Frell

I didn't need another show. really I didn't. And, no, I was NOT looking for one either. I mean come on -- my weekly "essentials" include:
Perry Mason (daily)
Doctor Who
True Blood
Army Wives
The Closer (Kyra was robbed at the Emmys..... again)
Bones
Burn Notice
In Plain Sight
NCIS
Lockup
Numbers
The Girls Next Door
CSI NY
CSI
CSI Miami (I may forgive Bruckheimer for last season's ending, but it's a near thing. Of course, if I did kill him for what he put me through in that episode then what the heck would I watch on TV???)
Without a Trace
Law and Order Criminatl Intent (only in reruns -- somehow I can deal with the tension when I know it is "done" but not when it is "happening" -- yeah, I know, it's TV lol
Law and Order (only up until the lawyers show up)

Is that the list of someone who is looking for more things to watch on TV? So I really think the television gets lonely and comes looking for me. you see, last night I made the error of thinking "I'll just look at the first couple minutes of The Mentalist just to prove I don't really need to bother." Well, it happened. I watched the whole dang thing and I'm positively entranced. Sigh. I'm doomed.

At least with all these tapes of shows to keep up with I will have plenty of things to entertain me with I do the next finishing marathon. Actually, I am probably going to have one the weekend after next. Wanna join me? come on -- get those ornies dusted off and keep me company.

I can't show you what's been taking up my stitching time because it is my Fall F&S for April. Nope, no peaking! I could show you her floss toss....

The front square is done. Now I need to know what to do about the back.

Beyond that, allow me to show you some fresh stash. Yes, it is true. I need fresh stash as much as I need a new TV show. lol What can I say, apparently stash conspires against me. See, somehow I ended up on Silkweaver's site, and somehow I just had to check out their new shopping system. While checking out said new shopping system I found this solo:

which is absolutely perfect for Enchanting Lair's Believe which I got last year at the Pals Fall Fling--

Which I really, really want to do. Anyone want to join me? I'll be starting AFTER (by George it WILL be AFTER I finish my Black Swan dragon.)

Anyway, while I found that perfect solo I saw this little smiley face on the apge saying they were offering "Happy Packs"-- grab bags of aida or evenweave/linen. Yup, I had to have one of those. And look at the joyous goodies that came in my Happy Pack:


Cool eh? I'm excited. The green is a solo 28ct lugana. The tan is "Heritage" hand-dyed, 32ct jobelan. The blue is "Powder Blue" 32ct opalscent jazlyn. I can hardly wait to find the perfect patterns for them. ..... Oh no. What if this compels me to start a new UFO. Let's face it, we have to be honest-- it will become a UFO. That's just the story of my life.

Question(s).....

Just because I sometimes wonder about random things....

Choosing right this very minute -- If you could go home tonight and put the very last stitch in one piece that you have NOT yet started, what would it be?

Mine would be:


And if the same magic applied to going home tonight and putting the last stitch on some WIP or UFO of yours....?

In that case mine would be:

Duh! My Vierlanden mystery sampler which should have been finished last year.

Want to congratulate me?

Here’s how my Friday night began….

That’s minus 3 ornies that somehow escaped the ironing festival.

Here’s what my life looks like when I start one of these ornie campaigns:

A mass of felt and stuffing and fabric and embellishments and all those other essentials.

Now here are Friday night’s accomplishments:

Wee heee!!!!!!!!! I was feeling rather smug when I finally gave up at 3am! (Apparently I’m a night person.) My ability to finally knock off for the night/morning was stalled by the need to find someplace safe for the ornies to live until their time comes. Suddenly I was struck my a brilliant plan – Jill sent me this really cool flag box! It would be perfect—closed in from dust, obvious amidst my clutter – just perfect. So in Friday night’s goodies went….

….and off I went to bed.

Saturday dawned late. Well, what do you expect for someone who goes to bed at 3am? In between video explorations (I have these piles of videos nestled around the TV and I have been on a campaign to figure out what they are.) and snacks and regular TV (Hey, videos can only drag me so far and they had a new episode of Lockup on MSNBC—I can’t help it. I’m fascinated by that show – I finished –

21! Can you believe it? I have no idea what happened. Truly it’s a mystery to me. Possibly I was possessed by the spirit of a speedy finisher. Mayhap I should have my hovel checked out for ghosts? …. I’ll wait until I have the ornies done though!

While I am exceedingly happy with getting those done, I have created a problem now.

See? I need a new hiding place. Lol

Best wishes to those who picked up the finishing weekend gauntlet. I hope the Finishing Spirit found you too!

One more down ..... and a call to arms!

Another ornie bit the dust this week:

wheeeee!

I have some 20 ornies done and waiting for finishing. Consequently I am declaring at least part of this weekend Ornament Finishing Weekend! Who wants to join me? Come on! --- a little sewing together, a little stuffing, a little ribboning -- it'll be fun!!!! Yeah, I am trying to be perky about it. I'll even try and be real positive about it -- how about I plan to have at least 10 ornies finished-finished by Monday? Cross your fingers for me.

Yesterday I depressed myself a little by discovering some stash I had hidden away. Heavens I have a lot of fantasy patterns! Sheesh, I need to get stitching. For instance---



Ok, are you hiding a hoard of these as well? You are welcome to join the Fantasy SAL Blog for support, encouragement, and temptation.

On other fronts -- anyone catch the premiere of True Blood this week? If you did, let's discuss -- So, what did you think? Fascinating how much racier Sookie got for cable movie channels. lol My summation comment on the episode: That's not a collie! runner up for summation comment: Did you think Jason had that cute a butt? Frankly, I never thought I'd be seeing Jason's butt.

I'd like you to meet Kabuki --

She's my neighbor at home (mom's) and she enjoys sunning herself on the picnic table in our yard. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the bird feeder is on the table to the right of her and the birdbath is just visible in the background (left corner) lol

She's very pretty and quite friendly. She was even nonplussed by me showing up and staring at her through the window and talking to her but the clicking of the camera she wouldn't tolerate.

Special Notes:
Ya'll might get hair pictures if someone else was ever around me with a camera. lol

Karen -- the reindeer ornie is from a Gift os Stitching issue. I'll check on which one and let you know.

Ahhh, the end of weekends

Well, mission accomplished. I have "new" hair-- and it turned out pretty darn nice too. Blessings to brilliant hair sytlists everywhere!

Other than hair and cleaning and scrubbing and tennis viewing and videos and DVDs, here's what I accomplished:

I only did the backstitching on this one. My buddy Diane did the butterfly but was feeling skittish of all the bsing. I actually enjoyed it. Shhhh, bs patterns everywhere might start wandering towards me.


This specialty-stitch tree is from Gift of Stitching magazine. I'm not going to mention the designer, because I prefer to think that this was an abberation for her, but OMG this pattern was TERRIBLE. I think it ended up that 2 of the rows were charted completely wrong as compared to the model, another row was charted with an impossible to stitch order of stitches, the "numbering" on the legs of each stitch were unreadable, and the only instructions accompanying the chart were for finishing not stitching. In short, it sucked.

And another Charland wobbly tree -- apparently they wobble while I picture them because thay always turn out blurry:


And, finally, for dear old Mona -- look what's coming to the Pals ornie exhange:


Ok, I'm back to packing and double checking the house. I'm soon to be off on my train with an audio book and my stitching. Hee heee. Maybe another ornie by tomorrow? Wish me luck!

Tuula's squares at last

Before I head out to pack for a "lovely" weekend of hair doing (my primary purpose) and house cleaning/detritus tossing/packing I thought I'd share a little finish thanks to Tuula who sent me a picture of what I stitched for her since I lamely forgot to do that whole photography thing before sealing the envelop--

Tuula has received the replacement squares I stitched for her missing Fair and Square round 7. She said she like purples and blues and kitchen motifs so look what I found for her --

How perfect is that?! lol I couldn't believe my luck when I turned the page in one of my jumbo books of patterns and found it.

Labor/Christmas Ornie weekend

Man was I a slug. Salt my tail and I'd have to shrivel up. On Saturday I went with friends to the Bowers Museum which is hosting an exhibit of China's terra cotta warriors. [It's going from here to Atlanta, Houston, and the National Geographic Museum in D.C. -- go see it. It's small but very nifty.] Since returning home from it about 5pm on Saturday I did not leave my hovel until I left for work this morning. All weekend and the furthest I went was the kitchen sink and the ladies room. All I did was watch tennis (So, what do you think of the Open so far this year?], watch the telethon, catch up on my videos [I made it through either 5 or 6 entire tapes -- that means 25-30 hours of tv viewing in addition to tennis and the telethon], and stitch. Oh, and nap. There was definitely some napping in there. lol I might be able to take Olympic bronze in napping.

Oh, a note on the Bowers and the Warriors exhibit. It really was nice and I'm glad I went. The Bowers, however, left much to be desired. The space was inadequate to the number of people viewing (or, trying to view), the air conditioning was off in the main section of the exhibit (the temporary units stuck in doorways were soooo not up to the job), the "goodies" for sale, missed several opportunities [you have these exterior banners on the museum sides and on street lights that would be perfect exhibit posters, but you don't produce an exhibit poster???? And, finally, a special note to the Bowers staff: the least you can do on a high-profile traveling exhibit is dust the glass cases that it's in [honest! There were case tops in the exhibit with enough dust that I could have written my name.]

So, at least I have something to show for my weekend of sluggishness --




sorry for the blurriness


The one on the left is fresh this weekend -- It's done with one thred for the specialty stitches and I think it works much better than the two thread version on the right.




Yes, I am feeling pretty smug. Sure, many of you would have tossed those off in a day, but I'm slow.... so I feel I'm entitled to be smug. I think all of these will end up in the ornie exchange event at Pals. If you came, you too could take part in the giant ornament shuffle. Here's a piece of the offerings from last year --

[For the record I was lucky enough to recieve the green stitched banner ornie in the middle of the picture -- it's by our friend Karen.]

The ornie exchange night is almost as much fun as the event's grab bag friacus. Trust me, Pals take the trading of grab bags to the extreme -- it is best to take a nap the afternoon of that part of the event because you're going to be up really late.

Quotes of the weekend:
"'Sex' 'Socks' -- it's pretty much the same word."
Booth -- Bones

"Nice to meet you, Rose. Run for your life."
The Doctor -- Doctor Who

"Taking a big space truck with a bunch of strangers across a diamond panet called "Midnight?" What could go wrong?"
The Doctor -- Midnight -- Doctor Who

"This is not the time for petty sibling squabbles; that's what Thanksgiving's for."
Spencer -- Psych