THE HAPPY CHAIR IS GETTING A BATH

My mom can't come to the blog right now.  She presently sweating and grunting and cursing up a blue streak as she desperately tries to shampoo the Happy Chair.  From what I gather, all of this recent frenzy is due to the fact that we are expecting a house guest to arrive this weekend, and Mo-ther is afraid that said house guest will take one look (or sniff, as the case may be) at the Happy Chair and will run for the nearest Holiday Inn.

As for me, I am perfectly satisfied to spend the day in my little spot of sunshine at the back patio window.  I've been enjoying a few days of peace and quiet while the old lady occupies herself with filling the fridge with guest-friendly treats and the guest room with guest-friendly amenities, but I suspect that this little vaca won't last long.  I overheard Mo-ther telling Aunt Chrissy on the phone last night that I am to be given a b-a-t-h on Sunday morning.

(Funny how my idiot mo-ther thinks that I am incapable of understanding what she's s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g o-u-t, especially when you consider the fact that I am quite possibly the only member of our little goat rodeo capable of bringing home a Pulitzer.  Do you suppose that she'll figure it out when my name tops the New York Times best sellers list?)

The evenings have been filled with ice cream cones and Sopranos re-runs lately, but last night did present a few minutes of stitching on an oldie but goodie....Alphabets by The Drawn Thread:

I was so excited to see this one make an appearance that I behaved myself quite nicely into the wee hours so that Mom might make a little progress on it.  I do love it so, and wish that she would get this completed and framed for my pee-ed a tear, Chez Stewey.

Here's hoping that your Tuesday is lovely and still.  Until we meet again, I remain your loyal and devoted friend.

With love from your pal,
Stewey

THREE POINT....OH

My mom can't come to the blog right now.  She's too busy sitting in her Happy Chair thinking I'm a complete genius.  (For the record, I AM a complete genius....it's just taken her a little longer than most to realize it.)

As you might have noticed, the old lady hasn't picked up a piece of cross stitching in a very very long time.  She has been so dedicated to canvas work, that I was afraid that she had forgotten how to cross the little x's that so many of us find addictive and soothing at the very same time.

When I gently approached her about this, we had a knock down drag out of an argument, and I'm afraid that all the excuses in the world didn't convince me that there wasn't more to it.  "Mo-ther", I said.  "If you've decided to give up cross stitching once and for all, then might I suggest that you pack up all of the crap in the studio and give it away to our loyal and devoted friends who DO cross stitch more than once in a blue moon?"

She mumbled something about the heat and the humidity and the sun being in her eyes and how Aunt Chrissy would never understand how we could just give up on the stitching sport that started it all, but when I pressed her further, the real truth finally emerged.

"I can't see anymore, Stewey!" she bellowed at me.  "Ever since I got this new prescription to help me see better far away, I can't see up close anymore!  I am officially old now and will never be happy again and nobody will ever want to marry me or take me on a picnic or give me lovely anniversary gifts or hold my hand when I'm tired and lonely and scared!!!"

Realizing that I can't fix more than one or two of those things in this lifetime, I called my Aunt Chrissy.

"Hello, Aunt Chrissy?  This is Stewey.  Can you please put your shoes on and come take my stupid mo-ther to the Wal-Marts to get her some new reading glasses?"

"She has seventeen and a half pairs of reading glasses next to the damn Happy Chair, Stewey", my Aunt Chrissy sighed heavily.  "What the heck is wrong with them now?"

"Apparently, she is unable to see with them, Aunt Chrissy.  I know that this is a huge imposition, but could you do this for me?  I've got a marathon of The Newsroom queued up on the TeeVee for my viewing pleasure, and I'm afraid that I won't get a moment's peace to get to it with the old lady sitting here bitching about her bad eyesight and how nobody will ever love her and how she just wants to do a little cross stitching."

A half hour later and they were back from their excursion with two new pairs of reading glasses....strength 3.0 thankyouverymuch.  Why my mo-ther didn't do this sooner is completely beyond me, since once they were planted on her face I enjoyed several hours of quiet while she played with this:

Isn't it swell?  It's Flowers, Awake by Rosewood Manor and it's being stitched on the loveliest piece of 32 ct. Barnwoon linen.  God willing, we might be looking at a lovely new finish for the Big White Wall of Nothingness before the autumn leaves begin to fade.

How's things in your neck of the woods?

With much love from your pal,
Stewey

IT'S MC STEAMY!

Nope, not THAT McSteamy...just your good old average mid-July weather related steamy.  You know what I'm talking about....temps in the 80's and humidities the same.

In short, total hell for a portly spinster who positively detests sweating, which is something I am capable of doing in the shower.

(What can I say?  I'm built for comfort, not for speed.  Besides, given my portliness, I am not too keen on exposing any body parts (like arms and legs) to the overall general public, so turtlenecks and ski pants can look a little ca-razy on a day like today.)

Stewey, of course, is loving the heat and scritches at the back door every six and a half minutes so that he can plop himself on the back patio to tan.  I think he must like the warmth that comes off of the cement, but I, for one, am perfectly happy to look at the scorching stuff from the cool and friendly confines of my Happy Chair.

I've made a fair amount of progress on my canvas.  But before I show you pictures, I need to try to explain why I am such a freakin' boob when it comes to telling y'all where this one came from.  As you might remember, this canvas was purchased from the rock stars at Wool & Willow in Cleveland.  At the time, I told everybody that this was a "Rishfeld Designs" canvas, because the name "Rishfeld Designs" is printed at the bottom of the canvas.  There's even an item number next to the words "Rishfeld Designs", so I told you and everybody who asked that  this is a "Rishfeld Designs" canvas. 

So here's where the boob part comes in.

Apparently, this canvas is found on the SUSAN ROBERTS web site.  Now why I didn't know to tell you that this is a SUSAN ROBERTS canvas, I'll never know, but will you all please forgive me for leading you astray?  I hate it when I get stuff like this wrong, since I really do try to give the proper credit where credit it due, so believe me when I tell you that this was in no way intentional.  All I know is that I am still loving every single stitch of this piece, and if you decide that you would like to stitch it too, look on the SUSAN ROBERTS site under the artist Janice Gaynor, and you'll be all set.

Sorry for the confusion.

When last we left our heroine, she was fretting over what to do with the leaves.  During the course of the last few weeks I tried several different fibers and stitches, mulled and mulled them, asked anybody who would look in my general direction what they thought, and then finally decided to do this:

I know, I know, you're scratching your head right about now and saying "Decided to do what, exactly?", but if you look at the leaves, you might detect a very faint sparkle here and there that is the result of me doing a skip tent stitch with a lovely light green Sparkle Braid that I found in my stash.  It's subtle, I know, but the shading on those leaves is so darn pretty that I really wanted to let it come through.  Thanks to a remembered hint from Miss Jane at Chilly Hollow a few years back on another canvas I was playing with, I gave it a go and decided that I quite like the results.

Methinks I might actually finish this one today, and then it's off to the beading portion of the program.  I'm hoping that I might tart this up with some fancy schmancy crystals and such, so stay tuned and get ready for the big reveal with the next decade or so.

If I get all of my chores done, my Needlepoint Now column written, and adequate tummy-rub time given to Stewey, I might start the Zecca bird canvas.  I had thought that I should switch to a little cross stitching, but it would seem I'm still in a canvas state of mind, so I might as well go with the flow for a bit.

I do hope that this finds you happy and healthy and wealthy and stitching on this fine Sunday afternoon.  If you're hot, keep cool, and if you're cool, keep warm!

Woo Hoo!
Coni

STITCHING AND FEASTING AND GROUNDHOGS, OH MY!

We had such a lovely time of it on Saturday stitching with Miss Myrtis and Miss Charlene.  I sometimes forget how perfect an afternoon can be when it's spent in the company of like-minded friends who don't  mind that I'm a nutball of the highest order.

There's been a fair amount of rain and thunderstorms in this area lately, so in an attempt to batten down the hatches, Stewey and I moved all of the patio crap into the corner and hoped for the best.  I was reading the paper and getting my wits about me the other morning when I heard a little scritch-scritching on the patio window.  I thought it might be Stewey trying to clean the glass to improve his view of his daisy, but alas, it was our new friend....Gretchen Gandolfini:

Isn't she swell?  Stewey wanted to invite her in for tea and toast, but I thought it would be better to just chuck a big piece of broccoli out into the back forty in hopes that she would get the hint and relocate.

She did.

He'll get over it eventually, I'm sure, but in the meantime, all I hear coming from the general vicinity of his perch is a lot of kvetching over the fact that I never let him have friends over to entertain in the manner to which he (and Martha Stewart) have become accustomed.

Damn dog.

I'm really happy with the progress I've made on the Rishfeld canvas.  If you would have told me a few years ago that there would come a time when I would stitch the same thing for months on end, I would have thought that you'd fallen down and smacked your little head on the pavement.  What the heck happened to that schitzo-stitcher who flitted from thing to thing to thing with her hair on fire?

Ahhhhhhh, maturity.

The sunflower in the corner is complete, but for a few beads in the center:

(I know that there are areas of open canvas here, but I kind of like it that way.  The paint color is really lovely and has a bit of sparkle to it, so I ask you, would it BE so wrong to just leave it alone?)

The big central flower is coming along.  I'm still not too sure about those outer petals, but given my new attitude, I'm not above trying a few different things before settling on the final stitch:

So that's the report from Lake WoeBeSpinster, kids.  We're back in the Happy Chair today armed with a marathon of Magic City and a ham sandwich for sustenance. 

What's new with you?