What's Up?

Spring is popping up all around me, a little late for North West Florida, usually we're getting this nice weather mid-February but I'm not going to complain. My basil and cilantro are a sprouting a sure sign of spring.

I've been managing a bit of stitching:

Black'd Skie

Primitive Needle

40ct Vintage Pear

Pure Palette Silks

Above you can see my little bit of progress on PN's Black'd Skie. I'm using the Pure Palette Silks and I love them. I'm being completely, totally honest and I am not one that automatically uses silk. I've used some that have left me, oh let's say, underwhelmed, but these Pure Palette Silks are nice to work with, don't shred or fuzz up like some, and have a great shimmer to them. I've only used Cauldron and Envy so far but the experience has been very satisfying and I am not a paid endorser for Pure Palette. This is just my opinion. (I think I read somewhere that bloggers are supposed to let people know if they are a company mouth piece so I'm letting you know, I'm not, I am just a user of the aforementioned product.) My Silk N Colours and Pure Palette Swamp Thing were backordered so I'm just taking my time and enjoying the stitching.

Notice the readers? Purchased at the Dollar Tree and they are 1.5 magnification and have rocked my world. I should have bought a pair when I was stitching with the PTP Swamp linen but who knew something this simple could change my whole stitching perception?

A Haunting Mermaid

Carriage House Samplings

32ct linen(not sure what color)

DMC

Above you see my progress on Carriage House Samplings A Haunting Mermaid. I can't believe I waited so long to start this piece. I've had her kitted since the chart was released in 2005 but I got all hung up on whether or not I should do the beaded swag border or just stitch the keys along the top. As you can see, I finally decided the beaded swag was not in my future so I went in search of pictures on the world wide web to see what I could find and strangely enough I only found one completed Haunting Mermaid and one in progress. Since this is such a cool design I couldn't believe more people haven't stitched it and maybe they have and just aren't on the internet. But I did like the look of the stitched top band so I was very happy to finally put in some first stitches.

Single Crochet Background

Orange cross stitches

Sugar & Cream Cotton

Kenny chart created here(// knitPro web app)

I became a bit obsessed with Tunisian crochet a few weeks ago after seeing this:

Gege Crochet: Mario Party! Part 1- The Whole Enchilada on Craftster

and since I have no afghan hook and no Tunisian crochet skill and I'm trying not to buy anything at the moment I thought I might just try crocheting a foundation fabric using single crochet and then cross stitching over it. I'm not impressed. So I'm going to order a Tunisian Crochet book and couple of hooks and see what magic I can create.

The Frogging of Rachael Holmes:

Rachael Holmes

Heartstring Samplery

32ct linen(dyed by moi)

A potpourri of threads

I decided that my error on Rachael needed to be frogged so I took an hour or two the other day and frogged the vine in this band and started over. I'm hoping that I don't have to frog the flowers but I do believe that's being a little too optimistic.


Busting the Stash Afghan:

Pokey Dots Throw

Red Heart Website

Stash Yarn

http://www.coatsandclark.com/NR/rdonlyres/0A730741-DD4F-4AC3-81D5-19C1A9DE266A

I saw this pattern on the back of the new issue of Crochet Today and decided since I have a ton, a lot, a major big time stash of Red Heart acrylic that I should use it up and this afghan seemed like a good project. I'm using a soft white for the outside round of my squares and I'm happy with the look for now.

Am I the only that thinks if the cross stitch magazines could modern up their covers a bit like Crochet Today they might expand their readership to a younger group of stitchers? Comparing the covers of various knitting/crochet magazines to current issues of cross stitch magazines, the cross stitch magazines seem hopelessly stuck in the 1980s? Is there no way to rock the cover the of a cross stitch magazine?

Opinions? Ideas? Leave it alone and let me stitch already?

Amish Mistake Giveaway

Finally got a chance to get what I think is a better picture of my darling Ichabod but I did think about Anna's comment about how we don't want to be "that" person, the one searching for mistakes in needlework. At the time I posted I thought it would be fun because my mistake is pretty in your face but after taking a gazillion pictures and even close-ups of the mistake itself, it's not as obvious as I thought. So if you want a chance to win my gently used Primitive Needle Ichabod Seabury chart-I wrote on the last page, whoops, and a piece of Picture This Plus 40ct Swamp linen to stitch your Ichabod on, all you have to do is leave a comment to this post. If you leave one somewhere else on the blog I might not see it. I don't want anyone screaming shenanigans. I will use the random number generator to pick a winner, of course I must figure out how to do that. Ichabod Seabury

The Primitive Needle

40ct Swamp Linen-PTP

Belle Soie Silks

My current WIP can be seen below:

Rachael Holmes 1842

Heartstring Samplery

32ct linen aged by me

A potpourri of threads from the stash that matched Beth's thread's as closely as possible.

I'm stitching Rachael 1x2 on the 32ct and I'm loving the effect. The band to the bottom left is supposed to be eyelets, I messed up and made Smyrna crosses and decided I was not going to frog them since they looked just fine to me. As odd as it may sound I didn't have any of the WDWs in the stash or they were kitted with other projects so I pulled out my DMC color card and started matching over-dyed threads to the DMC equivalent. This is a fun, funky wonderful sampler to stitch. I don't want to put it down. For more of Beth Twist's designs check out her blog and there's a link to her etsy shop on her sidebar.

And finally, if you have not listened to the Glee Season 1 Volume 1 soundtrack, check it out. It's great. I have listened to it over and over and over. We've watched Glee from the very beginning, the 14 year old couldn't be bothered and he loves the CD. Now he wishes the show was still on. I mean seriously, it's way more entertaining than the current programing. Just sayin'.

Oh No She Didn't

I was so excited, I thought I finished Simply Live on my birthday but yesterday morning while patting myself on the back I noticed that I missed two of these little four diamond thingies that are scattered around the words. So in fact I was 8 stitches shy of a finish but that's ok.

And so that Lisa does not have to take responsibility for my color choices--I'm not thrilled with the blue I chose for the words- here are the colors I used in my conversion:

P8-CC Plum Paisley

P11-CC River Rocks

P10-DMC 316

P2-GAST Dried Thyme

P7-DMC 4240

P5-WDW Schneckley

P6-DMC 433

P12-WDW Chestnutt

P1-CC Just Rust

I really struggled with the DMC 4240. I think if I did it again I would cut away the purple parts of the thread and go with just the blues I just didn't think about it at the time and I really wasn't in the mood to frog and honestly I love this particular DMC Colour Variations thread.

I'm so excited to have a finish, it's been forever!

Thanks for all the birthday wishes.

Don't forget to head over to Missy Ann's for her 13 Days of Halloween giveaway!

Not Enough Hours in the Day

Thanks everyone for the comments on Cape Cod Girls, aka Gulf Coast Girls. I'm always nervous to change up a design but this worked out better than I expected.

For some exciting news and you all probably know this already, I'm honored to be the guest blogger over at Anna's blog, Stitch Bitch. Thank you so much Anna for asking me to participate in your I Love This Project series. I wish we could have hooked up when I was in your part of the country a few weeks ago.

School started back down here on Monday and it's been a busy week. My 13 yr old did real well back out in the human world. He's spent most of the summer on XBOX Live, his headset and iPhone his means of communication and I was relieved that he didn't confuse any of his teachers with killer zombies. I'm thinking 8th grade is going to be a good year. He's regretting not signing up for football when he was in the throes of XBOX fever, and he may still be able to play, but I'm thinking he may have decided too late that real sports should trump the virtual world. A hard lesson for him and I think he'll make better choices next time.

Is it wrong of me to be glad I don't have to spend every afternoon at the practice field and every Saturday at football games? It wasn't awful last year but I was secretly relieved when he said none of his friends were playing this year and he was a little concerned he might be thrown in with the older boys because he's at that odd age, a little old to be a Mighty Mite but maybe just a pound over where he needs to be which would shove him in with 16 and 17 yr olds which is probably just a little bit terrifying. That's one of the reasons we didn't shove him out the door with cleats and pads in hand, we want him to enjoy playing and a 13 yr old that is only one pound heavier than he needs to be doesn't necessarily need to be on the field with kids that outweigh him fifty to a hundred pounds.

In stitching news I'm working on Primitive Needle's Icabod Seabury. Was going to post a progress pic but it's stormy down here and there's really not much to see but some wicked cool 36ct swamp fabric from PTP and a bit of the border stitched in Belle Soie Noir. This is my first experience using silk and it's kind of nice. I mean seriously, that thread just slips through the linen like butta!

That's all the news from here, hopefully some crafty pics tomorrow. I want to get back into a regular blogging routine.

What You Come Here For.....

The porn, the stitching porn that is.....I have brought a project to climax...uh, completion.....of course my photography is as bad as what you find on the porn channels that enjoy showing the homemade porno flicks, not that I'd know anything about that......

What you see below, well that's my finished Cape Cod Girls, only I don't know anything about being a Cape Cod Girl. I'm a Gulf Coast Girl....so.....

(click to enlarge)

Clothesline courtesy of Pam

I did a bit of rewriting and changed the verse to read Gulf Coast Girls instead of Cape Cod Girls...and then it dawned on me that a Gulf Coast Girl would not comb her hair with Codfish bones, but instead......


a little more rewording and our Gulf Coast Girl combs her hair with Grouper bones.

I stitched this using the recommended threads and 40ct PTP Highland(which I love). I did use DMC 224 for the Cape Cod Merchick's face and hands since I didn't have any WDW Peach.

Thanks Lisa for such a great design.

I want to thank everyone for offering up their thoughts on cross stitch and how much they love it or don't these days. I've enjoyed reading all your blogs and have some comments about other people's very thoughtful responses, school starts back Monday(the most wonderful time of the year) so maybe I'll be able to get a few complete thoughts together in the very near future.

Cape Cod Horror Story

An innocent stitcher is minding her own business at 5a.m. She is stitching along on her Cape Cod Girls Sampler and from out of the blue red dots show up on her fabric. There is no explanation for this occurrence. There is no trace of blood on her fingers, no animal appears to be bleeding around her.

She looks above her expecting to see the ceiling covered in blood like something out of Carrie or Scream but no, just dust and cobwebs. There is no red substance that could even pass for blood anywhere in the vicinity of where our stitcher is sitting.

(see the dots right there at the center top?)

(picture taken with a Blackberry, excuse the poor quality, paranormal events are not easy to photograph)

Our stitcher spent several minutes freakin' out and trying to figure out exactly where the red substance originated to no avail. It showed up out of no where, marked the fabric, and poof, gone. There is no trail of red dots anywhere in the house. There are two bright dots photographed above and a scattering of dots on the flip side of the fabric.

This stitcher is perplexed to say the least. Coffee, Coca~cola, tea, any number of substances could have ended up on this fabric at any given time, but randomly--out of thin air--these red dots appeared.

I'm pretty sure the dots will be out of sight once stretched and framed. They aren't that close to the stitching, but in this rare case I only allowed two inches at the top and bottom because I cheaped out and didn't buy the larger cut of fabric, that cheapness might have saved me in the long run, less of an area to get spotted.

This stitcher is kind of creeped out at the moment because if a red substance is just materializing in my house, I mean, could it be my house is finally fighting back at my slacker housekeeping skills?

Well unfortunately I'm not freaked out enough to do a deep cleaning so it really sucks to be my house at the moment. Since I have no shame I'm willing to just stitch around the red substance while wondering to myself, "Self, WTF just happened?" If dust bunnies, hair- animal or human, coffee, tea, anything had appeared on the fabric I'd have had some kind of explanation but red dots from no where? I'm at a loss and probably need to contact Ghostbusters or Tangina from Poltergeist. Although I can't imagine her ever uttering the words, "this house is clean" under my roof.

Dear Fairy Godmother

A.K.A.- Siobhan

I want to thank you for a pretty sweet weekend. Actually unless you had set me up with Viggo or Nikki Sixx, I'm pretty sure it couldn't have been any better.

(For those of y'all wondering where my pictures are, well they are currently trapped on my camera due to a fractured memory card, damn it all! I'm hoping the pictures can be saved, but it's going to take some work. For the time being you will have to take my weekend wrap up on faith-- of course there is picture proof at Lisa's blog.)

Saturday morning Siobhan picked up Sharon and I early, early. We drove over to the Strawberry Sampler, Siobhan's LNS, and sat in the car in the parking lot because it was 8:00a.m. and the Strawberry Sampler was closed--she wouldn't even let us grab some Dunkin' Donuts coffee while we waited, but it was all good, because who should come driving up a few minutes later but Primitive Needle Lisa. Lisa parked her Bug and jumped in the backseat with me and I have to admit, she didn't seem scared at all, even when I asked her if it might be possible for her to set up text message alerts regarding her design progress. I thought it was a good idea, just sayin'.

We then pulled out of the parking lot, headed to Dunkin' Donuts, OMG, what a treat that was this weekend. We don't have a Dunkin anywhere around me and that's really a crime, I wanted to lick the bottom of my coffee cup, but that's another story.

We then headed out of town towards Amish country and well, if my memory card is fractured it's probably because I was trying to covertly or as the Yarn Harlot would put it, "Kinnear" some Amish and well it's probably damning their souls to hell and I shouldn't oughta do that, but you know, there's Amish guys in fields, on horses, cute kids wearing milking hats, girls mowing the lawn in their sweet Amish attire, so yea, it was more than my obnoxious self could handle. I clicked, and obviously the evil was smote from my camera. I should add that the Amish I wasn't able to snap pictures of have Siobhan to thank because she blew by them like nobody's business.

We talked poor Lisa's ears off and she was a good sport as we were picking her brain about her super top secret design releases. If only she hadn't forgot my cell number I'd keep y'all up to date with the text alerts, I'm sure it was just an oversite on her part. ;)

After a while we pulled into a driveway. Whose driveway you're asking yourself? Well none other than Kathy Barrick's! Yep, not only were we allowed in the driveway, we were invited into the house and to her credit, Kathy didn't seem the least bit frightened. No alarms went off, no nets were dropped over us, we were allowed to roam freely through her beautiful home and we saw her studio where the magic happens.

Kathy had a sweet brunch set up for us, I know she was thinking food would calm the crazies, but it didn't shut us up, we bugged her about her upcoming designs and guess who else was there, Carol Sims, model stitcher extraordinaire. Talk about stitching nirvana--I am not worthy. It was just a, how did the spousal unit put it, hmmmm, a Super Fantastic Kathy Barrick Day.

After taking the tour we jumped back into our cars, and to Lisa's credit she got right back into the backseat with me, so it's possible I'm not as stalkerish as I think I am. We grabbed Panera for lunch and then we invaded Eldreth Pottery and we went all the way back to the Strawberry Sampler(yes Kathy was with us) where there is a trunk show of Primitive Needle Lisa's designs and she got to see it all displayed. We also got to see Siobhan's awesome framing.

It was one absolutely fabulous day that I will well not to sound lame but I will cherish. It was a day spent with good friends, hopefully new friends, and there was food and some needlework talk, everything I love.

Things I learned:

That when telling a story about a crazy family person I might need to stress at the beginning that it's true as when I was finished everyone became silent waiting on the punch line, uh, no, that's the story, it's all true.

That Kathy reads my blog! I showed her my Strawberry Blonde and she referred to it as Tomato Blonde, whoops! But she liked it, she really liked it.

That I can wear a white shirt and manage not to spill one thing on it all day long. I had soup with Kathy and Lisa and didn't dump it down the front of my shirt.

That the septic issues in my house are obviously my fault as I clogged the toilet in the hotel.

That while I managed not dump food all over me on Saturday, on Sunday I dumped a whole coke in the middle of DC National airport. I am so cool.

There's more to report but I'll wrap this up right now and try to work on my camera.

Salem Remembered

I finished The Primitive Needle.'s Salem Remembered yesterday:

36ct PTP Heritage

SNC Cypress Umber, Sun Ripened Rubarb, Tuscan Olive

So you can see a bit of color, here's a close up of the top. I enjoyed working on this piece a lot.

When I got to the Parkers on the list I wondered if it's possible my husband's family might be related. I don't know and haven't asked them yet, but it was something to think about.

Is it wrong that when I got to John Proctor's name all I could think about was Daniel Day Lewis? But I didn't think about him as John Proctor in The Crucible, I was kind of thinking about him in his Last of the Mohicans persona. In a strange coincidence I was watching Age of Innocence around the time I was stitching John Proctor's name. I don't think the character Daniel Day Lewis portrayed in that movie would be a good tribute to the memory of John Proctor and isn't it strange that Winona Ryder was the conniving woman in both The Crucible and Age of Innocence and here I am stitching John Proctor's name but thinking about John Proctor as Long Rifle? How's that for a round of six degrees of separation?

More color here at the bottom. This is a fast stitch. I came down with a bit of the stitching blahs, lost the mojo but it had nothing to do with this design. It was all me or rather the three most ungrateful children on earth but I managed to finish Salem Remembered despite their efforts!

I am a stitcher hear me roar!

One of the reasons I fell in love with cross stitch so many years ago was the history of the needlework. I was awed that young girls stitched these samplers as school work. Boy would I have preferred sampler stitching to Algebra I. So to find a modern piece anchored in history, well I felt the love immediately.

Lisa has a few new designs being released or maybe they already are, if you aren't familiar with her designs go browse her catalog, place an order and feel the love! Her designs can be seen here:

The Primitive Needle.

Next up for me, Cape Cod Girls and Simply Live-Missy-do you want to start this sometime soon? Let me know and I'll SAL with you.

Making a Run for the Border

And no I'm not talking about Taco Bell. I had an idea for some pictures but my camera--well it's either done or the batteries are so you, dear reader are going to have to deal with poor Blackberry photos. Oh well, you don't come here for the superior photography anyway, or you definitely wouldn't be here. I've been working on Primitive Needle's Salem Remembered. It's a long narrow piece. There's something so comforting to see where the borders meet. That I stitched my way around the sampler and that I can count.
I didn't let out that squeal of joy until I saw my final stitch:

See that, the borders met up just fine(you can click to biggify as Annette's Acre would say). I was shocked. I realize that the theory behind cross stitch is a simple one. You have some fabric, a chart, a needle and thread and hopefully the ability to count, sometimes as a stitcher you hit that corner and see that you are a thread off, or you've miscounted a stitch too short, a stitch too many. The being a thread off is the killer though. The others are usually easily fixable that thread off thing--rip, rip, rip. No other way, although I'll be honest, I'll be forthcoming, I have one or two samplers where I just said to myself, "Make it work, because you are not ripping back 267 stitches. No one but you will notice."

I've got a few more stitches to put into Salem Remembered and then it's done. YAY! She will definitely be finished this evening and hopefully I'll figure out what's wrong with the camera and you will not have to suffer through more Blackberry photo shoots.

Odds & Ends

How's it going gang? I uploaded my pics all out of order and Blogger isn't letting me move them around but that's ok. I'll make it work. This weekend I ventured out in the world at large. My how things have changed. Gas has gone up like 40¢ a gallon, it's like waking up in another world, ok not that bad but still. Saturday I went out with my big blue boot on, it was hot and annoying so Sunday I shoved a sneaker on my foot and called it good. The spousal unit and I went for a drive out the beach road between Pensacola and my hick town and we saw this:


So much nicer than the TV or my neighbor's house across the road. You know you think when you're laid up it might get all exciting like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window but it doesn't(at least I do because I have a pretty good imagination) but I know my neighbors and the one who might be nuts, well I can't see that house from mine.

My kids are right, we do live on the most boring street in the world, which we tell them, is why we moved here in the first place. So they could be wild and free and safe and also because the beach is like five minutes away and that's really why we moved here. The whole safety thing is just an added perk.

The picture above was taken at about 50 miles an hour flying by the beach. I love this stretch of road so much. It's Gulf Islands National Seashore I believe that's the official title, but there's no development accept for a few parking lots and one or two parks with picnic pavillions and bathrooms and I do not begrudge beachgoers parking or bathroom facilities. My heart sings that there are no condos or houses here. I'm a firm believer that the beach belongs to everyone and it's wrong for it to be privatized(is that a word) in any way.

In Topsy Turvy Gardening news up there you can see the beginnings of some Roma tomatoes. How cute are they? Can't wait for them redden right up and become tasty bruschetta or a tomato/basil/mozzarella sandwich.

We moved the Topsy Turveys to the back yard. We have a wooden swingset, this side used to be a single swing and it broke a few years ago. This area of the backyard gets lots of sun so we moved these bad boys back here. Yes, that's picket fencing laying there on the ground. My friend gave us their old fence and when the spousal unit was trying to dig postholes he kept running into pesky tree roots so we have to rent an auger to do the job. So right now the fencing is just laying in it's possible future home. The Brandwine tomato plant there on the right, I was watering it yesterday and noticed that the stem on one of the blossoms is broken. I don't know how it happened and wonder if maybe birds might have gotten at it or squirrels.

We are going to plant a Topsy Turvy zucchini plant and also a cucumber plant and I want to do a cantalope plant but the spousal unit has this bizzare plan of doing a Topsy Turvy corn plant. Yeah, he's a little bit crazy.

On the Craft Front:

One day last week I was assessing my WIP pile and what I still loved and what I no longer felt the love for and why and I pulled out my HAED Sampler Large. I had started it on a big ol' hunk of bland, vanilla, 25ct cream lugana. I have been checking different hand-dyed fabrics and decided that a new piece of fabric was just not in the budget. So I took a deep breath, pulled my unsweet tea out of the fridge, dumped out a little, took my morning's coffee and poured it in the tea pitcher and just crammed my ginormous cut of lugana, with a tiny bit of stitching on it in the pitcher. I let it soak for about two hours. Then I pulled it out, rinsed it off and decided that the tea/coffee bath was a vast improvement over the bland cream color but it needed a little something else, a finishing touch, so I hobbled over to the dye cabinet, ok it's a Fiesta Orange hutch in the kitchen and it's where I store my bottle or two of RIT dye but "Dye Cabinet" makes it sound like I have a clue what I'm doing. Anyway I pull out the handy dandy bottle of Tan RIT Dye and start splattering up my fabric and smooshing the fabric together. I let it sit out on a cookie sheet in the sink for an hour or so and then rinse it off, and move it to the patio table and let the afternoon sun bake it a bit. Below you can see a bit of my antiquing and I'm pretty stoked about the result. Sorry the picture isn't any better, I took one of the whole piece of fabric and it was blurred. I think my poor camera is on it's last leg.

As you can see I hadn't stitched too much and since I wasn't loving the fabric I was either going to dye it and love it or start over anyway. I'm pretty sure now I can keep on stitching and be happy with the piece. Unlike most HAED this piece has a lot of fabric showing and it was screaming for a handdyed fabric which I knew from the very beginning but I'm hardheaded and cheap and wanted to use what I had already in the stash. This is what the finished piece will look like:

Sampler Large [FENECH51007L] - $15.00 : Heaven and Earth Designs, The Art of C

A lot of my stitching friends ask why I like stitching HAED when I could just buy the artwork and stitch something else and well, I have to say, I have always enjoyed stitching art. I tend to want to stitch things I like to think I would have the imagination to paint if I were an artist. I also find stitching these huge pieces comforting. I am not pressured to finish them like some other projects. You know when you sit down with needle and thread and think to yourself, "I'll finish this during this stitching session" and then you don't? That is such a frustrating feeling, especially since my finishes are few and far between. The HAED projects take that pressure out of the stitching. I am just stitching for the sake of stitching, no urgency to finish, no possibility of finishing, just little Xs on fabric and hopefully with each stitching session the picture comes a little more to life.

My stitching time lately has been devoted to The Primitive Needle's Salem Remembered. I think I might just finish it this week. See there I go, setting a goal I might not be able to keep. I'm in the process of kitting up Cape Cod Girl's and ABC Hornbook and if you check Lisa's blog, Witch Stitches The Primitive Needle , you can see her Mystic Sampler which will also get bumped up to the top of my "To Be Stitched Immediately" pile. I have Ichabod Seabury to start when I finish Salem Remembered. He's stitched on PTP(http://www.picturethisplus.com/) Swamp linen. I love that color.

The fascination with tombstones, well I've always had one. When I was a kid, every Sunday before Mother's Day the whole family would make a trip to Woodville cemetery for Decoration. That's when you clean all the dead flowers and weeds off the graves so that it's all pretty for Mother's Day when people come to put fresh flowers out. We would spend all day there and people would bring folding tables, card tables and food and we'd picnic right there among the tombstones talking about those that had gone on to the great unknown and hear their stories and where they fit in the family tree. It was never a time of sadness for me, I only personally knew one person buried in that cemetary and he passed away when I was four or five, my great grandfather, Papa Sparks. I remember him vividly. My Mamaw and Great Aunt Lila would take care of him and I would run up to him and kiss his hand and Mamaw would make us tea cakes that we would eat hot from the oven with butter and cold glasses of milk. Yes, technically a tea cake was a sugar cookie, not quite as sweet but sweeter and more cookie like than a biscuit but big and softer than a true cookie. Papa liked his hot, dripping in butter and to this day I like them that way too. We would play and hide and seek among the tombstones, because this is one of those great old country cemetaries with real tombstones, above ground, not hidden away flush with the grass. I think about these weekends this time every year and how my mamaw was so worried that after she and her sisters were gone no one would go up there and tend her mother and father's graves. If I get home sometime this summer I plan to make a trip up there and make sure the graves are taken care of, I owe Mamaw that much.

The tombstone love, well I found it in novel form, thanks to a tip from my friend Siobhan. I've read two of Sarah Stewart Taylor's novels over the last week and enjoyed them both.

I've been trying to listen to Cormac McCarthy's The Road on CD and OMFG it's the most depressing book in the world. Of course I want to know if the Man and the Boy make it down the road to warmer temperatures but this post nuclear bomb world is a horrible place and I'm not finding much to love about it and the Man happens to be a man of few words and I keep worrying something really bad is going to happen to the Boy. I've stopped at the third CD and am not sure I can go on. I think I'm going to go with The Historian this week. I've read the book and enjoy the story, it remains one of my all time favorite books.

OK while doing our long drive this Sunday morning, I had to take a picture of the cheesy beach ball water tower on Pensacola Beach. I love Pensacola Beach. It is a constant reminder of happy family vacations, sunburns, seafood, staying in little beach cottages, called "motor inns" back in the day. I miss those. High rise Comfort Inns are just not as homey as those sweet cinderblock beach cottages, and yes, even back in the day they were dumps but I loved them and was broken hearted when they bulldozed them in the name of progress. Another thing I love about Pensacola Beach is the neon Swordfish sign that directs people to the beaches:

Pensacola Beach travel guide - Wikitravel

There was a time not too long ago when some uppity folks bought their million dollar homes on Penscacola Beach and wanted the swordfish gone, it was tacky they said. What they didn't understand was that locals have a very warm place in their hearts for that tacky swordfish. It represents Pensacola Beach, that it's not an uptight place to vacation, but a nice, comfortable, fun place to spend your time. I'm so glad the swordfish still stands and was repaired after the last hurricane. When I see that ginormous swordfish, my heart swells with love for this beach town. I remember driving across Three Mile bridge with my uncle's feet hanging out the back window while he slept and I slept across dashboard above the backseat and would occaisionally roll off on top of him. I remember almost drowning not once but twice in one day. Once in the Gulf when I was on a raft floating out to sea, my Mamaw swore I was a dot on the horizon, and my uncle who had just had an appendectomy had to swim out to save me, and then going down the slide in the pool in the deep end and not having a clue how to swim. I remember being sunburned and eating fried oysters in the coldest oyster bar in the world. Good times.

Forgot to mention for all you crocheters or those needing inspiration, I always need inspiration where my color choices are concerned, check out this blog:

Attic24

I'm already planning my football knitting and crocheting. Can't really cross stitch at the football field so I'm going to save my crochet projects for practices. I can't stop looking at her pictures. I want to make tons of things using her palette.

Ye've Plundered My Heart(with apologies to Sue Hillis)

On Sunday I started cutting out all the different red fabrics I've been gathering up for the past year or so, one fat 1/4 here, one fat 1/4 there and I ended up with a pile of 4 inch squares and some 4 1/2 or 5 inch strips. Not sure exactly what I'm going to do with the strips. I'm thinking maybe a pillow or two. Or if I don't have enough squares I can cut them up for more. Yes I'm aware that some of the reds clash, I was just buying the odd red fat 1/4 not really paying attention to the reds actually matching, if they don't work in this quilt I'll find another use for them, really. The fabric will not go to waste! Once my wrist feels a little better after the hours of rotary cutting I'll tackle my white fabrics. I have some skull and cross bone fabrics in red, black and gray and the intention was to sneak the odd block in on the quilt, hence the quilt name, "Ye've Plundered My Heart" totally ripped off from the Sue Hillis cross stitch design of the same name. I may still add one sneaky skull block just to add some quirkiness to the top but I'm thinking that the skull and cross bone fabrics might be good for the back of the quilt. I can pick up more between now and when I get to that point so I might just have a patchwork work back of assorted skulls. Yeah, I'm 12, OK.

In the cross stitch department I started The Primitive Needle's Salem Remembered:

And from the Island of UFOs I picked up Sonne Spotte. Sorry the picture isn't any better. Next time I'll just focus on the area of stitching I'm focused on.

That's it from here. Next time maybe a quilt top, or not!