The Weeble Wobbled

I was weak - this is what happens when I don't have an active cross stitch pattern to work on:

I did get my drawing done and the line chart done in the middle of all of these. Now it just has to be transferred into the computer and the colors have to be selected. I am refraining from more peep madness.

Over the weekend, I also ran/walked 5k, did dishes, laundry, took bikes to the bike shop, bought new plants for the flowerbed, and cleaned up cat vomit. That last one was just lovely. Mocha got sick Sunday night and by Monday morning wasn't keeping anything down, not even water. Of course, I didn't sleep very well Sunday, and called the vet Monday. She doesn't eat any of those Menu foods, she's on a special diet because three years ago she developed an allergic reaction to her food and was switched to this special diet. Her symptoms seemed to repeat the symptoms of three years ago. The vet believed it was just a sensitivity flare up, so she got an anti-nausea shot and an anti-inflammatory shot, which they were able to do without sedating her, although she was not pleased. A day later, she seems to be keeping her food down, so fingers are crossed that all is well in the kitty tummy.

Completions

First, a finish:


And there was much rejoicing! Hat and blanket made from the same yarn: TLC Essentials, color: Oasis. A little over 2 skeins used for both hat and blanket.

Second: impromptu cupcake baking for DH's co-worker expecting baby boy. Cupcakes were made Wednesday night for said co-worker's last day of work.



The tree continues to expand:

And we're pushing up daisies.

Needless to say, I didn't get any drawing done. However, I have hight hopes for this weekend. Especially now that I don't have any knitting projects officially going. Although I do have yarn for this: http://wendyknits.net/knit/kittybed.htm and these: http://kat-knits.blogspot.com/2007/03/some-easter-peeps.html Must not pick up knitting needles!

I'm looking at what flights to take to TNNA this summer - I was crazy enough to drive to Nashville, I'm not crazy enough to drive to Ohio. My quandry is that I can either leave at 6am the day I leave Texas (at the beginning of the trip) or 6am the day I leave Ohio (the end of the trip) depending on what airline I take. Or, I could spend $100 more and get a better flight. What to do?

I'm going to try and get at least one new thing charted this weekend, so that I have something to stitch at the next stitch-in at the LNSes. I also have some experimentation to work on for the class I'm going to teach at TNNA, plus painting and TAXES starting to breathe down my neck.

It will probably be a fairly busy weekend. It is somewhat unfortunate that so much tradeshow stuff is going on in the early part of the year - the weather outside is fabulous right now! Maybe I'll take the computer outside for when I work on charting!

Spring is sprung

The crepe myrtles budded out this weekend and got this far by the first official day of spring. I'll try to remember to take progress pictures over the next couple of weeks to see how fast they grow. We didn't hack off the tops of the crepe myrtles when I was a kid, but everyone around here does, and it has taken a couple of years to get the lawn guy to not cut ours back quite so far. I saw last night that the hibiscus has tiny buds - it suffered terribly in our early November freezes last year. The daisies have come back and are blooming again, but I haven't put in any new color this year. Perennial, that's the kind of plant I like!

A couple of nights ago, I finished the book series I was reading, so now I'm left floundering. What do I read now? I had been reading a fantasy series called "The Bridge of D'Arnath" by Carol Berg (for more information: http://www.sff.net/people/carolberg/darnath.html). I stumbled across Berg's fantasy novels about a year ago and really enjoyed them. Her stories are very engaging and very intelligent. They are also very unique: she tends to write in what I would call a first-person omniscient perspective. That is, the narrative is first person, but the reader doesn't feel limited by just the narrator's perspective. It is different and she makes it work.

The baby blanket has entered some kind of knitting purgatory where it is not getting any closer to finishing. I would swear that I counted stitches at lunch yesterday to see how many rows I had left to do, then I stitched a few rows. When I was stitching last night, I counted again and came up with the same number! So either the knitting I did in between evaporated, or my count got off, due to other numbers being thrown about (we were playing poker at the same time - yes, I knit during poker).

I sent off another package to a model stitcher - this is always a very exciting time. It is like sending your creation off to grow up and come home all done. The most aggravating thing was that I had to stand in line at the post office; the USPS has removed the option to mail items to Canada from the Automated Postal Machines (which I found out when shipping to a shop). So I had to stand in line for 20 minutes instead of taking just 2 minutes at the APM.

Tonight, I've got to get back to drawing. I've got one drawing done, but I need to revise it and make it smaller. Usually I like bigger as better, but I'm hoping to make a deadline, so smaller it must be. It is really cute though!

It lives

I am alive - I just disappeared into a hole last week.

Over the weekend, I discovered the addiction that is needlepointing on handpainted canvas.
I think the addictive part is that once I had the stitch I wanted to do figured out, there was no pattern to double check, no counting to do. Stitching the cat on this went incredibly fast. It took a couple of tries to figure out what I wanted to do with the background, but now I'm ready to fill it all in.

A second lesson is that a blanket, even one for a baby, takes a while to do. Booties are a pain to sew up, but much faster. I got alot done while watching the last stage of Paris-Nice, though. Bicycling, like most sports events, is good for knitting and needlework because if you miss something important (like a crash or an attack), the station will always replay the event. And yay for Discovery Channel winning Paris-Nice!

I also spent the weekend working on some new drawings and refining colorways for some models. If only I had 6 hands! Then I could knit, needlepoint, and draw all at the same time! Oh, well, I'll just have to manage with two hands.

Somethings coming...

This may not look like much to you, but after weeks of flailing around, it is big progress:

A color test! On real fabric! Of course, I don't know what else I would do a color test on, but there it is. Anyway, this was as far as I got before I was hungry enough to stop for a snack. The design isn't completely done, but it is coming along - and is far enough along for some stitching to be done.

Secondly, this arrived on my doorstep yesterday:

Shhh - don't tell anyone that's needlepoint canvas. We're just going to put it in a magic spot and see if anything happens to it.

I'm finally getting my shipments out to my distributors; that is just a cycle of inventory counting, extra printing, ink buying, box buying and packaging. Now I have labels ready and I'll stop by UPS on the way home.

Ok, here's my box buying story. I needed to pop into the Container Store to get a special sized shipping box. Then I was going to go home, get my stitching stuff, stop by Hobby Lobby, stop and get food, and then finally make it to the stitch-in Wednesday night. So, the Container Store stop was first and I wanted it to be fast! I found my boxes, and then went up to the counter to pay. Well, is it just me or have the CS clerks just become overly friendly lately? At Christmas, I was practically accosted by a clerk with "wrapping suggestions" when I was just browsing! Well, the clerk and the lady who was checking out had a gushing conversation about all the things the lady was buying and how wonderful they were. And I'm trapped with my $5 worth of boxes I need to buy. Yes, the service was friendly, but I would've liked to have had another cashier to check me out, or something to speed up the service. As it was, it took me over an hour from my stop before CS to make it to the stitch-in.

It is hard to believe the weekend is almost here again. I'm still working on getting the website completely up to date. There are just a few design pages missing. The shops pages has been updated, so look for a store near you!

Mocha's big day

This week, Mocha the cat had to make her annual trip to the vet for a check up. She is not a big fan of this, so I kitty "relaxation pill" to give her to try and make the trip go more smoothly. Two years ago I got rather furry trying to just give her the pill - she was only slightly drowsy for the trip and was still cranky at the vet. Last year I was smart and crushed it up in some tuna water, which worked pretty well. I tried the same trick this year, but she smelled something wrong with the tuna water (and probably remembered from last year). She only took about two sips of the tuna water and wouldn't drink anymore! So then I tried the pill in the tuna bit. She licked the pill a bit; then I tried pushing it in her mouth - this resulted in an unhappy cat with about half a pill in her mouth. However, about 20 minutes later, she started to get groggy and I was able to get most of the rest of the pill in her (with some more tuna). By the time we went to the vet, she was quite groggy, although not asleep. Did you know that cats have a third eyelid? It is very weird to see a cat looking around with that third eyelid covering about half their eyes, but the eyes otherwise open. Anyway, she still hissed and spat and growled at the vet, but she got her shots and her heart listened to, and we don't have to do that again for another year. Although I'm not really sure how we're going to do it next year.

I had my second stitch-in for the month last night. This month was one of the few where they were not back to back. Again, I didn't have anything ready to work on. I have one new design 70% graphed, it is just lacking the border, but I couldn't start on the center portion because I'm waiting for fabric to show up (knowing my luck, that will show up today). I was hoping some threads would show up so I could play with some needlepoint canvas stuff, but that was delayed. Ce la vi. Everything else is in the sketch to half-graphed stage.

Ok, I asked this on The Wagon, but I'll ask here for more opinions: Would you wear stitched jewellery?