Wordless Wednesday 02.10.10

Who Sent the Frog Back to Me???

Last night as I was finishing up my stitching for the evening on Emmanuel, I noticed a mistake in my stitching. Now, I want to know just who sent that frog back to me?!? I haven't decided whether or not to frog it or to just work around the mistake, yet. I'm going to put this away for the week and work on my exchange piece and then I'll turn my attention back to this monster.

Here's where I started last night for Saturday Night Stitch:


And here's where I finished:



You're not imagining things if you look at the wing in the upper right part. The bird is right side up, but I've been stitching it upside down (turn my fabric and my chart upside down). Everyone take cover, I've sent that little frog packing!!

Closing with some views from my flower and veggie beds today.


Blue Bedder Sage & Rudbeckia

Mr. Lumpy Pumpkin getting his color on.

Garlic getting its stalk and leaves.

A view of the lettuce bed (& weeds--mixed greens!)

Baby spinach plants

It Was Bound to Happen

My first garlic pod has sprouted!! We now have 2 sprouts with more on the way.



This is my luscious Pumpkin Pound Cake and two small pumpkins from my garden. The cake is absolutely delish! I think I'll post the recipe over on my recipe blog in the near future.



On to the title of my post...

This is my progress as of Monday night on my Emmanuel ornie from Plum Street Samplers. It's a fairly straight-forward, easy to stitch design.



Here's my "progress" picture of Emmanuel after FROGGING on Tuesday night. It was bound to happen; that blasted frog came for a visit. *sigh* A most unwelcome guest! I didn't even have the welcome mat out for him!!



I am back on the right track now, though, and should have a true progress pic to show in a few days.

A New Start & Other Mindless Wanderings

Seeing as how August's almost over, I thought I should start stitching on my August ornie. Don't want to fall further behind on my ornie endeavor! LOL I decided to stitch the complimentary ornie "Emmanuel" by Plum Street Samplers. It's stitched on 28 ct. Myrtle fabric using DMC fibers. I worked on this last night while watching the Dallas Cowboys whoop up on the Tennessee Titans. (Go Cowboys!!)

The design is available on Paulette's blog, http://plumstreetsamplers.typepad.com/plum_street_samplers/freebie/page/2/ . Just scroll down a little bit and you'll find it. Click on the download Emmanuel link and it'll take you to the .pdf file to either print out or save or save and then print it out. Whatever floats your boat!

In other news, it's still hot in Texas, but a "cool" front blew through yesterday and dropped 3/4" of rain on us and dropped the temps to 95º (big whoop!). The dear husband has started expanding our garden for the fall and future spring gardening. Our pumpkins are being overrun by cucumber beetles, but we'll be spraying them tonight in hopes of eradicating them from our garden. I told the husband yesterday that at this point in the game, I was ready to use chemicals. Considering I'm a die-hard organic grower, this is major! LOL


Looks like a freshly dug grave, doesn't it? First we had veggie coffins, now we have graves! LOL A bit morbid, don't you think?



The pumpkins have started blooming, male flowers only, just about 6 weeks after planting. As with all my other veggies that have produced male & female flowers, the males are over anxious and have arrived to the party early to strut their stuff.

The cucumber beetles were all over this flower this morning. :(

Some of my late-blooming flowers are starting to pop out. This is exciting as most of these were just planted this spring! I've been waiting ever so patiently for them all summer.

Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa)


Cowpen Daisy (Figure out how this plant got its name!)

Some of the Blanket Flowers that I winter sowed (were winter sown?) have gone to seed and already produced babies! We found these when out inspecting the flower bed this morning.


The Turk's Cap that I rooted from a cutting taken from my dad's neighbors in San Antonio is very happy in its new home in the back flower bed. It's starting to fill out and produce flowers almost daily.


Here are our backyard neighbors' dogs, Winston and Sophie. They're actually littermates and are about 18 months old now. Winston, the bigger one, is on the left and Sophie, the smaller one is on the right. Winston has to be the center of attention and Sophie usually hangs out in the background, carefully watching everything. They greet us when we're out in the yard and will bark like crazy until they're acknowledged.

A Finish...Finally!

Design: Another Snowman Ornament
Designer: Val's Stuff
Fabric: 28 count Wedgewood Blue from The Blended Needle
Fibers: Crescent Colours

This is a complimentary design from a newsletter from Stitchville USA. I'm sorry I don't remember which edition.

Not Much Progress on Saturday Night Stitch

I've been stitching on my ornie for the past week, but alas, no finish. It just seems that gardening and life get in the way on most days, leaving me spent and lacking no motivation to stitch. It doesn't help that God's turned the heat up outside either. Since we don't want my entire paycheck to go to the electric company, that means the AC doesn't go below 76º in our house, and when it doesn, it doesn't usually last long. Normally, we set it at 78º during the day, which I find stifling, so I turn it to 77º and crank up the ceiling fan.

Also, I've been having a horrible time with tightness in my upper back and shoulders leaving me with headaches that last for a couple of days. It's hard to stitch when your head hurts too much to concentrate! I've started to do some exercises to stretch out those muscles, using my little massager (okay, Mark's been using the massager on me), trying to sit up straight and watch my posture, and I've been limiting the repetitive muscle useage. This has cut down on the muscle spasms and helped relax those muscles, but they're still tight. The chiropractor told me I need to stop doing whatever it was that was making them tense!! Yes, I pay him to tell me this kind of stuff, can you believe!?!

Here's where I started:
Here's where I ended:


In the garden, things are heating up and most of the plants are loving it! The cantaloupes (muskmelons) have finally taken off and are blooming like crazy. The little girl cantaloupes have finally shown up, so maybe we'll have some fruit to show soon. The watermelons are taking over the universe in the backyard. We've got 5 more baby watermelons on the vine right now in addition to the one that we've had forever it seems. That one should be ripe in time for 4th of July. It's just the right size for one serving for both me and Mark. LOL The beans have taken off and I've harvested some of those already. The okra is really starting to shine in the heat. We've battled hornworms on the peppers and the tomatoes and aphids on the okra, peas, and beans continuously since planting. I didn't realize that vegetable gardening was such hard work that required such diligence to fight predators!

Hornworm chowing down on one of the pepper plants.

Jalapeno Peppers (Can we say, "Salsa?")
More Cherry Tomatoes
The watermelon patch overtaking the yard
Okra bloom, finally caught one open!
Sunday's harvest

Monday Update

I am still alive and kicking, though you wouldn't know it by my lack of posting. My husband and I have been very busy outside building the raised vegetable beds and working on other outside chores that are most pleasant to do early in the spring when it's not 105º and oppressively hot outside. It's actually pleasant to be outside at this time of the year! Of course today it's very, very windy and only going to be in the mid-50s with a freeze warning for tonight. I'm so ready for the spring temps to hang around for a few weeks so I can get my stuff planted! If you'd like to follow my gardening adventures, you can do so by reading my gardening blog, The Haphazard Gardener.

Since we've been spending so much time outside, my stitching time has greatly diminished. I am stitching SOME, just not a lot. I haven't even finished my ornie for March yet!! I did start my incentive piece last Sunday, but I only put in about 20 stitches. Just enough to say I'd started on the start date. LOL

Here's my March ornie, Walt the Malt by Raise the Roof Designs from the 2008 JCS ornie edition. He's stitched on 28 ct. Rocky Mountain linen from Silkweaver using GAST threads.



And yes, even though I'm using overdyeds, I still do the bottom leg all the way across and come back and then cross the top like when using DMC. I just like the way my stitches look when I do it this way.

Here's my incentive piece for this round on the OOE board. It's LHN's "Heart of America" stitched on 32 ct. something or other from R&R. I think it's Iced Cappuccino, but don't quote me on that. I'll have to find my note and get back to you with the correct answer. :) I stitched almost all of this last night while watching the ACM awards and the 10:00pm news.



I'm on vacation this week, and while I plan on spending the bulk of my time outside and some time working on some indoor chores, both of these are on my stitching agenda for the week. Maybe I'll have a finish on that ornie by my next post!

:o)

My February Ornie is Finished!!

Designer: The Prairie Schooler
Fabric: A 32 count Silkweaver Solo from Silkweaver Fabrics
Threads: DMC
Changes: I decided not to stitch the backstitched "frame" on the top, left, and bottom of the design.
This design can be found in the November, 2008 issue of the online stitching magazine, The Gift of Stitching.

Slow Progress on my February Ornie

I'm slowly, but surely getting closer to finishing my ornament for February, Prairie Schooler's Santa from the November issue of The Gift of Stitching magazine. It's not a difficult stitch, but I'm having a hard time getting into stitching it. I worked on it last night during Saturday Night Stitch time, but didn't seem to make much progress.

Here's before:



After 2 hours of stitching:



I've decided to continue stitching on this next week and try to finish this before the end of February.

In the Last 11 Days

Goodness! Seems like it's been forever since I've posted! I'm feeling so much better and the gunk in my head has all cleared up. Still have 2 days of antibiotics to go, but I think I've finally kicked this sinus infection/cold/crud-going-around-stuff!! I've been having decompression treatments on my back and that is helping tremendously. I'm now able to sit for more than 20 minutes, which definitely improves my stitching time. I'm also continuing my physical therapy treatments, and I will resume my therapeutic massage sessions this coming week. I should be good to go soon!!

I have joined Facebook. Need I say more??? I joined mainly to keep up with current and former co-workers, but a side benefit is that I've been able to reconnect with some high school friends (from back in the dark ages, you know!) as well as a former college roommate! I've also become friends with some cousins, which is nice, since I hardly ever see them or talk to them in real life. Facebook is quite fun, but it can be addicting! If you haven't joined Facebook, you should, especially if you have friends and family spread out all over the place.

My Valentine was so sweet to me yesterday. I received my very own box of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies and a beautifully sappy sweet card!! As a former Girl Scout, I have sold TONS of cookies in my time. The Thin Mints were always the bestest selling cookies for me. I don't particularly care for the chocolate cookie inside and the mint flavoring isn't as strong as when I was younger, but they're still yummy anyway. I think I consumed a whole sleeve of cookies throughout the day yesterday! LOL

On the stitching front, here's what I've managed to accomplish.

I've started stitching LHN's Seasonal Saltbox threadpacks. I'm stitching this series horizontally on one piece of fabric. I've chosen to stitch them on 32 ct. Vintage Maritime White from Lakeside Linens. At least I think it's Lakeside. If not, then it's an R&R color. I'm using the threads in the threadpacks.

Here's the first one, "Blessed are the Meek", which I started this past Monday.



I've also stitched on LHN's "City Stitcher Country Stitcher". I worked on this last Sunday while watching the Pro Bowl. I'll work on this again today so I should have another update coming soon! This is where I'll be starting from today.



Lastly, this month's ornie, the PS Santa from the November, 2008 issue of The Gift of Stitching Magazine. This was my Saturday Night Stitch project for yesterday. I stitched on it while watching a couple of romantic comedies with my husband last night. (o:

Before:



After:



Hope you all have a beautiful day today!! (o:

My January Ornament & Other Ramblings

Snowman's Quaker Christmas
Design by Midnight Stitching
Fabric~32 ct. Vintage Autumn Blush
Fibers~DMC, GAST, and Crescent Colours' Cool Azul

I put the final stitches in this while waiting for my load of laundry to dry so I could have a shirt to wear to work today. This was such a fun stitch. The main change I made to this was the color of the Quaker motif. The original color was supposed to be a weird shade of green, and I changed it to blue. I also left off the 4 stitches in the middle of each "flair" on the sides of the motif.

Today marks day 4 of a sinus headache. I had this same problem a month ago and went to the doctor. He prescribed a course of antibiotics, which obviously didn't do a very good job. The pressure is centered smack dab in the middle of my forehead right between my eyes. My top teeth hurt, my ears are ringing, my nose is stuffy but running (figure that out!), my throat hurts a bit, and I'm generally miserable. The good news is I'm not running a fever and I'm not coughing!! For now, taking Tylenol dulls the pain enough to endure it. A nice steamy shower feels really good, too, but I can't stay in the shower all day long! LOL

Mark's not feeling well at all either. He's got a massive sinus infection (discovered by the MRI he had earlier this month), wheezing, terrible coughing, very runny nose, drainage, stuffy head, and a low-grade fever. I've told him that if he's not better by Thursday I'm calling the doctor and making an appointment for him. I will go with him if I have to because he claims he "just has a cold". Uh-huh. He also thinks the doctor doesn't know what else to give him since he gets these upper respiratory infections/bronchitis/sinus infections several times a year. He's so exasperating sometimes!!

I'll head off to work today and leave the husband here at home to rest and tend to the cats. Good thing they know how to wake him up to get fed, or he'd probably sleep until tomorrow and they'd be half-starved when I got home. LOL Once summer gets here and the weather calms down, we'll all feel better!!

Something New!

I finished my Love is in the Air exchange piece last night, so I started on my ornament for January. It's a little freebie from Midnight Stitching entitled, "Snowman's Quaker Christmas". I changed the color of the Quaker motif to CC's Cool Azul. It's just a little start, but it's a start!



It's stitched on 32 ct. Vintage Autumn Blush linen using DMC, GAST, and Crescent Colours.

(c:

Saturday Night Stitch Progress

Because I'm not sure when (or if) we'll head out tomorrow, I wanted to post a pic of what I got stitched today. I'm almost finished!! I only have a star and a deer to stitch and that's it!! I got in 4 hours of stitching time throughout the day today and I almost managed to complete my ornie.

First Finish of 2008!

This is my first ornie finish for the new year! I really like the way it turned out. It's a free design from Maryse's website, . I stitched it on a scrap of 28 ct. Barley Harvest linen from Woven Workes using Crescent Colours' Bandana and Toasted Marshmallow.

February's Ornament Finished

One of my goals each month is to stitch a Christmas ornament. In my ideal world, these would be finished into a beautiful work of art to show off my stitching and hung on my Christmas tree (or on someone else's tree if it's a gift) each year. However, most of my finished ornaments reside in a lovely plastic tote waiting to be finished into beautiful works of art.

This month, I stitched Little House Needlework's Pine Tree Hill from the November, 2006 JCS magazine. It's stitched entirely in Crescent Colours fibers on a piece of 28 ct. Toasted Almond linen. It was a fun stitch!! I especially love the red in this one!



I'm now stitching on a cute little piece for spring, which I hope to finish up and post a pic of in the next few days.