Bad blogger. Baaad, baaaaaaad blogger.

Yes, I have been bad. And it's even worse than just being MIA. Not only did I go missing from Blogland, but I went on vacation too! --hanging head in shame and shuffling feet in a tone of penitence-- Will you forgive me? I suppose you realize that's just silly -- regardless of your forgiveness, I will have gone on vacation.

In my defense, I did think of ya'll while I was away --

That there in Martha Washington on her front porch at Mount Vernon with her stitching in the basket by her side. I was so pleased that she was happily spending a day stitching with company dropping in. I'm sure she did it for us.

There has been stitching going on my in neck of the woods. However, much to my shame, what primarily has taken over my life/needles has been New Starts. I ssimply can't keep myself from starting new projects. What gives??!! I *want* to finish things. Really, I do! But instread of working my way through any of the several dozen WIPs I have, I go and start something else. Sigh. Maybe it's in the water? Does late-Spring pollen cause startitis?

Anyway, here are some of the recent adventures:
Beatrix Potter is underway occasionally --

I even got anohter beaded bit in --

I must say that as mush as I enjoy beading and like the effect, I have to admit that it's damned annoying when you're trying to allign your hoop for the next motif over.

Joy in the Journey is a lot more complete than this...

I'm at the point that I always get to in a SB piece though -- the point at which it's all really little fiddly bits and back stitching. You know how well that goes over with me.

Here's one of the new starts--

I'm doing it over one in misc silks and loving it. I'm a lot further along than this, but someone's mislayed her pics again.


And another new start is Martina's Tsunami Sampler which I have wanted to do for a while. So in honor of our Japanese friends I hauled it out and decided to do it primarily in pinks (for the cherry blossoms).


Since this pic was taken I've picked up some more colors, got them all arranged as substitutes for the colors called for, and gotten going on the stitching.

Another new start -- Papillon's Live Simply in Waterlillies Peacock


Here's the ultimate proof on how bad the photo collection is... this piece is actually done-- Ursula Michaels "We the People"


I think we're missing another 2-3 starts too. Sigh. And you know what I want to do more than anything right now? Yup, start another project.

I went holidaying in DC as usual. 'Twas my sister's birthday and a chance to play with my new great nephew. And yes, I owe many pictures, but.. can you guess what's coming?.... I seem to have misplaced the downloads. Sigh. They'll come eventually. There was as usual much art. There was also much beer, but I don't think I bothered with pictures of the beer.

For the record it's mostly the dreaded Work that has kept me away from you all. It seems to be a never ending series of "emergencies." Always someone else's emergencies, mind you. All things considered, I suppose that's all work really is--- a long series of other people's emergencies interrupting your day. Ocassionaly a day has highlights -- yesterday we had a spirited debate about the kosherness of my usage of the word "explicate" instead of "explain." I agrued that if I had to do the damned report, it was my language choice. I also held that it didn't matter whether I chose a 19th Century word or not, since the foriegn-language translator is probably going to write it as "to use ducks excessively in a heat wave" anyway (no, I don't have much faith in the translator).

See you tomorrow! --she says being hopeful--