Gardening

Yesterday I plopped a topiary tree into a highly decorated urn.

Today I planted about 45 acres of grass.

I was afraid I was going to run out of grass seed thread on this part, but I had enough with inches to spare.

All this means that Sarah Williams is complete!

Now I need to clear away the chart and stash the leftover threads and decide what I'm going to work on next.

I am very tempted to start this:

"Flowers for Lois" is this year's fundraiser for the Komen Foundation and offered by The Elegant Stitch. It's a limited edition, designed by Betsy Morgan. And it's pink and I have a weakness for things that are pink.

However, there are about a dozen samplers on scroll frames that I'd like to finish, and several workshop pieces from this year that need more stitching, and the finishing basket is about to explode. I think I'll do a Scarlett and think about it tomorrow.

A very, very, very fine house

I planned to go to bed early last night.

Then I thought that if I wanted to triumph over the gremlins, I should power through and finish laying those bricks. So I did.

And then, since I was on a roll, I stitched the door.

Needless to say, I didn't get to bed early last night.

Gremlins

I have come to the conclusion that there are gremlins either taking stitches out or adding to the chart for this house. I have been laying bricks all week, and I'm still not through with it.

I have also been afflicted by an irrational fear that I'm going to forget to stitch the door and not realize it. Obviously the heat is getting to me.

Building a House

Since last I wrote, I rounded up Carmen's dog, hung a fence, planted a tree, shingled a roof, and started laying bricks for a house.

I was making progress when my momentum came to an abrupt halt. I had to go out of town for three days for work, and apparently I still have not found a way to comfortably stitch in a hotel room. 

I hope to make up for lost time today and tomorrow.

The Ghost of Carmen Miranda

She appears a little blue . . . maybe she's just very cold.

The border is completed, the attribution stitched, and I am filling in the bottom third of the sampler. Filling is the operative word--there are a lot of large areas that just need to be filled in. I am planning on many, many marathon TV sessions in the evenings this coming week.

Location, location, location

When I got home, I was trying to decide what I wanted to work on first.

Sarah Williams was sitting right by my chair. All I needed to do was pick her up. The needle was even threaded.

So sheer laziness convenience won out.

I finished the thing that looks like a quilt or a Granny square, then worked on the border a little more before doing any of the large motifs in the bottom third of the sampler. Then I decided to go ahead and get all the border finished. I have all the slimy green stitched and I've started on the strawberries. Next I want to do the attribution at the bottom of the sampler, mainly because that involves letters and cross stitch over one thread.  That will just leave the fun stuff--at least, at the moment, I think it will be the fun stuff.  There's a lot of filling in with a giant lady on one side and a huge house in the middle that must be constructed and roofed.

I need to find something good to marathon on TV this week-end.

Now what?

We just arrived home from two days with the Western Reserve Sampler Guild, where I took two classes from Jackie du Plessis. They were The Unplay'd Piano Etui and Behold Thy Beauty.

(If you get a chance to join WSRG and go to any of their workshops, do it. They are a lovely and welcoming group of great stitchers, and it was a delight to get to know them.)

In class I stitched spiral trellis on the piano, and a little bit of looped stitch border on a band that will be part of the lid of the collapsible bag.

After class, I stitched part of the outline for the scissor fob that goes with Behold Thy Beauty.

As usual, I am all pumped up to finish these two projects immediately. Within the next 20 minutes if possible, of course, even though I know how unrealistic that is.

Then I walked in the door and saw Sarah Williams and the Christmas ornament I was working on before I left. Then I sat down with the computer and caught up with the postings on the class site for the Casket of Curiosities, aka the casket class I've been involved with for the last four years. And now I want to get started on my casket. And make a snake out of purl purl and silk to go in the casket. And put together the other projects in my finishing basket. And do some rearranging in the stash room.

And I still have to go back to work tomorrow. So what do I do first?

Zigs are Zagged

Every single zig zag row has been done.

And both of the diamond shaped motifs have been started. If anyone has seen this type of motif on another sampler, please let me know--this is a new one for me.

Tonight, though, I'm doing laundry so we can finish packing. No matter how many clean clothes reside in the closets and drawers, I always seem to have to do laundry the night before we go anywhere.

Tomorrow we leave to visit with The Flash, the next day we head farther north so I can attend two classes with Jackie du Plessis and the Western Reserve Sampler Guild, then two days later, we spend another night with The Flash. I believe we're going to meet ourselves coming and going.

And I need to make sure that I have the prework for both classes packed and that Dearly Beloved understands that BOTH tote bags have to make it into the car.

Whether the laundry I'm doing tonight makes it or not.

Happy Fourth!

Happy Fourth of July!

Here at Chez Fuddy-duddy, we've had a very quiet day. We fully expect our fireworks-loving-neighbors to take care of that this evening, but until then, I've enjoyed stitching and marathoning the History Channel's ten-year-old documentary The Revolution. This has become my tradition for the Fourth.

In addition, I've been rearranging my project baskets a little bit. Once again, I have realized that I am a Super Stashbuilder, a Superb Starter, and a Finishing Failure. Not just finish-finishing, but finishing at all. I fully realize I need to live to be 385 to stitch what's already in the stash, and that I should never take another workshop or buy another project again. The only way that's going to happen is if every single needlework designer and teacher immediately retires. As that is quite unlikely to happen, we can all agree that I will continue to succumb to temptation.

However, I would like to do just a little better at the finishing part of the equation. I seem to get hung up on The Middles---you know, you get halfway through a project and there's something you don't like doing, or something else comes along that you simply have to put a stitch or two into, or you're going to have company and you really need to clear off the end of the couch so everyone will have a place to sit.  And then, once you hit The Middles, you just don't get back to whatever-it-was you were doing.

I'm dealing with that at the moment with Sarah Williams. She has a zigzag band running across the middle of the sampler. There are eight rows of cross stitch, each in a different color. And it is booooooooring to stitch. This is when I will typically pull something else out of the basket that is more entertaining to work. However, today, I am resolved. I am going to get this done. Period. No argument.

Although I may stitch a strawberry or two into the border, just to mix things up a little . . .

Attention Span of A Gnat

When last I wrote, I planned to see how far I could get with Sarah Williams over the long Fourth week-end.

I got the vine and flower band worked:

And then something else happened.

I've sort of had a Christmas-in-July thing percolating in the back of my head for awhile. Back in January, I started working on a series of ornaments that had been aging in the stash for a long, long time. The idea was that I'd do one a month until I had all twelve in the series completed.

Then the prework started, and I had only the first of the series stitched. As of Friday, that means I'm now six behind.

So, suddenly, this appeared on the stretcher bars:

The second of the 12 Days of a Stitcher's Christmas is called Two Golden Birds.

Now I need to decide what to work on today? Do I go back to Sarah Williams? Do I work more on the background for the ornament? That would let me sew the beads on the garland so it doesn't look quite so much like a big, fuzzy green worm in the stork scissors' mouth. Or do I wander off to another project entirely?