Been busy...

And sporadically stitching here and there. I find I'm getting interrupted or there are other things to do lately. Good thing I'm not on a deadline with anything.

I've been in touch with a couple of designers who are supposed to be sending me models to stitch for them but they're not coming in the mail. I'll give it another week then send a gentle reminder that I'm available if they want something done. It's not like I've got a super amount of stitching time on my hands - but I could sure use the payment! My household budget is stretched uber-thin these days (through really no fault of my own) and I'm having to deal with it. This stresses me out which leads me to running away from home for the weekend. Doesn't leave much time for stitching when you're running away from home.

And I've been jumping from project to project a lot. The one worked on most is Rose Arbor then a bookmark and a scissorskeep. Not much has been done on Castle Sampler but then I've picked up Emerald Mermaid too. I think I'll wait another week to make some progress pics. It's looking like I'll have another "home alone" weekend but I probably won't be going anywhere. (Unless a certain pirate gives me a call.)

Monday update...

Not much stitching happened this week or weekend. Just been busy with the kids after work and only picking up an hour or so for stitching - mostly on Rose Arbor. Then I went to see a show on Thursday. On Friday I was having someone come over so I was cleaning house almost the whole time until he showed up. I was only on my second needle's worth of metallic (Rose Arbor) when he got there. Saturday I went wine tasting and Valentine shopping for the kids. When I got back I worked on Rose Arbor for an hour or two but headed to bed early. On Sunday I volunteered to work the special event and had to be there at 10:30. I was up early and got everything done and had time to put one strand of purple into Violet Sect before heading to work. After getting home from work I was on the computer for a while and talked to the kids a bit and went to bed early again.

This week I may not get much stitching in either. The Clan Meeting (Renaissance Faire) is this Sunday at my house and there's still lots of cleaning to be done. So the kids will help me and hopefully I won't have to spend all week cleaning. Other than maybe a dinner out I don't see anything else (yet) that will keep me from stitching. (Unless I decide to play games on the computer again.)

Superbowl weekend

One short update before I go into the main topic: I didn't manage to finish letter B in January. However I started letter M before Guilt Free January was over. I finished letter B on 2/1 - so that's 2 finishes in January.


I had decided that Superbowl weekend was to be a stitching weekend since the weekend before turned into a visiting weekend and I got very little of my stitching done.

So Friday night I stitched late into the night - I'll get to the progress shortly. I slept in on Saturday and did a few chores that needed to be done around the house. I sat down to my stitching at about 1pm and didn't get up much (food, potty breaks, etc.) until it was time to go to bed again that night. I did the same on Sunday. I think I got to my stitching around noon and didn't turn on the pre-game stuff until after 1.

I worked on Castle Sampler and managed to finish the left and right border around the castle. The left side was less than half complete and the right side was much less than that. I also got a good start on the border across the top. The next goal will be to finish the castle roofs, sky, and backstitching so I can move on to the viney area. When I originally started this project I wanted to get to the people at the bottom. But maybe because they're partially done I should go from the top down instead and get more border done. Something to contemplate, but I'm not quite there yet.

I worked on Rose Arbor. What was done previous to picking her up again - the rose she was smelling/picking and most of her body and dress from the top down. I had put in a few beads as well. I also had finished the bowl of the left urn but that was about it. What I did over the weekend was added more to the bottom of her dress - at least another inch. I worked down the pedestal of the urn and am now almost down to the foot. I also picked up the metallics and started the trellis part which goes up over her head on the left. I've determined that in order to start the right urn I will have to take the trellis over and down the other side. The bottom of her dress will be finished slowly as I have been doing the big blocks of color first, then the confetti, then the beads. Luckily this designer doesn't use lots of backstitch.

And that's pretty much it - lots of time and concentration on two larger projects to get a significantly changed look to them.

One more thing. As I said above I started letter M to get it into Guilt Free January. The first two that I did - letter S and letter B - I started in the middle of the fabric. I wanted to make sure I got it centered. With letter M, I have a larger piece of fabric on which to stitch. So I calculated and counted and counted again and decided to get the border done first. So the border is finished on that and now I need to get it onto a frame of some sort (q-snaps?) so as not to have to hold all that extra fabric that I'm not going to stitch on yet. Oh yeah, and I have to decide where in the pattern that I'm going to start.