MAKING PROGRESS!

 

We're off like a herd of turtles this morning. If all goes well, we'll get our errands out of the way before the heat sets in, and there just might be breakfast in the mix! 

Sorry for the craptastic photo, but I snapped it in the wee hours of the morning. Come Tarry has another few days and then we can call it a FeeNee!

Happy Weekend, Dearies! Stay safe and happy and stitchy and come tell me all about it!

TARRYING ON A FUTZINGDAY NOW THAT THE LIGHTS ARE BACK ON

 

Back to Shepherd's Bush Come Tarry for tonight's stitching! Our lights went POOF at 1pm and stayed poofed until about 5pm, so not a lot of anything got done today. I took it easy and started feeling almost half-human again late this afternoon, so all is well at CS2, Dearies. All is well.

Happy Futzingday!

NOT BAD FOR A QUEASY TUESDAY

 

Dearies, I was up all night with terribly awful no good dasterdly tummy trouble, so in between ughs I listened to Mrs Maisel and stitched Spring Basket. I know it looks different than the previous iteration. I've been re-colorizing and re-stitching this on the fly in colors more suited to my eye, and I think I like this version much better than the original:

So far. So good.

I'm sure this will pass eventually. I'm staying hydrated and enjoying Wintergreen Life Savers in the meantime, and JB is keeping a close eye on my shenanagins to make sure I don't go down like a bag of doorknobs.

Time to get back to it and the Phillies. 

Happy Tuesday! Are you doing something fun? Come tell me all about it!

NOT A GOOD START

The pool is closed.

Again.

And it's going to be 98 degrees this week.

I think it's time for me to be where other people are not.

TRUE STORY

 

TIME TO SHINE!

They're re-guilding the Golden Dome and the statue of Mary atop. We've been getting a bird's eye view, so I thought I would share this photo by Matt Cashore. Isn't it cool?

If this is the kind of thing you're interested in, Notre Dame's website has a lot of in depth information on the process. And yes...they do use real gold leaf!

IN WHICH MRS BACCIAGALOUPE GOES TO THE POOL

 

In case you're wondering...it's pronounced BACHA GA LOOP, and it's been stuck in my head for a few days now...ever since Rich and I returned from an afternoon dip, and as we lumbered up the stairs I got the giggles.

As soon as my second cup kicks in, I'm going to venture out for provisions and then reward myself with another refreshing few minutes floating before we head to Summer Film School this evening. Tonight we'll be watching Grease...the musical selection of this term's theme, which is "Genre".

Happy Futzingday, Dearies! 

FINALLY FINISHED!

 Star Spangled Banner

Northern Expressions Needlework

28ct linen

Dinky Dyes silks and Mill Hill beads

What an adventure this piece turned out to be, Dearies! You'll never believe it, but guess who ran out of beads again last night! This time, though, I said "Phooey" and grabbed a container of "close enough" out of my stash and finished her right up.

I am completely disappointed, though, that no matter how hard I try, I simply cannot capture the sparkle that those darn beads add to this. It really is very very pretty in real life, and pictures just aren't doing it any justice.

If you're contemplating this (which I highly recommend), make sure to gather more threads and beads than you think you'll need. I sure wish I would have!

Cheers to the rest of the weekend! We've just returned from a lovely dip in the pool (that finally re-opened yesterday afternoon), and now it's time to see what strikes my fancy on the q-snaps tonight!

 

HOLD MY DAMN GOOD WHILE I DISAPPEAR DOWN THIS HERE RABBIT HOLE

 Dearies...we're gonna need a bigger craft room. Last nigh at the Elkhart EGA meeting, we started our crazy quilt projects.

My only contribution to this is the selection of fabrics. Miss Katy did all of the sewing for me on her sewing machine.

It's mounted on a paper template, so I will remove that and begin embellishing with pretty threads and doo dads and whatnots. When finished, I think I'll stuff it and make it into a little hanging ornament.

What a treat to learn something new and to have so much fun at the same time!

MONDAY PLAN

If you've been one of my Dearies for any length of time on this here blog, you know that the hot and humid weather here in Hoosierville just sends me straight into a case of the vapours.

Me and steamy heat?

Not so much.

I thought that I would outgrow this particular aversion with age and transplant, but alas, I am still the delicate little flower that wilts and expires when exposed to swamplike conditions.

(It certainly doesn't help matters that our community swimming pool here at CS2 is BROKEN and not open for Yours Truly to splosh and refresh in the cool waters if/when she can haul her prodigious bulk down to the waters edge and quietly slip into its shallow depths..)

So I am inside.

Reading, sleeping, blogging, puzzling, slurping, and stitching.

My Saturday guild project crept into my twitches sometime Saturday night, and I decided that I was not crazy about the way the colors were mashing up. The overdyed greens were not getting along, and the purple was...eh, and then the metallic started screaming, and my tiny little stitchy brain was a mess.

(I blame the lovely Misses Linda and Charlene for this one. They used a different colorway, so I got it into my head that I needed to do the same.)

(I'm like that pesky little kid sister that wants to take along and be part of the group, but is nothing but an enormous obnoxious pain in the fanny.)

(Must learn to change that.)

Anywhoose...before I knew what hit me, I was in the cube room studio playing with threads, and viola'...a new array that I think I will like much better:

(The threads on the top are the new ones. Originals are on the bottom).

The good news is that I had not progressed very far, so only a little frogging will need to be done before I can get back to this and catch up to the rest of the group.

That's not to say that I haven't been stitching, Dearies. While I wait for my beads to arrive for Star Spangled Banner, I've been playing with Come Tarry:

 I am off script on this one, too, because I stitched the verse all together instead of staggered, so I'm having to improvise a bit on the remaining bands:

No matter, though. It's still a lovely stitch with a buttery linen and luscious silks. I am going to continue to enjoy this until completion, and then we'll see what strikes my cross stitch fancy next!

Tonight is another Guild meeting...this time over in Elkhart, Indiana. We will be learning how to crazy quilt, so I am gathering supplies to give it a go. Miss Katy is going to do the actual fabric piecing for us with her sewing machine, so those of you who know about my propensity to royally screw anything mechanical will not have to fret. I will be duly supervised.

Time to tackle Mt Laundry and find something suitable for Guild tonight. As much as these ladies tolerate me, I don't think anybody needs me showing up in pajama pants and a Hanes old man t-shirt from the Target Clearance bin! 

Happy Monday to one and all, near and far! I hope your corner of the world is exactly as you want it to be! Come tell me all about it!

IS IT POSSIBLE THE SPINSTER HAS FINALLY GROWN UP?

Who are you, and what have you done with that crackpot Spinster?  Rather than go completely off the rails after running out of beads, I simply pulled out another project and enjoyed the day stitching! How did THAT happen? 

GUESS WHO JUST RAN OUT OF BEADS

 

EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO TODAY...

Aunt Chrissy and I ventured through the cornfields of Ligonier, Indiana to a place called Willowswamp Farm. He was called Mr Fuzzy by the little girl that lived there, but I called him Stewey, and the moment I looked into that funny little face, I knew my life would be changed forever.

And it was.

Happy SteweyMommieversary, Little. Thank you for being my Baby Dear, and for bringing so much love to my world.

 

SOOOOOO CLOSE!

I stitched the final stitch of Star Spangled Banner at the stroke of 11:00 last night:

And immediately started beading the beads:

 

My poor eyes went a bit buggy after an hour or so, so off to bed I went, dreaming of a big fat finish today!

But first, I have things to do and places to go and people to see out there in the sweltering vistas of Hoosierville. If all goes according to plan, by this afternoon I will be back in twenty-nine year old bike shorts and a t-shirt with plenty of ice water in the sippy cup, and Sopranos on the TeeVee to keep me company.

What's happening in your neck of the woods?

HAPPY 4TH !

 

DEFINITELY WORTH REPEATING

This was my post three years ago today, but it is just still so....true!

PHOOEY

I finished the stripes portion of the flag in the wee small hours of the morning, and decided to move the snaps so that I could move on to finishing the stars part today.

Oh dear.

Something just seemed...off about the blue, and although I knew I needed to add one more row, it wasn't lining up correctly no matter how hard I squinted at it or counted and re-counted.

Drat. I somehow got that entire blue section in the wrong place and off by several threads.

So I paced and fretted and fretted and paced until I realized there was only one solution.

 It took me the better part of three Sopranos episodes, but out it all came, and after a bit of sleep and a couple cups of damn good, I'm ready to try try again today.

A few quick errands to run before I thread up for the day! It's a scorcher out there in Hoosierville today, so methinks the sooner I get out and back...the better!

Ciao!

A LITTLE FUTZINGDAY SPINSTERCATION BLISS...

 

Hello, Dearies.

I'm having one of the best kinds of mornings...quiet, slow, happy, and peaceful. I slept until I woke up, had my two cups of damn good while perusing the papers, and then enjoyed a nice small healthy breakfast while puzzling the puzzles.

(Rich is in New Jersey for a few weeks visiting his mom, so I am having to adult and do things without supervision.)

(Beware.)

I've promised myself to behave, and a full 24 hours in...I'm happy to report that I have done so. The weather/smoke and pool maintenance have forced me to entertain myself with stitching and TeeVee, so other than an occasional plunge into the iPad thingie, I'm managing very nicely.

If all goes according to plan, I should be able to finish the stitching portion of Star Spangled Banner today or tomorrow, and then start the beading portion thereafter. Did I mention there are beads on this one? Yup. Hundreds and hundreds of them. I do think, however daunting all of that beading is to me, that this is going to be really very pretty once completed fully.

Our EGA South Bend guild had our annual field trip/shop visit to House of Stitches on Monday night, and I was delighted to find a few things to add to my late Summer stitchy basket:

I know that the top one is called Spring Heart, but somehow it just felt more like Summer to me, and the colors in the bottom one seemed almost like Fall. (Yes, Betty. I do realize that it is not mandatory to stitch seasonally, and to imply such is not necessary, but it's how I roll, Girlfriend. Live with it.)

(For newer friends of this here blog, Betty is the name I've assigned to the person(s) who feel(s) compelled to write to me on a regular basis to complain, excoriate, yell at, and generally hate on Yours Truly over here. She (he) used to gut me completely with their hate, but now I have affectionately begun to think of her (him) as the Old Man Muppets in the theater complaining about the show and I get on with it.)

So back to needle and thread I go. My Starbucks points are burning a hole in my pocket, so I might actually indulge in one of their cold brews this afternoon rather than a homemade one. I typically pour a Kirkland cold brew can into a big cup of ice and add a protein shake, or sugar free CoffeeMate and a pump or two of sugar free syrup, but sometimes you just have to return to the Mothership.

Cheers and Ciao, Dearies! I hope this finds you safe and well. Come tell me what's blowing your skirt up today!