My Last Exchange For A While

I just dropped a long-overdue [nearly a month and a half] scissor keep exchange off in the mail and a slightly overdue [2 weeks] ornament exchange off, as well.  I am finding that I can't rely on my stitching mojo as much as I used to.  I come home from work worn to a frazzle and good for little more than settling down to watch a DVD.  In the morning before work, housework seems to take longer, almost completely eliminating the relaxing hour of stitching before breakfast.  The weekends are either full of errands or scenes of total collapse and vegging out.  And I am reading and gardening more, which cuts into my stitching time.   As I move along into my 60s, there seem to be several shifts taking place.  The upshot is that I am no longer a reliable trading partner and will be retiring from the field.  Lately, what stitching time I have, I want to devote to my projects.  Once, I used to do a lot of gift stitching.  No longer: now I seem to want to stitch only for my own pleasure.  I wonder if everyone goes through self-centered stages like this every so often.  I am thinking that after decades of being a wife, a mother and a teacher,  all roles focused on meeting the needs of others, I am finally demanding a little "me-appreciation" time and it has leaked into my stitching habits as well.  This doesn't exactly make me a kinder, gentler person ... but I do find I am less irritable, which can't be such a bad thing, either.  

Giving Up

I finally gave up waiting for the Tokens and Trifles cards and have started stitching a scissor keep for my exchange on 32 ct linen.  No doubt, the cards will be waiting for me after work, having arrived in today's mail.  That is always my luck.  I have decided on a alternating scheme of Queen stitches and floral rows, I am stitching Spring flowers as required by the exchange rules [notwithstanding my partner's request for sunflowers --- not to be mean, but only because none of my sunflower charts would fit on a scissor case, even if stitched over one].  I am trying to keep to the requested yellow colorway though and am stitching daffodils and pansies.

Obviously, no photo is forthcoming since this is an exchange and I have only just begun, anyway.

The two Confirmation practices went off rather well ... all things considered.  My 8th graders are so done with everything.  They are exhausted from two solid weeks of state testing in Language Arts and Math, prepping for finals, and now I put them through the torture of ninety minutes of rehearsing for Confirmation after a full school day.  The strain of having to be quiet and well-behaved in church for that long was really beginning to tell.  But they bore up reasonably well, being the good kids they are.  This class has a really nice group dynamic: 64 kids who are social and funny but smart and sensible, as well.  Heck, the Tuesday group even sang the hymns loudly enough to be heard over the cantor ... and that's an almost heroic effort coming from adolescents at the end of a long day!  I am going to miss this group: especially since the group coming up in September has a totally different group dynamic.

Weekend Progress Report: April 22, 2012

This has been one of those weeks that I didn't blog much so this post will be longer than usual.  I didn't manage to get in any stitching time on Monday at all.  But Tuesday morning, I managed to squeeze in some twenty minutes or so after breakfast.  And I managed a bit more early morning stitching on Wednesday.  In spite of the pollen counts, I have been having my breakfast and my morning stitching on the patio.  Having been diagnosed with a Vitamin D deficiency at my last physical has made me more conscious of the need to get a little more sunshine in my life.  My project for the week, Phyllis Mauer's Kogin Tea Cozy pattern is very easy: all straight stitches of varying sizes.  The trick is in the counting and the placement.  And even that is a relatively simple process.  So this piece is the perfect early morning project for a bit of drowsy outdoor stitching before one has finished that first mug of life giving Assam or Irish Breakfast.  However, Thursday morning was just a bit too cool for the patio.  Even with the best of wills, I can't stitch with cold fingers.  But Friday the weather was balmy and I spent my day off relaxing on the patio reading, napping and intending to stitch but never quite getting round to it.  All I really got accomplished was trimming away some hideous vines that were growing over the fence from the neighbor's yard and planting some Blue Lake green beans.  Saturday was more organized if only because I had more to do: getting to the nursery for 4 more bags of soil and 1 more bag of peat and assorted  vegetable flats, catching up on the laundry, cooking and baking ahead for the next few days and doing a quick housekeeping of the living room, dining room and hall.  My youngest son came Saturday afternoon and helped with adding the soil to the planter box.  He then stayed for a very pleasant visit.  I am beginning to think of my planter boxes as huge black holes:  we had to buy 4 more bags of soil on Sunday but, at last, one of the boxes is finally ready for planting.  I filled the second planter box two thirds of the way full of dead leaves and will let it season till mid May in hopes that I'll be able to halve the total of  14 bags of soil and 2 bags of peat greedily consumed by the first planter box.

Mauer's Japanese Kogin Tea Cozy

English Band Sampler, Final band, Part I

As to stitching this past week, here are photos of my progress on the two pieces that saw any stitching at all.  I alternated between the two projects you see pictured here: two very different pieces in style and technique.



Wednesday afternoon, when I got home from work shortly after 5pm,  I had to breach a barricade of packages, boxes and bags just to enter the house.  The milkman had made his delivery, my seeds had arrived as had my order of loose leaf teas from Culinary Teas and the latest Nora Roberts book, The Witness.  And there were three packages for my husband as well.  Since I went to bed before he got home, I still don't know what he had ordered.  I have mentioned before that I dislike the chore of shopping.  All that sweaty effort of running hither and yon, wasting gas, and you still end up settling for not quite what you set out to buy.  This is why the internet is such a boon: the endless variety, the delivery to one's doorstep, the effortlessness of sitting at one's computer in one's pajamas with a cup of tea at one's elbow.  Of course, Wednesday's bonanza was unique enough to comment upon; often weeks, even months, go by without a package.  Bill and I must have been bitten by the consumer bug at much the same time.  Next week will be another week of "deliveries" but this time from Girl Scouts bearing cookies.  Word has gotten out in my religious education program that Mrs. D used to be a Girl Scout leader and Service Unit Chair.  Four of my students came with their cookie sales sheets and of course I bought several boxes from each.  I am only afraid that the numbers of Girl Scouts will rise in a geometric progression next year as the word continues to spread.  As it is, I'll be donating a lot of cookies to our Midnight Run  for the NYC homeless.  But, what can I say, I remember the years my daughter sold cookies to earn enough for camping trips or other outings.  It's a good cause and who can resist a little girl's hopeful smile as she asks you to buy cookies?

I also admitted defeat in my search for my Tokens and Trifles triangles and ordered another package.  Given Murphy's Law, this means I shall find the missing pair any moment now and then have four extra in my stash when the replacements arrive.  But I have to get cracking on my scissor pocket exchange.    I also pulled the fabric for my Christmas Bird ornament exchange but have yet to cut  and bind the edges of the two pieces needed.  I have a favorite chart that is quick and easy to stitch and has the added advantage of using up any odds and ends of colorful floss one happens to have on hand.  So, if this week is all about the Tea Cozy, next week will be all about exchanges.

Stitching on Goal

Monday afternoon, I resumed frogging and stitching on my Holly and Hearts Sampler. I managed to complete all but a tiny bit of the bottom row of tracery ... just a bit of the upper right corner of the row needs stitching. The first photo shows progress made on Monday and the second photo shows progress made on Tuesday morning. It is my habit to start my day on a relaxed note with an hour of stitching before getting ready for work. I am almost done with the beading. Then, it will just be a matter of completing the three specialty stitches and, voila, my first class project finish for the year! I am hoping to finish this piece by Wednesday.

I have also enrolled in a Scissor/Scissor Keep exchange and have been checking out the scissors available at 123stitch and The Silver Needle. I have a $45 gc from 123stitch coming my way in payment for a chart I sold and I am planning on buying fabric for a band sampler [from SANQ] that I wish to stitch and perhaps the scissors, as well. But first, I'll have to check the Stitchery Row website. So far, The Silver Needle seems to have the most interesting collection of scissors though some of their more appealing selections are way above the suggested price range. It seems only sensible to buy the scissors first so that I might then design a scissor keep the right size and with an appropriate theme and colorway. Most of the participants seem to like dragon designs, clearly not a hardship for me to stitch given my abiding love for dragons. I already have a few ideas in mind but shall wait to finalize them once I have been matched with a partner.