Monday, September 19, 2005

Don't You Hate It.....

When you finish a really good book and then all books pale in comparison so you just don't bother reading anything else? That's the way it's been for me since I finished reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I plowed through those 700 pages in about two days. Nothing got done when I got hooked on this book. Now I can't seem to really get into any other book.

Been doing a lot of big project dreaming these days. Not that I don't have a gazillion large projects started, I'm just dreaming about all the other ones I want to start, and possibly finish in this life time. Finished projects may be in my future though. The woman I work for is once again trying to sell the restaurant and this time while the family will miss the income, I'm so ready to be a SAHM again and get my house and life in order for a change. One of the things I've noticed over the last few months is that while my income makes a difference, it really won't make that much of a difference in the quality of my kids' lives. That income basically finances our eating out and their lunch money. Other than that I've used it for my "luxury" purchases(that would be stitching, knitting, crocheting and quilting necessities and the occaisional CD or DVD). If we budget and pay very close attention to how we spend the DH's salary things should be ok. Yes, I'm kitting stuff up like a crazy lady. I hope to purchase a few yards of neutral lugana in several different counts for future TW projects and scoop up some charts I want, but other than that I'm pretty well set on the stitching front. I have several skeins of sock yarn for learning to knit socks, and probably three or four crochet afghans all kitted up and ready to go, just no time to work on them. I also plan to stock up on some favorite colors of Red Heart for some quickie ripple afghans. I know there are acrylic snobs but for a splash of color thrown across the couch or the foot of a bed you can't beat Red Heart or the price. For the Red Heart snobs, I'm slowly kitting up an afghan out of Hip to Crochet using Classic Elite's La Gran Mohair. "Slowly" is the keyword in that sentence. This is going to be one pricey afghan but I haven't really been able to find anything comparable or less expensive that I like or doesn't make me sneeze. I thought about subbing Caron Simply Soft and in the end if the price is too much for me I may do that but I like the idea of working with some different fibers for a change.

This weekend I worked on my Mairmaid's Song and while I don't see the end in sight I do believe it might be close if I stay focused. The satin stitched water around her tail fin is going to be a pain. I'm definitely investing in a laying tool before I start on that. That part of the stitching is at least a week off, if not two weeks down the road, so plenty of time of purchase a laying a tool and figure out how to use it.

Mouline Rouge and And They Sinned are supposed to be my Sunday football projects but due to a bad, bad cold I opted to work on the much easier to see 28ct Mairmaid's Song. I'll definitely stick with it through the end of the week or until I can stitch for 15 mins without having to blow my nose or cough my head off.

I've reinstalled my EQ5 software and plan to try again at designing DS#1's Ohio Star Quilt. Green is his favorite color so I'm going to stock up on as many green fabrics as I can and play with complimentary colors. My initial idea of a tropical Ohio Star didn't work out, so it's back to the drawing board.



3 comments:

Anonymous said...

i actually am going thru the same thing,not finding anything i like to read but i did get some books on tape from the library and it's been nice listening to them while i kniw.i really should set one day for cross stitching there are so many beautiful charts out there to do.
cara
earth mother

Unknown said...

When I used to cross stitch, I hoarded TW patterns like there was no tomorrow. I love everything she comes out with. I've never made any, unfortunately, but hopefully some day, the cross stitching bug will bite me again.

Carol said...

Melissa, we are so alike...it's amusing! LOL I SO miss being a SAHM but I don't have any kiddies at home during the day anymore (AHA, which would make staying home even BETTER! LOL). Most of the time, I can't decide whether to cross stitch, crochet, scrapbook, read, or rubberstamp. Oh and Gosh, I love to do crosswords! Quilting? don't even mention it! I have SO wanted to try this my whole life. I just bought some used beginner books on Amazon.com and a magazine from the grocery store. Someday (sigh).