Holly and Babies

Lynn asked to see a picture of my momma cat Holly. Here is one taken at the same time I took the picture of the babies. Excuse the bloody bedding, it was taken not too long after the birth. From the looks of the bedding the poor girl had a pretty harsh delivery.







Thanks to everyone who commented about the kittens and major thanks for not giving me hell about Holly not being fixed. My 9 yr old's teacher told him I was a very irresponsible pet owner for not having her fixed and letting her get pregnant. This cat was a stray we took in. I'm sorry she got pregnant before I could get her fixed but our PAWS, sorta like the Humane Society, has a waiting list for getting cats and dogs spayed and neutered. The appointments can be up to two months away which Holly's was and she got the preggers gig before I could take her in. She will be fixed as soon as she's finished nursing. I've already got another appt set up. I also have appts set up for Hermoine and Sabrina, here's hoping I can keep the cat orgy at bay before one of them ends up preggers too. These cats are strays. I can't help myself. Someone is tossing out an animal I have to give them a home. I'll have an updated picture of the babies hopefully tomorrow.

What I Did on My Weekend Off

This weekend I managed to finish Lizzie Kate's Welcome All Seasons.







I plan to frame this with two hooks hanging from the bottom of the frame from which I will hang L*K's monthly Flip-It's. I'm going to frame them so that it will be easy to pop them in and out to change the months. The Flip-It frame will have two eyebolts hanging from the top so that I can hang it from the hooks on the bottom of the Welcome All Season's frame. Clear as mud?

Once that was finished I pulled out Birds of a Feather's Peace. Here is a pic of my progress:








Crochet News

I made a couple more granny squares for my wild tropical granny square afghan. Since they are all the same, I'll skip on the pics for the moment.

Organization

I'm working hard to get all the stash organized. I don't have a huge stash compared to most. Most of my kitted cross stitch projects fit in one 18 gallon Rubbermaid bucket. Charts, WIP are another story. They are all over the place, spread across another 5 Rubbermaid buckets. I should state that these buckets aren't full. They were an attempt to get organized over the summer or fall, can't remember exactly. So everything in them should go together. Do you want to know what's the most overwhelming part of organizing? It's all my freebie charts. How can one organize a thousand or so freebie cross stitch charts? I got binders, I got sheet protectors, I even bought dividers but after you pull the various holiday charts from the pile do you just organize the rest by designer? Some don't fit into any catergory. It's so overwhelming, I just threw them all into a bucket and walked away.

Then I have tons of cross stitch charts that are piled up in buckets because they don't fit in my hanging file cube. Some are the odd designer, others are things I picked up from clearance bins. This is very, very overwhelming for me. I have got to come up with some sort of system.

My crochet stash is stored fairly well. I found an entertainment center at a yard sale last summer, on the end is this hidden cabinet, for DVDs and video tapes, I have piles of yarn in there. All tucked nicely away. Then *ahem* stored in Micheals and Walmart bags are my Woolease skeins for the Crazy Quilt coverlet out of BH&G's Simply Creative Crochet. Piled on top of my entertainment center are more skeins for shawls I have yet to make. They are but a dream because there isn't enough time in the day for everything I want to do and make.

Speaking of shawls, if you haven't already, head over to Yarngirl and check out Julie's All Season shawl. It's fabulous!

Quilting stash, well we're back to trusty Rubbermaid buckets. Only one for fabric. I don't have much of a quilting stash. I'm going very slow with that addiction. I want all the fabric in the world. Especially batiks. I can't get enough of those. I'm fortunate that I only buy fabric once I get the quilt planned out in my head, then I start buying a yard or two of fabric here and there. I always try to buy at least a yard. Two if I can find it on sale. I figure if I don't use it all for one quilt any leftovers will come in handy for future projects. I'm pretty patient when it comes to collecting supplies for just about any project. I have so many irons in the fire there's always something to work on so I can take my time and kit things up slowly.

Major Cross Stitch Project in the Works

Lynn also asked about the 2ft by 5ft cross stitch project. Two of my more dorky geeky cross stitch friends and I are getting ready to start the new ABC Sampler charts from
The Victoria Sampler Website. A, B, & C have already been released. Yes, they appear to be small but we have decided in our infinite wisdom that we will stitch them all, yes all 24 samplers(24 because X,Y, & Z will all be on the same chart), on one piece of 32ct fabric. We are planning to add family names that coincide with the letters on those charts, and change the A is for, B is for, to words that suit our families, lives, states, country, etc. Some, I'm sure we'll leave as charted but all three of us are making our lists and awaiting the fabric so that we can start gridding it. I hate gridding but this honkin' big project demands it. Better to grid at the start than to frog along the way. Once the fabric is gridded and we get caught up on A,B, &C we think we'll be able to keep up as the next charts are released.

Future Crafty Endeavors

So the plans are as follows:

1)Get into a good routine
2)Crochet at least 4 granny squares a week
3)Pull out the 63 Squares afghan and do more than just look at it and cringe. Crochet one block a month. Once I get into a routine maybe I'll do more than one a month-my hope one a week. The Doodle-blog is really inspiring me to get going on this afghan. Melissa has set goals and is managing to stick to them.
4)Work on Fairy Grandmother aka the Grandhag. This is a long overdue gift. My Mamaw isn't getting any younger.
5)Keep up on the ABC piece once it started. I'm hoping this will be an easy committment.
6) Set aside $1 for every hour I work on the ABC project so I'll have a good start on the framing fees.
7)Try to finish some long term UFOs. Quit procrastinating and work on the darn things. I still love them. I just get so overwhelmed with all my new stuff, they lose a bit of their magic. I'm such a project whore. I love to start new projects. It's the most wonderful feeling in the world. My second favorite feeling is the feeling I get when kitting new projects up. I love seeing the chart, fabric and floss all stored together in their 2 gallon baggie. It's a free, future project waiting to be started when I get that *I have to start something else now* feeling.

What is my third favorite feeling? The feeling you get when there's a package waiting on you from the mailman and it contains stash, cds or books!

Anyway, these goals should be obtainable. *Should be* being the operative words in that statement. I'm probably just excited. I stitched away the weekend, watched movies and didn't do much of anything else. It was one fabulous weekend. The only thing better would have been if I could have spent it with some stitching friends. Then again I'd have talked my head off and not got anything finished.