The Awakening Page 34

Here's the next page. I'm 79% done!

I think I'll work on Angel Procession again. I was very encouraged by my progress in the last go-round.

Animals: We've been having a rough time of it. Anubis threw up seven times yesterday. The switch to a wet food helped for a good while, but apparently it's not going to do it. He has a vet appointment tomorrow, and it looks like shots or pills. Next: Matt was scooping the litterbox the other night, and apparently Hathor really had to go. She peed on the rug under the litterbox top while he was scooping. Next: Lufy--yes, the dog--had furballs and barfed in our bedroom. I have tons of stains to use the Spotbot on now. Ugh. And poor Matt had to clean up all that mess.

RAK: I got a RAK by RAK yesterday. Unfortunately, she sent fudge, which just melted away in the Texas heat. I couldn't refrigerate it back to life because all the oils had drained out of it. It was such a sweet thought, though, and I really need it right about now!

Cross stitching is an inexpensive hobby

That's a quote from The Cross Stitcher magazine. I had to laugh and read that one to the husband. It may be inexpensive if you stick to aida and DMC and never frame anything. But get into hand-dyed fabric, silks, treasures, special framing... Oh lordy. Matt's computer costs still outweigh my stitching costs, but it gets close sometimes.

So about this magazine...my friends at work bought me a subscription to The Cross Stitcher for my birthday. I was just flabbergasted that they went through so much trouble and were so thoughtful. The magazine, however, is geared toward the novice. And they definitely need an editor. So far I haven't seen anything I would stitch. I guess I'm a stitching snob!

Baby: Yesterday I took the three-hour glucose tolerance test. The ladies at the lab are so good. I only have a few red marks on my arm and a tiny blue mark. The baby has been kicking on and off, and the linea negra has just started showing, barely. I have bright red stretch marks, but then I've always had stretch marks since I was an overweight kid. No sweat. I am so looking forward to losing weight and getting my body back!

TW's Angel Procession

I haven't worked on this one in years. I started it in 2002. It's rather unusual for me to have a WIP this old.

And now I remember why I don't like working on it.... The border has tons of lazy daisies. I hate lazy daisies. It's so hard to get them just right.

So I muddled through. I finished the backstitching, lazy daisies, and French knots in the border (I now know how to do French knots properly), so the border's finally all done. I just have the angels to do now. I'll move on to something else for a while and hopefully get back to this piece before too long.

Baby: Today Matt felt with his hand the baby moving for the first time. He said it was weird. I even saw my belly moving this morning. Oh, and Cheryl, I don't think we'd name the kid after Wolverine, but Logan is a neat name. I haven't found one I like better yet. I just wish it wasn't so popular right now!

The Awakening Page 33

Here's the next page. The dress had a lot of black and not a lot of detail, so this page was a relatively fast stitch.

I may switch to another piece for a little while. I've been contemplating working on TW's Angel Procession again. We'll see how that goes.

I was going to work on the finishing of my Just Nan TrickORTreat box, but I discovered that I lost a small piece of fleece. Mom's going to try to send me some.

Baby: All's well, but I'm getting a little depressed that I can't do anything for myself. Even cooking supper is getting to be beyond me. I'm almost into the third trimester now.

Finished stitching my Just Nan RR

Today I finished the stitching on my Just Nan round robin piece that came back to me a few weeks ago. There were three squares left to stitch, so I've done a total of four squares on the piece.

I think it came out very nice, and I'm hoping my mom can help me make a Christmas wall hanging out of it (hint hint, Mom).

Many thanks to my RR partners! Here are all the pieces I stitched for them.

It's a boy!

Today the doctor did a quick ultrasound, and we could tell it was a boy! The baby was head down and facing outward, so we got to see a face, arms, legs, and other pertinent parts. That was a heart-touching moment. I wanted a girl, but a boy will work! Now I can get rid of all that dollhouse stuff I was saving. And I guess I won't get my cross stitching partner; boys generally aren't interested in that sort of thing.

So do you think it would be too weird to name the kid Logan? (Wolverine from X-Men is named Logan.)

Generosity finishing

I finished this on my lunch hour. So that I don't have to incur the expense of framing everything, I thought this wall hanging might be a good idea.

I constructed it like I would an ornament. I used thick cording, the kind you'd use on a pillow, so that it would be a little more substantial. The only problem with that is trying to finish off the ends of the cording, which you'll notice isn't completely invisible. Still, I'm very satisfied with it.

One more down!

The Awakening Page 32

This page had a good bit of black from her dress. The original painting shows it a dark green, but alas, that's been lost. The next page has a lot of black, so it should go fairly quickly. I think I'll continue working on this for a while. My hand hurt last night, so I'll need to be careful I don't overdo it.

This puts me at 145,579 stitches and 74% done.

I'm also working on the finishing of Generosity (making it into a large ornament sort of thing). I'm doing it a little at a time so I don't get too bored with it. Finishing isn't my favorite thing.

Barbabee's Quest HD

I put on the last charm this morning! I had a moment of panic when I dropped the little dragonfly and couldn't find it. Matt finally found it for me. I love that man.

For the record, this is Barnabee's Quest by Just Nan. There are three charts to it, and it's quite tall. Many thanks to my SAL buddies, even though I didn't stick to the SAL timeline toward the end.

I'll probably sell the charts, plus beads but without charms, if anyone's interested.

Once I get the hardware in, I'll turn this into a bellpull.

I'll work on The Awakening again this weekend and maybe some finishing tasks too.

My Garden Exchange piece

Barbara received her Garden Exchange, so I can now reveal what I stitched! Here is Spring in the Garden, a design from The Needleworker magazine, which I found on the Caron website. I used WDW and GAST on 24 count. My mom sewed the bag for me when she was here. I wouldn't have done anything as fancy or as nice, so I'm glad she happened to be visiting!

This was challenging because I had to figure out what my person might like, not just what I wanted to stitch. This is not my style, but I hope it is Barbara's. I enlisted Su's opinion, which she was so generous as to provide (she's great).

I also sent Barbara some charts and a chili pepper note stand, made from a ceramic tile. I didn't take pics of those, but Barbara did.

Barnabee's Quest Part 3 finished

The SAL kind of went out the window for me because of my straying interest. So since the urge struck me, I decided to finish this up. I finished the stitching tonight and will work on the beading and charms tomorrow. This pic is of part 3. New pic when it's complete.

That's supposed to be a gazing ball in the middle, by the way. It's a green metallic.

I've ordered the bellpull and tassel topper for the piece, but the Just Nan stuff seems to take a while to come in. I'm still waiting for my Lady Scarlet's Secret Garden and some other limited editions. Apparently the demand was greater than expected, so we're waiting and waiting....

I don't think I'm going to use gold cording on this one. I'm not really much for that color. I'll probably take a brighter color from the piece, probably blue.

Baby: Today was the first day I could say I definitely felt kicking. Sometimes I debated that it could be muscle spasms or gas, but this was definitely baby activity low in my abdomen.

Book purge HD

I've been collecting fantasy books since I was a teenager and never got rid of any but the most dreadful ones. Of course, I also never reread books. So...since I was running out of room on five bookshelves, I finally felt it was time to let go of some of them. I went through my books and found ones I wasn't crazy about. That wound up being 79 paperbacks and 15 hardbacks, plus a bunch of college textbooks. It was hard letting go, but I'm so proud of myself for doing it. Matt's going to take the books to Half Price Books one day and sell them for me.

To answer the next question, yes, I am in nesting mode. The only problem is that my body won't cooperate. I can't do much without my back hurting. I actually got on my knees yesterday, which hurt a lot and caused me to worry I wouldn't be able to get back up. Matt made me promise not to do that again.

The Awakening Page 31

Here's yet another page done! There were a lot of color changes in this page. I have a lot of black coming up in the next few pages--her skirt is green in the painting, but the chart has most of it black.

I think I'll work on Barnabee's Quest for a while.

I received my Garden Exchange

I got my package in from Carol! This is for the SBEBB exchange. Isn't it neat?! This is my first needleroll, and it's so pretty. The colors are delicate, and her over-one and finishing are meticulous. She did an awesome job.

Carol says this is Spring Blossoms from Brightneedle stitched on 28-count antique white Cashel with DMC floss.

She also sent a pattern from my wishlist, Boo! from Drawn Thread; a little turtle pot sitter; two skeins of DMC variegated floss; some pretty flowered fabric; and "Tarnish" hand-dyed Lugana.

I'm so excited to get my first SBEBB exchange, and such nice stuff too!