Be Ye Thankful

It was a quiet Thanksgiving--just the two of us. It gave us a chance to experiment with the menu, sleep late and spend some relaxing time in the house pursuing hobbies. My favorite kind of holiday. We did some non-mall Christmas shopping, and I drove up to Alexandria for In Stitches' blow-out Thanksgiving sale. For those of you who live in the No.Va. area or maybe even a state or two away, I promise it's worth coming to the post-Christmas/New Year's and Super Bowl sales. I'll let you know about dates when I hear, and you can also go to In Stitches' website to sign up for their newsletter (www.institchesneedlework.com). I bought a Moira Blackburn chart for 75% off, stocked up on various kinds of floss to kit out some projects (20% off, which adds up when you're buying the various kinds of silk), and 1/2 off many pre-cut fabrics (although there were no large cuts left when I got there on the second day of the sale). I bought some gorgeous smaller linen pieces for $4 or $5 apiece. The rest of the charts were 20% off also. Pictures of some of my stash in another post along with a discovery I have made and some progress on my various Christmas projects--it's too much to stuff into today's entry.

I bought this little chart: "The Ark" by La-D-Da. I love Noah's Ark samplers, and I've collected several. The fabric is 40 ct RR in Dark Cappuchino, and the fiber is Needlepoint Inc. Silks.

The black and cream design was a nice change from the pink/green/red/white of the Gingerbread House sampler.

This is the Bunnyman, who says he looks like the little silhouette bunny on the chart.

Lugnut

An unsettling event: on my way back from an accounting class yesterday morning, I had a tire blow-out at 75 mph on Interstate 95. I made it to the shoulder fine (wondering what the roaring sound and shimmy was until I got out to look), dialed up AAA, which responded with a nice tow truck driver within 30 minutes--apparently breaking down on a major interstate is considered a priority. I've doubted in the past whether it makes sense to pay money every year to AAA since I had previously only used them once, when my tire went flat in my driveway, which hardly seemed much of an emergency (I know how to change a tire, something my dad insisted on all those years ago when I got my license, as he said that sometimes there's no one to depend on but yourself. He's right about that, of course, and I've found that to be true about more than just tires. Nevertheless, I'll call someone to come do it when I can, as wrestling with the jack and the tire iron are just not something I enjoy.) I consider myself lucky: I had my phone with me, and it was actually charged. Although it was cold, it wasn't raining. The donut tire in the trunk was actually inflated. After rummaging through my trunk we were actually able to locate the lugnut unlocker (apparently my wheels are locked to the car so that they can't be stolen). Had I ever noticed that unlocker in the trunk, I might have thrown it out, thinking it was a piece of chrome junk--good thing I'm not that tidy. And last, I got lucky because the tire store had just one last tire of the size my car needs. My only misfortune, other than the cost of the new tire, is that I didn't have my needlework with me. BF makes fun of me for toting it everywhere, even when I drive 10 miles away to do errands. I always tell him that in the heavy and unpredictable No. Va. traffic, you never know when you'll be stuck behind a hazardous material spill or major accident for four or five hours, and why waste all that stitching time?

I worked on several projects this week and don't have a lot of progress to show on those, but I'm coming down the home stretch on Carol's Neighborhood RR. I have some landscaping to do on this, some flowers to plan perhaps, and some critters to stitch, and then I'll be able to send it along to Wendy in Canada. I'm enjoying stitching this so much! It's Thistle House by Ewe & Eye and Friends, but I've fiddled with the colors so they would show up well on the fabric that Carol chose.

And I got a framing job back and dropped another one off. This is probably called something like Cats or Cat Alphabet, and it's by the Drawn Thread. I stitched it about six years ago while on a nice long relaxing vacation to Vancouver, BC and Tofino on Vancouver Island. It's been sitting in a drawer with a little stack of other finishes, so I thought I'd finally frame and hang it. Taking a long break like that made it feel fresh again--sometimes by the time I've finished stitching a design, I'm a little tired of it.

I'll be posting on the Hello Neighbor RR site with Carol's picture and with a picture of Karen's RR that I received from Leslie on Friday. And maybe a midweek post on some of the other stuff I'm working on. I dropped by my LNS yesterday and picked up a couple of project bags and some floss, and I've fallen in love with another chart by Plum Street Samplers (Plum Street Designs?) called...um...Rejoice, I think. It's a very pretty Christmas piece and is a nice companion to the two other Plum Street designs I've purchased recently (both of them biblically oriented, full of beautiful silk threads and just so pleasing to look at). I'll buy it when I get over the wallet whiplash from purchasing a big fat $250 tire! Oh! and speaking of big ticket items, my LNS told me that Silk 'n Colors, which are now selling for about $5 apiece, are going to jump to about $7, so if you like stitching with them, now's the time to stock up, before the price changes go in.

Little Winter Sunday Samplers

I like the little winter samplers and ornaments so much. I'm not sure if I've shown you this before, but here's one of my favorites from my stash: Snowkin' Uncle Willy by Sisters and Best Friends. The chart came with a cute carrot button for the nose. I figure this is a one-weekend project. I've kitted it up and am waiting for the first hint of snow on a weekend to start.

I bought this on ebay recently. It's vintage (1998) and is by Homespun Elegance. It can be stitched as a little picture or as a Christmas Ornament. The chart came with a thick length of twine to stitch onto the ornament as decoration and as a hanger, and a little pineapple charm (I think it's a pineapple) for the front door.

And here's some progress on Gingerbread Cottage. I love the little cupcake, don't you?

The Jury's Out

So today I was called upon to do jury duty in my county's general district court. We check a call-in line the night before, and my panel was called for today, so I let the folks at work know and packed my trusty bag with two needlework projects, two books and change for the Coke machine. God forbid I should be bored or uncaffeinated. I had to leave the scissors at home, since they wouldn't have passed through the metal detector, but I packed a retractable seam ripper (probably in itself a weapon but it wasn't specifically excluded) since as usual, I can't find either of my clovers. I've done jury duty before in this county, and it can be grueling and unpleasant. The docket is crowded in our booming county, and trials can run to midnight or more. Another gentleman and I actually had to argue with a couple of people on a past jury that simply not liking the accused or his lifestyle was not enough reason to convict. Plus for me, jury duty is unpleasantly like work, even though I work in the transactional end of law rather than in litigation.

After checking in and receiving our jury numbers and our $30 in cash, we waited around until we were sent home, as there were many more of us than were needed to fill the jury box for the two trials, as during the voir dire, apparently no one was dismissed. So that left me free at 11:30 to go spend my $30, which Big Law does not demand we turn over to them. And you know what I spent it on, I'll bet: Country Cottage Needleworks' Gingerbread Cottage.

Tomorrow I've been called to serve again. I am hoping for the same result.

I had a chance to start it this afternoon:

And I worked a bit more on the Christmas Cardinal ornament:

I'm enjoying the cardinal theme a lot, so I bought another one. This is by Imaginatings. I'd love to finish these three projects in time to have them framed for Christmas. But you know, the jury's out on that....

Sunday Sampler--Mini

I made some progress this week on the cardinal Christmas ornament. Here it is on Friday:

And today:

This little guy was a Prairie Schooler freebie at my LNS--he's on a little card about the size of a business card--so clever (chart on the reverse side):

I went into our little library to take these photographs, since the sun was on that side of the house. This room amuses the heck out of me. With six cats in the house, there's very little that doesn't receive a regular dusting of cat hair, despite a virtual army of vacuums. You name it, we have it: uprights, canisters, little ones, big ones, bagless, beltless, European, American (the Germans make a heck of a vacuum, in my opinion). But even with regular vacuuming and brushing, it's hard to keep up. So we have this one room, with a door that closes, but with glass panes. It's so satisfying to go into that room and shut the door. Within minutes, a crowd gathers. Here are three of them now (payback time for whoever threw up on the stairs last night):

"Aren't you going to come out and feed me?"

New Seasonal Projects

I have picked up a few seasonal projects during my latest LNS expeditions. This is "Winter Cardinal," by Something in Common. It's a small (but beautifully charted and photographed) project, and I'm happy to note that it has a correspondingly small price--$4.00 (and psst--ABCstitch.com has it on sale for $3.60). It'd be a perfect Christmas ornament.

This is "Shades of Brown" by Prairie Grove Peddler. It looks like a fairly quick stitch. It calls for 28 count Country Wheaten Linen, one skein of Crescent colors, and some DMC.

Another wintery/Christmas-y item: Ice Boating by Stoney Creek. I picked it up on ebay. I'm a nut for folk art, and this appealed to me, especially because of the dark sky and stars (or are they snowflakes?). It reminds me of my childhood home in Vermont. We lived in a big white clapboard house a block from a picture-perfect village green. Across the street was a baseball field/park which the fire department used to hose down with water so that there was a perfect skating rink which was then totally safe for even little children to skate on alone--when I was five, I had double-runner ice skates, and I'd chop around on them. When I got worn out, Mom and Dad would load me and my little sister on the sled and they'd skate along, drawing the sled. Afterwards, there would be hot drinks around the bonfire that someone built on the edge of the "rink."

Since I'm walking down Memory Lane, here's a real estate picture for a house currently for sale on the street where we lived (I don't think it was our house; I'll have to ask my parents what our street number was, but the style and size are similar). We rented the upstairs portion, and another family rented downstairs. I'll note that this particular house is listed for $399,900--an unbelievable price to me, as $500K in this area buys you a two-bedroom, 1200 square foot condominium in Arlington. Of course, that's apples to oranges, but if I could find a job in Vermont(there's the rub), I'd go back there in a minute, even if I had to roll my stuff up the interstate in a wheelbarrow, which, given the cost of maintaining one of these things, would be about all I could afford for transportation. I'm not a romantic particularly, and I'm remember the long, bleak winters and the problems of heating these old heaps, but I've grown weary of Metropolitan DC in a lot of ways.

Aaaand here's some progress on Whale Hunting. Actually, I have been stitching quite a lot, what with Whale Hunting, the Cross Eyed Cricket summer sampler, and Carol's Neighborhood RR. I'm sort of in one of those good stitching grooves these days. Edited twice: once, to add the Vermont picture, and the second time to comment--gee, the Vermont house would be right at home in the Whale Hunting scene, wouldn't it? Probably not a coincidence--I'm sure our childhood homes inform our taste and preference (and might explain my recent infatuation with 50s-era furniture).

Sunday Samplers

I didn't have school yesterday, although I do have a take-home midterm, so we headed north to the thick of Northern Virginia for a little stash building expedition and to go out to lunch at a decent Chinese restaurant (something sadly lacking in our area, although for whatever reason, we have about 4 good Thai places). I hadn't been to In Stitches in Alexandria for several months, and I was mindful of all that inventory going unexamined and unpurchased by me. I always see great stuff there that I haven't even seen on the net, which is remarkable, considering how much time I spend online trolling the needlework sites. In fact, these days I feel a little jaded, don't you? Ho hum, another XYZ Sampler. Seen that. Oh, gee, another [name a designer]--a variation on the last 18 she's done. I particularly like In Stitches' deep selection, especially remarkable considering it's also a fabulous framer and a purveyor of knitting yarns and needlepoint canvases. But lookie here--something I hadn't run into in my travels online or IRL:
This is Janet Gibson's Scottish Swan Sampler, a historic reproduction sampler by Hope's Dwelling Place by Whimsey & Wit.

And this is Colonial Seasons by Tristan Brooks Designs (www.tristanbrooks.com). I'm thinking of stitching all four designs on a single panel, although they're designed to be ornaments.

[edited later to add that both are available online--for whatever reason, I haven't seen them, perhaps because their designers haven't been hugely prolific so that their designs haven't saturated the market? In any case, you can get Colonia Seasons from Criss Cross Row's site, and the Scottish Swan Sampler from Homespunsamplar's website]
I bought some other things too, which I'll show you later. And by the way, if you are a fan of Au Fils Des Reves' little French designs, snap up whatever kit or chart you might see; they have ceased business. I don't imagine those charts will fetch on ebay what the Goode Huswife's old charts do since they're less well known, but it's a shame to see them pass out of existence. Their things are sweet and quintessentially French.
And here's a little tease for Carol--remember you said in your RR instructions that you'd like to get a peek at your RR from time to time? LOL--it's sitting there next to the only cat in the house who's too lazy to get up and go lie on it, by the way, although you can be sure that after taking this picture from the catwalk, I ran back downstairs and put it safely away again. I found just the chart for its newest block at In Stitches, and I'll be showing further hints as I go.

I spent some time today stitching on Summer Something-or-Other, which is appropriate, since today it was 90 degrees.

The Chinese food was great, by the way: fresh Chinese leek dumplings, pickled cabbage and sauteed shrimp for appetizers, and then Peking duck for two. There's a new Afghan restaurant in 7 Corners that we'll try next time--which will necessitate another stop at In Stitches, I'd say.

Almost Done

Here's the Neighborhood RR as it was earlier today. I have just a few finishing touches, and some bargello lawn yet to do before it's off to Wendy's house for the next block. This has been such fun to do that I'm almost reluctant to have it go!
Happy first week of October, all!

Focus

This is the last day of my vacation, and yesterday was the first day of autumn (even if it is still in the 80s). Figure I'd find the perfect summer vacation sampler. This is by Cross Eyed Cricket. I've recently bought the CEC Halloween sampler, Sleepy Hollow, and will probably wait until spring to stitch that. I will be headed for Cape Cod sometime next month, but by the time I get there, the summer cottages will be boarded up, there will be a chilly breeze and the water will be gray, most likely.

This is the fabric for the sheers I've been working on; I suspect I will not finish them during this vacation. Lack of focus. Note that I did not embroider all the little aqua leaves; that would be masochistic. Maybe in my next life.

I did focus on the Neighborhood RR though. Most of this progress occurred during this week, when I was supposed to be sewing curtains. I find I get a lot done if I bump one project with another.

Another Brick in the Wall (II)

It's been a long time since I've posted. Mostly it's been the pressures of work and school--I'm working on an accounting degree granted to students who have a degree in something else. There are ten pre-requisites, which I'm working my way through now, and then I go on to take ten advanced level accounting classes. The degree is offered at Virginia Commonwealth in Richmond, and I'm very excited about getting out of the legal field and into something else and equally excited about exiting the Washington work scene about a year from now, and heading into Richmond. I'm a late bloomer; this will be the second degree I've earned post-40. That's okay--I'm a better student for it--I'm probably a lot more shrewd than I was at 20 in my approach to assignments even if I do tend to forget where I put my car keys more these days. But it's meant a drop in stitching time, although I'm still plugging away in between answering questions about what items in a balance sheet might be red flags for an audit.

I've been on vacation this week and did some work on this: the brick stitch is a blast and gives a nice effect.


And speaking of bricks, here is some brickwork in buildings behind my favorite furniture store in Richmond, La Difference.

Here's the brickwork inside of La Diff, whose three floors of showrooms are in a big old brick industrial building. We're thinking of buying this table for our house.


More pictures of stitching projects coming up later. I've been working on the Neighborhood RR, and I have bought some new projects recently. I'm going to go to work on sewing a set of sheers for my bathroom windows before the daylight fades--the easiest way of working with sheers. I bought the fabric at G Street Fabrics after two days of combing the home dec section.
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Another Brick in the Wall

The missing floss (WDW cinnabar--2 skeins) arrived in the mail last week, so I was able to return to stitching bricks (in brick stitch!) on Kindred House by Chessie and Me. It's addictive, and I've been neglecting my other projects. It's a bit hard to count, though, and a frog came to visit a few times already; the brick stitch involves running 2 threads (over two) horizontally through the top holes as well as the bottom holes of each square, so I tend to lose count.

But I did spend a bit of time searching for the fibers for this Victoria Sampler design that I'm adapting to Nicole's RR. The original calls for silk, but I think it might look odd if it's a silk square along with cotton ones, so I'm doing the conversion on the fly. My picture is a bit blurry but you can see Nicole's square; Leslie's is outside the picture. They're both beautiful and detailed, and I searched long and hard to find something compatible in flavor. At the moment it looks like the periscope on a submarine.

Although it hasn't exactly become fall yet, I've got the itch to knit fall things, and I ran across this nifty cabled sweater in the Interweave Knits magazine. Yum. I have 20 balls of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran that I have been saving for a special project. Maybe this one? I haven't bought Vogue Knitting's Silver Anniversary edition yet but plan to. I find an awful lot of knitting magazines, I suppose to appeal to more people, or to develop patterns that don't all look the same, or which take advantage of some of the new, more outrageous fibers, are offering "cutting-edge" designs. I'm a bit old and out of shape for a "belly" sweater. And I wince thinking about how I'd look in some of the other fashion yarn extravaganzas (itchy knitted corset and panties, anyone?). And frankly, I've missed the whole sock thing: I wear only soft white cotton socks with my sneakers. I can't see messing with stranding colors and worrying about size to knit socks no one sees (or worse, that they do see) when one can knit a nice, cozy, classic sweater. It's partly my lifestyle: I'm going to wear Birkenstocks and loud striped socks at stuffy Big Law? I remember a short time after I learned to knit, pointing out to my mom (the world's most amazing knitter) a sweater with clever scotty dogs incorporated into the pattern. Mom shook her head and said I'd regret it because I would put tons of work into it, but it was so memorable and unique that I wouldn't want to wear it very often.

Counting Sheep

I've been hard at work on "Keep Me" this week. It doesn't look like much has been accomplished, but this bit took a while. And it's dull to stitch, so it made me very sleepy to work on it. I'd work on a couple of rows in the evening, and my eyes would begin to shut.

Speaking of sleeping, we shopped for a new bed today, weighing the pros and cons of various kinds of springs and foam and stuffing. I dutifully tried them out, but I mostly left the decision up to DBF; I can literally sleep on anything, anywhere, any time, through virtually any noise. I sleep on my commuter bus, head lolling or knocking against the window when we lurch in traffic; and I fall asleep most nights within about a minute. When I worked in Manhattan and slept every night in a hotel, I could sleep on the third floor of a low rise right through the noise of the traffic and the incessant honking. It's a gift. Poor BF tends toward insomnia, he takes a long time to fall asleep and he sleeps lightly; a cricket will awaken him.

Speaking of BF, he's decided to embark on the Nutrisystem diet plant to shed some weight. I applaud the effort and am trimming my own calories, but in a different way. My cardiologist recommends Nutrisystem, along with a couple of other programs. BF ordered two months' worth of the guy plan, and this is roughly one-fourth of the box of food that showed up at the door. He likes that portions are measured out for him and that there's a schedule for eating (6 times a day) along a recommendation of which food to eat each time from the plan as well as what fruits and vegetables to add. I personally would prefer to grapple with it myself, using fresh food I prepare, although I will admit to not being particularly successful at it. I don't care for the idea of the aseptic packaging and whatever mysterious substance is contained therein. While it's not my preference, I support it wholeheartedly, especially since we both need to lose weight. And we'll certainly get a nice break from preparing traditional meals. Guess what I can spend the extra time doing?

In honor of the diet, of course, we visted Carl's, a local institution, to say goodbye for the summer. Since we very seldom eat ice cream (our tastes run more to the savory than the sweet; we can tear up a bag of Fritos in my house whereas ice cream in the freezer sits until it's unfit to eat from freezer burn), it was a nice treat.

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

After five intense days, the floors are all in. Away, Crappy Carpet!


The hardwood installers were funny. We had three different crews of floor people working at different times, and I noticed that there are the guys who jabber all day long, generally about nothing (we won't talk about the carpet guy who had long involved conversations with himself in different voices, including a falsetto) and then there are the silent workers. The wood guys were the silent workers. They came in, set up the saws and the tools and went to work, not saying anything other than calling out an occasional measurement, for hours. At lunch, one of them went out to the truck and brought in an ice chest and passed out the best-smelling cold fried chicken to his co-workers. And then opened up a big tupperware container full of green salad and passed that around also. The three of them, chicken and salad in hand, then began to gossip about friends and family in the little town they all live in. After lunch they sealed up the cooler, threw out the bones and the wrappers and went back to working silently.
This is what I accomplished; I fell well short of my goal of finishing this project, but I made a good dent in it. This design is a little mysterious, isn't it? What kind of procession? Wedding? Who's the groom and who's the bride? There is a minster looking guy at the front of the line (and a white sheep). He's wearing a black frock coat. What does it mean? I think the black sheep looks a lot like a black lab.

I've shown you this picture before; it's Keep Me by Moira Blackburn. I felt like stitching a traditional sampler, so I kitted it up today and started it.

Here's the start. I'm working over one on 28 count Cashel in Fairy Dust (although there's no glitter or sheen involved) using a mixture of DMC and Weeks Dye Works fibers.

I accomplished so much this vacation, although I really could use another week to get the place really clean and everything put away. Back to work tomorrow...sigh. But on the plus side, I have another week coming up in September.

Things are Hopping on My Vacation

This is very likely my garden culprit. He hangs around quite a bit. I suspected him of munching the canteloupe leaves, blossoms and vines because he pays a call each morning and evening. He may be the tomato chomper as well; here's the circumstantial evidence. There's no smoking gun here, however; he didn't hop away with a tomato vine hanging out of his mouth, and I didn't catch him with a pack of bacon either. I assumed he didn't eat tomatoes because my own bunny hates them--dumb assumption.

Off he goes! This was this morning; I'm watering the plants tonight, so maybe he will slurp the water intead of the tomatoes, since I'll let a pan fill up.

Here's my rabbit, the Bunnyman. All of the noise from the floor layers, including a compressor, a giant staple gun and hammering, didn't faze him. While the cats hid under the basement steps, the Bunny just yawned elaborately, groomed himself and grunted a bit. He's a bit disheveled because he's moulting.

Not surprisingly as I like bunnies so much, I collect bunny stitching charts. Here is Prairie Grove Peddler, called "Garden Hoppin'." It's charted for DMC on 28 count Country French Linen, Antique Gold, by Wichelt.

This is an older chart that I recently bought on ebay by Chessie & Me. I forgot to bring the instructions downstairs with me, but it appears to call for overdyed floss. Note the carrot border!