In Stitches

Friday, September 29, 2006

Mistakes, What Mistakes?

The lastest SBQ posed an interesting question and since I am the queen of mistakes Let's address it, shall we. :)

When you find yourself making a lot of mistakes in various stitching projects do you find it better to muddle your way through or do you take a brief break from stitching? If you do take a break, how long do you take?

Depending on 'when' I find the mistakes determines what my course of action will be.

IF:

I find it before I've gotten too far along, I curse, rip it out and re-stitch.

I find it when well into the project, I curse, decide there's nothing I can do and keep stitching.

I find that it's messed up the project beyond repair, I curse, condemn myself for ever starting that *bleeping* project in the first place and then throw it out. No I am not kidding. The length of each stage (i.e., cursing and condemnation) depends on how much effort I've put into the project. Fortunately, this has only happened with a couple of projects.

As you can see there is a recurring pattern of a lot of cursing when I am stitching, this is a release for me and should never be taken personally by anyone in the vicinity (i.e., Greg or the cat). :D

Typically when I realize there is a problem I muddle through trying to find the mistake, it's just easier. If I leave it and come back I will have a mental block...problem, what problem...nope no problems here. :D

Mostly I just incorporate the problem stitches into the project, I've gotten good at covering my mistakes. The thing is, that while I love stitching. Stitching does not necessarily love me, I am one of those people that likes to do 5 things at one time. (only a slight exaggeration). If I'm stitching then I either watch tv (lots of channel surfing), listen to music, bug the cat and plan what I'm doing the next day, etc. Yes, I'm slightly ADD, which is so much fun at work. (kidding, I'm kidding)

Sadly this behavior and stitching are not necessarily compatible which is why I make mistakes. I've learned to accept this limitation, as I can't live without the other distractions. I've tried stitching in a quiet room and it drives me NUTS. LOL

You might wonder why I even bother stitching, well it's busy work and I like keeping my fingers busy. Plus I enjoy the finished products. It's also an opportunity to fine tune my cursing. ;D (that was a joke in case you wondered) So I'm definately a muddler, which is good cuz you can find a lot of mistakes during commercial breaks. LOL, LOL (that was another joke) ;)

Here is my latest progress on block 4. My only disappointment was I thought the colors would be a bit darker. But it's looking good. As soon as I finish I will show you the next projects I'm going to work on. They are in an African theme which fits the place I work for and I hope my co-workers will love their gifts. :D

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It will be so nice knowing that I only have four blocks to finish after this. This is the longest project I've ever worked on and I will NEVER do one like this again. One thing I have learned is that I definately do better with short term projects. I can take a month or two, but six? :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Monday, September 25, 2006

"Ye Best Start Believin' in Ghost Stories..."

I love that line and it so fits what I have done with my trick or treater figures! I couldn't resist and HAD (yes it's a compulsion) to get a couple more. Now I have a set up that reminds me (loosely) of what it was like trick or treating as a kid when half the small town where I lived ganged up together to go out. And we always (of course) had to go through the graveyard. Dark, spooky, creepy...it's a kid thing, what can I say. LOL

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I found two big tombstones that light up at the Dollar store and some mini ones at another place. Then I got out my pillow stuffing and VOILA a *spooky, foggy, creepy* night. LOL Oh and I added another tree to give it balance. I haven't had this much fun setting up a display in ages. :D

Thanks for the great comments on my last post. The car did finally get fixed, although we had to take it to the shop on Friday as well cuz of another problem. And YES it did cost an arm, but not the leg just yet. Vonna, yes those sandals I had on are green and so comfortable but not especially suited to long distance walking. :)

Greg has been stitching away and here is his finished pumpkin!

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I will be making this into a pillow sometime soon, love this pattern. :D

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This is his newest project. It's a Jack Russell terrier from Brenda Franklin. His latest comment is "I love working on black." I think he's a bit twisted. ;)

I don't have a current pic of my project cuz I'm not far enough along for a pic. Just too many distractions. But sadly I will have to set it aside for a bit after this block. I decided I would finish up this block and then start in on the Xmas projects for my co-workers. If I don't start soon I won't have time to finish them. This is a BIG deal for me, I have NEVER set aside a project to work on something else and then come back to it. So I hope that this break will not kill my enthusiasm to finish HOHRH...I figure if I finish this block I will have just 4 more and that will give me the incentive to come back to it. I hate stopping, but I really want to do these projects as gifts. So we will see how it goes.

So here is what we did for the weekend! Just for you San! Pictures of the Brownville Nebraska semi-annual flea market. Mostly pics of my mom, dad and Greg, but you will get the idea.

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We have our favorite place that we always park, but I ask myself every year why the heck do we park on a hill? It's fine walking down, but back up at the END of the day?

It was beautiful, nice and cool and it started out sunny but got cloudy by the end of the day. Perfect weather for walking and poking around piles of stuff. :D Brownville is a historic little town located on the Missouri river. They even have their own paddle wheel river boat. I've been on it a couple of times, very fun. :D

The flea market is basically the length of the town on main street and all the vendors park along side the road and traffic is diverted. So you saunter along checking out the stalls to see if you find a treasure or two. You can get something to eat (funnel cake, hot dogs, barbeque and kettle corn) and keep going. It's a lot of fun we were there all day and boy did my legs ache from all that walking. :) I didn't buy much but I don't really go to buy things, more for the fun of being outside in great weather. There is always a vendor (in the Fall) with pumpkins and gourds for sale along the highway. We always stop there on the way back up the hill, yes we have learned from experience to buy those last so we don't drag them all over with us. LOL My mom stopped and picked out a pumpkin and some funky gourds to set outside the house. I'm not really into wart laden pumpkins so I passed. At the end of the main road (just past that hill) is the local winery. It's a beautiful old barn converted into a store. (Sorry I didn't have enough pictures left to snap one of it.) But they do have a pretty waterfall, I had one pic left so I got the trio standing and admiring it. :D

Hope you had a fun filled weekend!

Monday, September 18, 2006

So How Was Y*O*U*R Weekend?

Mine started out peachy...I was happily headed to the local apple festival in Greg's car and made it just outside of town when the "Service Engine Now" light came on. SOOOO of course I had to turn it around and head for a repair shop. In the meantime I try to get a hold of Greg...no luck. He wasn't expecting me to be home all day so he went off on a nice LONG walk. It was beautiful weather after all...just windy. I head to the shop and they tell me it will be over an hour before they can get to my car. (bummer) I was supposed to meet my mom and dad at the apple festival and needed to get home right away for when they called asking what happened. (They only use their cell phone for emergencies so it wasn't turned on.) I realize that it's not far, the weather is nice so I decide to walk home instead of waiting for Greg. Here's how it went:

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I had my camera with me because San had asked me to take pics of the apple festival, sadly I didn't get any of those but figured I might as well make use of the camera. ;)

It's a more than 1/2 mile from the service place to my house, not so far... The first pic is of our car at the service place and then progress onward till I get home. It wouldn't have been a bad walk at all if I had been wearing something BESIDES "frou frou" sandals. But I what could I do, this was an emergency after all... Fortunately there is a bike trail right behind our house and near where the service place is. So off I go treking along the trail with my funky sandals and purse. I think the walkers and bikers thought I was a bit strange. LOL But I made it home and realised that Greg had been there and (having NOT listened to all the messages I left him) went to get me from the service place. LOL, LOL Yes, it was just a comedy of errors at that point. Things finally get sorted out and I find out that they can't do the necessary repairs till today so no car for the apple festival (mine is falling apart and can't make it out of town). Needless to say I was bummed that I didn't get to do the apple festival but that's the way it goes... So I went out for a little retail therapy and then I worked on Greg's witch pillow yesterday.

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I love how this fabric came out! And the back is even better!

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I found this fabric in the clearance bin! I've seen it used to make skirts but I thought it would make a great pillow and it did! Love it! :D

When I bought the fabric for the pillow I also bought this acrylic throw, just had to cut off the white excess and now I have a fun Halloween throw that I put on our bed.

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Oh and Greg wanted me to show you his culinary skills. Last night he made us turkey chili and it was quite delicious! He's quite the chef. :D

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And lastly here is the update of my latest block:

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Quite the exciting weekend, on Friday night we had the tornado sirens going off at about 10pm, then the car goes haywire... But we still had fun and got some things done, sort of... LOL

Tonight I pick up Greg's car can't wait to pay that repair bill... AAAACCCCKKKK! ;)

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Another One Bites the Dust!

Yes! One more down, 5 more to go! Woo hoo! I finally made progress last night and got this block finished. :D

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I love how this one looks and have already started on the next block! I'm sure it will take time but Block 4 looks to be interesting in color.

Here's another full view:

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It's really starting to look different and you can also read a portion of the saying so that it makes a bit of sense. ;)

Bea asked where I got the pattern for the little witch that Greg is stitching. I guess I never did give the name of the magazine although many of you seemed to recognize it. ;) It's from Cross Stitch and Needlework Magazine from September, 2006. Fun magazine with lots of interesting patterns. They have a mini preview of November's issue and it looks like it will also have some fun projects. Typically I don't subscribe to magazines because I love to buy individual patterns and because I have so *many* patterns that I will probably never be able to stitch them all in this lifetime. But sometimes you can't resist!

Thanks for all the great comments! I really appreciate each and every one. :D

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Reality Impacting

Well I had high hopes that I'd be finished with block 7 and onto the next one, but life has a way of jumping the tracks. ;)

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This is what I have done so far. Nearly there. :D I was expecting to have more time to work on it this weekend. We went flea marketing with my mom and her van unexpectedly blew the head gasket. We had met in Nebraska City as it's half way between where we both live and then took her car. Just outside of town the van overheated and my dad realized what happened. It took over an hour to limp back to town, then we decided to all squish into our Saturn and head out. We called a tow truck to take her van back to her house and then we went flea marketing and here and there. Of course we then had to take them home so we decided to just stay the night. My mom lives about 90 miles from us so it's not a short drive and it was late by the time we dropped them off. The next day we decided to head out to Beatrice to look at cars, just in case they decided they didn't want to fix theirs and didn't get home till late afternoon. Needless to say we were tired! So not much stitching got done this weekend. LOL

Greg did finally get all the backstitching on his witch done, now I have to do the french knots. He hates doing those and made me promise that I'd do them for him. ;)

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I like how he signed his name it looks kind of 3D. :D

While I was out this weekend I found some fun window clings and decided to decorate our big living room window. They had these fun glow in the dark ones that will be fun from outside. :D

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The black ones are pretty cool from outside as they are more of a silhouette. And Greg wanted to put the spooky eyes in the other window to kind of freak people out in the dark. LOL We have a lot of college kids living around us, I'm sure they will get a kick out of them.

Hope your week is going great so far! Tonite is the start of Dancing with the Stars, should be interesting. LOL, LOL

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Pictures Never Do It Justice

I re-did last year's Halloween web page so if you want to see what I've done with my decorations this year have a look. Halloween House

When I see all this stuff in person it's so much more impressive (or overwhelming depending on your preferences) than in the pictures. But I suppose that's because you can see all the details that pictures sometimes miss like...cat hair. LOL, LOL

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

I May Be Sad, But I'm NOT Crazy

In reference to a comment that said that if I am sad when I finish HoHRH I could always start on VoHRH . That would be a big NO. I have definately enjoyed my time with HoHRH, it's been difficult, trying and overall enjoyable. Would I care to repeat it in a slightly different form...no way. The thing I have learned about myself during this stitch (don't you love it when stitching teaches you something) is that I don't like doing projects this big. Now how would I ever know this unless I stitched something this big I ask you...I couldn't. But now I do. Lesson learned. ;)

Here is my latest update:

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It's looking good, but slow going. It's so weird when at one point you are just cruising along and getting a lot done and then BAM not so much. It's one of the weird time space temporal disturbances I've run across in this project. But still workable. LOL I have definately decided to count this as 12 projects finished instead of one so that I don't feel so bad that I didn't get as many things stitched at the end of the year. ;D

Greg finished the witch and is now laboring over the backstitch. I am ever grateful he took on this project, I'm not sure I would've had the patience to muddle through. :D Because be forewarned there are a TON of 1/4 stitches in this project and when working on aida it's not always a cake walk. :D

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Isn't she pretty? And I can HARDLY wait to finish her into a pillow, cuz I know (well at least I hope) that you all will DROOL over the fabric that I got for it. It's very lovely, in my opinion. :D

I got a head start on my Halloween decorating and did it on Monday. That was a lot of fun! And it looks so festive. I found one more trick or treater to go with the group, cuz everyone needs a kid sister tagging along. I will try to get pics to show. The ones I wanted to post came out fuzzy.

Hope y'all are having a great week! :D