October.

 Yay! An update! I keep meaning to do this and meaning to do this but it never seems to happen. Grrr! I lost a bit of time there in September due to a vacation week and - even more importantly - a BRAND NEW COMPUTER. I am no longer computing like it's 2006, people! 

My old computer actually wasn't in terrible shape, aside from being nervous of a hardware meltdown happening at any time because, you know, that stuff wasn't built to last forever and 7-8 years is asking a bit much of it. *ahem* The bigger issue was that more and more things weren't working with Windows Vista now that it's no longer supported so, rather than upgrade an old computer, we just got a new one! (A Windows 7 machine though because, MAN!, have I heard horrible no good things about Windows 8.) I was dreading moving everything over but apparently things have changed a LOT since I last bought one of these dang machines and it was actually pretty easy. *blink*

ANYWAY. I'm in a good mood today (mostly) because tomorrow is the Stitches East show and I looooooooooooooooooovveeeeeeeeeeeee the Stitches East show. And now it's here and I'm excited, even though I haven't been knitting much lately. I did so much knitting over the summer that I decided to take a break from it for a little while and get more stitching done. 

Turns out when you work on stitching a little bit each day (or most days) you actually FINISH THINGS UP. I know, right? It's miraculous.

These finishes here are the L*K Song of Spring kit , the rabbity 'small' that comes with that and the 2nd part of the BBD Honeybee Hill. (I haven't had occasion to use that sparkly green linen before and I quite like it here with Mr. Rabbit. )

I finished another piece as well but that may/may not be a gift so I don't want to post it and I have a big Plum Street piece 'in progress' that I am plugging along on. I can't go to the SE show without something on the needles though so stitching progress might be halted for a bit while I get my sock knitting on. :)

Relatedly, that new iPhone x-stitch app making the rounds is quite brilliant. An online/device accessible detailed accounting of everything in your stash?  YOU KNOW I had to snap that up immediately because I *LOVE* a good spreadsheeting, organizing, finger snapping, alphabetizing project. 

I went through pretty much everything I have pattern wise, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap and.......

Honestly, it's not AS BAD as I thought it was going to be! Of the 315 patterns I own, about 75-80 have already been stitched. Now, that is still more than I can probably REALISTICALLY finish in the years I have left to me (or have left in my eyesight/hand dexterity). And it doesn't take into account that I own 14 years of the JCS ornament issues which, well, have a lot of stuff in them. But. It's STILL not as bad as I thought. I would have guessed I had no less than 500 patterns to get to, so, yay? Buy more? ;)

(Also not counted: the patterns I have given away over the years. I gave away a GIANT stack of used Shepherd's Bush/misc. patterns at some point, a fact I am a little bitter about, to be honest, because REASONS. Things did not turn out well on that one. *sigh*)

After the patterns were done, I did my hand dyed threads but not my DMC. (Because I own ALL OF IT so I don't need a stinking list for that. ) All of the info is in that mysterious Cloud thingy now  and I can open it up on my phone or Mini so I have NO EXCUSES not to keep up on it. The app is really great and I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone with Apple devices and a wish to have an easily searchable database of their stash.

OH well. I probably had a million other things to say but this will do for now, right? :)

BTW - those little guys at the top are the new Mummy beads I posted on Etsy/my site this week. Cuties! :)

September

I am a bad, bad blogger because I seem to have missed a post for August. And most of July. Whoops? There was no way I wasn't going to get on here and talk about my (truly) beloved Woodstock Fair that is held on Labor Day weekend and the fact that I...

WON BEST IN SHOW for knitting again. Woooooooo! 

I LOVE THAT WHEN THAT HAPPENS, I'll admit it. I only enter stuff in that I think is better than average, which means I don't enter in stuff every year, but I'm still surprised this year by my win because, man, there were SO MANY great handcrafts this year in all departments, not just the knitting one. It was a great year for the contests and I loved spending my time pouring through all the contest barns (three).

My Fruit Stripe socks also did well. :)

I have no idea what it means to have a Superintendents Award (they were new this year) but I'll take it! THE MORE RIBBONS, THE BETTER.

So very good year for my knitting. I registered the mittens when they were barely started *gulp* and quite literally didn't finish them until the night BEFORE I had to drop them off. Heh. Luckily, I'm quite familiar with mitten construction/Fair Isle colorwork so I didn't hit any road bumps along the way with anything. 

Unlike a champion animal, both of these guys will be put to work this winter and get a lot of use. (The last pair of Best in Show mittens have since gone on to put in time shoveling snow and actually getting DIRTY and quite roughed up.) No rest for the woolies come winter, no matter what they win. :)

I won't bore anyone with endless pictures of sheep, bunnies, chickens, etc. I have folders full of them but, honestly, they don't change at all from year to year. The above photo is my first attempt to try a panoramic shot with my iPhone, atop the hill where the tractors/old timey machines live. Because of the hills, you only get about 1/3 of the fair in there though. What a gloriously beautiful evening though! The weather was perfect!

I've never entered in any cross stitching but I'm thinking about it for next year because the theme for next year is 'America the Beautiful' and I do love a patriotic stitch. You have to get prior authorization to submit into the theme contest though so I'm still mulling over ideas and researching it. (If you have a favorite good sized, somewhat primitive/sampler-ish, good contrast patriotic design that comes to mind, please feel free to share.)

There has been a lot of knitting in general this summer for me. (Along with a lot of reading.)

 There's been a scarf finish, in this wonderfully nubby and WOOLY, sheepy Icelandic yarn.

 More socks, with varying success. I couldn't hate the purpley ones MORE if I tried. I've tried to use that yarn (which is expensive but will remain nameless) several times for several projects over a great number of years and it's never worked in any capacity for some reason. Doesn't work for these socks either but I didn't have the balls to just throw them out. Sigh.

 More work on squares for the Neverending Scrap Yarn Blanket. (Plus another batch in my bag that need to be blocked.)

I think I need a small break from it though before I start something else. As soon as we came home from the fair I drug out my stitching and put this to bed:

Honey Bee Hill by BBD. I only had a bit in the left corner to do so it was an easy finish. I do love my bee patterns. :)

Also, this happened this weekend:

A customer packaged returned to me. Look closely at the date though. *ahem*

Now THAT'S a first for me. WHERE HAS IT BEEN ALL THIS TIME?

Think about THAT next time you are complaining about a slow package. COULD BE WORSE.

Like, a WHOLE YEAR worse! Ha!

New Beads!

In keeping with the 'usual' (being late for everything in my hobbies), they aren't particularly in season. I just go with the flow and make what I like, seasons be damned. :)

Personally, I'm looking at a ton of snow out there so I'm game for some snowman. (I have a snow kitty-man on my deck right now. An inspired bit of snow fun by the hubby from the other day. lol)

The snowman are sold separately from the spotted spacers so you can make your own sets up as needed.

A Valentine's set, of sorts. I have a Christmas colored set like this that people seem to like a lot so I did a similar one in pinks. Because if there is one thing I know it's how much people love pink. Pink, pink, and more pink! (It *is* a fun color. Always happy!)

A couple other things too but I won't bore people. Well, except for this:

I lied a tiny bit when I said last month that I had packed up all my 'extra' beads and was starting over again for the new year with empty bead bowls. I meant to say all the extra beads that weren't the spacers and small beads that I like to hoard make in great quantities. Oh, THOSE. *ahem*

I've had to graduate from my bead bowl to this 'bead tin'. A whole tin! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! I haven't weighed it but it wouldn't shock me if it were around 2lbs.  It's a glorious, happy, massive pile of little beads that are MINE, MINE, MINE.

What can I say? I like spacers. They are a good way to use up all the glass rod shorts on my work table. A good portion of them go out in my shipped packages as little freebies but I make them upwards of six at a time on one mandrel (!!) so I always make more than I actually use. I should probably start scouting out a bigger container now. It's just never enough. Heh. :)

Beads, beads, beads.

 I finished my New Year's cleaning - whew! Feels nice to have a clean start to the year. Purged of all things clutterly and so last year. 

 As part of that I've cleaned out all my 'bead bowls' from last year, strung them up by theme, and put them on Etsy for a steal.

Now I get to start over again from scratch and create new 'piles'. (And there are ALWAYS new piles. It's crazy how fast they start to stack up again!)

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. :)

FA LA LA LAaaaAAaaaa!

 It's official. I am done with work until the New Year. 

*happy sigh*

Not a moment too soon, either! Just no idea where the last four weeks have gone. :(

Bless anyone who doesn't get a small break for the holidays. It's all so overwhelming.

For my first day of workless bliss (today) I had to deal with some Serious Business straight away before I got arrested........by the BEAUTY POLICE, that is. The mani/pedi situation was a tragedy. Let us not speak of it again. *ahem* I feel so much better now that that is taken care of*.  (It's crazy but true! lol)

 Tomorrow I have to beat back the dust balls in the house and, umm, decorate a little for Christmas? UGH. So late this year. 

Hanging out in the hoodie. If you look closely you can see his tongue sticking out. Silly goose.

 

We went back and forth - and forth and back - on the tree. We love having a tree. 

Do not love: cats knocking over trees. Or climbing trees. Eating trees? Pretty much anything cat + tree = BAD. 

I'm already tired of playing Mean Mommy to Fitz's daytime antics (get down from there! don't scratch that! get out of there! don't go in there!, etc.). I don't think my nerves could handle him AND a tree this year. He's still too, ummmm, rambunctious? He *is* the very definition of 'boy' at the moment. (But cute!) Hopefully next year, when he is older, it will be better. So........we'll miss the tree this year but I think it's best we don't put it up. I can still put some garland up on the stairway and hang a few things from that. (Can't do lights in that area though, which is a bummer.) I feel bad for waiting so long to get to it but we are traveling out to people for Christmas this year so I don't need to go crazy if I'm not entertaining here either, I guess.

THANKFULLY, I am golden on the gift buying. (THANK YOU INTERNETS.) Just need a few details in the gift wrapping department to finish that up. WHEW. 

Okay so after all THAT, *then* I can do something naughty like...........sit for a long stretch of time and read a book? Actually get some knitting done? Or stitching?  Hell, I'll take blankly staring at the wall like a zombie at this point. It's enough that I have TIME to do it without the stress of any work hanging over me everyday.  :)

 I didn't get any knitting done for the holidays this year (yikes) but.........the husband has been going like gangbusters through my yarn stash, weaving scarves for gifts. (There is one more to photo as well.)
I like each one better than the last and it's so great to see more of my yarn come out of retirement the stash boxes and be used up. 

 The brown one? This one is mine because it matches my winter jacket. YUM.

The weft (goes 'weft to right) is in done in Alchemy Yarns which I *think* I got from a sock club package? Anyhoo, the colors on this are divine. I *love* this kind of 'fall inspired' color combo.

The warp (length) is a tan Opal yarn and worked very nicely as the hardly-seen-but-still-important-background.

I rooted around my phone/ipad pics to see what *I* have finished lately and all I came up with is a Halloween finish from a couple weeks ago. :(

It's quite a nice one though! 

Silver Creek Samplers, JCS 2013 Halloween book. 

On.......40 ct maybe? Something small like that, at any rate. 

I messed up at the very very end. Literally. Annoying. Last thing to do on it was the crow and didn't notice until I was done that he was supposed to be perched on the bottom of the 'L', not the top. GRRrrrrr! I chose to EMBRACE my take on it (read: just get 'er done) and did an extra leaf where he was *supposed* to go. I love the little leaves on this so one more is just fine by me. :)

I feel bad for never posting pics of Livvy too but I swear to god she's IMPOSSIBLE to photograph. She LOSES HER MIND everytime I grab my phone to snap a pic and all I end up with is blurry blurry blurry gray messes or something like this:

Because that's a ladylike pose. Hello, crazy eyes!

Wait, wait, I dug around some more. Finally. One good one. It's a Christmas miracle. 

 

Well, hopefully I get a chance to post more often now so I don't run on and on like this anymore. It's exhausting to read, I'm sure. If I don't though, Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone!  :)

*(Also, I lasered the crap out of myself with my laser gun but y'all probably aren't interested in that unless you want to hear about how fricking_painful_it_is to have a good laugh at my expense because I PAID $$$ to do this to myself. I literally scream out approximately 3,815 obscenities per leg. At LEAST.  It's like electrocuting yourself. Over and over and over again.)

New Hobby.

But not for me! For the hubby. :)

Last week we made the (2hr) trip up to Northhampton, Masschusetts to the much-loved and always-awesome WEBS yarn store so he could take a 2 day class in......

WEAVING. Specifically weaving on a Rigid Heddle loom. 

He's always wanted to try it out and the basic class they offer is a good way to figure out if you like it or not. They provide the loom and most materials to take the class and a Rigid Heddle isn't too expensive an investment, as far as looms go, if you decide you want to continue on with it. (Very easy to store as well because it folds in half!)

Northampton is a college-y New England town and we were blessed with the most glorious fall weather while we were up there so I got to spend a lot of time walking around town, enjoying the fall weather and colors while he is in class. The Yarn Harlot was teaching classes all day there at the same time so I even got to bump into her - in the doorway of the restroom at WEBS. Because OF COURSE that is where I would literally bump into her. No nice conversation over yarn for me, just HEY LOOK........bathroom?

I didn't spend too much time in WEBS myself  but the time I did spend there was pretty neat - as far as customer watching. I never get tired of seeing what projects/yarn people are hunting for. :) They had 3-4 registers going, almost the entire time I was there, which is pretty nuts for a YARN STORE, you know? SUCH a busy place! I love it. The Freia yarn above is the only yarn I bought while I was there so I WAS REALLY GOOD, too, as far as that goes!! :)

Anyhoo. I hope he sticks with it...........I have dreams of woven cotton dishcloths and plaid scarves..and lots of stuff for ME *fingers crossed* Wait. No, no, no, I mean I hope he's happy and has fun with it. That's what I meant. *ahem*

This brown scarf is the first thing he worked on at home, made out of, I have to say, TRULY TERRIBLE yarn. Yarn I should have thrown out long ago but the colors are pretty so I never got around to it. (I did a pair of socks in another colorway in this stuff and had to THROW THEM OUT after *one* wearing because the yarn was THAT felty and awful to wear.) It looks great but I'm still throwing major shade and side eye at it because I just know that sucker is going to felt if worn out in wet or snowy weather. :(

Oh well. If it felts, it felts. He needs to do a bunch of basic scarves to work on his tension and stuff anyway. I'm always happy to share my yarn stash, too. Maybe not ALL of my yarn because I have a few favs that are too near-and-dear - but MOST of my yarn is up for grabs at any rate. It is an interesting thing, weaving. I could see me doing it but you can only have so many hobbies so I'll leave this one all to him. :)

I've been busy busy with bead orders lately but I've been TRYING to squeeze out a little time here and there to do a few new things as well. To that end, I've uploaded some new stuff over the last few days:

Fingers are totally frozen now putting this post together. Whew. Need to go do dishes or something to warm them up!! :) :)

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!!!

Another week.

It's crazy how fast this summer is going by!! It doesn't help that I've been seeing a lot more Halloween beads being ordered from my web shop the last couple weeks. (Yes, Halloween. Already. I do love the colors in Halloween stuff though so I don't mind it.)  

Mostly everything is put back to rights from the lightening strike. (Was that LAST weekend? Good god it feels like a MONTH ago already.) New grass is being grown to get rid of the dirt runway in my lawn, we've started purchasing some new flowers and plants to replace the big bushes that were pulled out near my front door, and all the smoke damaged clothes are off being handled by a service that specializes in that type of thing. Insurance paid for everything right away so....WHEW. No worries there. (Thank you, Safeco Insurance. You were, dare I say it, quite amazing to deal with?)

Hey! Do you want a free pattern?

I finished up my Dandy Dreams and, in the spirit in which it was given to me (thank you, Maggee!), if you'd like to stitch it too I will be happy to send it along to the first person who asks. I stitched this up with no mods in the colors, on a.......I believe it was 36ct fabric? Loved it, aside from blurry issues with my eye sight, that seems to be affecting everything I do lately. (Not sure if I 'suddenly' need bifocals or what. Does that come on you real quick like? I'm off to the eye doctors in a couple weeks at any rate because it's really annoying. It seems a little better when wearing glasses vs. contacts so I'm just sticking to glasses when doing my handwork stuff.)

I've been meaning to get to finishing up another WIP project so I went digging in my storage ottoman (where things go to die) and came up with this........

You know what? I kinda hate this project so there doesn't seem any point in finishing it, to be honest. BYE BYE, FISHIES. (insert 'swim with da fishes' joke here)

Like: the pattern, the colors. Dislike: the linen, linen, linen

I feel like the stitch count is too big for such a simple pattern. It needs to be done over one or over two on a much finer linen, like a 40ct. It's hard to tell in such a random picture but the fish are just too.......BIG. Don't like. Moving on.

I started something else but it needs more work before it has a TA-DA!!! moment. :)

If you ever wondered (which I'm sure NO ONE has) where my interest in handwork type things come from, I offer the above towels as evidence that it came from my mother. She did those last month for me. All freehand and her own pattern. She doesn't care for cross-stitch because it's too 'structured' but she can embroider the hell out of most anything. (Thanks, Mom!)

My wee little kitties-to-be are getting bigger and are *almost* big enough to take home with us. They are being weaned this week so we're almost there. :)