Gaaah!

Got up at 3:00 a.m. again. I'm thinking I'll rename this blog, the Insomniac Diaries. The funny part was, as I was laying there watching Roseanne on Nick, I heard someone upstairs get in the shower around 4:00 a.m. At 5:00 a.m. my DH comes walking down the stairs dressed for work and I ask him what he's doing up so early. He walks into the kitchen, then walks over to me, laughing. And says - I thought it was 7:00. His alarm clock battery needed replacing and it went off 2 hours early. At least he could laugh about it. He sat down to watch ESPN with me and we both fell back asleep. At which point I had some bizarre dream about the Junior League...

It's off to Thursday morning stitch-in. I've got the fabric to finish the 3rd chair. And is an amazing twist of events, I may have a piece of linen the shop owner can use.

I Managed

I did muddle through yesterday. Dropped DD off at work and went to my LNS as I had offered to recover some chairs for her. Got 2 out of 3 done. Didn't quite have enough material for the third one. I had found this lovely Waverly fabric - black with orchids as the chairs are black. I guess that means I'd better hurry back to Joanne's today 'cause this fabric was on clearance for $6 a yard.

As I didn't have anything better to do, I hung out at the shop. Frogged some more. Restitched part of what I'd frogged. Helped shop owner with a fabric/thread issue. Which meant she changed fabric and had this little piece of an overdyed already cut. So I found a pattern and changed some threads and voila, I've got a new shop model to stitch.

Earlier in the day I had been watching Bobby Flay's Boy Meets Grill. Which translated to brats, German potato salad, green beans, and red cabbage for dinner. Yum.

See I did managed to muddle through the day. I didn't forget anything important. And I managed to fall back asleep last night when I woke up at 2 a.m. Yeah for me!

Second Day

Day two of not sleeping. Yesterday I got by with 4 hours of sleep. Today I woke up at 1:00 a.m. Went downstairs. Read. Turned on TV. Turned off TV. Read some more. I think I fell asleep again sometime around 4 or so. I can't really stitch when this happens. I make bad decisions when deprived of sleep.

I know there are things I should do today. But darned if I cant think of them!

frogging on current project

My current project - or the most current - is an old Ginger and Spice chart - Arts and Crafts designs. Unfortunately if you go looking for it, you cannot really see the picture of the design I'm working on because it is the butterflies on the box and tray and the photo shows them at a terrible angle.

I never would have picked this leaflet up if I hadn't seen this piece stitched at the PictureThisPlus booth at Celebrations of Needlework back in May. As it was, I had to ask what this design was. Of course, I could not be content with DMC, so I changed things out to Crescent Colours. But apparently had a brain cramp the day I picked colors. I've decided to frog two colors and replace them. It's all blues and violets and purples with a tiny bit of green and yellowy golds. I started frogging last night, but still have a ways to go. But I definitely made the right decision.

Now the truly odd thing about this piece is that I'm doing it on 18ct Aida. To those of you who choose to be snobby about the linen, evenweave things, just stop right now. I had this perfectly good piece of Aida that someone gave me as part of a gift. And I started this project right before I got my Daylight lamp. That meant I could see the holes at night. What's amazing is how darn fast I can stitch on Aida. I wouldn't recommend doing this all the time, but for an occasional change of pace, try it. You might be surprised.

my Challenge Piece

 


not the best photo in the world. And if I was going to do this again I would definitely use q-snaps or a frame because the montengrin stitch pulled the linen out of alignment.

This is my piece for my EGA chapter's annual challenge project. The challenge theme was the view out my window. I designed and stitched it within one week. It's my first rock n roll band sampler - yes, that's a Donovan lyric.

Butterfly

 

These butterflies love my salvia - an eastern tiger swallowtail.

Woke Up

I woke up at 4:41. Finished reading my current mystery by Charlaine Harris at 5:50. Got up. Made coffee. Read the paper. Started the Saturday Sudoku, which is of course a hard one. Fell back asleep curled up in the chair sometime before 8:00 holding the paper in one hand and the pen in the other. Woke up at 9:00. Finished the Sudoku quite easily. Bleh. Now I'm tired.

Not much happening today. Maybe some stitching.

Couldn't stay awake to watch 300 last night. Action, no plot. I was bored.

Forgot to Post

I forgot to post my last big smile yesterday.

I won best cross stitch piece in my LNS' customer show in July. It was for Poseidon. Fitting win as I stitched a good portion of this piece at the shop on Thursday mornings. Immediately turned my gift certificate into Crescent Colours...LOL

In Other News

At yesterday's stitch-in I finally worked a bit on the shop project - Rosewood Manor's "And a Forest Grew," which can be seen here:

This project was kitted, gridded and put on scroll rods. Anyone who comes into the shop is welcome to work on it. Unfortunately it keeps getting put into a corner. Someone was working on it Tuesday night, which is how I was reminded of it. I thought by pulling it out on Thursday morning, maybe someone would work up a bit every week and we could start making some progress. The idea behind the piece is to eventually donate it to charity.

This is the first time I've ever worked on a piece that has been gridded. I've got to say it's a marvelous idea. There are blue threads running through the center of piece horizontally and vertically. And white threads that make up blocks of ten by ten stitches. Saves a ton of time on a piece like this. Only need to count to less than ten in either direction.

I did stitch a tiny bit on my current project. And then picked out Crescent Colours to kit up Martina Dey's Tsunami sampler that is in the autumn issue of Sampler and Antique Needlework Quarterly.

Big Smiles

I don't know how well this vinyl peel n stick floor will wear, but every time I go into my kitchen, I'm smiling. I still have a some fiddly bits to lay along the edge of one wall - the very not square wall - all the cuts are on an angle. But DS came home yesterday and I put him to work mitering the shoe molding. He made a cut on his first piece wrong - LOL - I knew he would. But we were able to salvage that piece and he sat there puzzling over which way to cut each piece and figured it out. There is still a bit for him to cut. But between the clean floor and the unmarred molding, things look terrific.

I had a moment yesterday when I started to cut the edge pieces when I thought this was going to be a long, tedious process of making templates and I was going to want to shoot myself. But then I went online and found the trick for laying one tile on top of another to find where to cut. After that things moved right along. Even cutting for the floor register wasn't too bad. But I've got the curves at the door still to deal with and those aren't fun.

In other news: Big Smiles for my former professor, Charles Simic, for being named Poet Laureate of the United States. I will be going to the National Book Festival in September, even if it's just to see him read.

I See Some Agreement

I see some agreement on my opinion of Home Depot. I think it's unfortunate that mine is 10 minutes away and Lowe's is more like 30. Yesterday morning found me back at HD to buy a piece of molding for underneath the cabinets. Now I know there is a place where they will cut lumber for you so I take my 15 foot long wobbly piece of wood to the cutting area. Finally find someone to ask for help. He calls someone. Meanwhile, I realize there is a self-service cart for cutting molding. Fabulous. I don't need to measure it. I just need to cut it approximately in half so it will fit in the car. Which I do. When finally someone shows up to ask if I need help. Duh. A little too late. Now I go off to find a miter box. And I buy a cheap wood one. But when I get it home I realize my problem. The box is too short for the molding to provide guidance in the first 1 1/2 inches of cutting. And the guiding cuts don't go all the way down to the bottom of box, so I can't cut the shoe molding either. What kind of f#$%*@& is this? I go back to HD. And lo and behold, there is a plastic version of a miter box with a backcut saw. On a display all by themselves. No where near the other mitering products. And don't get me started on why they only had blades for utility knifes in packages of 100.

Finally got my molding cut, but not the shoe molding yet.

DS left with a friend. And I lost my helper. He didn't come home till like around 4. At which point he and I moved the cabinet from the room, he pulled the last piece of old molding and I washed the floor. Turn on fan. Then start to lay tiles. Good thing I fought the impulse to not start in the middle. My kitchen wall is so crooked it isn't funny. Then I had to go pick up DD at work. And DS finished laying all the whole tiles.

Which finds me today cutting the perimeter tiles. Ugh. Hard. Not fun. And I sat on my glasses and bent them. Fortunately I have new ones ordered and they should be here any day now.

So it's going to take longer than I like to put this kitchen back together. Children ran off with a visitor to D.C. to go to the Spy Museum. No help there.

But I did get to Tuesday night stitch-in last night after dropping them off at Wolf Trap to see Guster. I had a lovely time. And made more serious progress on current project. Which I don't believe I've said a word about here. Soon.