Some mailings

I received word from one of my PIF recipients that she received her package. Yay! So it wasn’t in a year, but I got it mostly done. Why mostly? Because I have one piece left that I can’t figure out how to finish. I had it all stitched up and realized the sizing was WAYYYYYYYYY off. I may have to just start again.

Anyways - on to the one that was received. Annette tells me she got her piece, so let me share:

This little fairy was so cute I had to stitch her. I thought this fit Annette the best. I finished her into a small needlecushion.

I also got a message from Jenna, telling me she finally received her round robin dragon. I definately should not be doing these types of things - getting my butt to a post office seems to be a huge challenge. Ah, well. At least she got the piece safely. I realized I never showed off the finished piece. And that would be because I forgot to take a photo of it. Oops. Well, it was the winter dragon, as I am sure you have all seen from the other RR  member’s blogs.

I am afraid I won’t be around much this upcoming week. I am working late hours this week, and will post when I can.

 

 

Happy Mother’s Day

I got this e-mail from my mom last month, and it seemed appropriate to share today.

Happy Mother’s Day!

—xxx—

Someday when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a parent, I will tell them, as my Mean Mom told me: I loved you enough . . . to ask where you were going, with whom, and what time you would be home.

I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover that your new best friend was a creep.

I loved you enough to stand over you for two hours while you cleaned your room, a job that should have taken 15 minutes.

I loved you enough to let you see anger, disappointment, and tears in my eyes. Children must learn that their parents aren’t perfect.

I loved you enough to let you assume the responsibility for your actions even when the penalties were so harsh they almost broke my heart.

But most of all, I loved you enough . . . to say NO when I knew you would hate me for it.

Those were the most difficult battles of all. I’m glad I won them, because in the end you won, too. And someday when your children are old enough to understand the  logic that motivates parents, you will tell them.

Was your Mom mean? I know mine was. We had the meanest mother in the whole world! While other kids ate candy for breakfast, we had to have cereal, eggs, and toast.

When others had a Pepsi and a Twinkie for lunch, we had to eat sandwiches.

And you can guess our mother fixed us a dinner that was different from what other kids had, too.

Mother insisted on knowing where we were at all times. You’d think we were convicts in a prison. She had to know who our friends were, and what we were doing with them. She insisted that if we said we would be gone for an hour, we would be gone for an hour or less.

We were ashamed to admit it, but she had the nerve to break the Child Labour Laws by making us work.

We had to wash the dishes, make the beds, learn to cook, vacuum the floor, do laundry, empty the trash and all sorts of cruel jobs. I think she would lie awake at night thinking of more things for us to do.

She always insisted on us telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By the time we were teenagers, she could read our minds and had eyes in the back of her head. Then, life was really tough!

Mother wouldn’t let our friends just honk the horn when they drove up. They had to come up to the door so she could meet them. While everyone else could date when they were 12 or 13, we had to wait until we were 16.

Because of our mother, we missed out on lots of things other kids experienced. None of us have ever been caught shoplifting, vandalizing other’s property or ever arrested for any crime. It was all her fault.

Now that we have left home, we are all educated, honest adults.

We are doing our best to be mean parents just like Mom  was.

I think that is what’s wrong with the world today. It just doesn’t have enough mean moms!

5 Ws of Stitching

I stole this from Jenna.

Who taught you to stitch, and were there any special circumstances or memories surrounding this?
It was a while ago, but I learned from my mother the basics, then some tips from my grandmother (mostly the keeping neat backs and finishing ends). I have learned a TONNE from other stitching friends as I got older, and OODLES from the blogs I read.

What’s your favorite thing to stitch? (A project, a kind of stitching, etc.)
Obviously you know I love my fairies and dragons. But I love projects that have some different stitches thrown in for changes of texture. I love work with vibrant colours. While I don’t like the look of band samplers, I do like the stitches involved. If I liked the look more I would probably stitch them more often. Go figure. 

Why do you stitch?
It relaxes me. That and I am a hands on art person. I love seeing the piece come together. I enjoy looking at colours and thinking, what was that designer thinking, putting a green and a purple together in a face, and seeing it work.

When is your special stitching time?
When I can. Usually when I have a moment to sit in front of the tv and relax.

Where is your special stitching place? (An accompanying picture would be great!)

 

Voila. My comfy chair, my current project beside me, along with my flosses, ort can, green bag o’supplies. The only thing missing is a back light, which I really need. I find myself moving over to the couch (which has a lamp beside it) at night when I stitch because the overhead light is not enough.

We have recently moved things around here at home and I have an office/crafty storage nook. Once I have that all finished with, I will be sharing that area with you.

Distractions and SBQ

I found myself home early from work today, with the girls and Scott out and about. So I thought after busying myself with dishes that I would bake some cookies.

Don’t they look tasty? Even to me - and I have a strong dislike for peanut butter.

Of course you all know this is just me distracting myself from frogging Isis. Have no fear, she is almost done, but it is a long and tedius process.

On to the SBQ for this week, suggested by Jennifer :

Do you have any pieces that you would liked passed on to future generations as family heirlooms?

My answer is pretty much the same as Renee’s answer - I would love for my BAPs to be heirlooms, simply to have someone else appreciate the work put into them.

That is it for today. Have a good weekend!

I hate to admit it

I am going to have to frog Isis. I know the error isn’t visible to non-stitchers (most notably my sister, Kathleen), but it is visible to me and it will drive me crazy. And it won’t do the piece justice to have the glaring error.

So the irony here is that it is Isis being reborn. Heh. I will post a progress photo when I start stitching (rather than frogging) again.

Now where did I put that piano?

You know, the one to bang my head against?

I have been sitting this morning, spending some quality time with Egyptian Sampler. Here is a progress photo to distract you for a moment.

Pretty, huh? I think so. But I stopped when I noticed a glaring error. Isis is one stitch too high. A close up here shows how I discovered it - her crown hits the border. And the error was made on her right shoulder:

So now I am at a cross roads. Do I frog her out and fix the error or try to work around it? The perfectionist and the phlegmatic are at odds here. What do you think?

Clash of the Titans

This is how Kimber and I finished our game this evening. I won, barely. Ok, so we aren’t exactly chess giants; in fact neither one of us is very good. But it won’t be long before Kimber really starts kicking my butt.

(The black king was missing from our pieces, a brown queen was substituted, just in case you were wondering)

Blended Threads

This week’s SBQ was suggested by … me… and is:

How do you handle blended threads? Do you kit the blends up before you start a piece, or do you grab what colors you need and blend when the need arises? If you kit up the blends beforehand, how do you store them? Do you have another option for blends to share?

I asked this question because of this:

This is the bottom of my ES piece. I blend as I go, but sometimes I have full lengths of blends for small amounts of stitches. The lengths are already there and being a floss miser, I don’t want to get rid of them, so the get tacked on with the symbol at the bottom of my fabric.

The only trouble with this is that they get in the way, or worse, tangled up. I try to keep it as tidy as possible, but sometimes it just happens.

I have considered carding my floss, but what if my measurements are off? And I have so many projects on the go at one time that all use the same types of colours (especially the Teresa Wentzler pieces - 420 anyone?), that I don’t really want separate kits for each piece.

Hence my question. It isn’t a huge problem, but rather more of an annoyance, really.

And I’m sorry, no new updates to ES since the last photo. My needle has been dormant, I am afraid. Let’s blame a busy work schedule!

Egyptian Sampler Update

Well it’s not a fantastic amount of work, but then we spent our weekend visiting friends and family and not much stitching got done.

The border is relaxing and fun to do. I love seeing this peice come together. Hopefully by the end of this week I will have a more significant update. Have a great Monday, everyone!

Scattergories Meme

My sister e-mailed this to me and I thought it would be fun to pass it on here. Feel free to join in, if you wish.

SCATTERGORIES…it’s harder than it looks! 
 
*Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following…
*they have to be real places, names, things…nothing made up! 
 
 1. What is your name? Christine
 2. 4 letter word: Cats
 3.  Vehicle:  Chevrolet
 4.  City: Chicago
 5. Boy Name: Carey
 6. Girl Name: Colleen
 7. Alcoholic drink:  Cosmopolitan
 8. Occupation: Call Center agent
 9. Something you wear:  Clothes
10. Celebrity:  Celine Dion
11. Food:  Cherry
12. Something found in a bathroom: Cleanser
13. Cartoon character:   Charlie Brown
14. Reason for Being Late: Clock stopped
15. Something you shout: Careful!
16. Animal:  Cow
17. Body part:  Cheeks
18. Word to describe you:   Cheery