Artist in Exile

Here at 5:45 p.m. I am still in my stitching room, which I entered at around 9 a.m., although I left long enough to admire work, to consult on questions, to fix a snack and to use the bathroom. Otherwise, I've stitched, blogged and emailed all day, just me, the cat and the bunnies. What a pleasant day! This is one of the projects I worked on: Lemon Tree Sampler by Praiseworthy Stitches. I've somehow lost the Tin Bucket GAST I was using for the roof. And I never bought the two colors for the house because they weren't in the list of supplies but in the paragraph under "model information." I'll have to pick up all three when I go to the needlework shop later in the week. So I worked on the lemon tree while the workmen toiled in the house.

The guys working on the floors asked what happened to cause the floors to be removed just 8 months after they were installed, and I explained, pointing out Pink and Elvis in their cages in the stitching room. They said they wouldn't keep a rabbit or any other pet who had done such damage, which seems to me to be a matter of closing the barn door after the horse escapes. They didn't understand, and they gave each other significant looks that indicated they think I've recently arrived from Mars. I have to admit, looking at the cages, and Yazziebear in my stitching chair (I didn't evict her after all, since I had another comfortable chair) and the cat box in the corner and the big pile of stitching projects, that they're probably correct. Oh, well. It's good for business! Speaking of Mars, here's one of the light fixtures I selected for the kitchen. Very modern. Poor BF, who'd prefer traditional or country or something, isn't thrilled with it, but that's my end of the house to decorate. Given my way (I won't be), I'd decorate the whole house in mid-century modern (without the hideous green or orange fabrics) with lots of lucite and glass.

I had a little scare with Pink today: a plastic bag with a project in it slid off the pile and landed next to the cage. Pink grabbed it while I was out of the room, dragged it into the cage and chomped on the bag. Eeek--he regularly chews holes in his big towels, so he could have wiped out a whole lot of hard work. Wow--one more thing I'll have to watch with that guy.
"I'm a tortured artist in exile."

"Next stop is the garage for us, chum. You're a pink-eared idiot."

Sweet

Sue and I have been emailing about the pastel 7-oz. tins of Whitmans sampler chocolates. We can't find them. So seeing that it's my vacation and all, I have adopted the Whitman's tin quest. Sue reports that Giant and CVS don't have them (Sue lives about 75 miles from me). Sue, CVS and Giant in my area don't have them either. But! I think I'm getting warmer. I went to Rite Aid yesterday. Nothing there, although I did have to fight the urge to pick up some Peeps and some Cadbury cream eggs 75% off. But nay, nay--there's a quest to follow and no time for wallowing in a sugary haze. I may be getting warmer though. I found 12-oz Russell Stover tins at Hallmark yesterday. Are they too big? Are there projects that use those? And the little polka dotted tins--probably too small. I will note that Russell Stover and Whitmans fall under the same corporate umbrella. I'm going to check their stock and see what risk factors are mentioned in their annual report. We have a little stock-picking project in my accounting class this semester: I'm given $250K of play money to invest in whatever way I choose, and come the end of the semester when the gains and losses are figured up, I'd like to be ahead. I'm thinking John Deere since the farm sector is doing well.

The gentlemen are here to put the house back together after our unfortunate incident with the rabbit teeth and the plumbing. It's very noisy and busy, so I've retreated to my needlework haven, only to discover that somebody is already occupying my stitching chair. An eviction is going to be necessary, I think.

Sunday Sampler

I finished Karen's Neighborhood with a little bunny in the right-hand lower corner. The bunny is eating the rose border; however, I did not allow the bunny near the house, to wreak havoc.

I'm heading up to NoVa in the next couple of days to kit up this little sampler, by Sisters and Best Friends, "Cat Person." It comes with the little purple buttons and I have the fabric, but I need to get the threads. I'm looking forward to stitching this week as I hang around the house with the workmen, and I'll be pulling out some WIPs and no doubt, buying a few more at In Stitches when I go up there. I may even post a little more frequently! And cook, and maybe even clean... Today I'm headed out the door to buy the ingredients for a mushroom lasagna recipe published by the Washington Post this week. It looks complex, tasty and messy--the kind of thing I wouldn't normally do on a Sunday.

"Where's the sampler called "Rabbit Person?"

Another Brick in the Wall

I'm so pleased today! It's the first day of a one-week vacation, albeit a vacation I'm taking because the house has to be put together after the great flood of '08. And I'm trying out a new-to-me broadband service using a Sprint AirCard. It was easy to install and is a lot better and faster than what I was using. I skipped school this morning and stayed home to stitch on the Neighborhood RR. I'll be done with that tomorrow I think!
Here's Karen's block around 8 a.m.

And here it was around noon. I did some more after that, but took a break to go shopping for new light fixtures for the kitchen. Monday a.m. will see a group of people to put the house back together after Pink's little incident with the plumbing fixture: a plumber, an electrician and some flooring guys.

It is truly spring here now. The cherry trees in DC are blooming right on time for the Cherry Blossom Festival. Here's a bouquet from my yard for Bunnies' Guy and Bunny Lady at A Houseful of Rabbits in the Pacific Northwest, whose buns are seeing snow, for Carol, who woke up to a blanket of snow in New Hampshire (Carol, it's pretty, but brrrr) and for all of you who are experiencing frozen stuff and cold temperatures! Spring is on its way, I promise!

Happy Easter!

A little stitching this week:

Here are the Easter bunnies, helping to pack an Easter basket for a little girl, one of our neighbors, who likes to come over and visit the buns. Here's Pink, sampling the "grass." "Mom, this grass is awfully dry."

And here's Elvis, patting the grass into place. This morning when we deliver the basket, I'll put new paper grass in it, just in case. "My favorite jelly beans are the orange ones."

I Dreamed I was a Ship on the Ocean

It's been a stormy week, but the ship seems to be righting itself. The very worst, aside from the knowledge of how stupid and preventable our little flood was, was the equipment that was brought in to dry us out. The machines roared and the wind blew and the heat rose (the technicians measured 116 degrees in the closet) and the big dehumidifiers sucked all the spit out of your mouth almost instantly. The noise was constant and deafening; it thrummed through the floors around the clock. We fled to the other end of the house and slept there, but we could still hear it. When they pronounced us dry this morning and took away the machines, we could have wept in relief. It's spring break from school (although not from work), and I feel as if I'm on vacation now.

I celebrated with a little work on my accounting midterm in the quiet and with some stitching on Karen's neighborhood.


Our tiles will be put back in the next couple of weeks, and until then (when we have plans for an elaborate Fort-Knox-like enclosure for each of the buns), the bunnies are caged and not very happy about it.

"Let me out. I have Easter eggs to pack!"

One Small Miscalculation: Whatever Can Go Wrong

I'm home from work today, frogging this project. I went to Paris two years ago between jobs--my first-ever trip to France, and my first-ever European trip alone. It was a wonderful trip, and I did some truly inspired shopping. I skipped the lines at the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower in favor of haunting the small (and large) shops for which Paris is justly famous, and exploring far and wide by the Metro. I bought this chart, by Compagnie des Ouvrages, called Le Loup, Le Renard et Les... (essentially Aesops Fables) either at Celimene Pompon or at Le Bon Marche, Paris' grand department store which sells needlework, sewing notions and groceries along with haute couture. Why don't we still do that? When I got home I started the design immediately and got most of the way through one block (there are nine) and realized that somehow I was just one stitch off. I put it away in discouragement; the mistake was such that it screwed up the dimensions of the whole block, and I decided to frog out a large part of what I'd put in. I figured I'd get to it one of these days, and today is that day, since we have an enormous frogging project going on elsewhere in the house.

Here's a picture of a bunch of workmen frogging the tiles in the master bathroom floor. In July I took a week off and we had a number of floors redone in the house. We had ceramic tile laid in the master bath and the master closet. We were so pleased with our tile; it doesn't discolor like vinyl does over time, and water wipes up easily. Except our floor couldn't withstand one small miscalculation: Pink. The master bath toilet is in a small alcove with a separate door that I left open. Pink lives in the master bath, not caged. Although his cage with food and litter box and bedding box is in there, he's free to run around. After all, it's tile. What could he harm? At one point BF pointed out the water supply tube, running from the wall to the toilet and mentioned that he thought we should protect it from bunny teeth and I blew it off. It's PLASTIC and the bunny prefers wood, and after a half-hearted attempt to bunny-proof, I didn't bother with it. Last Monday, BF left the house during the day (normally he works from home) to visit clients, and when he got back, water was running down the wall of the kitchen, out the light fixtures and down through the ceiling. Investigating the source, he came upon the supply tube a hole in it, spurting a continuous stream of water into the bathroom. The water was rolling across the tile and disappearing between the wall and the floor. It ran beneath the bathroom floor and the master closet and on into the guest bedroom where it was partly soaked up by the (new) carpet and padding. Then it rolled on down the walls into the kitchen. It had probably been going on for a few hours.

So the nice men at Service Master came Tuesday and set up fans and driers and pulled big holes in the ceiling and wall of the kitchen. Today the insurance adjuster came and tallied up the damage. Meters established that water was trapped under the tile floors, so they had to be broken up so that the subfloor can be dried. Virginia has strict laws about water that may lead to mold. So I've been listening to the sound of breaking tile all day. Fortunately, the flooring will be fully replaced, so other than the hassle and the deductible and the knowledge that it was my own stupidity and laziness that caused this MESS, all is well. Sigh.

Here's Pink in his cage back before the deluge. See the nice tile floor? Poor Pink is pretty smart for a bunny, and he knew something was wrong. Even though his side of the bathroom was dry, he was hiding behind the toilet, standing in an inch or so of cold water when BF came home.

"If I'd known it was wrong, I wouldn't have done it."

Sleeping with My Head in the Sink

I have a job interview in Richmond this week and I decided to have my hair spruced up, trying to appear a little less loony than I am, so off I went to the hairdresser yesterday afternoon. I was tired, so while the hair dye did its magic, I sat in a comfy salon chair at the hair-washing sink, nodding off over my needlework. One of the shampooers suggested that I might like to take a nap with my head in the sink bowl and my neck propped up on a rolled-up towel. The chair and sink are angled just right so that it's more comfortable that you'd expect. My hair turned out well, and I left the salon rested--well worth the money. Before I fell asleep I worked a bit on this, so it was an altogether productive two hours:

Here's a little shot from the "pear cam." The bradford pear in front of my house is beginning to blossom. (To all of you who got snow in the last day or so, I thought this might cheer you up.) I'll show a picture of this branch from time to time over the next few weeks. The cherry trees in DC are beginning their show also; as usual, the trees around the office buildings where it's warmer are starting out first. Cherry blossom time makes me cringe: it attracts huge crowds and jams the highways, adding a half hour or more to my commute at night. The trees are pretty but just not worth it, as far as I'm concerned. There was a beaver or family of beavers one year who were doing a lot of damage to the trees. Frankly, I was pulling for the beavers, but the Park Service trapped them and carried them off to somewhere else.

Chester: "Dude! You should dye that white hair; it makes you look old!"

Peaceful Paradise--Midweek Edition

I went to the LNS this weekend, all good intentions, to buy just a few skeins of Crescent Colors to start kitting up Windy Hill by Praiseworthy Stitches. I brought along an old friend, Lemon Tree Sampler, also by Praiseworthy Stitches, and wound up kitting that up also. I'm thinking that other women have to hide their mad purchases from their significant others in giant bags in the trunk or suit bags in the closet. Not me: I can carry home my shameful over-expenditure in an unobtrusive bag tucked into a small purse. And I don't have to tell you what it cost for, oh...30 skeins of GAST, WDW and CC, do I? Tsk. All of which is pretty funny, since my purchasing weakness generally only involves needlework and running shoes, and my favorite trail runners and regular running shoes have both been discontinued, so I can't buy any of those until I sit and try a bunch on.

Anyway, having bought the floss, I started work on Lemon Tree because I loved the way the Saffron WDW (or is it GAST) looked against the brown R&R Reproductions 40 ct. The light on thse projects isn't the best because they were shot at night under the light of the Ott Moon.

And I did a little more work on Peaceful Paradise. Pretty soon it'll be back to working on letters.

"I don't know anything about lemons. I'm waiting for the dandelions to come up."

Neighborhoods

I did not have a good day at work today. People seemed to go out of their way to be unkind. I watched these guys for a while; I wouldn't want their job--I'm afraid of heights and it was about 25 degrees today and windy--but they seem to get along well, and I've never seen a brawl break out 12 floors up, although I've seen more than one inside an office. Most of these guys come from the Andes, so apparently they are accustomed to heights.

It was particularly nice to head home today:

Where I worked on Karen's Neighborhood:

And the neighbors were nice to each other.

More Peaceful Paradise

I've been a bit under the weather, so I was relieved to be able to stay home for an ice storm on Friday. I worked quite a bit on this.

Since the worst of the storm never materialized, I slipped out in the afternoon to my LNS to see the Nashville releases and found this. I love it--perfectly springy, yet unusual. And again, note the two bunnies on the hill. It's called "Windy Hill House" and is by Praiseworthy Stitches. It calls for 32 ct Tarnished Silver by Lakeside Linens and Crescent Colors threads. Fortunately, my LNS couldn't kit this up because they didn't have the right color of linen. There's a companion piece also (actually I think there are four pieces in this series) which the LNS had called "Skating Party" which is just as quirky looking. I'll have to get that one also. Check it out online--I think ABC stitch has it. It calls for a greenish Lakeside Linens piece of fabric and Sampler Threads.

Whew--saved! I'll have to put off kitting it up, which means I'll keep working on Peaceful Paradise and all the other things I've started, including, finally, Karen's neighborhood RR. I had chosed another design, but the soft pink-brick color of her fabric deserved something more complementary, so I'm using a Birds of a Feather chart called "Peace" (again the Peace theme!) which has a lot of red and black in it. I'm using Sampler Threads for it.

Still not feeling great this morning, I dragged myself off to my accounting class and slept through much of the lecture on reporting statements of cash flows. Don't know if the instructor noticed, although it's a small class. After class I came home and stitched a bit and then slept for a while this afternoon while the two little guys snored in their boxes.

Let's Dance by the Light of the Moon

Sue emailed me a copy of Attic Needlework's newsletter today which showed some new projects by Primitive Traditions. There is a wonderful chart of Nantucket, which Sue and I like a lot (since we both come from that neck of the woods), but which is $180 because it comes with a sewing chest. It's called Sarah Elliot's Sewing chest, and the price is before the stitcher's half of linen or any of the threads (which are not silk, at least). I'm disappointed because I'd buy it in a minute except for the cost of the chest, which I really don't want. I don't do needlebooks, caskets and smalls, because I prefer to have a picture to hang on the wall when I'm done. And I'm wondering why any needlework designer would choke off sales of an otherwise wonderful chart (during a recession) by offering it so expensively bundled. One possibility, I suppose, is the buzz generated by the high cost of the project. I've complained in the past of the expense of adding beads and buttons that may or may not add anything to a design! Hopefully it's temporary and she'll offer it as a chart alone and leave the option of purchasing the whole deal to those who like such things. In any case, she offers charts of other subjects, also beautifully designed. Here's one of them that I'll definitely buy (picture borrowed from Attic Needlework). It's called "Let's Dance by the Light of the Moon" and it's charted for 40 ct Lakeside linen.

This was a particularly appealing and timely chart (and I note that it has a pair of bunnies on the lawn), considering I ran around last night shooting pictures of my house and neighborhood by the light of a very bright moon. A brief snowstorm had just blown itself out, and a startlingly bright moon and stars appeared. I didn't discover until today that I missed getting pictures of a lunar eclipse by about an hour!

Peaceful Paradise

I decided after this picture was taken that the empty eyes on the angels looked a little creepy, so I filled them in.

It's been a sleepy weekend for some reason. We went to Richmond yesterday to eat a belated Valentine's dinner at our favorite French restaurant. I walked down to the Yarn Lounge and checked out the yarns and patterns, but I was too tired to really investigate anything. Too tired to shop for yarn! Dinner was tasty but seemed to take forever, and I pulled over on the way home and turned the wheel over to BF because I was worried about falling asleep as I drove. Maybe it's the weather. I was sleepy again today and stole a little nap instead of going down to investigate the new charts from the Nashville show.

Elvis napped also in his little sleep box--doesn't he look cozy? He sleeps on the carpet when it's a little nap, but he beds down in the box when he wants to sleep a few hours.

Pink's Meme

My name is Pink, and I've borrowed this meme from Rabbits' Guy:1. Favorite songs:
Every morning the clock radio goes off and it's playing country, so we hear Kenny Chesney's "Don't Blink" which makes mom teary-eyed. It's about how fast 100 years can pass in a human life. Huhn. Think how fast 10 years goes in a rabbit's life! To her, it's a sad song; to me, it's breakfast time! We also like Southern Rock (Lynard Skynard and the Allman Bros.) and classical violin and bluegrass fiddle ('cause Mom plays the fiddle when she's not fiddling with her needlework) and stuff from the 70s.
2. Favorite toys:
Anything when it's brand new for about 2 minutes. I like pinecones a lot and chew them down to a nub. Also the woodwork. What? It isn't mine?
3. Favorite Food:
Timothy hay and brome grass and meadow mix, and crunchy rabbit junk food and my greens and sometimes a bit of orange.
4. Favorite activities:
Decorating. Undecorating. Redecorating. Sorting through Mom's magazines and peeing on them. Right now I'm taking aim on a form 1040. Then I rip out all the pages. Rrrrrrip. My favorite sound. Also the thing with the woodwork. And squeezing under the dresser like Houdini and peeing there!

5. Bad Habits: All the things in #4. Someday I'm going to be the president and CEO of this company:

A Long and Winding Road

It's been a wearying week already. My bus, which picks me up two blocks from the White House, sat still for over an hour Monday night as firemen and police scurried to and fro, shutting streets down. Why? Who knows? Maybe someone left a lunch bag on the sidewalk. And in the waning days of this administration, there seem to be more frequent motorcades than ever before, all of which seem to occur during rush hour (are they taking someone home every day or are they going out to get pizza?) which shuts down the streets and intersections and screws up traffic. Grrr. I'm not political--too many years of living in the government's armpit have convinced me that they're all a scary piece of work out for themselves, regardless of party, but I can say that the WH is not a very good neighbor.

Then last night we had freezing rain and it took five hours to get home. There were a fascinating number of accidents and people turned every which way on the highway. Thank goodness for having a bathroom on our commuter bus, although I'll grouchily point out that there wasn't enough light to stitch or read by. I've got to remember the clip-on light. It makes the q-snap awfully heavy, though. Then there was the dubious pleasure of chipping/shaving/hammering the coating of ice on the car in the commuter lot and then picking my way home oh-so-carefully. Normally we can't complain about the weather here--Saturday was shirtsleeve weather--but every now and then we get an unpleasant tidbit of what the rest of the country endures. Here's kind of what it looked like, only with lots more cars (I could stitch a whole bunch of red tail lights around that cabin, and it'd look about right).


This is a tiny design by Funk & Weber Designs that I picked at the Scarlet Thread on Saturday. It calls for DMC floss (3 colors) on black 32 count Zweigart.

Since I felt thoroughly growly and the roads were still icy this a.m. and I have a lot of leave built up, I took today off. I worked on this. I finished the Rabbits! block and started in on April's Taxes! block. And I worked on Peaceful Paradise some as well--pictures later this week. I highly recommend PP for anyone wanting a really pretty stitch--the chart picture doesn't do it justice.

Elvis Goes to Vienna and Attends the School of Rock

We discovered that little Elvis has a case of worms, which is not that common in rabbits and turns out is fairly harmless. Vets treat the pinworms because of the grossness factor for the humans in the house. So Elvis and I headed yesterday for Vienna, which has an exotic vet called Stahl Exotic Animal Veterinary Services. SEAVS comes highly recommended in this area, although there are several good exotic vets in Northern Virginia. Yesterday's visit was a lot of fun; it's always entertaining to sit in the waiting room of a place that just treats birds and reptiles and little mammals and see what kind of pets come through the door. There was a guinea pig hanging out in a Rubbermaid tub, a large lizard, a pet rat in a little rat-sized carrier and a pair of brown bunnies. My sister was waiting with her dog at her veterinarian, who also has an exotic practice, and reported that a guinea pig or hamster came in in a Barbie Dream House carrier. I was excited about buying a Barbie Dream House carrier for Elvis, but my sister said that it was an actual Barbie Dream House.
Anyway, Elvis is embarrassed about his wormy butt condition and has asked me to tell you that he was actually taking a class (drumming) at the School of Rock Music next door to the vet. You're right, Rabbits' Guy, rock stars get on postage stamps, not samplers. And they DON'T ride in Barbie Dream House carriers!

I hadn't been to Vienna for years, but I remembered hearing that it has a needlework shop called the Scarlet Thread, so after the vet visit, I drove the half mile (all my appointments should be so convenient to a needlework shop) and parked the car with Elvis in it, since the day was a balmy 60 degrees and with a slightly open window, the car was a perfect temp. for a sleeping bunny (being a rock star clearly wore him out). For those of you in NoVa, Scarlet Thread is across the street from the Outback Steakhouse on Maple Avenue, and it's worth a visit. My pictures didn't come out very well, unfortunately. ST has a great collection of unusual samplers that you don't see everywhere; there are German and French samplers, and a small collection of Canadian samplers I hadn't seen before. There are a lot of samplers that feature stitches other than cross stitch, and some crewel kits. They have a gorgeous and easily accessible selection of fibers.
I got "Crabby April thru June" which came with the buttons, by Raise the Roof. I'm planning on stitching the whole design, which is a hoot. I especially like that the May rabbit picture comes with two little round buttons that look like bunny pellets!

I'm stitching on an unknown piece of 32 ct linen that I had in my stash, using DMC floss. It's a pretty quick stitch; if you were ambitious, you could probably stitch one month in a day. Here's my progress after starting this morning (the May/Rabbits block happened to be the center of the design whether you're stitching all 12 months or just this strip). I haven't stitched his whiskers yet because they're a long straight stitch and I didn't want to damage them with the Q snap as I moved around the design.

Hopping Along

I've done some stitching on Spring Sampler this week. I'm not sure about the pink eyes on the rabbit. We'll see; I can frog them out. Or I'll ask Pink what he thinks. This photo doesn't show the prettiness of the blue linen.

"How come Pink gets on a sampler and I don't?"

I bought a few samplers on ebay this week; this one is by Green Apple Co. and is called "Beatrix Potter Christmas Tree." I don't remember my Beatrix Potter well, so I'm not sure what the big blob of a critter is under the tree. I'll have to research that. I love Beatrix Potter's animals, and I read somewhere that she loved animals so much that she was constantly smuggling rabbits, mice and hedgehogs into the house. I won't kit this up anytime soon; I typically don't stitch Christmas designs much before Thanksgiving, which gives a bit of a narrow window, although I may make an exception for a couple of the designs I've already started and which I really like.

Spring Sampler

Today I visited Everything Cross Stitch in Fredericksburg (hi, Celeste!), which was having a 20% Super Bowl Sale, and I kitted up Waxing Moon Designs' Spring Sampler with 32 ct blue (can't remember which shade) Lakeside linen and WDW fibers. I had a little time tonight, so I started it. The groundhog saw his shadow Saturday, so we have six more weeks of winter, and it'd be nice to have a nice spring sampler to hang at the end of it.

Pink says, "Hurry up and stitch the white bunny on the sampler and give him a pink nose instead of a brown one!"

Peaceful Paradise

I managed to stitch a bit on Peaceful Paradise this week, but I was pretty busy, so I didn't get far. For those of you in N. VA, In Stitches is having its Superbowl Sale tomorrow (Sunday) from 12:30, although they're not saying exactly what they're discounting, and how much it is. A mystery! I haven't decided if I'm going to go, especially since I mostly need fibers, and they sell out of those quickly, so I may just hang out here and stitch.

I've changed the cat in Peaceful Paradise to look like our old sweet tabby, Martha, who is in kitty heaven, and I've added the black bunny (Bunnyman). There's no bunny in this chart, but there are a lot of other animals, including dogs chasing each other, and lots of sheep.