So I realized that I wanted to kick one addiction and promptly replaced it with another addiction. You'd think I'd go with something small or uncomplicated, right? Oh no. I have to spot and fall in love with this image back in August.

I began stitching September 3, 2009 but didn't start keeping track of my progress until January. Sadly, there wasn't much progress to keep track of at that point anyway.

As of January 1, 2010...

And January 8th...

When I get to the points where I'm working on the moon, progress slows considerably due to the constant color changes. I'm discovering that my biggest challenge with this project is managing my tension while I'm anchoring one thread after another.

Here's January 15th...

As you can see, for a week's worth of stitching, it really doesn't look like much was accomplished at all. I may start keeping track of how many different colors I use each week, but I'm a little concerned that it's going to either depress me or scare me away from ever doing anything this complex again. And considering the stuff I've got sitting aside waiting to be stitched, that'd be a BAD thing.

January 22nd...

Well, I didn't count the different colors I used this week, so that will have to wait til next week's update. I was determined to finish the page I was on before week's end, so there were a few days where the kids got dumped on Steve and I locked myself away to stitch like mad. Now if I could get away with doing that every week....

Odd.

Steve's glaring at me.

January 29th...

Seven colors this time. No wonder it looks like I got more done this week than in the past three weeks combined. Maybe I can keep this pace up. Yeah, I'm not terribly convinced, either. At least I'll be finished with the top row by next week. I'd like to start work on the wolf before Valentine's Day. Here's hoping!!

February 5th...

Thirty-one colors. Sheesh. I was so excited when I finished the last page and started on a new page which meant a large area of just one color. So I stitched and stitched and stitched, then noticed a couple of days later that something wasn't right. After going back over everything, I found my error.... on the first line of stitching in the new section. *insert ear splitting scream* Steve gave me an odd look when he saw me undoing my work, but would have made it out of the situation unscathed if I hadn't heard him snickering behind me. Did you know that a seam ripper makes a perfectly suitable instrument of torture when the victim is laughing too hard to run away?

February 12th...

Only 23 colors this week. I'm a bit disappointed that I wasn't able to complete this page this week, but I got awfully darned close! This coming week is going to be slow going though.... nothing but moon. *groan* So much for getting as far as the wolf by the 14th, LOL!

February 19th...

Very little progress at all this week. Between watching the Olympics, a week crammed full of doctor appointments and medical tests, and adding another night of singing practice at church, I just didn't have much time at all to get a lot of stitching done. My littles are getting a bit better about being able to entertain themselves for longer stretches of time though, so maybe I'll be able to do more stitching while they're awake and playing without having to gate them into the playroom.... maybe.

February 26th...

Even less progress this week than last. I'm still going through medical test after medical test and I have more scheduled in the upcoming days. At least the Olympics are ending soon and I'll have back the time I've been glued to the television cheering on the US and Canadian teams. (We won't discuss how many times I've managed to stitch my own hair into the moon....) I've also decided to take on a few smaller projects for the times Heather and Hunter are running around and I can't sit in one place with threads and stitching accessories scattered all over the room, so I may start including pictures of those as well.

March 5th...

Very little work was done on this project this week due to more doctor appointments, adverse reactions to new medications, and the quilt square I'm also working on. At first I was beating myself up over neglecting the wolf, but I think as long as I make some visible progress each week, I'll be okay. It just might be NEXT spring before I'm finally done with him. *sigh* Labor of love.... it's a labor of love. Yeah. That's it.

I got started on this one the evening of the 26th. I'm stitching the inner square of the Fall Cat from the booklet "Fall & Winter Cats" by Cross My Heart, Inc. to be included in a quilt being sewn together for a young boy named Charlie. I'll be stitching pretty diligently on this as all the stitchers involved are aiming for a May completion. Since this booklet is apparently now out of print, I'm not able to find a vendor who can keep it in stock long enough to make it worth me trying to maintain an active link. That means you'll just have to wait to see what it's going to look like when I finish. (neener neener neeeeeeeeeeener!)

March 12th...

Life was a bit less hectic this week, which SHOULD have meant more time for stitching. I pulled out my stitching every morning after getting Heather and Hunter situated with their activities. I got myself all set up with my audio CDs of the Wheel of Time saga and made myself all comfie cozy for day after day of stitching. ......and then I spent hours playing tag, puzzles, dancing, or having tickle fights with my kids. As much as I'd like to have more progress to show on the wolf, I just can't bring myself to be upset about how my time was spent. *smile*

Of course, that means the cat didn't get as much attention as originally planned either but, since he's a considerably easier project, it still looks like more was done. I think I chose my second project well. It's really nice to go from all those variations of nighttime colors to the bright, warm colors of a sunny autumn afternoon. It's also helping me stay motivated on the larger project because seeing this one come together quickly reminds me that I really AM getting somewhere on the wolf.

March 19th...

Umm.... yeah. So, I was able to put all of what seems like a dozen stitches into this poor guy this week. But it warn't my fault!!! My sister sidelined us with a "btw, I'm getting married in a month and a half. You didn't have plans did you?" which of course sent Mom into a raving panic that overflowed onto my phones and I spent a day trying to convince Steve that dresses for three females in one house was NOT going to mean missing a van payment (okay, so I lied, but hey!!), while trying to keep Mom from having a coronary on the spot. After letting us all frazzle away a few years of our life expectancy, Sis calls me and calmly says "What are you so worried about? HIS family is organizing everything."

*exhales*

I still think she planned this and secretly recorded the insanity to blackmail us all later...

Wolf? What wolf? Oh..THAT wolf! The new addition to the family tree and calendar also means a gift that needs to be ready by the big day, and that means the only project I'm working on that doesn't have a looming deadline is going to get shoved onto a back burner for a little while. *sniffle* I'm sorry, pup!

Fortunately, I'd put quite a bit of time into the quilt square before getting the good news (did I mention it's about TIME???), so there's something to show off on this project! I probably shouldn't have done the black stitching yet as now I'm going to be getting stared at for the duration of my stitching, but it might help me move it along a bit quicker too. I'm having a lot of fun working with the bright colors and watching the shading on the leaves bring it to life without needing backstitching. I really hope Charlie likes this as much as I'm going to.

March 26th...

And we're off! No, literally. I got all of two days to work on this project because of lots of driving back and forth between TN and GA this week. And since the bird uses blending filament.... *headdesk* I'm working on one of the projects from the OOP book "Best of Stoney Creek Wedding Collection (Book 318)". It's my personal mission to get this pigeon (it'll be a dove again when I'm done arguing with filaments) stitched up before I completely lose my mind and take Steve up on his offer to time how long it takes for a piece of linen to burn to ashes. I'm sure I'm going to be extremely proud of the finished product, but right now, I'm NOT a happy stitcher. A more accurate description would be a bug-eyed, wild-haired, frothing at the mouth, crazy woman with a tiny but sharp instrument of murder should some unfortunate creature get within reach. Even the cats are afraid to hop up onto their spots on the bed when they see this project spread out up there.

Once again, this project is my anchor and last connection to sanity. I didn't get anywhere near as much done as I had expected, but I turned out to be vulnerable to car sickness when I tried to stitch on the road and once we got to Mom and Dad's place there was no way a string on a needle had a snowball's chance in Hell of survival. They have... seven? cats. I think that's right... could be eight. Oh well. Things are settling down here now, so I'll just have to hand the kids over to Steve and get back on track so these will get completed on time.

April 2nd...

I don't have anything nice to say about this right now. *growls something extremely unladylike about blending filaments* It's taking me so long to get the filaments through the needle and into the linen, and then there's the untangling of the filament on every other stitch. Add to that the inevitable snickering from Steve when he hears me, which of course leads into tirades about how cute he'd be if I stitched said filaments through certain areas of the male anatomy.... Yeah.

I WILL finish this in time for the wedding, but it may require me locking myself away from the world for a few days straight.

Now THIS guy.... love love love love LOVE working on this square. I will definitely be stitching him again to adorn my walls in the not too distant future. I'm working on larger color blocks, so progress is flying along right now. I've gotten to the right edge of the design, so you can see how wide it's going to be at least. No promises on when I'll stitch anything along the bottom edge, but I expect to be finished with this project before May, with at least a couple of days to spare.


April 9th...

LOOK! LOOK! The pige.. err... dove is done!! I need to stop taking pictures using the flash though. It's very hard to see the dove because the camera's flash washes the sky blue color out of the fabric, but once I get the backstitching done it'll stand out properly. Now that I don't have to mess with filaments any longer the stitching should move along MUCH MUCH faster. I'd have had more completed this week, but I had to pull a classic Kiri stunt and stitched half the rose with the wrong colors. At least Steve kept any snickering to himself this time.

"Rippit"

AAAUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Slowly but surely. Slowly but surely. I'm not as pleased with my progress on the cat this week as I have been in the past. I'm sure alot of that is due to me working in large blocks of color over the last couple of weeks resulting in this week being spent filling in the little confetti stitches scattered throughout the leaves. My new goal is to get to the bottom edge of the picture before next week's post. Wish me luck!!


April 16th...

Much better! Despite the stitching moving along more quickly, I'm still not completely certain I'm going to be able to get this done in time for the wedding. Steve's already been informed that he's going to have the littles dumped on him this weekend while I get as much done as I possibly can. The flowers aren't terribly difficult; just kind of annoying due to all the confetti stitches. I've always loved doing the backstitching on projects and this one in particular comes alive once I've added it.

Okay, so I sorta cheated and chose to stitch a color that was on the bottom border, but at least now we can see how big it's going to be when completed. Like the flowers in the wedding sampler, I'm at a point on the cat where it's just a ton of confetti stitching from one leaf to the next. Sure makes for what feels like slow progress, but I have to admit it's kind of neat to finish a color and discover I've also finished a patch of leaves.


April 23rd...

The week's gone already?!? Bleah, and I was so hoping to have some progress worth showing off. I'm fairly certain that I'll have this one done in time. Sadly, my kids are spending an unacceptable amount of time with the boobtoob babysitter and I'm going to have some serious playtime to make up after my sister's wedding. I'm past the halfway mark at least, with only the text and the right side of the vining left to do. Then it's on to the frantic search for someone who can frame it overnight! Wish me luck!!!

Progress? Errm... where? I swear I've been working hard on the cat, but it sure doesn't look like it, does it? Stupid leaves. Sooooo many confetti stitches scattered all over the place have made me change tactics, as you can see. Rather than constantly stitching one or two spots of a color and switching to another for two or three stitches, I'm stitching through the entire thread. While it's keeping me sane longer, it certainly doesn't make for a lot of visible progress. I'm getting very concerned about being able to finish this on time, but I'm trying!


April 30th...

Yeah, I know, I'm pushing the time limits like mad. Did anyone really expect anything different from me? *sigh* I'll get this one finished in time, but it might just mean setting the cat aside for a couple of days this coming week. What worries me is the beading for the little hearts. I've never used beads before and I've already decided that if it proves too challenging for me to figure out in an hour, I'll just stitch the hearts in... or maybe use french knots? Hrmm.....

Oh and before I forget! Sarah and Steve got so tired of watching me bury my face in my projects every night that they are now stitching as well! Steve picked up a project I bought for him back before we got married, so he's dealing with the typical UFO side effect of "What in the nine Hells did I do WRONG before I put this down???" And poor Sarah is just learning how to stitch and it's not coming naturally to her like everything else does. So she's got a constant litany of "Mom, what did I do wrong this time??" going on.

And of course, I'm not done with the fuzzball either. Steve says it looks great and that he can tell I'm making lots of progress, but I guess I'm just not seeing it like he is. On a good note, I'm going to be working on some larger chunks of single colors in the coming week, so maybe that will help a bit.

You should see our bedroom in the evenings now. I'm sitting on my side of the bed with my project scattered all over and cats sprawled out like roadkill, Steve stretched out on his side of the bed with HIS project lined up neatly beside him, and Sarah spread out on the floor working on HER first project.

They've both decided to start over on their respective projects, so right now there's nothing to post pictures of, but I'll sneak a few shots in when I can. *grin*


May 14th...

No more progress reports for Happy Ever After! I got that one finished on the first of the month and there's now a photo of it sitting proudly on my 2010 page.

Sadly, I'm not able to say the same thing about Fall Cat. Everytime I think I'm going to get a day to just sit and stitch, something comes up and forces me to keep busy with other activities. I mean, really! What's all this nonsense about the mother being responsible for feeding offspring, or keeping them in clean clothes, or providing entertainment and education?? You'd think by ages 2 and almost 4 they'd be self-sufficient by now!!

*sidesteps a lightning bolt*

WHAT??? What'd I say???

*sigh* Anyhoo, Steve says he'll keep them busy tomorrow and let me have the day to see how close I can get to finishing. I'd dearly love to have an entry for this one next to Happy Ever After by next Friday. Wish me luck!!


May 21st...

*sigh* I'm getting so frustrated with the tiny spurts of progress I'm making on this project. I keep telling myself I'll have it done by the end of the week, and as you can see... that ain't happenin'! I do have to admit, I was so focused on "I'm going to at least finish the cat's face by Friday!!" that it was a bit of a shock to gripe about still needing one single solitary stitch to achieve that only to have Steve point out just how little I have left all the way around. If I'm not done with this by next week's update, it probably won't be PG rated....

Hey, just being honest!

Just think, next week just might be the start of new reports on the wolf! I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to pulling him out of his project bag again. Of course, there will be at least one other that I'll be working on as well, but they don't have pressing deadlines, so I shouldn't have to set him aside again. We'll see!


May 28th...

Lookie lookie!! It's the WOLF getting some love again! Granted you wouldn't know a single stitch had been added if I wasn't sitting here pointing and gushing about it, but that's okay. I PROMISE there are some new stitches in that fabric! Oh and you see that line of white stitching? That's the wolf's head!!! I'm finally stitching on something other than the moon! *cartwheels*

I have no idea when this poor guy is going to finally be finished, though. I have an entire list of things promised to friends and a couple of small surprises I'm hoping to add to the mix, but only one has a deadline of any sort so wolfiepoo here is in no danger of being sidelined again anytime soon.

*eyes the calendar*

Yeah... go ahead and cross your fingers for me, would ya?

Oh wait! Were you looking for the Fall Cat? Well, right this way!! 2010

This one is a gift someone from the 123 Stitch! message board sent to me a couple of months ago and is called "I Have to Scream" by The Sunflower Seed. Apparently I have a strange sense of humor and came to mind when Michelle saw this while shopping. I don't have any earthly idea why she'd think this suits me.

*cough*

It's a very simple and quick stitch, so I expect to see this on the 2010 page by next week.

And of course, I already have the next project prepared and waiting...


June 4th...

Not much progress at all on the wolf this week. It's been a busy week for us and I'm so excited about seeing my son this summer that I'm really too scatterbrained to get much of anything accomplished. I've been trying to get at least one grid square done each day I sit down with it, but I'm failing miserably. I just can't keep myself focused on any one thing for longer than a few minutes at a time. Not exactly helpful when doing an activity that generally requires hours of quiet time.....

I'm stitching this project up as a gift for a couple I go to church with. They're wonderful people with amazingly generous hearts and when I saw the pattern I instantly thought of them and had to get it. It's called Roses and Music and I'm stitching it on 28ct Lugana from Zweigart. The fabric color is called Fairy Dust and is actually a soft yellowish shade (stupid camera flashes).

This is another project that I don't expect to take very long to complete. Once I'm able to sit down with it, it's a quick stitch that doesn't have much in the way of confetti stitching or color changing.


June 11th...

I suppose this was an okay week's worth of progress. I'm getting discouraged with how slowly the wolf is coming along. When I started "Call of the Wild", I had hoped to finish it by the beginning of May. Now I'm wondering if I'll get it finished by NEXT May. *sigh*

As always, when I'm stitching on the moon, there are constant color changes. One 10x10 grid on the chart often uses more than 20 colors and when I'm getting up every few minutes to attend to the wants and needs of my littles.... well... Stitching's coming along slowly. LOL.

Now this one moved along much more quickly, of course. Still not as much done as I had hoped, but that's okay. I'm fairly certain I'll be done with it before July. That's what I'm aiming for anyway.

Here's hoping the couple I'm stitching this up for are pleased with it. I don't plan to tell them who it's from, so if they don't like it, at least I don't have to fess up to having bad taste! *grin*

I'm still thoroughly displeased with the photo quality when I try to take pictures of my progress. Of course, it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that I took the picture not long before midnight with one light source and a flash.....

*cough*


June 18th...

Hrmm... I really thought I'd gotten farther along on the wolf than I did. Oh well. I'm just going to resign myself to finishing this poor guy NEXT May. My only excuse for such minimal work on my stitching is that I'm leaving at the buttcrack of dawn tomorrow to go pick up my son for a month and I'm so excited I'm having trouble sitting still.

I'm trying a new tactic now with my stitching as well, which might be pretty obvious. I was noticing that when I studied my stitching to see if my tension was at least sorta even, I was able to pick out the points where I moved from one page to the next. Not something you want to see, lemme tell you! So now I'm trying to fudge the page "edges" a bit and we'll see how that goes.

Of course, the roses are moving along much more quickly than the million-color-change-per-hundred-square wolf up there. The most complicated part of this one is the backstitching which I'm putting off a bit. I had hoped to finish the second rose completely tonight, but I ran out of time. *sulk*

Oh well. There's a good chance the next update on Roses and Music will be over on the 2010 page instead of here, but since I really don't know how much time will be spent stitching over the next four weeks, I don't want to actually make that promise. We'll just have to see!


June 25th...

Bare minimum progress on the wolf this week due to lots of family activity. Michael's here now (YAY!!) and Steve's been on leave and that's meant running errands left and right and going out to play as often as we can. Yesterday, which would have been a day to stitch on wolfiepoo was spent swimming at the creek instead. Yep, it was fun! We don't even have any major sunburns like we were expecting.

I've added a whole slew of projects to my list of things to complete this summer and fall, so it's gonna mean slower progress for "Call of the Wild" again. I've decided that I'm going to put at least 100 stitches into him every week. Even I should be able to keep up that pace, right?

*cough*

So...about me having an update on the other page for this project......

Yeah.

I will have this one completed before next week's update, if for no other reason than all the materials for my next ...*counts on fingers*... four projects are ready and waiting for me to get my backside in gear. Then you add in the three baby samplers that are promised to friends (only one of the babies hasn't actually arrived yet) and I've got my stitching plate piled up to the rafters.

I've only got a bit more to do when talking about full stitches. Then there's a TON of relatively intricate backstitching on the stems and leaves, along with some not-so-intricate backstitching on the remainder of the staff. I'm estimating maybe three days of work left on Roses and Music and it'll be tucked away to wait for framing and wrapping.

Here's hoping the recipients like it!!!

*eyes the gridding thread sprawled across the top of the stitching that went unnoticed while pictures were taken*

*sigh*


July 2nd...

Sadly, the wolf is going to end up being sidelined again for quite some time. While I will continue to put at least one day's work a week into him, it's highly unlikely to be any more than that. I'd switch to doing monthly updates on him, but I'm afraid that'd only encourage me to ignore him completely for the most part.

At least I got to work on his nose and mouth so there's some visible progress for this update. There's a decent sized chunk of one shade of blue coming up, so I'll probably stitch that color next time I pick up this project.

Hey... I gotta fool myself into believing I'm still cruising along somehow!!

Roses and Music was completed on Tuesday afternoon, so it's now resting happily on the 2010 page. I'm not sure which of the 4 gifts I'm going to be starting next as I still have to rifle through all my fabrics to see what I actually have on hand that will be suitable for each project. I suspect it's going to be a White Willow design of a dachsund, but we'll have to wait and see.

Since all four of the gifts are needed by October, I'll be deciding pretty quickly (before lunch??) and you'll see the first one next week. Wish me luck!!


July 16th...

Yeah, I know. I missed a week. Let's just say that last week was less than kind to my free time and my computer. Michael downloaded a virus of some kind and while Steve was able to save my harddrive and all my files, my video card wasn't so lucky and it took a couple of days to determine it was beyond the realm of rescue and to scavenge his long neglected computer's video card to replace mine. *whine*

Wolfie DID get a smidgeon of love, though it's probably hard to tell. I spent what time I had for him filling in a ton of confetti stitches and arguing with my tension again. There's still so much anchoring and tying off in the area I'm on that about the only consistent tension I have seems to be at the base of my skull and behind my eyes. *mutter*

Hopefully next week's update will show some progress worth looking at, right? Well... no promises! Once again I'm on a deadline to complete stuff and I didn't allow myself enough time. And once again, that means Call of the Wild will be the project that suffers and sits in a corner waiting to be loved on again.

Believe it or not, that is an ear. *cough*

No, really! It is! I've finally begun working on "Black and Tan Dachsund" by White Willow Stitching. It took forever for me to track down a piece of fabric that I thought would look okay and still be large enough. I can't tell you how many cuts of fabric I have that were

PERFECT!

*headdesk*

Now that the treasure hunt is over and I'm happily working away, this should be a pretty straight forward project. There are only 25 colors involved and about 13 skeins of that is plain black. Piece of cake! I'll be done in a week!

...

Why is Steve laughing at me?


July 23rd...

Like I said last week, just a smidgeon of time available to work on this project. To compensate for that, I chose to stitch in areas that called for larger patches of colors rather than the typical confetti stitching. Unfortunately, that means that next week's progress is going to be awfully hard to see since I really have no choice but to fill in the dozens of confetti stitches I ignored this week.

Hrmm... now where have I heard that before?

I told you it was an ear!

I spent a few days this week working on nothing but confetti stitches for the dachsund. But while that would mean staring at progress pictures of the wolf with a magnifying glass and a pointer, the dachsund actually shows a lot of work completed. I haven't quite figured out why that is just yet, but I suspect that it has something to do with the wolf getting spiteful.

I was hoping to get this completed before August 1st, but there are three kids looking at me with some pretty pitiful expressions ranging from "wanna play with me?" to "umm... are we gonna get to eat anytime soon?"

*sigh* I guess we can't all have our priorities straight. Silly kids....


July 30th...

Welp, life attacked again. There's just not enough time to fit in responsibilities, promises, recreation, and hobbies all at once. Something's gotta give and, sadly, that's the wolf again. This week won't see much stitching completed at all as I need to honor a promise I made to my sister and brother-in-law. Then it'll be back to working feverishly on the gifts that need to be completed before the holidays. I was hoping to finish the wolf before the end of the year, but at the rate I'm going, I won't be able to pick him up again until the new year. *sob!*

I think I made an okay amount of progress on the dachsund this week, but I'm guessing that has a lot to do with me only using one color for the majority of the time I was stitching.

Since I won't get much time to busy myself with this project, my goal is simply to fill in the empty places I left this week. Wish me luck!!


August 13th...

Hey, check it out! It actually looks like a dog now! Steve and I kept commenting last week how it looked like a four-eyed alien of sorts because I hadn't filled in the brown spots above the eyes. When I finally completed those the beginning of this week, everything else looked normal again. Funny how that works....

Like I said back in July, I did almost no stitching at all last week because we had family visiting, but I tried to make up for that with a vengeance this week. I think I did pretty well overall, considering someone seems to have installed alarms in my kids' heads that go off everytime my backside touches a seat of any kind.

*glare*

I can hear you laughing, Mom.


August 20th...

My goal for this week was to finish up the ear completely, but obviously that didn't happen. I got reasonably close, I guess, but I'm still disappointed that I didn't make it. Just gonna have to stitch faster!

Despite giving myself impossible deadlines which are upping my stress level a bit every week, this has been a very fun project to work on. When I get sick of using the same color for days on end, I can switch to the confetti stitching for a break. And when I feel like I'm getting nowhere because all my time is spent changing threads constantly, I can move back to the black and watch huge blocks of stitching appear in a day. It's a wonderful combination and I'm pretty sure I'm going to miss it when the dachsund is completed.

I have just under two weeks til September and I desperately want to have this done by then so I can get started on one of the three other gifts slated for this year. Plus, there's still a pretty miserable wolf sitting beside my bed wondering when he's gonna get some attention again.


August 27th...

I have decided that giving myself these little goals each week is just setting myself up for failure. It turns out that I have my own personal variation of that Mother Nature character from the Tampax commercials. "Oh so you think you're going to sit down for a couple of hours, do you? Well, what if I wave my magic wand and...." *CRASH!!!*

"Oops. Did I do that?"

*growl*

While I made little to no progress this week on the dachsund, I did get to spend some time with some great friends. And I gotta admit, it's nice to be able to have a conversation that doesn't require every sentence begin with "Because I'm the Mom, and..." or "What was that crash?" or "I told you not to water the cats!"

Unfortunately, the dachsund now has a new menace to worry about. Little Hunter, who had his second birthday back in May, seems to have decided that he is going to cross stitch like Mommy. As cute as that sounds, his idea of cross stitching has nothing to do with a needle and thread. Apparently, in his crafty little world, cross stitching centers around lots of threads, some fabric, a working copy or two, .... and the scissors.

So if you're sitting quietly and suddenly hear this blood curdling scream that you could swear came from the general direction of Tennessee, don't panic. It's probably just an indication that I didn't make it to my project in time....

...and that a two year old needs foster care....


September 3rd...

Nowhere near as much done this week as planned. I took on a mini project for the church choir and spent a few days stitching up nametags for our robes. I still have a few names to do, so I'll be spending a day or two of the coming week on that as well.

At least the dachsund has a nose now. This week will be spent filling in his muzzle and since that is nothing but confetti stitches, I'm not having any delusions of obvious progress. But that's alright; I'm having so much fun stitching this one, I don't care how long it takes me anymore. I don't stand a chance of getting all my gifts done on time, and now that I've accepted that it's just smooth sailing and having fun again!!

*mutter* Steve just snorted and made some remark about "yeah, right. We'll see how long THAT lasts...."

It's ANNOYING how well that man knows me.