Small Update on Frances

And I mean very small. Seems that I just didn't get the stitching in that I hoped to this weekend. Saturday I missed my few hours of early morning stitching because I slept, get this, 12 hours! That is unheard of in my book. I'm lucky if I sleep six hours on a good day! Then there was the problem of, with every motif that I stitched, I made a mistake and had to frog it out. Then I noticed that on the butterfly, the stitching across it's body is suppose to be black. Oh, well, I like red (at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it). I have to say that the colors in this are much brighter than I had anticipated. At first, I was ready to chuck it out or change to GAST or something. But I decided to give it a chance and see how it evolved. I'm actually really liking it now and am rather glad it's not more muted.

I've been stalking my mailbox for the postman for Nashville goodies. Then the lightbulb went off: today is a Government holiday - President's Day. Ughhh!!!!! Banks and Government offices closed. Of course, I should have realized this when this was a day off for DH (although he still went in). What a disappointment! I'm actually waiting for some scroll rods also. I'm ready to start on Shores - I have the fabric, I have the threads, I have the chart - but no scroll rods. I am not a stitch-in-hand girl unless the project is really small. I used to stitch-in-hand all the time, but then I discovered scroll rods and never went back.

Anyway, I do have some scroll rods, but Provence is on the size I need. And I know this sounds really anal (or stupid, not sure which), but I hate taking a project off the scroll rods if I think that I'm going to work on it soon. I hate, and I mean HATE, sewing the fabric back on the rods. I've tried masking taping it on (yes, I know, not a good thing - a real no-no as the tape leaves a residue). I've also bought archival tape (used for scrapbooking) that seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes it really holds that fabric on there, and other times keeps falling off. I did come across some quilting tape (from my quilting days) in my stash that worked really well, but I can't find any more of it at Joanne's. So, what do I do, order more scroll rods! But Frances and Provence are large projects and so is Shores, so I needed more rods. My DH never should have pointed out the fact that I kept last month's charge bill low. That's like food for fodder - telling me that I didn't spend anything last month. Well, we can't have him get used to that now, can we? I think I've taken care of that with Nashville goodies and scroll rods.

I hope to get more of Frances done this week (a lot more). We'll see what happens. But I'd like to start Shores also. The SAL I've joined has a start date of March 1, but seeing how I'm stitching like a snail, it's best for me to start as soon as possible. My hope is a block a month, but with summer looming in the horizon, and me virtually living in my car taking the kids from one activity to another (can't wait for my son to get is license), I know my stitching time will be limited and Shores is really too big of a project to haul around with me, so I've got to make the best of my time while I have it.

But as far as this week goes, my kids are off for three days this week, and they sleep in late so I can get up and stitch until I yank them out of bed (as late as possible). But DH mentioned talking a couple days off too (a monkeywrench in my plans) and he gets up at more of a normal hour, so we'll see what happens.