TWISTED SISTERS

I've had a lot of comments and emails asking me about my sister, Aunt Chrissy.

Friends, will you allow me to simply say that things just didn't work out with us and that she is now...elsewhere?  I'm sorry that I cannot be more specific than that, but I promised myself that I would just move on.  

For now, know that my conscience is clear, my heart is broken (but will heal eventually), and my world is going to be a little different now without her.  This is a very deliberate choice that I had to make, and I promise you that it did not arrive without a great deal of soul searching.

But!  I am made of hearty peasant stock and, as my stitchy sister Miss Charlene reminded me today...this too shall pass.

So thank you, dear sweet peoples for your love and concern and advice and offers to come to Hoosierville to knock some sense into her.  I might take you up on that offer...but as it relates to two very ornery little Jack Russell terrorists that simply refuse to behave themselves no matter how many cookies I send their way.

Onward...to the Happy Chair and beyond!  There's stitching to do, shenanagins to be had, and dietCoke to be guzzled.  

Oh, what fun we'll have!  Stay tuned!

TUESDAY QUICKIE

Just a quick update from last night's stitching:

Happy Tuesday, kids!  Finishing a project today and then it's off to the library.  More tomorrow, I promise!

TABLE TIME

We're settling in to a new routine here at Chez Spinster.

Stewey and I leave the big girl sleigh bed for the friendly confines of the Happy Chair while Bosco makes his little bed in his apartment and ventures outside for garden inspection and bird watching.

After the damn good cup of coffee and the morning paper have been dispatched, I seem to be heading to the dining room table more and more for what I'm now thinking of as my Table Time.

This is where I blog and plan and read and write and plot and organize and contemplate and solve the problems of the world.  It's bright and cheery and overlooks the two little dog beds in the back window that almost always contain two little dogs snoozing happily in the sun.

Today's Table Time is all about a Summer Manifesto.  I am determined to map out the kind of summer that I want to have, and so far I'm thinking that it is going to be the Summer of Fun, Frolic, and Stitching.

Somewhere in there, though, I really need to address the more pressing matters of life (like bill paying, laundry and house management and whatnot) but today is all about the lighter side of things.  No negatives or to do lists....those are for tomorrow.  Today is all about burgers on the grill, iced tea in a mason jar, and this:

Another WIP from the pile.  This one is "A Different View" designed by Kurdy Biggs of Threedles fame.  I'm struggling a bit with the black canvas, but I have a spiffy little gizmo that Miss Chalrlene gave me that has white fabric on one side, dark fabric on the other...and you position this in your lap to "backlight" things.  I gave it a try last night, but I had Puppy Sandwich going on, and since both boys are bright white, the fabric seemed a bit redundant.

If you are holiday-ing today, I hope that you get to do whatever makes your heart sing!  Summer v2016 looks like it's off to a fabulous start!

UM...YEAH...SO THEN THAT HAPPENED.

Today was furniture moving day, so I threw on a pair of twenty year old bike shorts and a t-shirt left over from the Eisenhower administration and got to it.

I had some Crohn's issues in the middle of the night last night, so I've been a little light headed today.  Thinking that moving furniture might prove to be kinda stupid...I decided to do it anyway.  But I figured I would just try a little prayer so that if today was the day I was finally going to have that heart attack, I could at least get the loveseat back in the living room and maybe take a shower before the paramedics arrived.

So there I am...in my bike shorts and t-shirt chanting "Jesus, take the wheel...Jesus, take the wheel" when my doorbell rang.

It was an older couple and a little kid that looked remarkably like the kid in Jerry McGuire, except this one had a bow tie.  And a sweater vest.  

(Did the kid in Jerry McGuire have a bow tie?  Or a sweater vest? I can't remember.)

I couldn't hear what they were saying to me because it was at that precise moment that both Bosco and Stewey decided to go bat shit crazy simultaneously.

(Normally they take turns to do this so that one can rest while the other mauls the drapes, but today they were a Jack Russell tornado of barking and, in Stewey's case, tiny little bunny teeth.)

The little kid handed me a brochure through the crack in the screen door.

I looked down and saw a picture of Jesus, and as God is my witness (and I guess he kinda was), the brochure said "How's my driving?"

OK.

It didn't really say that.  It was a brochure about the church around the corner, but if I admit that then I have to deny the fact that I looked at this brochure and said "Holy shit!" to three very lovely, but now traumatized Jehovah's Witnesses.

They REALLY should make pills for this.

HOME SWEET HOME

Before...

After...

Ahhhhhhhh....back to normal.

HAPP PEE DAN SING

Bird in a Nest

Canvas by Zecca

Stitch guide by Ruth Schmuff

www.bedeckedandbeadazzled.com

This was a joy to stitch from the beginning to the end.  Although I was sorry to finish it, I am so hapy that I took the ride!

The TODO list is in the recycling bin today.  I awoke feeling like it might be better to just see where the day takes me.  I'm thinking that it might take me right back to the big girl sleigh bed with a library book and then maybe back up to the studio to pick the next project.

I had so much fun working on this WIP that I think I might stick with that same theme for June!  I have a couple of Threedles counted canvas pieces that are started, so maybe it's time to get them in the FUPPY pile too!

Happy Sunday, kids.  I hope that you are doing whatever it is you'd like to do today.  Woo Hoo!

ALMOST THERE...

The dragonfly is fab-u-lous.  Doesn't she look like a Vegas show girl?

Now the bird has a beak and an eye:

And I made a little change to that yellow flower, because Miss Ruth's version really is quite swell:

A few clay buttons and a bunch of "pebbles" in the dirt amd this one is....FEE NEEEEEE!

NUTS

No stitchy update to report today, kids because there was no stitching last night.

Don't cry for me, Argentina...at least not yet.  I have an appointment at 10:00 at the kidney doc and an appointment at 11:00 with the Happy Chair.  The first will last about ten minutes...the second is going to last three days.

Miss Charlene and Miss Jane are babysitting me tomorrow.  The poor dears are positively stuck with me now that I've hijacked their merry band of funsters.  I expect that they will eventually grow tired of me, and instead of House of Stitches trips we'll go on a snipe hunt or two, but for now I am all prancypants over the prospect of some time with my stitchy sisters.

(Who could blame them, by the way? I am really much better in small, small doses.)

The sun is shining....well, kind of, and the boys are in their respective snoozy spots plotting revenge.  Our family meeting about how things were going to go around here from now on didn't work out very well, so methinks we'll have a mutiny on our hands by sundown.

Stay tuned...Spinster v. two little Jack Russell terrorists should prove to be quite interesting!

RING A DING DING

Almost there...only the dragonfly and assorted doodads to go:

So here is the reason for the rings:

I attached my rings to the canvas a little differently than the instructions indicated, but I really really really like the result.  Makes me think there might be a lot more of these in my stitchy future!

Because so many of you have commented about what a genius I am and how much you love this piece, I want to make sure to give credit where credit is due.  The canvas is a painted canvas designed by Zecca and all of the stitches and threads and ideas and attachments and gizmos are from Ruth Schmuff from Beadecked and Beadazzled.  This project was one of Ruth's mystery classes several years ago and there is absolutley no way on the entire planet I could have come up with any of this on my own.

But it sure feels nice to be at the big kids' table as the stitcher of this one, I swear!

Doctor appointment this afternoon and then methinks we're going to start putting things back in order around here.   It's a bit of a Jack Russell/Spinster frat house at the moment, and given the fact that I am the matriarch of this little goat rodeo, I say...enough.

WEDNESDAY COCKPIT

I'm up at the crack of 8:30 today.  I don't know why exactly, but I think it has something to do with SOMEBODY throwing off his little sleeping mask, pounding his little paw on the bedroom window, and shouting "Will you silly birds PLEASE stop that incessant twittering!!!"

Sheesh...and I thought he was a morning person.

So I'm in the cockpit ready to blast off for a fabulous Wednesday.  We've got the damn good cup of coffee, the puzzles from this morning's paper, and our Bird in the Nest Zecca canvas to play with.  Laundry is sorted amd started and if the stars align perfectly I just might clean the kitchen to within an inch of its life.

Or maybe not.

The lamdscape guys are here doing their thing and Bosco has been frantically pacing from the front door to the back to supervise.  Just watching him makes me tired, but I'm counting it as my cardio for the day.

That's the Futzingday report, kids.  I hope you are all well and safe and happy and in your own cockpit.  Do something fun and exciting and come tell me all about it!

INVASION OF THE SPINSTER SNATCHERS

Well...something strange has happened to the neurotic, high-strung, hand-wringing spinster that you've come to know and love (or laugh at).

Last night's stitchy session started with the bird's nest.  This was stitched with organza ribbon in random stitches and then three little doodad gears were added for effect:

Would you believe me if I told you that those stitches were my first try and that I put them on the canvas without one single heart palpitation or cry of anxiety over the messy randomness of them all?

OK, so we get to the next part, which is the three little flowers left in the garden.  The first thing the instructions tell me to do is to get the 3/4 inch plastic rings out of the perfectly organized supply box that I got at the Hobby Lobby for the low low bargain price of $1.99 about six years ago.

No rings.

I tore the house apart looking for the darn things, because I could swear that they were in the kit when Miss Ruth sent it to me.  As a matter of fact, I seemed to remember thinking that they would be perfect to use for thread rings and I probably wasted half a Saturday trying to figure out how to attach tags to them or some other such nonsense.

But again...no rings.

I started to get a little frustrated and I paced and swore and swore and paced and I even Googled the 3/4 inch plastic rings to see where I could find them.  Turns out, they have them at the JoAnn's, but when I discovered this, it was a whopping three minutes to closing time.  

Damn.  Drat.  Phooey.

I emailed Miss Charlene and Miss Jane for sympathy and they cooed gently and told me that all would be well.  I threw in a few grumbles about my stupid sister/tenant (because I am back to being an only child again) and they cooed some more and made me feel better.

And then....something miraculous happened.

Rather than sitting in the Happy Chair completely exhausted from the trauma of it all and rather than staring at the TeeVee with my hands itchy for something to stitch, I turned the page.

Yup.

Turned the page.

I realized that it would be perfectly fine to move on to the next part of the canvas and that the world was not going to come crashing to a screeching halt if I stitched something out of order.  So I finished this flower, patted myself on the head for finally....finally...being semi-normal, and I went to bed.

But I really have to wonder.  What the heck happened to that crazypants matchy-matchy everything must always be done in exactly perfect order or the world will fall apart and I just don't have the energy to fix it anymore woman that used to spend hours and hours swirling around the vortex of discombobulation?

Is this what 50 is all about, Charlie Brown?  Does this mean that I might finally be in the path to learning to go with the flow?  Is it possible that the AARP card actually has some kind of magic power that calms you down and allows you to....turn the page...without blowing a gasket?

Well, all I can say is...if it is....ME LIKEY!

That's the happy report for the day, my friends.  I'm off to the JoAnn's to get those little rings.  I hope that you have a simply splendid Tuesday and that your pages are turning exactly how you want them to.

WooHoo!

NOW WE'RE COOKING...

All of the larger flowers are now complete!

I think this one is my favorite, but I can't decide if it's the stitch or the color:

Ribbon roses!  Who knew?

Quiet Monday so far after a rather unpleasant Sunday night family meeting.  My sister (who shall heretofore be known as Aunt Sciatica because she's such an enormous pain in my heiney) better get her act together quickly, or methinks she and Bosco will be living in the Hundai.

Sheesh...if this is some kind of test...I fail.

Epically.

THE GARDEN IS STARTING TO BLOOM...

I have to tell you...once you get the background of this piece figured out, the flowers go really fast.

(Even if you're a newbie with silk ribbon like me and are feeling a bit clumsy with it.)

This one was lots of fun.  Petite Very Velvet and Impressions and ribbbon.  I'm not too crazy about the center button, but I'm sure it'll grow on me:

I probably went a little overboard with the light pink Petite Frosty Rays, but in real life this is quite dimensional:

And since I just couldn't leave well enough alone, I re-did the yellow flower by adding a bunch of ribbon and eliminating the felt button in the center:

 I really am enjoying this and am quite happy with my decision to pick it up.  I think I might continue with the "Work in Progress" theme in June...maybe we'll really start to see some progress clearing the decks!

Happy Sunday, kids!  I was actually a good girl and cleaned the house yesterday, so I get to have an entire day of guilt-free recovery stitchy time in the Happy Chair today!  Who knew that riding the vacuum cleaner around the place would result in such a lovely feeling of accomplishment?

WooHoo!

SATURDAY SPINSTER...HMMMMMM

The first flower (the red and orange "mum") went pretty well, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to add a third layer of loops.  So, two it is for now.

As for the yellow flower, for some reason I didn't have an orange felt button left, so I went with yellow:

Here's what the yellow is supposed to look like:

Last night I contemplated my options and thought I was going to swap out the yellow button for one of the orange ones I already used, but this morning I'm thinking of just leaving it alone for now.  So....methinks I will finish the entire piece before I decide what to do.

The sun is shining and the birds are tweeting sweetly today, so we're off to a good start.

What's new with you?

MAY FLOWERS

You know the expression...April showers bring May flowers.  Well, it might be the end of May, but I think we're going to have some flowers this weekend.

First, though, I need to finish off the green leaf at the bottom with a bunch of silk ribbon French knots down the center:

Then, it will be on to this beauty:

Think I can make it look like this?

I'm supposed to be cleaning tha house, paying bills, writing grocery lists, and paying attention to the boys today, but so far all I've managed to do is read the paper and play with my stitchy stuff.  (I really should read that "Procrastinating for Dummies" book I bought years ago, but I keep putting it off.)

(Yuk yuk yuk)

We're hurtling head long into the weekend, kids!  What's on your fun list for the day?

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW

Hey, kids...the trick to locking silk ribbon onto the needle is really cool beans:

When you thread the ribbon through the eye of the needle pull it a little longer than you normally would.  Don't let go of that longer piece...pierce the needle through it about an inch or so from the end and then slowly pull the needle through that tail.

You will have to cut the ribbon off of the needle when you're finished with that length, but believe me when I tell you that locking it on there in the first place is totally worth it!

This is a totally craptastic photo, but hopefully it will give you the idea:

Now I know that all of you veterans out there are shaking your heads at me and my feeble attempt to depart something "new" that you've known forever, but...I can't help it.  I get so excited every time I learn something new that I get ants in my pants.  

Isn't that why we love this thing of ours anyway?  Always something new to do, more to learn, and such excellent fun to be had!

WooHoo!

HANGOVER

For some reason I got the bright idea to have a big 'ol heaping cup of caffeine at the Grocery Guild Starbucks last night.  I couldn't help it really.  Coffee is the very last vice I have left and I arrived early enough that I had time to partake.

(I've had a lot of questions about Grocery Guild.  It's not really called that...it is officially the South Bend evening meeting of EGA.  We just happen to meet in the upstairs lounge area of our local supermarket...thus Grocery Guild.)

(Our local supermarket chain is quite lovely.  Most of the stores are decked out with Side Door Deli areas that have grab and go meals, a Starbucks, and a "restaurant" area.  The store that hosts our meeting has a two story "restaurant" area and we meet there once a month.  Next to my Happy Chair and the Centre Township branch of the library, it's one of the happiest places on the planet Earth for this here spinster.)

So I finished the two leaves on the bottom of my canvas and moved on to the purple leaf in the lower right corner:

(Yes, I know that button is hanging off the edge of the design, but that's what it said to do in the stitch guide, and ever since I broke the colonoscopy prep rules and almost died doing so, I am all about doing what I'm told now.)

I really love working with silk ribbon, it turns out, and after last night's excellent class at Guild, I now know how to lock the ribbon onto the needle so that it doesn't slip through the eye with every single stitch!  What a difference that made to last night's efforts!

In addition to being hepped up on the caffeine, I also fell head first into my latest library book, and I ended up turning out the light at 3:30 am.  I'm reading Richard Russo's "Nobody's Fool" and am enjoying it immensely.  I have "Everybody's Fool" lined up to go right after, so looks like I will get to spend a fair amount of time with Sully and Co.

That's the exciting report for today, kids.  A little progress on a needlepoint canvas and a caffeine hangover.  All we need now is a few loads of laundry and an afternoon nap, and Futzingday will be complete!

Hope you're more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than I am today....WooHoo!

FUN FUN FUN FUN FUN

Life in the stitchy department (at least) is swell.  

Don't you think it hilarious how the world can be falling down around you, but the minute you pick up a needle it's all rainbows and unicorns?

(At least that's the way it is with me these days.  I am justifying my complete and total escape into needlework with the excuse that I'm warm and safe and dry in the Happy Chair and not bothering anybody, so why shouldn't I pretend that the cruise is wonderful and not headed toward the proverbial iceberg?)

The long and short of it is that I need a vacation.  So every afternoon at about 4pm I head to such wearing my special vacation clothes (eighteen year old sweatpants), I have my refreshing vacation cocktail (dietCoke on the rocks), and I put on my special vacation glasses (99 cent magnifiers fished out of the Michael's clearence bin), and I go away for a while.

Sometimes Jeffrey Dean Morgan comes with me.  Sometimes the entire cast of the Sopranos.  I've even been known to throw a few Housewives in there for sheer entertainment value.  But the company is good, the conversation is witty and urbane, and I come out of it all having solved the world's problems.

(And then it's time to go to bed and read a book and wait for my stupid sister to wake me up at 4am when she gets up to go to work.)

I'm just not built for company, I tell ya.  I like my solitude and my routines and my crazypants way of doing things and all of this change makes me feel like Sheldon Cooper in the Big Bang episode when he ran away from home and went on a train trip.

Wait a minute...a train trip!  How hard would it be to pack up a bunch of needlework, several dozen library books, and a vat of dietCoke and hit the rails?  Hmmmmm...note to self.  Call Amtrack.

Whoops...I forget about somebody for a minute there.  How in the world would I ever be able to leave that face for more than a minute?

Oh well.  It was just a thought.

Here's last night's progress on Bird in a Nest.  The green and blue leaf is stitched with silk ribbon (the green part), Petite Frosty Rays ( the dark blue), and Petite Very Velvet (the bright blue center seam).  I couldn't quite figure out that center seam stitch, so I ...improvised.

Tonight is Guild at the Grocery, so I am eagerly looking forward to spending some time with my stitchy peeps.  We're going to learn how to stitch flowers with silk ribbon, so I am particularly excited after last night's session using it for the first time on the leaves. 

Thanks, as always, for stopping by, my dear friends!  Where would I be without youse?

STEMS AND LEAVES AND LEAVES AND STEMS

I'm learning so many things with this piece...

1. The only way to make it through a complicated section is to breathe, clear your mind of all doubt, and go for it.  

(And make sure to have vats and vats of a soothing beverage on hand.  Wine...tequilla...dietCoke....whatever floats your particular boat.)

2. Random means random.  It doesn't mean that you should spend eighteen hours charting and graphing to come up with the perfect mathematical configuration.

(This is where the tequilla comes in particularly handy...especially for those of us inclined to be a little on the retentive/OCD side of things.)

3. When you've stitched something and think you've screwed it up and are getting ready to rip it out, put down the scissors, walk away for a minute, and then step back about four feet and look at the piece from a distance.  

(This is really true when it comes to leaves and stems.  How many leaves and stems in nature are perfectly perfect and evenly stitched and completely balanced when viewed under a magnifier?  None, I tell ya.  None!)

4.  If tou take two strands of DMC Memory Thread and twist them together, the end result is lovely and will now enable you to find a use for the crate of it that you bought when it first came out, but that has been languishing up in your studio because you had no clue how to play with it.

Another seven or eight episodes of The Good Wife last night resulted in the completion of the stems and leaves. (At least the ones above the bird, that is.  The ones next to the nest are...next!)

So today is off to a good start.  We've read the paper, solved the puzzles, patted the pups, and are now heading to the lab to get poked and prodded. 

We want to send a big fat WOOOOO HOOOOOO Happy Birthday to Miss Charlene today!   If you're one of the lucky ones that knows her, then you know how lovely and special (and increibly patient) she is.  Happy Birthday, dear Miss Charlene!

NOW THE FUN BEGINS!

The first three leaves are complete:

I added the second step randomly to the background in both silk and sparkly (but the sparkly is a little hard to see in this pic):

Today is turning out to be a lazy Sunday.  Stewey and I slept in a little longer than usual and now we're looking forward to an afternoon of stitching and TeeVee watching.  

What's on your menu for the day?