LoneStar Needleworks

Sewing Saturday

2012-01-29T10:59:00.000-06:00

I'm not a great sewist as I don't enjoy sewing that much; I do it when I need to. Yesterday I needed to.

For Christmas a few years ago, I made a super hero cape for my nephew (he was my only nephew at the time) and wrote a little story to go with it. Right after Christmas this year, I received a polite e-mail from him requesting another cape as he no longer had the original one. Being a doting auntie, I was happy to grant the request. Of course, as my nephew now has a younger brother, I couldn't make something for the oldest nephew without making something for the younger one. Younger nephew decided that he wanted a cape, too.

So after hitting fabric sales at Jo-Ann Fabrics on two separate occasions, discovering that I no longer had the original cape pattern and finding a new one on Etsy after googling "super hero cape sewing pattern," I spent yesterday making two capes. Here is DH modeling them; the blue one is for older nephew, and the red one is for younger nephew. I chose sparkly, swirly fabric, suitable for a super hero. ;-)

I plan to get some stitching time in today. I'm working on February of "Crabby All Year." And DH and I plan to watch the Pro Bowl tonight, at least we will if the game doesn't get too one-sided like it always seems to do.

LoneStar

Spaced out

2012-01-26T12:03:00.000-06:00

Time got away from me this week; I can't believe it's already Thursday.

I finished my little ornament this weekend and started on the February square of "Crabby All Year." Yeah, I know - it's not February yet, but I was NOT going to go back to stitching on that durn flag. Here's the ornament.

DH and I wasted two hours of our lives recently. We watched the newest Star Trek (2009) movie simply entitled "Star Trek." I was talked into watching it by an acquaintance that assured me it was a "real" Star Trek (ST) movie. Said acquaintance is obviously a Trekkie with no clue. No self-respecting Trekker would consider this a "real" ST movie.

Yeah, the characters had the same names as the ones in Star Trek: The Original Series and Leonard Nimoy even reprised his role as a nearly elderly Spock, but it wasn't a "real" ST movie. It was a space movie. It had awesome special effects. It was lighter and brighter. It had a couple of suspenseful space battles. It had some funny lines. A lot of the actors spoke with great accents. But it wasn't ST. It was almost, but not quite, a parody of Star Trek: The Original Series.

I think a bunch of brainless Hollywood types were sitting around a Starbucks one day and one of them said, "Hey! No one has produced a Star Trek movie lately. We need to film one. Those things make a lot of money." Another one said, "Well, we killed off Kirk and Data, so now what?" A third guy says, "We don't need those guys. We'll get newer and younger actors and do something hinky by changing the time line. Besides, the fans won't notice and won't care; they'll just be happy it's Star Trek." And so the movie was made.

Uh huh. This fan noticed and spent most of the movie pointing out discrepancies (until DH asked me to stop, please!). Changing the time line just didn't do it for me.

I've been a Trekker since the early 70s. (If you don't know the difference between a Trekkie and a Trekker, then you're obviously a Trekkie.) I can still tell you the title of any Star Trek: The Original Series episode within 10 seconds of seeing a 20-30 clip of any part of any episode. I have and have read nearly every ST book ever published. I've seen every movie and watched most of the newer ST television shows. And therein lies the rub. In the ST universe, care has never been taken to insure consistency across the different mediums of television, books, and movies, and this has often been a real pain as a fan.

I'm also a fan of Star Wars (SW). While this universe has been limited to movies and books, great care has been taken to insure consistency in both mediums. (I can't speak for computer games in this genre as I don't play computer games.) But as I have read some SW books that were based on SW computer games, I'd say that care is taken there, too.

So when a character in ST acts out of character or something happens that already did in a different medium with a different outcome, I just roll my eyes and go with it. This never happens in SW thankfully. In spite of it all, I have been and always will be a Trekker.

LoneStar  

That durn flag

2012-01-19T11:42:00.000-06:00

DH and I spent much of the weekend watching football. Only one of the teams we were rooting for won, and we had to endure hearing Phil Simms' comments for the Denver Broncos game. Only three more games to go in this season. I'm always sad when football is over.

During the time that football was not on, DH puttered about on his tractor working with the box blade on our pitiful driveway. While he was puttering, I dutifully and laboriously stitched on "One Nation" - or as I fondly refer to it, that durn flag - a pattern I am stitching because DH likes it. After I finished the January block of "Crabby All Year," (CAY) I decided to spend a week stitching on "One Nation" and then spend a week on a small Christmas ornament before starting the February block of CAY.

I'll not bore you with my progress on "One Nation" as it didn't amount to much visually, but I will post a picture of my WIP, one of eight "Christmas in Texas" ornaments from "Texese" by The Scarlet Thread.

LoneStar

A WIP and a plan

2012-01-13T14:40:00.000-06:00

I joined a "Crabby All Year" SAL and plan to stitch each month during that month. As such, I finished stitching the January square and will now put it aside until February. Here is a picture of it so far with the title and then a close-up of January.

I pulled out "One Nation" to stitch on for a week. If I only stitch on it at the I35 Stitchtogether, then I'll still be stitching on it when I'm 110 at this rate. So it needs some attention and I'll give it a week each month.

After a week of "One Nation," I plan to stitch a Texas Christmas ornament. I have several leaflets by Linda G. Jary of The Scarlet Thread. These are all patterns from the 80s that I acquired from eBay and Amazon over several years.

This pattern is not by Linda Jary. I got it because I recognized a couple of the ornaments that a good friend stitched for me about 20 years ago. I plan to stitch several from this leaflet.

LoneStar

The rest of the quilt squares

2012-01-10T11:34:00.000-06:00

I was in such a hurry yesterday to post pictures of the quilt squares that I forgot to write about my weekend.

On Saturday, I went to the I35 Stitchtogether with DH. He didn't stitch, he went to Cabela's. We had a great group and I stitched three stars on "One Nation." I won the door prize (and must now think of something to bring next month!). It was a good day.

DH and I got home and watched the Saints game. Geaux Saints! And we watched two more Wild Card games on Sunday. All the teams we were rooting for won. I'll root for the Giants when they aren't playing the Cowboys. And as I've disliked the Steelers for a long time - true Cowboys fan that I am - I was very happy to see the Broncos beat them. Who says Tim Tebow can't pass?!!

Here are the last five quilt squares in no particular order. Peggy stitched the Egyptian-themed square, Cindy stitched the friendship square, Jennifer stitched the fall leaves, Marilyn used her embroidery machine to stitch the butterfly and hope square, and Sandra stitched the name tree square. I apologize for the blur on some of the pictures as I did not realize I had a dirty camera lens at the time.

LoneStar

More quilt squares

2012-01-09T10:05:00.000-06:00

Here are five more quilt squares. Sandi adapted and designed the I35 Stitchers square, Lynn did the stiching friends square, Mel stitched the square with the pink flowers and poem, Diane stitched the southwest/kokopelli square, and Dorothy stitched the square with the two cats.

More squares tomorrow!

LoneStar

What I really stitched on in December

2012-01-08T10:57:00.000-06:00

Now that the recipient has received it, I can post a picture of what I've been stitching on lately. One of the gals in our stitching group is dealing with an illness, so of course we stitched her a quilt. Actually, Georgia made the quilt, we cross stitched the quilt squares.

Here is a picture of the finished quilt; DH is holding it up in the last of the waning evening sun.

I'll post a picture of each stitched square over the next several days; there are 12 in all. Here is mine and Gloria's. My pattern is an adaptation of "Quiltin' Lesson" by Diane Graebner Designs on 18 count white Aida with DMC.

LoneStar

Emma and the armadillo

2012-01-04T09:41:00.000-06:00

We nearly sold Emma to the monkey house recently.

Those of you unfamiliar with the terrier breed of dog should know that terriers are independent, single-minded, and obstinate. Then there's the Jack Russell terrier (JRT), a small dog who thinks he is a big dog. JRTs believe they can do anything. And they were specifically bred to hunt underground; they follow their prey down a tunnel or dig down to them. Keep this in mind as I spin out the tale of Emma and the armadillo.

One fine evening in the the near past (last weekend), DH and I were about ready to go to bed when Emma jumped up off her bed, barked, and ran out of the house through her dog door. We soon heard her barking and thumping around under the house (we have a pier and beam foundation) in the crawl space, which is about 18 inches high. We hollered at her to come and she didn't. We hollered more. She ignored us.

By following the sounds of the thumping noises and her barking, we determined that Emma was under the corner of the house beneath the utility room, which is under renovation. DH has part of the flooring up to do some plumbing work, but has the hole covered with plywood. We could hear Emma and her prey directly under the plywood, so we decided to pull up the plywood and grab her. DH pulled up the plywood and it spooked the prey which ran over about five feet and huddled under a plumbing pipe. Emma, of course, followed and was completely out of reach.

She resisted all our calling and cajoling. We were able to see her by using a flashlight to see under the house from the outside, but we could not reach her. We determined that her prey was an armadillo. It was holed up under the plumbing pipe and curled in a ball. It was not moving and neither was Emma, who was barking at it constantly and pawing and nibbling on it. (Don't worry, armadillos have a tough, leathery hide which is resistant to gnawing by JRTs.)

THREE HOURS LATER, after non-stop barking and pawing, at 1:00 a.m. in the morning, Emma finally gave up and came in the house for a drink of water. She was covered in dirt and mud and was filthy. Her humans were not amused. I ended up giving her a bath right then. DH dried her off with a towel, closed her dog door, and put her to bed. We went to bed.

Do you know what happens to your upper lip under your nose if you rub it repeatedly on an armadillo? You rub it raw and give yourself the neon pink upper lip effect (which is healing nicely and will soon be back to normal). Silly dog.

LoneStar

Moving on to 2012

2012-01-03T10:24:00.000-06:00

Happy New Year and all that rot.

DH and I aren't much for making a big deal out of New Year's Eve. We don't celebrate or party. We usually go to bed before midnight ever arrives. This year, we were awake. Not because we wanted to be, but because one of our nearer neighbors had their grandkids over and they shot off fireworks. We had gone to bed and could see them from our bedroom window, and we could certainly hear the booms, so we made the best of it and enjoyed watching the fireworks from our bed. Once they were finished, we went to sleep.

We had a nice long weekend and spent most of it puttering and piddling on those honey-do projects that seem to pile up forgotten in the wake of bigger DIY projects like "The Great Summer of '11 Kitchen Disaster."

DH played on his tractor a lot doing tractorly things. He crossed several niggling honey-dos off the list. I did the same and managed to start "Crabby All Year." We vegged out on football on Sunday and found the Cowboys disappointing. Oh well. Maybe next year.

And we finally burned the enormous brush pile we inherited when we bought this place three years ago. The pile was around seven feet tall and about 14 feet square. We've had rain lately and the county lifted the Burn Ban, so we fired it off on Saturday. DH spent the day keeping an eye on it until it burned way down.

It is still smoldering and DH probably won't be able to smooth it all out with the tractor until Saturday. Don't worry. DH has the fire area surrounded with a dike of dirt so it can't escape and burn uncontrolled.

Before

During

Burn, baby, burn!

Done but still smoldering.

LoneStar

Last finish of 2011

2011-12-30T09:59:00.000-06:00

After stitching the reindeer ornaments for my nephews, I decided to stitch a little ornament just for me just because I wanted to. This is "Hearts 'n' Stitches" cat from the Cross Stitch and Country Crafts Dec. '00 magazine. I stitched it on 14 count antique brown perforated paper with DMC and Mill Hill beads for the french knots. I hate stitching french knots and generally use beads instead.

LoneStar

The dregs of the old year

2011-12-28T12:02:00.001-06:00

It's the tween week - the week between Christmas and New Year's. No, I'm not making any New Year's resolutions. And no, I'm not making any stitching resolutions either.

Okay, well, maybe I am making a sort of resolution. I've decided to participate in my first ever stitch-a-long (SAL). There's one going on at the 123 Stitch MB (actually, there are several going on over there). On January 1st, I'll start stitching on "Crabby All Year" by Raise the Roof Designs, a four-part series of 12 monthly designs. The goal is to stitch one design a month. I think I can do that. Maybe.

My stitching buddy Gloria stitched this a while back and I really liked it. Let me warn you that the buttons used for these patterns are expensive! I ended up ordering mine off eBay where they were less costly. I thought about leaving the buttons off and stitching something in their place, but after seeing Gloria's completed work, I agree that the buttons are a must; they make the pattern!

It is a large pattern so you will need a fat quarter of fabric. But it is stitched with DMC, so at least the floss won't cost you an arm and a leg like the fabric and buttons will.

I finished my oldest nephew's Christmas ornament this week and here it is. Now I just need to finish-finish this and his brother's ornament and get them in the mail.

DH and I stayed home for Christmas this year. In 24+ years of marriage, we've stayed home only three times. Twice when we lived in Dallas near most of our relatives, and once when we lived in Oklahoma. We had actually started on the trip down to Dallas, but I got deathly ill halfway there and DH took me back home. This year we enjoyed having a long quiet weekend together. We watched a lot of football, read a lot, and ate turkey.

DH finished splitting and stacking all our firewood. He filled the racks and then stacked the extra against one end of our loafing shed. Hopefully this abundance of firewood is not an omen of a really cold winter.

LoneStar

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T12:16:00.000-06:00

John 1:14 - "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (KJV)

Help! I'm stitching and I can't stop!

2011-12-19T11:56:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd better pause and make a blog post lest everyone think I've died and fallen off the face of the earth. I've been stitching like a fiend on several Christmas presents, trying to get them done in time for Christmas. I think I might make it. And no, I can't show them until after Christmas.

DH has spent the last two weekends being a lumber jack. The first weekend he spent with his chainsaw and the tractor. He cut up several downed trees on our property and used the tractor to carry the logs to our wood rack area.

Here he is getting the tractor ready. Notice the chainsaw, etc., in the bucket. Emma had to help and supervise. You'll notice DH is wearing blaze orange accessories. He was in the woods, hunting season is still going strong, and we have neighbors who hunt near our woods.

He was able to cut quite a pile of wood and began splitting it. He spent this past weekend splitting and splitting and splitting, but is still not done yet. All three of our wood racks are filled, and he is stacking the extra wood on one side of our loafing shed. An embarrassment of woodly riches!

Hopefully I'll have some stitching photos to share soon.

LoneStar

Winter is finally here

2011-12-08T16:15:00.000-06:00

Well, winter is finally here. I know this because the temperatures have forced me into pants, long-sleeved shirts, and socks and shoes. Phooey. It was sad when I did laundry on Monday and there were shorts and T-shirts in there from last week.

DH will be cutting wood this weekend as our wood racks are nearly bare. He reserved a log splitter for the next weekend and I will help him stack after he splits it all. I may also get to drive the tractor a lot from the woods to the splitting area so DH can keep on cutting.

It was nice to sleep in this past weekend as DH is done deer hunting for the season as he has bagged his limit. He will still go out and hunt for pigs, but he took last weekend off.

And I've been stitching but I can't show you what I'm stitching on because it's for a friend and she reads my blog.

I'll leave you with a picture of Emma warming her butt in front of the wood stove.

LoneStar

Sneaking up on December

2011-11-27T09:46:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. DH and I did. We had a brisket for Thanksgiving instead of turkey this year and enjoyed it very much.

DH was able to hunt a lot and (finally!) got his spike buck. Our freezer is well-stocked with venison for the year. All that's left is to get a wild pig or two.

DH was able to get most of the trim molding installed in the kitchen. We used the old trim molding as we didn't want to pay for new molding and I didn't want to paint it anyway. Here are before, during, and after pictures:

We've watched a lot of football. The Dallas Cowboys won, but my Aggies lost to t.u. and DH's Red Raiders lost to the Baylor Bears. DH found time to clean up his shop and I've been stitching and reading. And we think it is finally time to pull the A/C units out of the windows as the weather is finally somewhat "fall-like."

LoneStar

A Christmas ornament finish

2011-11-22T09:51:00.000-06:00

I finished stitching a Christmas ornament for my younger nephew. He will be receiving the "Candycane Reindeer" from the JCS 2010 Ornament issue, page 93. It is stitched on a piece of 28 count linen of unknown color with DMC and Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Braid for the nose.

LoneStar

Floored

2011-11-21T11:43:00.000-06:00

DH got the vinyl floor installed in the kitchen this weekend, and he even started on some of the trim molding - trim molding is all we have left to do before we're completely finished with this project. Yippee!

DH started by making a template out of paper that fit the kitchen. Then he laid the template on the sheet of vinyl with Emma's help.

Then he cut it out with Emma's supervision.

Next, he troweled glue on the floor. He folded the vinyl in half and glued down one side, then glued down the other.

Here is the end result!

I've been stitching on Christmas ornaments for my nephews. And if the pattern arrives in the mail today, I'll start stitching on a present for a friend that I need to get done before Christmas arrives, too.

LoneStar

Hoping again

2011-11-19T11:36:00.001-06:00

DH is hoping to finish installing the kitchen floor this weekend. If it goes without a hitch, we'll be able to install all the trim molding and call the project finished. Then DH can go back to the project he was working on when this one interrupted it.

He is laying an "upper" subfloor of OSB sheets over the subfloor. He will glue down the vinyl flooring to them. We didn't want to glue the vinyl down to our "real" subfloor as it would probably get ruined when we remove the vinyl in the future when we do our "real" kitchen remodel instead of this "fix it enough to use it well until we do it for real" kitchen remodel.

And then there's the fact that we calculated the height of the lower cabinets based on the height of the plank flooring we were going to install. If we glued down the vinyl without adding the OSB sheets, my cabinets would be too tall for me. Another plus is if this cheap vinyl gets really dinged before our "real" remodel, then it will be easy to glue a new sheet over it.

Hopefully the installation will go well. Hopefully.

LoneStar

Oh yeah, I really DO have pink in my kitchen!

2011-11-18T08:21:00.003-06:00

When DH and I first got married, we lived in Dallas for several years and developed the habit of visiting First Monday Trade Days in Canton, TX every month. We pretty much decorated our house with the treasures we found there.

I was seeking to replace my kitchen canisters at that time. We had received a set as a wedding present, but I found the canisters too small to hold baking supplies well. I wanted large enough canisters to hold an entire five-pound bag of sugar, flour, and corn meal.

On one Canton trip, we saw a reproduction Planters peanut jar and bought it. Over the next several months, we acquired three more jars of different designs. As I was able to find two of the jars in only pink, that's the color I ended up getting. The other jars came in both blue and pink (and a really hideous red/yellow swirl), so I got them in blue (of course).

They have served us well over the years and hold a lot. And no, Gloria, you can't have them! ;-)

LoneStar

Hate canvas, er...waste canvas

2011-11-17T11:20:00.000-06:00

Way back when (like last year after Christmas), my DBro and DSisIL asked me to stitch my nephews' names on their Christmas stockings. I said I'd be happy to, of course.

They sent the stockings to me this past January. I just got around to stitching the names this past weekend. No, I'm not usually such a bad procrastinator, but I just hate stitching on waste canvas. I especially hate stitching on waste canvas when I have to have my hands up inside of something while actually stitching. I had to cram my hands up inside the stocking cuff to get this done. Thank goodness DBro and DSisIL requested that I stitch the shortened version of each boy's name instead of their full names!

To motivate myself, I used silk floss. I think they came out okay and they will go in the mail tomorrow.

LoneStar

Hopeless

2011-11-13T11:55:00.000-06:00

Well, DH hoped that the floor would install quickly and easily. No such luck. He spent the morning getting the underlayment put down.

Then he started installing it.

Emma supervised.

The further along he got, the more frustrated he got with the cheap flooring. After he had run through his repertoire of handy swear words several times, we stopped and discussed continuing or not. We ended up taking the remaining boxes of flooring back to Lowe's and going with cheap vinyl flooring instead.

And DH is starting over. Photos to follow. We're "hoping" it goes well.

LoneStar

The last cabinet

2011-11-12T09:00:00.000-06:00

DH is still hunting for that last deer (and a wild pig or two or three would be nice). No luck last weekend and no luck so far this weekend, but the weekend is still young.

DH finally got the last kitchen cabinet remade/rebuilt and installed, and I spent the week repainting it. DH took a badly made three-drawer cabinet and made it into a four-drawer cabinet, so the drawers are strangely sized and the knobs don't match. It looks kind of weird stuck off in the corner of the kitchen, but I wasn't about to give up usable kitchen storage space so there it sits. Weird is good.

DH is planning to install the kitchen flooring today. He is "hopeful" that it will not take too long. We'll see. I'll take pictures of the progress and post them when he's done. After the floor, all we have left to do is install all the molding.

LoneStar

This, that, drivel, and tractors

2011-11-03T09:17:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. Thanks to everyone who inquired and expressed concern that I had. ;-)   We've just been busy. My days have been such that at the end of them I've muttered to myself, "Poop. Time got away again and I didn't get a blog post up." Oh well.

I haven't stitched in over a week, and this weekend isn't looking good. I don't know when I'll get "Bone Cheeks" done as I fear my Christmas stitching needs to take priority soon. And that means that I'll have to decide what I'm stitching for my nephews and then get it stitched. I also have the company Christmas party ornament to stitch, but I may wimp out and use an ornament that I stitched a while ago, but haven't finished yet.

My Dallas Cowboys are causing me grief - as in "Good grief! What are y'all doing?!" I may need to pull out that paper bag for my head that I used last year and wear it again.

Have you eaten any of those Honey Crisp apples that have appeared in the stores lately? I am hooked on them. Our HEB either has regularly sized ones, or mutant ones. The mutant sized ones are huge! And yeah, I can eat a huge one in one sitting. Emma likes apples, but I don't share my Honey Crisp apples with her.

The soil in my part of Texas is clay-ey. That means that the ground doesn't "perk." It also means that by law, we have to use an expensive to maintain aerobic septic system instead of the usual anaerobic system. Our system has three tanks, an aeration pump, and two discharge sprinkler heads. It must be inspected and maintained yearly by law. We have a company on contract that does this for us.

Last week, the usual guy, Doug, was out for the inspection with a new guy. The new guy was ogling the old tractor that we inherited with our house and land. One of our neighbors thinks that it has been bogged down and sitting in our yard for about 15-20 years. We've tried in vain to find someone to sell it to or even give it to ever since we've lived here. When we lived in Kansas, our town used to have an antique tractor pull every Fourth of July - we learned all about old tractors and the people that love them. We figured SOMEONE out there would want this old tractor. Well, last week, we finally found him.

When I told the new guy that he could have the tractor if he would dig it out and haul it off, he was rendered speechless. When he found his voice, he asked, "Really? You'd just give it to me?!" Yep. Haul it off and get it out of the yard, please. So he did! When he hauled it off on Saturday, he was like a little kid with a new toy.

DH got a seven-point buck with his bow last weekend - three deer down and one to go. Rifle season opens this weekend, so DH is hoping to get his spike buck. Four deer is his limit by law and four deer will fill our freezer nicely. We've already enjoyed venison steaks from the two doe he got in October. And we're still hoping to get a few pigs. DH has seen and heard pigs, but he hasn't been able to shoot one. Now that rifle season is open, he should be able to get a few.

And the kitchen is nearly done. I know, I've been saying that for weeks. I was hoping for and end-of-October finish, but now I'm hoping to get it finished before the Thanksgiving weekend.

The weather here is turning. We've had nights in 40s - cold enough to fire up the wood stove. And I had to wear shoes last week one day. I hate shoes. I put on a long-sleeved shirt, but kept to the shorts. I cling to shorts, T-shirt, and bare feet as long as possible. How's the weather in your neck of the woods?

LoneStar

A wet weekend

2011-10-10T10:25:00.000-05:00

Hunting season (bow hunting) started last weekend. After bow hunting season comes rifle season (early November) which lasts until January. This means that until he bags his limit (two doe, one spike buck, one antlered buck), DH is out hunting every morning and evening of the weekend. While I am thankful that I have a DH whose hobby can provide food for us, said hobby seriously cuts into our home remodeling time. ;-) Oh well.

DH harvested two doe on Saturday morning and he worked quickly to get both doe field dressed so that he could take them into town to the meat processor before they closed at noon. Just when I was down to the last pound of venison from last year, our freezer will get replenished! (Two deer down, two to go.)

On Sunday, we got rain! It rained about 1.5" at our house. In this drought, we'll take all we can get!

I've got about 90% of our kitchen stuff back in its proper place in our kitchen. DH got the last drawer installed. Before we can declare the kitchen "done," he has to rebuild a cabinet (which I may have to paint or polyurethane) and make drawers for said cabinet, install the trim molding, and lay the new flooring. I am hoping that we get all this done by the end of October as we'll need to cut and stack firewood in November.

And I'm posting my progress on "Bone Cheeks" which isn't very much because all that I stitched on Saturday morning while DH was hunting and field dressing, I had to frog. It was a very extended frog visit and not at all appreciated.

Oh, and my Aggies beat DH's Red Raiders on Saturday. Gig 'em!

LoneStar

Woo Pig misery

2011-10-04T14:01:00.000-05:00

What a weekend for football. DH's Texas Tech Red Raiders did well and beat Kansas. My Aggies lost to the Woo Pigs (Arkansas).

And the Cowboys...oh my! I think I've got that paper bag for my head left over from last year here somewhere...

DH's hunting weekend was a bust which made him grumpy. His mood did not improve when he learned that one of the guys at work got an eight-point buck on Saturday. But there are many weekends left to hunt, so we'll fill up our freezer eventually, and I'll have a happy hunter around the house. Grumpy ones are a bummer.

DH is still doing battle with the raccoons. One gnawed through the top cover of his deer corn feeder, so he had to do a "weirdly" repair. Then he caught another raccoon digging corn out of the feeder from the bottom. That raccoon won't ever do that again. Next year, DH will get an all-metal feeder with a better varmint cover. At least we haven't had them waking us up at night trying to get in the trash lately. Darn varmints.

DH got all the doors put on the kitchen cabinets and we are in business! I only have one drawer left to polyurethane as DH just made it on Sunday afternoon. DH still has another small cabinet to rebuild and make a drawer for, and we still have trim molding to install and the floor to put down. But at least the kitchen is much more usable and stuff is making its way back into the kitchen from the den. YAY!

We ended up buying an eight-foot counter top to finish out our long counter top. DH was going to use some solid maple counter top that he had in his shop, but it would have taken him about a day to get it to work. Right now, his time is more valuable than that. And we also got to thinking - once we get done with the kitchen, DH will get back to working on the utility room remodel. One of the things I want to do is unstack my washer and dryer and put a counter top over them. So we bought enough counter top to do this and to finish up the kitchen; we cut two feet off it and will have plenty left over for the utility room.

I think I put maybe eight stitches in "Bone Cheeks" this weekend. Hopefully I'll have some time to work on it this week. Mostly I'm working on getting all the kitchen stuff back in the kitchen.

LoneStar

'Twas the night before...

2011-10-01T16:54:00.000-05:00

...the start of bowhunting season, and my kitchen was piled with hunting paraphernalia. DH got up this morning at the ridiculous hour of 5:00 a.m. and went out to his tree stand to hunt. He puts all his stuff in the kitchen so he can get dressed without waking me up too much. He saw six deer, but couldn't get a shot. He is out right now on an evening hunt. I hope he gets a deer as I'm down to four pounds of venison left in the freezer from last year.

I've been a polyurethaning machine this week and have finally finished as I got the last coat on the cabinet doors this afternoon. After DH gets the doors hung back on the cabinets tomorrow, I can start moving my kitchen stuff out of the den and back into the kitchen where it belongs.

I haven't stitched much this week. Emma got a haircut. It wore her out so much that she felt compelled to take her ball to bed for a nap.

LoneStar 

WIP "Bone Cheeks"

2011-09-27T10:01:00.000-05:00

We're really enjoying having our kitchen sink back. And the bathroom sink is once again just a bathroom sink. ;-) DH got the cabinet doors fit to the cabinets. Now I will polyurethane both the cabinets and the door fronts before we put everything back in the cabinets.

Sometime in the past, a previous owner of our house stripped most of the paint off the lower cabinets and put some brown stain on them. They left them that way with no protective coating of polyurethane or lacquer. Which means they had a lot of water and food stains on them. I am going to scrub clean both the doors and the drawers within an inch of their lives and then polyurethane them. I've already done the drawers and now must do the doors. They still look pretty ratty but at least they will be easier to keep clean. Here is a picture where you can see the polyurethaned drawers next to the unpolyurethaned doors.

And here is where I am on "Bone Cheeks."

LoneStar

Happy dancin'

2011-09-25T18:38:00.000-05:00

No, I didn't finish "Bone Cheeks." But DH did get the sink installed and the water hooked back up - it works! WE HAVE OUR KITCHEN SINK BACK!

Determining the placement.

Cutting the hole in the countertop.

DONE! (Do ya see the running water?!)

LoneStar

Are we sinked yet?

2011-09-21T11:39:00.000-05:00

No. We are still sinkless in the kitchen, but we're getting close!

DH got the face frames done on the cabinets. He got the countertop pieces joined together after a trip to Lowe's to buy special glue as the glue that came with the joinery kit set up about 3.2 seconds after we mixed it. Here's a progress picture:

You'll notice that the long countertop is not long enough. We actually needed a 12-foot countertop, but Lowe's and Home Depot don't sell them that long; 10 feet is their in-stock maximum. Well, they do sell 12-footers if you want to special order one and wait three weeks for it at an exorbitant price. We decided that we didn't want to do that. We have a old piece of solid maple countertop in DH's shop. So DH will use that to extend the long countertop to its proper length. Creative scrounging and repurposing - it works for us.

Here is a picture of the inside of one of the cabinets. Those vertical slots will hold my cookie sheets and shallow pans neatly upright instead of one big crazily leaning heap. Cool, eh? DH will fit and mount the cabinet doors after we get the sink installed.

DH was using the nail gun a lot on the face frames. Emma hates the nail gun. At one point, DH was leaning way over nailing a small piece and Emma came over and nibbled on his nose after barking at him a few times! She also pawed at the nail gun and growled at it a lot. Silly dog.

Hey! Stop using that infernal contraption!

We might have gotten farther along on the kitchen if we hadn't stopped to watch the Dallas Cowboys game on Sunday afternoon. But you gotta do what you gotta do. And it was a great game! Go Cowboys!!

"Bone Cheeks" is turning out to be a really fun stitch. I'll post a picture of my progress this weekend sometime.

LoneStar 

"Liberty Lane" finished!

2011-09-17T17:06:00.000-05:00

I put the last stitch in "Liberty Lane" by Country Cottage Needleworks this afternoon. I stitched it on 28 count tea-dyed Monaco with DMC.

I used RitaD's color conversions: 420 to 420, 640 to 3031, 937 to 3051, 3023 to 611, 3031 to 3371, 3347 to 3052, B5200 to 3865, GAST Liberty to 3750, GAST Rhubarb to 3777.

LoneStar

Let's talk stitching

2011-09-14T09:18:00.000-05:00

I recently received the Just Cross Stitch 2011 Special Christmas Issue, otherwise known as "The Ornament Issue," in the mail. Every year I look forward to getting this issue and have stitched many an ornament from its pages. This year, I was a bit disappointed. There were no ornaments that jumped off the page screaming, "Stitch me!" In fact, I had to go through the magazine several times before I found even one thing I'd consider stitching, mainly because it looks fun to finish ("Peace on Earth" purse ornament by The Victoria Sampler on page 13-14).

Oh, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of beautiful and wondrous ornaments in the issue, just not anything I'd stitch. Do you ever do that? You see a pattern and say, "Hey! I like that! But I'd honestly never stitch it." I do that a lot. It saves me from being buried in stash. ;-)

In the same stash package, I received a quirky pattern that recently caught my attention, "Bone Cheeks" by Prairie Moon.

It looks fun and colorful, and it appeals to my love of skeletons. I've always been fascinated by skeletons, even as a kid, far beyond their usual Halloween appearance. I never wanted to be a skeleton on Halloween, I just wanted to learn all about them. I guess I've always loved learning about anatomy, even as a kid.

I remember a grade school science lesson where we each laid on a big piece of paper and a classmate drew an outline around our body. Then we drew a skeleton inside the body outline and had to label the bones correctly. I was totally engrossed in this project and my finished product graced the door of my bedroom for months afterward.

So I'll be stitching "Bone Cheeks" after I finish "Liberty Lane." I don't have the fabric or fibers in my stash, so I'll be using what I have. The model was stitched with Gloriana silks, which I like, but I don't have all the colors called for and don't want to spend the bucks. Besides, the designers included a DMC conversion so I'll take advantage of their thoughtfulness.

LoneStar

Drawer drama

2011-09-12T11:18:00.000-05:00

We watched the Cowboys snatch defeat from the jaws of victory last night. Bummer season opener.

DH got a lot done on the cabinets this weekend, but we are still without a kitchen sink. It took a lot of time for him to get all the old drawers fit into the new cabinet. The old drawer slides are very old and poorly made and DH had quite the time with them. Of course, an unexpected trip into town to Lowe's didn't help either. (A trip to Lowe's for us takes at least an hour and 15 minutes.) Next weekend, DH will finish the face frames and hopefully get the countertop installed along with the sink.

As of Sunday afternoon.

Emma made herself comfortable while she supervised.

LoneStar

2011-09-11T11:04:00.000-05:00

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

LoneStar

WIP "Liberty Lane"

2011-09-07T13:53:00.000-05:00

Here is my "Liberty Lane" WIP by Country Cottage Needleworks. I'm stitching it on tea-dyed Monaco with DMC. I'm using different colors than what the pattern calls for. RitaD came up with the color combination I am using. In fact, I wasn't interested in this pattern at all until I saw hers with the - in my opinion - better colors. I'll post Rita's color changes when I finish stitching it. And no, she won't mind as she's been very gracious in sharing them.

LoneStar

Close but no sink

2011-09-06T09:32:00.000-05:00

DH got a lot done on the cabinets, but not enough to get the kitchen sink put in. So we're still washing dishes in the bathroom sink. Oh well.

These cabinets will certainly look eclectic. DH is scrounging in his shop for usable wood. Paint would cover a multitude of blemishes, but we're not painting it. Hey! Maybe we can start a new interior decorating trend - we can call it the "Scrounged in the Shop" look!

Adding the partitions.

Working on the face frame.

As of Monday night.

DH was sitting down on the floor checking some measurements when Emma decided to make herself at home in his lap.

I got some stitching time in on "Liberty Lane." This project was mostly a UFO because it had bored me so deeply that I thought I'd never finish it. I dislike stitching the same thing over again and this pattern has a lot of repeats. But after ignoring it for nine months, I like it again and will finish it. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

And we seem to be starting 'coon wars. DH chased a family of raccoons out of his deer corn feeder yesterday. This morning at about 4:00 a.m., DH chased another raccoon off the porch where it was trying to get into the garbage. We keep our garbage in a big trashcan with a lid, but the raccoon was still trying to get into it. Emma slept through the garbage can incident. Some watchdog, eh?

LoneStar

Cabinet bottoms

2011-09-04T12:05:00.000-05:00

Our goal for this long Labor Day weekend is to get the bottom kitchen cabinets made and hopefully get our kitchen sink installed so we can stop washing dishes in the bathroom sink.

Yesterday, DH was able to get the cabinet base made with help from Emma. Because we don't want to waste time painting these cabinets, DH covered the floor of the cabinets by gluing down some of our leftover vinyl flooring. We want to get the cabinets made quickly so we can get all the kitchen stuff out of the den and back into the kitchen where it belongs.

These will be eclectic but usable cabinets. No painting. I will polyurethane the face frame and two ends, but that will be it. And we're reusing the old doors and drawers and they won't win any beauty contests anyway.

"Must protect male human from annoying nail gun!"

Base being built with supervision.

Adding plywood floor to base.

"I think there's an air bubble right there."

Cabinet base with vinyl flooring glued down.

LoneStar

Painting walls makes the old cabinets uglier

2011-09-01T08:00:00.034-05:00

My kitchen was previously painted a nice shade of Aggie maroon. I don't have a problem at all with Aggie maroon, I just don't want that color on my kitchen walls. I like white walls. Everything goes with white.

The old cabinets were/are an ugly shade of beige. Did I mention that they are painted with flat wall paint? Yeah. They don't stay clean and get dirty real easily. If you paint your walls white, it makes your ugly old beige cabinets beige-er and uglier.

Before priming and ugly.

After priming and uglier.

LoneStar

Are we done yet?!

2011-08-31T13:13:00.000-05:00

This summer's heat is really wearing on me. I'm all done with summer. Heck, I'd settle for temperatures in the 90s instead of these constant 100+ degree F. days. And rain would be nice, too.

DH was fighting his allergies this weekend, so he didn't get as much done as he wanted to. Still, he was able to get the sheetrock ready for me to paint.

All the stuff that was in our kitchen is currently piled in our den, including some cabinets. DH managed to mount two of them back on the wall in their proper place - YAY! But I've still got tons of stuff stacked around the den. But two cabinets is progress!


Piles of cabinetry and other stuff.

Two cabinets gone.

More piles of stuff & Inspector Emma.

DH mounting the two cabinets.

LoneStar

A Halloween finish

2011-08-23T10:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I finished a Halloween ornament out of the recent Just Cross Stitch magazine (Sept./Oct. 2011), the Pirate Sock Monkey on page 20 by Raise the Roof Designs. I stitched him on 28 count Lime Green hand-dyed Zweigart linen with DMC and Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Braid for his gold earring. I changed a few of the colors slightly to better go with the green fabric.

If you've seen the picture of the original ornament in the magazine, you'll notice that the designers stitched the monkey on pink fabric. You'll notice that I did not. C'mon, y'all didn't really think I'd stitch something on pink, did you?!

As I'm waiting on some instructions as to how my DSisIL wants me to stitch my nephews' names on the cuffs of their Christmas stockings, I pulled out a WIP to work on for a bit - "Liberty Lane."

LoneStar

Rocking along

2011-08-22T11:19:00.000-05:00

My current WIP "Moonlit Kitties" met an untimely demise last Wednesday. As you'll recall, I was stitching it on the perforated paper included in the kit. Perforated paper is pretty tough stuff. Usually.

While stitching on it and with it in my hand, I got up from my stitching chair to go find my ringing cell phone. In my haste, I dropped the paper. While still moving, I grabbed the edge of the paper to pick it up off the floor. Unfortunately, I lost my balance a bit and my foot landed on the side of the paper I was not grabbing just as I pulled. The paper ripped completely in two, right through all my stitching. DOH!

Oh well. I really wasn't liking stitching on the perforated paper, mainly because of its size; I was having difficulty reaching the middle of the paper easily when stitching. I would have kept on working on it because I like the design; I just wasn't liking the paper so much. I still want to stitch this, but I think I'll look for some dark blue hand-dyed FABRIC to stitch it on when I do.

So I decided to stitch up one of the Halloween ornaments from the recent issue of Just Cross Stitch instead of mourning the demise of "Moonlit Kitties." I should finish it tonight and I'll post a picture tomorrow.

DH worked hard this weekend and has the kitchen nearly ready for me to start painting. He just has a few places on the tape and bedding to smooth and touch up, perfectionist that he is. Emma supervised.

He replaced the old trim around the outside of the new window for now. You may have wondered what kind of siding we seem to have. As our house is an old hunting cabin that was built in stages with repurposed materials, the siding is roofing shingles - "poor man's siding." As we renovate, we'll eventually replace all those green shingles with Hardi-plank siding and yellow paint. The bottom picture shows what it will look like. This is the newest part of the house tied into the old part. Yeah, that old window on the left looks like it is crammed up against the new part of the house. It will be replaced at some point with a new and smaller window and it won't look so jammed then.

LoneStar

Our kitchen progress

2011-08-16T08:59:00.000-05:00

DH worked like a dog this weekend. Actually, I think he worked harder than a dog as our dog rarely works; she naps a lot. DH would have gotten all of his "to do" list done if he hadn't have to help the satellite installation guy (but I'm glad he did).
~~- replace the kitchen window with a new more energy efficient one.~~
- rewire all the plugs under the kitchen cabinets so we can plug in appliances.
- insulate the walls with fiberglass batting.
- install new sheetrock ~~where it~~ was torn out. He only got this 2/3's done.
- tape and bed the new sheetrock. He can't do this until all the sheetrock is hung.

And you would not believe how much cooler our house is with the kitchen insulated and mostly sheetrocked! Maybe now I won't spend my afternoons and evenings sweating. Here's a picture of where we are:

I haven't stitched all weekend. But I will this evening and I'll post a picture of progress later this week. Emma says, "Hi!"

LoneStar

Windows and speed

2011-08-13T11:59:00.000-05:00

DH took out the old kitchen window and replaced it with the new one. He had to reframe it and then foam it into place. It took him most of the day because he was interrupted. More on that in a moment.

Old window from the outside.

Old window gone!

New window set and foamed in place.

New window from the inside.

We live out in the boonies, out where you can't get a fast internet connection. No DSL, no broadband, and until recently, no satellite service. Well, there is a satellite service, but it wasn't taking on new customers.

I originally had landline service out here, but then switched to an AT&T air card. It was marginally faster than the landline, even though we have an AT&T cell tower less than 1000 feet from our house. AT&T upgraded the tower from 1G to 2G service in March and the internet connection speed got even slower and I never had a full antenna showing on the air card window. Despite repeated calls to AT&T, the problem was never fixed. AT&T kept saying "our computer shows the tower is functioning properly." They said the problem must be with our air card. Then why are we having the same connection problems with our Kindle, eh? We are not fond of AT&T.

DH kept calling around and e-mailing providers, hoping that a provider had upgraded and could serve our area. He lucked out a couple of weeks ago. The provider that wasn't accepting new customers started accepting them again. So we signed up and the installer was out yesterday morning to get us hooked up. DH had to stop and climb around in the attic with the installer to help him find the right wall to run the cable down.

But we are now hooked up and running. While I'm not connected at a blazing speed, I can at least get a page with lots of pictures to download in less than a minute. With the air card, I could start a picture-laden page loading and then go off and wash a sink full of dishes, fold a load of laundry, and cross stitch for half an hour before the page finished loading, if it finished at all. I'm a happy "surfer."

LoneStar

Keeping the summer heat at bay

2011-08-12T08:17:00.000-05:00

I live in a part of the USA that is currently baking in the unusually high summer heat. In my part of Texas, we're also under a really bad drought, a drought so bad that it rivals and may surpass the drought of 1918.

Back in the early spring when DH started on the utility room renovations, the main goal was to install central heat and air conditioning in our house. We didn't get it installed before summer got here, so we put our two window unit air conditioners back in - one in the bedroom and the big one in the den. The poor things have been working like crazy to keep us cool.

With all the gutting in the kitchen, and the fact that that side of the house gets afternoon sun, the air conditioners are losing the battle. By the mid-afternoon, I am sweating like the proverbial pig. And, as all of Texas is baking and there are high demands on the power grids in the state, we are all being asked to conserve energy. So DH and I are resisting the urge to crank the air conditioners down to arctic levels and we're sweating a lot. Oh well. To everything there is a season, and it won't be hot forever.

If everything goes as planned, DH should be able to get a lot done on the kitchen that will help seal out the heat. He is taking today off from work and hopes to get the following items crossed off his "to do" list this weekend:
- replace the kitchen window with a new more energy efficient one.
- rewire all the plugs under the kitchen cabinets so we can plug in appliances.
- insulate the walls with fiberglass batting.
- install new sheetrock where it was torn out.
- tape and bed the new sheetrock.

We'll see how it all goes and I'll post pictures of the progress.

Here's a picture of the kitchen floor with the OSB subfloor after DH got it all done. We'll not put the "final and real pretty" floor down until we get everything else done. The "real" floor is currently in several boxes on the floor behind the couch in the den.

LoneStar

The butterfly in my kitchen window

2011-08-11T10:06:00.000-05:00

Many years ago, my Grandma took a craft class at the local senior center. She made several stained glass ornaments, one of which was a butterfly that she gave to me. I think I was either just finishing up college or out on my own. I hung the butterfly on my kitchen window to better catch the light through it.

It has become a tradition that Grandma's butterfly always hangs on the kitchen window and it has in every house we've rented or owned in our 23+ years of marriage. I had to rescue it from the window with all the recent kitchen gutting, but it will soon be hanging in its rightful place on the new kitchen window.

LoneStar

We're getting there

2011-08-08T16:28:00.000-05:00

DH spent part of the weekend at a continuing education workshop, so he didn't get as much done as he wanted to in the kitchen. He was able to lay the tar paper over the subfloor and then install the engineered OSB sheets. The actual flooring will go on top of this, but we won't install it until after we get the walls and cabinets put back in.

Laying tar paper with Emma's help.

First OSB sheet down.

Continuing along.

Nearly done.

LoneStar

My stitching mojo was dying of boredom: a new WIP

2011-08-05T10:49:00.000-05:00

I was about half finished with "One Nation" when, due to boredom with the project, I noticed that my stitching mojo had died; I hadn't stitched in over a week and I didn't want to stitch! So I chucked "One Nation" in a drawer and started "Moonlit Kitties," a Mill Hill beaded kit. I was originally drawn to this design because of the bright colors and cute kitties.

I've never stitched one of these before and find it interesting. This is a very complete kit and it has plenty of supplies. It came with everything including a floss and a beading needle. I purchased the frame for it also as DH probably won't have time to make one in the near future.

I don't mind stitching on the perforated paper, except when stitching on the far right of it; my hands aren't large and I end up turning the paper 90 degrees to reach that side. Here's a picture of my progress. It didn't photograph well, maybe because the perforated paper is sitting on a white background? The paper is a much darker color - nearly a navy blue.

LoneStar

Plumbing ready and subfloor done

2011-08-04T08:00:00.058-05:00

DH got the plumbing for the change in the kitchen sink position all ready and then finished replacing the subfloor. Next, he will lay a second subfloor made of engineered OSB - 4' x 8' sheets especially designed for use as a subfloor. Later, after we get all the cabinetry made, we'll install the actual flooring material.

We wanted something that wasn't too expensive, but that would last 5-10 years which is when we plan to really redo the kitchen. We previously had down very cheap linoleum flooring (38 cents a square foot) that got dented, dinged, and torn easily. So we bought some engineered vinyl plank flooring (67 cents a square foot) from Lowe's that clicks together. We will glue the seams also as - according to the manufacturer - this will waterproof it for kitchen use.

After we get the cabinets made, I can move all my stuff back into the kitchen that is now piled haphazardly around the den in precarious stacks. I won't have to wash dishes in the bathtub as I'll have a kitchen sink with running water again. We can move the stove back into the kitchen and use it, and I won't have to cook on hotplates and I'll be able to use my oven again. And then we'll be done in the kitchen and can go back to working on the DIY project that the leak-under-the-kitchen-sink-fiasco interrupted.

LoneStar

For Gloria - Inspector Emma is on the job!

2011-08-03T08:00:00.002-05:00

"Yep. There's a hole here!"

"Must taste male human while checking out the cabinet!"

"Yep. There's mold and rot under here."

Dog tired.

And no, I haven't stitched a lick since we discovered the leak. Maybe I will soon. Maybe not.

LoneStar

While we're at it...

2011-08-02T08:00:00.033-05:00

As I've previously mentioned, the kitchen/utility room of our house was originally a porch. As such, it was not attached well to the main house. DH wanted to rectify that since the kitchen was already in shambles. To do that, he needed to access the wall studs, so he tore out a ratty upper cabinet and a lot more sheetrock.

See the light at the top of the following picture? Yeah. That's daylight. There is nothing holding the kitchen wall and the den wall together. Scary, eh? DH spent a morning fixing that and making sure both parts of our house are firmly attached. He used a lot of lumber and lots of really long screws.

We figured as long as the wall was open, we'd go ahead and replace the old drafty window. It is single pane and the top "glass" is actually plastic sheeting. And we also decided to move the sink back to its original place under the window instead of under upper cabinets. Here's how the area looked before DH ripped it out - don't you think this window needs (and had) a sink under it?

And I can get rid of my fancy porcelain Kohler extra-deep double sink that is the size of Iowa and stains if you look at it. We'll be giving it to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. We'll replace it with a large non-double non-deep stainless steel sink.

DH will be able to insulate the parts of the walls that are open - notice how there is nothing in there now? Yeah. Cold in the winter and hot in the summer.

To be continued...

LoneStar 

Concrete counter tops are finally gone!

2011-08-01T08:00:00.050-05:00

Our house had well-done concrete counter tops in the kitchen. They were a nice Aggie maroon color that matched the paint job in the kitchen. I didn't like them because they were a little on the high side and working on them was a pain as I am vertically challenged to begin with.

With the water damage to the floor extending under the bottom kitchen cabinets, DH ripped the cabinets out. We plan to gut and totally redo our kitchen in the future, so we didn't want to spend a lot of money on the kitchen at this point. DH figured he could use the old cabinet doors and drawers and knock together bottom cabinets with odd pieces of lumber he has in his shop. The only thing we would need to buy was Formica counter tops. So we decided we could live with an eclectic kitchen for several years, as long as it was workable.

DH had to use a chisel and hammer, then sledge hammer to break down the concrete counter tops. It was a lot of work. Going...

Going...

Gone. To be continued...

LoneStar

One fine day...

2011-07-31T15:18:00.000-05:00

...I noticed that there seemed to be a leak under our kitchen sink. DH immediately got to work fixing it and everything went down hill from there.

Back in May, DH installed a water filter under our sink. Apparently, one of the connections loosened and began to leak. Unfortunately, we did not notice it until last week. As DH began spelunking under the sink, he discovered mold and water damage. Uh oh.

So he began tearing out the sink cabinet and then tearing up the kitchen floor to figure out just how much damage we had. We had a lot. So much so that we decided that we needed to replace the entire kitchen floor. Whee.

Our house is an old hunting cabin and is mostly make of wood. The kitchen floor consisted of a pine subfloor made of 2" x 10"s, then two thin layers of plywood, then OSB sheets we put down with cheap white-and-maroon-checked linoleum glued to the OSB. DH ripped it all up and began replacing the floor.

Of course, the water damage extended UNDER the bottom kitchen cabinets, so DH had to tear them out, too. Here is the new subfloor right up to the kitchen cabinets, just before DH pulled them out.

To be continued tomorrow...

LoneStar

WIPping along

2011-07-10T16:11:00.000-05:00

DH was unable to work on any of our DIY projects this weekend. Yesterday, he spent most of the day wrassling with our truck; the horn was broken and it could not pass state inspection with a broken horn. The car repair shop wanted over $600.00 bucks to fix it. DH decided to do it himself. He did it for about thirty bucks, but it took him all day and he says he thinks he ran through his repertoire of swearwords at least five times. ;-)

While working on the truck, DH noticed how hairy it was. (If you have a hairy dog that sheds copiously and rides in your vehicles, you will have hairy vehicles.) So he spent part of today cleaning out the car and the truck. It's too bad that I can't card and spin all the dog hair into yarn; I might get rich!

I finished another page on my ever-boring "One Nation." I'm REALLY looking forward to getting this one done.

LoneStar

I'm here! and someone else's finish

2011-07-08T16:33:00.000-05:00

I've been under the weather for a bit here lately. And DH took a couple of days off around the July 4th weekend which also helped in letting time get away from me.

I have no fun and interesting progress pictures of our current DIY project. DH started in on it and discovered yet another side project that needed doing before he proceeded with the planned project. It involved tearing out more of the inside wall in the utility room and then tearing out part of the floor to work on the plumbing. The toilet that was in the utility room is now on the front porch. (It will someday return to its former place).

DH also had to move and disconnect my washer and dryer for a couple of days. This struck terror in my heart. Being without a washer and dryer is nerve wracking! What if I needed to wash something?!

Emma did find the new hole in the floor interesting and "helped" DH with the plumbing.

A while back, my needleworking buddy, Georgia, went with me to the monthly I35 Stitchtogether. Georgia is 99% a quilter, but has dabbled in cross stitch in the distant past. On our way home from Austin, we stopped off at Ginger's Needlearts and Framing. Georgia caught sight of a nice display of shop models of Lizzie Kate Christmas designs and decided to stitch one. She recently finished it and I think it came out great! (And you should see how neat the back is!)

I'm about four letters away from finishing another page of the ever-boring "One Nation." I haven't stitched a lot lately as I've been reading.

LoneStar

More enabling

2011-06-24T10:20:00.000-05:00

I recently passed the half-century mark and I set out to acquire stash in celebration. The UK Cross Stitcher Magazine (and the stitching world) has been anticipating the release of "The Best of Margaret Sherry" bookazine on June 10th.

Now, usually, cross stitching magazines and books published by Cross Stitcher eventually make their way "over the pond" to the shores of the US of A and can be purchased here in the states. I didn't want to wait. So I bought it from a UK bookstore the day it was released (where it is now unfortunately sold out) and it arrived in 10 days.

I love Margaret Sherry designs; they always make me smile. I'll enjoy stitching from this book.

LoneStar

A most unexpected morning

2011-06-22T11:35:00.000-05:00

We've been in drought conditions here in my part of Texas for many months. We've had rain in the forecast lots of times, but it seems to usually move north of us. When we'd see a weather forecast predicting rain, DH and I would roll our eyes and mutter, "Yeah, right!"

So when we went to bed last night and noticed faint lightning to the north of us, we went to sleep utterly confident that it wouldn't rain. Yeah, right. Thunder, lightning, and rain woke us both up a couple of times and we both thought, "Oh! Rain! How nice!"

It was still raining this morning when we got up and then it hit DH; the car and truck are parked up by the house, instead of past the spot where our 300-foot-long dirt driveway turns into a car-sucking quagmire at one particular point. Uh oh.

DH got in his car and was sure he could make it out. Ten minutes later he was back at the front door; the car had lost traction at the quagmire and was stuck. So while DH removed the mowing brush hog attachment from the tractor, I walked down to the stuck car to steer it out once DH arrived with the tractor to pull it free.

Most American cars and trucks have a handy tow hook under the front of the car. We have a German-made Jetta. It, too, has a tow hook. However, it is hidden behind a fancy grill. DH ended up having to dig out the owner's manual to read up on how to access the tow hook. To remove the grill, he had to dig out a special tool kit stowed in the trunk under the spare tire. He had to try several different tools as they were not well-marked. This took about fifteen minutes. Did I mention it was raining still?

Once DH actually got the tow chain on the tow hook, the job of pulling the car free took about a minute. He was not a happy Jetta owner at that point.

How was your morning?

LoneStar

Another WIP update

2011-06-20T11:29:00.000-05:00

I finished another page on my WIP. It's still boring to stitch. I've gotten 19 stars and ten state names finished. Stripes, letters, and stars...when will it all end?!!

DH was supposed to gut the ceiling in the utility room and replace it with new sheetrock and insulation this weekend. He ended up having a mowing / brush clearing frenzy and spent a lot of time with the chainsaw, weedeater, and tractor. Did I mention it was 101 degrees this weekend with a heat advisory? ;-)

Because of his frenzy, the brush pile is bigger. When we moved here, we "inherited" a brush pile that the former owner had made when he trimmed some trees. He couldn't burn it before we took possession because of a burn ban that year. There was also a burn ban the first year we were owners. Then the next year, it was too wet to burn and DH was culling through it for usable firewood. This year, we are ready to burn it, but we are in drought conditions and there is another burn ban. Someday it may come to life, crawl over to, and eat the house.

LoneStar

Unsuccessfully navigating enabling territory

2011-06-18T10:00:00.025-05:00

I like to read stitching blogs, but to the unsuspecting reader, these blogs are often evil enablers.

As you know, I recently finished "Photobooth Snowmen" by Bent Creek. It was a very fun stitch. Bent Creek has several other patterns in the Photobooth series, but the Snowmen one is my favorite. My second favorite is "Flags & Friends" with Uncle Sam and an eagle but I resisted the urge to buy it.

I resisted that is until Rachel posted a finish of it over on her blog. I couldn't withstand such blatant enabling, so I bought the pattern myself. I bought it from Down Sunshine Lane and although Amy had to order it, it still arrived quickly - a shop with great service a great communication!

I may start stitching on it after I finish "One Nation" unless I am too sick of red, white, and blue at that point. In which case I may find something pink to stitch - just kidding! ;-)

LoneStar

I may be a prude, but I just think it's wrong!

2011-06-17T09:05:00.049-05:00

I was perusing a couple of stitching message boards yesterday. Lots of folks post pictures of their kids, pets, grandkids - you name it and someone will post a picture of it. I don't have a problem with that at all (although I, personally, would not post pictures of my children if I had any).

A proud grandma posted some professionally done portraits of her granddaughter at age six months, eleven months, and twelve months. The little girl was cute. And in all three of the pictures, she wasn't wearing a shirt. Although her "nether regions" weren't showing, the posings and props in the pictures made you believe the kid had no clothes on.

Fer cryin' out loud! I'm not a fan of "nekkid" newborn baby pictures anyway, and this kid was way past newborn age. I think these pictures were wrong on many levels.

For starters, this child is a girl. Girls should not go around topless. Okay, yeah, she doesn't have breasts that show, but she is still a girl! It's not cute. It's indecent.

And while she's "still only a baby," do you really want your child to associate disrobing with getting her picture taken? Kids pick up on more that most adults realize.

And parents should protect their child's modesty when they are too young to do it for themselves. This helps them learn modesty.

Long ago, DH and I were visiting some friends with a very young baby. We were walking around taking in the sights of a local city when the mother noticed the baby needed her diaper changed. The father proposed that we sit down on nearby benches to change the diaper. The mother said, "I'm not changing her diaper there where everyone can see her!" The father said that the baby was too young to know the difference. The mother replied with a steely voice, "I will know the difference!" And she found a secluded place to change her baby.

Call me a prude, but that's the way I see it.

LoneStar

Batteries are a wonderful thing

2011-06-16T09:02:00.000-05:00

A blog reader recently commented about also having a Jack Russell terrier dog named Emma that hates nail guns going off just as much as my Emma does. I wonder if it is something in Jack Russell terrier genes? ;-)

I went by Wal-Mart yesterday and finally got some AA batteries for my camera.

Incidentally, and not related to anything, they are remodeling/upgrading my Wal-Mart and it is a sad state of affairs. All the little sub businesses at the front of the store are now located in plywood "stores" in various parts of the store. Lots of the aisles have been moved and the spaces where they were are roped off. The aisles have not been moved to any logical place. Luckily, they had lots of associates standing around asking to help all the lost-looking shoppers. It took me twice as long to shop there as I couldn't find anything. And as I'm really not too keen on Wal-Mart anyway; this did not endear the Wal-Mart shopping experience to me at all.

You may remember how our latest DIY project looked after DH got it framed: I chronicled it here. DH got sheetrock and one coat of taping/bedding done on the kitchen side of the project.

He was going to sheetrock the utility room side of the project until he realized that he needs to gut the ceiling in there and sheetrock it first before he puts up the wall sheetrock. So he's taking Friday off to spend the weekend doing that.

One of the nice things about this project is that I will be able to unstack my washer/dryer by moving my freezer to a better place; it will go where the old bathtub used to go. I'll be able to put cabinets above my washer/dryer to store stuff properly instead of stacking stuff haphazardly over the washer/dryer and freezer, where the vibrations from the washer occasionally make things fall off the back to vanish behind them.

I'm coming along on "One Nation" although DH may get tired of hearing me moan about how boring it is. And it's hotter than all get out down here in my part of Texas. We've been in triple digits or close to it all week with nary a rain cloud in sight!

LoneStar

Weekend musings

2011-06-13T16:45:00.000-05:00

DH got a lot done this weekend on our current DIY project. I was planning on taking a lot of pictures. I grabbed my camera, but alas! the batteries were dead. And wouldn't you know it, I have every size of battery in my extra battery box but the size I need. So no pictures yet.

I made good progress on the ever-boring "One Nation." I discovered another bad thing about stitching this pattern - ear worms! (An ear worm, so I'm told, is a song that gets stuck in your head and plays over and over and over and over...)

As you know, this pattern has the names of all the states on it. When I was a kid, I took piano lessons for several years. One of the early songs I learned to play had these words:
"What did Delaware to Georgia's party down in Maryland?
She wore a New Jersey that Virginia bought in Washington.
Did you know that Tennessee did see a saw in Arkansas?
For this silly songs of states, Iowa big apology!"

Now every time I sit down to stitch on this darn project, that song starts running through my head! Ack!

LoneStar

What to do, what to do!

2011-06-09T08:30:00.019-05:00

Emma gets a dog biscuit every morning as soon as one of her humans can drag him/herself into the kitchen. Some mornings she grabs it and eats it right on the spot. Other mornings, she carries it around in her mouth and wanders around the house. It's like she can't decide what to do with it.

Sometimes she'll "bury" it on the couch. And although we heavily discourage this, occasionally, she'll sneak out of the house and REALLY bury it. As she always brings is back into the house to eat it after she digs it up, we try to make sure she doesn't do this.

This morning, she carried it around the house for about 20 minutes before finally eating it. Silly dog.

LoneStar

A WIP update

2011-06-08T08:29:00.000-05:00

I finished the first page of eight of "One Nation." The starfield is about a page and a third and I won't count it finished until I get all the stars stitched. Right now, I have eight of them stitched. In order to be orderly and to keep myself on track in my boredom in stitching this, I stitch a row of stripes with whatever letters are on that page and on that stripe, then I stitch a star. DH was excited when I showed him my progress last night. The things we do for love...

LoneStar

A wall WIP

2011-06-05T09:32:00.000-05:00

DH worked on the wall between the kitchen and utility room yesterday. He got it all framed and got the pocket door frame installed. This afternoon, he hopes to get some sheetrock up on the framing. I don't know if you can tell, but the plywood part to the left of the doorway is the pocket for the door. DH made it out of plywood to make it stronger as we want to hang pantry shelves on it for canned goods. The plywood will be covered in sheetrock.

Emma supervised. She hates the nail gun. She will stand right by it poised to attack. When DH fires it off, she growls or barks, and then paws at it. I can't get a picture of her pawing as she is quicker than the camera and all I end up with is a blur.

"One Nation" is coming along. I should be done with a page by tomorrow sometime and will post a picture.

LoneStar

How was your Memorial Day weekend?

2011-06-01T10:25:00.001-05:00

We had a nice long weekend. DH took off Friday and Tuesday, too, so he had five days to work on the house, all in ninety-degree heat! He got all the floor leveling done on the kitchen side of the house and also put insulation back in the attic over the kitchen. (He'd removed the old, tattered, and poorly done insulation back in the spring.) And he only made two trips to Lowe's!

Here is a picture of the work on the front of the house; he had to repour a concrete footing and reset the blocks (the orange thing on the right is the house jack). And next is a picture of it all finished.

DH also spent some time working in his shop. They've been doing some remodeling up at work and took the doors off some cabinets. The doors were going to be thrown away, but DH rescued them and reused them to make doors to the cabinets in his shop. He cut them down to size. The piece he cut off will be the drawer fronts some day. How's that for being green? And the doors are already painted, so at least I won't have to paint them (at least they're not pink). Here they are leaning against the door openings waiting to be hung on hinges.

I got some stitching done on "One Nation" and it is proving to be a boring stitch to me, just as I figured. But I'll keep working on it until it is done; if I put it aside I know I'll never pick it back up. I'll post pictures as I get each page of stitching done (there are eight pages). Right now I have six stars and the names of five states stitched along with various motifs and parts of stripes.

LoneStar

I wanted to hug my washing machine...

2011-05-28T10:59:00.000-05:00

...when DH walked into the house yesterday afternoon looking like this:

He'd spent most of the day under the kitchen laboriously working on leveling the kitchen floor. It wasn't muddy under there; just dirty and hot. However, dirt + sweat = muddy clothes.

I am very thankful to have a DH who can do just about anything that needs doing around the house, and that doesn't mind (too much) doing what he calls grunge work - getting really sweaty and dirty. (And I'm REALLY thankful for my washing machine!)

LoneStar

Emma and WIP update

2011-05-27T10:44:00.000-05:00

Emma is doing much better! (And I tried to post this yesterday, but Blogger is still experiencing "bugs.") Thanks for all your comments and good thoughts!

I'm sure she will "help" DH as he begins work on leveling the foundation of the kitchen later today. Last week when he crawled under the house to assess the work needed, Emma crawled under there with him. Then she left and crawled in from the other side of the house and woofed at him. DH thinks she was telling him that there was an easier way to get under there.

Emma is normally only allowed up on the bed when one of us is on it and only for special circumstances. For instance, she keeps DH company when I'm in the shower at night. She also gets up on the bed to greet me first thing in the morning. And if I take a nap, she naps, too. She doesn't sleep with us at night. She also knows to "ask" before getting up on the bed. She does this by standing by the bed and then giving the nearest human the stink eye. This morning, she wanted up on the bed and I indulged her.

Here is my "One Nation" WIP.

LoneStar

She did it again!

2011-05-25T10:27:00.000-05:00

Last night, right before bedtime, Emma decided tangle with a snake again. The snake, as usual, won. DH always goes outside with her for her last evening potty time - mainly to make sure that she goes and doesn't get distracted like the ADHD poster child she is.

DH said she was barking at something on the other side of the house and wouldn't come when he called her. Then she got quiet and came limping around the house on three legs. She had two puncture wounds on her left front leg, right about where her "wrist" would be if dogs had wrists. She was clearly in a lot of pain and somewhat shocky so we loaded her in the car and drove to the vet.

We have a wonderful group of vets. There are three in the practice and they and all the staff are truly animal lovers. The vet who treated her for her last snake bite was on call. Dr. Lipsey just loves Emma and calls her a "sweet thing." She checked Emma over and gave her a couple of injections for pain/swelling and infection. Emma also got some pills of the same drugs to take over the next few days.

She is not a happy dog right now and is laying around with her sore and swollen leg stretched out. She is at least able to put some weight on it this morning; last night she wouldn't walk on it at all. The snake anti-venin injections she's had definitely helped as she had a lesser reaction to this snake bite than the last one. Now if we could just teach her to leave snakes alone. Yeah, right - she's a terrier!

Emergency after-hour vet visit - $150.00. Emma doing better - priceless!

LoneStar

DIY progress and an ugly truth

2011-05-24T15:49:00.000-05:00

DH has been working hard on our current DIY project. He framed the wall between the utility room and the den and put a layer of sheetrock on the den side. Then he went to install the framing for the pocket door between the utility room and the kitchen and discovered an ugly truth; he has to level the kitchen floor before he can proceed further.

We knew we were gonna have to do this, but we weren't planning on doing it until much later. Oh well. So Saturday morning bright and early, DH dug around the kitchen end of the house (we have a pier and beam foundation) and crawled under to figure out exactly how much work is involved. (He came out covered in mud; I was very thankful for my front-loader washer!) Then he called his buddy at the tool rental company and reserved a house jack for Memorial Day weekend. He's got his weekend all planned. I wonder how many trips to Lowe's he'll make? ;-)

I'm making progress on "One Nation" as I finished stitching the blue star field. I've started stitching the outlines of some of the stripes, have stitched one star, and have stitched the "A" in Alabama. Hopefully, I'll remember to get a picture tomorrow morning when the sun is out.

LoneStar

An new WIP and fighting with my inner tightwad

2011-05-19T09:14:00.000-05:00

I still haven't gotten back to stitching on "Homespun Hollow." I showed DH a pattern that I liked but wasn't sure I'd enjoy stitching. Well, he liked it, especially after I mentioned that I thought it would look good hanging on the wall over our bed. I mean he REALLY liked it.

So I did what any sensible stitcher would do when their DH expresses a distinct interest in a particular pattern, I bought it and commenced to stitching on it. The pattern is "One Nation" by ByGone Stitches.

I love the look of the pattern, but wasn't too keen on stitching endless rows of letters (the names of the states) and long endless rows of borders. And stitching 50 Quaker stars didn't sound fun either. But I figure if I get it going and aim for a couple of stars and states a week, I can get it done. And it will look really great hanging on the wall over our bed. And I like stitching with red, white, and blue.

I did have to wrestle with my inner tightwad though before starting to stitch.

The pattern is VERY large - 400w X 210h! Stitched on 28 count as called for by the pattern, it will measure 28.5" x 15"! You need a fat-half of fabric to stitch it. The pattern called for linen which would have run me around $30-$40 dollars plus shipping, depending on whether I used hand-dyed (called for) or regular linen. I didn't want to spend that much. Besides, I already had a perfectly lovely fat-half piece of Tea-dyed Monaco sitting around. So I used it.

And I didn't want to use the Crescent Colors called for as they are not color-fast. They are very lovely colors, but as this is a large piece that will take some time, it will need washing. In addition, you need 24 skeins of Crescent Colors at $2.00 a skein to stitch this. So I used good ol' DMC instead. I'll post a picture later.

LoneStar 

Two finishes!

2011-05-12T08:35:00.000-05:00

I had two finishes yesterday!

Here is "Photobooth Snowmen" by Bent Creek, stitched with DMC from a kit containing 32 count linen and regular-sized Mill Hill beads. I substituted petite-sized beads of the same color. And let me tell you that stitching beads of a color called "Ice" with invisible thread is a right pain in the patoot! I was nearly cross-eyed by the time I got them all stitched on.

And I was having such fun stitching on the project that I usually only stitch on at our I35 Stitchtogether that I kept stitching on it after I got home last Saturday and finished it up yesterday.

This is "Tribal Seahorse" by White Willow Stitching stitched on 32 count Vintage Blue Whisper linen by Zweigart with NPI silk color 852 - a very dark navy. Once framed, this will hang in our bathroom.

LoneStar

The Wish Book is here!

2011-04-29T13:50:00.000-05:00

Remember when you were a kid and the Sear Christmas catalog or "Wish Book" would come to your house? Remember how you'd spend hours looking at all the toys and "wishing"? Well, the adult version arrived at our house yesterday. DH got his Cabela's Archery catalog in the mail. He spent the evening looking through it, dog-earring pages, and drooling. And bowhunting season doesn't start until October. I'm just sayin'.

Here's where I am on "Photobooth Snowmen" - I hope to have it finished by this weekend. I have no earthly idea what I'm going to do with it when I get it finished, but it was just too darn cute not to stitch and it appealed to my quirky sense of humor.

LoneStar

Look what I got!

2011-04-28T10:53:00.000-05:00

Today was Emma's day for going to the vet for her yearly check up. She passed with flying colors, although she did leave a lot of her hair everywhere; Jack Russell terriers shed a lot. I picked up a supply of flea/tick drops for her. In the past, if you bought six doses you got two free. Now they are giving away dog toys instead. Emma liked the toy, but her human would rather have had the free doses!

LoneStar

A tailess finish

2011-04-25T14:20:00.000-05:00

I mostly finished "Bunny Buns" this weekend. Mostly. I bought some Rainbow Gallery Wisper floss to use to stitch the bunny tail. I tried one ply. I tried two plies. I tried fluffing the floss with a toothbrush after I stitched the tail. No joy. The Wisper floss made my bunny look as if he had a mangy tail, so I frogged it all and decided that the next time I go to Hobby Lobby, I'll look for a nice fluffy pompom to use for the tail. As I'm finishing the bunny as a no-sew cube, it shouldn't be a problem and will add dimension to the design. Here's the untailed bunny stitched on mint green Jubilee with DMC floss (DMC Flower Thread was used for the grass).

I didn't want to go back to stitching on "Homespun Hollow" just yet, so I pulled out "Photobooth Snowmen" by Bent Creek and started stitching on it. It's a kit that included the pattern, a good-sized piece of nice linen, and beads that I ordered from ABC Stitch. The designers used WDW and GAST floss, but kindly provided a DMC conversion chart; I'm stitching it in DMC. It's a fun stitch and I'll post pictures another day.

LoneStar

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T09:58:00.000-05:00

"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures...And if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain; ye are yet in your sins."

I Corinthians 15; 3-4, 17

WIPs

2011-04-19T08:58:00.000-05:00

I know, I know. I haven't been posting a lot lately. We've had a lot going on, much of which has not been very blog worthy. I'll try to do better, but I ain't promising anything.

This past Saturday was our monthly I35 Stitchtogether. Georgia and I went and had a great time. Georgia won the door prize, a really pretty scissor fob with blue twisted glass beads made by a second timer. Brenna came last month and we didn't scare her off so she was back this month.

Jennifer was gloating over finally being able to complete her Polly Wog Designs Toads collection. She had all of them but two and found them on the Internet recently and had them in her hands at last.

There was a lot of stitching, eating, and storying going on. Mrs. Wanda told her tale of getting married by elopement (she's been married 72 years!). I liked to have fallen out of my chair laughing so hard over a story Marilyn told about car repair, but it would lose something in translation if I retold it here.

I'm making progress on "Tribal Seahorse." It's amazing how much stitching you can do when you have floss. Last month, I ran out of floss and ended up sitting at the table enjoying everyone's company, but not stitching.

And I put "Homespun Hollow" down for awhile to stitch on "Bunny Buns" as I was in a silly spring mood and it fit the bill. No bunny yet, but his pot and most of the Easter eggs are stitched.

LoneStar

DIY update

2011-04-09T09:09:00.000-05:00

No stitching this week as I've been reading a lot.

DH worked hard on our current house project last weekend. As always, he didn't get as much done as he wanted and ended up working on something unplanned. But progress is progress.

One wall of my kitchen is in shambles. In fact, the wall itself is gone as DH is rebuilding it, moving the door, and installing a pocket door. DH removed all the cabinets from the wall and stacked them in the den by the sofa. *sigh* Progress has its price - chaos!

LoneStar

Happy April Fool's Day

2011-04-01T14:17:00.000-05:00

April Fool's Day always makes me think of two things: 1) the silly "April Fool's Day" song I learned in elementary school - it gets stuck in my head on this day every year, and 2) the practical jokes and pranks my friends and I played on each other in college. We were quite creative! Our only rules were that nothing could be damaged during the course of the prank and the victim could not be overly embarrassed or humiliated.

My two favorite pranks include one I pulled on a non-mechanically inclined friend, and one several friends played together on me and another friend.

My non-mechanically inclined friend was very, very bright, but couldn't identify a screwdriver if it was the only tool in the toolbox. I jacked her car up and set the axles on cinder blocks where the tires were about a half-inch off the pavement. (She was always running late, too.) She came barreling out of the dorm, jumped in her car, started it up, stomped on the gas, and was completely shocked when the car didn't move. I let her suffer through about ten minutes of panic before I admitted my prank and "fixed" her car for her. By then, she was really late and it didn't help that the rest of our friends were standing around howling with laughter.

The dual prank involved me and another friend who had an early morning chemistry lecture class together. Both of us had a stuffed animal on our bed in college. My friend's was her teddy bear from childhood. Mine was a mouse I'd made in sewing class in eighth grade that matched the bedspread on my dorm room bed. (I have a dearly beloved stuffed animal from childhood, but I wasn't dumb enough to bring it to college with me - my mama didn't raise a fool.)

Our friends convinced each of us that "stealing" and smuggling the other's stuffed animal into class and leaving it on the teacher's desk would be funny. We each thought that we were pranking the other. We came up with elaborate plans for the "stealing" and smuggling of said stuffed animal that involved getting up early, borrowing backpacks, and hiding in trees. (Don't ask.) When I walked into class with my friend's stuffed bear and saw my mouse sitting on Dr. Felder's desk, I looked over at my friend and said, "We've been had!" All our other friends were standing in the back of the room laughing their heads off.

I got in a little stitching yesterday. This design has several scenes within the entire pattern, so I thought I'd just post the scene I'm currently stitching on.

As I finish a scene I'll post a picture of the whole WIP.

LoneStar

Cows and 'copters

2011-03-31T09:58:00.000-05:00

While I'm loving the spring weather, my sinuses aren't at all so far this spring. Whee. I haven't stitched much this week due to them.

And I had a good laugh over the comments left on my last post by Gloria and Mary. Yeah, I can just see Emma with a tool belt and hard hat! I'm sure I could find her some on the Internet somewhere if I was inclined to do so. And no, I wouldn't get her pink ones. She doesn't even have a pink collar due to her female human's dislike of the color. ;-)

DH didn't get anything done on the current project this past weekend as he had to do "must do" stuff. He had to fix a leak under the kitchen sink which took a whole day and three trips to Lowe's. And he spent the other day getting the push and riding mowers ready for the mowing season which has arrived already.

One afternoon this week I heard Emma barking like a fiend in the yard. I looked out the window into the pasture of our "neighbor-with-the-good-fences-and-the-cows-who-stay-in-his-pasture-because-he-has-good-fences" to see a couple of very young calves gamboling around and kicking up their heels. They were cute to watch.

Our house is on the flight path for military helicopters. I can usually hear them coming due to the distinctive sound they make, and I'll run out into the yard to look. No, I couldn't tell you what kind of 'copters they are, but I know they're military - the army green and camouflage paint jobs give them away.

They often fly very low, low enough that I can see the pilots, and I always wave at them. Occasionally, one of the pilots will take pity on the wacky lady waving up at them from the middle of nowhere and will wave back. Yep, that's what we call excitement here in cow country. ;-)

LoneStar

Pink studs again

2011-03-24T10:23:00.000-05:00

DH is making progress on our current project. This past weekend, he rebuilt part of the wall between the kitchen and utility room. Unfortunately, he used pink studs as that's all he had in the way of 2x4s. Eventually, the entire kitchen wall will be rebuilt and all those gosh awful pink studs will be covered in sheetrock. Gack. I hate pink.

Emma supervised and inspected all of the holes in the floor. And even though DH has been trying to keep her out of it, she jumped down into the biggest hole when he went out to his shop for a tool. Opportunist is her middle name.

My current stitching project is "Homespun Hollow" by Linda Myers. It is available from ABC Stitch.

LoneStar

WIP picture

2011-03-21T14:31:00.000-05:00

Well, my sinuses are still giving me fits. Oh well. The bluebonnets are out and the sight of them always makes me smile. When the bluebonnets come out, I know that spring is truly here in my part of Texas.

I finally picked up my needle again this weekend after not stitching for over a week. I'm making progress. I'm really enjoying stitching this one - I love the colors!

LoneStar

Progress and chaos

2011-03-14T15:50:00.000-05:00

I spent last week roundly cursing my sinuses as they were a great affliction to me. I wasn't on the computer much and I haven't stitched in a week either. But I am happy that Daylight Savings Time is back.

I spent the weekend watching DH tear out a wall and part of a floor inside the house. As always, when working on an old piecemeal house, there was more work to be done for a simple project than we first thought. Luckily, from long experience in remodeling old houses, I always over estimate the time we think a project should take from start to finish. I figure we'll be working on this one through the summer. ;-)

DH is working on installing the HVAC; specifically, building the closet in our utility room to house the inside unit. It will go on the wall between our utility room and the den and this wall is part of the wall between the kitchen and the utility room (which is badly constructed and needs replacing). DH scrapped his original plan and decided to do things right, which is why I have a hole in my floor, a hole in my ceiling, my refrigerator in the middle of the kitchen, and missing walls. Ah, the price of progress. Emma, as always, supervised the proceedings and DH had to constantly shoo her away from and out of the hole.

LoneStar (And no, I don't know why Blogger is spacing my photos so weirdly.)

Pigs in the freezer and a WIP

2011-03-04T13:07:00.001-06:00

On a nice evening during this past weekend DH had about 45 minutes of daylight left, was tired, and didn't want to get into the next part of his DIY project. He was kind of grumping around so I told him to go out to his tent blind and go pig hunting. So he did.

(Wild pigs are legal to shoot year round in Texas as they breed like rabbits and destroy pasture and crop land very quickly; they are considered varmints. However, they are good eating!)

Anyway, I had settled in to read a bit when I heard DH's rifle go off after about 15 minutes. He'd shot a pig! Yay! I love wild pig pan sausage and I was down to my last pound in the freezer.

Here is my "Homespun Hollow" WIP. I've been stitching it in fits and starts. It's coming along slowly but I'm enjoying it when I'm stitching on it. I'm stitching it on a piece of Silkweaver Jazlyn that I had in my stash.

LoneStar

It's that time of year again

2011-03-02T10:57:00.000-06:00

My heart is longing for spring. Of course, it's well on its way here in south central Texas. Our grass is growing and the trees look fuzzy as the leaves are beginning to grow. The days are growing longer. And Daylight Savings Time will be here in less than two weeks! Yippee!

We've had weather in the 70s during the days and 50s at night for awhile now. I'm sure we'll have one or two more cold fronts, but right now, I'm enjoying the warm weather.

The month of January is usually cold and dismal to me. February is the short month before March and is usually as cold as January, and you have to put up with all the Valentine's Day silliness. DH and I think Valentine's Day is contrived. If you don't show love to your spouse/significant other during the rest of the year, why bother with Valentine's Day?!

March is the month of the promises of spring. In my part of Texas, folks are out planting their gardens and sprucing up the lawn. We don't have a garden yet, and I won't be planting flowers until we're done with construction. Someday, I will have a huge bed of daffodils - I love them! But until then, I enjoy driving into town and seeing other folks' daffodils.

And 175 years ago today, Texas declared its independence from Mexico. So, Happy Texas Independence Day to you!

LoneStar

A long weekend and interesting openings

2011-02-28T11:18:00.000-06:00

DH took Friday and today off and spent it working on our latest remodeling project. He finished rewiring the kitchen and utility room. He also cleaned out the attic and did some reframing. Today he will be working on getting the HVAC inside furnace/coil unit installed in the utility room.

As soon as we can get him scheduled, the electrician will come out and install a new breaker box. Our old breaker box is too small and it has a dubious reputation. When we had the electrician out quite awhile ago to give us an estimate on the work, he took one look at the breaker box and said, "Oh! One of those old things. We electricians call those 'Never Trip' breaker boxes." Yikes. So now that DH has replaced all the wiring in the house, we'll replace the breaker box.

Emma is enthralled with all the goings on in the utility room. DH had carefully stacked stuff in front of the ZipWall plastic so she wouldn't poke another hole in it. Thursday night (she sleeps in the utility room), we heard her banging around in there after we went to bed. DH found her in the construction area; she had pawed aside DH's barrier and poked another hole in the plastic to gain entrance. The plastic now has a cardboard barrier that is Emma-proof. Silly dog.

She is very interested in all the open places in the utility room. There is a hole in the floor where the tub plumbing was that is apparently extremely enticing.

And she begged DH to lift her up so she could investigate the opening to the attic (which will be closed off with sheetrock once DH gets the HVAC installed). To Emma, one of the functions of her humans is to lift her up to investigate things above her head. We often oblige.

I got stash in the mail last week. If you haven't seen them, go check out Bent Creek's Photobooth patterns; there are several out. My favorite is the one with the two snowmen, so I indulged myself. It will make a nice pattern to stitch at the stitching retreat I'm going to in March.

I haven't stitched a lot this weekend as I've been reading, but I am making some progress on "Homespun Hollow." I'll post a picture later this week.

LoneStar

A great use for a shoe

2011-02-24T11:10:00.001-06:00

This past weekend, DH and I were staying at my parents' house. On Friday evening, DH - having had his shower - was lounging in bed reading in the guest room while I was taking a shower in the adjacent bathroom in the hallway.

I was done with my shower and brushing out my wet hair when I saw in the mirror crawling down the wall behind me a roach the size of a ~~battleship~~ ~~semi-truck~~ ~~bathtub~~ ~~small dog~~ ~~loaf of bread~~, well, it was darn big. I let out a yell, grabbed my towel off the rack, donned it, and ran out of the bathroom hollering for the first roach-killing man I could find. As I had run into the family room instead of the bedroom, the man was my dad. Dad is used to females with bug phobias as my mom hates them, too, and he raised me.

I spluttered and gestured and described the size of the roach while keeping the towel about my naked self and not embarrassing myself or my dad. Dad listened and said those famous words, "Let me go get a shoe." He retrieved a shoe, then went into the bathroom and hunted down the offending insect and whacked it flat and dead, then gave it a burial at sea (he flushed it). My hero!

During the search, DH came out of the bedroom and watched my dad seek out and kill the roach. He said, "I heard her 'bug yell' but since you're here with the shoe, I'll let you do the honors. It's nice to have time off from bug killing duty." (DH married me for better, for worse, and for killing all bugs.)

Lest you think my parents live in a roach-infested house, they don't. This was one of those huge outdoor brown roaches that sometimes sneak inside the house to quickly die by shoe. Luckily they don't come in too often.

And no, there's no picture. You wouldn't really want to look at a picture of a roach would you? Especially of a whacked dead roach? Which would be the only way I'd get near enough to one to take its picture! Yeah, that's what I thought.

LoneStar

Going dotty

2011-02-22T13:59:00.000-06:00

My grandma passed away last week so DH and I attended the homegoing service this past weekend. I was not at all sad at her passing as she had been suffering from dementia for many years. Her health had declined a lot in the last year and her memory was so bad that she could no longer remember her kids most of the time. But she knew Jesus as her Lord and Savior and is now in heaven with Him. I am glad for her homegoing as her memory was so bad that she's really been away from us all for many years except in body.

Funerals are usually family reunions, and this one was no exception. My grandpa (my grandma's husband who passed away over ten years ago) was the oldest boy of sixteen children, fourteen of whom made it to adulthood. All of these children are gone except for the youngest, my Great Uncle Johnny who is 87 years old. We picked him up and gave him a ride to the funeral.

Uncle Johnny has always loved my grandma. When he was a boy of eighteen finishing up his last year of high school, my grandparents took him in (my grandpa was 20 years older than his little brother Johnny!). My mom was a baby at the time. Uncle Johnny remembers my grandma as a very kind and loving lady (which she was!).

Uncle Johnny married late and he and his wife had their first child a couple of months after my mom had me. My mom always thought it was weird that she had a baby at the same time as one of her uncles.

A lot of the children of these fourteen kids were at the funeral. And yeah, they're all adults now and most of them are way older than me. Most of them. My cousin Jeff was there. Even though one of his parents was of the "original fourteen" (I can never remember which one), he was born when his mom was in her late-forties and he is a few years younger than me.

I had fun catching up with him. He retired from "show biz" several years ago and is enjoying a new job that can best be described as helping investors with mergers and acquisitions. He was an actor for a children's educational program for many years and loved it. He retired shortly after the show was bought out by an "evil" company.

And I got to see my nephews. We had lunch together at a restaurant and while we were waiting for our food, my oldest nephew and I played tic-tac-toe. It was not fun because neither one of us won; the games kept ending in a tie. (My nephew said this was because we were both "too smart.") So I taught my nephew how to play "Dots." I have to confess that I used to play it with my lab partner in high school anatomy all the time on the sly because we thought our teacher was boring.

Anyway, if you've never played "Dots," you play it on paper by filling a page with dots in a grid and then you take turns drawing one line between two dots. If you draw a line to finish a box, then the box is yours and you get to draw another line. The winner is the one with the most boxes. My nephew caught on quickly and thought this was great fun.

And my youngest nephew and I played a rousing game of "This Little Piggy" with his toes on the way home in the car. And once we got home to my parents' house, Emma scared him into raucous screams with her enthusiastic greeting. But she calmed down and so did he. ;-)

I finished "Betty Broomstick" last week and here she is! She is stitched on my 28 count hand-dyed Lime Green linen by Zweigart with my DMC and with specialty fibers and embellishments included in the kit.

And I started on a new project - "Homespun Hollow" by Linda Myers. I've always liked this design and the colors in it. So far it is a fun stitch.

LoneStar

ZipWall: dust proof but not dog proof

2011-02-17T14:15:00.000-06:00

In my ongoing quest to keep home remodeling project dust/debris contained, I ran across an ad for the ZipWall System in one of our DIY magazines. After investigating it, I promptly ordered a four-pole system from Amazon as I figured the cost would outweigh the marriage stress. ;-)

DH used it to block off the "former bathroom" end of the utility room while he continues doing demolition. I must say it has worked satisfactorily in containing dust. (And yep, that's a long zipper in the middle of the sheet plastic so DH can go in and out.)

However, it doesn't seem to work very well at keep out dogs. See the Emma-sized hole in the bottom of the sheet plastic? Yep. She poked a hole in it so's she could get in the construction area to investigate. Silly dog.

"Betty Broomstick" nearly has a hat and I should be stitching her smile and hair on today, too.

The weather is 70s warm but cloudy. I'm happy wearing shorts, but grumpy because of the clouds and no sun. Oh well.

LoneStar

The Betty WIP

2011-02-15T14:02:00.000-06:00

"Betty Broomstick" is coming along. I've got all the bling/backstitching done on the lower half of the pattern (aren't her sparkly fuchsia shoes cute?), and I just have her hat to stitch before doing all the bling/backstitching on the top half of the pattern, including her frizzy hair. She's been a fun stitch. And don't you just love her grinning cat?

I plan to finish her as a flat fold instead of a stand up like the instructions say. Flat folds take up less storage room.

DH spent the weekend working on the utility room (at least he did when he wasn't on the phone with AT&T!). Actually, he was up in the attic clearing out the old, varmint mangled fiberglass insulation. He was also inspecting the roof trusses which are in very good shape.

We had planned on tearing off the kitchen/utility room side of the house and starting from scratch because the floors in both are so saggy. However, as DH has done demolition on the utility room, he has noted that the construction of the walls is very solid. So we're going to have a foundation/floor guy look at the floor trusses to see if they can be reinforced or improved in some way. I'd much rather remodel than start from scratch.

We're having lovely weather here in Texas today. I'm wearing shorts and the doors and windows of the house are open as it is 70 degrees outside. I love it!

LoneStar  

AT&T Customer Service - we're here to help!

2011-02-14T14:22:00.000-06:00

I've been without internet service since last Wednesday (which is both a blessing and a curse!).

I use an air card to connect to the internet out here in the boonies. DH and I have no telephone land-line; we only use cell service. We have an AT&T cell tower less than 200 yards from our house that we were told was a 2G tower when we signed up with AT&T.

While the air card was initially faster than my dial-up service, it has slowed down significantly recently. Because I hate to talk on the phone and my hearing loss makes understanding anyone with an accent difficult, DH has been trying to find out why service is slower by calling the helpful folks at AT&T.

It took three calls before he got to the right department (air card). DH asked to speak to a tech that was well-versed in Mac computers as that is what I have at home. (*Note that the air card was working just fine but slowly before all this started.) The first thing the tech had DH do was uninstall the air card operating program. He intended to have DH reinstall it to see if that helped connection speed. (Also note that DH is a self-professed computer moron who is not at all familiar with my Mac computer and was not present when I initially got the air card up and running.)

Tech: "Now sir, go to Applications and click on Global Connect."
DH: "You just had me uninstall it and it's not there."
Tech: "Okay, just insert your air card and the software should load automatically. What OS version are you using?"
DH: "Snow Leopard 10.6.2."
Tech: "Oh. I see [from my computer prompt] that the software for using this air card with a Mac is download only."
Pregnant pause.
Tech: "Do you have another computer available to download the software?"
DH: "No. We only have the one computer at home. I will have to go to work tomorrow and download it to a flash drive from my work computer."

And it went downhill from there (DH is to be commended for not losing his temper, although he did bang his head on the keyboard a lot). In a nutshell, five days, two program downloads (one of which was wrong), three more phone calls and five techs later, I am back on the internet. One tech insisted that the air card was broken. Another insisted that the problem was in our hard drive. So much for "expert" care and service. Sheesh.

And we found out our tower has been "powered down" while they upgrade it to 2G. Evidently they lied about the "power of the tower" when we signed up. Supposedly, this upgrade will be done by March 15th. Supposedly, it will be upgraded to 3G within the year. Supposedly. I ain't holding my breath.

On a more happy note, here is a picture of the lovely tote bag LoriRay made for our friend to use to carry her quilt. It has a couple of pockets on the inside for small items, too.

LoneStar

A beautiful quilt

2011-02-08T09:01:00.000-06:00

Here is the finished quilt! Georgia did a great job turning our stitched pieces into a work of art!

LoneStar

Winter weekend

2011-02-07T14:03:00.000-06:00

We had below freezing temperatures here last week. Then to add insult to injury, we got some snow on Friday (it was mostly melted off by the afternoon). DH got the day off as the boss closed the business for the day. Texans don't know how to drive on ice/snow; the wise among us admit this freely. The only people in Texas who can drive on it are transplanted Yankees, and even they have problems with ice.

The pipes that we had freeze up finally thawed late Friday afternoon and neither were damaged - thank goodness!

So with an unexpected day off, DH decided to start the next remodeling project on our agenda: gutting the old bathroom in our utility room in order to ready it for installing the HVAC. He had to tear out the old bathtub and shower surround (both made of fake marble). He also removed the sink. Then he gutted everything down to the studs, at least on the bathroom end of the utility room.

(Notice the hairy supervisor/inspector in one of the above photos!) The weird green wall in the above photo is further proof that the utility room used to be a porch. This is the what the wall looks like after DH removed the tub and tub surround. Those are actually the same shingles that are used to side the outside of the house, so we think at one point, it WAS the side of the house! As we renovate, we are removing these exterior shingles and replacing them with Hardi-plank and paint. DH will remove these inside shingles and, after doing some electrical upgrades, he'll install dry wall.

I was able to get a goodly amount of stitching done on "Betty Broomstick" and I'll post a picture on another day.

We enjoyed the Super Bowl and the Packers victory. We thought the "singing" of national anthem was a disgrace and the half-time show was "interesting." And as always, the commercials were either fun or really dumb. We liked the Darth Vader, Detroit, and beaver commercials the best.

Georgia spent the weekend finishing up our friend's quilt. DH will bring it home with him tonight and I'll post a picture of it tomorrow!

LoneStar  

Froze up

2011-02-03T14:01:00.000-06:00

I know lots of folks in the Midwest and north are buried under ice and snow; my sympathies to you. While we didn't get any white or icy stuff down here in south central Texas, we did get very cold weather. It's been so cold that we've been battling frozen pipes at our house.

DH carefully left the faucets dripping the first night it got below freezing, but we still have some frozen pipes. Washing dishes in cold water is no fun. We are VERY thankful that we still have hot and cold running water for showers. And we are VERY thankful for our wood stove. It's been below freezing here for two days and nights. DH is hoping that when it does thaw out, that we have no broken pipes. We'll see. Such is life.

And to think that last week it was up in the 70's here.

I'm coming along on "Betty Broomstick" although I need to stitch her face as she is currently headless.

LoneStar

Last quilt square and a WIP

2011-01-29T13:55:00.000-06:00

I got the last quilt square in the mail and here it is. Peggy stitched a colorful beach-themed square.

And here is my progress on "Betty Broomstick."

LoneStar

Two more quilt squares

2011-01-28T13:42:00.000-06:00

Here are two more quilt squares. Gloria stitched a patriotic design, and Lynn stitched a JBW dog. (I stitched the dog several years ago and it is a fun stitch!)

I received the last quilt square in the mail yesterday and will post a picture of it tomorrow. Georgia has already started on the quilt and it is going to be beautiful!

Betty is coming along and I'll post a picture of my progress this weekend.

LoneStar

Again, more quilt squares

2011-01-26T09:53:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I started stitching on a "Betty Broomstick," an OOP kit by Lizzie Kate. I changed out the fabric to 28 count Lime Green hand-dyed linen by Zweigart as I don't care for R&R Reproductions fabric because it's not color-fast. And as I didn't have some of the GAST fibers called for, I changed it all over to DMC (conversions were included on the pattern - thank you, Lizzie Kate!), and then had to adjust some colors due to changing the fabric color.

I'm not that big on Halloween, but Betty is cute and so far has been a fun stitch. I picked up this kit at the last stitching retreat I went to. The kit was sitting on the orphan pattern/free table. At these stitching retreats we have an auction to raise money to decrease the cost of the retreats and also because they are loads of fun. You can donate items for the auctions and you can bid on anything that strikes your fancy. One lady often bids on things "just because" and then you find them on the orphan/free table at the next retreat. Such was the case for Betty; I remember when she was up for auction at a previous retreat!

Here are two more quilt squares. Di stitched a cardinal, our friend's favorite bird. As our friend was in the Navy, Dorothy stitched the Navy logo for her.

LoneStar

More quilt squares

2011-01-25T09:27:00.000-06:00

Well, the missing stove part was found. The supply company didn't ship it next day air like they were supposed to and it will be here tomorrow. Gee. What part of "We heat our house with a wood stove and it's winter and it's cold!" do you not understand? Oh well.

Here are two more of the quilt squares. Mary's kitchen square is bright and cheerful and makes me want to go out and buy lots of Fiestaware. Mel stitched the religious square, and as she LOOOVES glow-in-the-dark floss, the cross will glow in the dark!

LoneStar

Stove knobs and broomsticks

2011-01-24T14:50:00.000-06:00

Well, I lied. We didn't get our stove handle part on Friday; it is lost somewhere in shipping and maildom. DH and I are not happy and the manager of the store we ordered it from is REALLY not happy. Luckily, the overnight temperatures are more moderate this week.

Saturday found us in Austin. DH went to his favorite manly haunts and I was at the I35 Stitchtogether. Just about all of us were there and we had a guest from south of Houston, RitaD. Most of us know her from the 1-2-3 Stitch! Message Board so it was nice to put a face with a name.

Marilyn was knitting a blanket with the most sensuous yarn I've ever fondled. It made me want to get naked and roll all over it. (I know, a scary mental picture.) I received eleven of our twelve quilt squares and will be posting pictures of them over the next few days.

DH and I spent Sunday afternoon watching football. I'm glad the Packers made it to the Super Bowl, but as I like neither the Steelers nor the Jets, I'm indifferent to the Steelers, although the Steelers/Jets game was a good one as long as we kept Phil Simms muted. I'm rooting for the Packers and I'm so glad the Super Bowl is on the Fox network - no Phil!

Here is Jennifer's Halloween witch (she's a noted frogoholic - see the little frog near the witch?) and Cindy's rooster. And in case you didn't cotton on - the witch is holding the broomstick that I refer to in the post's title.

LoneStar 

Honey, have you seen the kerosene?

2011-01-21T16:44:00.000-06:00

DH and I heat our home with a wood stove. On Wednesday night, DH was working on the recalcitrant door handle when it broke. Without the handle, the door wouldn't stay shut. Without the door shut, the chimney wouldn't draw. Without the chimney drawing, the house would fill with smoke and we would cough our lungs out on the floor and die. So we had to do without the stove until the replacement handle could be obtained and installed. That wasn't a problem on Wednesday night when the temperature only got down to 52 degrees.

It was a big problem last night when the temperature got down to 28 degrees. So DH went out to his shop and brought the kerosene heater into the house so's we wouldn't freeze our bohonkuses off. And before you panic, it's a heater that is made to use indoors and it doesn't emit lethal levels of carbon monoxide. Besides, we have a smoke/carbon monoxide detector, and yes, it works.

The part came in today and DH will have it installed by this evening when it will get really cold again. The overnight shipping for the part cost more than the part itself. Oh well.

I am done with my quilt squares for our friend's quilt. I was supposed to do two, but ended up doing three because I am a math dummy and can't count or add properly; I was too chagrined to admit to my fellow stitchers that I can't be trusted with determining how many squares we actually have.

We wanted to have 12 squares for the quilt. When I counted up names, I had Georgia's name listed but she isn't stitching a square, she is making the quilt! DOH! So I thought quick and ordered a Name Tree from Stephanie at Nouveau Encore. The Name Trees are quick to stitch so I was able to whip it out pretty fast. WHEW!

And I won't be posting a picture of it as it is our friend's first name and I want to preserve her privacy. But go on over to Nouveau Encore and have a look - there are all kinds of Name Trees there!

Anyway, I am posting a picture of the square I just finished. It is the one I "designed" that represents the stitching retreats our friend is involved with. And my t.u. friends ought to be happy as I had to use "dark burnt orange" for the Alto Frio star. Gack.

LoneStar

I tell ya I'm wilting

2011-01-18T16:08:00.000-06:00

We've had cloudy/rainy weather here since last week. The sun FINALLY came out this afternoon. I'm a plant; I need lots of sun to maintain my "all is good with the world" attitude. Too many rainy days in a row causes me to turn grumpy and grumbly. (Just ask DH!)

This weekend was a football weekend. DH and I watched all the play-off games and enjoyed them. What can I say? We like football. Neither of us can stand Phil Sims who provides color on CBS. We usually mute the game and just read the closed-captioning when he is commentating. Ugh.

I've been working on the special quilt square that I "designed" and I'm stitching like a fiend because I need to get it done by Friday. Our stitching group set the due date for January 22nd - the date of our next stitchtogether. Once all the squares are turned in, Georgia will work her quilting magic so's we can get the quilt to its recipient soon.

We have this fleece throw on our couch and Emma loves it, especially in the winter. (She pretty much ignores it in the summer.) On Sunday, she got up on the couch and was pawing at it and then staring intently at DH. He got the hint and made her a little fleece Emma nest. She was a happy dog.

LoneStar

True Romance Part Two

2011-01-12T16:41:00.000-06:00

Well, my dad's true romance story made it into the local paper - The Dallas Morning News - on Sunday. There was an up-to-date picture of them (that my brother took of them the week before) in the column, but not their wedding picture. They sent me a hard copy in the mail; you can read the column here: "Jilted GI found love on the rebound". I think it's pretty cool myself!

I have no picture to post today of anything. I've been working on my second square for our friend's quilt. I wanted to design a square that showed her involvement in stitching retreats. My hat is off to designers. I've been beating my head on my computer monitor for about a week working on that darn square design in PatternMaker. I just can't get it "right." I finally had to tell myself, "Self, if you don't stop eternally 'fixing' the design, you won't have time to stitch it." So I went with what I had and have started stitching on it. It's still not "right," but hopefully it will be okay when seen in the quilt.

And the weather down here in south central Texas is cold (for here). We've had nights in the twenties and thirties, and the days have only been up in the forties. BRRRR. I don't care much for cold weather. When I did laundry on Monday, there were a couple of pairs of shorts in there that I wore just last week! If you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait 15 minutes...

LoneStar