Mar 29, 2012

SPINSTER-STILT-SKIN?

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a portly spinster. The spinster was lovable, but was also very very sleepy. Each morning, the spinster awoke with plans for a full and productive day, but by noontime the spinster found herself ready for a nice long snoozy nap. The spinster's little dog didn't help matters any, especially since he loved to take his very own nice long snoozy naps, and he knew that the only time he would get any peace and quiet was when the spinster snored away in her big girl sleigh bed. So each day he gently noodged her toward the bedroom until she collapsed into an incoherent slobbering heap.

Eventually, the spinster decided to embrace her sleepiness, and she armed herself with crisp white sheets, a freshly laundered cotton blanket, and several really good books. After the coffee cup was safely in the dishwasher each morning and the newspaper had been read, the spinster headed to her sleigh bed for the day and the little dog was left to dream his happy dreams with his little face turned toward the patch of sunlight coming in the back window.

The End.


..................................

Sorry for my absence, dear friends, but something is kicking my spinster heiney right into submission, and I'm feeling a little under the weather. What little stitching I've accomplished has been by way of Miss Daisy. Here she is in all her head-less-ness:
I hope that wherever you are is considerably more.....awake.

Mar 26, 2012

MONDAY MONDAY

All is well in the kingdom once again. Stewey has returned from his adventures poorer and with a wicked case of jet lag. He dismissed my choice of tea and toast for breakfast this morning as "so totally bourgeois" and then promptly launched into a diatribe about what constitutes a proper breakfast for His Royal Heineyness.

Apparently a week aboard a luxury yacht will do that to a fellow.

I'm making great progress on Daisy O'Hare, but will have to share pics at a later time. The camera is in absencia at the moment, and I'm guessing that once retrieved, it will reveal just what You Know Who has been up to these last several days.

So what's new in your corner of the world?

Mar 19, 2012

WE'LL BE BACK AFTER A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS...

The spinster regrets she's unable to lunch today....she's en route to Monaco to retrieve her little dog from the Monte Carlo pokey. Although details are sketchy, it would appear that the little dog has gotten himself in trouble with authorities after an incident in which he called a casino employee a "ham-fisted gorilla" for stacking his baccarat chips incorrectly and for serving him an inferior vintage of champagne.

Happy Spring!

Mar 14, 2012

BUCKLE UP, BUTTERCUPS. THERE'S A WHOLE LOTTA PICTURES ON THIS HERE POST.

Tahiti
Needle Delights Originals


Trip Around The World Quilt
Rosewood Manor



A Quaker Study
Carriage House Samplings


Barnwood Buttons
Rosewood Manor


B My Valentine
The Drawn Thread


A Different View
Threedles


Daisy O'Hare
Laura J. Perin


Le Printemps
Birds of a Feather


Funky Flowers (my title)
Melissa Shirley


Big Red Sunflower (my title)
Amanda Lawford


Geometric (my title)
Maggie and Co.

Mar 13, 2012

JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM

The new and improved Spinster Stitcher Stitchy Basket 'O Fun!

  • Maggie geometric painted canvas
  • Melissa Shirley "Funky Flower" painted canvas
  • Amanda Lawford Big Red Sunflower
  • Laura J. Perin "Daisy O'Hare"
  • Threedles "A Different View"
  • Needle Delights Originals "Tahiti"
  • Birds of a Feather "Le Printemps"
  • Rosewood Manor "Barnwood Buttons"
  • Carriage House Samplings "Quaker Study"
  • The Drawn Thread "B My Valentine"
  • Rosewood Manor "Trip Around The World Quilt"

If SOMEBODY hadn't taken the camera with him on Spring Break 2012, I could show you pictures. But SOMEBODY insisted that he be allowed to tote said camera in his Louie (*) all the way to Monaco.

Wait 'till he hears that they don't allow cameras inside the Monte Carlo.

Woo Hoo, Tuesday!





(*) As much as I would love to claim credit for this, it's from the movie "Leap Day" in which our plucky heroine drags her Louis Vuitton all over Ireland, much to the amusement of the handsome, yet cranky leading man Matthew Goode.


Mar 7, 2012

SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ENCOURAGE HER?

My mom can't come to the blog right now. She's too busy prancing around in the house in her pink fuzzies, hollering something about borders and stitchy friends and how special she feels when you all say such nice things to her. I swear she's going to break out the "You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman" song, and nobody needs to hear THAT more than once in a lifetime. Trust me.

Hello, friends! I know I've been absent of late, but there has been so much to do around here! In addition to monitoring all of the national and international news, I'm left to devise a plan for how we're going to get Chez Spinster spiffed up for the warmer weather, and if that will effectively encourage my Aunt Chrissy to come over for Mumus and Mocktails on the patio once again.

I love my Aunt Chrissy, I really do. She "gets" me and always lends a hand (or a sympathetic ear) whenever the old lady drives me up a tree. Usually all I have to do is place a quick call, and before I know it Aunt Chrissy is in the driveway in her fancy sports car, and we tear off into the sunset. (She always secures me safely in the car seat, so don't even think about writing to the ASPCA or anything. She is, if nothing else, a safety girl).

Our recent adventure included a trip to the flower store so that I could re-fashion the cone on the front door:What I find really amusing about this is the fact that my Grandma Sig is probably rolling around in her drawer right now over the fact that her daughters have become so enamored with silk flowers. Apparently, silk flowers have come a long way since the days when Grandma Sig was around. From what I know of the family traditions, there wasn't a silk flower to be had anywhere in the rooms that my mo-ther and Aunt Chrissy called home, and the real flowers that were on display were a sight to behold. So, forgive me, Grandma Sig, but I'm a pup on a budget, and I know I'll never get the old lady trained well enough to keep that arrangement fresh looking.

Mom finished the border on her canvas and made some headway on the next flower: While I would never tell her this to her face, I will admit that I am rather pleased that Mo-ther has decided to spread her stitchy wings a bit and try new things every now and then. I do, however, want to clarify that this particular project is a painted canvas and that Mo-ther is using a stitch guide that was created by Miss Ruth from Bedecked and Beadazzled. Please don't think for a moment that my stupid mom is capable of coming up with all of this on her own. She needs supervision, people. Some of the stitches she's figured out by herself, but the master "plan" of the canvas is definitely all Melissa Shirley and Miss Ruth.

Mom got quite a few emails about the difference between this type of project and others that she does that are counted work (like the ones from Miss Laura J. Perin Her Very Self). With painted canvases, you start with the picture already on the canvas and you embellish it with threads and whatnot. In counted work, you actually create the picture on the canvas with your stitches. Does that make sense?

I suppose that all of the confusion would be avoided if Mo-ther would just pick one medium and stick with it, but the truth of the matter is that she is a...how shall I put this delicately?...a stitchy HARLOT. In other words....she does it all.

(That's not to say that she's any good at any of it, mind you, but you have to give her points for trying, no?)

Spring has sprung and I'm desperately trying to select a destination for my holiday this year. I'm quite partial to the British West Indies, but Mo-ther thinks I should stay closer to home and settle for an inflatable baby pool on the back patio instead.

She's such a bumpkin.

I hope that you are all well, my very dear friends. I do want to thank you all for your notes and calls asking if we were affected by the tornado outbreak last week. We were spared, but out hearts are broken for those who were in the path of those storms.

Do something fun and wonderful today. I've finally found the perfect spot for a little sunbathing and a book. I'm reading "Little Bee" and enjoying it immensely!

With love from your pal,
Stewey

Mar 2, 2012

IT'S A MELISSA SHIRLEY! WHOOPSIE (YET AGAIN)

Sorry, kids. The canvas that I'm playing with at the moment is a MELISSA SHIRLEY canvas and not a Maggie canvas. It's Melissa Shirley canvas number 1370-A.

I'm such a boob.

Thank you, Miss Cindy! Woo Hoo!

Mar 1, 2012

WHOOPSIE, OR WHY AUNT CHRISSY IS GOING TO HAVE TO FIND A SPINSTERSITTER TO LOOK AFTER ME

I slept funny.

You know what happens when you sleep funny? You wake up with a sore/stiff neck. So sore and stiff, as a matter of fact, that you can't turn your head in any one direction without screeching in pain.

So I fixed it.

I have a big basket 'o First Aid in the bathroom cabinet, and after fishing around in there for a few minutes I came up with some IcyHot and a thing called a Bed Buddy. The former is well known to anybody who has ever slathered themselves up into a mentholated fog after a tough workout. The latter is something that I got at the Bed Bath and Freakin Beyond for $9.99 on clearance. (It's a heat/cold thing that you can put into either the microwave or the freezer. You know...like a compress.)

Both, alas, are NOT to be used together, especially when you mis-read that label on the Bed Buddy that specifically tells you NOT to heat the damn thing up to "skin scorching" levels and then plop it smack dab on top of mentholated cream.

My neck feels great.

The third degree burns on all of the skin surrounding said neck? Not so much. (*)

This, and many many other incidents like this is why Aunt Chrissy will be furiously flipping through the Yellow Pages later today looking for an agency that caters to people who are just too stupid to be left to their own devices.

Either that, or she's going to take me to a day care center and tell them not to let me near anything breakable and/or anyONE hurtable.

But let's move on to some stitching, shall we?

This whole FIFTEEN MINUTE thing is still working well for me after a whopping two days. Yesterday I sat down in front of the Maggie canvas and before I knew it had stitched this:I'm diverging a little bit from Miss Ruth's stitch guide (because I suddenly got cocky and decided to unclip my stitchy wings), but Miss Ruth won't mind. She's cool that way. I still have lots of beads and doo dads to add, but at least I've got a pretty good idea of how things are starting to look. I do, though, want to change the colors of that border. IMHO, it's just too darn dark. Methinks I might try to completely lose my mind and do a multi-colored border with different stitches in it.

(Oh look. She stitches one darn flower and gets all jiggy with it like she knows what she's doing.)

Aunt Chrissy and I are off to the grocery store tonight. It's Thursday, so that means we'll take ourselves to the Martin's and wander the aisles aimlessly looking for the magic meal to jump into our carts. I still can't figure out what I'm hungry for, so until I do, it looks like I'll stick with meatloaf. And roasted brussel sprouts. You gotta' have the brussel sprouts.

Stewey sends his love and regrets that he has been unable to blog lately. He promises to be back soon and to fill you in on all of the crazy shenanigans over here in Hoosierville. In the meantime, please stay warm and safe and dry and know that we both love your visits with us! Thank you for making this such a lovely way to start the day! Woo Hoo!

*(And before I get a ga-zillion emails from all of you health professionals out there telling me that I need to go to the emergency room to have the third degree burns treated by a trained professional....please know that I exaggerate for effect. I'm fine. Really. I am. But saying "Gee, that Bed Buddy combined with the IcyHot cream turned my neck bright red and burnt it a little bit just doesn't have the same effect now, does it?)

(Hyperbole, people. It's how I roll.)