Monday, March 29, 2010

Stitchy Update

China Blue (or rather Purple)
This past week I've been working on China Purple.  It has been an easy stitch so far.  I am exactly halfway through with it. It should be an easy finish.


Mary Engelbreit Baby Quilt
I should have already had this baby quilt done.  My baby niece's birthday was this past Saturday.  She is one year old now.  How time flies!!!  But I must confess, I let the specialty stitches in it daunt me.  It has a ton of french knots, lazy daisy stitches, and satin stitches.  I am a straight cross stitcher.  I don't even like to back stitch, which is why I love HAEDs!!!  Anyway, I sat down on Sunday and decided to start working on it again.  I got the cow done!!!!  Yay!!!! The picture doesn't do it justice but in real life, the colors pop!!!!  I hope to keep working on this WIP this week!


As I mentioned, it was my baby niece's 1 year birthday this past Saturday.  It was also my BFF's birthday, I won't mention how old she is!  Thank goodness they are both on the same day!  Makes remembering the birthdays that much easier!!! Anyway, here's a pic of my niece on her special day!  I plan on visiting in a few weeks when it is her older sister's birthday!

Spring is here!

Green!!  Green everywhere!  The trees, the bushes, the grass!  Anything outside is covered in green pollen!!!  I washed my car on Sunday, within 5 minutes it was covered in a fine green dust again!  Oh well, at least I got the first layer of pollen off!!!

Spring has arrived fully in south Louisiana. I hope it stays!!!  It has been beautiful weather!  I have a new sitting area for my patio that I am enjoying immensely in this wonderful weather!  Duke and I have enjoyed the time outside over the weekend.  Here are a few pics:

My new patio chairs (courtesy of Mom and Dad)

One of the lakes down by LSU by City Park. 
 Duke and I enjoyed a nice long walk there this weekend.

Part of the trail at City Park. Everything is just so pretty right now!

Duke sniffed his way through the walk.  Had to "mark" everything!  Sigh

I do have some stitchy stuff to share but Blogger is not cooperating in the upload of photos right now!  I will try back later! 


Monday, March 22, 2010

Come, Gone, Back Again!

Spring has sprung!!!  Then it sprung away!  For the past week we've had some amazing spring time weather! But then, old man winter showed his head again on Sunday.  Temps were in the 40s!!!  It was freezing.  But luckily, spring came back this Monday!!!  In fact, right now, Duke is outside on the patio enjoying some sun and I am airing out the apartment!  There is a lovely breeze blowing right now!!! Duke and I took a nice walk this afternoon too!

Here are a few pics of my "little man":

Hanging out on the balcony, sunning himself!

Playing with his new "monkey".  I spoil him so!!!

New Stash
Ok, so yes, I broke one of my goals of the year "No purchasing of new stash unless to complete a project currently ongoing". But considering it is March, I did pretty good to go almost 3 whole months!!!! I've always wanted to do a Biscornu so I purchased The Sweetheart Tree "Cherry Blossoms" Biscornu Pincushion kit.  I'm looking forward to doing it.  I'm a little bit intimidated but I'll forge ahead with it!!!



Olive Oil WIP
This weekend I finished all the stitching of the Mill Hill bead kit: Olive Oil.  Maybe next weekend I'll sit down and sort out the beads and finish the beading part.



New WIP
So instead of working on either of the 2 baby quilts I need to complete, I started a new WIP.  I know, shame on me!!! It is a pattern, China Blue, that was in issue 161 of The World of Cross Stitch magazine. 


I am doing this WIP with all materials I already possessed, so no new stash was purchased.  I am doing it on 28 count jobelan in the color of lavendar sunset.  I converted all the threads from blues to lavendars. I just started this Sunday afternoon while watching the LSU baseball game against Arkansas (LSU won, of course).  It has been a fairly easy stitch so far.  I think I might finish this one pretty quickly.  I am thinking of giving this to one of my friends who absolutely adores the color purple.



That's all going on in my part of the world. I won't bore you with details of work.  I don't want to hear about my own work!!  LOL!!!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Working at Convention

So, I am sitting here at the registration desk of the convention.  It is getting near the end of day 2. So far so good.  I've learned two things: 1) librarians are NOT quiet and 2) paint stirring sticks are used as placeholders for books in shelves. 

The convention started on Wednesday, and hopefully not jinxing myself, has been pretty easy.  Monday and Tuesday was a little doubtful as we were putting together materials for the convention.  It took 5 of us working 8 hours a day to get it all done.  That is a total of 80 man hours. We were exhausted. 

Today I am working 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.  Same for tomorrow.  Most of it is just sitting in front of a computer putting in new registrants and making badges but it is exhausting.  Especially the part of being nice to all these different people.  That is quite a chore for me especially when I do not know someone.  I tend to clam up when presented with new people.  And plus, I'm just generally a very cranky person when I am tired and stressed out!!! Hmmm, I promise that I am not cranky ALL the time.  I do laugh and smile!!!

Only one more day left of convention.  I will hopefully be back in the office on Monday, focusing on my work.  There is another convention next week, my office mate's convention, but I'll just be helping with the putting together of materials and not actually attending the meeting to work it! 

Unfortunately this convention has cut into my stitching time.  Not that I haven't had time in the evening, just that I am so tired that my eyes cross at the sight of 25 count fabric!!!!

I am ready for 6 pm Friday to roll around!  I am looking forward to sleeping, stitching, and gardening this weekend!!!!

Sunday, March 07, 2010

What a Mess!!!

Week in Review
Blegh!  That is how I would describe this past week.  Work SUCKED!!!  I am doing someone else's work and it is literally ticking me off and making me ill!!!  I typically am pretty good at leaving work at work.  NOT this week!!!  I have literally made myself sick this week from stress!!!!  Have driven myself to the point where I am crazier than normal!!!  Upon the completion of the work week, I went home and was sick.  Fever, chills, aches, puking.  Yep, made myself sick from stress.  And that really ticked me off!  It was the first pretty spring weekend and I was sick!!!! I need to make some changes!  Not sure what, but something has to change!!!  Especially with this upcoming week.  It will be another stressful long week but I can't continue to feel the way I do physically!!!

Movies
Started to watch Confessions of a Shopaholic on Saturday night.  I made it through about 30 minutes before turning it off.  Didn't like the book, don't like the movie!

I was up at 2 am on Sunday morning.  Part of the whole being sick thing and the only thing on tv was the Blair Witch Project 2.  Even at 2 am, and with a fever, this movie is just BAD!!!!

Dragged myself to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D for my friend's birthday today.  I highly recommend this movie!!!  I LOVED IT!!!  I think the story was a great adaptation and Johnny Depp is just yummy!!!!  The 3D glasses didn't really bother me.  Although I could tell that my eyes were quite tired by the end of the movie!!!

While at the movies I saw the movie poster for the new Nightmare on Elm Street!!!  Very excited.  It is opening on April 30!!  I know I will have to see it alone but that's ok!  I've accepted that I have to watch my horror movies alone!!!  :)

Another movie poster I saw was for Ramona and Beezus.  Did anyone read the Ramona Quimby books as a child?  My sister and I loved those books!  Made me smile when I saw the movie poster and my sister was very excited about it when I shared the news with her!!!!  Those were just great books to read!!!

Stitching
I've worked on 3 projects this week.  Had sort of a rotation going.  We'll see how long it lasts. I'm not really a rotation kind of gal.

The first is, of course, Dragon Knot.  I got a small bit done on it!

The whole picture

The tiny part I am currently working on.

The next is the Mill Hill kit, Olive Oil.  This is being done on perforated paper and I'm kind of enjoying it.  It is definitely an easy stitch!!!


The last one is the baby blanket I am working on.  It is a Mary Engelbreit design of Mother Goose.  The colors on it were what drew me to it.  It has a lot of specialty stitches in it that I don't typically do so I think it may take me a little longer to do and will be a challenge!!!

The section I am currently working on.


Close up of the cow. 

Ok, well I have to end today's post here.  I've made pasta for dinner and Duke is driving me crazy with his begging!!!  I have no clue how he knows pasta has been made but he does and he is annoying me to death with his whine!!!  So off I go to serve us both some pasta!  And to get ready for the Oscars!  I hope this week is a great one!!!