Needlepoint Instead Of Cross Stitch

For the moment, I am working on a counted canvas project by DebBee's Designs called Rice Pudding, which uses many, many variations of the rice stitch.  Since I think the rice stitch is a handsome stitch, whatever its variations, I knew as soon as I saw this booklet in the On Line Show last Spring that I had to stitch it.  I also bought A Bump in the Rhodes, based on the Rhodes stitch, another very handsome stitch.  No doubt, I'll get to that one eventually.  But I expect Rice Pudding to keep me occupied for a very long time.  It's a reasonably straightforward design but it repeats as a mirror image from left to right, so there is lots and lots of work to do.

 Now I have worked painted canvases in needlepoint and I have worked charted counted cross-stitch.  But it's been a very long time since I've worked a counted canvas project like Rice Pudding.  And, I have to admit, my first glance at the fold-out full chart at the back of the booklet left me just a mite intimidated.  But the directions in the booklet are quite clear and I am managing pretty well, with a minimum of flipping the pages back and forth.  I am loving everything about Rice Pudding: the color way, the stitch variations, the perle floss, the novelty of working with canvas rather than my habitual linen.

Admittedly, I am not very far along with this project at this point but I am just happy to be enjoying my stitching again.  Here's a progress photo or two just to give you a sense of what the piece is like.  Above is a photo of progress to date and to the right is a close up photo of two variations of the rice stitch: the dark brown is the standard rice stitch and the cappucino is a double crossed version.

Isn't It Ironic?

That line from an old rock tune keeps playing in my head.  Here I am in the middle of a stitching slump and all I am thinking about is buying new stash.

First, putting together the patriotic post for July 4th made me want to stitch something new in that area so I went to my favorite "go-to" designer for the quick and easy but clever, too: Glory Bee Designs.  I saw the perfect chart, Patriotic Trio but I also saw another chart I now crave, The Beach Sampler.  Then I checked out Aury's blog and printed off the annual Quaker Patriotic Heart.

And earlier this month, I read on the Homespun Elegance blog that they are re-packaging some old Christmas ornament designs in what I call a super chart with 8-10 designs in one chart.  Well, one of them includes my very favorite Santa ornament ... for which I foolishly gave away the chart since I rarely stitch anything twice.  But then my grandson gazed longingly at the ornament on my tree and of course, I gave it to him.  Now, I need the chart again to stitch another for myself.

I believe I know what the problem is: I am bored to tears with my current stitching plans.  Back in January of 2012, in one of those extraordinary A-type personality brainstorms that engulf me every so often, I decided to list and finish all my UFOs including class pieces.  I made a list and I started stitching and stitching and stitching.  And I have finished up six of the UFOs and one of the class pieces so far.  But a quick glance at my sidebars indicates that I have 17 projects left to complete, and nearly all of these pieces are BAPs.  To further complicate matters, when it comes to stitching, I crave novelty.  Can you say "doomed to failure"?  I believe I have discovered a new mental condition, stitcher's manic depression.  I believe the cure involves some colorful, fun, quick and easy projects interspersed at regular intervals with the more challenging and serious stitching.  I will be calling the folks at Stitchery Row tomorrow for a therapeutic dose of Glory Bee and Homespun Elegance.  And maybe, just maybe, there will soon be current photos gracing this blog once again!

July 4th Album Post

I rather like the notion of album posts.  So today, to celebrate the Fourth, I am going to post photos of all my patriotic stitches.

I believe this is a Glory Bee design.  I had it framed and now set it up on a small stand on the antique washstand in my entryway on the appropriate day

In the top right hand corner you can see the July design from the Homespun Elegance Sheepish Designs series.

This a very old freebie that I finished as a pin keep.  It's hard to tell because of the lighting but the flowers are in a white bowl.

And I have stitched all of the Aury Patriotic Quaker motif hearts.  I have finished all of them  as pillow ornaments.

I'd have to look it up to see which came first, but this is my personal favorite

I wasn't as crazy about this design but a set is a set, after all.

This is a Glory Bee design that I stitched up as a tiny pin cushion stuffed with ground walnut shells.  It was the first time I used over-dyed chenille as a trim ... something I do fairly frequently now when I finish tiny pillows.  The pillow is laid on a piece of the backing fabric.

One of the things I liked best about this piece is the tiny brass Liberty Bell charm I stitched onto the branch of the "y" in Liberty.  I sent this as an exchange to a cyber friend.  I used the same design in one of the banners you see below.

                                               

This last ornament  is another ancient freebie embellished with a tiny silver USA charm near the hanger.

This a banner I made from a selection of free designs gathered from various websites

And the final banner is a relic from the time when I subscribed to The Silver Needle's Secret Needle Night Club.

Not Much Stitching Going On

None of the June Goals were met so they become the July goals.  I have picked up a needle only every so often, more once a week than once a day.  I'd feel better about this if a whole lot of gardening had been going on.  But the near constant rain has pretty much eliminated that as an excuse.  I have been reading, both serious and light.  The light reading has been Catherine Coulter FBI thrillers and Tea Time and Vegetarian Times magazines.  The serious stuff has been various volumes about the scandals in the Catholic Church and about how to pray the Psalms with movement.  And I have done a lot more home-cooking now that my schedule has lightened up.  So I haven't been totally idle.  

The office workload has slowed to a less frenetic pace and both my secretary and assistant are now off for the summer,  My husband wonders how I can be happy, all alone in the building, but I have always been a solitary soul.  Spending the month of July as a hermit is a welcome respite from all the demands of working with the public the rest of the year.  I am getting a lot of the next school year's programs planned and have the time to go back through student and catechist records and dot every "i" and cross every "t" that got overlooked in the course of the hectic school year.  Happily only nine student records out of 350 were missing some data ... we are, apparently, more efficient than I thought.  I have yet to go through the catechist records, so we shall see how that goes.  I am also reviewing some textbooks at the 7th and 8th grade levels, since the current texts are getting somewhat dated.  Just the usual administrative stuff for the summer.

I have been visiting my Mom much more frequently, sharing pictures of my grandchildren with her, trading books back and forth.  She turned 85 last April.  Without wishing to be morbid, it hit me that this seemingly immortal matriarch might not be so very immortal after all.  So I have started visiting every Sunday afternoon for two or three hours and calling her on the phone every three or four days.

I read on another blog this comment, "none of my favorite bloggers seem to be posting very often."  For just a moment, the very egotistical sprite on my left shoulder whispered in my ear, "they mean you, dahling!"  However, the more grounded and rational sprite on my right shoulder started laughing, somewhat excessively, I thought.   But I knew that out of the very many stitching and crafting bloggers out there, I was probably not the one being mentioned.  I've noticed that Blacksheep, Stitch Bitch and the Spinster Stitcher have scaled way back and I suspect they were the ones being missed.

I don't know why I am experiencing such a malaise vis-a-vis stitching and blogging at the present.  I expect it will pass as most things do.  In any case, I really need to get focused on the Christmas stockings for my grandchildren.

Last Class

We had our very last class of the year last night: the entrance examination for the Confirmation prep program.   And now it is truly all over but for some grading and mailing of results.  The summer schedule starts today.  Yippee!!    The summer workload is lighter, the Monday-Thursday, 9am-5pm, is a much saner routine ... and I can draw a breath and take things at a more reasonable pace.

My husband likes this time of year, too.  I cook more creatively now that I have the time.  Generally people gain weight in the winter and loss in the summer.  For us, it is the reverse.  But I will be going down to town hall to get our town pool passes soon.  This will be the first year I am entitled to a free pass now that I am officially a senior citizen [over 62, for the purposes of this township].  So, I hope to work off some calories in the pool.

Maybe, I'll even find the time to stitch again.

Inertia

Okay, no more trying to fool myself or psyche myself up with new stash.  I have lost it, at least temporarily.  The "it" being my stitching momentum.  Five weeks of barely lifting a needle has done it.  It's the law of inertia, I suppose: Bodies in motion tend to remain in motion, bodies at rest tend to remain at rest.  I am clearly at rest, if not actually comatose.  I am currently reading a series of thrillers by Kay Hooper involving psychics aiding law enforcement ... and that has replaced the more active leisure activity of stitching.

The last time this happened, it lasted two months.  We shall see what happens this time.

Gardening as Salvation

I am looking for a small spot of calm in the eye of the storm and actually feel ashamed to use that metaphor when the folks in Oklahoma have been dealing with the reality.  Nevertheless, it is true.  I need to decompress, de-stress and defuse.  What I'd really love is a spa day complete with a calorically correct and beautifully presented luncheon plate, a facial, a full body massage, a haircut, a manicure and a pedicure.  I can just see myself, swathed in pristine white terry cloth, delicately sipping cucumber water.  A foolish dream since I can afford neither the time nor the cash for such an idyll.

When stressed, I tend to eat all the wrong things and consequently, really have messed with my glucose numbers.  Type II diabetics need to be careful and careful is precisely what I have not been for the past five weeks.  Now I have to restore a proper balance ... happily, it is summer and fresh produce will help.  All the lovely fruits and vegetables currently available will go a long way toward correcting the over-indulgence in bagels, Dunkin' donuts and quick meals dependent on pasta or processed foods.

Soon, I'll even be able to harvest some lovelies from my own garden: fresh peas, mesclun lettuce mix, baby spinach and radishes.  The zucchini, pattypan squash, green beans, carrots, and tomatoes will come a bit later on.  But there is nothing better than vegetables still warm from the sun ... I go out to my garden every morning, literally willing my plants to grow and ripen.  I talk to them, surround them with good thoughts and positive vibrations.  It's become a morning ritual ... before you know it I'll start planting according to the phases of the moon and strategically placing crystals round about my garden.  I don't know what it is about gardening that brings out my inner pagan ... perhaps it is my Celtic heritage that leaves me particularly sensitive to the pull of Mother Earth.

Stash Enhancement Brightens the Doldrums

Towards the end of the lost fallow month of May, I received some lovely new stash that lifted my spirits and made my fingers itch to pick up needle and floss.  Not enough, mind you, to actually do so.  I feared that, in my exhausted state, I would make a muck of things.

Stitchery Row in Endicott, NY did their usual rapid turn around and I received my order within 48 hours of placing it.  Pictured below are the booklets for DebBee's Designs counted canvas designs, Rice Pudding and A Bump in the Rhodes, as well as all the perle cottons required for Rice Pudding which I plan to start this month.

I love the colors in this piece.  It's a bit hard to see but the Sullivan perles, the shorter skeins on top, are varigated.  The whole thing is such a joyful blend of autumn colors that I know I shall be delighted with the finished piece ... probably a throw pillow for my bedroom.

The Rhodes stitch, in all its variations, is another of my favorites.  I've never done a needlepoint canvas where some of the canvas is exposed for a lacy effect.  I'll be interested to see how that looks.

June Bugs Me

May was tough but the beginning of June promises to be more trying and emotionally draining.

Being slammed at work is one thing, but having a full professional-social calendar is far worse.  I am, by nature, an introvert and, by choice, a hermit.  I'd rather chaperone 60 8th graders on a  two day retreat than spend two hours at the end of year parish team dinner making small talk.   June is the month for all of the end-of-year celebrations which I tend to consider worse than work, listed here in order from least onerous to most deadly:  on June 9, the parish's afternoon reception for volunteers [command performance as one of the "hosts"], on June 4, the parish team end-of-year dinner [command performance as one of the members],  and, on June 6, the archdiocesan Communion Breakfast [another command performance as one of the hundreds of honorees].  

The last mentioned event is the positive worst.  It is run by nuns and only those who have worked closely with nuns can know what this means.  Nuns build community and affirm the members of said community.  Normally, this is a good thing.  But when the community is the catechetical leadership of damn near all the parishes of the NY Archdiocese plus the regional and diocesan staffs ... well, you're talking about a very large, diverse and unwieldy community.  This community runs the gamut from urban sophisticates to "black dirt" onion farmers, from third generation white flight suburbanites to poverty stricken ghetto dwellers, with a few genuine hillbillies and native American Mohawks  thrown in for good measure.  You will find at least a dozen languages spoken by members of this group.  Indeed, sometimes it seems as though the only things making us a community are a shared faith and some artificial boundary lines separating us from the Albany diocese to the north and west and the Brooklyn diocese to the south and east..

Anyway, the Mass that begins the day [and, yes, a Communion Breakfast takes nearly a full workday] is the best part.  From there on,  it is all downhill.  The Mass is usually followed by a breakfast that has nothing to do with breakfast, or even brunch, foods.  It is the considered opinion of myself and a few close friends in the ministry that the food served is whatever was left over from the previous weekend's weddings catered by the venue ... a rather cheesy catering hall in Westchester that owes its main claim to fame and its name to a marvelous Hudson River view.  There is invariably a keynote speech, followed by recognition of 5 year, 10 year, 15 year, 20 year anniversaries of service; followed by recognition of 25 and 50 year jubilees of all the nuns in the audience celebrating those landmarks; followed by farewells to all those retiring from the ministry complete with curriculum vita noting every detail of their accomplishments in ministry.  And then come the awards for extraordinary service.  A Communion Breakfast that ends by 2:00pm is a rarity.  And then there is the hour long commute back to the office on the other side of the Hudson.  And when I say that this is a command performance, I do mean command.  Attendance at a certain number of archdiocesan events like the annual Communion Breakfast is one of the requirements for re-certification every five years.  "Yes, Sister, I will be happy to attend!"

I console myself that the remainder of June and all of July will be relatively peaceful and almost solitary.  Just the occasional parent dropping in to register or former student dropping by to say hello and maybe a few visits from publisher's reps trying to sell me something.  I'll be able to spend the bulk of my time closing out one school year and prepping for the new one in September.

Assessing May Goals, Setting June Goals

You've heard of the Lost Weekend, this was the lost month.    Sadly, I have not been away due to a wild bacchanalia of a month, that at least would have been more fun.  Rather, I was slammed at work.  More details to follow when I begin posting again more regularly next week.   This weekend is just for recuperation.

MAY GOALS:  

2013 BAPs: continue work on TW Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking.  No.

2013 Challenge: WIPs and UFOs:  resume work on The English Band Sampler.  No.

2013 Class Projects Challenge: continue work on Mystic Smalls, this month's project will be the tuffet.  No.

Town Square SAL:  finish The Fiber Shop and stitch The Frame Shop.  No.

Sewing and Assembly Finishes: Complete three.  No.

  

JUNE GOALS:  

2013 BAPs: continue work on TW Woodland Angel Christmas Stocking.

2013 Challenge: WIPs and UFOs:  resume work on The English Band Sampler.

2013 Class Projects Challenge: continue work on Mystic Smalls.

New Start 2013: Continue work on Stitch Bitch's Plum Street Sampler's Be True Challenge.
Town Square SAL:  finish The Fiber Shop and stitch The Frame Shop.

Sewing and Assembly Finishes: Complete three.