November SBQ

This is the November Stitching Bloggers Question from Lee:

Tell us about a time that you were especially thankful for your ability to do needlework. Try not to answer in generalities, but rather try to answer with a specific time, event, or happening that made you very thankful that you could stitch. For instance, maybe your needlework got you through a difficult time. Maybe your needlework made a happy time even happier. Or perhaps your talent and skill created a wonderful situation. You get the idea.

I moved to Pittsburgh in 1997 for my job. I'd lived in northern Kentucky for 11 years and was pretty well settled there, but there was an opportunity for advancement with my company and I took it. I left a familiar place where I was comfortable and had friends to move somewhere totally unfamiliar where I knew maybe 3 people and them not very well. I was also moving from a customer-contact position to a back-office job so there was quite a bit of culture shock with that, and add into the mix the fact that at the time I wasn't expecting to stay in Pittsburgh more than 2 or 3 months because the plan was for the office to move to the Washington, D.C., area. It was exciting but it was also a bit scary and very unsettling.

Thank goodness for my stitching! At the time, I was working on Eileen Bennett's "Bands of Many Colors" sampler (in those days, I was a one-project-at-a-time stitcher). I think it had been published in Just Cross Stitch Magazine, maybe in multiple parts. It was so comforting to have that to come home to every evening, a constant in a world that was a-whirl. I finished
the piece shortly before I learned that the planned move to D.C. was off and eventually had it framed. I entered it in the Canfield (Ohio) fair a few years ago and it took a blue ribbon. It now hangs over the piano on my sampler wall.

Anna T Has a Name!

And a date! I finished putting in the name a couple of nights ago and got the left side bird motif almost done this evening. She's coming right along, I have to say.

Did everybody get their clocks changed last night? Well, assuming, of course, that you live somewhere that does the daylight savings time thing. The extra hour of sleep was nice last night but it sure got dark early this afternoon :-(

Wishing everyone a good week and happy stitching!

Nova Scotia!

A word of warning: This post is full of vacation pics. I'm just saying.

We had a wonderful time in Nova Scotia! It's stunningly beautiful, clean and full of friendly people. Even the weather cooperated...more or less. Our flight to Halifax was delayed due to fog in Halifax and at one point the captain came out of the cockpit and I heard him talking to the flight attendant and saying something that sounded like "Well, we've got plenty of gas". I was afraid we'd have to circle for a couple of hours (bad) or divert to another airport (worse), but he had a go at the approach and made it in...hooray!

The weather was foggy and drizzly but the temps were fairly mild. The day after our arrival, we headed out in the rental car along the south shore toward Peggy's Cove. It was foggy, but even this was an improvement from when we started out:

Peggy's Cove is a quaint little fishing village built right on the coast and it's a big tourist attraction. We were there during the week and off-season, so it wasn't crowded at all. The lighthouse is the big attraction.

You can't go in the lighthouse, but it's still neat to look at. There's also lots of rough surf and signs warning of the dangers of going too close. They didn't have to tell me twice; this picture is not as close as it looks.

We had lunch that day at a little pub called The Knot. My guy decided he wanted mussels, so he got a large order. Two pounds worth. Before:

And after:

I tried a couple and discovered that mussels are not my thing. I was happy to leave them to him.

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Another pretty little town along the coast, Mahone Bay:

We stayed in Dartmouth, across the harbour from Halifax, and rode the ferry over. This gal is in the ferry terminal on the Dartmouth side. Her name is Elizabeth and she was a gift to Halifax from Norfolk, VA, their sister city. The blue and white in her hair represent the sea, her stole is the Halifax tartan, and her tail flipper is, of course, the maple leaf. I thought she was neat.

I took my stitching with me and had the sense to a) not take sharp scissors and b) not take scissors that I would be heartbroken if I lost. Which was a good thing because the security folks at Halifax airport took the nail scissors that I've carried all over the U.S. along with a pair of fold-up scissors that ditto and that I can't imagine would be any kind of a threat to anybody, except maybe to break a nail trying to get the darn things unfolded. Neither was of any significant value, however, and the stitching scissors I had were blunt so those made it through. I stitched on one of Prairie Schooler's samplers on the plane but didn't take a pic.

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Snow is in the forecast for the weekend (nooooo!) so staying in and stitching sounds like a good thing!

A Perfect Saturday

The past couple or three days have been absolutely perfect fall days and today was no exception. It was warm enough to have the windows open but not too warm, with blue skies and sunshine. I tried to sit out on the deck this aftenoon and read the paper, but it was a little too breezy -- not for sitting out but for reading the newspaper. It was nice while it lasted :-) It was lovely to sleep in this morning and only have a couple of errands to run. I treated myself to a trip to Half Price Books and picked up a copy of Obama's Wars by Bob Woodward for $15. I did resist the temptation to stop in the Starbuck's that's two doors down from HPB!

On the stitchy front, I finally finished the wreath on Anna T! Here is where I started this evening:


and here's where I put it down:

The red is her name and I was boogying right along on the letters. I made myself stop because I wanted to have a few minutes of blogging time before I turn in, and I want to turn in at a decent hour. Such an exciting Saturday night! But I guess it's all about perspective, isn't it?

I dragged out the sewing machine this afternoon to do some mending, so while I was in sewing mode, I prepped the fabrics for a couple of future projects.

I love the Sarah Hartley sampler, monotonous border not withstanding. The fabric for her is 36 count Sand Dune from Lakeside. There is a good bit of over-1 stitching, so I didn't want to use anything smaller than 36. I think she will be my next start after I finish Anna.

The other sampler is from The Workbasket and is called "Fairest". You can't tell much about it from the picture; the text is from a verse of the old hymn "Fairest Lord Jesus". I'm using 40 count Maritime White, also from Lakeside, and the fibers are Weeks. These are some seriously beautiful colors and they just popped when I laid them on the fabric. The picture doesn't do them justice.

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And that's about it for a Saturday night. Everyone have a great week and happy stitching!

Ring Around the Rosie!

Well, more or less. A weekend with no overtime and a little more time to spend stitching resulted in this:
I have some leaves to finish, then the wreath will be done!

We still aren't quite caught up on our backlog at work and overtime is still available, but it's optional, not mandatory. I did stay over for about an hour this evening.

Does anyone know if there are any needlework shops in Halifax, NS? We're planning a trip there and I'm wondering if there is an LNS to add to the itinerary!

Have a good week, everyone, and happy stitching!

Slow But Sure

Not much stitching got done around here last week, what with the overtime. I put in my mandatory 10 hours, plus another 3-1/2 on Saturday. They are asking us to work more overtime this week -- we still haven't cleared the backlog -- but so far it's not mandatory.

Sunday afternoon I participated in a CROP Hunger Walk; it supports the hunger relief work of Church World Services and 25% of the money we raise comes back to our local food pantry. We raised just over $7500 yesterday, so that means about $1850 coming back to the food pantry!

I did manage a little work on Anna Saturday night.


And this is how the whole thing looks so far:


Once I get past the center wreath, the rest should go pretty quickly.

Have a good week and happy stitching!

Sunday Afternoon with Anna T and the Steelers

Mimi and I spent most of the afternoon on the sofa with stitching and football. She was more interested in snoozing than in either of those but that meant she wasn't messing with my thread or trying to lay on my lap while I stitched, so that was okay.

Well, so the Steelers lost but it was a pretty good game anyway. They played the Baltimore Ravens and the two teams were pretty evenly matched, so it was a good, close game. I don't like run-aways.

Here's my progress on Anna Thies:

Today's progress was the leaf to the left of the red rose. After I finished that bit, I moved down to the bottom of the wreath to start on the third of the four roses. It won't have as many color changes as the other roses so I hope it won't be as fiddly and will stitch up a little faster. Once I finish this wreath, everything else should go a little more quickly.

We got part 2 of the mini-SAL that Eva is doing on her blog; there are more Algerian eye stitches and we start the roses. The roses are done with straight stitches and look simple, but they'll be very pretty. I'll try to do a little bit this week but...

There probably won't be much stitching -- or anything else -- done this coming week; we were told on Friday at work that everyone has to put in 10 hours of overtime this week to help clear up some of our backlog. I've never been a fan of mandatory overtime but at this point all I can do is grit my teeth and do it. I think if I get up 15 minutes earlier each day I can probably put in 1/2 hour in the morning and 1-1/2 hours at the end of the day and still get home at a half-way decent time. Grrrrr!

Everyone have a good week -- happy stitching!