Progress on many fronts and something ridiculous

Greetings gentle reader.  So good to see you.  I have resettled into life in the land of Really-This-Is-Winter?-Who-Knew-?!  Today we are supposed to hit 71F  This weekend we needed to air condition the shop. Honestly, last Thursday it snowed on me and now I'm trying to find light enough sweaters to wear to the office.  Oh well.  I guess I will just have to muddle through.

On to the exciting news ----   I stitched!   I know-- it is gasp worthy.

This weekend after the customer flurry left for the day (Saturday was the first day of my needlepoint shop's annual post-TNNA sale, and the shoppers were out IN FORCE!), my little stitching country club settled in for a get together and Ethel got all the leaves (Sampler Thread) in the uppermost basket and the flowers started going in (French knots in white Flair which may be joined by very, very pale blue and pale blue Flairs as well).  And, she also got a bit more sky because that's where I started only to quickly work out that to do any more sky I needed to rid myself of the waste knots  in my way and to do that I needed to get those threads running through the white flowers anchored.   If I had done a better pic you could tell that the Flair makes the flowers sparkle a bit.

On Sunday I hunkered down at Chez Hovel, put on an Agatha Christie audio book, and stitched and napped the day away.  It was blissful!   First up on Blissday was starting my By the Bay Serenity Harbor.  I am loving it.  

I am changing the roses in the border from pink to red.  As far as I can tell I have not messed up my counting yet, but I am accepting all prayers and good thoughts that not only is that assumption true but that they continue to be true.  I have a habit of just giving up on things where I get off in count and can't find the mistake in an hour of hunting.  It's a character flaw, but life it too short to be frustrated for long.

And Ellen's flag came out to play --

That's By Gone Stitches' One Nation -- and it got some new stars and an "O" in Connecticut.  I know, I know.  A 10-year old could stitch faster, but hey, I'm getting there.  

I am going to leave you with a little ridiculousness from DC.
Behold, Sound Suit by Nick Cave. (from the Smithsonian American Art Museum)

The front:

The back:

Details:

My first reaction was "dang it someone's grandma did those."  Eventually after circling the thing for a while I decided I might have to come back from the grave to shoot someone who did that to my stitching.

Good morning, snow!

This morning we have fluffy white stuff falling from the sky!

That was at 6:45-ish.  Now that it is almost 9am the flakes are a lot bigger and there are a lot more of them.  Lots and lots more of them. [I think the herbs in the planter box may be toast-- -don't you?]   Save for the driving in it part (my poor sister!), it is really cool.

For comparison, yesterday it looked like this:

My American friends, that's your National Christmas Tree.  It is probably undecked today as they were dismantling its compound yesterday morning.    And yesterday's chilly winds did not dissuade the "photo club" at the White House (though it did bring down the numbers considerably)--

Oh, something I never noticed/paid attention to before was this monument in the sidewalk between the White House and the National Christmas Tree.  It is the official Zero Milestone marker set in 1920 and from which all roads in the U.S. were supposed to be measured -- apparently that didn't happen, but we still have the milestone and a remembrance of the first Transcontinental Motor Convoy which went from DC to San Francisco in 1919.

I'm going to break the cool travel-ness here, and shoe-horn some stitching in -- otherwise you might think I was avoiding the issue...... you would be right!

I joined the By the Bay's Serenity Harbor SAL for the year, and for the last few days I've been jealously watching people's progress.  When i was packing I just could not see my way clear to packing this bundle:

That is a badly-lighted (sorry) pic of my floss toss for this.  See-- that's a pretty big bundle to pack.  So I am just going to have to wait until I give up my East Coast fling to get needles in to this one.

Ok, warning,  I am saying this up front:  this is NOT mine.  I merely facilitate the finishing for my friend Judy.

Isn't it pretty?  And we had the perfect shade of velvet in the finishing corral at the shop!  Such miracles do not happen every day!

She did a great job.  I sure would love to claim it as mine!...... especially since the eagle-eyed amongst you will note there are no pictures of my stitching progress since I have very little to show for the last few days.  Oops!

Ok, enough slight of hand,,,,   back to pretty vacation pics.

I was in DC a day before the family and I decamped for an early Christmas in St. Louis with one family bundle.  The first night in St. Loius we headed out to the light display at the Botanical Gardens and it was SPECTACULAR!  Kudos STL!!!!!!

Nope. That is not part of the Christmas lights, but I love Chihuly.

How cool is what I call "the light saber garden?!!"

For the Doctor Who fans... I don't think they meant to do this... or maybe they are fans too who could not resist......

And I leave you with a minor theme of my photos ...  the first pet of the holidays (besides Princess, of course).  Meet Q -- totally mellow and peaceful until you mention the "S" word.  [Squirrel]

Happy Tuesday!

P.S.  In case there is a very observant person out there who pays attention to my sidebar, you will note that in my Reads Allegedly in Process, Stephen King has appeared.  Now, that's not something I EVER imagined happening... ever.  But the 13-year-old nephew gave it to me for Christmas explaining that he remembered us talking about Edgar Allan Poe last year and he understood that King had his roots in Poe so obviously it was the perfect thing for Aunt Ruth.  Gulp.  What's an aunt to do? ---- Suck it up and read, that's what!  lol  Preening proudly that I've "raised" another generation of book people.

Look who's done!!!!!!!!! Whoop Whoooop

Yes, dear friends, there has been a miracle.  The problematic jay is..... drum roll please..... DONE!    Yeehaw the first Badgerish finish of 2015.  And I even got his pic in focus and uploaded within a half hour of completion (I would have been faster if I had not had to stop to call my bank to explain that, no, I was not the person who entered my account password incorrectly repeatedly this morning causing Mr. Bank to lock my online account.   Sigh.  Allegedly all worked out now.  Prayers accepted......)

As long as I'm showing off, I'm going to share some of the DC atmosphere I've been soaking up.  My first or second night here was really foggy cool.  We took a swing into the District to visit "my swoosh" (I consider the Air Force Memorial "mine" and I call it the swoosh.) --

And the Washington Monument.... well, the bottom two-thirds.

I will be back to talk tree later, but I owe Linda a pick of the finished tree.  It's a bad one and there will be others (I Just can't find them right now.) , but I don't want Linda thinking I ignored her.  For the record, that's 9 feet covered with about 750 ornies.  The kid's tree has another 80 or so.  And 39 large ones circle the dining room ceiling.  As I am "the official hooker of Christmas"  (I really need a badge or sash.) I can tell you that it take about 12 hours for your fingers to stop hurting for every 4 hours of hooking you do.

Well I'd better get my fanny to bed.  I know I owe many more pics-- I have a lot of adventures to catch you up on.

Happy stitching, my friends.