The Cats Are Back In Town!

I'm heading into a working weekend, so I made up my mind that I would take one day beforehand and make it a stitching day.  Today's that day. On a normal Stitch Day (at the Stitch Store), I would not be distracted by laundry and cooking dinner, but I'll take it.  I felt I needed a little change and brought out the Kitty Kalendar to work on.  I hadn't forgotten how darn cute it is, but it is a change from working on the black fabric of Folk Eggs. 

There hasn't been a lot of stitching progress lately.  A lot of stuff has been happening to distract me from my favorite hobby.  And then there is the thumb.  That's right, the thumb.  My right thumb has been popping at the joint for the past few weeks.  It kinds of gets a little locked up in one position and then I have to pop it to get it to bend.  No popping sound, but a jerky kind of stuck movement, if that makes any sense.  When I showed it to my doctor at my yearly physical, she said "Ew".  I'm not kidding about that.  I had done self-diagnosis via the internet and came up with "trigger thumb", but she wasn't convinced that's what it was and gave me a referral for a hand surgeon.  Although I can still stitch, my stitching rate is slowed down.  Which means that this slow stitcher is now a VERY slow stitcher.  I haven't made an appointment with the surgeon yet, and I'm a little scared that the remedy to this might be something that is going to curtail my stitching for a while.  But we'll see.

Meanwhile, Folk Eggs is moving right along.  I did manage to get some done on egg #5 at Stitch Day and am happy with the way it's turning out. 

Sheila and I will soon embark on a non-stitching project that requires something called Ice Resin.  I'm looking forward to seeing what we can do with that and will document our progress! 

Now I think it's back to the Kitty Kalendar and some junky TV.  And believe me, on a random weekday afternoon, there is plenty of junky TV!

Sisters In Stitching

Yesterday was a day I particularly look forward to each month - Saturday Stitch Day at the Stitch Store.  It's the day that ten devoted stitchers show up at the store for a day of uninterrupted stitching.  The day is hosted by Terrie, the owner of the Stitch Store, and also includes time for eating, talking, laughing and a fun gift exchange.  It's not always the same ten people.  Sometimes one of us can't make it, but there is always someone to fill the empty seat!  The fun is in being together, working on something we all love.  And as Thea says, one of the great things about Stitch Day is getting affirmation from each other about our stitchy endeavors.  I was thrilled when everyone agreed to have their projects photographed and posted on my blog!

Thea is working on Prairie Schooler's Santas - all of them!  She plans to use these to make an afghan.

Above is "Bethlehem" by Imaginating, which was stitched by Laurie.  I only had room for a portion of it, but you can see how beautiful it turned out.  In fact, Laurie finished it yesterday!

Pat showed off a lovely finish - "Blessed Liberty" by Homespun Elegance.  I liked this so much, I bought the chart!

This is "17th Century Irish Garden" for Creative Needlework, and it's Peggy's current project.  Love the colors and the cats!

Marti was working on "Mary Margaret - Four Girls" by Carriage House Samplings.  Beautifully done on 40 count fabric!

Sheila is using perle cotton on 10 count fabric for "Daily Life: Garden Daily" by SamSarah.  The combination of floss and fabric give this a unique and pretty look.

A true labor of love by Terrie:  Miribilia's "Mediterranean Mermaid".  This will be quite a finish with its beads and sparkling threads!

Jackie's current project is "Simple Joys" by Little House Needleworks.  The colors LHN uses are so pretty.

Renee's rustic-looking Santa is being done on large count fabric.  I love the way this is turning out.

It's fun to be able to showcase the stitching projects of my friends.  It's all about them in this post!  I'll post an update of mine soon.  So here's to another enjoyable day in the company of good friends.  Looking forward to the next one!

A Flock Of Bunnies...Or Is It A Herd...?

Bunny is ready for his closeup.

Easter is the holiday I get to have at my house each year.  That's good because I like Easter and the beauty of the new spring.  I'm making our Easter dinner special with a menu featuring a couple of Polish dishes from our childhoods.  So I thought our table should look pretty too, and then remembered some instructions for cool folded napkins that I saw last year but never got around to making them.  Here's what I came up with.  You can quit laughing any time now.  I think they're cute.  Each place setting will have a little bunny napkin. They actually only took under two minutes each to create.  Adorable, no?  Instructions can be found here.  Mine lean forward a bit, but still stand up ok.  I didn't use the brand of napkin that sponsored the instructions, but any kind of nice paper dinner napkin will do.  You know, the kind of thick big quality ones, and they should be square when totally unfolded. You can probably even use cloth napkins.

So when you stop snickering, get to work!  Delight all of your guests with your paper-folding talent! 

Have a very Happy Easter!

And This Is What I Did With It!

In my last post, I showed you the little thread catcher that I had made.  Here's what I did with it.  We have a gift exchange on our Saturday Stitch Days and Starbucks cards are always very popular.  So the thread catcher became a gift card holder!  Sheila picked my gift and became the owner of this cute little ort catcher.  Now she can stitch and enjoy some good coffee too!  My fellow stitchers gave the thread catcher good reviews, so I'll be whipping up more of these for sure. 

Flowering Cherry Tree

Encore Azalea

Spring is in full bloom here and the pollen has actually abated.  Yay!  The temps here are more like mid-May than early April.  All of our perennials are showing signs of new growth, if not already blooming.  It seems really early for some of them, but it's so beautiful that I'm not questioning it too much.  Both of these blooms are from my backyard.  The flowering cherry tree was a total surprise to us during our first spring here.  We didn't know what kind of tree it was until the pretty pink flowers appeared.  It's just a wonderful springtime treat to see it.

Not much stitching or craftiness of any kind has been happening here lately.  Mark and I went on a mini-spring-break trip to Florida last week.  It was a busy kind of trip, so I didn't even take my stitching.  And now I'm back to work and using my free days getting caught up with laundry and house cleaning.  We're having our family and some friends over for Easter dinner.  And wait!  There will actually be some creativity involved with that!  I'll include photos on my next post.  Have a Happy Easter!

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!