A Taste of October

It's been dark and dreary here most of the day so taking a decent picture, for someone already camera challenged, well, I did the best the I could. Below is my table centerpiece, such that it is. The two pinkeeps are from Notforgotten Farm's Three Pinkeeps chart. I hope I have the name correct. The crow was stitched on a silvery gray fabric, 32ct I think, and then coffee stained. "I Told You I Was Sick" is on good old 32ct antique white. I stuffed them both with walnut litter available at your local pet store. I can never decide how good to stuff them. I think the tombstone could have used a tablespoon more litter.

click to make bigger

The piece above is Shadows of a Thousand Years by Jennifer Taylor Gass. The white fabric to the right is the original color before I dunked it in coffee and baked it in the oven for a little bit.

Near Halloween

The Primitive Needle

32ct Picture This Plus Dill

WDW Floss

(click to make bigger)

Above you see Primitive Needle's Near Halloween(Designs - The Primitive Needle). I really thought I got a better picture of this, even with the dark and dreary afternoon light but apparently my camera is getting ready to kiss me goodbye.

And posing with my Notforgotten Farm pinkeeps is my Lolita Queen of the Dead needle attracter(yeah probably not a word but I'm not sure if the term needleminder is trademarked, so work with me ok?) I saw the cabochon and had to have it. A touch of glue, a super magnet and viola, a needle sucker of my own making.

I hope to have a few more things to show by Halloween day but we'll see how that goes. It's been hard to be in an autumnal frame of mind with the temperature being in the mid-80s and the humidity at 100%, it's like the middle of July down here. I'm ready for some cooler weather. I'm sick and tired of being hot.

If I don't see ya'll before, may the Great Pumpkin see how truly sincere your pumpkin patches are and shower you all with candy and stitching stuff.

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.

A Good Friend Once Told Me

That cross stitching, it's a simple thing, you thread a needle:





You bring your needle up through this hole:





And down through that hole:



A very simple thing.

It has become apparent to me over the last week that cross stitching is not simple, at least when you move into the 40ct linen and silk thread league. Until recently I was never that stitcher. I was a DMC and overdyed cotton kind of girl on nothing higher than 36ct. But my love for Primitive Needle's Ichabod Seabury pulled me to the dark side. And dark it is.

I couldn't see the holes in the linen and my eyes aren't that bad. Reading glasses even at the lowest magnification made the fabric even blurrier to my eyes, so I felt my way along on this project. It's full of stitching mistakes. Chock full of them I tell you.

But because misery loves company I'm going to have a contest right here on this old blog. I left one glaring, huge, major, big time mistake in this piece, the kind of mistake that will make stitchers say to themselves, "can you believe she left that mistake in there, can you believe it, seriously?" and "can you believe she admitted to it?". I ripped it out and restitched four times before saying, "I give up, in you stay". So in the next couple of days I'm going to take a really good, freshly ironed picture of my darling Ichabod and let you find my Amish mistake. Once you find it, you can email me and all the correct responses will be put in a bowl or hat and drawn from and the winner will recieve my gently used Ichabod Seabury chart and cut of PTP 40ct Swamp linen on which to stitch your very own Ichabod. And I just looked at my chart and gently used is correct, I wrote the dimensions for 36ct linen on the back, whoops. Well at least if you decide to go up to 36ct I've done the math for you.

This is a very simple stitch, I just decided to make it harder on myself by attempting 40ct for the first time with a darkish linen.

The Picture This Plus Swamp is a wonderful funky green and I love it. All my stitching mishaps with this project were my fault, bad lighting, not the linen, I love, love, love Picture This Plus fabrics and definitely not the fault of the chart. It was all me, myself and I.

So stay tuned for The Amish Mistake contest to pop here in the next couple of days. I'd have posted a better picture today but this is one of those days when I have to be 20 places at the same time, I hate those days.

So see my quick snap of a completely finished Ichabod Seabury below:

Ichabod Seabury

The Primitive Needle

40ct Swamp linen

Belle Soie Floss

And stay tuned for The Amish Mistake contest!

Also, any guesses from what movie I ripped off my title and the first few lines with some creative license by me?

Cross Stitch

Very inspired name for this post huh?

Well I have some cross stitch to show, not finished but oh so close. Below you see a blur of Simply Live, but there, holding it down, keeping the wind from blowing the fabric off the table is my Eldreth Pottery Mermaid. When she was packed in my bag on the trip home the guy working the Xray machine at the airport asked me if I had a vampire in my bag. I didn't have a clue what he was talking about until I remembered she's holding a star. I tried to explain that I had a piece of pottery in there and please do not ask me to unpack my bag because I would never get it back in there safe and sound or be able to zip my bag. But he shook his head and waved me on through. She's a lovely momento of my time with Sharon and Siobhan and boy did I ever fall in love with Pennsylvania.

Here is a close-up of the stitching and of course using my camera skilz super power I chopped off part of the letters I have stitched but you aren't missing much.

I've been thinking a lot recently about the whole "simply live" philosophy and what that means. I've also been thinking about the Slow Year that Riana writes about on her blog.

Honestly I'm not a big consumer. I buy clothes only when I need to because it's a traumatic experience. I don't think about being 60 lbs overweight until I need clothes and then it slams me right smack up side the head that you aren't Kat Von D. You are a 45 yr old, 5'2", 60 lb overweight woman.

Damn, that realization hurts every single time.

Which then causes tears and me to leave the store, trying not to snot all over everything. You think I'd eventually get a clue but I don't. So clothes shopping is not in my retail therapy arsenal. I tend to buy groceries(see 60 lbs overweight) and stash. Not even a lot of stash. I've done very well the last few years sticking to stitching from the stash, using what's on hand and over all not helping the economy out too much but it's not with any kind of plan, believe me, if I had the money, I'd spend it all on stash. Seriously.

But as grocery prices continue to rise I find myself pulling out my whole foods cookbooks, Moosewood, I had forgotten how much I love you, and Laurels Kitchen too. Time to once again reclaim my good habits and go back to a more vegetable based diet, not giving up meat entirely like I did when I was pregnant with the 21 yr old but definitely focus on better meal planning. I have done none of that in the last six months. I went on strike because I honestly got tired of all the complaining about how "I don't want to eat this or that" so screw them all, order a $6 Howies pizza every night as far as I'm concerned. The other night I made eggplant/zucchini parmesan using a mix of recipes from the original Moosewood cookbook and Laurel's Kitchen. It was killer. Probably just as high calorie as a burger since the eggplant is fried before being parmesaned but OMG, it was incredible and worth the effort, even in 300% humidity with the stove and oven on, worth the effort, the sweat, the extra heat in the house.

And because we all take our celebrity where we can find it and I'm shameless. Have you all got your Primitive Needle Witches Hollow chart? Have you? Here's the faraway shot with two pots I found in the garage, purchased years ago at the flea market for like a $1 a piece, they were misfires. I think that's the term.

Anyway if you remove your chart from the package and read through it, you might just see this:

Yep that's me! Thanks for the shout out Lisa! I know, obnoxious much? That's me.

Layers

This weekend I started a new project. My 18 year old decided he wanted to paint his room sometime in the near future so I decided to start crocheting him an afghan. I used 80% stash yarn which means it's good old ghetto Red Heart. This afghan should be around when his great-great-great grandchildren are dying of old age. I would have loved crocheting it in some nicer yarn but stash busting is good and as I mentioned this is for an 18 yr old who will hopefully, eventually move out and take this afghan with him. That means he would never bother to wash it by hand so acrylic is a good choice and it's durable. Here is the current state of the ort jar, way more yarn than floss. I made 26 squares this weekend.
In between the crocheting of many granny squares I worked here and there on Primitive Needle's Simply Live. The saying "it takes a village" takes on new meaning with this project. I'm using a "village" of threads. A little GAST, a little WDW, some DMC, and a Crescent Colour or two. In my best Tim Gunn voice "I'm making it work". I'm still undecided about the DMC Blue for the words. There's a bit too much purple in there, normally I wouldn't say that but maybe when it's completed and I'm looking at it from a distant I'll be happier with the result. When I step back from it I like the overall appearance but up close, in my lap, it just looks too purpleyblue. This is the price one pays for being too cheap to invest in a new line of thread and making up one's own conversion from what's just laying around the house.



And as proof of granny crafting:

Stack de granny, granny on the edge.....

Now I need some help from my blog readers. I started this blog in 2003 I believe. I deleted some of my earlier archives because they were journal entries that no one needed to read, not because there was anything bad or too personal just who wants to read all that crap?

I originally started this blog as a reason to write everyday. It eventually developed into something a bit different. I want to get back into the habit of writing everyday but I don't always have anything of a crafty nature to show. I don't always have anything of a crafty nature to write about so here's what I'd like you to do. In the comments suggest topics you'd like to read about, it can be on anything but my sex life, but I'd be happy to attempt some bodice ripping fantasies if that's what you'd like. I need to start writing everyday and this blog was great writing practice for me back in the early days. You guys throw out the topics, I'll write about them off the top of my head, yes Anna that means I probably won't edit them before hitting publish so there could be some rambling but there might be some interesting stuff in there as well.

Are you all up to the challenge? I need to write, I need to reclaim that part of my life and since you all come here and read it only seems fair to let you all pick some of the material.

Visions

Lately my brain has been swirling with ideas for projects. The one hold back is that I am not in any way, shape or form a designer. I hate sitting down and trying to figure out what goes where, how to make a curve without the need for fractional stitches. I have Patternmaker for Cross-Stitch and I'm apparently too stupid to work it or rather make it work for me. My respect for designers has jumped by leaps and bounds and leaps and bounds over the past week.

What I am I trying to design? Well I'm trying to design a sampler based on one of my favorite decades. I'm also going to try to hand-dye my own floss for it too. I'm a masochistic like that ya know. I mean if you've read this blog for any length of time, my constant attempts to sew are a perfect example of my love of pain-mental and physical. The physical pain comes from all the crawling around picking up shards of glass after I have thrown a glass of iced tea across the room because a straight line does not exist in my universe. Apparently on the planet I'm from, everything leans.

Another sampler I'm trying to design is one based on a family ghost story. My mamaw used to tell it and promise that every word was true. I've been trying to write a condensed version of the story in poem form. Uh Pablo Neruda and Elizabeth Barrett Browning are spinning in their graves begging the powers that be to make the girl just stop with the hideous example of poetry she has been putting forth in the universe because my attempts have set poetry back a 1,000 years.

And I've also been plotting out my 21st Century Sampler but that's on hold at the moment.

Getting back to the kind of stitcher I really am, here is my current progress on Primitive Needle's Simply Live:




How cute is this:




And for more Primitive Needle, here's the current WIP of Ichabod Seabury:

And a close up of the colors and how the words pop:

I took the pictures outside but it was cloudy. What's really bad is that my pictures on sunny days are just as bad as these.

M-O-O-N

Spells Primitive Needle*:



This is the moon band of Ichabod Seabury. Fingernail Moon means I still got a whole lotta stitchin' to do!

Here's the big view, and yes the picture is crap but the project isn't. I love, love, love, the funky PTP Swamp linen. It's a great green. This is my first time using the Belle Soie threads, and my second time using silks, I am so a silk thread virgin. I like the Noir and the Lasagna, the blackish color and the hint of orange you see there to the left in the picture. The Tumbleweed has not been pleasant and I'm wishing I had swapped out a DMC or a WDW thread. I'm finding that the Tumbleweed frays and shreds pretty easily. It's possible it's an issue with me but I don't think so since the Noir and the Lasagna do not seem to have the same issues. I've started using shorter lengths. I only have two more lines of verse to go and bit around the top border and then I'm done with the Tumbleweed.

I'm hoping that designers don't start sending me cease and desist orders in regards to posting pictures of my WIP as they are so awful it might hurt their sales. I try, really I try hard to take good pictures but I just haven't found that sweet spot for the best light. One day I will.

*apologies to Stephen King

The real quote is "M-O-O-N spells Tom Cullen" or something like that from The Stand. My all time favorite Stephen King novel.

Oh and for all you Halloweenies--check out the new Stacy Nash book Merry Hallowe'en.

No Stitching but FROGS!

Disclaimer: No frogs were injured during this photo shoot, I promise.

On Monday I babysat my little buddy John. He's absolutely my favorite human being person. He's smart, way beyond his three years. If I'm sad, this kid can brighten my day, even when that day starts at 6 a.m. We somehow ended up in my backyard which I think is one of John's favorite places and I'm not sure why. I have a swing, he has a swing in his backyard too. I have dogs and cats, he has a dog and a cat. I'm pretty sure he even has frogs in his yard but on this day he caught a baby frog in my backyard. Below you see him trying to contain the frog who really was just minding his own business, hopping along to meet some frog buddies.

Trust me there's a frog on his arm.

See peeking out there, Sir Frog Hopsalot. He really was calm considering his current situation.

The mantra of the morning: Do not squeeze him. Do not squeeze him. I finally gave up and said, "If you keep holding him that tight he's going to pee all over your hand and I'm out of soap!"
Sometimes gross works, especially with three year olds.

This picture was taken by John, Still Life with Frog. So see Sir Frog Hopsalot survived the photoshoot and is hopefully off chillin' with his frog lady friend and getting ready to make some tadpoles.

Here's the much delayed graduation picture. That's the 13 yr old to the left, the graduate in the middle and the spousal unit there on the right. The oldest was off somewhere with a pack of girls.

And here below you see my very own Angel with a Dirty Face, Polly Prissy Pants. I love this dog so much. She's my best friend, my protector, and so darn goofy.

In stitching news which is probably what you come here for, I'm almost finished with Primitive Needle's Salem Remembered. As soon as that's finished I'm going to start either Simply Live which is kitted up from a mix of threads or Cape Cod Girls which I have partially kitted up, just need a few more colors but I could start it no problem. Both of these are also Primitive Needle designs. Here's a link to more of Lisa's designs: The Primitive Needle.

I had a bit of a fabric dyeing disaster. I wanted to start HAED Cinderella-Dawe, I am having trouble accessing the website or I'd include a link you can go to http://www.heavenandearthdesigns.com/ click on artists listing 1, then scroll down to Dawe, click, then you can see Cinderella. Anyway, my fabric was a bit too white so I thought a coffee stain would darken it up enough that the light grays wouldn't fade into the fabric, well I dunked my fabric, took it out, put it on the patio table to dry, the wind kept blowing it off the table so I tossed it in the dryer. I'm not skilled at this stuff, I just do what I think I am supposed to do. I can't stress that enough. Well my fabric came out of the dryer and all the coffee stain had pooled along the edges and now the fabric just looks dirty or peed on. Fortunately this is a solidly stitched design, I was planning on matting it when I framed it, so only a tiny bit of fabric will show and I just didn't want it to bright antique white. So I'm stitching on the screwed up fabric because I'm just wild and crazy that way and have no shame. I love the way Cinderella is presented in this picture. I can feel her heartaching, the magic is gone and she's back to being Cinderella, cleaning girl. Right now other than the fabric being in hideous shape I've only stitched a bit of black and gray and there's not much to see but a blob. Will share when I have more of a picture.

I'm not sure if I've shared this link before but Beatrice is stitching The Autumnal Woods from Golden Kite. It's something like 600,000+ stitches and is the size of a blanket. She has a pretty sweet gallery of stitched masterpieces from http://www.goldenkite.com/ and when I see how much she has stitched on this ginormous piece it makes me want to pick up my needle and go to town. I just don't know if I have that kind of stick-to-it-ness. How long have I been working on Salem Remembered a piece I love?

I'm hoping the spousal unit will be motivated to paint the living room this weekend, I mean what else has he got to do? The only thing on his calendar is True Blood at 8p.m. on Sunday night, he can surely squeeze in a bit of painting right?

Keep your fingers crossed next post will be a "I finished Salem Remembered" celebratory post.

Also anyone else think Facebook puts you right back into the mindset that you are still that awkward kid you were in high school?

Timeless

The past few weeks I've been stitching away on the The Primitive Needle's Salem Remembered. I have friends that say, "what's up with you and the whole witch thing". Well what happened in Salem back in 1692 represents the worst in human nature, all of our deepest, darkest weaknesses.

As far as the witch thing, well I grew up with Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. I want to believe that there is magic in everyday life, whatever form it takes. It's more often than not the smile of a new baby, the first bloom of a flower. There is magic all around you and you just have to take a minute, open your eyes and see it. Sunrise, sunset, a miracle every single day.

I want you to look at the year at the top of this sampler. 1692.




Now check out these news stories:

Child Witches: Accused in the Name of Jesus - ABC News

BBC News Africa Child witches in the Congo

As a world we've come a long way haven't we? I was sick last week when I caught the story on ABC News. Here I am stitching away on Salem Remembered and half a world away, hundreds of years later, people's problems are being blamed on witchcraft and the people being blamed are too young to have a freakin' clue about what is going on. You know, life is hard, life is pain, bad things happen. Your grinder is going to break and it's not because your five year old is a witch.

Here is a link to information on the Salem Witchcraft Trials:

An account of the Salem witchcraft investigations, trials, and aftermath.

What is going on in Africa today is no different than what happened here a few hundred years ago.

Here's a link to National Geographic's Salem site:

National Geographic: Salem Witch-Hunt-- and here's a link to the kid's site:


The Salem Witch Trials -- National Geographic Kids

As much as we like to believe the world has come along way since the days of Way Back When, we haven't. It's much easier to blame your troubles on everyone else and toss in a good mix of greed from these so-called ministers and everyone loses except the ministers charging for their exorcism services.

So when someone tells you cross stitch is obsolete, out of date, has no relevance today, well Salem Remembered is more current than I ever imagined.

All Powerful and Knowing Ouija

Primitive Needle

The Talking Board

1x2 36ct Relic PTP linen

WDW Charcoal

WDW Bark

DMC 535

Oh wise Ouija--will a publishing company sign me to a three book deal?

Will Hollywood buy the movie rights to my series?

Will I be able to finally buy that dream house in Topanga Canyon?

Will I ever get all the cat and dog hair out of the house? Will I ever get the pile of laundry off the kitchen table? Will anyone in my family pick up after themselves?

I guess I can live with that! I love Ouija boards, always have. My friend Linette and I would spend hours asking it questions. This was a fun stitch and quick for me. I think I started it on Sunday and finished it this morning. It was designed by The Primitive Needle' Check out more of her designs. Salem Remembered is up next in my to stitch pile. I should mention that there are two mistakes in this piece, all my fault, not the chart's. I ripped back three times and could find my mistake or I more than likely kept making the same mistake over and over. I decided late last night I could live with that. I seriously doubt anyone but me knows they are there. I also made one other change because I ran out of WDW's Charcoal and used DMC 535 for the stars at the bottom. I'm debating whether to coffee stain those stars to make them match better. I wish I had thought to just toss the whole skein of DMC in the coffee pot but when I originally compared the colors I thought they were a better match, but I'm happy with the results and I started out with a partial skein of the Charcoal so I'm pretty sure one full skein would be enough.

P.S. Thank you all for the sweet comments about my Papaw.

What I Did on My Spring Break

I would love to tell you all that Spring Break was a whirlwind of travel, Paris, Barcelona, London, Ireland, NYC, Chicago, LA, but no spring break was spent in my messy house listening to almost grown kids whine about the nasty weather. I've apparently done a very good job convincing them that I have superpowers because they acted like I could do something about the deluge of rain falling from the sky. Like I was totally connected to the clouds and could blink my eyes, twitch my nose and the clouds would part, the sun would shine and life would be good. Uh no. So we spent the better part of last week listening to thunder, watching the lightening, and visiting the video store as much as humanly possible.

Of all the movies we watched over the week The Mist was the best. That's not saying a lot. Man are there some baaaaaad movies on the video store shelves these days. Avoid Mirrors. Yes it's got Keifer Sutherland but I so completely didn't get it. I mean I did get it, I understood it, but still that is two hours of my life I will never get back. We watched W. Josh Brolin is going to be the next great actor. He's wonderful. Whatever your politics this movie is worth watching just to see Josh Brolin. We watched Quantum of Solace, James Bond, Daniel Craig, 'nuff said.

I also watched A History of Violence a gazillion times. I love me some Viggo. If you haven't seen it's great on so many levels.

What did I do while watching all those movies? Well cross stitching was out because it's easy to make mistakes when someone is in your face whining for eight straight hours so I decided to spend some quality time with the 63 Squares afghan I'm making for my oldest son. The colors are his choice--I played with different shades of green, blue and yellow and these were just the ones that looked the best together. I added the variegated for some pizazz and well I like those variegated yarns. I can't help it. I always have, always will. I love them and pop them in when I can. I am crocheting this with good old inexpensive Red Heart, that staple of yarn baskets everywhere. I would love to make one of these in real wool. Really, I would but I have a few issues.

1) This is for my 21 yr old son, I hope he loves it so much that when he moves out one day when he's like 40(I wish that wasn't a joke, LOL) that he will want to take it with him. This means that if he ever washes it, it will go in the washer and the dryer and that means it will felt and be a doll blanket. Not good.

2) Since he's a guy and has a wild streak, I can only imagine what he will put this afghan through, so that means even if he doesn't want to wash it he will, eventually, which means if I crochet it with wool, it will felt--see reason 1.

So good old Red Heart it is. Below you can see the first 5 of 7 squares of Row 1. I had hoped to complete the row this weekend but had huge gauge issues and as you can see from the last square there I still have a gauge issue but I said screw this I'll make it work. The next smallest crochet hook was too small for the worsted weight, the E hook I think, so I just went with the F and left it as is. I will work it out later. My goal is to crochet this row by row instead of 1-63 and then assemble each row as it's completed and then sew the rows together as I finish them and it should make assembly much more enjoyable and not as overwhelming if I waited until all the blocks were done.

Here you see them piled up showing that nifty variegated. I can't help it. I love that Red Heart Bananaberry. It's a happy mix of colors. Every attempt I've made before on the 63 Squares afghan has ended up looking really sad. No matter what colors I chose, bright, dark, classy, they all looked uninspired, but these seem to be coming together ok. Or maybe it's just me being full of hope and all.

And the squares from a different angle because that's just how I roll:

Here is some progress on my HAED Dark Waters:

This project will be a lifetime commitment and I try to work on it when I can. I'm stitching it 2x1 on 22ct aida. It's a combination of Selena Fenech's Dark Waters(the mermaids) and across the top will be her Bright Skies which is an angel panel. I'm almost to the center panel of water and sky. I love this project so much. I can't imagine ever actually finishing it so that means when I sit down to work on it, I don't see the finished project, I just see little Xs. There is no pressure, I can just stitch and get lost in the story my mind makes up about these swimming mermaids and the shenanigans they are off to get into. Since I don't think like an angel I'm not sure what I might be dreaming about when I get to that part of the design but I'm sure I'll come up with something.

And below you see my start on The Primitive Needle's Talking Board. I thought I'd have this finished by now but got side tracked by spring break and that whole family thing and crocheting takes less concentration. I'm stitching it 1x2 on 36ct Relic from Picture This Plus.

Today I'm going to play around with my Patternmaker software and see if I can get a pattern for Kudzu out of it. I have to use the other laptop with missing keys because the CD drive in this one is fried and I need to look for one of those external drives because I want to buy one of these for myself:

Walmart.com: Acer Blue Aspire One ACA150-1447 Mini Laptop PC Netbook with Inte

I'd prefer the HP Mini but only because the keyboard is almost normal size. Everything I've read about the Acer with the 6 cell battery is that you can get up to 3 1/2 hours of battery life. I love that, makes it great for taking it places, although if I want to write on it I need to figure out the whole Barbie sized keyboard. I'm really tired of fighting for computer time so I've told the spousal unit when that money tree sprouts up in the backyard I want one of these. Of course I have a never ending wish list of things I want--this is a necessity but the others? Total luxury items. Want a peak?

SpinBlessing.com Ashford Traditional Spinning Wheel, $425.00 A few things we'll ignore: I live in Florida and have no need to learn to spin wool but I want to. I really, really want to. I mean with climate change and all, Florida's weather could be like Montana's one day. Seriously. Learning to spin might be good knowledge to have one day.

Ashford Joy Spinning Wheel with free shipping and free fiber Add to that, I rarely travel and can think of no reason why I need a spinning wheel that I can fling over my shoulder but I do. I can't imagine a situation where I'd ever take a spinning wheel with me but for some reason I want this wheel, I dream about this wheel.

Amazon.com: Kindle 2: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device (Latest Generation) We will ignore the fact that I seem to get most of my books at the library these days or the used bookstore. That doesn't matter I want a Kindle!

I also want a Serger--uh I don't sew but I've decided it'd be cool to make some exercise clothes and the serger will make finishing them nicer. I also won't add that fabric to make my own exercise clothes is more expensive than buying the clothes off the rack, and again I don't SEW! But a Serger it's a necessity.

I also want a set of Knit Picks' Harmony Interchangeable Needles and a set of the Options Interchangeable needles, and a set of the Harmony DPNs and the Harmony straights. No--I am not a passionate knitter, I play at knitting, I am slowly teaching myself and plan to take a sock knitting class in the not so distant future none of that matters, I want, I want, I want. Once again with climate change knitting might be a skill that's kind of important.

And I also want one of these quilting frames:

Honey Fork Fabrics So we won't mention how I've never completed a quilt. That doesn't matter. I would have this when the time came.

And do I mention here how I want tons of fabric? Kaffe Fossett, Anna Marie Horner, Amy Butler, BBD and oh so many more? Lots and lots of fabric.

I would also love a room full of Picture This Plus fabrics, all the floss I could ever need, and could just walk in the room, pull out what I need for a project and BAM, I could start it right then and there.

I know, I'm insane. Does anyone else have these unrealistic wishlists? Like you want things, you don't need them, you just want them so that one day when you get around to whatever they are there waiting on you?

Rainy days really gets me list making, dreaming, planning.

I won't mention the raised beds that didn't get built because they would have floated away, that'll be a job for this coming weekend. Because I want to grow lots and lots of tomatoes and can homemade salsa and tomato sauce this fall.

I'm thinking about getting several of these and hanging two of them on my front porch:

Topsy Turvy Hanging Tomatoes Official Site - Upside Down Planter

That's kind of decorative don't you think? We get western exposure, my front yard is the perfect place for a garden but I don't think the neighbors would appreciate me plowing up the yard, it wouldn't fit in the HOA code. But wouldn't these look like maybe viney party lanterns? I'm also thinking about hanging them from shepherd's hooks in the backyard. I'm going to grow tomatoes in the ground and in containers and in every free spot that gets sun because we use a lot of tomatoes around here. We eat a ton of salsa so canning my own might be a good thing or we could all die of botchulism which is my biggest fear about home canning but I want to try it this year.

So this is what I've been up to this week. Now to go fight with the ancient laptop and the Patternmaker sofware and see if I can work out a pattern for kudzu for My

21st Century Sampler Project. And for those of y'all that don't what kudzu is here are some links:

The Amazing Story of Kudzu and Kudzu-The Vine

And also, note to self, when bored quit doing searches on flickr for quilts. My brain goes into overload and I want to make everything I see. It's TOO MUCH!