I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED A TRAPPER KEEPER

Most people prepare for the new school year with pens and pencils and new folders and notebooks and such.

Me, I prepare with colonoscopies.

Yup.  Call it TMI, but suffice it to say that today involves a lot of Jell-o and clear liquids, and tomorrow I will be trying to pretend that I'm at Canyon Ranch enjoying a "rejuvenating cleansing" that will result in shinier skin and a healthy glow.

Truth be told, I don't have one thing to complain about when it comes to these things.  My physician, Dr. Mark, is a rock star and has become a trusted member of Team Spinster over the years.  He has what can only be described as an appropriate sense of humor for somebody that spends the better part of a day looking at people's heineys, so you have to love that about him and not take the "turn over onto your left side" thing too seriously.

I don't get this test every year because I like writing about it.  I get it because Mom died at the tender age of 54 from metastatic colon cancer, and her mother/our gramdmother died a few months before her of the exact same thing.  Combine that with the medical wonder that is me, and you've got a surety that a small bit of inconvenience every twelve months will probably save my life.  Add that to the sad fact that Aunt Chrissy and I are the last of the Mohicans when it comes to this part of the family tree, and you've got yourself a "shut up and get this done" reason that precludes any discomfort on my part.

So eat your vegetables, do what your doctors tell you, and suck it up and go get yourself checked out every now and then.  And if the thought of this type of procedure doesn't blow your skirt up, consider the fact that celebrities everywhere pay tens of thousands of dollars for colonic irrigations that don't come with the added bonus of photographic evidence that you might be around a little while longer to aggravate the hell out of your family members.

End of public health advisory.....

Progress continues on Lavender Fields.  I'm still struggling with my color selection, but I think that once everything is stitched I'll like the result.  After another slug of Gatorade, methinks it's time to hit the Happy Chair.

WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER FLU-CATION, BY MASTER STEWEY ANGUS WILLOWSWAMP, HIS VERY LITTLE SELF

My mom can't come to the blog right now.  She's sitting in the corner, thinking about what a total beast she's been lately.

It all started with the heat and humidity.  We all know how much the old lady loves to dissolve into a sweaty mess at 8:30 in the morning, and the fact that this hot spell has lasted for several months certainly hasn't helped matters any.

Then we had the annual "THE SKY IS FALLING" marathon of West Nile Virus reports, hurricanes in the Gulf, and the ever-present screaming of the local weatherman to take cover.  This constant barage of newsiness was not at all what the doctor ordered for my stupid mo-ther's tattered nerves.

Just when I thought things were starting to calm down a bit and we had reached a happy medium of napping, eating, and Food Network Tee Vee watching.....the bottom dropped out.  "This Saturday, watch as Gail and Robert celebrate their love on a special episode of Wedding Impossible".  My snoring, slobbering mo-ther bolted upright in the chair and started screeching.   "HE'S GETTING MARRIED???!!!!  MARRIED?!!!  WITHOUT ME???!!!"  And then, to make matters worse, we discovered that Chef Robert Irvine did indeed get married, and to a lovely professional lady wrestler named Gail King. 

Needless to say, THAT particular evening sucked for the full fifteen minutes it took for the sedatives to kick in.

Last week, my beloved Aunt Chrissy came down with the flu and came over so that I could care for her properly.  I tucked her into the Happy Chair and made sure that she had all of the stitchy-ness, TeeVee, and fluids she could handle, and I convinced my pesky little cousin Bosco to be on good behavior.  I think it was good for my Aunt Chrissy, but I know that by Thursday evening, she was definitely ready to go home to her own bed and some peace and quiet.

There has been a little stitching in the midst of all of this.  First up is a piece called Bali Ha'i from the designers Michael Boren and Carole Lake.  This is the September project for Mo-ther's EGA guild, and is found on the Caron Collections website as a free chart.  I think it must be a very enjoyable stitch, since Mo-ther was quiet and behaved during the five or six hours that it took her to stitch it:

The second piece is called Lavender Fields, and is from Needle Delights Originals.  I'm not sure what the hell is going on with it, since the colors seem to be giving the old lady fits and starts.  She received this as a complete kit from my friend Teddy at The Scarlet Thread, but apparently a few of the colors were a bit too "hot" for Mo-ther's liking, so she decided to change them.  All I know is that it now looks like a hot mess.  We'll see if she can salvage it:

August is almost over, so that means that Saturday will find us upstairs in the studio putting together the Official Fall Basket of Spinster Stitcher  Stitchy Fun.  I'm really looking forward to this, since it seems like there's been precious little stitchy accomplishment around here lately.  When did my mom suddenly become a "one at a time" stitcher?  Weren't there days when she had eight or nine different things going at once?  Methinks it's time to give that a try once again.

Until we meet again, I remain your loyal and devoted friend.

With much love,
Stewey

GO AHEAD. POKE THE BEAR.

I made a solemn promise to Aunt Chrissy that I wouldn't go batshit ballistic crazypants about this, so I will only offer photographic evidence that my beloved alma mater has finally lost its ever-loving mind.

(The smart alleck in me wants to point out that one would think that one would need to have won a few more football games before one decided to desecrate the tradition of a 125-year old program that was at one time considered to be a member of the elite in collegiate athletics, but what do I know)

(And yes, in case you were wondering, I take all of this crap waaaaaaayyyyy too seriously and personally, and I have to constantly remind myself that Brian Kelly didn't go out of his way to completely dishonor the memory of my dad and all of the other amazing Notre Dame alums.)

(It just feels like he did.)

What's next, coach?  A Wonderbra on the BVM?  Good thing the boys will be able to wear those spanky new outfits on their debut episode of Dancing With The Stars.  Just watch out for all of the gold lame' and glitter, though...it's' positively blinding.

OLYMPIC SEASONS FEE NEE

 Seasons

designed by Amy Wolfson, Amybear Needlepoints

18 ct. mono canvas

 

Threads used (my own colorway):

Watercolours Cardinal, Snow White, and Night Sky

Vineyard Silk: Wedgewood

DMC floss: 3865, 304, and 3750 (1 ply of each, blended together) 

Stitched during the 2012 London Olympic Games.

  

 

I COULD HAVE BEEN A CONTENDER

London -- The Closing Ceremonies of the XXX Olympic Games were briefly interrupted on Sunday evening by a portly spinster's frantic efforts to speak with Lord Coe and the Olympic Organizing Committee.  "DON'T BLOW IT OUT YET, MISTER COE!", she was heard to exclaim. "I'M NOT QUITE FINISHED YET!"  Despite her rather blatant breech of Olympic protocol (and not to mention the fact that he is, indeed, LORD Coe and not "Mister"), the crowd applauded mightily as she scrambled to the podium. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, honored guests, athletes, and portly spinsters everywhere....I ask you to harken back to a time when you attempted a feat and fell short.  I ask you to look within yourselves to the deepest part of your competitive spirits and remember what it was like to come within inches of finally reaching your goal.  Doesn't everyone have a memory of a dream not realized -- glory left unattained?  It is with a humble and contrite heart that I ask -- no, beg! -- you to allow me to finish my special Olympic stitchy project.  I'm so close!  I know that if given the opportunity and enough dietCoke I could have the piece finished and off to the framer by week's end!  Please!  Five more days!" 

 With this, the crowd erupted into roaring approbation, security was told to stand down, and the spinster was carried from the stadium by a group of Belarus weight lifters who, as it turns out, were the only ones equal to the task.  After a few days in the Tower of London cooling her heels, rumor has it that the spinster has returned to the productive confines of her Happy Chair in Hoosierville, USA to set about the task of completing THIS once and for all:

WHERE CAN I GET SOME OF THAT TAPE?

Further evidence of my athletic prowess comes in the form of a stitching injury.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I have a stitching injury that will probably require advanced medical technology and/or the careful attention of a Mayo Clinic trained physician who might look remarkably like Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Do you suppose that I could get my hands on some of that fancypants tape that all of the Olympic athletes are wearing?  You know -- the stuff that they put on their excruciatingly well-sculpted parts to assist them in jumping the approximate length of a football field while simultaneously whistling the theme song from the first Rocky movie?

Here is where I should probably confess that my injury is really nothing more than a sore spot on my finger that is caused by the repeated poking of a needle through this:

Seasons

AmyBear Needlepoints

(color conversion in honor of the 2012 London Olympic games)

It's coming along nicely, and I really am enjoying every minute of it, but I realize now that I would be crazy lucky to finish it before the end of the closing ceremonies on Sunday.  I'm determined, though, so I suppose that I had better get back to the Happy Chair before the day gets away from me again.

Stewey, of course, is completely disgusted by all of it and secretly wishes that I would just run away from home.  I keep catching him in the closet moving my things about as if he's measuring for a new organizing system for his little silk smoking jackets.

"I could have thrived with a smarter owner."

OH, STOP. (NO. REALLY. YOU'VE GOT TO STOP ENCOURAGING HER.)

My mom can't come to the blog right now.  She and her big fat head are stuck in the shower stall, singing "I, AM THE CHAMPION, MY FRENNNND!) for all the world to hear.  I suspect that this is the direct result of all of your lovely comments about her stitching and her "brilliant" thread selection and stitching prowess.

May I just point out that this "brilliance" is nothing more than sheer dumb luck?

Mo-ther can't select threads and/or proper colors to save her miserable little life.  If she announces that she's going to do a thread conversion on a project, I call my Aunt Chrissy and holler into the telephone "CODE PINK!  WE HAVE A CODE PINK SITUATION, AUNT CHRISSY!" and she comes right over to pick me up.  I stay away long enough for Mo-ther to exhaust herself, and I usually return to find her face down on the studio floor muttering something about color theory and the injustice of not being able to find the perfect greenish brown for roof shingles. (Or some other such nonsense.)

In the case of the "needle blending" on our Olympic Seasons piece, I am going to reveal the secret to you all so that you will finally know that my old lady is nothing more than a ginormous fraud. 

Are you ready?

Mo-ther decided to use the needle blending technique on this piece because SHE WAS TOO FREAKIN' LAZY TO GO UPSTAIRS TO THE STUDIO TO FIND A PROPER COLOR!  SHE WENT INTO THE GUEST ROOM AND FISHED THROUGH THE BASKET OF CRAP ON THE BED UNTIL SHE CAME UP WITH A RED, A WHITE, AND A BLUE FLOSS, AND THEN SHE GRUNTED "GOOD ENOUGH" AND PLANTED HER FANNY BACK IN THE CHAIR.

So all of this genius you're seeing is nothing more than sloth and indifference in action.

We're going to have a quiet afternoon, since Mo-ther seems to have done something to her foot.  She awoke screaming in agony and immediately called Aunt Chrissy to advise her that the sky was falling and that never in the history of man had there been such excruciating pain.  Considering the fact that my poor Aunt Chrissy lives with a trifecta of complex migraines, my mo-ther and all of her antics, and my stinky (and very pesky) little cousin, I'm surprised that she didn't just call the men in the "special white van" once and for all and disappear into the void.

That's the report for today.  I do hope that you are well and that your own needles are doing exactly what you'd like them to do!

Until we meet again, I remain your loyal and devoted friend,
Stewey

WELL I'M DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO BREAK ANY LAND/SPEED RECORDS, THAT'S FOR SURE

You would think that with all of the nothing-ness going on around Chez Spinster these days that the needles would be flying.  (You would also think that I would be a 108 pound tri-athlete, based upon the contents of my fridge, but that's another story for another day).

Here's the latest progress on Seasons:

TWO DOWN, SEVEN TO GO

Bottom center block completed.  Now it's on to the next!  Woo Hoo!

A FUTZINGDAY REPORT FROM MASTER STEWEY ANGUS WILLOWSWAMP, HIS VERY LITTLE SELF

My mom can't come to the blog right now.  She's snoring away in the big girl sleigh bed while I am left to supervise the landscaping crew.  This is not a job I enjoy, but considering the importance of having one's bushes trimmed nicely and one's grass mowed properly, I accept the task with my normal good humor and get on with it.  Today, though, the boys are testing my patience by repeatedly blowing things around with their backpack leaf blowers.  I ask you....has there ever been a more obnoxious tool invented?

Olympic stitching continues nicely, and according to my calculations will be completed at the stroke of midnight on the last night of the games.  If the old lady keeps up the pace and doesn't get distracted by something shiny, we should see another nice patriotic FUPPY for the box.

I did manage a few hours of organizing time up in the studio this morning, so if Mo-ther ever regains consciousness and finds some motivation, we might have some framing to show.  I went through all of the finished/unfinished/unframed pieces (aka FUPPIES), and matched them up with suitable frames that were on hand.  Several years ago, my mom and Aunt Chrissy got the bright idea to purchase frames from the craft stores whenever they got the chance, but seeing how Mo-ther very rarely follows through on anything, those poor frames have languished in the closet for ages.  Well, if I have anything to say about it, she will take the time to carefully pin, lace, stretch, and frame the items I've selected and we can all look forward to a nice autumnal selection for the Big White Wall of Nothingness.

I'll leave you with a photo of last evening's progress.  Thank you for your lovely comments!

With hopes and wishes for a wonderful Wednesday and with much love,
Stewey