November Wrap-up

We are getting to that desperate time of year when all I can see is what I have not done. Appropriate, then, that I should continue to mark my progress. We shouldn't spend all of our time focused on the negative. So, here it is, the positive:

* finish Sissy's poncho
finished 11/23
* work on Dude's sweater
began collecting needles...
* start a laptop bag for Sissy
started 11/12; I've finished the front and started the back. When I work on it, it goes very quickly...
* make Christmas cards (about 100)
I have ideas, but I'd better get my ass in gear because my time is about to become severely limited.
* make stamped stationery for mom, 2 grandmas, aunt, and cousin
aunt's stationery, complete 11/13
gramma's stationery, complete 11/13
cousin's stationery, complete 11/19
grandmother's stationery, complete 11/30
Mom's stationery, complete 11/30
* buy house
We close on December 8!

I also finished La-D-Da "A-Z and In Between" and Forget-Me-Knots in Stitches "Pins and Needles" scissor rest; I'm nearly there on the needlebook. I knit a scarf for a family friend who left hers in a cab whilst she was visiting Philadelphia. I should mail that to her. I also whipped up a scarf out of peacock boa to match my chocolate brown trenchcoat, and then, of course, the weather warmed. Not bad, all in all.

I Always Trusted the Stitchers

File under the heading "at last!"

TSA to Allow Scissors, Tools on Planes
By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Airline passengers will be allowed to carry small scissors and tools onto planes, reversing a rule that led to confiscation of many thousands of sharp objects at airports since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a Homeland Security Department official said Wednesday.

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The full list will be announced on Friday. What we got here is a leak.

Look at Meme

I saw this ages ago on someone else's blog--one I don't read regularly so I can't remember where it's from. The deal is you do an image google for a variety of topics.

Where I grew up.

Amherst, NH. This is a picture of the center of town, "The Village," not my house.

Where I live now.

I live in my cousin's basement in a Toll Brother's development. Yup, it really looks like this.

First car:

That bitch was old when I got her. We used to call her Regan, as in King Lear. My favorite part was when the heater blew fish-scented air in the middle of a NH winter. That was some choice we were left with...

Favorite drink:


Favorite food:


Favorite Song:

Who knew BNL ripped it off... :)

Favorite Place:

Megan's Bay. (The ocean, generally.)

SBQ: Sign Me Up

Do you always sign your projects? If not, why? If so, do you use your first name, initials or what? I used to sign my projects. I would use my initials and the year. Now, I only sign the projects if the signature is part of the design. I guess I just got tired of having to figure out where to sign it and how to make it unobtrusive. I also started doing smaller projects, and it seemed ridiculous to sign something that took me hardly any time. Also, I don't think the longevity thing is important to me. Even when I'm doing scrapbooks, and people say things like, "if you use this product, your work will last for two hundred years!" I think, "isn't 100 too much?" For a while I kept track of my finishes in a book where I wrote down which fibers, fabric, and patterns were used and who the recipient of the piece was. Then I just lost interest. Someday, I'll have to download a copy of this blog because this is the only record I have.

Poncho Villa

Voila! The Poncho!

It's not the size of the finish that excites me--it's getting a project that's been hanging over me forever done! Sissy is wearing the poncho today, giving thanks for being warm.

I'm thankful that it's done!

The pattern is Lacy Poncho from chicknits. I used a neutral alpaca. It's very soft, but it really sheds!

American Thanksgiving

Mind Hump Thanksgiving Meme

1. What are you thankful for this year? I am thankful that my cousin and her husband allowed us to live with them for nine months. I am thankful that we bought a house and won't have to impose on them any more. I am thankful that I got to spend so much time with my nieces, who are adorable. I am thankful that my sister has been transferred and will be in Philadelphia in the new year.
2. Does your family eat turkey or ham for the Thanksgiving meal? Or do you do both? Or do you do something completely different? Turkey.
3. What's your favorite Thanksgiving side? Stuffing. We use the recipe for triple corn stuffing from the Black Family Reunion Cookbook. It begins, "Fry half a pound of bacon, reserving the drippings." Yum!
4. What's your favorite Thanksgiving dessert? Cranberry crisp. With a side of vanilla ice cream.
5. Are you going out shopping on Black Friday? If not, what are you going do on the day after Thanksgiving? Believe it or not, I'm not in retail but I have to work. Usually in academia, you get a lot of extra holidays because it's cheaper to shut down the university than to pay workers not to work. Unfortunately, my university is too tied to the hospital to give us free days. I have no vacation earned yet. The giant sale at Joanns that starts at 6:00 (hey, I have to get up then anyway...) does have me intrigued! Oh, and the whole famn damily is planning to come to Philly to have lunch with me at Reading Terminal Market. Aren't they cute?

I Have Seamed the Poncho

You may applaud.

Off, at lunchtime, to Sophie's Knits to pick up the size 5 circular needles I didn't realize I needed until last night. Um, wasn't this a Christmas present for last year? You will soon see a photo of Sissy wearing the poncho. Oh, you will.

Clearing it up.

We don't spend a lot of time in American schools going over different grammatical rules. The only people who know what the subjunctive is, for example, are those who studied French (possibly any romance language). You almost never hear people use it correctly, "If I were you..." If, hypothetical, yields "I were" construction, rather than I was. Yes?

"Would" can act as a conditional verb. So when I said you "would stitch them" in the quiz, I meant that you should like it enough to stitch it, you would choose to stitch it, not that you were signing up for some kind of work program. It was meant to prevent people from picking random, ugly patterns simply because they had good titles. That's what I was getting at. How on earth do you think I could hold you to stitching these things? I'm might be the grammar police, but I'm not the stitching police. So, go, be free!

And if you're having a really hard time finding answers, try using Hoffman Distributing's keyword search.

Lookie Lookie

For you Sandy Cozzolino fans, there's a website created by a loyal stitcher. I had corresponded with Jennifer a while back when I was trying to find some out of print ornaments to complete my collection, and when I posted the list of ornaments, she wrote to tell me about her site. It includes pictures of those designs that are readily available commercially, and lists the others.

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I want to thank the bloggers who've taken up the quiz. Please let me know if you take it--it's been fun seeing everyone's answers.

SBQ: Mistakes were Made

How do you feel about staying totally true to a pattern? Do you feel that you have to rip out stitches to fix a mistake or do you feel it’s acceptable to incorporate a mistake into the design? As far as I'm concerned the pattern serves me, I don't serve the pattern. So I stitch the colors I like (see below) and the way I like. If a mistake can't be adapted to the new pattern, I may unstitch, but I'm more likely to unstitch if I don't like how a stitch looks than I've put it in the "wrong" place.

The majority of the time, a person would have to stand next to your piece with your pattern to see where the "mistakes" are. And if you've got those kind of friends, girlfriend, you need help.

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Last night, my hourlong train ride took--should I count from when the train left or when the train was supposed to leave?--2 hours and 15 minutes and the train was an hour late to arrive. So, I got on the "8:30" train and arrived at 11:47 pm. It was a pita, but I got a lot of stitching done. Since I had finished A-Z, I hurriedly grabbed whatever was on top of the pile so I'd have something to stitch (good thing!). It turned out to be Pins and Needles. I almost finished the scissor rest last night. I did finish it this morning, and I started the needlebook. (This morning, my train was only an hour late into the city.) A few more days like this, and I'll be able to cross Pins and Needles off the UFO list! (I am trying to keep a positive attitude, but Mercury is in retrograde for three weeks. I fear.)

La-D-Da

I finished A-Z and in Between by La D Da. After I saw a woman at Strawberry Sampler in Chadds Ford stitching this with the colors it called for--which, as I mentioned, are nothing like the picture--I decided to change some of the colors to look more like the photo on the pattern.





Here's what I used:

• dark chocolate
• avocado, instead of pine
• tropical ocean, instead of dried thyme
• red plum,* instead of old red paint
• mulberry
• nutmeg, but only because mine was pretty gold.

Even then, your mileage will vary--I had three skeins of tropical ocean and two skeins of avocado, all very different. In fact, when my cousin was helping me decide on the substitution for the pine, she couldn't believe two of the choices were called avocado and by the same company. The one I used is very light and has almost no variegation. Same for the tropical ocean, very, very light. Also, I'm calling the spiral red plum, but I got the floss I used out of a "loose threads" pack--the packs that contain short skeins, mistakes, and experiments. So what color is it? Who is to say? Eh, voila.

Can I just point out that it's not "wah-la." It's voila, pronounced "vwa-la." Yes, "v" before "w," it's not that hard. Please try to spell like you're not a hillbilly who's never left the backwoods of America.

Fits and Starts

Well, I finished the front of the laptop bag--as far as I can go without buying the brown yarn. I finished the navy stripe on the bottom of the bag front and asked my cousin, "should the stripes go blue, red, cream, brown, cream" while I was speaking, she was shaking her head. "Or should they go blue, brown, cream, red, cream." Then she started nodding. I was hoping to be able to stitch more bag before I had to go shopping. [sigh] I was buzzing right through that sucker too. And I really should buy the needles so I can start the dude's Christmas sweater. There's my Saturday mapped out.

Back to work on the La-D-Da sampler on the train today. I really should get some pictures for you.

Something New Every Day

This weekend, I started Sissy's laptop bag. I changed the colors from lime green, yellow, white, and blue to navy, maroon, cream, and brown. Nice and traditional, since she's not a kid anymore. I had to learn how to do the horizontal herringbone stitch. After two hours' work on Friday, I still had not really started the lap top bag. I did realize that I was going to have to learn to undo the horizontal herringbone stitch as well as do it.

On Sunday, I stamped. I finished auntie's stationery set. I made it with Little Pieces from Stampin' Up. I'd show you pictures, but the dude needed the memory stick today.

This morning on the train, I confidently knit 30 rows of horiztontal herringbone. And I only had to unstitch 2 rows. I should begin the main part of the bag tonight.

SBQ:I Always Have to be a Contrarian

When comparing large projects versus small projects, which do you get more excited about finishing? I'm pleased generally when things are done, but I think I'm more excited about starting the next piece than about having finished the old one. Is that nuts? Sometimes, when I've set too many impossible deadlines because I want to be generous with my stitching, I feel like it's not a pleasure to be done at all. It's more like, "Next!" I have to take the next customer, start the next project, move to the next list item... Don't get me wrong, I get lots of pleasure out of starting new things. Sometimes I even feel a little adrift when I don't know what my next project is. That's how finishing makes me feel.

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Speaking of starting, I started yet another project that is not on the list for November: La D Da's A-Z. I just love the colors of the piece in the photo. Please note, they are nothing like the colors that are called for in the pattern. Once I've finished stitching, I'll post my color changes, with a photo. I've really really really got to get started on the Dude's Christmas sweater and Sissy's laptop bag. I've got almost all the yarn for the latter, so I should just take the plunge. I am just enamored with stitching the La D Da pattern right now. The combination of chocolate brown and aqua blue is officially my favorite these days.

A Bit of Fun: The Chart Title Quiz

A while back, I got this "quiz" via e-mail. Using your favorite band's song titles, you had to answer these questions. (As you can see, I love BNL.)

1. Are you male or female? She On Time
2. Describe yourself: Great Provider
3. How do some people feel about you? I Know
4. How do you feel about yourself? Unfinished
5. Describe your girlfriend/boyfriend/interest: What a Good Boy
6. Where would you rather be? Hello City
7. Describe what you want to be: If I had a Million Dollars
8. Describe how you live: I Live with It Every Day
9. Describe how you love: Who Needs Sleep?
10. Share a few words of wisdom: Take It Outside

I thought it would be fun(ny) to do the same using cross stitch pattern names. The only rule is you would have to choose to stitch the design you pick--if you don't already own it, of course! EDITED: You should just like the chart enough, you're not committing to more work! Don't pick a design you hate because it's got a good title. Clearer?

1. Are you male or female? Just Girl Stuff (Designs by Lisa)

2. Describe yourself: I Will Always be a Wildflower (Samsarah Designs)

3. How do some people feel about you? Bitter Flower (BOAF)

4. How do you feel about yourself? I’ve Become My Mother (Twisted Threads)

5. Describe your love interest: Sweetie Peetie Pumpkin (Twisted Threads)

6. Where would you rather be? in a House by the Sea (Midsummer Night Designs)

7. Describe what you want to be: Friends Forever (La D Da)

8. Describe how you live: Live, Forgive, Love (4 My Boys)

9. Describe how you love: Omnibook of Quickies (Jeanette Crews Designs)

10. Share a few words of wisdom: Don’t Let’s Ask for the Moon, We’ve Got the Stars (Monsterbubbles)

Let me know if you decide to play!

Why Didn't I Stitch Last Night?

Oh right, it was the three and a half hour commute home!

My commute's not usually short: from the time I walk out the office door to the time I walk into the house is usually about 1.5 hours.

Last night, there was an electrical wire down on the tracks and no trains were running. I got to Suburban station at 5:15. I got in the Great Valley Flyer (GVF) line.

At 5:45, they told us the trains weren't running. I called my cousin and the dude to tell them about my predicament. The dude worked late and had expected that I would pick him up at the train station. I talked to my cousin, but left a message for the dude. Fortunately, I wasn't one of the people whose mobile service was overloaded.

At 6:15, they told us the GVF was cancelled, and we needed to get a local train. A couple of hundred people shift lines.

At 6:45, they let the line I'm in down to the track, but would only say it was the "5:44 schedule." Which means nothing to me, since I usually get on a train at 5:41. The 5:44 is local to Bryn Mawr--13 stops shy of home. D'oh.

At 6:55, the dude calls looking for me to pick him up in Malvern, two stops short of where our car is parked. He doesn't quite get it that I'm still at Suburban Station. "But you left two hours ago!"

At 7:05, the dude calls to tell me they are running his train to all the way to Downingtown. I have learned that my train will run as far as Paoli, which is a whole lot closer to home than Bryn Mawr.

At 7:45, I arrive at Paoli.

At 8:00, the dude calls to tell me he can't find the Paoli station. He is at the corner of Lancaster and the station--literally on top of the station. I ask, "Can you see Cowboy Tattoos?" He says, "Yes! Do I take a right?" "No, you take a left." "Damn, I'll have to turn around."

At 8:30, I walk in the door, ready to drop.

I did have a stitching project with me, but the station was dark and crowded. Plus for the first 45 minutes of the ordeal, I sat on the floor. Fortunately, I had also brought a book--which I almost never do. ESP?

Tis the Season to Stitch a Santa

For a while, I was avidly collecting Sandra Cozzolino's perforated paper santa ornaments. I think they are cute. In fact, I corresponded with her to get a complete list of all the kits she had designed. Here it is, my gift to you...

ASTOR PLACE 918 Santa Claus 919 Pere Noel 920 St. Nicholas 921 Sinterklaas 922 Father Christmas 923 Von Klaus 926 Grandfather Frost 927 Black Forest Santa 961 Patriotic Santa 962 Prairie Santa 963 Pioneer Santa 964 Mystical Santa 965 Magical Santa 966 Musical Santa 979 Solar Santa 980 Lunar Santa 981 Terrestrial Santa 982 Arctic Santa 983 Wilderness Santa 984 Nordic Santa 985 Birdhouse Santa 986 Garden Santa 987 Wildlife Santa 988 Feline Santa 989 Canine Santa 990 Equine Santa 997 Baker Santa 998 Tree Trimmer Santa 999 Toy Maker Santa	BUCILLA 9000 Skiing Santa 9001 Hockey Santa 9002 Sledding Santa 9003 Noel Santa 9004 Joy Santa 9005 Peace Santa	JANLYNN 093-323 Bee Keeper Santa 093-324 Greens Keeper Santa 093-325 Game Keeper Santa 093-329 St. Nick 093-330 Kris Kringle 093-331 Santa Claus 093-322 We Believe* 093-327 Deck the Halls* 093-328 Here Comes Santa*
	YARN TREE** Pere Noel - France Sinterklaas - Holland Father Christmas - Ireland Babbo Natale - Italy Santy Nick - Poland Grandfather Frost - Russia Mac Santa - Scotland Papa Navidad - Spain St. Nicholas - Switzerland	MILL HILL MHNS1 Juniper Santa MHNS2 Holly Berry Santa MHNS3 Pine Tree Santa MHNS4 Northern Light Santa MHNS5 Southern Cross Santa MHNS6 Eastern Star Santa MHWS7 Bell Ringer Santa MHWS8 Frosty Santa MHWS9 Holly and Ivy Santa MHMS10 Mandolin Santa MHMS11 Drum Santa MHMS12 French Horn Santa MHAS13 Bluebird Alpine Santa MHAS14 Dove Alpine Santa MHAS15 Cardinal Alpine Santa MHMS16 Mt Ranier Santa MHMS17 Mt McKinley Santa MSMH18 Mt Whitney Santa MHPS18 Snow Drift Santa MHPS19 Ice Cap Santa MHPS20 Glacier Santa

* Stocking kits which include Santa ornament

**Sandra only designed these for one year. However, Yarn Tree altered some of Sandra's designs and sold them the following years. Series two, three, and four are not by Ms Cozzolino.

SBQ: Color My World

If you have stitched for a while, can you usually pick out the DMC colors you need from memory when you go to your LNS? (For example, you know that 610 is a brown.) Of course! My friends and I talk about buying a new shirt that is "224" or painting a room "502." Ultimately, my numbers dyslexia--I always remember numbers shifted around, 810 for 801--means I have to rely on looking carefully at the color. That's why I hate those colors that are separated by several numbers from others in their family--the number just seems too wrong for the color to be right. Nothing you can do about that, though...

November Goals

It's so hard to believe November is upon us! Here are my goals for this month. You will see that cross-stitch has been bumped in favor of the quick and dirty gifts I do for Christmas.

finish Sissy's poncho

work on Dude's sweater

start a laptop bag for Sissy (pictured)

make Christmas cards (about 100)

make stamped stationery for mom, 2 grandmas, aunt, and cousin

buy house

I'm happy to report that I finished the fluffy hat last night.