Arrival

My parents have arrived without incident. We had dinner with them last night. And they brought me this, which you may remember I had left up in Maine in August for framing.

Shepherd's Bush
Toy Gatherer (kit)
began: 1995
completed: 8/24/2008

As for the framing, I can't take any credit. All props go to Cindy, the family framer (at Casual Cat). She chose the mats and the frame. Funny how she came up with the same two colors as the schmancy Jill Rensel mats, but placed the green on the outside. I like this much better. I usually think simple is better.

Love the frame too. Love it!

I think this is the first BAP I've ever kept for myself. Framed. Ready to make its debut in the gallery--where it will remain year round.

Olympic Finish

I did it! I finished the Toy Gatherer! I only started it in 1995. I finished the cross stitching in 2006. And now it is done. And my dad is bringing it to the framer today. This is going to be hanging in my house this Christmas. Wow! Who knew that setting goals could be so rewarding? Oh, right, all those people writing the self help books.

I finished it on Sunday morning while watching a repeat of the very exciting fourth quarter of Olympic men's basketball.

Toy Gatherer
Shepherd's Bush
kit purchased at my first Spirit of Cross Stitch Festival!

Sorry the photo is so dark. Sunday dawned gloomy. Then just when it was time to get in the car and go it got all nice and sunny so we could be depressed that we had to leave. But I'll give you the full scoop on our trip tomorrow.

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Thanks for all your concern about the robbery. Donna, when the CSI and I went into the craft room I said, "I know it is hard to believe, but this is the way it looked when we left. Even harder to believe, I'm sure nothing is missing." He pointed to the file cabinet where I keep my patterns. It was open because it won't stay closed--I think it's the weight of the patterns. "Anything taken from there?" If I had known it might be you guys, I would have looked a lot closer. But really, if it were you, you would have cleared the stack of new patterns--waiting to be added to the database--off the top of the cabinet.

The suckysuckness is that I keep realizing things are gone. There was a basket on top of the armoire where I put the oversized items. They cleaned it out. At first I remembered Mexican silver beads, then a bracelet a friend brought me from India, then my bright green bakelite bangle. But I thought the rest was just crap beads on stretchy cords--remember those from the 90s? I was saving them to make something with them. Today, I realized that's where the jewelry I made in my class was stored. So, this, this, these, and this, all gone.

Down the Sidetrack

I got a little sidetracked from my goals this weekend. I picked up Anna's Bird. This was not on my list; I'm supposed to be working my ten hours on Toy Gatherer. But we had company this weekend--the dude's aunt foist herself upon us. I couldn't whip out a project that required as much attention as the last few stitches of Toy Gatherer would require, so I picked up something that called to me from the WIP pile.

Tonight, I'm really, really going to try to pick up Sissy's bag. I should try to get this completed. I only have a little tiny bit to do, and only a little tiny bit of May left in which to do it.

At least I didn't start anything new.