For the long, hot, holiday weekend

I had planned on doing lots of stitching -- mostly on See the Stars.  Unfortunately, I had a nasty sinus headache by Friday after work.  Soooo, I wanted something simple to stitch (heaven forbid I should just lay down until my headache went away).  I chose this La D Da WIP that had a little bit of the shoe done.  Thinks I -- this is perfect, I can stitch the shoe easily -- only one thread and not much bouncing around.  Good choice .....

NOT!

After finishing up the partial thread hanging on from the last time I stitched this one, I went searching in the bag that held all the other threads I picked for this piece.  No shoe thread!  I looked all over the house that evening and the following morning ... still no shoe thread.  Of course, it was a Needle Necessities thread that was in my stash (luckily I had written down the number - for the record, it's 1421).

Sigh!  Oh well.  So I stitched the stocking and the words instead.  And put everything back into the project bag.  Hopefully, the shoe thread will show up some day, if not .... well, I'll have to decide later.

Still having a headache, I decided to work on the Solo Brode piece and am happy with the finished result.  I plan on making it into a cover for my magnifying glass.  Well, that is, I plan on having someone else finish it as a cover.   I don't sew. 

1. Because sewing machines hate me and

2. Because I hate them back

Finally, on Monday, my headache was mostly gone so I decided to tackle the frogged area on See the Star.

It would be done except I kept making mistakes that had to be frogged.  And of course the dogs (especially the puppy) were being particularly helpful. 

It seemed that at least one of them needed to go outside into the sweltering heat every hour.  So this is how the day went.  Stitch, rip, potty-time!, Now were did I leave off?,  oh yes, stitch, stitch, rip, potty-time!, Hmmm, where was I again?, stitch, damn!rip ..... well, you get the idea. 

The only good thing was that my headache finally went away during the afternoon.

Keep cool!

Stitching and puppy update

I spent more time stitching on Symmetry but have officially put it down to work on my GGM sampler. Here's were I stopped:

If you look at the original you may notice that I inadvertantly reversed the center squares, ie, the right is on the left, etc.  I didn't notice it until the zig-zag section was complete (ahem ... too busy watching Hugh Jackman on the telly, oh well.)  I decided it didn't really make a difference and just let it go -- the piece is, after all, called "Symmetry"  ;)

I also finished the current part of the Solo Brode piece and am looking forward to the next one:

And if Meadow will let me (she's being such a pest right now), I am trying to finish my GGM -- no new picture yet, mainly because I can't seem to get much stitching done with a beagle puppy crawling all over me.  LOL -- you know how that is ....

And speaking of dogs

I have a house guest for a couple weeks.  Her name is Ginger.  She is my neighbor's papillon and cute as a bug.  She is adjusting to the rhythm of my pack quite nicely. 

Even Firefly is beginning to find her not as objectionable.  And Firefly doesn't trust anydog.

And of course, I can't forget about little Meadow.  She's 5.5 months now, about 10.5 inches tall and has all her adult teeth (hooray!)

Here she is in my back yard following that elusive little mole.

And here she is sucking up to mummie after being such a pest all week.  I think even Shasta is getting tired of her antics.  It's a good thing baby beagles are soooo cute.  It keeps them alive long enough to become adult beagles ;)


Mind you,  not that adult beagles can't make royal pests of themselves also.

LOL

Later .....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Symmetry update

The third block of Symmety is finished.  I think it's cool that the blue centers of block 1 & 3 (which have the exact same threads) look so different.  The little black areas really stick out in block 1 while in block 3 they aren't so noticable.  It's such fun playing with colors and patterns and seeing the results.  This piece has such a masculine look to it even though there is lots of pink in it.  I'm thinking it's the black and grey (colors I don't usually use) that are doing it.

Even though I'm having a really good time working on Symmetry, I need to put is down for awhile and get stitching on some other things.  I have a hard time doing this -- putting such a fun piece down, that is.  But then I get going on something else and I have a fun time stitching it also.  Go figure ....

I finished the third part of the Solo Brode SAL.  Aren't the little birds cute?  This is such a pretty pattern (and another fun stitch - vbg).

Happy days are here again ......

WooHoo!  My wisteria has a baby!

It doesn't look like much but it'll grow.  The two rocks are where my old wisteria used to be before it fell over.  I've been checking this area once a week or so and the last time I saw this lovely little shoot growing.  So far it's the only one but that's all it takes.

I did cut small branches off the parent when I chopped it up and put them in water.  A couple actually bloomed on my windowsill.  They were sad little things but blooms none-the-less.  And they smelled heavenly!

One of the cuttings has a root and new growth -- it's going in a pot soon.  Others have growth and no roots -- they'll stay in the water for now -- you never know. 

I'm thrilled that one cutting actually is growing.  And doubly thrilled that the parental roots are still viable.  VBG ... it's the little things in life that make me smile.

Unfortunately, my boys aren't smiling right now.  They both got their summer cuts recently.  It's the first time for River but Stormy gets shaved down frequently.  And seeing how cute and cool River looks, this won't be his last hair cut.  As you can tell from their expressions, neither are very happy about getting their pictures taken.  LOL.

Between hair cuts, I have been stitching.  The first picture is the Marquoir Group Quakerchen.  It's almost finished.  I have one more part to stitch and it will be complete.

See the Star is coming along.  Unfortunately, I decided to do some major ripping Saturday evening.  By 3 am Sunday morning I had removed the offending area -- what a chore that was!

I finally decided that I didn't like the yellow overdyed thread .  There just was not enough contrast between the yellows and the tea stained fabric.  After finishing the similar area on the right in a nice brown thread, I made the painful decision to rip out the yellows.  Now I just need to replace that area with the same brown floss and the entire unpleasantness will be over.  Whew!

I stitched on the lovely Solo Brode SAL over the weekend also -- what can I say, Saturday was a dreary, rainy day, only good for stitching and doing laundry.  This is such a lovely piece.

And last but not least, I realized there were no recent puppy pics ..... shame on me!  Well here you go:

Isn't she getting big?  She's 4.5 months old now, teething and still cute as a button!  At this stage she looks to easily be a 13 incher.

Later ......

A start and a continuation

While surfing the other day, I came across the blog Solo Brode with a lovely mystery SAL that I promptly joined.   I like the lacey look of the pattern so far.  My fabric is a 28 ct tea stained evenweave and the threads are DMC 390 and 3726.

Last night I picked up poor, neglected Mary Wigham and started stitching on her.  Unfortunately, it's been so long since the last time that I seem to have misplaced one of her threads.  Sigh .... I'm not sure why it isn't in the bag with the other flosses.  Unless, perhaps, I pilfered it for another project?  Who knows.  The important thing is that she's back under the needle.  The lower, right medallion is where I'm stitching now.

Have a nice weekend.