Yes, I am alive

I will get back to posting on a regular basis by the weekend.  Truth be told, I have remarkably little to post about given the length of my absence.  Confirmations, First Communions, May Crowning, Registration and the myriad details of finals and progress reports and last days for five sessions have pretty much consumed my time.  I have done very little stitching and am way behind in work on an exchange project ... so you know exactly how I will be spending my Memorial Day Weekend four day holiday.   What little stitching I have managed has been the simplest of simple: the borders of the four remaining squares of Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie.  Simple rows of xxx's in unvarying black have been oddly relaxing these past few very busy weeks.  In any case, anything more complex would likely have led to hours of frogging given my attention span and stamina.

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: May 6, 2012

With the exception of a very brief window of sunshine on Sunday afternoon, the weekend was quite overcast.  There is something about overcast weekends that makes me lazy.  My only real commitment was to serve as lector at the 5:30pm anticipated Mass on Saturday.  This meant that Sunday morning could be as leisurely as I liked.  And I liked quite a lot.  After making a lovely pot of Assam tea and a light breakfast of one slice each of French toast garnished with sliced banana and fresh blueberries for my husband and myself, I lazed about: reading, stitching and watching a DVD or two.  Lunch was reheated home-made potato-cheddar soup leftover from Saturday and dinner was eggplant parm and a salad delivered by our favorite Italian take-out place.  It was a very minimalist sort of Sunday.  Indeed, I spent the whole day in a nightgown and my favorite, cozy chenille robe.  Aside from cooking, I did only those chores that couldn't be avoided like making the bed and emptying the dishwasher.  Anyway, there was no trip to the nursery and no puttering in the garden.  That will have to be deferred to the next weekend or, more precisely, next Sunday, since most of Saturday will be consumed by two Confirmations.  I expect I'll squeeze in a bit of time after visiting my Mother.

As to the stitching, it's been mostly off-goal projects this past weekend:

* the sewing finish of Riona's Book Nook Book mark

* the cross stitching finish of Prairie Grove Peddler's Lighthouse Candle Mat
Photos will have to wait till another day though since I haven't the time today.

There was a very little bit of on-goal stitching: 

* I got started on the border of the third square of The Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie.  Quite a dull affair of black cross-stitches in a neat rectangle, nothing particularly camera worthy as yet.


And, alas, the Summer issue of SANQ arrived with Part II of the English Band Sampler before I have quite finished with Part I, so there is a bit of catching up to do there.

Free-associating on Friday

The only time I have had for stitching this past week has been the hour between breakfast and getting ready for work.  It's a pleasant hour with a mug of tea, the local radio's morning drive time program and a project from my current stitching bag.  I've gone a little off goal while waiting for my Tokens and Trifles cards to arrive ... I fear the shop I ordered them from did not have them in stock, as I was told, and that they had to order them.  In the meantime, I have been working my way through some small and nearly finished projects in the stitching bag.  I figure if I can't work on goal, at least I can work on projects that will swell the list of 2012 finishes.  That's how Riona's Book Nook saw a cross-stitch finish earlier in the week, though the final sewing finish will likely come today. And Wednesday & Thursday mornings, I picked up the Prairie Grove Peddler Lighthouse Candle Mat again.  I figure just four more hours of steady stitching ought to see that project ready for a sewing finish.  I am hoping to get that accomplished today, as well ... another opportunity to play with my new sewing machine.  It is a miserable and overcast day, and I really have very little to do besides catching up on housework, one or two errands, and sitting around this afternoon waiting for a delivery. So another cross-stitch finish will be most welcome.  I am feeling a bit disappointed in myself this year with my rather paltry 8 finishes thus far.  I console myself with the notion that most of the class projects and 2010-11 WIPs that I have made it my goal to complete this year, are BAPs of the first order.  And after all, they will take longer and be fewer in number but no less satisfying for all that! But I foresee going off-goal every so often to do a quick little small or medium sized piece just to keep from feeling like I am on an endless treadmill.  I do seem to crave variety and tangible progress in my stitching, being fairly equal parts process stitcher and project stitcher.

At work, Thursday was a busy day preparing for the two Confirmations coming up on May 12 and working on the registration mailing.  I want that in the mail by Monday morning, Tuesday morning at the latest.  There seem to be a thousand details to manage and juggle as I move through the usual May chaos of final exam schedules, progress reports, sacraments and registration at this time of year.  And, though I am more comfortable in the routines after having been on the job 18 years now; conversely, I have less energy and seem to be worn done more at the end of the day.  It's getting harder and harder to find the will to stitch of an evening ... not good since, I seriously need to do some exchange stitching.  Well, I will have some solid blocks of time this weekend that I can devote to stitching on the exchanges.

On the gardening front, I am hoping that the weather will warm and stay warm, that we will have seen the last of the frost warnings and that I can spend at least part of Sunday working on my second large planter box.  Recently, I turned the dead leaves with which I half filled it several weeks ago and exposed the rich leaf mold forming beneath the surface.  I am amazed at how quickly it is composting down into honest-to-goodness soil.  It's breaking down beautifully.  I am getting such pleasure from the process.  I may even celebrate by buying myself an genuine composting fork with which to work.  Currently, I am making do with an ice breaker that I use rather like a giant mixing spoon.  Oh, to think that rotting leaves could make me so happy!  Taking the kitchen waste out to the composting bin has become a morning routine.  I save all the vegetable and fruit waste, all the tea leaves and coffee grounds, all the egg shells, etc. in a mesh strainer set in the corner of my sink.  But I think I have hit a new low, or high, in my enthusiasm for composting.  Yesterday at work, I tucked the banana peels from my fruit serving back into a Tupperware in my VB cloth lunch bag to take home for the compost pile.  I may not be completely normal but at least I am never bored.  Bor-ing to others, perhaps, but never bored myself.

Random Wednesday

Riona's Book Nook Bookmark, My own design

I have been taking it easy these past few evenings.  May is a pretty high pressure month at work and I have been unwinding with a bit of TV watching.  I do manage to stitch a bit as I watch my DVDs and today's photo is of my progress on Riona's Book Nook bookmark which is now ready for a sewing finish.  I apologize for the unpressed look but I didn't feel like dragging out the ironing board and iron for such a tiny piece.  I'll press it this weekend when I have time to work on some sewing finishes.

As I said, lately, I have been spending my evenings watching TV: most recently, my DVD collection of Rumpole of the Bailey episodes.  I admit I am a bit of an Anglophile when it comes to television series ... with the exception of science fiction, which I think we Yanks do a great deal better.  My husband claims I identify with the long-suffering Hilda.  Some of the verbal byplay between Hilda and Rumpole does sound a bit like my husband and I ... mainly those conversations when Hilda is being a bit repressive of Rumpole's inappropriate flights of fancy or forays into questionable humor.  Except, where Rumpole quotes from the Oxford Book of English Verse, my husband tends to quote from the U.S. Constitution and other political and historical documents.  I must say I prefer the last Hilda over the first ... can't recall the names of the actresses involved at the moment ... but the later Hilda has so much more presence.  Though perhaps, I should say gravitas as that is a word that keeps cropping up in the series.  And I definitely like the interplay between Rumpole and Featherstone [or Leo Kern and Peter Bowles, if you will].  But then I have enjoyed Peter Bowles in The Irish R.M. and in To The Manor Born, as well.  With the possible exception of The Odd Couple, I can't think of an American sitcom that can equal the quality of the dialogue in British TV ... at least the British TV that travels across the Atlantic via PBS.  No doubt, there is just as much trashy Brit TV that never makes the cut as there is trashy American TV.  As to the Rumpole series, I love the well-defined character/caricatures [one has to admit that, at times, the characters are drawn very broadly though most have more realistic scenes as well].  And the satirization of the British class structure does, I confess, appeal to my sense of humor.  And, then again, the Brits do over-the-top eccentricity so much better than we do.  And they seem to have a lighter hand with comedy that pricks the social conscience, as well.  There is so much clever humor to enjoy in the Rumpole series that it stands up very well to repeated viewings.  The odd thing is that I was raised by my Irish-American mother to think that the British have no sense of humor ... one of those unpleasant little biases bred into her by my grandmother and great-grandmother who remembered the bad old days before 1918. Mom just doesn't know what she is missing!  My husband and I are alternating [or as the kids would say: taking turns] watching DVD's.  His selection is Sanctuary, a fantasy show put together by Amanda Tapping from the old Stargate franchise.  I am equally happy with either.  But I also have the yen to add Victor! Victoria! to my Netflix queue after reading on one of my favorite blogs, Blacksheep's Bit of the Web,  about a TV reality show called Drag Queen Races.  Now, I ceased subscribing to cable nearly two decades ago, so I haven't watched any commercial TV in a very long time ... but his post had me remembering some of the wonderful "stage act" turns that Julie Andrews did in that movie.  I'd very much like to see that again.

My garden seems to have survived the various freeze and frost warnings we have had the past few nights.  I am looking forward to another weekend trip to the nursery for some bamboo stakes and trellises, some more soil and peat for my second planter box, and some eggplant and pepper plants.  I held off on the last two plants because they are more tender than the others for which I risked an early planting.  I have gotten my heirloom seeds and am anxious to sow some lima beans, green beans, lettuce and carrots in the second planter box.  Bill's wicker patio chair will be delivered on Friday.  The back garden is really coming together.  I look forward to a really pleasant summer, enjoying my outdoor living space.

Well, that seems to be all

Weekend Progress Report, April 28, 2012 & April Goals Assessment

I didn't receive the Tokens and Trifles cards in the mail yet so my plan to work on my scissor keep exchange was derailed.  Instead I continued to work on The English Band Sampler and put in an hour or two back stitching my own design for a bookmark, Riona's Book Nook.  Here are a few photos.

On the left is Part I of The English Band Sampler with the Rosebud motif completed ... I am thinking of putting the intitial R stitched over one in the darker green in the open space in the center.  And on the right is Riona's Book Nook bookmark.  I still need to stitch the geode beneath the slanting books on the second shelf and fill in the spider plant on the top shelf and finish the back stitching.  Once that is done, I will finish it by backing it with some very soft flannel cut from an old bed sheet and fringe the edges ... my usual way of finishing off a bookmark.

And, now to assess my April Goals: It is fairly obvious that I spent more time on my garden than on my stitching this month.  The unseasonably warm weather in early April threw me off track and I remained off track for the entire month!

APRIL GOALS

2010-11 WIPs: Stitch Block 3 of Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie.  NOT AT ALL.

2010-2011 WIPs: Stitch four blocks on Jacobean Elegance Afghan.  NOT AT ALL.

2012 New Start: Start work on TW's Woodland Angel Stocking for Liam. NO, but I did manage to pull the fabric and what DMC I had and make a list of what I need.

2012 Start: Kit up and start the next Town Square SAL ornament: The Primitive Shop.  NOT AT ALL.

Class Project Challenge: Finish Phyllis Mauer's Japanese Kogin Tea Cozy.  Progress was made but it is not yet finished.

Sewing and Assembly Finishing: Two pillows.  NOT AT ALL.

TSS Scissor Keep Exchange: Stitch scissor keep and fob.  Still waiting for my Tokens and Trifles cards.

Off goal stitching:   One hopes that there won't be anything in this category by the end of April.  What with the Woodland Angel, The Primitive Shop and the scissor keep for my TSS exchange, my appetite for new starts should have been satisfied. Well this didn't go as planned.  Once I received the fabric for  SANQ's Part I of The English Band Sampler, I simply had to get started on it.  Now, all I have left to do on Part I are the queen stitched strawberries and the motto line in the alphabet section.  I am hoping to chart my chosen motto today and start stitching it.  I am like a child, saving the best [queen stitches] for last.

MAY GOALS: I have to do some serious retrenching this month.  As the weather warms, I can't help but hear the siren call of garden, patio and park.  Then, too, there are First Communions, Confirmations, Registration for Sept. 2012 and final exams/progress reports for 2011-12 to manage this month.  June and July are much easier months professionally, so I expect to get back up to speed then.

2010-11 WIPs: Stitch Block 3 of Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie.  

2012 New Start: Order the remaining floss and start work on TW's Woodland Angel Stocking for Liam.  I hope to have the Name Band and Borders stitched by the end of the month.

2012 WIP:  Finish stitching SANQ's Part I of The English Band Sampler.

Class Project Challenge: Continue work on Phyllis Mauer's Japanese Kogin Tea Cozy.  

HOE Project: Stitch a Christmas Bird ornament.

TSS Scissor Keep Exchange: Stitch scissor keep and fob & mail by early May.  

Garden In Progress

Square Foot Garden Planter: Zucchini, Cucumbers, Broccoli, Tomatoes, Thyme and Basil

Basil and Chives, The poles are for Blue Lake Green Beans that have yet to sprout

My Garden guardian and a small Christmas Tree

The Van Houten Spirea in bloom above the retaining wall.  It will need some serious pruning this fall.


Just a few shots of the garden that has been consuming my time and energy for the past week or two.

Wednesday's Tale

Monday morning's rain prevented me from turning my finally filled planter box [4 feet x 4 feet square x 32 inches high] into a square foot garden a la the old PBS gardening show.  But I managed to screw in the i-bolts Tuesday morning before heading to work.  I hope to lay out a string grid and start the planting today between work and the Parish Advisory Committee meeting.  I bought a variety of vegetable flats over the weekend: three kinds of tomatoes [sauce, sandwich and snacking], some zucchini and cucumber sets, sweet peppers, broccoli, and some herbs [thyme and basil].  I'll pick up some eggplant when it becomes available.  And that should pretty much cover the first planter box.  The second one will be planted up in mid-May with lettuce, carrots, radishes, a second round of green beans, and some lima beans.  In early August, I am hoping to put in some late September/early October harvest items: peas [since I missed the boat for a Spring planting] and spinach.  This coming weekend, I'll hit the nursery yet again, hoping to see some eggplant flats and picking up some stakes and tomato cages.  I'll also be making the final payment on a wicker chair for the patio that suits my husband's taste and comfort requirements, an early Father's Day and birthday gift.  I can't see making him wait till he's lost a month of patio sitting weather just because of a few arbitrary dates on a calendar.

As to stitching, I am anxiously awaiting my Tokens and Trifles cards for my scissor keep exchange.  In the meantime, I am continuing work on The English Band Sampler.  There hasn't been quite enough progress to justify another photo.  In light of my recent activities, I'll have to scale back my monthly goals considerably as the weather warms.  There are so many other things to do in Spring and Summer: gardening, barbecuing, reading on the patio, taking day trips to flea markets and antique malls, picnics at the various parks along the Hudson River, enjoying membership at the town pool.  Somehow, life just seems to open wider in late Spring and Summer.  I don't abandon stitching totally but it does tend to take a back seat to other interests.  So the tone of this blog may change a bit: fewer entries a week and those entries may be more diverse in subject.  The occasional run of rainy weather may restore stitching to its more usual priority but for the most part, things will slow down a bit till Fall.

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.

Photos to Go With Yesterday's Post

The new planter boxes

Here are the promised photos, now that my camera battery is properly recharged.  I am very pleased with the new planter boxes and will be even more pleased once I have finished filling them sometime this weekend.  I expect I'll be haunting my favorite nursery over the next few weeks, purchasing topsoil and peat and sand, checking out the vegetable seedlings as they arrive, picking out my stakes and trellises.  I am also anxiously awaiting my package of heirloom seeds so I can get some seedlings of my own started.  There's still a bit of work to do in the backyard.  I never did get around to painting the back door and frame and remounting the bird feeder.  And I would also like to get to work on the concrete retaining wall [at my back as I took this photo], scrubbing it, sealing it and painting it white.  Next year will be soon enough for doing something about new fencing.  One major investment in this space at a time.  This year it was the planter boxes.

And below, my current progress on the English Band Sampler: the Redwork section is complete and I have nearly finished work on the leaves of central tree motif.

English Band Sampler from SANQ