A Poll and a Finish

I need some help picking out a fabric to use for a nametag. I have narrowed it down to 6 choices and would like your help choosing one. Pictures are uploaded into my Webshots album. Some of the fabric is very subtley different from the others, but still looks good, which is why I need some help.
I need to start the nametag this weekend, which is why the urgency.

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Although I didn't get a lot of stitching done this week, I was able to finish this month's portion of the Bakers Dozen RR.



My son has decided that since all these ladies are making something for him, he is going help with their's. Considering there have been so many nice patterns to choose from, I don't mind the help.

I really wish my scanner was better at picking up the sparklies.

SBQ 9/28/06

Today's SBQ was suggested by Sharon and is:
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?

What a question, considering my "North American Beauties" problem this week (see earlier post)!
I'm not sure who taught me this way, but I was taught to start with the lightest color and work my way to the darkest color, when stitching. This kind of "cross country" stitching led to miscounting ALOT. So I would have to either figure out how to work around the miscount, if possible, or rip out everything wrong. I have never taken a break from something because I made mistakes on it, but I will do a shorter rotation time on it (I work in 10 hour blocks), and put it up until it come up again.

The funniest mistake I made was on the flowers on the left hand side of "At Play with Friends". With over 300 different colors in the project, many of the symbols were similar, and I mistook the pink symbol for green. That was the one mistake I frogged from that piece to correct. I also miscounted in several places, but I bet you can't figure out where!


However in the past year I have started stitching a different way. I now start in the center or the top left corner and work my way down, row by row. I'm finding I don't make as many mistakes, and those I do make are easily rectified or worked around. Although I do occationally still mix up symbols.

Bloody Hell I Need a Vacation!

I'd say this is the first time this week I've gotten to breathe, but I can't, because I haven't. I shouldn't be typing right now. My carpel tunnel is flairing badly in both hands this week, and the right hand is even worse, because the muscles in my forearm are spasiming intermittantly. As a result, not getting much stitching done. Which, of course, feeds the stressometer. I stitch for stress relief and when I don't get to stitch for at least 1 hour every day, I get......cranky? I guess that is the most polite way of putting it. Geez, not even the gym is helping. Maybe I'll try taking the bow and arrows out to Granny's this weekend and seeing if shooting up a target doen't help.

2 weeks 5 days until I'm on a plane to Myrtle Beach, sans family.

Monday Madness 9/25/06

1. From jstar: Holiday in Europe or Asia? Europe. Hubby wants to head to Norway, Scandinavia, and Germany. I want to head to Scotland, Ireland, France.

2. From sherle: How do you try to change a behavior pattern you don't like about yourself... whether it's chewing fingernails, overeating, smoking, or picking your nose? I make a concious decision to do it and start. If I fall back into bad habits, then I don't beat myself up and keep going. Changing my eating habit this year is my latest accomplishment.

3. From tricia: Have you ever successfully completed a Sudoku puzzle? What is Sudoku? I ended up asking my daughter what is was yesterday at the bookstore. I will probably never even start one of those.

4. From caylynn: What website do you visit the most often? Unfortunatly, I think Yahoo.

5. From michael morgan: What was your favorite thing about high school or college? I met my best friend in high school.

Oops, forgot about the cholesterol...

Thank you Meari for reminding me I was going to look up those numbers. So, to show you how far I've come in nine months...

Beginning of January 2006:
Total Cholesterol - 365
Triglycerides - 452
HDL (good) - 44
LDL (bad) - triglycerides were so high, the machine couldn't calculate this

September 1, 2006:
Total Cholesterol - 171
Triglycerides - 142
HDL (good) - 43
LDL (bad) - 100

Medication was needed to bring these down, because I have a family history of high cholesterol (my brother's has been high since High School). However, I started exercising and we (hubby and I) completely changed out diet. The hardest part, though, was teaching myself to stop eating when I was full, even if there was still food on my plate.

So I continue the meds until the next visit in 5 months, and if my numbers are still good or better, I'll get to start weaning from the meds. Unless I get pregnant, then I quit the meds immediately.

Tanager with Tulips is complete

Yea!!! I'm glad it's done and on it's way to the owner. Here it is backstitching and all.


Now that it is done, I started up my rotation again, and gone some work done on The Enchanter, and on Snowcones.


As always you can see progress pictures in my Webshots albums.


RANT WARNING: I am about fed up with "North American Beauties"! Who puts a lone tent stitch in the middle of nowhere! Last time I worked on it, I gave up and started parking, and not caring how far I carry the thread. And to top that I miscounted somewhere and am trying to work around it, because it so far done, I either work around it, rip it all out and start from scratch (that's not happening) or toss it. However my son stands beside me with his head on my shoulder when I'm working on it, so I think I'll finish it. I just need to figure out how to finish it so the threads don't show through too much.

MY SHAMPOO SHOCKED ME!!!!!

I'm not kidding! I was in the shower about to wash my hair, and noticed I was out of shampoo and conditioner. So I reached under the sink and pulled out 2 new bottles, that I got last time Beauty Brands has a liter sale. Poured some of the shampoo into my hand, and as soon as it touched...zzzzt. "How odd" I thought, but just passed it off as being really cold and washed my hair. Poured the conditioner in my hand, and as soon as it touched....ZZZT. OK, I jumped at that point, and said "WTF!". It hurt! SO I decide to read the bottle, to see if I can figure out what is going on, and it says, "Contains Quadramine ComplexTM, an exclusive blend of positively charged, low molecular weight and size proteins. I think this means I'm going to get shocked every time I wash my hair! Oh wait, it also says apply directly to hair. LOL

I wonder how funny it would be if I switched this out with my daughter's shampoo?

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Stephanie's RR piece arrived this week. A very cute little christmas piece. My son, as usual, thought it was for him. But after reminding him that twelve women were working on these, and one of the things was a blanket for him, he said, "That means I can help too!" As my mom brought me up to never turn down the willing help of a child, I'm letting him pick out what pattern to do on each RR piece. It really is adorable when T sits down with a pattern book, oohing and awwwing over everythwhich(WHich reminds me; I need to hunt down his "treasure room" and see if he has absconded with any of my WIPs) After he picked the pattern, I started pulling thread. You know I still don't have all of the regular DMC line! Or Kreinik. Off to the store today.

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On the same BB that the Bakers Dozen is on, we have a Wednesday wishes. Where everyone can pick one stash item they would like or need. A couple months (?) ago, Julie requested purple Aida to make this:


As I had a couple good size pieces in my stash, I sent one to her. How do I know that is what she wanted to make? Because I apparently sent enough to make two and she gave one to me! I love it! Of course T saw the candy corn button on it and declared that there was candy inside, but didn't want to open it because it was pretty. (Have I mentioned T is 4?) This one was rescued before it ended up in his "treasure room". Right now, it's sitting on his table in the living room, until I get a chance to sneak it to work. Although hubby is trying to figure out out to mount it to the wall next to my broom.

~Oh, What a beautiful morning...~

It was actually below 70F this morning. Ok, it was 69, but still, we've been in the high 90's since, oh, the summer of 2005! Not really, but last winter was hotter than usual, and autumn seems to be coming "on time" this year. Yesterday was gorgeous outside and today is shaping up to be the same, so I have a song from "Oklahoma" running through my head. Of course, watch it be in the high 90's again next week.

Oh well, 3 weeks and 5 days until the Fling in Myrtle Beach.


Eureka quote of the week: "If I come out here again, I'm bringing a stun gun and a weed wacker." --Sheriff Carter

Monday madness, 50 project challenge, and other stuff

While meandering throught the 'net, I ran across the blog Monday Madness. It was one of those this blog linked to that blog, which linked to a blog over here, etc. What a nice idea and a great way to start to get to know people, so here goes this week's questions:

1. How do you eat an oreo cookie? I don't. I'm not fond of the "chocolate" cookie. But I LOVE the Uh-Oh Oreo's. Those I eat by opening up the cookie, licking the filling, then eating the cookie halves. No milk.

2. How long does it take you to eat lunch? Depends on what I'm eating. Usual lunch will take me about 1 hour, but I'm stitching while I'm chewing.

3. Caffeine or decaf? Caffeine!

4. Chicken or beef? Moo-Cow!

5. Pen or pencil? Pen, but only if it has those soft grips.

6. Autumn or spring? Ooo, hard one. Both are the rainy season here. I think I'll go with Spring, because it's not the middle of hurricane season.

7. Baseball or basketball? Neither, but to support my son's interests, I pick baseball.

8. 'Survivor' or 'The Amazing Race?' Survivor, but only the first season and the season with Rupert.

9. Come up with one question I can ask our Monday Madness participants in the weeks to come. Which side of the bed?

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Another blog I ran across is HasturTorres' who has issued a 50 project challenge. Basics: No buying new stash until you complete 50 projects (or 25, or 10). Predetermined exceptions allowed. The goal be ing to have fun decreasing your stash. Yet another good idea, so I pulled up my database of stash, and do you know what I found? I don't have 50 charts to do. I don't have 25 that need to be done. Heck, I don't even have 10! I counted up my WIPs and the charts I have waiting to be done and I have 9 (4 WIPs, 3 kits, 2 charts). I could come up with one more chart from somewhere in freebie land, but instead of taking part in this challenge this year, I'm going to cull out my fabric stash. Now that I have a lot of. I'll be going through over the next several weeks and donating what I REALLY don't want/need to the stash room at the Cross Stitch PALS Fall Fall Fling.

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I don't remember mentioning this, but a couple of weeks ago, my husband came bopping into the house after I had gotten home from work (for those not familiar with "bopping", it's like a jig, but with more bouncing) and anounced that he had signed us up for a gym membership. Happy Anniversery to me!!! This is something that has been on my wishlist since we got married, and I had to stop my previous membership, because we couldn't afford it. I'm one of those people who might exercise, if I can find the time, but will exercise if I'm paying for it, even if I have to go at midnight. Okay, no midnight runs to the gym for me anymore, and as for making the time; not as easy as it used to be. But I am going. So since the time we started until today, I've been to the doctor for a cholesterol checkup and the numbers are AWESOME! Total cholesterol is 170. LDL (bad cholesterol) is 90. And I forget the rest and will have to look it up at home. But I have also lost 6 pounds and 2-3 inches in the waist.

Maybe I shouldn't have got shopping last month for new pants.

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I finished Tanager with Tulips last night after supper. I'll hopefully get the picture uploaded tonight. Or sometime this week. So, I'm back to rotating my projects, with the Bakers Dozen RR as the focus. And I'll add in ornaments if I can ever get the family to look at the books and pick what they want to add to the tree this year. Hmmm, I could use the one I picked out for me as project numer 10...

BEWARE: The Lorena Bobit Virus

It turns you hard drive into a 3.5 inch floppy.


Joke courtesy of SciFi Channel's Eureka.

A finish and an update. Happy anniversary!

Rough week for me; bad case of insomnia all week.

But I finished a Round Robin for the Bakers Dozen. Its a huck towel. I picked "Spring Fever" because the bees were just calling to me.


by libhita

So it is packed up and ready to be shipped off to it's next stop.

And I also made progress on "Tanager with Tulips". I'm really hoping to start on the backstitching this week on this.

by libhita

Yesterday was my 8th anniversary. We had fun yesterday, very laid back. The day started out with some "fun". Well fun for me and hubby; the 4 year old walking in didn't think so. I swear, one of us will remember to lock the door one of these days. Later we had a late lunch and went to the movies. We saw "Pirates of the Caribbean: Deadman's Chest". I liked it. From all the new plot twists, I'm really anxious to see how it gets wrapped up.

Today is my brother's wedding anniversary. My love to the two off them and their 3 children, especially since they are separated from each other for the next 4 months.