TUSAL-Tastic!

Today is TUSAL Day for March! This fun "stitch-a-long" is being hosted by Daffycat.  And look!  It's Mr. Peanut!  He has the honor of being my new ort jar.   My former, smaller ort jar seemed so full.  I have to get going on filling this one up!

A Teeny Tiny Sewing Project

We've been looking at the world through ocher colored glasses lately.  Yes, it's that time of the year when lovely yellow particles rain down from the sky to tint our cars and make some of us miserable.  Pollen time!  Yesterday our pollen count was 9369, and today it is all the way down to five thousand and something.  I heard once that somewhere just over 100 is considered extremely high.  If I tell you that right now my car appears to be orange, you can guess what color it really is.

This week I did a little sewing project that turned out so cute that I will make more.  It's a triangular thread catcher.  This appealed to me because of the geometry of it all:  a perfect equilateral triangle turns into a tiny receptacle for your orts.  I found the directions for it on the blog "Needling Things".  You'll find the directions very easy to follow with clear photos to guide you along.  The only change I made was to apply "soft" fusible interfacing to one of the fabric triangles.  I know exactly what I'm going to do with this one, and will include a photo in an upcoming post!

I've been making a little progress on "Folk Eggs" and will have a photo update soon.  I'm starting to think about that Kitty Kalendar again, and might work on that a bit.  Saturday is Stitch Day and I'm looking forward to seeing my stitching group.  We meet at the Stitch Store one Saturday a month.  Sometimes that doesn't seem like enough!  It's always a fun time and I get in a lot of stitching time, which is very much appreciated.

I just had to share some photos of what's blooming in my yard right now.  The fringey looking shrub is a Chinese Loropetalum.  It's always been a healthy plant, but has never bloomed so profusely as it is now!  I see this blast of bright pink whenever I look out the dining room window.

Dianthus

Chinese Loropetalum

Phlox

What a surprise to find out that the dianthus we planted last year are perennials!  In fact, they bloomed most of the year.  Nice to have so many flowers in March!  And finally, here are some sweet little Phlox, which we hope will take over some of our "island" areas.  Ahhhhh, spring!

I now have 60 followers!  You don't know how it makes my day to go to my blog and see that another person has decided to follow my blog! 

Change Is Good, But I Could Do Without The Snafus!

This week has brought some little changes in our house.  When we moved into our house 2-1/2 years ago, we knew that the formal living room (aka the "little living room") was not something we'd use.  We're not formal people and the room is pretty small.  Right away we knew that it would make a great home office.  It took a while, but we finally found some nice office furniture and then had to get the necessary connections installed in the room.  So how come when you're moving stuff from one room to another, all of these other rooms get involved?  Take my craft room.  It was pretty organized, but now has become a storage unit for boxes of office stuff.  So I basically walk in there and then walk out.  The mess is not conducive to craftiness. 

Even though I'm typing at the new desk in our new office, there is still a lot to do.  Plus, the phone service company (which will not be named) still has to get out here and figure out why the only phone working in the whole house is the one in the new office.  I will be so glad when all of this is done.  Makes me wonder how much I'd flip out during a major renovation! 

I actually made some progress on Folk Eggs, and am now working on egg #4.  I'm a fan of Prairie Schooler and am really enjoying stitching this.  I hope to get in a little more stitching today on my "day off".  You know, the "day off" that is filled with laundry, cleaning and cooking. 

The spring weather here is so beautiful.  It did get a little warm in the house yesterday, so I'm taking advantage of open windows and ceiling fans today.  It is a little early for all of this warm weather, and there is still time to get a cold spell in the next few weeks. 

I want to give a big welcome to my new followers!  And I'd also like to thank everyone who left comments on my blog.  Nice to know someone is reading and enjoying it!  And if you're visiting and would like to join (or follow) my blog, just click the "join this site" button on the left side of the screen and it will tell you what to do.  It's easy!

Hopefully the next time I post, we'll have the house back in order after this room swap, and I'll be able to show off a little sewing project I've been wanting to create!

Just Call Me Lady Frogsalot

I was working on egg #3 on Folk Eggs and got done with the carrot portion.  I thought it would be fun to start on the white bunny that's sitting on the carrots.  So I was stitching along, thinking how cute this little rabbit was coming out.  I was literally on the last stitch of the bunny, and thought, "Huh, now why isn't he closer to the carrot greens?".  That's right - I stitched him in the totally wrong place.  Instead of going on with the stitching fun, I had to spend my time frogging.  For those of you who don't know, "frogging" is the term for tearing out stitches you've so carefully done.  Get it?  "Rip-it, rip-it".  Like a frog says? 

See the half-done bunny?

From the title of this post, can you tell I've been watching "Downton Abbey"?   I'd been hearing a lot of people mention it, and thought I'd see what all the hoopla was about.  Now I understand.  What a great show!  If watching a show about life in a early 20th century castle in England isn't your cup of tea (cup of tea, get it?), then just watch it for the scenery, costumes and jewelry.  Just lovely!  I think Mark should call me "Lady Cathy", but he hasn't caught on to the idea yet.

All Kinds Of Craftiness, But No Stitching

This week stitching took a backseat to other crafty endeavors.  First of all, remember that lamp that Mark made for me?  A while back I was mildly complaining about how I couldn't find a cute lampshade for it.  I had bought one that was OK, but was definitely not in the cool category.  Then someone commented that I should decorate that boring shade.  Great idea.  So, some ribbon and double sided tape later, here it is!  Just a few lengths of different kinds of ribbon completely transformed it.  Well, pretty much.

I showed you Sheila's necklace in my last post, and finally got to see it in person yesterday.  How beautiful!  We bought the materials for our necklaces at the Intergalactic Bead Show, which we attended last month.  The instructions, however, had to be e-mailed to us by the designer, Tin Tin.  Kind of mysterious, right?  I took all of my beads and stuff over to Sheila's and we spent part of the day visiting and making lovely jewelry.  I actually completed mine in that time!  It's made of pearl beads in shades of green with some pink, clear seed beads and Swarovski crystals in clear and amethyst.  And it may look complicated to make, but it was so easy! 

I just had to show you this picture of Moxie who seems to have appropriated my new necklace for herself.  She thinks it's divine!  Note the paw, like she's Vanna White or someone.

I also finished something new:  designing a cross stitch pattern.  My friend Patty had her first grandchild and said that she wanted to stitch a birth sampler.  The nursery decor is done in Scotty dogs.  A very cute idea, but also impossible to find a sampler with the little doggies.  My solution was to design one for her.  I've finished it and will soon be sending it to her for her approval and any changes that she wants to make.  I will be posting a photo of it in a future blog, and hopefully after Patty stitches it!
 
Are you ready for some good Cosmo news?  No more insulin shots!  He had a fructosamine test yesterday and was in the normal range, so all we have to do is keep giving the kitties the low carb food.  He goes back for testing in 3 months.  That sounds pretty good to me!

So, all in all, not a bad week for craftiness and for Cosmo!