Autumn in Vermont

I brought out Autumn in Vermont while I was convalescing on the couch. I watched NCIS all.day.long. I finished the leaf I had started and then I realized this would be a good project to bring on a trip, big blocks of color that can be easily outlined, so I did the outlining. I am ready to go somewhere!

(Note: I am not going anywhere.)

(Note 2: Except to bed.)

Leaves and Flowers

Yesterday, I took out Autumn in Vermont, and started a leaf. (Woohoo, right?) In addition to going to Longwood with the girls, I had to prepare for Cookbook Club today, which I am co-leading, since our librarian has another program and start the book for tomorrow's Books and Brews book club. You all, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. (What's new, right?)

We wanted to see the Thousand Bloom Mum (1500 blooms on one plant--the largest outside Asia, thank you very much). The girls were more impressed with the pond. Of course. They had a lot of fun splashing in the watery bits of the conservatory (for children. On purpose, clearly). We also took in the trains because it was a nice day.

My title is inspired by Special K. She kept looking at her Fiji water bottle which had a flower on it, and my Desani which had a leaf. "My water has a flower. Your water has a leaf," she repeated over and over. Kids, man, not conversationalists. But they are freakin' adorable!

Reaping the Harvest

I was going to try to catch up on last week's posts: do the Alphabet Club post, review my monthly goals, etc. But I was avoiding blogging. I wasn't feeling it. So I stitched and thought and decided just to move on. Sometimes you have to make the hard decisions. (And trust, the "C" post I had been working on was crap. You don't need more of that in your life.)

I finished a piece for the dude. This is the one I had brought to Tennessee to work on in secret, but left the black floss at home.

This is a Subversive Cross Stitch pattern. The reference is to a McSweeney's piece. If you don't know it, you owe it to yourself to read it. Of course if the language bothers you or you decorate with gourds, you'll probably be offended. The dude wasn't; he laughed for ages at this. And on the first day of fall, he told me it was decorative gourd season. Seriously, it was published in 2009, and he's still laughing at it.

Discerning viewers will realize that I cocked it up. I totally misaligned the gourds. I have no idea how I did it or why I didn't notice until I was done. But that's what Just Another Button Company makes buttons for.

I'm going to go back to the Shepherds Bush stockings and complete those so I can do the finishing work in November. And if I finish before the end of the month, I'll choose one of the autumnal patterns in the WIP basket to work on.

Day 15 and 16

Today's post should really be called "Another Blob of White."

I was really looking forward to a lot of stitching time on Thursday. The dude had a meeting that I was sure would go on forever, and I thought that would free up a lot of time, but instead of stitching, I picked up a little, folded some laundry, made some food to bring to stamping on Friday, and walked the dog. Clearly, I need to rehire my staff. I decided since I was home, it was a good opportunity to start another one of the Arctic Santas. I definitely need my DMC Collection handy so that I can sort out the floss. I broke my eyeglasses a few weeks ago, and have yet to replace them. (I can see without them; I just get eyestrain.) Anyway, long story short, bad eyes, bad lighting, and loads of grey flosses, and that simple task took f-o-r-e-v-e-r. Here's my start on Nunavut Santa.

On Friday, I knew I was going to rush from work to pick up the dog before rushing off again to stamp night. So at lunch time I started By the Bay's Autumn in Vermont. I love the vibrant colors of this one. It reminds me of my youth in New Hampshire. Of course, the middle doesn't use any of those fabulous colors. No, the middle features a couple of clouds stitched not just in white, but in DMC's extra white white. (B5200) Oh well, I'll get to the good stuff someday.