I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

I helped my friend, Sally, finish the lid of her Susan Greening Davis basket at a recent moonlight stitching gathering at our LNS. Truly I had a lot of fun helping Sally put this together. I always learn something when I finish projects and I think Sally learned something too. :D We had fun with it! Sally did such a nice, nice thing for me. Because I helped with her basket she was kind enough to purchase me a chart as a thank you. Of course, a thank you and a hug would have done just fine by me, but Sally insisted and I wasn’t going to argue. LOL The ‘thank you’ gift was The Sampler Lady chart by LHN.

I couldn’t wait to start her. The design reminds me of myself. Weird, I know, but it just does. The over-dyed and DMC thread color scheme is so pretty, but I did exchange two over-dyes for some Gentle Arts I had on hand. They are still in the same color group though, so really there isn't much of a change. Unfortunately, after I took these photographs and put in a couple of hours of stitching I found a mistake. My mistake! I was so peeved. The left flower is off by like six stitches. I still haven’t learned my lesson. I need to quit stitching when I start dozing off at night. I guess I’ll never learn. Needless to say, the frogs attacked on this one BIG TIME. I had that flower just about done and I had to rip everything out. A big poohy there!

Lastly, Jose spent the night at mom’s Saturday and was with her for most of Sunday. In the meantime, dh and I took Cameron to the zoo to blow some of that jumpy, crazy, bent-up, baby-boy hormone steam he seems to have a lot of these days and we ended up in the Jungle Gym which is a play area for tots. He loves it there! This was the first time daddy did this with him and he was in love with the act. He screamed and cried when we needed to leave. I bet people across the way thought the zoo added a new Gibbon (Cameron’s cousins) to the exhibit. (I’ll spare you the horrifying death screams and fire spitting this child can, and did, make that afternoon upon leaving the tot area - you get the idea by Cam's cousins.)

Talk soon!

what would you do???

Okay, I'm taking a teeny-tiny poll here to find out what everyone else would do if they came upon THIS dilemma...

I turned her over and this is what I found. I'm pissed! I'm not going to lie. I know better than to go all this way without checking the back. Damn muscle relaxers!

This is the backside (obviously!). With that in mind, I don't know if I should frog all this or secure it and leave it. If I frog it that means having to start from the beginning of the green. Since this is the back, the thread is around 18" in length starting from the right side, continuing left and jumping down and traveling back the way I came. Make sense? Hmmm ~ I guess that's why they call this design the Traveling Stitcher. I didn't know they'd mean that literally...ahem! lol

Here's another close-up and angle of that stupid loop. I'm torn on what I should do. Should I securely leave it or rip it all out? Please, please, please...I want your thoughts.

On a lighter note, I can show you the front for progress' sake...and mine.

I am so enjoying this piece, even with that awful loop on the back. I have the top border to stitch and the verse underneath and I already have the case for it. I have this piece on a rod 'n roll so that's why the right hand house cannot be seen fully. I am lazy and still pissed.

WHAT'S HE DOIN' NOW!!!!!! (This is exactly what my grandmother would say if she were here today.) Cameron is nuts ~ that's all I can say about him right now!

Jose turns 12 on Sunday, May 31! We're celebrating his day on Saturday though. His Mamaw is coming into town from Canada tomorrow to spend his birthday with him. We'll be busy the next couple days. I can't believe my little boy is a tween - I'm in a bit of shock right now and I'm always overwhelmed around this time...but more so now than ever before. Thirteen is going to kill me, I believe.

Talk soon!

revising and playing catch-up

You know, I get on a roll, something happens and I am set back. Cameron has broken the wireless adapter to my laptop ~ he cracked it as a matter of fact. So, I haven’t had my laptop in 2 weeks. I was making due and finding little ways to use my desktop PC since it is in an area of the house that’s off limits to Cameron, but this past week I’ve fallen way behind. I mean, way behind. I have blog catch-up, group catch-up and email catch-up to do. Then my email/Internet was interrupted and thankfully my dh fixed it, but I didn’t have any access for nearly two days. I loath the dependency I have on technology. It’s frustrating and addictive. Okay, I’m off my Internet/computer hang-ups soapbox...until next time (keeping fingers x'd).

I have fallen off the current rotation wagon. SHAME ON ME!!! I’m disappointed with myself, but a little relieved. Having seven projects for each day of the week leaves little time for those very special projects you just can’t seem to put down. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I’ve decided, the heck with the current rotation and have a loosely fit rotation schedule with less going on. I think I’ll get more projects done this way. Besides, there are days I can’t stitch until nighttime and if that is the case then how much progress am I really having?!?! Not much.

“Who’s that girl” finally has a tree to sit underneath on those hot, hot days, along with a sweet visit from birdie. And suddenly before I knew it, “who’s that girl” had the starting of a pink little cottage to visit.

I can’t keep my hands off the Traveling Stitcher by LHN. It uses Crescent Colors and done on lambswool and is fun to stitch. I’ve had the Needles design stitched, but not assembled into the needlecase holder yet. Aside from the LHN project, I cannot keep my needle away from Susan’s Sweet Tin by Susan Greening Davis.

These stitches are so neat. One is called the Lace Wheels Reversed stitch (right) and Grid for Strap stitch (left). There are several sections or rows to this piece and I have more stitches to learn. One is called the German Interlaced Herringbone stitch (I've stitched it since this photo was taken so more on this specialty stitch later) which is known to make people talk to themselves and go crazy bc of its complexity. This design was all about pulling threads and re-weaving with a Perle cotton thread. So far, I’m having a ton of fun with this project.

I can’t decide which other project, if any, to add to the revised current rotation. I would like to stitch on each project for a couple days and then switch designs, which means that I can only have 2-4 projects per week. Four at the most. I’m thinking I’d be better off with three. I believe I’ll get more accomplished with fewer projects in my hands. I mean, c'mon, I do only have two hands =)!

My mom sent me a link this weekend and I think lots of you will be interested. It’s a free SAL. Go check it out HERE for more details.

Jose’s 12th birthday is May 31st. I can’t believe he’s turning 12 – a tween as society calls them. Where has the time gone? Jose’s last day of school was Thursday, but unfortunately he lacked effort through this school year and has to attend summer school. On the flip side of the unfortunate is fortunately for him summer school only lasts 3 weeks. Whatever happened to summer-long summer school? Ahhh, we need a vacation.

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of my sneaky little snake. Cameron managed to get an empty Coke bottle out of the trash, got the cap off, and then quietly snuck into the bathroom and used the cap as a cup. The things that go on his little head…

Talk soon!