Incoherent Scribblings

My goals were a little thin last month and I imagine they will stay that way until I get settled into my new life, but here is the monthly goal post nonetheless.

So, for August I hoped to:

1. Mail my Monochromatic Exchange (Post date August 15). – Yes!
2. If fabric arrives, start “Kitty Cat Row.”- No, still no fabric.
3. Continue working through my rotation. – Yes!
4. If time allows, stitch (and finish) a “small.” – Yes!

For September, I plan to:

1. Get moved and start my new job.
2. Continue working through my rotation.
3. Participate in the September SAT.
4. If fabric arrives, start “Kitty Cat Row.”

August has been a very busy month for me, so in addition to not blogging a whole lot, I didn’t stitch a whole lot either! However as it was next up in my rotation, I recently worked on “Four Seasons Cats.”

As you may remember, it was my original plan to stitch each cat during its respective season. Earlier this summer I completed the border for the summer cat, but when this piece came back around in my rotation last week I didn’t want to work on the summer cat. Instead, I wanted to finish the borders so that eventually I can work on any cat I choose.

Since I am starting to get in the mood for autumn, for this round of my rotation I decided to stitch the border for the fall cat. I have to admit that I was concerned that the oranges of the pumpkins might be too bright when I pulled them out of the bobbin box, but stitched together they turned out quite nicely.

8.5 hours (or 11.5 if you count the 3 hours of frogging I had to do when I was ¾ of the way done with the border and realized it was off two stitches) later and the fall cat border is done. Next up in the rotation… “Poet’s Heart.”

On Wednesday, I finally got the call I have been waiting for: The one that offered me a job as a librarian.

In keeping with the semi-anonymity of this blog, I am leaving the details deliberately vague, but this much I can say: Around September 15, (specific start date details are still being worked out) I will be moving to west Texas to take a position as Education Coordination Librarian at a small university. For those of you with a library background, the title means my main duties will be reference, instruction, and outreach. For those of you without, it means that I will be doing a little bit of everything in the public services area of the library.

I am really looking forward to beginning this position and have already begun thinking about goals and objectives in a rather abstract way, but as you can imagine, for now the focus is on getting all the paperwork done and moving.

I actually don’t know what else to say right now as I think the whole situation is still sort of sinking in, but one thing I can say for sure: I am extremely excited and can’t wait to get started!

Well, I am finally finished with my last exchange. I saw that Terri received her package from me and I finally remembered to take a pic of the lovely heart-shaped ornament that I received from Karin.

For Terri, I stitched a Quaker-esque design in redwork from one of the stitching magazines that I got at that yard sale a couple of months ago and finished it into a diamond-shaped ornament. (I forgot to photograph the back of the ornie, but Terri has a pretty good picture of both sides on her blog.) I also included some floss for Terri and a postcard. I hope you enjoy your exchange Terri. I sure enjoyed stitching it for you.

I haven’t been doing much stitching over the past few days because I have been focused on reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I could have probably finished the book in on sitting, but I decided to try and take my time and enjoy the book… which I almost managed. I only read a few chapters at a time for a few days, but then last night I only had about 350 pages left and since it was getting good, I just couldn’t put it down anymore.

And WOW! what a ride!

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, but realized that I really need to go back and read books five and six. Though I have read the first four books three or four times a piece, I have only read five and six once and though I remembered the main plot points, there are so many details that I had obviously forgotten.

Overall, I would have to say that I am pretty pleased with the way everything came together and wrapped up at the end. There were definitely a few twists, but at the same time, I was pleased to find that some of the suspicions I had concerning a few of the characters were true.

Yep, two thumbs up for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!

I finished my 10-hour rotation on Flo just in time for the August SAT so I permitted myself to start something small for the SAT that I could hopefully finish by the end of the weekend.

Given my recent feline-family addition, it seemed like a perfect time to stitch Brittercup Designs Lil’ Britties “Kitty Litter,” so that is what I finally chose. This chart has been in my stash and on my to-be-stitched list for quite a while now but I hadn’t stitched it mainly because I was lacking the charms it called for. However, I unexpectedly received some cat charms in an exchange a while ago and though they weren’t exactly the ones called for, I thought they would work.

I also sort of wanted to stitch the design with the overdyes it calls for, but given its size I refused to buy overdyes specifically for it. As I have mentioned before, I like overdyed floss, but with small designs such as this one I don’t really see much benefit in choosing overdyes as opposed to DMC. For that reason, I looked through my ever-growing collection of WDW and GAST to see if perhaps I had the necessary floss, but since I still didn’t have all the overdyes that it needed I decided to go ahead and stitch it using plain old DMC instead.

Once I finished with the stitching I found that I had a small problem though: The cat charms I had didn’t work on the design after all.

Nevertheless, I finished the stitching on “Kitty Litter” early Monday morning and was very glad that I chose such a goal for the SAT: I didn’t get as much stitching time in this weekend as I wanted so I just barely met my goal. However, this month’s SAT was a success… even if I do still need to find some cat buttons/charms and finish it into something cute like a pinkeep or cube!