My Bad

Haven't been on the 'puter much this past week. My bad. But it's a new year approaching and with a new year comes a fresh start.

Anna at the Stitch Bitch had a link to the crazies who are going to attempt a 365 blog - post every day for the next year. This would be admirable if I thought I had enough to say that mattered. Not that I think I don't matter. I just fear attempting such a feat would suck some of the fun out of things and make it more like a chore. Basically I'm happy with my level of posting. I am much more consistent than I was the first year. And I actually have two other blogs which I do not overlap with here. One is food based that I started in August of '07 when both children went off to college. The other was political, then became a writing blog. I think the latter one is continuing to morph into something else. I haven't quite figured it out yet.

So. No stitching presents because no one in my family would dare. LOL I know that I treat myself to enough stitchy stuff all year round. I did find the latest issue of Stitch, the British guild mag, and purchased the Crochet page a day calendar on clearance. They had a good mix of projects in it, including Tunisian crochet which I intrigues me.

On Saturday I made some amazing progress on Agnes Scott - I finished the border, finished the fence at the bottom. Finished the bottom of the house and moved on to the roof. Did two of the Queen stitch flowers - this did entail putting my frame on my Elan stand with frame weights to counterweight it. Then I adjusted the overheard light and the Daylight light and magnifier. Positioning is a little bit awkward as I need the magnifier a little too close to the fabric and I have to be careful with hand placement. But I made much better progress this way and I think those dreaded Queen stitches will finally be mastered.

All of which has me dreaming of other projects. My local shop owner has asked me to model stitch a piece for her - she designed something with blackwork and then decided she doesn't like blackwork at all. Too funny. This will be a deadline project as she hopes to take to market in the spring. Plus I've got a gift project for someone, but that one should be easy and take two weeks or less.

No goals, no resolutions. I'm just not that kind of person. I did publicly state a January goal for Agnes Scott and am still hoping to have this off to the framers by January 10th. But that's it for goals for me. I think last year I started off with a goal of finishing some UFOs. Which I did accomplish. But then around May, new projects started clamoring for attention and I was happy to oblige. I guess Agnes will be my biggest UFO finish for the year even if she's actually finished in January. (I could stitch for the next 14 hours straight and I'd not be close to finished by midnight.)

Happy New Year to all!

Crikey

On Saturday, DS's girlfriend came to visit and DH and DD went Christmas shopping. There I was thinking I could just sit and stitch on Agnes Scott while watching I Love Lucy on TVLand.

But no.

I realized I was about to run out of the off-white silk.

I knew the Scarlet Thread doesn't carry Soie d'Alger. I called Needlewoman East and they don't have it either. But I knew In Stitches in Alexandria did. So I called and got their hours and realized I either had to go right then, or wait until Thursday. But if I waited till Thursday I might miss some prime stitching time. Quick trip to In Stitches where I bought my one skein of silk and a lovely little magnifying glass. She said the only people coming into the store on Saturday were confused husbands with a shopping list or the need for a gift certificate and women about to take a holiday trip and needed a project to work on.

My real problem lies in having messed up three times in one week on this piece. Requiring much frogging, a little cutting, etc. I'm finally back on track and vow to avoid further mess-ups.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

As Promised

Here's Agnes Scott - some of the work in that's close in color to the linen doesn't show up. I've still got some serious stitching to do on this piece. But I'm pretty darn determined.

Accomplishments

1) All presents wrapped and mailed - one box to Florida, one box to Texas, and three boxes to New Hampshire

2) Exchanged shredder at Staples - I'd say the overheat button on the first one did not work...

3) Library fines paid - I keep using the Express checkout - had to stand in line to pay them money...

4) dry cleaning dropped off and picked up

5) Christmas card photo taken - will print them at Target today and start addressing them tonight

6) All my shopping is done except someone has the nerve of having a birthday the week after Christmas...

Agnes Scott

One should never, never check a simple thing like Agnes Scott in an anagram maker. It made 368 and I couldn't even think of one... I need more sleep. Sorry about the no-show photo. Today. And I will post one tomorrow. I promise.

Will Unroll Agnes and Phake a Toto

Anyone else a Capitol Steps fan? They always end their shows with a Rindercella type piece. Certain phrases become code words and "someone phook a toto" is big at our house.

I haven't gone back to the Queen stitch yet. Got caught up in finishing the bottom section so I can start on the house. But I will do them. Eventually.

Not much new here. Christmas shopping with the college students today.

We Did A Survey Once

We did a survey once at one of my EGA meetings. Went around the room and you had to say which was your least favorite stitch and why. (hey, Stitch Bitch! hint, hint!)

The majority of the group either went with French knots or Queen stitch. One or two said Palestrinas and there was one other stitch that I'm not thinking of at the moment.

I may dislike doing the Queen stitch, but I love French knots. I think that trend of candlewicking back in the day made me proficient. So maybe doing more than 150 Queen stitches on Agnes Scott will turn me around. I know I've done pieces with 40-50 of them. Maybe I need to get out my floor stand and see if I can't improve something about this stitch that will cause me fewer problems.

Apparently This is the Policy

If you google any variation of Girl Scouts and stolen cookie money you find stories galore of people who have walked away with the cookie money, usually in the thousands of dollars.

And my experience is not unique. The Councils decline to press charges for thievery because they don't want adverse publicity. They refer to the matter as a debt and call in a collection agency.

Though I kind of understand the adverse publicity thing - some people might remember reading about a case of someone stealing the cookie money and decline to buy the next year - in reality I think this encourages people to think they can get away with stealing from the Scouts who have worked hard and long.

Le sigh.

Yesterday I started the dreaded (for me anyway) queen stitches on Agnes Scott. I did a quick estimate of the number of them and think there's over 150. Yesterday I
did 11. And I messed up but refused to frog this stitch. So one floral motif will be a tiny bit higher than it should be, but I think it will be unnoticable. I just need to remember what happened when I go to stitch the other motifs so I don't move them all. I've been trying to be extremely careful with my counting and placement.

This is all the time I have. Have to go pick up DS after his last final. The kitties will be very happy to have other people to sleep with tonight as they don't like each other and that means if the big guy wants to sleep with us, the little one is out in the cold.

No Pain

I did limit my stitching time yesterday and had no pain. That's good.

Still need to dig out fabric for finishing my mother's little kitty piece. If the Hancock in Vienna hadn't closed, I'd just go buy a piece. But I think I've at least got dark blue velvet scraps which could be very pretty.

Tomorrow DS comes home from college, and Saturday - barring bad weather - DD will fly home. Makes me happy.

Last night we went to an Eagle Scout ceremony - a first for me. DS did Cub Scouts and started Boy Scouts, but we had an incident that kind of turned me off in Cub Scouts so when we moved, he didn't continue.

One night I went to a Pack meeting (I was impersonating a single parent at the time as DH was in Kuwait for a year.) Our Den Leader was relocating and the Pack Master took all the parents from this den into a separate room and told us if one of us didn't step up into the Den Leader position, that was it in scouting for our boys. Blackmail at the expense of children. Wonderful. I refused to take this on as a single parent with at the time, many obligations. But they let us a cobble together a solution of Den Leader by committee. It was kind of ugly. I went to the Leaders meetings and the other parents rotated through the weekly den meetings.

This all happened to us a year after DD's Girl Scout leader absconded with the cookie money. And the Council declined to press charges. Left the girls and troop hanging. No money, no activities, no leader, no help. That was another terrific experience.

Now on the whole, I do thinking scouting offers some great experiences. I was a Girl Scout. I was a Girl Scout leader, while I was in college and while DD was in scouting as a Brownie. I worked in a GS scout on summer and had an amazing time. I learned important things about first aid and emergency preparedness all while having fun. And even today the whole Be Prepared thing provides daily guidance. I never leave home without a stitching project in my purse 'cause you never know when you'll have free time.

Whine, Whine, Whine

I was bopping along on Agnes Scott last night and trying very hard to ignore the pain in my hand. But eventually it became too much to stitch. Overuse injury, anyone? Crap.

Will see how it goes today. I'm okay as of right now. But I may have issues later. Guess I'll start with some ibuprofen before I even pick up my needle.

I am stitching on this piece two-handed. My non-dominant left hand is on top of the piece and my dominant right hand is underneath. I've been stitching this way on large pieces on scroll frames for 10 years and can sail along pretty quickly. This could be tendinitis or carpal tunnel or even arthritis. Or maybe I was just sitting funny and as a result was moving slightly differently. I don't know. But I'll definitely be paying attention today. I'm making such great progress that I abhor the idea of slowing down or worse, stopping.

Next May

Next May is my 30th high school reunion. I have yet to attend a single reunion. I was alerted to this reunion (so far) by multiple mailings and a phone call from an old friend who was on campus playing dialing for dollars with alumni. First, how can it be 30 years! It's official. We are our parents now. Second, the powers that be have set up a website for our classmates and have encouraged us to post links to our blogs for staying in touch. I know I'm not linking this blog to that website. But I have contemplated creating a separate one. Or maybe I should use my now defunct and abandoned political one. Obviously I need to think about this.

The good news on the old school front is that they are changing admissions so that anyone who can pass muster on admissions and the parents make less than $75,000, can qualify for free tuition, housing, and a laptop. Harvard started this trend among private schools and set their amount at $60,000, but I read in the paper today that Harvard is intent on providing much more aid to families making more than $60,000 and less than $180,000.

These are schools with large endowments. Harvard has the most money - Reuters is reporting the number is over $35 billion, but I'm not sure where their numbers are from. It was nearly $26 billion in 2005. My high school's endowment is second largest in the nation at over $1 billion.

(By this some of may have deduced that I did not attend your average American high school and you'd be correct. I was fortunate enough to live close enough to an amazing prep school. But after high school, I attended my state university.)

Just ruminating on things...

And in Stitching News

I've got things to do and all I want to do is stitch on Agnes Scott. I made some errors over the weekend while stitching and spent some time frogging. Probably gave up close to 3 hours of progress. Need to look more closely at the chart and stop making assumptions!

I also received an early Christmas present of a new camera. I had a few criteria for this one - small enough to always carry it around, image stabilization and a better than 3x optical zoom. The Samsung L77 fit the bill. Got it on sale and had a $15 discount. I'll unroll Agnes from the scroll frame later and see what kind of picture I can get. I'd post more photos of progress but 70% of her is rolled up and I hate unrolling and rerolling.