SFS and Smalls Stitching (aka as Smalls to the Rescue)

Here we are -- it is both the final day for reporting January Stitching from Stash "accomplishments" and the January reporting check-in day for the Smalls SAL.  And, as luck would have it they go hand-in-hand for me this month.

SFS Report:

Month:   January

Spent:    $59   ( I CAN EXPLAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Earned:  $12

January Financial Summation:  -$47

Overall January Summation:  Sigh.

So, gentle readers, here were my shopping downfalls-- explanations will follow......  

You see my needlepoint store does one sale a year.  Just one.  365 days in a year and we have only 14 of them where we have merchandise discounted.  It is always just after TNNA, the big needlepoint/needlework tradeshow in January.  What's a girl to do??????   Usually I go to TNNA with the shop crew, but this year they moved the show up two weeks and I was still back east while they were glorying in the wonders of new stuff in Phoenix (apparently a lot of the wonder was that there was not a lynching of the guy who *had* to smoke in the men's room at the conference center, got caught, and threw his lit cigarette into the trash can thus catching the trash on fire and forcing the evac of the center and the extreme ire of the vendors who were in the middle of taking many orders).
So, usually I'm at the show and getting in PLENTY of trouble while I'm there, but this year I got in trouble in the shop at the sale.   All the above canvases were freshly dumped in the 80%-off bin!   Can you believe it?  I couldn't help myself!   Oh, come on!  You know you couldn't resist either.   Heck, that Ewe and Eye reindeer I actually already have as an XS pattern and still I couldn't leave it be!.... the stitch and thread options will be way cooler for it as a needlepoint anyway.

All that means that by the middle of January I had ONLY spent $34 on three needlepoint canvases (yes, $34 for all three canvases!!!!!), and I was already over budget.  Those of you with keen eyes will note that the Thanksgiving canvas has an array of threads on it.  Wellllllll, there I was $34 already spent, and then I remembered that my friend, Jean, was working at the shop last weekend and she'd done this amazing Fall rooster, so I grabbed my new Thanksgiving piece and trotted it off to have her help pick threads because the ones on the stitch guide that came with the piece were just not going to cut it.   Cha-ching.... another $25 in threads for a canvas that I won't even start anytime soon (at least I think I won't, but I taped it so maybe.....).

I will fess up now that it would be even worse for me if it weren't for the fact that I pay wholesale for those threads.   Can you imagine how shamed-faced I would have to be at full retail?????

Now for the Smalls SAL Report -- Also known as:  Smalls to the Rescue!

 After the ramifications of my two week's of shopping adventures really dawned on me, I began a frantic (and doomed) rescue campaign of trying to get some stitching done to help counteract my spending.  In the last 10-12 days I have started and finished these darlings which will all become ornies for Christmas this year.:

The pair of bells is for me and my sister in honor of our mom who was in the church bell choir for years (so was I --- I miss those bells!).  The pattern is from one of those 365 patterns books... I'll look it up for you later.  They are done in Belle Soie save for the light red which is a Sampler Thread.  For the record this is Bell #2--

I think we probably all recognize the glorious fun that is a JBW tree.  In Belle Soies and it's all mine!   At least for right now I think I get to keep it.

Bell #1

That is what I have been up to.   I am now going in search of either Shopping Blinders or a spine to help me be more balanced in February.

Oh, on the reading front, I have to say that I am really liking King.  I'm shocked I tell you.  Shocked.  I was a fan of his stance in support of genre fiction (in the face of "literary" fiction snobs), but I was always certain he was not for me -- I have a very willing suspension of disbelief which makes me exceedingly prone to getting freaked by books/TV.  Mind you, it's early pages yet since I've been stitching nonstop, but I am happily impressed. 

Sally forth and have a great day!

2010 Reading

Here's the pathetic list for 2010:

Books:
1. Terry Pratchett -- Monstrous Regiment (1/11)
2. Jeffrey Toobin -- The Nie: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (1/31)
3. Poul Anderson -- Three Hearts Three Lions (1/31)
4. Jim Murphy -- Blizzard: The Storm that Changed America (2/4)
5. Arthur Conan Doyle -- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes volume 1 (2/15)
6. Neil Gaiman -- Odd and the Frost Giants (2/16)
7. James Gleick -- Isaac Newton (3/3)
8. Lois McMaster Bujold -- The Curse of Chalion (3/21)
9. Arthur Conan Doyle -- The Crooked Man (4/14)
10. Arthur Conan Doyle -- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes v.2 (4/17)
11. Lois McMaster Bujold -- Paladin of Souls
12. Charles Cerami -- Dinner at Mr. Jefferson's: Three Men, five Great Wines, and the Evening that Changed America (6/12)
13. Brian Jacques -- Redwall
14. Arthur Conan Doyle -- Adventures of Sherlock Homes v.3 (6/12)
15. Lois McMaster Bujold -- The Hallowed Hunt 6/23
16. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman -- Good Omens (7/3)
17. Jasper Fforde -- Shades of Grey (7/15)
18. 39 Clues book 1
19. Lois McMaster Bujold -- Mirror Dance
20. Lois McMaster Bujold -- Komarr
21. Neil Gaiman -- The Graveyard Book
22. Lois McMaster Bujold -- The Vor Game
23. Lois McMaster Bujold -- A Civil Campaign

Shorts:


• 24. Paul Di Filippo -- "Providence" in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction v.3
• 23. John Meaney -- "Necroflux Day" in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction v.3
• 22. Stephen Baxter -- "Artifacts" in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction v.3
• 21. Alastair Reynolds -- "The Fixation" in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction v.3
• 20. Arthur Conan Doyle -- "Silver Blaze" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes II (4/17)
• 19. Arthur Conan Doyle -- "The Five Orange Pips" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes II (4/17)
• 18. Arthur Conan Doyle -- "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" in The Advetures of Sherlock Holmes II (4/16)
• 17. Arthur Conan Doyle -- "The Scandal in Bohemia" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes II (4/15)
• 16. Arthur Conan Doyle -- "The Read-Headed League" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes v.1 (2/15)
• 15. Arthur Conan Doyle -- "The Copper Beeches" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes v.1 (2/15)
• 14. Arthur Conan Doyle -- "The Stock-Broker's Clerk" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes v.1 (2/15)
• 13. Arthur Conan Doyle -- "The Speckled Band" in The Adventures of Sherlock Holms v.1 (2/12)
• 12. Alastair Reynolds -- "The Fixation" in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction v.3 (2/9)
• 11. Jack Skillingstead -- "Rescue Mission" in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction v.3 (2/3)
• 10. Ken MacLeod -- "Undead Again" in Futures from Nature (2/2)
• 9. Syne Mitchell -- "Oscar Night, 2054" in Futures from Nature (2/2)
• 8. Vernor Vinge -- "Win a Nobel Prize!" in Futures from Nature (2/2)
• 7. Stephen Baxter -- "People Came from Earth" in Moon Shots (2/2)
• 6. J. Casti, et al -- "A Concrete Example" in Futures from Nature (2/1)
• 5. Tobias S. Buckell -- "Toy Planes" in Futures from Nature (2/1)
• 4. David Berreby -- "The Punishment Fits the Crime" in Futures from Nature (2/1)
• 3. Lucy Bergman -- "Damned If You Don't" in Futures from Nature (2/1)
• 2. Lord Dunsany -- "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art upon the Gnoles" in The Wizards of Odd (1/31)
• 1. Terry Pratchett -- "Theatre of Cruelty" in The Wizards of Odd (1/31)

Hereby resolved: In 2011, I shall do better!