Whoops-a-Daisy: No Wentzler Wednesday

I am still babying myself with simple projects and haven't returned to work on either of my BAPs.  Sorry about the unironed appearance of the piece, I didn't have time to hook up the iron before heading out to work this morning.  For the moment I am stitching another ornament in the 2006 Nashville Town Square series.  This one is the Antique Sampler Shop designed by Barb Allen of Blackbird Designs.  Eventually, I will be able to decorate an entire tree in Small Town USA ornaments.  As far as the Antique Sampler Shop goes, I have made a few changes.  I didn't have enough WDW Pelican Grey and have substituted Dolphin which is a shade or two darker but at least I have sufficient for my needs.  And I have decided to leave out the Est. 1990 sign above the door which I think is too large, breaking up the flow of the brick wall unnecessarily.  I have also changed the color of the urn from Deep Sea Blue outlined in Onyx to Charcoal outlined in Onyx and the flowers from Taupe to Deep Sea Blue.  It is not unusual for me to change things up a bit, especially on small projects like ornaments.  I am doing my best to stitch from stash this year, economizing a bit on my needle arts spending since I want to do some serious framing this month.  And we all know that professional framing costs the sun, the moon and the stars.  I have three pieces that I want to frame, two of them fairly large.

And though my stitching has been on the decidedly simple side, my planning has not been.  Yesterday at 11:42 a.m. my third grandchild was born: a grandson named Rocco, weighing in at 8lbs 3oz and measuring 21.5 inches long.  My major BAP this year has been working on Teresa Wentzler's Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking for the oldest grandson and I have a Dimensions chart, Woodland Maiden, all lined up to adapt into a stocking for my granddaughter ... so I have been casting about for a similar woodsy and medieval chart to set aside for young Rocco's stocking.  Reading Dani's blog this morning, I was inspired by her mention of choosing Teresa Wentzler's Fortunate Traveler as a SAL for 2013.  It occurred to me that I own the softcover The Best of Teresa Wentzler Fantasy and it surely contains a figure that can be used as the central motif of the third stocking.  Even though I haven't yet pulled the book from the shelf, I am thinking either the Traveler or the Minstrel might work.  I am sure there are others equally suited to my purposes within the pages of that volume.  Problem solved!  Thanks, Dani.

And on the subject of Rocco.  When my son Sean told me of the baby's name yesterday, I couldn't help but laugh.  When my sister, Mary, and I were young mothers we provided my father [a self-styled padrone, with a terrific pride in his Italian heritage] with his first three grandsons: Sean, Daniel & Kevin.  Dad found these names a touch too Irish and, to tease my Irish-American Mom, renamed the boys Rocco, Guido and Auggie.  When I reminded my son of this old family tale, he had a good laugh as well.  He says he remembered the story once I mentioned it but he and my DIL selected the name by just looking through a baby name book.  Little did he know my Dad was looking down from heaven and, given his quirky sense of humor, influencing the present to get what he had wanted all along.  Now, my son Daniel isn't thinking about marriage and children but my nephew Kevin just got engaged ... I'd better warn him or he might end up with a son named Auggie!  I am convinced that my Dad has been playing name games with Sean and I ever since he made it into heaven.  Originally I had wanted to name my first son Vincent after my Dad but my husband objected  that since our last name begins with a D, the boy would have the initials VD which back then was the common way of referring to venereal diseases.  So we named the boy Sean Thomas instead - Thomas was my Dad's middle name.  Well, just one week after my father's death, the scientific and medical community began using the now current term for sexually transmitted diseases, STDs.  Coincidence?   Maybe, but I'm blaming Dad.  All through college and grad school my son was saddled with a student ID number and campus e-mail address that began STD.  Like I said, my Dad has a skewed sense of humor.