Another working weekend

DH took Friday off and is working on the new bathroom this weekend. He is making good progress. The bathtub is now set, plumbed, and surrounded by Hardi-backer.

DH is now installing Hardi-backer on the floor before he finishes up the the plumbing. After that, his goal for the rest of the weekend is to finish insulating the outside wall and to put up the rest of the sheetrock.

I haven't stitched a lick. I spent yesterday mowing as we had a bit of rain last week that greened up the grass and caused it to grow again. I haven't needed to mow since mid-June.

And tomorrow night is the start of football season! Yippee! I love football. I will miss John Madden on Sunday Night Football as the silly man decided to retire. But his replacement, Cris Collinsworth, is a good color man and I enjoy him. I was extremely glad that Phil Sims didn't get the job - I would have seriously considered not watching as I can't stand him and his blatant and uninformed opinionating.

A puppy!

No, not a real puppy, but a stitched one.

I've decided that I can commit to stitching each of my two nephews one ornament every Christmas. I could probably stitch one for each of my two nieces, too, but I don't think they are into that kind of thing - I could be wrong. They are grown women now; one is in college and the other is a college graduate and working woman.

Anyway, the IH35 Stitchers asked me to do another demonstration and ornament finishing was of interest. Of course, I need a couple of ornaments to demonstrate with, hence the new commitment.

My youngest nephew just turned one year old in July, so he is not up to expressing a preference for ornament themes. So I stitched him a puppy.

My older nephew is six years old and likes anything having to do with cars. Or trucks. Or large work vehicles. Planes, trains, and automobiles. Basically anything with wheels. So I will stitch him a car. I only have a couple of car leaflets, so I enabled myself and got a few more "One Nighter" transportation leaflets in anticipation of upcoming years. And they were on sale, too!

And "The Alamo" is still driving me crazy. One minute I want to finish it, and the next minute I want to chuck the whole thing. Being a perfectionist can be such a burden. ☺

Stitching fun

Well, as usual, the IH35 Stitchtogether was a lot of fun. We had great food (Lynn brought Round Rock Doughnuts!) and great fellowship. Jennifer brought a TW piece she stitched "way back when" on aida before she learned to stitch on evenweave. She did over-one stitching on part of the piece on aida! It was gorgeous!

DH liked his "Deer Nut" no-sew cube and took up to work with him this morning to put on his desk. Here it is all finished. No, there are no ribbons, bows, or cutesy embellishments on it as this is a man decoration.

He spent the weekend on the bathroom - progress is being made! On Sunday afternoon, I had to help stab a pipe under the house. I laid on the bathroom floor and stuck my arm down through one of the holes to do it while DH guided it from under the house. I only did this after DH cleaned out the cobwebs. I HATE the feel of cobwebs on my skin - it makes me wonder where the spider is. ☺

The backstitching on "The Alamo" is driving me nuts. I am anal about straight backstitching and it is very difficult on this piece. At one point last night, I was about to chuck the whole thing in the trash. But luckily, it looked better to me this morning. I use a sharp needle and pierce the previous thread, but it's just not all coming out as straight as I'd like. I've undone and redone until I've about driven myself crazier. Poop.

Bye Bye July!

Well, it's the last day of July. Tomorrow is August 1st and the IH35 Stitchtogether. Yippee! Sunday is my DBro's birthday; I actually remembered to send him a card! You know you're getting older when you buy cards based on how much you think they will amuse your young nephews.

Thanks to all of you who complimented me on my willingness to teach/demonstrate finishing techniques. I think if I ever needed yet another career, I'd become a teacher. I really enjoy it.

And after I posted about the "Deer Nut" cube project, I was prompted to think about it from the non-hunting perspective. DH will take the finished product to work where all the guys he works with are hunters. They will see it and go, "Oh cool!" They will not have thoughts regarding male deer anatomy. At least, not initially. ☺

We've been having weirder Texas weather. We've had two torrential deluges in the last two days, with the sun coming out right afterwards and temperatures in the 100s. We've needed the rain badly. I may have to mow again. I haven't mowed since about June as the grass quit growing from the lack of rain.

"The Alamo" is really popping with the backstitching. I'll try to post a picture sometime this weekend.

Well, I have to go bake a cake for tomorrow's munching. Here's a picture of Emma after I made her get off the couch to straighten the couch throw and the cushions. After she got back on it, she gave me her "Eat poop and die, vile human!" look.

A quick stitch

I began looking through my finishes this week to find something I could use to demonstrate cube making at our IH35 Stitchtogether on Saturday. I have nothing small enough. (I do have three larger pieces waiting for me to get off my duff and frame - I've even got the frames, foam core board, and glass all ready for them.)

Anyway, I had to come up with a small stitched piece. I guess I could have drawn something on a piece of fabric with a marker, but why go to all the trouble to do something that's not your best work?

So I stitched this little design for DH. I tried to find a nice acorn button, but after searching in Hobby Lobby, Michael's, and JoAnn's Fabrics, I came up empty. I found a nice JABC button at 123 Stitch, but with postage, it would have cost about five bucks. Ain't happening. So I stitched the acorn instead. And now I can go back to backstitching on "The Alamo."

Then I needed some fabric to cover the cube. Camouflage fabric came to mind. I only needed about an 1/8 of a yard and it would cost me about three bucks. And I'd have lots left over. So I bought a bandanna in camouflage for less than a buck.

I'll post a picture of the FF cube after Saturday, before DH takes it up to work for his desk or bench.

Day Three of the weekend of plumbing

I haven't stitched since Saturday, and I'm going to remedy that after I finish this post.

DH started out on his day off continuing on with the plumbing. Then, as often happens with DIY jobs, he had to stop working on the plumbing because he needed to do something else first so that he could keep working on the plumbing. ☺

He was setting the flange for the toilet base in the bathroom floor. He decided it would fit better if he went ahead and laid down the Hardi-Backer sheets on the floor. (We are putting in a tile floor, and you have to lay Hardi-Backer or Durock on a wood subfloor before you can lay tile.) But he couldn't lay the Hardi-Backer on the floor until he knew exactly where the edge of the bathtub would be. The only way to know that was to install the Hardi-Backer on the wall surrounding the bathtub and then fit and install the bathtub in place, along with the bathtub plumbing. So he did that. (Yeah, we're getting some of those nasty pink studs covered up.)

He was complaining because he didn't get done what he had planned to get done. I reminded him that progress is progress. Okay, so he hadn't planned on installing the bathtub yet. But it has to get down sometime. In other words, it doesn't matter what you do as long as you do something that needs doing.

I spent my time (in between calls to "hold this" or "bring me that" from DH) taking care of a vexing pile. I had an eight-inch high pile of papers that I needed to get filed away. Most of it was warranty and instruction booklets from stuff we've installed or used in the house remodel. I had to reorganize these files anyway and hadn't gotten around to it. But I did this weekend. One more pile gone away!

Day Two of the weekend of plumbing

DH spent part of the day up in the "attic space" above the addition putting in more insulation. He had to take a piece of sheetrock down off the bathroom ceiling anyway for the plumbing vent and figured he ought to add more insulation up there before he put the sheetrock back up.

The attic space above the addition is very shallow and poor DH says he will have lots of bruises from clambering around on hands, knees, and belly. The shallow roof is another result of our bad contractor. May Mary Malloy and her nine blind children follow that man around until the day of his death singing "Feelings" off key and at the top of their lungs while beating on bongo drums off beat. And may they all step on his heels a lot, too.

We did end up making a trip to Lowe's yesterday for a toilet as apparently having the actual toilet makes plumbing planning easier. Now I have a toilet sitting on my porch. Oh well. Hopefully it won't sit out there long.

DH cut the hole for the toilet sewer pipe in the floor. Emma had to investigate it thoroughly as only she can.