Spring, or Something Darn Near Like It

Our "Snowquester" turned into "Noquester" this past week; the office was closed on Wednesday, so I got a much-appreciated day off, even though it meant that our work is now a day behind.  Mother Nature has been teasing us with spring, and I've had the windows open this afternoon, just airing the house out a bit.

Are you familiar with the Sampler Pears on the Samplers and Santas blog?  They're neat little designs and this afternoon I started stitching the first one.  I'm using 28-count Country French Latte and a skein of Needle Necessities floss that I found in my stash.  The chart calls for five different DMC colors, but when I went to pull them from the floss box, I could only find two of the colors.  I assume that the others are probably kitted up somewhere, so, lacking the initiative to dig through everything to find them, I went stash diving and came up with a nice, gently shaded NN. 

 I got about halfway through before I decided to put it aside and work some more on the Spring Sampler.  I finished the verse (yes!) yesterday evening and am working on a bit more of the border.  It's not as tedious if I do it bit by bit as I go along.

 I'm probably about 2/3 of the way through this piece.

Not much else is going on here.  Happy stitching, everyone!

Some Stitching and Some Reading



 

I haven't done a lot of stitching lately, but I have made some progress on the Spring Sampler.

 

The full verse is "In my garden goes a friend, dark and wild whose name is wind."  So I've almost got that bit licked and the border, while a bit tedious, isn't too bad.  I love the colors in this one.

I've been doing a bit of baking this weekend; made some banana nut bread (with chocolate chips -- yummy!) yesterday and this evening I mixed up a meatloaf for tomorrow.  It's in the fridge and DH can pull it out tomorrow afternoon, then I'll put it in the oven directly I get home.

Well, I broke down a few weeks ago and bought a Kindle.  I've resisted for a while getting an e-reader, then I saw my sister's Nook and started thinking about it more seriously.  I finally decided that it might be a practical purchase, given that my bookshelf space is quite limited and there are some books that I just really want to own.  Also, for years I've had the great book debate with myself when I travel -- I'm sure you readers know how that game is played ("hmm, can't take that one, it's too big, so I'll take that one, but I probably want to take another just in case it finish one...").  Since DH and I want to do some traveling, I decided that an e-reader would enable me to take all the books I might want to take, as well as solving the issue of reading on airplanes during night flights.  The overhead light is never quite bright enough, assuming that it's working :-/  I don't anticipate that the e-reader will ever quite replace books for me, but right now I'm enjoying it.

WETA is re-running season 3 of Downton Abbey today, so I can avoid DA withdrawal for a little while longer before I switch over to the History Channel's series about the Bible.  It'll be interesting to see how that turns out.

Wishing everyone a good week and happy stitching!

Projects

Greetings from blustery WV!  It's been an excellent afternoon to stay in and stitch, so that's exactly what I've been doing.  

Progress on Spring Sampler:

I thought it was time to get back into ornament stitching, so I started the Peace dove from a JCS ornament issue from a year or two ago.  I'm using the called for fabric, 32 count something, and a combination of DMC and Gentle Arts flosses.

 

Ornament stitching, yes.  Ornament finishing?  Well, maybe some other time.

Finally, some Sunday afternoon baking:

These are called "Loaded Oatmeal Cookies" and have coconut, chocolate chips, and pecans in them.  Yummy!

Quality control:

Have a happy holiday tomorrow and a great week -- happy stitching!

Halftime Post

It's halftime of the Ravens - Patriots game, so I ran down to do a quick post :-)  Here is my progress on Spring Sampler:

I'm starting up the left side of the square, then it'll be back to border for a while.  The verse is stitched below the square, so more fun stuff there.  It's okay; stitching alphabets isn't my favorite thing, but it's a short verse.

Wishing everyone a good week -- stay warm and happy stitching!

A Belated Happy New Year!

It's only the middle of January; that's not too late to wish everyone a happy new year, is it?  I have to say that precious little stitching has been done around here of late.  I'm still in the process of getting the house in Pittsburgh ready to put on the market ::sigh::  and I'm relieved to say that the end is in sight.  The furniture is all out except for a bedroom set that a friend of DH's is taking and I've been making arrangements for painting and carpet replacement.  I'll be glad once all is done.  I won't miss the trek up there and back.

Here's a picture of my Spring Sampler progress.  It's a nice piece to be stitching on during these January days.  I love the color combination in these samplers.

I didn't start anything new for the new year.  I have enough WIPs that I couldn't bring myself to start something else.  That said, though, I must admit that Sonne Spotte by Long Dog has been calling to me from the "to be stitched" basket.  I have it kitted up with a piece of 40-count linen and HDF silks, so I'm thinking that I'll get it out and at least look at it :-)

Finally, I have to tell you part 2 of my little auto accident saga.  I told you about spinning out and hitting a bank whilst driving home from work on Christmas eve.  Well, I was driving to work on New Year's eve morning when I began hearing a noise from underneath the car.  It was alarming, so I pulled off the highway at the next exit and drove to Sheetz, where I got out and inspected.  There was a plastic panel of some sort under the front part of the car and one side of that had let go and the panel was dragging, thus creating the noise.  I couldn't fix it at that point, so I decided that I might as well go ahead on to work and hope for the best.  My commute is 4-lane highway and I work in an office part that's right off the highway, so I thought it would probably be okay.  I won't go through all the gory details, but after I got off work, I went to a local grocery to buy duct tape; my plan was to duct tape the thing in place sufficiently to get home.  So I was down on my knees in the grocery parking lot, trying -- with marginal success -- to duct tape this panel, when a couple in an SUV stopped and asked if everything was alright.  I gave the Reader's Digest version of the story and they parked a couple of spaces down from me.  The wife came over and asked if rope would be helpful and I said that it probably would.  She pulled a hank of very nice nylon rope out of the back of their vehicle and it worked much better than the duct tape.  After I got the panel tied up and cut the rope (hated to cut it; it really was very nice rope), she said, "Why don't you just keep the rope in case you need it down the road."  Wasn't that just absolutely awesome?  There are nice people out there!  I was so tickled and I know that somewhere down the road I'll have an opportunity to pay it forward.

Well, I'm going to try to get in a little bit of stitching this evening before I settle down to watch "Downton Abbey".  I've gotten hooked rather late on that show, but I enjoy it.

Hoping that everyone has a great week -- happy stitching!

Snowy Days Stitching

 

It began snowing late Monday morning, stopped for Christmas day, then picked up again this morning.  I had to work on Monday so had a fun commute home on Monday afternoon, including a close encounter with some vegetation along the side of the road.  I was on a 2-lane road and came around a corner with more speed than I intended.  All of a sudden I found myself spinning; the car whacked a bank on the other side of the road then bounced back and spun around and stopped in roughly the same direction I was going when the spin started.  A very nice good Samaritan stopped to make sure I was okay -- I was, just shaken up a bit -- and he sat there in his car for a few minutes whilst I caught my breath.  Thank goodness I was in my sturdy little Saturn; there's a nice little dent and some scrapes on the front fender but otherwise I mostly just scooped up dirt and plant material.  Thank goodness also that there wasn't any other traffic near me when I spun out.  I've spun on slick roads before, but this was the first time I've actually hit anything.  Not an experience I'd care to repeat.

 

Our company gives employees two days off at Christmas -- either Christmas eve and Christmas day, or Christmas day and the day after.  I didn't have enough seniority to score Christmas eve off, but considering the weather today (snow, rain, sleet -- nasty!) I'm actually glad to have been off today rather than Monday.  I got quite a bit done around the house and my pile of empty boxes is getting almost as high as the pile of full ones.  I sat down last night and this afternoon and worked on the Spring Sampler from Prairie Schooler.  Here's where we are tonight:

 

A nice project for a snowy day, I thought!

The movers brought my piano last week and we hung my samplers on Sunday afternoon, so that made the house seem more like home.  After we got everything hung, I realized that they are a tad off-center.  Looks like I need to stitch another band sampler for the right side.  Darn.  I hate when that happens.

Best wishes to all -- happy stitching, everyone!

I'm Back....and With a Finish!

Gracious, I have been a bad blogger!  Ah well, sometimes life just gets in the way.  I'm still working on cleaning out the house in Pittsburgh and getting it ready to put on the market.  It's quite the chore, but we're getting there.

 

I did find time to work on This Is the Day and tonight I finally finished it!  I used a lighter linen than the chart called for and as a result I had to change the color on the sheepies, but I'm pleased with the finished product.

The next project to pick up and focus on getting finished is another of the Prairie Schooler Spring Samplers.  Here's where I left off, who knows how long ago....

A better picture; this is how the finished product should look, more or less.  Love these colors!

 

DH was sick with the crud earlier this week and now I've got it.  Seems like all I did today was sneeze and blow my nose and blow my nose and sneeze some more.  We were planning a trip to Pittsburgh tomorrow, but I'm not sure that's going to happen.

 

Happy stitching, everyone!