Thursday Thoughts

No pictures, just some thoughts that have been rambling around in my head...

I think I missed my calling; I should have been an ornithologist.  Watching birds fascinates me.  DH and I sat on the deck one evening and watched a huge flock of birds swoop and whirl and dive, then they split into separate groups and did some more aerial ballet before joining up again into one flock.  It was amazing and the precision was incredible.  How do they know to do that?  Same thing with geese.  There is a pond by the building where I work and Canada geese are frequent visitors.  I love watching a group of them come in for a landing on the water.  Which one picks out the landing spot?  Ditto for when they take off.  Which one decides when to take off and how does he/she communicate it to the others?  But they do it all at the same time, almost in unison.  Wonderful!

*****
How work attire has changed in the last 15 or 20 years!  When I left the airport and went to work "behind the scenes" in um, lower management, business attire was the order of the day.  I didn't wear suits, but I usually wore a skirt or nice slacks with a nice top.  We could wear jeans on Friday, if we didn't have to go to an important meeting.  That was 1997.  Fast forward to 2013.  The office where I work has a business casual dress code, with the emphasis on casual.  I'm not complaining.  The option of throwing on jeans and a tee shirt has been the answer on many "what do I wear to work today" mornings.  But short-shorts, tops with spaghetti straps, and flip-flops?  Seriously?

*****
Okay, I'll bite.  I saw this on The Stitch Bitch blog this morning.  I always get the JCS ornament issue and generally go through it 4 or 5 times before I turn down the corners of the ornaments I'd really like to stitch.  The challenge is to list your 5 favorite ornaments from this year's issue (only 5???)  Here are mine, in no particular order:

Peace Bird, from Rosewood Manor
Peace on Earth, from The Primitive Hare
Amaryllis, from Moss Creek Designs
2013 Ornament, from Milady's Needle
Peace, from Blackbird Designs

Those are my favorites today.  There's absolutely no guarantee that they'll be my favorites tomorrow :-)

*****
And while we're on the subject of ornaments...have you been to Daffycat's blog lately.  Here's the link.  She's been doing reindeer ornament freebies for the past few years and 2013's offering is available.  She has instructions on the blog for how to get a copy of the chart, if you like it and want to stitch it.  They're so cute!  In fact, I think I'll go start on it tonight!


Well, maybe one picture.  Mimi, doing three of her favorite things -- sleeping, hanging out at the top of the steps, and guarding shoes -- simultaneously.

Stitching and Cookies and Other Thoughts

So, do you read Lee's excellent Lake Stitcher blog?  Here's the link, if you're not familiar with it.  Not only does she do beautiful stitching, her blog is also entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking.  Her November 3rd post posed the question of why so many of us seem to have fallen into blog-limbo and aren't posting as often as we used to.  I know that I've been neglecting the blog of late; I guess the easy answer is simply that life gets in the way.  By the time I get dinner done and the kitchen tidied and lunches packed, then it's time to watch Jeopardy! (must watch Jeopardy! ) and after that it's time to start making my way toward bed so I can get up at o-dark-stupid the next morning and do it all again!  I don't even feel like I'm getting much stitching or reading done.

 

So that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  I'll try to do better, because I truly enjoy reading other blogs (reading takes less effort than posting, dontcha know) and I actually enjoy writing this one.  Most of the time.

 

Anyway.

 

I did finish Plumpkin; I got lazy on this one and skipped the yellow star buttons.  I didn't have any in my stash and didn't feel like trying to find them for this piece that will probably languish forever in my finished projects box.  The shoes were supposed to be stitched with #4 very fine braid; didn't have that either, so I thought I might use blending filament with the floss, after about 5 stitches, I decided I didn't have the patience to deal with BF for this.  So this is how it turned out:

I have been making some progress on Isabella Johnstone.  Those are eyelet stitches below that last band of numbers; kind of tedious, but they're coming along more quickly than I had thought they would.  Once those are done, I can move on to the "fun" motifs on the lower part of the sampler.

I've been having difficulty focusing on larger projects, so as a result, I've been starting smaller stuff.  Are you familiar with Sheena Rogers designs?  She has a number of pieces designed to be made into cushions or mini-cushions, and you can peruse them on her website.  They're very nice.  I've started on the England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales mini-cushion; I'm using the called-for DMC flosses and a piece of 26-count linen I found in my stash.  The finished size should be about 6 inches square.

I've also been working on a couple of ornaments.  I picked up the Three Wise Men at In Stitches the first time I went there; I'm using 28-count evenweave, also from the stash, and DMC fibers, and stitching over 1.  As you can see, I haven't made a lot of progress!

The second ornament is Peace on Earth, from this year's JCS ornament issue.  The designer is Isabella Abbiati -- The Primitive Hare -- and I'm stitching this over 2 on 36-count Edinboro linen from the stash.  The color on the left is "prim Christmas" from Nina's Threads; it's kind of goldish/brownish/greenish.  Very pretty.

Finally, this was my project for this evening, shortbread cookies from the Mrs. Fields cookie cookbook.  DH and I both brown-bag it to work, and I like to keep home-made cookies on-hand to go in our lunches.  These are the easiest things in the world to make; 4 ingredients -- butter, brown sugar, vanilla, and flour -- easy-peasy!

It's closing in on Jeopardy! time, so I will wish all a good week and happy stitching!