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. :)

Stay safe peoples!

To anyone in the path of Irene this weekend.

This, uh, would include us. lol
 
It's supposed to go over us sometime tomorrow morning with tropical storm status - not hurricane strength - but we'll see how much that difference means to all the trees hanging over our house, eh? o_0

I fully expect flooding of some sort in my basement at any rate because of the torrential rain. As long as it's not enough to hit the tiny carpeted area down there, I can deal with it though. It's when I have to work in a soggy, dead-froggy smelling work area and run the rug cleaner to suck it up hour after hour after hour that I start to lose my mind.

That said, I'm ever hopeful that we already hit our patch of 'bad luck' for the weekend when he lost the brakes on his car going to work yesterday. I mean, I'm already out $1,000 and the storm hasn't even hit yet so karma should be on our side? :)

In related news, I think our upcoming vacation is canceled. Boo hoo. :( We were planning to go to DC for 5 days but since we made those plans:

1) We noticed that was the week of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. (I was just looking at it as *our* 20th anniversary week at first, you know?) Hello extra security!
2) They got hit with an earthquake and some things we usually visit are now in flux down there.
3) The car we were going to take to drive down there just lost it's brakes in a dramatic 'oh my 2@#$@# god' type of way. (Note: this car has VERY VERY little miles on it so this was an odd thing.)
4) The car repairs are costing pretty much *exactly* what our hotel costs were going to be.
4) They are getting hit with a hurricane.
5) We are getting hit with a hurricane.

I'm kinda slow but...............I *think* the universe is trying to tell us something. lol

(I WAS going to run a special for the web site this weekend but seeing as I'm not sure if I'll have power come Monday morning to actually WORK on order, that will have to wait until the storm - literally - clears.)