Yes, please.

To a new year, that is. :)

Like many, many others I've seen - I don't think 2013 was the best year ever. 

Still here in one piece though so I can't complain too much. 

Onward to 2014!

Oh, that might be a little unfair though because the holidays were quite nice 'round these parts and I've enjoyed the break. A nice finish to the year is appreciated after the depressing grind of the middle parts, yes?

I tried to put up my little 'Charlie Brown' tree in place of the 'missing' large one. Yeah. Someone kept knocking it over and trying to chew the electrical wires to the lights so that only lasted a few days before I packed it away again. So I was not wrong in my assessment of Fitz's abilities to behave with a tree - any tree. PLAYAS GOTTA PLAY.

 I kept the twinkly lights up in my picture window so at least we had that. (They must come down now though because he was caught trying to chew the light bulbs today. Grrr.) I did manage to put up most of my stitchy ornaments still. (See above.) I usually have a garland going around the banister and downnnnnn the stairs - works nicely for pinning ornaments it turns out. On the other side of that part of the bannister, I had my wee knitted stockings and sweaters up...

Turns out as long as I have a tiny bit of twinkly lights and my handmade ornaments up somewhere in the house, I don't miss the tree all that much. (I still want one again next year though.)

Oh, in lieu of any major gift giving this year, we decided to upgrade our phones so all pictures are brought to you via my smashing new iPhone. That newest version has quite a lovely little camera on it, doesn't it? Sooooooooo much better than my 3+ years old last iPhone. (The camera on that was laughable. And I haven't had a speck of space left on it in monthssssss to do any updates or add music, etc. And goodbye waiting a full minute for apps to open up!)  It served me well but I'm quite glad to move on from it. :)

So what did I do with my break? Gosh, a whole lot of nothing. IT WAS LOVELY. 

I finished one book. Just one.(Art history book. Boring to 99.9% of people, I'm sure.)

Started/finished one ornament. Just one. 

(L*K stocking design. Called for threads, random linen that I don't quite love but it will do and I added my own mini buttons. The linen has blotches of pink, blue and brown on it and it's origins are TOTALLY unknown. Anyone?)

Ha! That might be it. (I also finished a scarf just last night that I started last summer but it's still damp and can't be photographed in all it's glory yet. He will have to get his time in the sun, so to speak, in the next post.) Oh! I did catch up on three months worth of Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair magazines that were 'piling up' on my iPad. And I rewatched Series 4 of Downton Abbey because the hubby never caught it on the first go round. (Yikes. Did not love that Christmas special though. *snooooooze* Just me? Anyone?) And, course, there were lots of kitty snuggles and endless mugs of hot tea. :)

This week has been less of a break though because I've doing some New Year's cleaning and getting set up for 2014 with my business. Just really tossing things about and giving everything a good scrub. Took me 3 days to finish upstairs and now I get to start on downstairs. (Bleh.) Some things, like the linen cabinet, were an epic disaster. So glad they are all sorted out again. (I don't have to cringe anymore every time I go in there for a hand towel or a new set of sheets. Bless!) Back to work this weekend though. All good things must end at some point.... maybe? Or is that a really depressing view of things? Heh.

Oh! I have to post the hubby's last woven scarf as well. Another one I would have liked to keep for myself, for sure. The colors are ridiculously off in this photo but it's already gone on to someone else as a gift so it will have to do.

This one is all Paton's wool in a sock weight. The warp (length) is the gray yarn in the fringe and the weft (left to right) is the top most yarn in this pile from March 2012:

God love him for using up more of my yarn stash. It brings a tear to the eye, it does. *sniff*

I could - conceivably - get to the end of it now before old age. IMAGINE THAT. 

I just need a solution for my cross stitch stash now. :)

Little bit of everything.

I've had a couple people ask if I'm still making beads, because I haven't posted any really on the blog in a while. The answer: DEFINITELY YES. I've been working on a ton of them behind the scenes. (Pictured above is the pile of beads made over the weekend that I had to string and ship out yesterday. Have another pile to make over the next few days too.) Having said that though, I'm not super happy about making them anymore so I don't really feel like blogging about it. My left hand hurts when I make beads, my left shoulder is starting to hurt now........things are breaking down and I'm taking more and more Advil as time goes on to get through a torching session. A repetitive hand motion hour after hour, day after day, for over a decade? It's inevitable, I guess, that your body won't put up with that at some point. (And NOTHING hurts the tendons/joints in my hand like the bead work does.) I'm in limbo at the moment over it What to do, right? I could cut the work back but with the amount of taxes I pay as a self-employed person - income, sales tax, business property taxes, also, accountant to handle taxes, etc. - at some point cutting back is just flat out stupid and a waste of time. I still LIKE the beads so there is that. Heh.

Anyhoo. Moving on. 

I finished my big piece for Halloween! :)

How great is this pumpkin? I should have posted a pic of him in my Cathey post too! I love the way the colors work together, it has great depth. 

And how about this crazy, toothy grin? The reason he is so crazy looking is..........

TOO MANY TREATS. 

I mean - look at all those candy corns in there! He's not crazy - he's high on sugar!

So happy to have this done. It's a Bird of a Feather design that I purchased in 2003, along with the linen that it called for (which isn't made anymore, but there are good substitutes). Any design I have put away WITH the linen it needs always make me sad when it sits and sits and sits, waiting to be finished. (I actually wrote shits and shits at first by accident..........WHAT COULD THAT MEAN? Whoops.) It's a crazy design and probably (definitely) not for everyone but I like the kookiness of it. I did the belly part first to get the worst part of the design over with and the rest of it was pretty simple from then on. 

How would you tackle that belly? I'm always interested in how people approach certain things. I did all the periwinkle FIRST, leaving 'holes' for the other things. So I had to count very very very carefully to make sure the 'holes' were all situated correctly, but it made for easy-peasy candy corn stitching after the fact because then I could just hop from one candy to another, anchoring the thread(s) to the already done periwinkle as I went.

I have to say though, the pattern was pure MISERY to work off of. It was teeny TINY. I had to scan and enlarge it, color a lot of it in with colored pencils and it was still hard to see. (THIS is the piece that had me scrambling for new eyeglasses!) Did not relish that part of it.

Next up is the Lizzie Kate Mystery Christmas sampler (and maybe some ornies!). I really like doing the Halloween one last year so I signed up for this one too. I like the colors as is but some of them seem a little too light as I'm doing the actual pattern. I think I"m going to have to go back and switch out the Parchment, at the very least. My snowflakes with it are totally disappearing into nothingness. :( 

I kinda miss that there are no beads or charms with it too. I've got a TON of Mill Hill beads though so that will be easy enough to add if I want at the end.

Annnnnndddd......I guess that's it for now. Except for a Fitz pic. 

The 'babies' turned 4 months on Sunday. Getting soooooooooooo big!!!

Not gonna lie.

I kinda hate July a little so far. It's the weather. Ugh.

Too hot and WAY too humid to do anything fun outside. Or anything outside really. (You could swim.......but I don't have a pool.) I've been reading a lot lately. Which is good for working through the stacks of books (both paper and digital) that I have. But man, I hate humid. It turns me into a whiny princess. :(

Way back a couple weeks ago, before the dew point parked it's ass in the 70-75 degree range and refused to budge, I did manage to finish a couple projects.

Cookie A - Jubilee pattern

Yay! Socks! Only my second pair this year. NUTS. I am seriously lacking in sockitude this year because of my tendonitis issues. They are..........a little weird? They look massively big but fit pretty okay. Probably too thick to wear with lace up shoes but, as luck would have it, I tend to wear clogs more often than not in the winter around the house. (I contemplated doing the smaller pattern size but the gauge was telling me they would have been too small then so I didn't even bother to try it.) Cheetos-colored socks aren't for everyone though, obviously, so these I'm definitely keeping for myself. :)

That's it for me with knitting though until the weather changes. I started a scarf but it's too too too sticky draping over your legs, etc. to work on it right now.

Also finished, little L*K strawberry sampler that's......also a little weird? I had almost none of the hand-dyed threads it called for and the DMC conversions provided were........less than stellar. I'm not 100% on some of the colors, as far as them all working together, but, you know - it is just a little sampler. No sense in driving yourself mad over it either.

Do you know how hard it is to find collectables that have LIGHT-colored Himalayans in them? IMPOSSIBLE. Everything is done up with the darker Seal and Chocolate point Himalayans.  *pout* 

So I was SUPER stoked to find this original watercolor on Etsy with a Blue point kitty, just like my Mooshie. OH HELLO, I MUST HAVE YOU.  (The seller is Amble and Sing. SUPER cute stuff!) It's just about the most perfect thing EVERrrrRRrrrrr. *ahem* I put one of his favorite 'glitter' balls he loved to fetch with  it and I just love it. Makes me smile every time I pass it in the hall. :)

I'm really over how quiet the house is too. I had tuna fish for lunch yesterday - alone.
By myself. Do you know how sad that is? No one cared. No one came to sit with me. No one begged for a treat. It tasted like salty tears and disappointment. 

To remedy that, expect a can of whoop ass to be unleashed around these parts around mid-August. Hopefully. *fingers crossed*

Sadness. (Now with bonus free pattern!)

 Well, that's that. 'My' baby hawks are no more. Not sure what happened but things were fine Saturday morning - but by Sunday afternoon the nest was abandoned. After watching them intently for almost a month I can't tell you how positively morose I was all Sunday over this. Not sure what that says about the state of my mind of late (nothing good, probably) but there you go. I think I'm mostly over it now. Mostly. Other than having to stare at that empty nest while I'm sitting on the deck, year after year, as a reminder. (Seriously. The nest they had on the edge of our property two summers ago is still fully intact, though you can only see it in the winter when the leaves are down. This new one is in clear view all the time though as you can see from this photo I took while sitting where I usually sit on the deck.) On the plus side though, the adults are still around, at least for the moment. They woke me up early this morning with their squawking, just like normal. So at least they weren't killed or anything. That would be even sadder.

This was a nice little pick me up to my mood though. :)

An amazing little stitched fob from Carol as a surprise thank you for a pattern I gifted her. Just so generous and so EXQUISITE. Her finishing is jaw-dropping perfect. I am in awe. And so thankful for the gift. I will treasure it.

The backdrop in that photo is from my latest visit to WEBS. We were way up in northern Massachusetts for something else and managed to swing by the (epic) WEBS store before they closed. This stripey goodness was part of their anniversary sale so I got it for a song so I REGRET NOTHING, even though I clearly don't need any more yarn.

Heart of America - LHN

And finally, another long-mouldering WIP is put to bed, rest, and FINISHED. Yay! I do so love getting these WIP's out of 'storage' and finished as part of my 2013 'plan'.

The last bit of stitching this was not without incident though. I did the 'land of the free' letters on the bottom last and ran out of the color for that with ONE letter to go. SO CLOSE TO FINISHING. What a bummer, right? And then I looked at the sample and realized I DID THE WHOLE THING IN THE WRONG COLOR. @@#$#

On the good side, I had PLENTY of the color I needed to do it correctly. 

On the bad side, rip. rip. rip. rip. 

Oh well. It's done now and I really do like this piece.

This pattern was originally gifted to me way, way back in, mmmm, 2011? (Or 2010?) 

So continuing with that, I'm going to pass it along to someone else who wants it. Just let me know in the comments if you want to stitch it and I'll draw a name for it at the end of the week. (Or around there.) Don't be frightened off by the size of it or anything because I can TOTALLY see stitching up these blocks individually for smalls or scissor fobs, etc. That 'Old Glory' block in particular seems ripe for a small finish, if I must say. :)

And with that I think I'm going to go sit on the deck some more and try NOT to stare at that black hole of sadness in the tree that taunts me. It is AMAZINGLY beautiful today, after a run of hot and sticky-ickies, and I intend to get out there and soak it up.

Well that week FLEW by! Always the worst part of taking a week off - the CATCHING UP you have to do when you get back to real life.  

SOMEONE had a 17th birthday the other day. (Hint: it wasn't me.)

Thanks so much for the kind comments about my poor boo-boo kitty. He perked up a bit mid-week and seems mostly back to normal now, or at least his 'normal'. As his brain started healing though the 'must eat everything sight' switch got turned off again and I'm now back to trying to coax him into eating all day. He really, really, really hates the kidney diet prescription food. Like, really hates it. What's the point of food to extend his life a little if he's going to starve to death in the meantime? I keep trying to stick with it (and have for over a year) but at this point I think we have to concede that we are both terrible at sticking to a diet. I can't blame him for being happy with bits of ham or cheese. Aren't we all?

Anyhoo, I'm trying to catch up on photos, photos, photos. I keep taking photos of things but then never posting them. Grrr. I actually did manage to finish a few things on break, that I was very glad to get finished and off to the great Finish Bin in the sky, I mean my closet.

 God I really don't like these socks. I started them in January and JUST finished them, so that right there tells you how disinterested I was in them. I took a skein of yarn I really didn't care for (too thin and splitty) and paired it with a slip stitch pattern that I also didn't care for (because it's a TERRIBLE CHOICE FOR A SPLITTY YARN) and GUESS WHAT? They were a miserable knit from start to finish and I will forever be shocked AND awed that I finished them. (In my defense though I picked that pattern because it helped alleviate the thinness of the yarn. It creates an almost woven fabric that adds bulk.)

 Also finished: the bonus charts from the L*K mystery sampler that I started last summer. Very much not miserable to finish and I'm glad I finally got to it because these are cute and I love Halloween stitchies. :)

 And a bunch of totally unphotogenic Scrap Yarn Blanket of Doom squares. I needed something mindless and quick to start/finish to clear my head of the oogie-boogies from the stupid socks. Blanket square I can finish in 90 minutes? YES PLEASE. I think I'm up to 8 new squares now to add to this never ending, not even CLOSE TO BEING FINISHED project because I'm still having fun doing up new ones. Once I get a bunch, like a dozen, I'll wash and block them so they look pretty and totally not like wadded up Kleenex. :)

To 'reward' myself for finishing a stitchy wip I did up a brand-spanky new-to-me small one. I randomly picked colors for this Val's Stuff freebie and think it came out pretty good. (Though I curse you Belfast green linen for always being IMPOSSIBLE to photograph nicely. What is it with this color??? So pretty in person SO HORRIBLE ON THE INTERNETS.) Could use some more contrast in the nose but I can live with it. Original pattern doesn't chart a flower or bunny tail but it's pretty easy to put them in. (Can't have a bunny without a TAIL?!?)

Now that that is done I reached into the nether regions of my wip stack (also known as my storage ottoman in the living room where things go to die a lonely death) and pulled out another wip to tackle. Oh, how optimistic I was when I happily stitched in the year 2012 on this!!! Twice. *face palm* Oh well. 2012, 2013. Isn't time just an illusion anyway? How can be sure that ANY sampler with a date stitched in is correct, right? So I'm keeping the 2012. And don't be thinking I'm almost done with this because there is whole other section of frames that go on the bottom of this. I originally abandoned this because - SURPRISE SURPRISE - I made a little boo-boo with the border and one of those borders is off a little. And ripping out black floss is miserable so I put it in time out. I think I'm mostly over it now though. Aside from talking about my failure on the internets, of course. lol

Whew. Now I'm all caught up I think, aside from adding these to my project pages. Yay!! :)

Picture Post!!

The past week+ has been sooooooooooo busy and I have lots of photos. :)

Working backwards.....

 I didn't get this done for the 4th - I finished it up last night, if I want to be honest with y'all. 

I didn't have any 40ct. linen on hand to finish this kit as a 'box' finish but I wanted to stitch it NOW (I'm not one for waiting) so I figured it would be easy enough to stitch it twice. I'll just whip it up again for the box once I have the right linen, right?! 

Stuffing a star shape is...............interesting. If  'difficult' and 'annoying' is interesting to you. Probably should have thought that one out a little more before I settled on a star shaped pillow. lol So it's a little lumpy in areas and the chenille trim hides some of the evenness of the points, but it's DONE so I'm happy. :) 

No changes to it other than adding in the 2012 over one near the flag.

Walking along the path that runs right along the coast line in Narragansett, Rhode Island on the 4th. My mother lives about a 1/4 mile away so I got to take a nice long walk and soak up some ocean winds and smells. (I'm not one for beach lounging. Sand. No.)Very nice!! If I lived there I don't think I would be able to stop myself from taking hours and hours long walks every day.

 

I, admittedly, hate gardening but I know how to grow these. One of my favorite flowers. My blue ones are doing great but my purple ones? Not so much this year. :(

No cuttings from those because there is nothing to cut. *sad*

 Road trip to northern Massachusetts where I couldn't help but swing by WEBS (America's Largest Yarn Store!). I had a gift certificate from Christmas that I've been hoarding, waiting to spend it person vs. online so I could pet everything first before buying. Can't do THAT when shopping online. lol

Also part of the road trip: a stop by Yankee Candle's flagship store. You can lost in there for hours, it's so so so so so big. Like a whole village of shops under one roof! They had tons of clearance tables out and you won't get me to admit (in public or otherwise) how much I spent. Nope! I'll take that one to my grave, or at least I will when I can destroy any evidence of the bank statement once it comes in. lol (I should probably note that at least I don't use credit cards. I take my financial lumps up front, thankyouverymuch. Credit cards are too easy to use.........and scary. lol)

Not pictured: 

2hr. 'road trip' to movie theater to see movie - only we bought the tickets for the wrong theater for the wrong time, oh, and we would have been late anyway because we got stuck in a hailstorm on the way, so the movie was not to be. *sniff*

Tried again a couple days and managed it much better. Prometheus. Good. Creepy. If they don't make a sequel I will punch someone (I DON'T KNOW WHO YET BUT I'M LOOKING AT YOU, LINDELOF) because that's just cruel to end things like that. *stare*

Lots and lots of knitting after logging lots and lots of time in the car. Almost done with my Dragonflies. 

All caught up now! Whew!!!!! Summer's going by fast, isn't it????? :)

Monday (except it's Tuesday) update.

 Hope everyone had a nice weekend, even if it wasn't a long holiday weekend for you, like it was here. We both worked yesterday anyway - so much for it being a holiday! lol

 We got to spend the whole day out and about Sunday though, visiting his dad at the veteran's cemetery (always emotional) and then spending some time at the coast with family. Add in a couple bike runs and it was a busy weekend.

I continued with my streak of 'finish finishing' with some items from the pile of stitched items I have stashed away. 

A couple block finishes for these two. 

I like this type of finish but it always takes sooooooooooo much more time to do than I plan on. All that careful pinning and stuff. (Could just be me though as I'm quite anal a perfectionist when it comes to things.)

Some simple stuffed ornaments for these two. 

I really had no fabric in my stash* to match the Lizzie Kate Winter one so I opted for just a simple neutral theme. (The fabric has white pinstripes on it which doesn't show up well - or at all - here.) I wasn't sure about it as I was putting it together but, now that's it done, I like the way it came out. A little busy maybe with lace AND a glittery dotty bow but I can live with busy. 

 I think my finishing blitz might be over now though. Maybe. I haven't decided yet. lol

It's a crazy busy week with appointments and stuff so I might not have time for it anyway. (Plus this new 'thing' of fitting in time for a bike run here and there is crunching my time up too!)

**I have six bins of fabric, mostly primitive plaid type stuff, from my craft show days. So I always try to use that up the best I can vs. going to buy more, even if it's not super-duper matchy to the stitched piece.

Weeeeeeeeeeee!

 Lots of new adventures this past week in the form of: BICYCLING.

The husband recently got one to use on the hiking trails in the woods down the road from the house and then he talked me into getting one too. (With CONDITIONS. Like: bike paths only, no woods, no roads, etc. I'm a diva like that. :))

Mind you, I haven't been on a bike in OVER TWENTY YEARS so this past week was *quite* the hoot. You don't TOTALLY forget how to ride one. You basically remember enough not to fall off it - while looking/feeling like a complete moron for awhile until it fully comes back. There was bunch of pushing around with one foot like a scooter until my brain kinda connected with the fact that you have to, you know, PEDAL. Hahaha! We've gone out a few times and it gets easier, as far as handling, each time. (Because physically? Exhausting. And I've been REALLY good about getting in my exercise 5-6 days a week this year so that doesn't seem fair. *pout* I feel like I should be in better shape?) This week has been nothing but rain but hopefully the weekend will allow for a couple more 'sessions'. :)

In other news, Shepherd's Bush was really great about sending me some more chenille trim to finish my pillow. While waiting, I stitched her face again, this time with random Crescent Color floss in a Xmas theme. I think it will make for a cute ornament finish. (Carrot nose has been ordered.)

 It fully hit me that I have a STAGGERING amount of smalls to deal with now (to me) when I went to store that pillow until holiday time so I buckled down this week to at least get my Halloween designs finished.

Turns out if you do one each day it's not super overwhelming. I would cut/pin them while waiting for my kiln to heat before working, do the sewing after I was finished work, and then stuff/close up at night while watching tv.

 It feels good to get these 'done done' now so I can use them this fall. I have four times as many Xmas ones to finish though so....................hold me. The end is no where in sight. lol

We got some snow! Finally.

And then it was 55 degrees the next day and all melted away within 48 hours. 

Oh well. It was pretty while it lasted. 

I can't say I'm not enjoying the extra 'sunny' feeling this winter because of the lack of storms. (Anything to avoid that mid-winter blues/depression thing, yes?)

I wasn't feeling super great last week but I managed to suck it up and finally finish my last remaining knitting WIP:

 (Look: actual SNOW in the background!)

My Joy Mittens.......that I started last August. Feels good to get this one finally finished! They were easy to do but the heavy charting made it hard to give them the attention they really needed when watching tv so I only worked on them in fits and starts. I originally started these because, after searching and searching and trying assorted projects, I FINALLY found a pattern that I felt really worked with this Twisted Fiber yarn that had been sitting around in my stash for ages and agessssss:

 Do you know how much I used up for the mittens? Less than ounce of it. I still had a very-generous 2.6 ounces left afterwards so I whipped up the rest into a pair of simple socks:

(Paired with another scrap yarn for the heel/toes because 1) I like the jaunty, almost ridiculously cheery look of it and 2) the green yarn is a bit thin so I wanted something a bit heavier for the areas that would wear out the fastest.) Soooo, did I finally use up the last of the yarn?

Not quite. lol

There's still a healthy ball of it left. And by healthy I mean there is probably enough to do the heel/toes of another pair of socks, if I were so inclined, which I AM NOT. This relationship was great while it lasted but it's over now and he needs to move on without me. :)

Needles are now empty and I can get to digging up all the many many stitching WIP's I have squirreled away in various places.

 

Ravelry link for the mittens, for anyone interested in knitting them. It's a fabulous pattern, with great charts/instructions.