Incoherent Scribblings

Yep, this weekend is our monthly stitch-a-thon over at the Robin’s Nest and I have already completed my first goal for it! I finished Christine’s round robin last night!

This was my first monochromatic design and I really enjoyed working on it. I especially liked the fact that I didn’t have to concentrate on a bunch of color changes and I could really focus on the design. I will now pack it up and send it back to Christine in Canada sometime next week.

For the second part of the SAT and as part of the Robin’s Nest first SAL, later today I am going to start the “Baby’s 1st Christmas” ornament that I am planning on stitching for my nephew/sister. Mom thinks I should finish it before Christmas so that it can be hung on the tree, but since I was originally planning on giving it to her for Christmas I am facing a dilemma. Should I give it to her before or on? For those of you who have stitched a baby’s 1st Christmas ornie for someone, what did you do?

And lastly, in other stitching-related news, I am getting some stash! I ordered some things (Just Nan’s “Catnip Tea,” the Victoria Sampler’s “Hearts of America - Iowa,” and some Piecemakers) from Stitching Bits and Bobs and got the message yesterday that my things have been shipped. I will definitely be stalking the postman now!
However, I have to ask the readers of this blog who order from SBB if 6 weeks is the normal shipping time for them. I actually ordered these things on October 2, emailed them concerning the status of my order on October 22, and only yesterday did they email with the confirmation that they shipped my stuff. It seems to me that it took a lot longer to get this stuff out to me (none of it was back ordered) than it should have and I have to say that I was kind of disappointed with their service and lack of communication.

And now I am off to kit up “Baby’s 1st Christmas!” Have a good one!

It’s getting to be that time of year again! Normally I don’t start thinking much about Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but since my mom’s neighbors have seen fit to not only hang, but turn on their Christmas lights, I have decided to ask an SBQ that’s been in the queue for a while now…

Do you stitch Christmas ornaments? If so, how many do you stitch each year and for whom? If not, why not?

Up until this year, I did not stitch Christmas ornaments. I didn’t stitch them because I hadn’t really celebrated Christmas in over five years.

However, in order to begin work on #77 of my 101 Things List and because for the first time in many years I am in the Christmas spirit (I think it has a lot to do with my niece and nephew), this year I will be stitching at least one Christmas ornament.

I have been a busy little stitching bee lately. I still don’t always have a chance to stitch every day, but I have been stitching a lot more than I was.

As you may remember, I decided to free myself from my daily rotation for now. I am sort of working on an ordered, screaming, weekly rotation. This means I am devoting approximately a week to each piece in my rotation and I can work on any piece that is screaming at me as long as it hasn’t been worked on during this round of my rotation. As of today, the only piece in my rotation that hasn’t been worked on since I came back to the States is “Above the Clouds.”

For the past week or so, I have been working on “Celtic Spring.” When I looked at my records, it appears that I have not worked on this piece since about June. As you can well imagine, Mae was sorely in need of some attention! I have made quite a bit of progress on her skirt and may stay with this piece for a while longer since I am enjoying it so much.

I have also been working on Christine’s RR piece. We are doing monochromatic seasonal hearts. My season is Autumn and my color is 3045. I have been working on this piece while I am at work and though I keep forgetting to take a progress pic, I am probably close to 2/3 of the way done. Our post date isn’t until December 15, but I want to get it done and back to Christine sooner if possible.

However, after today’s shift at work I will put the RR aside and designate my Stocking Stuffer Exchange project as my work project. Starting Sunday/Monday I have to work three graveyard shifts in a row, so I think I can get it stitched up while I listen for the radio.

And finally I can reveal the scissor fob I stitched for Mylene over at the Robin’s Nest. The pattern is from the Prairie Schooler pattern called “Pins and Needles” and is model stitched as a scissor case. The pattern shows both motifs on one piece, but I modified the pattern into a scissor fob by stitching the needle/thread and the saying separately and then putting them together with a whipped backstitch.

3777 and 924(?) were the main colors in the design, so I also used them to make the cording. This was only the second or third time I have made cording and it took me a little while to get the hang of it because I haven’t fiddled around with that stuff since last summer. All in all, I think that the cording and the fob turned out really well. I hope Mylene enjoys it.

And now… I am off to stitch!

This week’s SBQ was suggested by Jan and is:

How many different brands of “complete” embroidery floss sets do you own? How do you keep track of it? (i.e., spread sheet program, index cards, palm pilot, etc.)

I have a complete set of DMC and an almost complete set of Anchor. When I was living in Germany, the first floss that I came across was Anchor and by the time I found a place that sold DMC I had almost completed the set.

While I was collecting DMC I printed out the cheat sheet check list that had all the colors listed. As I collected a color I tried to check it off, but I forgot some and as a result I have quite a bit of “extra” DMC.

Up until now I haven’t kept track of how much I had of a particular color because I only had one skein! However, I have definitely been trying to think of a way to organize my extra floss (I am leaning towards Floss-Away Bags and a spread sheet) so that when I go to an LNS I can buy wisely instead of haphazardly.

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Stitching Note:

I have been working on “Celtic Spring” this past week and will have a progress picture to share very soon! Stay tuned…

My mom, sister, and aunt all live within about four blocks of one another, so naturally when our little entourage went trick-or-treating the other night, we stayed within this four block radius of family and friends.

About a block from my sister’s house, a long-haired ginger tabby started following us. Neither my sister or niece were familiar with the cat, but he was still with our little party by the time we got to my mom’s. Since I am particularly uncomfortable seeing kitties out and about on Halloween no matter what their color, I asked Mom to sequester him in her basement for his own good.

The next morning, we released him in the hope that he would find his way home, but to be perfectly honest, we didn’t really expect him to leave or find his way home. Since my sister was not familiar with him as a “neighborhood” cat, we figured someone had dropped him off and, given the fact that we suspect there is an invisible sign on my mom’s house that says “Stray cats welcome here,” well, let’s just say I started thinking of names for the new cat.

Later that afternoon I was disturbed by the sound of barking dogs. I peeked out the window and was greeted by the sight of three unfamiliar Dachshunds in our driveway. They were barking their heads off and chasing the orange tabby. I went outside to chase the dogs away, but two of them had gone under the porch, trapping the cat there. The third one ran up to me and as I knelt down, jumped in my lap and started licking me like I was his owner.

Normally, I am not in any way, shape, or form a “dog” person. Dogs have bad breath, they jump too much, and you have to walk them. But he was still a puppy and wanted to be my friend so badly that, just for a second, I thought maybe, just maybe I could be a dog person.

I secretly called him Shadow because he followed me around the yard like a little shadow. He wasn’t interested in the cat and when I finally chased his co-conspirators out from under the porch he had a tough time trying to decide who to be loyal to. Eventually Shadow chose to follow his canine family and the group went off to the park that is across the street from Mom’s house.

While I was trying to coax the cat out from under the porch I wondered if I could ever really be a dog person. However, when I saw a blur of orange shoot out from under the porch with a poofed out tail, I was an unwavering cat person and more than a little disgusted at the behavior of the dogs.

Then I heard a group girls in the park. The girls squealed and even from the distance I could tell that at least one of the three Dachshunds had charmed them. The next thing I knew, one girl picked up a squirming puppy and trotted happily away. I suspected that “Shadow” didn’t belong to her anymore than he did to me, but the crazy cat lady in me was cheering that the dog was no longer my problem.

I will admit that the disappointment my inner child felt upon realizing that I had almost gotten a new puppy that day was something I hadn’t counted on though.