Heartstrings Earth Day Make Do Sampler Finish

I am someone for whom spatial intelligence is not a strength. So, flipping a design is always a time consuming and carefully counted chore, especially since I can't be bothered to chart it on paper but work directly on the linen. It took nearly twice as long to stitch the second squirrel as it did the first. Mainly because I made a mistake in the second row which I did not discover till I started back-stitching. Naturally, I had to frog and re-stitch the whole thing. After that, it was simply a matter of charting my initials and the year, centering each beneath a squirrel, and voila, a finish! I am including photos of the whole piece and then some detail shots. I have a few choices when it comes to what I'll pick up tomorrow. I could take up Tracery Dragons or The Sturbridge Box again, or I could finally pull Workbasket's Quaker Sampler out and work another motif, or I could start one of my September goal projects, Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie or Aury's 2011 Quaker Heart ornament. An embarrassment of riches! Whatever my mood, there'll be something to suit. And it doesn't hurt that I have had more stitching time than planned lately. I went into the office Monday to discover that I had no power. I stayed till noon doing the very few things I could without a computer, a phone, a shredder, a TV, lights, etc. Then I gave up and went home. Orange & Rockland Power was predicting 10 - 14 days before power was restored. However, power was restored in just a day and a half. So, it seems that O&R's predictions are like Scotty's on the original Star Trek: "I canna do it, Captain" and then, of course, miracle worker that he is, he does.

I know it is Wentzler Wednesday but I was so excited about finishing this up early this morning that I had to post. I will stitch faithfully on Tracery Dragons for the rest of the day and post progress photos tomorrow morning.

Assessing August Goals and Setting September Goals

AUGUST GOALS
BAP: Finish Teresa Wentzler's Tracery Dragons. Clearly, this did not happen. But I did finish the crossstitching of page 2 and got started on the backstitching of both Page 2 & 3.
Crazy January Challenge: see above, Tracery Dragons is doing double duty as my BAP and my current CJC. See above.
HOE: Autumn Pin Keep: finished the cross-stitching.
Sewing and Finishing: the four LHN pillows & two HE pin cushions. NO.
Surface Embroidery: finish The Fertile Circles Needlebook NO.
WIPS & UFOs from 2010: Continue work on Workbasket's Quaker Sampler, the Jacobean Elegance afghan, and the Beach Find Pansies panel. NO.
WIP 2011: Continue work on The Sturbridge Box. YES.
On the other hand, I did manage to start [and finish] a few unscheduled pieces: Sue Donnelly's Hear the Sea Call Sampler, Earth Day Make Do Sampler and PS Promo Card Summer House.

SEPTEMBER GOALS
BAP: Continue to work on TW's Tracery Dragons on the designated Wentzler Wednesdays.
Crazy January Challenge: Start Primitive Needle's Black'd Skie.
HOE: Assemble and mail Autumn Pyn Keepe.
Ornament: Aury's 2011 Quaker Heart.
Sewing & Finishing: the four LHN pillows & two HE pin cushions.
Surface Embroidery: finish The Fertile Circles Needlebook
WIPS & UFOS from 2010: Continue work on Workbasket's Quaker Sampler, the Jacobean Elegance afghan, and the Beach Find Pansies panel.
WIP 2011: Continue work on The Sturbridge Box.

Weekend Progress Report: August 28, 2011

It seems entirely appropriate to have as my stitching picture on this post Prairie Schooler's Summer House/Rain ... we are just getting over the after effects of Hurricane Irene. My son is napping downstairs on the sofa, his neighborhood having been evacuated due to an high surge expected for the stream and lake that are literally at his doorstep. The local fire department doesn't expect the damn to hold. I can't reach my daughter who lives on an inlet in the Delaware Water Gap area but my son who recently helped her move in assures me that she lives high on a hill above the shore line. He also mentioned that she doesn't get great cell reception in her area so I should not assume the worst when she doesn't answer my calls. I am trying hard to be sensible and put my anxiety on hold.

Hard to believe, but here in NY, the official end of summer is just a week away with upcoming Last Hurrah of the Labor Day Weekend and, incidentally, my birthday. As always, it sped away all too quickly and the start up of my religious education program looms on the horizon. The start date for classes is Sept. 19 but there are all sorts of preparations to attend to before then, not to mention the recruitment of three more volunteer catechists. Why do people wait to step forward till the very last moment, hoping that someone, anyone, will do so first ... have they no consideration for my sky-rocketing blood pressure readings? Have the parishioners considered just how much worse it might be if suddenly they had to recruit and hire a new Coordinator of Religious Education [the former one being mercifully confined to a padded cell, babbling incoherently about schedules, catechist shortages, hand-outs, background-checks, late registrations, orientation meetings, name tags, fundraisers, pastors, parents, printers and zero point budgets] ... and just a few weeks before the program is due to start? That'd teach 'em! Or perhaps not ... my delusions of indispensability notwithstanding! At least I can always retreat and regroup in the serenity of my stitching corner. At this point the lyric "In my own little corner, in my own little chair" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella has started to run through my head ... perhaps I am not all that far removed from that padded cell, after all! Now enough of this blather and on to stitching progress for the week. First up, the PS Promo card Summer House/Rain is finished. The Heartstrings Make Do Earth Day Sampler is moving along nicely with the addition of squirrels and acorns. I have even done a bit more work on TW's Tracery Dragons. I'll show another picture of the dragons on Wednesday, when, one hopes, there'll be considerably more and noticeable progress. So, apparently, the stitching corner has been a pretty busy place this week.

Earth Day Sampler

I am aware that Earth Day is generally celebrated on April 26th but I have always felt it to be more of a September sort of deal: September being the month of a ripe and bountiful harvest, loads of fresh fruits and vegetables, harvest festivals, my birthday, cooler weather, a lovely autumnal tang in the air, my birthday, fall foliage, fresh pressed apple cider, apple picking, farmers' markets, oh, and did I mention my birthday? If I had set the date, it would have been in September. But, of course, no one asked for me. I, however, am not to be deterred by mere words on a calendar. I plan to have my earth day sampler done in time for September's opening days. I have stitched it in rich autumnal colors and will be including a squirrel motif to represent both the virtue of frugality [as per my dictionary of sampler symbolism] and that last frantic Fall rush to store the goodness of Summer to be enjoyed throughout the Winter. Once I have stitched the second squirrel, I'll add my initials below the one on the left and the year on the one on the right. Anyone wishing to refer back to the original Heartstrings chart to compare and contrast the versions, should click on this link.

And the sampler isn't the only evidence of this EarthDay/Earth Mother mentality. I am in the mood to make apple butter again, for the first time in years. And maybe some applesauce as well. I want to fill my larder and freezer. I am thinking of buying a food dehydrator and one of those vacuum sealing gizmos for freezing foods. Think of it: dried peaches and apples to use in pies and cakes all winter long. Dried cherries and blueberries to slip into oatmeal as it cooks. Bags and bags of frozen applesauce and cherries and blueberries and raspberries and blackberries ready to be turned into applesauce spice cakes and fruit crumbles during the dark and dreary winter months. If we have snow as often this winter as last, I know I'll become a baking fool. In any case, once the weather cools down enough for serious baking, I'll be starting my quest for the perfect recipes for scones and tea biscuits/buns. Heck, I may even return to the practice of baking my own bread and making my own yogurt.

A Weak Wentzler Wednesday

I didn't get much done yesterday, just filled in the odds and ends on the right side of the circle and have begun to fill in the upper right corner of page 2 of the cross-stitching chart. One reason progress is so slow is that there are so many color changes. Typically, I take one blended needle, stitch three or four whole crosses and half a dozen quarter crosses and then it's on to the next color change. Right now I have about a dozen needles threaded with all different combinations of thread, stuck in labelled sheets of memo paper. It saves a little time, having the needles ready to go, but not a heck of a lot.

I Wonder As I Wander

In checking my blog Stats recently, I discovered that www.gothise.com was a referring site, with 23 hits. Gothise is a self-described Twitter site for alternative people. Okay, I am an aging ex-hippie so maybe that makes sense. But I do not twitter or tweet or whatever it's called. And I am at a loss to see just how my rather staid stitching blog came to the attention of the goth community. I haven't even waxed philosophical in any recent posts. I rather expect my 23 visitors from that site are as confused as I am. About the only thing we might have in common is a "what were they thinking?" shared head-shaking moment! Such are the arcane mysteries of blogging.

Weekend Progress Report: August 21, 2011

I went back to work on the 16th. I always find it so hard to get back into the swing of things after two weeks off. It makes me long for retirement but that is at least five years in the future ... longer if the Social Security Administration keeps moving the eligibility dates for benefits. To make matters even more interesting, I have kicked off the annual Fall procession of doctors' visits a bit early this year. First up, this month, the cardiologist and gynecologist. Next month, the internist, endocrinologist and opthamologist. In October the gastroenteriologist and any other specialists the darlings decide I need to see. I suppose it could be worse, last year there was a surgeon in the mix as well! Usually, this annual ritual begins in September and takes me through December ... it is such fun being a 60-something. I was joking with my boss, whose birthday is two days before mine, that I need a separate address book just for my doctors. His 70-something response: "tell me about it!"

On the stitching front, I have finished Sue Donnelly's Hear The Sea Call Sampler, worked a bit more on Tracery Dragons on Wednesday, stitched most of the motto on the Earth Day Make Do Sampler over one, started the PS Summer House/Rain Promo card as my purse project [for doctors' waiting rooms]. All in all, a rather eclectic week of stitching. This is so much more my typical pattern: a rotation of four or five pieces of varying size and complexity. The past month or so's intense focus on Tracery Dragons, almost to the exclusion of all else was quite the exception to the rule.

When It's Wentzler Wednesday

Although yesterday was another Wentzler Wednesday, I got very little accomplished. It'd take an eagle eye to spot the progress made since the last photo: just the skinny branches of the rose bush. That's lots and lots of 1/4 stitches and three color changes for such a very little bit of stitching. Even though I am talking about two full hours of stitching, hard as that may be to believe. So there's no point in showing another photo at this time!

Though I am determined to finish this piece, it is beginning to wear me down. It is very complex and takes a great deal of care and concentration. Talk about a high maintenance project! I find the longer I work at it the more easily I am distracted by the siren call of other less complicated charts. This, of course, sets a vicious cycle in motion, delaying the finish and opening up the possibility of more distractions along the way, further delaying the finish, and so on and so on and so on. But I do not wish to put it aside "for a while", fearing the "while" would become an eternity. So for the time being, I will work on it only on the designated Wentzler Wednesdays until such time as I recover my enthusiasm for it. Perhaps I will be able to amuse myself with a wide variety of easier projects throughout the week, storing up reserves of concentration for my Wednesday encounters with the dragons.

Finally, A Finish I Can Show

Last week, I did finish the cross-stitching on my Pyn Keepe for Edgar's round on HOE but can't show it till assembled, sent and received. But today I finished Sue Donnelly's sampler, Hear the Sea Call. This was a very quick stitch, but packed with all sorts of fun little surprises. The embellishments worked so nicely, bringing the sampler to life. The satin stitches and shell eyelets seemed to fly from the needle [a welcome change from the painstakingly slow 1/4 stitches and counting/recounting on Tracery Dragons]. The lettering was quick and easy, comprised as it was of long stitches and backstitches. I might almost have been writing with pen and ink: that's how quickly the words flowed onto linen. While I didn't really time this project, I think it took no more than five or six hours of stitching since Sunday evening when I first picked it up. I'll have to e-mail Sue and tell her that her souvenir sampler from The Stitcher's Hideway [Sturbridge 2011] pretty much saved my stitching sanity. And, I received a lovely gift from in the mail yesterday from Barb H from Illinois: this Homespun Elegance chart and a veritable treasure trove of Old Brasse buttons. That's the second giveaway I've been lucky enough to win in the past month. Especially when you consider I have gone several years without entering my name in a giveaway and then come up the winner in the first two I enter. Could things be any better? I am going to enjoy all this good karma for as long as it lasts. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket!

L*K Ornament Exchange Received

I received this exquisitely finished little lovely from Cindy in NY as part of the Christmas ornament exchange from the Hooked on Exchanging group. I wish you could see the very dainty trim she used, my photo does not do it justice. She also sent along with a pretty little chart from Country Cottage Needleworks, a mini-sampler called Sunflower.

The ironic thing is that I used the very same Peace-Joy-Love chart for my own entry in this exchange, only I stitched my version in beads. Two takes on the same chart couldn't be more different. I have already carefully stored Cindy's version away with my other cross-stitched Christmas ornaments ... the ones I use to decorate my table top wrought iron tree that decorates my entryway during the Christmas season.