Snowball fight!

Things a Southerner has learned about snowball fights:

1. Fabric gloves are not good for snowball fights - in general, they're not much good for snow activities at all.
2. Dry snow in the middle of winter is no good for snowballs.
3. Never throw a snowball at the guy with the expensive camera - the snow will always hit the camera
4. Never get into a snowball fight with anyone who pitches baseball at a collegiate level or above - they have really good aim (and throw really hard)

No snow here - blue skies and we'll come close to 70F. I don't know if I'll get much blogging in next week as I'll be taking some time to visit my folks and grandfolks while DH mans the fort. So I'll just preemptively say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Oh, and Happy Birthday to all of us late December folks!

The Stockings Were Hung....

Officially done! No more presents to buy, no more to wrap! No more cards to send! Christmas can come anytime it wants! (DB's gifts will be late, but that's what happens when you live in a far away land).

Here's the ornament from 2000 that I finished off:

It was my first time doing the "stretch over batting over matte board" type ornament instead of a softer, pillow type ornament. I think it turned out well.

We had a fairly busy week here as DMIL came for a visit. We went up to College Station one day to visit DBIL and his fiance, then they left to go to Detroit. (Silly people, don't they know it is cold up there?). Another day, my work had a holiday breakfast that I brought DMIL to, then she and I spent the whole afternoon shopping! Luckily, the mall wasn't too crowded, but my feet were killing me by the end of the day. We had to rush home so that I could finally wrap DH's presents before he got home.

Now that the Christmas preparations are done, I can finally settle back into stitching. Yay! I need to get my drawing book out though. What to work on next? I'm not sure. Starting January, I'll have to buckle down into production mode for the new releases.

Dreaming of a Green Christmas...

I'm dreaming of a Green Christmas, just like the ones I used to know. Those are the proper words to the song, didn't you know? Ok, the grass has turned a mostly brownish shade of green, and the bradford pears and popcorn trees have finally turned red, but there are plenty of shades of green still around (especially the pine trees and live oaks). Last year was the first White Christmas I've ever had and we were in the southern tip of Texas! Of course, driving through snow and sleet in an area where they're really not used to it was no piece of cake, especially not on Christmas eve (and we had rescued a couple of relatives of friends who were stranded at the Houston airport, so we had a large crew).

I am happy to report that the Making Christmas Project has come together nicely and mostly on time. Christmas cards got mailed out on Saturday - note to self, don't buy square cards anymore, they cost twelve cents extra to mail! Almost all the presents are wrapped, except for DH's and he needs to be out of the house for that to happen. We're still waiting on DB's gift (small snafu there), so St. Nicholas will be a little late getting to Germany, all other deliveries have been dropped off at the Post Office. And that place is getting crowded! But I'm most excited to report that almost all of the ornaments have been made! I'm working on the last one right now - and when I'm done, that will make four completed ornaments! Yay! One of the ornaments had been languishing in the finished box since 2000 and now it can hang on the tree. The others are models for new designs.

Tomorrow is a Holiday Breakfast for our group at work. I'm bringing doughnut holes. I'm thinking of bringing two bowls and having two signs, one that says "Regular doughnut holes" and has all the ones I get at Shipley, and the other that says "Low-fat sugar-free doughnut holes" and is empty. Will anyone but me laugh?

Another one of those days...

I was dreaming as I slept that it was Saturday when I was rudely wakened by my husband's alarm clock. I wondered why it would go off on a Saturday when I slowly realized that it was Thursday and, yes, I would have to go to work.

The super cool find that I thought had solved the dilemma of my brother's Christmas gift turned out not to be in stock. Of course, it took nearly a week for the store to inform me of this, so I had to get the second slightly less nifty gift.

I did win three out of four games of Guillotine at lunch today (which made up for not winning any yesterday). Of course, we only had two players today. Two of our regular players had a bit of blow up a little over a week ago. Actually, one player had a blow-up at another and said he'd never have lunch with the other again, so I don't really know how this will all work out in the end. People have been missing the lunch group alot since then, but it is hard to know if that is because of the holidays or not. Only time will tell, I suppose.

The Making Christmas Project is coming along. Last night I finalized the address list for the Christmas cards and printed them out on the labels. Then, I worked on putting the cards together. Even with printed labels, this still took over two hours since I had to write little notes in each card and decide on a card for each person/family (and do things like keep cousins and aunts from getting the same card). They're all ready except for the stamps, but I won't be able to go to the post office until tomorrow, so the cards probably won't be mailed until Saturday. Only one week before Christmas, it is terrible, I know. Wrapping is mostly done. I'm still waiting for a few things to come in. I am not liking the online stores holiday shipping policy. They're not even trying to batch items together, so two books I ordered (at the same time) got shipped separately on two different days, but both packages arrived yesterday!

Here's a question for all the stitchers out there - how do you really feel about freebies? Love them? Just collect them? Indifferent? Tell me your thoughts.

The Poinsettia Adventure

Saturday was a day to attempt to wrap up this Christmas shopping stuff, because I'm already avoiding going anywhere near the vicinity of the mall (the traffic is just terrible), and soon it will be time to avoid any type of shopping altogether. There was also a possibility that we would be hosting a Christmas shin-dig at our house the next weekend, so some enhancements to the holiday decor were in order, namely poinsettias. So, after a successful trip to the Barnes & Nobles (book for Mom), and the local golf shop (shirt for Dad), I was meandering the back roads (mall avoidance) heading for home, and remembered that I would be passing the local Lowe's, which was the one place that I hadn't check the prices of poinsettias yet. I pop in, not even picking up a cart, when what do I find? Two racks full of poinsettias that have been deeply discounted! The lady putting on the new prices says they've just been man-handled a bit too much to sell for full price. I start to pick up a couple, then realize that at this price, I need a cart. Grabbing a nearby cart, I start to scour the rack for the best of the poinsettias. Now some of them are a bit like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree - in need of a little love. But some of them still look really good, and cluster several together, and they look great. In the end, I made off with 18 plants! Here they are in the house:
While checking out how much water to give them to best bring them back up to snuff, I discovered that contrary to popular wisdom, poinsettias are not poisonous, at least not unless a small child decides to make a full meal of one. The cat hasn't decided to chew on the plants at all, though, so that's relief on both fronts. She does love all of the bags that the Christmas presents come in, especially the paper bags since they make wonderful places to hide in. The best place to sit while I'm wrapping presents is on the couch behind me on top of the tissue paper and the labels. Presents themselves are a nuisance to her, though as they have taken up most of the space under the tree which used to be her domain. Christmas wrapping is almost done, Christmas card labels have been started (I know, I'm copping out this year by not hand-writing them, but it may be the only way they get done), out-of-town gift still need to be mailed, and stitched ornaments still need to be sewed!

Segway into stitching news: Somehow the sewing of ornaments just keeps getting put off. Maybe it is the need to get out the sewing machine, measure fabric and all that. Maybe it is the somewhat large mess that will ensue. I think I just need to declare a day when it will get done and do it. In other stitching news, I felt really bad because I made one of my model stitchers frog some of her work. It wasn't any fault of hers, the stitching was really good, but when she sent me the updated picture (which I really appreciated), I just ended up not liking the colors I had picked for a certain area. So it was all my fault, but that is the way the design process works. The Coliseum in my "When in Rome" design was almost fully stitch when I frogged almost the whole thing because the colors weren't working right. I also did a large portion of the sky over on that design until I settled on what worked. Of course, I stitched that model myself, so it was a bit easier to tell myself to pull it all out. Luckily, it is not a large section that she has to change, and she's been a fast stitcher so far. On the design I'm stitching on, I've been working on the background since I'm waiting for my grey silk to come in. I'm using a different type of silk thread in part of the background, Soie de Paris. It is a stranded silk, but it has a different feel and luster than the Soie d'Alger threads. I had to do some experimentation to see if I wanted to use one strand or two (I went with two). I'm also using the Accentuate metallic thread, which is kindof like a blending filament, but I can stitch with two strands of it, so it is almost like floss. Very interesting effects.

Stitching Snafus and other news

On Tuesday of this week, I attended a lovely seminar that extolled the virtues of a certain software manufacturer's new products. It was educational, but it didn't keep my hands busy, so I took my stitching with me. Since I was simply filling in large areas of a single color, it was fairly easy to stitch and pay attention to the seminar sessions. But alas, before the final session ended, I ran out of the color I was working on. Luckily, the LNS was open late that night, so after getting back to my side of town through rush hour traffic, I dashed over and bought my one skein of (silk) thread. I thought it looked a little different, but figured the flourescent lighting was putting the color off. Finally, I headed home after a long day, had some dinner, and sat down to stitch some more. I got out the thread and laid it against the WIP and saw that it distinctly wasn't the same color grey. I had bought a slightly purpley-grey; in fact I had bought 3322 instead of 3222. D'oh. Fast forward to Wednesday, when I am able to drop back by the LNS as I am running errands at lunch. Guess what? They're out of 3222 and it will have to be ordered! D'oh again.

Snafu number two comes Wednesday night, which is supposed to be the mothly stitch-in for the other LNS in my area. This is one of the few months where the stitch-in are not on back-to-back nights, so I had been looking forward to this. I haven't quite figured out a good way to get to the LNS after work - there's so much traffic the usual way that it takes at least 30 minutes to get there, and my previous excursions the back way take that long as well. This night I also had to make a stop at the post office, which was between the dinner pick up and the LNS. So, I leave work, stop at the house, get my stitching, tell the cat I'll return later, and head out into traffic. Thirty minutes later, I pick up dinner, then head to the post office. At the post office, I'm just going to drop some items in a priority mail envelope, use the automated machine, and be on my way. At the post office, I find absolutely no priority mail envelopes, just global express envelopes. All I can do is buy a priority mail stamp and resign myself to mailing the package later. Now my dinner is sitting in the car getting cold and I think I'm running late to the stitch-in, so off I go again. I drive up to the LNS and it looks funny. It is completely dark. There are no cars parked in front of it! No stitch-in! What has happened! I don't know, but the street is dark, so I'm not getting out to look for a note, and my dinner's getting cold, so I start the drive home. I think the cat was happy to see me home early, though.

In other news, the Making Christmas project is starting to gain some headway. Christmas cards sent are still at zero, but several presents have been wrapped. Also the buying list has been shortened. Stitched ornaments were pressed, batting was bought, and maybe some sewing will occur tonight. I finally found something cool for my brother - I saw it online yesterday, but the site didn't have it in his size and since it was an older item, I didn't think they would add to their stock. On a whim, I decided to check again today, and lo and behold, they had his size! (And straight into my shopping cart it went). For a couple of my husband's presents, I have to hope that the store's name isn't proudly displayed on the shipping box, or I'm going to have to work on beating him home from the office! He's really good at guessing what I get him, too, probably because I'm not nearly inventive enough in my shopping. I'm trying to be rather inventive in my wrapping this year.

Making Christmas

Presents wrapped - Zero. Presents mailed - Zero. Christmas cards addressed - Zero. Seems I might be falling behind. The tree is still up, and the cat hasn't tried to climb it. I don't know if this new tree just doesn't seem as climbable, or if since it is in another room, she's not doing it for the attention. The Christmas photo fest is mostly complete. DH and I found old pictures of ourselves (and siblings) at Christmas to hang up in the room with the tree. Reprints of these will also make good gifts. This meant a massive matte-board cutting marathon for me last night though. Tonight I hope to use some of the scraps to make my stitching into ornaments. Ok, maybe tonight and tomorrow night as some ironing also needs to occur. The stockings have been hung, which reminds me, I need to start thinking of what is going to go in them this year. Something healthier than our usual mega-supply of candy, as we've been on a health kick most of the year (and feeling much better for it). Well, most of the Christmas stuff will get done. Mailings will probably be a little bit late (especially for my brother, who is in Germany, but he will understand). My biggest hope is to avoid the crush at the mall as much as possible! Yay internet shopping!

In stitching news - DH asked me last night, "Don't you have any Christmas stuff stitched?" Well, I did, but it wasn't finished off. One ornament from a JCS magazine, I think from 2000, and a Mill Hill beading kit (I think it was Mill Hill - it had alot of beads). He then commented, but these aren't your designs (isn't that sweet). No, but I'm working on it, at least in my head. And there are those ornaments I hinted at earlier.... I did actually start Mirabilia's big Christmas design with the "fa la la's" across the bottom (I don't remember the name), which I've have kitted for about 3 years and was one of the few designs I kitted up without starting right away. However, I don't know when I'll finish it, since it has been set to the side while I work on new releases of my own, which are, of course, much more important. :) Thjs new one is coming along very nicely, if I do say so myself. So far, very simple to stitch. The background will be a bit more interesting, with a couple of specialty stitches and threads. Ok, enough teasing for now, I'm just really enjoying it. I'll probably be able to put out more of a description in January.

All of this design teasing leads me to another design issue - walking the fine line of generating interest and the potential of having a "design idea" used before you can get a pattern published, or a similar pattern comes out after you've already published. I'm not saying it happens, or that it happens deliberately, but there is always the potential. We see it happening in Hollywood after all, witness the summer that there were two Meteor-hitting-the-Earth-distaster movies. Each movie was very different, and was in all likelyhood developed independently, but they both end up in the marketplace and dilute the pool of people interested in that kind of movie. Hence my "teaser" format until I'm close to release. The good news is that February is fast approaching!

I did work on my ad for th Needlework Retailer magazine this weekend. That's a magazine that goes out to all the Needlework stores around the country. This will be the first time I've run an ad, and it will be published about a month before the Nashville market, so I'm very excited about it. Unfortunately, it is a bit of a catch-22 situation because none of the new designs are ready, so they can't go in the ad! Oh, well. I'll just have to see how it goes and put the new designs in the next ad.

Oh, I almost forgot - there's a new addition to the blog: the Cross Eyed Kat Stitchers Frapper Map. The link is on the right, and I encourage anyone who has stitched a Cross Eyed Kat design, who owns a Cross Eyed Kat design, or who likes a Cross Eyed Kat designs (and therefore might stitch one in the future), to click on the link and add yourself to the map. It is fun and easy!