A Whole Lot of Nothing

Happy Thursday everyone!  I hope that you're staying warm or that it's warmer where you are than it is here.  We are really experiencing a blast of Arctic air here - it's miserable.  Probably 10 degrees with about 25/30 mph winds.  BRRRR!  Is all I can say!!

I really don't have much to talk about this week.  Stitching has taken a backseat to a million other things.  No surprise there!  But I've managed a little bit more on The Yellow House Sampler:

I really thought that I would whip through this one, but it's taken me a little longer than I'd thought - plus not a lot of stitching time.  And this chart is a real adventure with some mistakes in the key and a symbol totally missing from the key!  But it's fun to stitch, but that border is looming in the horizon and I don't especially like borders even though they're so essential to the piece.   And because the borders are really making my skin itch, I think that I need to start something else.  I am realizing that a lot of people just have a lot of WIPs going and I think that I need to adapt this philosophy in stitching.  But I need smaller things and I've pulled a couple out.  Who says you have to stay on one project to the end (not that I ever do, but......what's a few more???)

Anyway, part of the reason there has been no stitching time is the fact that I've been spending the evenings with my son honing his entries into the Business Professionals of America competitions.  He recently won 1st Place in Entrepreneurship for a business plan that he put together and 3rd Place on his speech on the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis in the Regionals.  The State Competitions are in March and we're just trying to get a jump on fine-tuning them because, as luck would have it, the ACTs and a couple other things he has going on are also about that time and I prefer he doesn't have a lot of stress with all that going on.  Anyway, he's looking forward to the State's  - he gets to be away from Mom and Dad (and pesky sister) for three days!  So by the time homework is over, we go over those papers and it's after 10:00 before the stitching chair can even become part of my evening, and I'm usually dead tired by then.

I want to thank everyone for their wishes about my oral surgery.  It went very well - much better than I anticipated.  When they told me it was going to be a three hour ordeal, I had some fears, but it only took a little over an hour and I felt pretty good after (although don't think for a minute that I didn't milk the whole thing for what it was worth for a day or too!)  LOL  My periodontist sent me flowers once again:

And once again, my husband said that he should keep the flowers and spare us a little on the total cost of the whole thing.

For all my attempts to get into the sewing room and whip up marvelous quilts for you to all ooh and awe over, I got this far:

Sorry for the dark picture - but it's only 16 squares - 9-1/2 inches square.  That it's.  All I got done.  I have 16 light squares the same size to do and some miscellaneous strips, etc., but the rotary cutter gave up the ghost and as luck would have it, I didn't have another blade.  So that's all I got around to this week.  Pathetic.

But as I was cutting these squares out, I had a lot of fabric ORTS, so I ended up thinking about ORTs and those SALS where you show your ORTS.  So we have quilt ORTS:

And we also have thread ORTs:

I put them in a Longaberger basket I have.  I also think that it's fun to dump the whole thing over some times.  Hey, different strokes for different folks, right?

You wouldn't believe how compacted this mess of threads is.  In a couple months, in the spring, I scatter them in the backyard and let the birds take them to make nests out of them (just have to keep metallic threads out of the ORT pile).   I may do that with the quilt ORTs too.  I think it would be kind of fun to see a piece of my fabric hanging from a nest!

The only excitement I really had this past week was getting some new scissors that Yuko had for sale on her blog.  Being a scissors whore, you know that I just had to have them.

But I didn't want to display them in one of my frogs, and found this cabinet at Home Goods to display the prettier scissors that I have.  I'm also going to cover the back with a better fabric than the beige that is in this.

I have to thank Kim for her help last week in identifying some of the fabric that I had AND also giving me a clue as to where I could find the pattern - RIGHT UNDERNEATH THE FABRIC - DUH!!!

These fabrics:

Will make this quilt:

The pattern was right underneath those rolls of fabric the whole time.  Thanks Kim!!!

Well, as you can see it's a been an unproductive and boring week.  It hasn't helped that just as I get my stride every morning this week (i.e, a few cups of coffee, a hot shower, etc.), the kids have been back in the door because of finals week.  UGH.  Next week should prove to be better.

Thanks again for all the wishes for my surgery, and all your wonderful comments every week.  I love getting them.  Hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend.

Stitching and Stuff

Happy Tuesday everyone!!! Hope you all have gotten some good cases of stitch butt and you're having a great week so far!!

This has been a good week. Lots going on as usual, but some fun things for once. First off, I finished up another section of Ann:

Sorry for the somewhat distorted picture here - I don't know what happened.

Just a note here concerning the chart - you see two little birds (barely) on top of the red flowers - well, the bird on the right is not charted, but shows up on the pattern cover photo. So if anyone is thinking about doing this, make note.

A couple people asked me about the lettering and whether it was cross stitch....backstitch.....or a pain to do.....was it boring?


.....well, I guess that monotonous would be a good word for it. But each line goes fairly quickly and I switch back and forth between some of the lettering - like a line or so - and then switch back to the center portion. I was saving the lettering to do all at once and it was making my skin itch because I wanted to stitch the "meat" of the design and not all lettering! I'm doing a happy dance because now I've just two sections to go and am over half way done! The next section has the Colonial A&E type figures (that I can't wait to get into) and then that solidly stitched Mermaid scene (gulp) on the bottom. Any bets on me finishing this? Aw, don't waste your money. I'm sure I'll slip somewhere. LOL

Last Friday I was on a mission to find a new cooktop. DH has finally had it with almost setting himself on fire. HA! I know how to talk to the cooktop from Hell - he does not and since he likes to cook on the weekends, he doesn't go through it on a daily basis. I finally got the new dishwasher a month ago (yeah, no more dishpan hands, Madge!), so he must be feeling generous. "Don't question, just go for it before he changes his mind" is my motto here. Anyway, while I was driving hither and yon, I saw a cute store - or what looked to be cute - so to give myself a break (really I was hoping for a ladies room because....well, I wasn't close to home and had put down an entire bottle of water driving), I went in and found some wonderful frames. I just love this black one:

And then I found a white one too:

I have no clue what pieces are going into either of them right now, I just knew that I had to have them. And the owner says she gets these in every week. She either leaves them as she finds them or makes them look old. Quess I'll be making a few trips over there. Very reasonable prices. She's also trying to get me into sewing for her store - you know - cute little pillows, simple quilts. Hmmmmm, could be a money making proposition for me, but yet I barely get time to do what has been lurking around here done yet. Great way to make some stash change, but the money would probably never leave the store - she has some great things!

Then on the way home that same day, I hit a couple garage sales. My car seems to be developing its own sense of radar for Estate or garage sales and just magically finds it's own way there - wonder how that happens??? Fridays are great sale days I've found! I think that my DH is going to commit me soon if I bring any more of these flower frogs home. I was surprised to find one because I don't normally see them at garage sales:

I also picked up the easel because I thought it would look great holding instruction books on my new table (yes, pictures are coming soon). Then I also found this lamp for the craft room:

All this great stuff for $9.75. Yes, I was doing a happy dance (or maybe I was dancing because I needed a ladies room again). I think the shade is a little overpowering, so I'm going to hunt down another one, but for the price - $5.00 for the lamp, $4.00 for the frog and $.75 for the easel, I was one happy camper. (BTW, that's my grandmother in the picture on the right).

While I'm on the subject of frogs, I have to post these pictures for Kim (she's at the threadheadsunite blogspot - Blogger is being stupid and won't let me link it). She is a collector of flower frogs too, and also a great thrift shopper and she mentioned putting hers in a birdcage. After I rescued my tea cups out of mine when I got the flower cart a couple months back, the birdcage got some new occupants:


That, of course, is not all of them. They're scattered around the house - on tables, etc. I'm going to need a new cabinet to display all of them. Yeah, like DH is going to go for that! LOL

Last Sunday was the monthly Sampler Guild meeting and they've got the greatest projects going on. The first one is this pinball which was suppose to be finished up for last week. Was mine done?? Of course not, you know me. I've been feeling the love with Ann, but I think that now that DD's dance lessons have started and I have 2-1/2 hours to kill waiting for her, I'm going to take these along with me and try to knock them out.

I just love it. Next month, we're doing (or should I say they're doing - LOL) the companion fob (do you not love that skeleton face in the flag?????):

Both of these pieces will be great to display with Shores of Hawk Run Hollow. Well, they will be when I get all three of them done! Could be a while. Maybe when the love with Ann subsides. And speaking of Shores, have you all seen Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow? I'm sure you have. I would like to go there, but I've already got three of these going. I can't even think of it right now. (yeah right.....I'll order the darned chart I'm sure, along with a few others - I think I've abstained for at least two months - that's a lifetime to me - and market is coming, don't ya know?? LOL).

Other things going on - DD found out that she made the school basketball team. YA HOO for her! I was really happy for her. She didn't think that she would make it and we were a little worried because some of the games are going to be played on Monday nights. Not a big deal except she dances on Monday nights. Always the way, right? Well, fortunately both the Coach and Dance Instructor were very willing to make compromises for her - so she'll be splitting her time between each - basketball getting more of the nights because of the shorter season. This meant going from First String to Second, but she was happy with that. Go Catie!!!! Mom is especially proud because that's what I played in school.

Work on the craft room still continues. I've got stuff heaped all over the table otherwise I'd take a picture. I always think I can spend some time down there and then get interrupted with something. I've been waiting for DH to get some things on the wall for me, but he is slower than molasses in January and if I continue to wait, we'll all be looking down at all this from above. LOL You may find this hard to believe and wonder if I've been living under a rock, but I've never installed an anchor into the wall. I've always used those museum type hangers where the hole is nano-sized. But I've got some things to hang that are a tad heavy. Now before you think I'm prissy or something, it's because my husband does all the painting in our house (read: too cheap to hire someone - did I say that?) and he's so anal (seriously so) that he doesn't like holes put into his walls! Yeah, his walls! Last time I looked.........Well, enough of that. I went in and smiled at the friendly guys at Home Depot last night and they gave me step-by-step instructions so that I don't make holes large enough to put a semi through. So I'm ready - drill found, bits found - I'm ready to crank the baby up and go for it. HA!!! Maybe I'll put in some heavy metal music on while I'm doing it to set the mood!

Well, that's all the news that's fit to report today. Tomorrow is my day off - a trip to the cider mill for one of my two annual cider and donuts and drive days (the second is when the fall colors are at their best) - and to see a man about a frog -flower frog, that is. Quess I can call him my stash dealer. HA!

Till later - make a lot of X's.