April

How is your April going so far? 

I'm happy that the snow is almost gone here. (Or actually might already be gone. It's been raining all day and it's possible that finished off the last of the snow, if I bothered to get up and go look.) I hope it's awhile before we have another winter as snowy and dismal as this last one has been. :(

It wasn't a good winter for our bees either, as one of our hives died off. They almost made it but it was just too cold for them in the end. (He thinks they starved to death huddling in one area to stay warm because the other part of the hive was loaded with honey still.) The other hive is still active...for the moment. *crosses fingers* 

It's always a crapshoot if they are going to make it through the winter here so a 50% die off isn't all bad. Could be 100%, right? Replacing a whole hive is quite expensive. Buying live bees isn't cheap!

(I don't know where I got that Oprah gif, it's been so long, but it cracks me up EVERY SINGLE TIME.)

I stay focused last month and, GASP!, actually did manage to 'finish finish' everything I've stitched so far this year. It's a Christmas miracle come early, I tell you! :)

 

Gosh, I love this little L*K pattern! I changed his eyes from black to blue though because I think I like my leprechaun better that way. :)

These are from two different L*K patterns: Flora McSamples 2014 stocking booklet and a Merry Bright booklet. I only did the ones I really liked and I took the top border from another stocking to use on the cardinal one in place of the one charted. 

This was my first time in gluing the cording around the edge. I usually sew it on but, man, is that tedious trying to do it in a non-obvious way when using a two color cording. I think the glue worked out pretty good though. These little buggers are a lot of work to finish! You have to interface them, sew them, make the cording by hand, sew/glue the cording on, iron at every step to keep them nice, etc. It's no wonder I put finishing off for so long. lol

Backing fabrics.

Surprisingly, all of them are right side out. (I usually manage to sew ONE wrong.)

A L*K kit. Not my favorite because I TOTALLY did not pay attention to the size of this before I purchased it and it's quite.....large. Like box of Kleenex large. My bad. I shouldn't have assumed it was small. /shrug

This one came with the lovely seasonal fabric/jingle bells. I'm not sure I LOVE the jingles on the bottom though. I followed the sample but I might take those off come Christmas when I put this out.

What company is this? Crap. I think it's Waxing Moon Designs. Quick little chart, just begging to be cube-ified with that square design. :)

This was the companion piece to the Bacon pillow I did for Valentine's Day. There are four patterns in this L*K Bacon Bits booklet but two bacon themed pieces are enough for me. :)

(I love how quickly these little patterns go but at some point I really need to get back to the two large pieces I have going already. One of them is a nice Plum Street Sampler piece that only needs a border!)

I'd like to say all this stitching is paring down my stash a bit but...........sometimes a little Nashville market shopping happens, eh? I WANTED to buy at least four times this much so I consider it a victory I *only* got four things. :)

Booooo?

Poor neglected Blogger. :(

I  have been really sick lately though. *cough*hack*cough*

Though I feel MORE bad for the husband than for me. Poor guy. Ended up spending our 22nd anniversary in the hospital - for me. (Where no food was served. Worst anniversary dinner ever. lol)

It wasn't all bad that day though because, in addition to some other things, he gave me a trio of worry warts as a gifts:

Photo credit to Blobhouse because, really, I can't promote her stuff any better than this. It's PERFECT.

How prophetic! Ha! We had laughed and laughed over Blobhouse's whole Etsy shop a while back but especially the worry warts. Those faces SLAY me. (I love EVERYTHING in that shop though. Seriously.) But I hadn't forgotten about them since then so I really did love being surprised with my own warts. 

And then the day after the hospital (which came with some new meds and more doctor appointments to line up) I started to come down with a vicious head cold that, two weeks later, I'm still dealing with. Duh, right? OF COURSE ALL THE SICK PEOPLE ARE AT THE HOSPITAL. IT'S PAR FOR THE COURSE YOU WILL CATCH THE PLAGUE THERE. Cue even MORE ferrying about to doctor appointments and more testing and it's all so MUCH FUN, I can't even. (Nothing definitive yet but beta blockers seem to be helping even without knowing the cause of my heart issues and I have some nifty tranquilizers that scare the crap out me that could be helpful but, honestly, I'm too scared of them to take them.) 

Oh hey, did I mention he was on vacation this whole time too??? I brought down our anniversary AND his vacation. Go me? Heh.

In between me snotting and coughing (and being passed out from sipping from a Nyquil bottle 24/7 because it's the only thing that WORKS now that the meth-heads have stolen the good cold medicine from us) we did manage to get out a couple times though. Once to New London to see an art installation at an American art museum on Louis Tiffany. No pics (see: sick) but it was definitely worth the trip. (This state has more bloody "New" cities than it can shake a stick at though. I think it was New London? Hell, it could have been New Britain. I WAS SICK. AND NOT PAYING ATTENTION. Also, there are a million city and towns here that start with 'New'. lol)

But the real prize was a trip to.....

The Bronx Zoo.

YOU CAN JUST DRIVE THERE? It never occurred to me before but.......YOU TOTALLY CAN.

The impetus for this was an ad I saw in the paper here for a bus trip back in July. That date didn't work for me but it got me thinking....YOU CAN DRIVE THERE FROM HERE. So we did. 

2 1/2 hours down and pretty much traffic free - no complaints at all!

(We will not talk about the drive back because the 95 once you get BACK into Connecticut is the most miserable stretch of epically awful traffic every_single_time_we_do_it_no_matter_the_time_of_day and GAH! Why is it so bad? It's like a 25 mile stretch of HELL. It's literally like falling into a wormhole and coming out into HELL. EVERY SINGLE TIME. Man, I am *so* glad I don't live anywhere near that end of the state.)

Anyhoo - BRONX ZOO. YAY. Totally a bucket list thing for me. It's one of the world's biggest zoos, in operation since 1899 with some of the original buildings from wayyyy back still in use. (The architecture alone is beautiful.) If you love zoos, how could you not want to go? 

Verdict? It was awesome. And big. So so so so so big. We used up every last minute of the 7 hours the zoo is open to see everything. And we had to HUSTLE at the end, I tell you. For real. You can not overstate how big this zoo this. (My Fitbit recorded us walking SEVEN MILES while we were there. No joke!)

The favorite was the lowland gorillas. They have a really BIG enclosure that wraps around and around (and even over you) but a lot of them like to spend their time up right against the glass. I've seen gorillas before but never so close and at eye level. You could literally sit right NEXT to them, with just a slip of glass between you. Even hold your hand up against their hand, if you want. (And they do interact with you at times.) They stare at you AND through at the same time. It's uncomfortable, to be honest, and makes you think about a lot of.......stuff. (Also? Very humbling.) I would go back just for this. 

Worth the trip if you can make it. :)

I felt pretty good while we were there, magically (?), and then my face blew up on the drive home for some reason and I was a drippy, swollen, cherry red eyed sad sack of a mess by the time we got home. I have no idea why it waited until we were finished with the zoo part of the day but I was so thankful it held off like that. WHEW.

Wish we could have gotten out more but........you know. Stuff happens. 

Also good that week:

HONEY HONEY HONEY HONEY. 

HONEY WAS HARVESTED.

This year's stuff is the darker colored honey. What a difference from last year, huh??

Funny how that works out. 

Now have almost 65 bottles of new honey so this year was a success. THANK YOU.

Kind of nice after both hives collapsing last year. 

Fingers crossed they live through the winter now! :)

More stitchy stuff to update now that *light cough* I'm starting to feel better but I'll save it for a post of it's own. :)

Bees.

 We have bees again!

Wait - did I even make it known we had no bees? Probably not?

Well, we didn't. Not since early winter (November?). Last year's hives weren't super healthy heading into fall and then they collapsed and disappeared into the wind. *poof* 

It happens. Like, a lot. 

On the plus side though, the husband got the remaining honey out of there before it was robbed by other bees so we got double the honey we would have had. (Fall harvest + all of the honey he had originally left for them to winter on.) And it's some of the best tasting honey ever. I was going through a little jar a week for awhile and then my pants stopped fitting well so I, uhhhh, had to stop eating honey. lol

On the boo-boo side, buying two more boxes of bees is $$$ and they aren't giving off particularly 'robust' signs so far. Grrr. Hopefully they take though. *fingers crossed* 

The husband's birthday was last week and I made him a sign to put by his hives.

I think it came out pretty good seeing as 1) I'm no great shakes at painting and 2) it looked like ass right up til the very end. I just kept putting more layers until I got something that wasn't embarrassing. I thought for sure it was going to end up buried in the trash at some point. lol

So there was a black underlayer, then two applications where I did a mix of three red/reddish colors kinda scraped on*, transferred/drew in letters and stuff, painted that in stages, frowned at it a lot and made scrunchy faces, sanded the edges to bring out the black (which you can't see here), speckled it in areas, little antiquing gel, and then, FINALLY, varnish. (Which would have been better matte but glossy is what I had on hand.) It doesn't photo very well but I'm quite impressed with myself actually, giving my lack of any real painting knowledge. Let us not ponder it too deeply though because I have no explanation for why some bees have eyes, but not others, and only one has antennae. We'll call it artistic liberties.

I got him a couple of other things as well though, just to cover my butt in case the sign didn't work out - so he made out pretty well. :)

*Lake Girl Paints has a paint 'scrape' post where you use CARDSTOCK - no brush needed! - to basically shove paint onto things. It's pretty neat. And an awesome blog all around.

Spring has been quite nice here. MUCH drier and sunnier than normal. I don't remember the last time I've gotten in this much 'sitting on the deck time' so early in the year. And, thankfully, there are lots of flowers around to help the new bees build up their new homes.

Hope everyone is having a nice Mother's Day. :)

Arrgggggh.

Totally failing on the blogging front this month! Things have just been so so so busy lately. It's that time of the year when I'm crazy busy with making beads for Halloween and the holidays and I don't have time to catch my breathe really. (To that end, I've taken my whole Etsy shop offline for the moment because I just don't have time for it this week. Sorry!)

The hubby is actually on vacation this week but he decided he wanted to build himself a new, uber-big shed instead of going away so he's, quite literally, knee-deep in that at the moment. Demolish of the old one was Saturday, yesterday was the foundation and floor. It's onward and upward with the walls today! There's no doubt that it's going to rain here Tuesday/Wednesday though so he'll have a couple days off to rest at least. So long as it's done by the time he goes back to work, so he can get all the shed stuff that's currently jammed up in his garage bay back where it belongs, it's all good. (Leaving your car outside for any length of time around here is never a good idea - unless you like mice  and or chipmunks living in it!)

Before he got started on that though he stole harvested the honey for the year from the bee hives:

YUM. Do you know how hard is it not to steal spoonful after spoonful of this when there are pounds and pounds of it on your kitchen counter? (At 64 calories per tablespoon, *SIGH*, one has to have some self-control though. *sad*) It's MUCH lighter in color this year - last year's was a dark amber - but the taste is better. Funny how that works, right? This year's is almost fruity. Very delicious! Now I just need to find time to make some labels for them so he can start selling them at work, etc.

 Our 21st anniversary (crazy!!!) was the other week and he surprised me with an iPad, among some other great things and HOW MUCH DO I LOVE THIS THING????? A lot! I'm only turning the computer on nowadays to do my work stuff because this thing is great fun for browsing when on the deck and stuff. I really like getting away from sitting in the office where the computer is, I tell you what!

On the stiching front....

Total, total fail at keeping up with the L*K mystery sampler. I started the second bit when it came in.............and then never got back to it, not even once. :(

And then this came in on Saturday so I REALLY REALLY REALLY need to set time aside for some serious thread action!!!

Somewhat better on the knitting front but feeling very scattered.........

I finished one mitten from the mitten kit I got last October at Stitches East. Yes, ONE. One is better than none, I guess, but I hope this doesn't turn into one of those situations where I don't cast on for the second one until months later - resulting in a second one that doesn't quite match. lol

I started a scarf (Flair in Mountain Vail yarn) for no other reason than I saw this yarn hanging around and felt like I needed to start it. I don't think I've done a project with lace weight yarn before actually? It's no different other than the fact that it's SLOW AS THE DICKENS. I knit on this at a furious pace for three days and that's all I've gotten done. Considering it's supposed to be SEVENTY TWO INCHES LONG I've got a loooooooooooooooooot of hours ahead of me with this one. *sigh*

I may have also done a very bad thing and purchased a couple bags of yarn. Yes, BAGS. Grab bags, to be exact, in my favorite sock yarn - Blue Moon Fiber Arts. I couldn't resist the pull of getting them less than half off but..........GEESH. I SO DO NOT need any more yarn in this house. :(

When they came in my husband texted me this:

*snort*

Why thank you, Ryan! You're pretty sexy too. :)

Monday, Monday.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend! 

 Quinebaug River Trail

I wasn't quite up to bike riding because my lower back was ouchie so yesterday I opted for walking the path here in town instead while *he* biked. I've never actually walked it before and it was nice - but took longer than I thought it would, clocking in at 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete it. (My Fitbit recorded it as 4.5 miles but I think that's wrong. It's closer to 3.5 miles according to GPS on my phone. /shrug.) I just wanted to get out and enjoy the PHENOMENAL weather while it lasts as it's supposed to be quite a bit warmer later this week. You really couldn't have asked for a better weekend, weather wise. :)

Ooooooooooo!!! MUST HAVE this new CCN pattern the SECOND it's available at my usual internet seller(s). Hives and bees? YOU WILL BE MINE. It's like it was created specifically with me in mind. :)

Our actual hives were in a bit of crisis mode this week as they BOTH were found to be missing queens for some reason. (!!!) One of the hives swarmed a couple weeks ago, which sometimes results in the loss of a missing queen but no clue as to what happened to the second hive's queen. It's a mystery and, per usual, the bees aren't talking. (Tight-lipped as always, they are!!) Above are the two 'emergency' queens had by a local bee keeper in the husband's Guild. So hopefully that puts everything back to rights. The workers from both sides will chew through the wax plug holding her in her cage in a few days time, at which point they will have forgotten she's an intruder and *should* accept her into the fold like nothing happened. High Drama in the Bee World going on over here. lol

Some yarny goodness from the Cookie A sock club. 

OMG how is it time for another sock club package already?? I'm still working on the one from February and I can't even tell you where the APRIL package is located in this house! I pulled the February ones out this weekend to work on but they are slower than molasses with all the cabling. (I like doing cables but you CAN NOT rush them!) 

Side note: this yarn is the exact color of my senior prom dress. And shoes. And purse. Oy. (That's how it was DONE in 1989, okay? MATCHY MATCHY.)

Yay!

 I got the tree up this year before Christmas Eve! A WEEK AND HALF before Christmas Eve, to be exact. I'm so proud of myself. *pats self* 

I'm not going to bother to try and take a 'picturesque' photo of it though because it's impossible. Large sunny window + killer huge tv that can be seen from space on one side = no good angles for proper photo taking. Plus, I'm not dedicated enough to have a theme tree so I'm not sure how photo worthy it is anyway. I pick up a few ornaments every year to add to the mess, take out a few as the years go on...........it's a mix of everything and nothing but I wouldn't have it any other way. lol

Here a few new ones for this year:

How cute is this? I got this off of an Etsy seller. Looks just like the  hubby in his moon suit bee keeper suit! Super adorbs!

Simple ones from Target but I love their knitty-ness. They look/feel like they were fashioned out of old Fair Isle sweaters or something. Now THAT I can get behind.

And here are my kitties, in clay form. Robyn did a post last week showcasing a whole bunch of crafty kitty ornaments made for her by people and it made me pouty not to have any crafty kitties too so I found a bunch on Etsy and................good god I don't have $15 each to spend on crafty kitties on Etsy! They are lovely but no. Sorry. I'll have to plan for that during the year, one at a time. So when I was at Michael's last week for something else, I hit up the clay aisle and got some supplies to make up my own gang of kitties. For less than $15, I made up a Meisha, Mooshie, and Maggie kitty plus something else that can't be shown because it's a gift. :)

Meisha says: Uhhhh, like, my nose isn't pink though? 

Me: Sorry, bbs. I didn't buy any black so pink had to do. 

Meisha: Pfffftt!

Of course, now I have all this leftover clay because I only used up the ivory pack. What to do with it?!? lol My 'career' as a clay artist (sooooooooooooo kidding!!!) was short-lived because rolling out the clay balls DECIMATED my hands. My middle knuckle, palm side, was inflamed and owie for two days afterwards. No more clay crafts for me. It's now DAYS later and my inner palms, where the joints are, are STILL a little hurty if I press on it. :(

It's always fun to bring on the cross-stitch ornaments too, here are two are my favs, a JCS ornie and a L*K one:

I have so so so so many less than I would like to have though. I totally, miserably, horrendously FAILED on that front this year. Need to rethink crafty goals for next year. Hmm.........

And finally, look at this super great birthday gift that Cookie A. sent me. A loverly skein of cashmere infused yarn and an organic cotton sock drawstring bag. So very very thoughtful of her to think me of like that when she's so busy flitting around the world doing super-important knitting things and..............OK so this is really just the last installment of the 2011 Sock Club......that was sent out to hundreds of people, not just me. A girl can have her delusions, right? :)

Bee Happy! (Or Joyful.)

So far, the husband's bee hives are a' buzzing this year and we should get honey from at least one of them. (One is growing a little slower than the other for whatever reason.) YUM! Honey! After the total bust of last year when the bees literally all took off for parts unknown in early fall and the hive was stripped bare before you could blink, this is good. (They had had major problems all summer long so it wasn't a total surprise it went bust.) If you want to be a resident of this household you need to contribute something, you know? Not leave us high and dry without paying your 'rent'. lol

Anyhoozle, when CCN came out with this pattern earlier this year I knew I had to have it. I'm a sucker for a bee pattern. :)

The only changes I made were to add a couple mini buttons (OF COURSE) to the center of the flanking flowers and put little antennae/stingers on the bees. I think they are vastly cuter like this, in a deadly, I 'will sting the bee-jesus out of you' type of way. :)

I thought the 'Bee Joyful' bit would look good on it's own so I did a little pillow of just that, though I'm not 100% on the screaming pink-foofy-ruched ribbon edging I did. I *may* look for something else for that next time I get a chance to make the trip to Joann's/Michaels. Maybe a ribbon with a pink/green graduation or.........something.

I kinda, uhhh, ordered a frame for the other piece already. *cough* I'll figure out where to hang it when it gets here. It was on clearance at Franken Frames so I got it for $6.36. Now tell me - who could resist that price? It would have been FOOLISH to pass it up, I say. :)

How small can I go?

Apparently pretty damn small! Look at my teeny tiny baby bee (regular sized bee and penny for comparison):

It's sooooooo teeny tiny I'm not even sure how I made it. lol
Why so small?
I wanted him to 'fit' better with this teeny tiny bee skep I did:

Pretty good match! Now I just need to wire 'em up into a new dangle for my cell phone.
Speaking of which.............
I added a $1.00 'Make a Pendant' service to my Bead Shoppe for all the non-jewelry designers types who want a little dangly of their own, but no tools or expertise to make one. :)

It was actually quite NICE out this weekend, in the 50's temp wise. Dare I think that spring might be coming? I mean, the trees don't finish 'filling in' with leaves until the end of May around here so we're a long way off for springtime planting (early May) and grass growing but it will be VERY NICE if the super cold temps and snow are gone for good! The nicer temps were also good for figuring that the bees STILL LIVE. THEY MADE IT THROUGH THE WINTER, GUYS! WOOOOoo!***

 They were out in force this weekend and even coming back with pollen-packed leggies. WTF? We have NO IDEA where or how far they are going to get THAT seeing as there isn't a damn thing sprouting yet??? Only thing I could think of is maybe the nurseries in the area have some stock out they are pilfering from? Only the bees know.But it's a good sign that the queen is still doing her thing and making babies and stuff.


***Admittedly, this excites me mostly for the simple fact that 1) I don't have to listen to the hubby moaning about dead bees because he gets a *wee* bit obsessed over their care and 2) we don't have shell out $$$ for a new box of bees because bees? NOT CHEAP to buy!