THANK YOU FOR ASKING

So it seems that I have a few viewer mail questions to address. Allow me, however, to first say a big fat thank you for the lovely encouragement that you extended to Aunt Chrissy and moi for our hard work this weekend. It was all worth it, and yesterday's Sunday dinner and movie night was made even more enjoyable by the tidy surroundings.

(BTW..."Paul Blart: Mall Cop" was cutie cute cute, but methinks it helps if you like Kevin James. Otherwise, it's just a chubby guy in a mall cop uniform acting like a boob.) (But Aunt Chrissy and I think he's a CUTE boob, so there.)

Anywhoose, I thought I would answer two of the questions about a) what my WIP list entails and b) what I mean by a project book.

First, the WIP'S. I gathered them all up yesterday and stowed them in the guest room for safekeeping. I figure this will prompt me to stick to my plan, rather than futzing around in the studio and coming up with something new. (Besides, it's a little warm up there in the afternoon, so I'll keep myself cool and comfortable down here on the main floor, thank you very much.)

All canvas work is in this blue thing:

Here's what they look like in all their glory on zee bed:

The four canvases on the left are all painted, and the top center one is painted and came with a stitch guide. All of the others are counted canvas (mostly Laura J. Perin, because y'all know how much I love LJP).

I put all of the cross stitch in a basket because the blue thingie was full. This, of course, is indicative of the problem with having so many open WIP's....when you can't find a basket or container large enough to hold 'em all, it's time to get crackin' and get something finished!

And since I know you're just dying to see them, here they are on zee bed:I suppose that this would be a good place to reveal my obsession with those mesh project bags. I'm pretty sure that Aunt Chrissy and I have enough of them to build a rather large flotation device, or perhaps we could landscape a small city with them? Either way, we were buying them like rabbits until we gently reminded ourselves that they are, in fact, reusable. Uh, duh.

Now in case you're wondering why some of the projects are all in bags and some are left on scroll rods and q-snaps, it's because I went through such hell mounting those projects that I decided to just. leave. them. alone. Besides, if they're already mounted I'm more likely to do them. (Did that sound filthy, or am I still in a Paul Blart hangover?)

The good news is that after all of this organizing, I actually sat down and stitched a little last night. I'm working on LHN's "My Needle's Work":

Sorry about the headless wonder there, but Stewey had an "incident" last night and I had to put all stitching away to attend to him. He was sleeping on the chair/ottoman and because the damn things are on the hardwood and not a rug, the ottoman slipped forward and he fell down in between and smacked his little head. I think it scared me more than it did him, because all he did was give me a dirty look and lift his leg on the corner of the stitchy table. (I guess he showed ME.) He's fine, but I promised him that I would rectify the situation immediately and get a rug under there for his protection. Damn dog.

On the subject of project books, I'm afraid that I can't take any credit at all for this. Aunt Chrissy is a famous stitchy journaler from way back, so I'm a total copy cat here. My project book is pretty simple....it's just a book in which I write all of the particulars of things that I've started.

I'm told that this will really come in handy someday when a fellow stitcher asks me what thread I used where, or what the name of the linen is, but I'm not holding my breath. If nothing else, I guess it's a quick reference for me to see what's started, what's finished, and what kind of crazy mess I'm in with all of the these WIP's. (Just think of this as the chest pain that you usually get before the heart attack. You want to ignore it and pretend it's indigestion, but you're much better off if you pay close attention to it and do something about it.)

I also keep a kooky little "diary" of sorts in which I write down what I worked on that day (or other pithy reminders that I'm a boob). This is kind of fun because it gives me a snapshot of my year in stitches. (And, yes, I'm aware of the obvious fact that this here blog ALSO does that, but I keep waiting for somebody to throw me outta' here and I want to have some type of record of my stitchy existence before the Google gods determine that I'm not fit for public consumption.)

So those are all the intimate details of my stitchy life. I realize that this was somewhat akin to peeking in my underpants drawer, so thanks for making it this far before deleting me from your blog list forever. Yes, I am aware that most of what I do is just. not. normal. but as I've said before, this stitchy thing of ours keeps me off the streets and away from trouble.

I'm off to the Happy Chair with a diet Pepsi. (What can I say? It was on sale, so we're learning to drink it until diet Coke has it's turn). Stewey has informed me that I need to check the garden and get a load of laundry done or there will be no peace in the kingdom, so I'd better get moving. Ciao!