Week Seventeen, April 28, 2016

By gosh, I stitched. Every night this last week! I can hardly believe it! And I managed to complete the fourth through the seventh fill colors “Rematch” and get nearly half of the eighth one done as well!

This meant a lot of binge watching (a season of “Hawaii 5-O”, a season of “Blue Bloods”, a season of “Major Crimes”, a season of “Rizzoli & Isles”, and two movies - “The Hardy Girls” on Turner Classic Movies and “The Monument Men” on Sundance! - to say nothing of catching up with “Elementary”, “The Good Wife”, “Castle” and “NCIS: Los Angeles”).  And in between all this stitching and television, I managed to avoid any injuries, doctor’s visits, etc! 

We have spring here, but sadly, we have April storms and they are playing havoc with the tulips, iris and serviceberry trees. Still, for a few days there, we had a spectacular-looking front garden!

 

 

This next week, I hope to keep up my stitching pace and get “Rematch” done, at least by the end of May! More storms are forecast and I do have to pick up husband at the airport near midnight on Sunday and be available as his driver for post-out-patient surgery on the 5th, but otherwise…

WIPocalypse 2016 - April 22, the Pink Moon

This month’s topic for discussion is “What do you listen to while stitching?” For me, it’s always the television on. I stitch in my bedroom where there is an HD television hooked up to a DVR and the satellite as well as local on-antenna channels so I have a wealth of choices. I might “listen” to something I DVR-ed or it might be “live” — it all depends. Can I concentrate on stitching while “listening” to NCIS or do I need to concentrate on the program? Can I enjoy a classic movie while stitching?  Does a little “Binge listening” need to be done to clear my DVR memory? 

Last night, for example, I stitched during the Turner Classic Movies Judy Garland Tribute and basically listened to “The Harvey Girls” from start to finish (Not sure I ever actually had watched that movie before as there were certainly things I didn’t remember about it, like the fact that Angela Lansbury was in it!).

My goals last month were simple: make progress on “Rematch”.  I expected little else thanks to interruptions in my schedule by visitors or road trips, doctors’ appointments (which usually et me into anxiety overdrive), or by early morning appointments (phone bank at public radio, taking husband to airport for the first flight of the day, service visit by the HVAC guys arriving sometime between 8 AM and Noon, etc.) resulting in exhausted evenings and foggy thinking, definitely not suitable for focusing on counted cross-stitch!  

So I have little WIP progress to report but I can say that, since last month, I have completed two more colors of fill on “Rematch” (Number Three was roughly 30% done last month and Number Four only an idea in my foggy brain) and actually started on color number Five (roughly 25% done as of last night).

Do I have goals for May? Well, let’s hope I can do better with “Rematch”. Looks like, if I concentrate, I can stitch roughly half a color a night. I have seven and three-quarters to go which means it could be done in two weeks, give or take a few hours. SO a finish is possible (if not likely).

Also, I found out two weekends ago that a niece is expecting (It’s a boy, and the name will be Carter William but I don’t know anything else), and I’d like to find a suitable birth sampler for her…

Weeks Fourteen through Sixteen, April 7, 14 and 21, 2016

Well, as you can see from my title, I didn’t blog for the last three weeks! Oops!

But I have reasons! Maybe not GOOD reason, but reasons nonetheless! 

Mainly, I didn’t stitch. At least not until last night. And I didn’t stitch because a) my mojo was missing and b) life got in the way.

The week of April 7, we were preparing for out-of-country visitors, who arrived April 6 and stayed through April 10. Needless to say, it was difficult to do any stitching while entertaining our Saudi friends. Besides, my stitching mojo seems to have gone walk-about.

The week of April 14 included the end of our Saudi visitors’ stay, a massive April snowstorm:

(Underneath this 7+ inches of heavy wet snow are all those daffodils I posted about in Week 13!)

an appointment with a surgeon as a preface to a colonoscopy (I know, too much information), and an early morning rising for manning the phone banks for the local public radio’s spring fundraiser. To say I was exhausted was to understate the issue! 

And this week - an overnight stay in Cleveland for a wedding (including a rehearsal  and rehearsal dinner), at which wedding ceremony I sprained my ankle , which in turn resulted in leaving for home early (skipping the reception) with my ankle wrapped in five pounds of gas station ice. Three days later, this resulted in a three-hour visit to the ER to make sure it was a sprain and NOT a break (you wouldn’t believe how many people told me about their experiences with breaks which masqueraded as sprains!):

(It was, indeed, a sprain and not a break! Whew!)

and my six-month check-up with the dentist. Also included in this week’s schedule were two trips to the local airport to send husband on his way to Nevada. The first, at a decent time of day so in theory I could figure out the route too and from (I had never driven there before and driving to places I’ve never been before is NOT in my comfort zone), resulted in a repeat the next day when all flights were canceled due to a computer glitch, and the second one required getting up at 3 AM to get to the first flight out! AAACK! And the very next day I had to be up early again for the first appointment of the day by the heating and cooling service, who were doing the annual HVAC check-up on hour system. Added to that were the bare-root roses delivered while husband was gone and these roses HAD to be planted (me with a sprained ankle - right? Thanks Dan, for the assistance!).

So the fact that I actually pulled out “Rematch” and put in some stitches last night probably qualifies as a minor miracle! The current fill color  (Number 4 of 12) is about 75% done:

Not sure that the mojo is back but the tulips and grape hyacinths are blooming (and surprisingly, the daffodils survived for the most part and rebloomed!):

 and one can only hope that spring is here (although I heard the weatherman say last night there were a few frost warnings in the next week’s forecast. AACK!).

Week Thirteen, March 31, 2016

Yeah, late, I know, but to my credit, I had photographed this piece on time but just never got around to posting it. My excuse, besides pure laziness, was a repeat mammogram of teh one I had had last week (which I admit, scared me to death, but which, luckily, turned out to be a false alarm... Whew!)

Anyway, I really didn't feel much like stitching (AGAIN!)  so I only managed to finished color #3 (of 12) in "Rematch" and start color #4. 

We have started experiencing spring around here, only to have the weatherman predict snow and low temps in the 'teens for tonight. Not exactly how I wanted to start April off, but still...

How about a few daffodills to end this post?