Recent Acquistions

Here are a few of my most recent things. The Mill Hill kits for fall, and the freebie with buttons (lower right) made by Vikki Gable are from Shirley at Country Cottage.

The middle back Pine Mountain's "Winter Tie One On" is from Down Sunshine Lane. Also from DSL is Little House Needleworks Thread Pack, "Berries."

Stitching Bloggers' Question of the Week

When you find yourself making a lot of mistakes in various stitching projects do you find it better to muddle your way through or do you take a brief break from stitching? If you do take a break, how long do you take? This question comes from Sharon.
It depends on if the project is obligation stitching or just for myself. Most of my own muddled projects have become UFO's. If it's no fun, I may put it away and try days later, but usually, if it gets put away, that's where it stays, and therein, have I taken on the guilt of the whole blasted world of stitchers. Got a sin? Let me take it on and suffer for you. I'm great at suffering. I suffer better than I stitch!

Newest Magazines

I managed to continue buying stash even when I wasn't stitching. I'm on so many ONS' email lists, it's just too tempting to ignore, especially when I see the magic word, "sale."

I've gone on many stash diets, but they result in failure like all my other "I'll start Monday" diets do. But I'll fill in a few days here showing what has been in my squishy packages lately.

I just recently re-subbed to "The Cross Stitcher" magazine, but for the life of me, I'm not sure why. Just sounded like a good idea at the time, I guess. Why does anyone do anything stupid. I have years of this magazine stored and have yet to stitch a design. I quit my subscription for a reason, but I forgot why when I sent the check.

Lousy Weekend

I love this Dear Diary series of Little House Needleworks, and this is the first one. I managed to stitch this while I was dealing with family hardships and my own demons. I went through a really dry period and just this weekend picked up my stitching again. I think this time was a record for me not stitching---two months, I think.

This was another difficult weekend for me. My brother went back to his home and family in Richmond VA after visiting with us, and I had a really hard time upon his leaving. He's precious to us all, and we really need for him to be closer.

I did have the pleasure of seeing my youngest grandson play well in his last home football game, but later on, I got a call from my daughter to come over and help. She and her husband have an impossible situation with his, mine, and ours and all of them teenagers with all the problems both those things bring with them. They were fighting, and I was ashamed of them both. It was midnight, and Richard and I both went to try to calm ruffled feathers. The kids were up so Richard took them to McD's because they were hungry, and they really needed to hear something besides arguing for a while. I don't think we solved a thing, but at least I haven't heard from our daughter today, and I don't want to. I figure "no news is good news." It's just so depressing, and we keep telling them that raising kids is hard and that this will pass. It will, of course, but it's really hard on everyone, and I'm under a psychiatrist's care (THERE! I said it!), so I literally forced myself to get out my cross stitching and actually stitch. First time in at least 2 months. I did have a very nice mail day today, and I'll show a pic tomorrow. My house is a pit because I've been so unwell, and I'm just overwhelmed with it all. I think I haven't felt that I deserved the luxury of stitching. At least my kitties got their litter pans cleaned regularly, even if Richard and I didn't fare so well. ROFLMAO!!! At least his mother was a slovenly housekeeper, so it is of little concern to him, LOL! I need to get around to all your blogs and comment, and I've managed a few, so that's a good thing! "Baby steps," as Fly Lady would say. I'll make it. I have wonderful friends here and you all out there, and I have a wonderful family. My mom & dad are alive and well and the most wonderful parents anyone could have. I'm very blessed!

Stitching Bloggers' Question of the Week

How many pieces have you stitched? Out of these, how many have been for you? How many have had specialty stitches or other techniques besides cross stitch?

This question is from Elisabeth and nearly impossible for me to answer exactly, but I'll try. Since I've been stitching for 25 years and not only stitched gifts and things to decorate two homes and a family business, the number of things I've stitched would be only a guess. From here, I'll go by percentages. The number I have done and kept would probably be 85%. The percentage with cross stitch accompanied with other stitches would be very small. I would estimate 2% because most of my stitching was done before those stitches were introduced into cross stitch.

Does Sewing Up Jeans Count?

My spoiled 15-year-old granddaughter brought me a pair of Hollister jeans, labeled "destroyed" when I bought them for her. Trouble is, she takes the scissors to them when she gets 'em home, and they fray to new levels---to a level with no crotch, a level of indecency, and resembling a banana peel in 16 pieces. Putting them together is like working a jigsaw puzzle. She told me not to touch anything but the crotch, just so she wouldn't get sent home from school. I spent 3 miserable, overwhelming hours putting those suckers together, broke my machine, and had to hand-feed nearly every stitch. I ended up reinforcing every hole so they would fray no further and seaming up some that I just couldn't leave as they were. I was sweating bullets when I took them over to her house so she could wear them to school the next day. I held my breath as she held them up and inspected them, then was tickled to death with what I'd done. Whew, what a relief!

I don't buy all my grandkids' clothes, but when I do, I treat them to Hollister. It's my perogative as a grandma to spoil them now & then, and they love it!

Blogger Problems

And I didn't think the pix would ever come up. I'm beat and need sleep, so I'll post more about this tomorrow. I lost a nice long post about several things, and I'm just mad now. But looking at my little nuisance, Amber, with her little butt planted right on the stitched part of my fabric just cracks me up. Boo, Blogger!
These pix are of a RR that has been a long time coming after getting hung up. I've written about this before, but after two years, I actually got my piece back from the stitcher who never followed through, so my Prairie Schooler is going to my Australia friends (not bloggers to my knowledge), Samantha, whose RR is the one below with her Tempest and my panda (theme - My Favorite Things), Sam's sister Jo, and Michelle Legge. I've always been able to depend on my Australian friends, and I'm so glad to have this moving along again!

A Little Thing Done

What's up with Blogger? Seems everyone is having problems uploading pix, so I also did the Photobucket thing.

This is the 2nd pillow design that comes with all the Little House Needleworks "Dear Diary" series designs. Rather than making a ton of little pillows, I'm stitching them onto a large piece of 28ct. Lambswool Linen, and I'm going to love it! There is a diagram on Diane's webpage of where each pillow design is placed on the fabric.

This is one of the little things I was able to do during my non-blogging, little-stitching days over the last 3 months.

I've Lost My Momentum

So I'll start off slowly and visit all your blogs, post comments, and start getting back into the swing of things. I've missed all of you, my dear friends, and I've thought many times of diving back in again, then something else would sweep the rug out from under my feet.

It's been a long and difficult summer, and I poured out my heart to Anne Shackles yesterday and some time ago, before everything hit the fan, to Dawn Bowers and Dianne Collins. I know for a fact like I know my own heart that when times get hard, it helps to stitch, but even that went by the wayside. I did two or three little things and felt selfish for doing even that. With all that was going on with my family, I didn't think I deserved to feel any better. The good news is that no one died, and life does go on. The one thing I've learned about life when it's particularly difficult is that if you can hang in there, it always changes.

You want to hear the weird thing about all this? I never quit buying stash. Wasn't stitching a lick, but I have an LNS here in town who kept asking a best friend about me, so I'd go in and buy something, and I had a couple ONS's I get automatic shippings from. Both the sweet gals would email and ask if there was anything else I needed before sending the auto shipments out. Well, that's a given.... a little squishy package in the mail was always a happy moment, though there were a couple of times that I would make myself wait to open it cuz I felt guilty when my sister was having problems or my granddaughter was in trouble, etc. I won't bore you with the details. It's quite a long story, and Anne got the whole sordid truth. I felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders just telling a special stitching friend my troubles.

So, please be patient with me and give me time to get around and visit your blogs. You're all such inspiration to me and your friendship warms my heart. In the meantime, should I take pix of my acquired stash to share here since I've been un-blogging, and should I answer all the SBQ's since my absence, and should I share the few little things I managed to stitch? Should I trash this blog and start with a totally new look? Is the cat thing passe'? I've even lost my confidence and need suggestions. What I really need is a kick in the rear end to get me going again!