A Finish and Some Works in Progress

A new blog post, shocking, huh? Always the unexpected around here. The Monkey Sampler

Midsummer Night Designs

28ct Sandcastle Lugana

DMC

According to my records I finished Midsummer Night's Monkey Sampler on July 21st.

This has been my take along project for a LOOOONNNNGGGG time. It was pretty much the only project I worked on while I was at my momma's since it's stitched on 28ct and I could see the holes in the fabric even in the poor lighting. That green yard just about did me in but I perservered and now it's finished! It always feels so good to put those last stitches in a project. Then again, it takes me forever to finish a project so a lot of life happens while all that stitching is being done. This project has been to Tennessee twice, once when I went home for my dad's memorial service and the second time most recently when I went to stay a week with my mother when she was released from the rehab center. She has COPD and had to learn how to breathe again, and also to learn how to live with her new best friend, her oxygen tank. This particular project has also seen a lot of time at Panera while I wait on kids to do whatever it is kids find to do at the mall for hours on end.

Liberty Sampler

Hester's Needle

32ct Natural (or maybe Raw) linen

DMC

My new take along project can be seen above, Hester's Needle's Liberty Sampler. I really thought I was farther along on this than I am. Let's keep our fingers crossed that there's a lot more quality Panera time in my future.

When I started this piece a few years ago I wasn't quite ready for the satin stitched band so I just did good old cross stitches. I debated frogging this band and stitching it as charted and then my sanity surfaced and I decided I liked the little Xs just fine thank you very much.



Rachael Holmes
Heartstring Samplery
32ct dyed by me linen(more aged actually)
A Potpourri of fiber from the stash

Heartstring Samplery's Rachael Holmes is seeing a lot of stitching time at the moment. This is a fun sampler and I got over myself and just pulled threads from the stash to see what would work with Beth's color palette. It's kind of liberating to pull out the handy dandy DMC color card, a fiber conversion lists and dig through the stash and find what works.

Black'd Skie
The Primitive Needle
40ct Vintage Pear
Pure Palette Silks

This is my progress on Black'd Skie. It's been a bit slow for me but it's due more to having the wrong magnification of readers, I was using 2.00 and that's just way too strong. I had misplaced my 1.50 and those 2.00's gave me a headache every single time I tried to stitch. So I found my 1.50 and now I'm back to happy headache free stitching.

I love the Pure Palette Silks. I am not an expert on silks, I rarely use them, but I really love stitching with these.

Halloween Queen
Notforgotten Farm
28 or 32ct fabric from the stash(it was unlabeled)

DMC


A few weeks ago I started a project that's been on my to do list for a year or two. Notforgotten Farm's Halloween Queen. I found a piece of linen in the stash and gave in to the urge and made a good start on the Halloween Queen.

In the Garden
La D Da
36 or 40ct Lambswool(that's a guess)
DMC


And another project seeing a lot of needle time, La D Da's In the Garden. This is another project I've had the chart for for ages and decided to see if I had a piece of fabric that would work and dug around in the old fabric drawer until I came upon this piece that I'm pretty sure is 40ct lambswool but it's possible it's 36ct. I did a floss toss and decided this could work. I had thought about using GAST but didn't have all five colors so decided to go with DMC.

Last week I made my first trip to Needle Delights, my LNS, in ages. It felt like coming home. I dropped off three pieces for framing, my Cape Cod Girls(changed to Gulf Coast Girls), Salem Remembered and my 13th Colony Bay. I ended up bringing my 13th Colony Bay home with me for a bath. I had no idea it was so dirty until Tonia put it under the light on the framing table. OMG! I wanted to throw up it was so dirty. I was extra, extra glad I stitched 13th Colony Bay with DMC because washing it was no problem and I was mortified at how dirty it was. I thought I had been careful, kept it tucked away in a baggie in a drawer but I did stitch on it forever and I stitch outside when it's nice. I enjoy stitching outside but this piece was definitely a wake up call that only DMC projects will be worked on while sitting on the porch or in the backyard from now on.

That's all the news from here at the moment. Hope everyone is managing to stay cool this summer because the air down here along the Gulf is a force to be reckoned with.

Updates! Updates! Updates!

Here's the current state of Midsummer Night Designs Monkey Sampler:

It was starting to sprinkle when I took this picture so apologies for it being kind of dark. I'm enjoying this sampler a lot. I don't want to put it down. It's my take along project for the car and when I'm stuck waiting because there are areas of big blocks of color but there are also areas where I need to count like the flowers in the border, the border itself, so I'm also working on it around the house too. It seems to be the project screaming the loudest these days. I'd love to have it finished and hanging in my kitchen by the end of the summer. Ok, that was a joke, how about by the end of the year?

What you see below is a picture of my wave blocks surrounding one of the sunbursts in the
Just Beachy quilt. I'm getting close to sewing time. I have to work on my machine, a neighbor gave it to me when she moved but the tension is off. I've been eyeing a Brother machine at the store who shall not be named but I would prefer not to spend money on a sewing machine right now. Keep your fingers crossed I can adjust the tension on the free machine. Worse case scenario I sew the blocks together by hand which is not a bad thing in my humble opinion. I prefer handwork but I need the machine to go around the sunbursts and waves through the Heat and Bond. That would be a pain by hand.




Two Recipes

Since the kids have been out of school meal time is a nightmare. Now I'm stuck coming up with three meals a day as opposed to just dinner. Thanks to Ree I tried this recipe for dinner the other night, it was a hit. Chicken Spaghetti The recipe reminded me of one I made years and years ago from Country Kitchen the show hosted by Florence Henderson on the now defunct Nashville Network. I would have looked up that recipe in my recipe box but the cats knocked the recipe box off the hutch and the dog ate my recipe cards. I am so not making this up. Anyway, Ree's recipe was two thumbs all the way around the table except for the eleven year old who seems to only eat Ragu Chunky Italian Garden Combination spaghetti, chicken nuggets and a pepperoni pizza from Hungry Howies since he doesn't eat anything his opinion really doesn't count these days.

Another great recipe is for cookies. I found this at Farmgirl Fare: Wow. Who Knew? (And Cookies) These cookies are wonderful. They sounded like they might be close to Publix's Calypso Crunch Cookies, not exactly but just as tasty. My family does not appreciate the texture of the old fashioned oats in the cookies so next time I will use quick oats because the oats make the cookies almost health food, right, so I don't want to leave them out altogether. Personally I like the texture. I will also try using semisweet chocolate chips and peanut butter chips or white chocolate. These are very good cookies.

Thanks to everyone for the comments, they are always appreciated. The honkin' big quilter's square rocks! It's right up there with the laptop and iPod on my "greatest inventions ever" list.

R.I.P.

You totally rockin' hot momma shoes:

Last year I found these shoes at TJ Maxx on clearance for $5. At the time they represented everything I wanted to be when Summer 2007 arrived. Thinner, uh no, didn't happen. Shaking my badonkadonk butt on the hood of Nikki Sixx's car, (because baby I got back), uh no. What they do represent is a house where the animals rule and humans are just pawns in their wicked games. You see, these shoes were safely tucked away in my closet, but my cat Sabrina(who looks a lot like Laurie's Soba) can open doors. I used to never lock my front door until one day I came home and every animal in the house was in the front yard except Heidi the black lab who will not walk through the front or back door without being told to, she was sitting just inside the front door. She's such a good girl, anyway, Sabrina loves to open doors, she runs through the house opening all the closets, has a blast let me tell ya. Well since acquiring Polly PrissyPants the yellow lab puppy, none of our shoes are safe. The oldest son, the middle son, and youngest have managed to protect their shoes except for two pair of flip flops. Unfortunately the Spousal Unit has lost two pair of sandals and one pair of sneakers to Polly. Fortunately the sneakers were his yardmowing shoes so no great loss. Now I am Sabrina's favorite victim. She loves my closet and most of the time I keep it blocked with a pillow so she can try to open it but can't ever get it open. Well for whatever reason, maybe to put on some clothes, I opened the closet and shut the door and forgot to put the pillow back in place between the door and tv cabinet. Sabrina opened the door and Polly ate the shoes seen above. I'd have put the other shoe in the picture but the damage is heartbreaking. She also ate 5 pair of Old Navy flip flops. I live in Florida and currently have no flip flops. I see a trip to the mall in my future.

What's really sad is I never got a chance to wear these shoes out. I did wear them around the house listening to I'll Remember You by Skid Row, Wild Side by Motley Crue, Photograph by Def Leppard, you know the whole Monster Rock deal, wait should I have said that outloud?

Thanks for all the compliments on my version of Faith's Doris Daymat. It was a fun, fast project. I do think I will attempt another one following her pattern. I'm use to the feel of the twine now and believe if I play around with hook sizes I might get a positive result using the thinner twine.

I want to make a few things from Erika Knight's Simple Crochet. I started a box made of kitchen twine a few years ago and never got it finished. I'm thinking of mixing the kitchen twine with the garden twine and making some stripey baskets or big bowls. I love using different kind of fibers and seeing how they work up. The mason twine is cool too, kind of slippery but I love how it shines.

In cross stitch news I put in about 10 stitches on the Monkey Sampler this morning and that's been about it for the last week or so. It's going to be my mall project this summer. My kids like to go wander around the mall and I tend to park myself in the food court with a Cafe Carmel or an iced tea and sit and stitch. It gets me out of cleaning and the food court has pretty good lighting and food that I don't have to cook!

In book news, I read Motor Mouth by Janet Evanovich and am currently listening to Metro Girl. I ♥ my library. So far I like the characters and the silliness. Good summer reading or listening rather.

I also finished Kissing Sin by Keri Arthur thanks to Deep Inside Missy.

I'm loving the new Fountians of Wayne CD and my favorite track so far is 92 Subaru. The youngest son is enjoying it a lot too and he didn't want to admit it but I caught him singing along with the songs.

Who Do I Blame It On?*

Here's my Monkey Sampler update: From the coloring of this picture I obviously had the camera on the "camera" setting instead of a scene setting and it's got a distinctive blue hue to it. Wonder why that is?

Because of this post, Knitting Iris: Cotton-rich, cotton-poor, I remembered having this sheet in the linen closet:


Again the camera was on the "camera" setting, this sheet is a bright green with yellow and orange butterflies. So after seeing the picture of a similiar sheet as a tablecloth, I was forced to pull my sheet out and do this:

Now I absolutely have to search every thrift shop in a 100 mile radius for more of these sheets. The one on the table here: Knitting Iris: Cotton-rich, cotton-poor--I know I had that very same sheet on my bed at one time. My mother said she didn't have any more of these sheets, she got rid of a lot of stuff when she sold her house and moved and believe me I'm kicking myself for telling her at the time I was pretty sure I didn't need any of those linens. What was I thinking?

Have you seen the pile of sheets here: Posie Gets Cozy: Afternoon Delight? Alicia makes some great book bags from her vintage sheets. I'd love to find a wild flowery one and make a beach bag out of it.

And here's a recent picture of Polly PrissyPants:

*Not sure exactly why I titled this post "Who Do I Blame It On?". It was early and I was thinking about something in particular and then the house starts waking up and I lose my thought or it could relate to my new obsession with vintage sheets.

Something For Everybody

Here's the current state of Midsummer Night Designs Monkey Sampler: I tried taking the picture from a weird angle, you know to add interest to the shot? I think I really seriously need to read some books on photography because I so keep getting stuff wrong!

Here's one of the over 1 monkeys. How cute is he? The fabrics below are for this quilt-
Just Beachy Karen Stone:

I bought the pattern about 9 yrs ago. I decided to dig through the fabric bin and see if I had any that might work and I think this is a good start. I think I left one out, I had another light blue batik. The fabric to the far left really doesn't work at this time but I'm hoping to find a few fabrics to coordinate with it because I have a lot of it and I like it.

Remember this tree?

Yesterday we said good-bye to it thanks to our friend Steve who offered to take it down for us before it fell on a kid. Is he a good guy or what?

Steve was very patient with us when we asked dumb questions like, "If you have to chop it down from the back why are you notching it on the front?" The answer: So you can control where it falls and it doesn't hit the house. Good thing we didn't try to just figure it out ourselves or we're pretty sure we'd have a tree on our house and the oldest son would now have a skylight.

Yes it was one honkin' big pine tree.

The front yard sure looks empty now doesn't it? We're trying to decide what kind of tree to plant to replace it. Yes, our grass is dead. Two years of drought isn't a good thing for the grass. Our neighbors have been working hard to have a green yard and so far their's still looks a lot like ours. We tried grass seed and it's not growing. The fact our front yard is the neighborhood football field doesn't help.

Sue the Spousal Unit would love to live in No Cal. He's a huge Oakland Raiders fan. We've considered moving out there on several occaisions and then realize that five people living in a car might get kind of crowded! He's been out there several times for games and every time he gets home he starts planning a move.

Did you all hear about Laurie's book? Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair: The Tr

Head over there and show her the love! Can't wait to get a copy of this.

And yes, Earth Day was a few days ago, but hey, Sheryl Crow has some interesting tips on how to save the earth. Can you spare a square? How about a dinner sleeve instead of a paper napkin or better yet, how about the snot sleeve for the cold season, who needs tissue? I'm not making this up, read it for yourself. I find it interesting she's all about saving the earth but her song is the music on a commercial for a car that I don't believe is a hybrid. I could be wrong about that, need to investigate. I love Sheryl Crow but seriously, one square of toilet paper? No way!

With This You Get

You get egg rolls.

Step one: the filling--I adapted a recipe from The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen--the original Moosewood Cookbook.

Here's the beginning of the envelope roll:

Hard to take a picture and keep the egg roll together:

Here they are all nice and fried up:

And plated with some shrimp fried rice:

What inspired me to make my own egg rolls? This post Posie Gets Cozy: keeping her in eggrolls.

What changes did I make to the original Moosewood recipe? I added some shrimp so they weren't vegetarian. I used soy sauce instead of tamari. I subbed shredded carrots for celery and used canned bean sprouts because I couldn't find fresh and I left out the dried mushrooms because I couldn't find them. These weren't bad. I should have rolled them tighter. I thought I did, next time I will definitely make sure the corners are tucked in extra good.

And since this is a stitching blog and not a cooking blog here's my progress on Midsummer Night Designs, Monkey Sampler.

If you all haven't checked out Kiwi Jo's patchwork bags, head on over there and be ready to be awed. My sewing skills are limited at best but I have to make me one of these. Very cool, Jo.

Check out Jan's latest post, Be*mused. I love the paragraph about preparing yourself for sewing. Uh, nope not around here. Knock on my door, prepare to be frightened when I open it.