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We'll not talk about the Dallas Cowboys or the Texas Aggies. Happily, Texas Tech beat Baylor this weekend (sorry Gloria!) so not all was lost in football.
DH took off a bit early on Friday afternoon so he could get an evening hunt in. He came home, camo-ed up and was heading off out the door to his tree stand by four o'clock. I settled down to stitch, figuring I wouldn't see him again until it got dark. Fifteen minutes later, he was back; he'd shot a wild pig! So now we'll have fresh sausage for the freezer and a couple of small hams!
Wild pigs are a nuisance in much of the south. In Texas, there is an open season on wild pigs which means they may be hunted at any time of the year for any reason. They have no natural predators and sows often have 8-12 piglets per litter, with several litters a year. They breed like rabbits. One wild pig can tear up a couple of acres of good pasture or cropland in one night, usually more as they most often travel in herds. They are very aggressive towards humans, too. But they make good eating if you can get a small male or a small to medium female. Larger pigs are not good to eat as the meat takes on a nasty flavor.
Saturday, DH got our stove hooked up and it is so nice to be cooking on gas again! I've always loathed cooking on electric stoves. The hot plate is now stored up in the attic of DH's shop and I don't miss it a bit.
Sunday afternoon, DH and I vegged out on the sofa watching football. We did have a bit of excitement when we heard Emma barking outside the house like a fiend at something out of the ordinary. DH went to investigate, looking out the kitchen window. "GAH!" he hollered and then began yelling for Emma to come into the house. Emma was after a snake (again) and DH thought it was a rattler!
With Emma safely in the house and with me keeping an eye on the snake from the window, DH ran for his shotgun. The snake was quickly dispatched. A knot of dead wood on the ground from one of our backyard trees was also dispatched as DH thought it looked like a second coiled up snake and in all the excitement, he shot it, too. ;-)
I managed to stitch a lot this weekend and am close to finishing "Spring Flowers."
LoneStar
The weather here in my part of Texas has been absolutely gorgeous this week. Upper 40's at night and up to the mid-eighties in the daytime with perfectly cloudless blue skies. This kind of weather at this time of year makes me nostalgic for hitting the road.
Years ago, when my DBro was 14 years old, he got a motorcycle. In Texas at that time, a 14 year-old could get a motorcycle license; car driver's learner's permits weren't available until a person was 15 years old. My DBro was so desperate for wheels, that he talked my parents into letting him get a motorcycle and license at 14. He was kind enough to teach his big sister how to ride it, and I also got my motorcycle license. (Actually, I'm his older but much shorter sister.)
Well, my brother had a nice Kawasaki bike. Then my dad decided that it would be a good learning experience for my DBro to buy a Honda in a box - some guy had taken it apart and never got it back together. So DBro bought the boxed-up Honda and he and Dad put it back together. He didn't like it as much as his Kawasaki, so it became "my" bike as it fit me more comfortably than the Kawasaki.
I was in college at the time and having a very difficult semester. We were having extraordinarily beautiful weather that fall. I would come home on the weekends, put five dollars in my pocket for a tank or two of gas, and ride the Honda out in the country until I had just enough gas to get back home. It kept me sane. (My Mom, however, says she got all of her gray hairs while my DBro and I were riding motorcycles - neither of us ride anymore.)
But when the days are clear and fall is just around the corner, I get a hankering to pull on my jeans, boots, leather gloves, and wrap-a-round helmet to go riding in the country on a little Honda bike with five dollars in my pocket. ;-)
I am enjoying stitching on "Spring Flowers," a stitching retreat exclusive by Redbird Designs. Mary says she doesn't want the pattern back, so I will PIF it once I finish it. Here is what I've stitched so far:
I am still without my stove. The propane guy came out and filled the tank. Then when DH got home, he discovered that the tank had a leak. So the propane guy had to come out and fix it. The leaks are gone, and DH will have time on Saturday to finish the last little bit of hook-up in the house. So I should be cooking on the stove by Saturday night. Should be. Yeah.
LoneStar
Blogger was a bear yesterday. They have a new picture uploading tool that stinks. It either doesn't like my Mac or doesn't like my slow internet speed. After trying for 20 minutes to upload one picture and getting continual "Error; try again" messages, I gave up. Hopefully, today will be better.
On Saturday, Georgia and I went to Austin for the I35 Stitchtogether. We had a great time with everybody and together we solved all of the world's problems. I got a goodly amount of stitching done on "Tribal Seahorse" which is now my stitchtogether piece; it will go with me to and only be stitched on at the stitchtogether until it is finished.
I left DH at home in his tree stand as Saturday was the opening day of bowhunting season. He got nothing on his morning hunt, but was ultimately successful over the weekend as he harvested two doe. He was the subject of much envy on Monday morning at work as his hunting crazy coworkers did not go hunting over the weekend.
This year, he is allowed two doe and two bucks. So now he has the rest of bowhunting season and rifle season to harvest two bucks. My freezer will be full of fresh venison!
On Sunday I started an unplanned new project. Mary was kind enough to loan me a spring pattern exclusive to a stitching retreat that she had just finished. As I hate to keep borrowed patterns for too long, I'm stitching it right now. It should be a fast stitch (fun, too!). I'll post as picture when I'm finished.
I had planned to next stitch "It's Mine" by A Mon Ami Pierre. The only US store that I found that carries this is ABC Stitch Therapy. It's a European pattern and ABC Stitch can get it, although it usually takes about two or three weeks for it to come in the mail as they have to order it from overseas.
I finished painting the propane tank and the propane delivery guy will be here tomorrow morning; I'll be cooking on my gas stovetop tomorrow! Yippee! I can retire the two-burner hot plate!
And today I begin painting yet again. Our next project is getting all the trim molding put in the windows of our bedroom. I'm tired of looking at pink studs, sealant foam, and bare sheetrock edges. It "should" be a quick project for DH, and then he will start on the HVAC.
LoneStar
For those of you who are not married or acquainted with a hunter, bowhunting season starts on Saturday. DH is chomping at the bit. He spends a lot of time with his binoculars watching the deer on our property.
I have always felt that the deer know when hunting season starts and enjoy taunting humans when they know they cannot be hunted. Case in point: three deer were foraging out by the truck and the woodpile this morning, not more than 20 feet from my window. They could see me and often paused to give me, "Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah!" stares.
I do enjoy watching them, too. I spent about half an hour enjoying them before Emma noticed that I was staring at something out the window and and went outside to investigate. Her ensuing barking caused all the deer to spook and run off, showing the white tails from which they get their name. But I hope to have several of them in my freezer as food before the hunting season ends.
LoneStar
The Aggies and the Raiders had bye weeks, and the Cowboys finally put it mostly together and won a game. So it was a good weekend for football.
I got "Nickademus" about 99% finished on Sunday. I decided to use Mill Hill beads for the French-knots on the light-colored stars because I think they would look neater than knots and because I hate doing French-knots. I had the right color in regular seed beads, but needed petite sized which I didn't have on hand and had to order from 1-2-3 Stitch!.
So "Nickademus" is hot off the hoop awaiting beads and ornification. And no, I will not be adding the JABC mitten buttons as I like the monkey without them.
Since my "Tribal Seahorse" fabric hadn't yet arrived in the mail and I was itching to stitch, I started "Christmas Robin," another ornament from the JCS 2010 Ornament issue. It's by Designs by Cathy Jean of The Victoria Sampler and is on page 14 of the magazine.
A small gripe regarding "DMC equivalents" in said magazine. "Christmas Robin" was designed using a lot of GAST, Weeks, Kreinik and SJ Designs beads (which I've never even heard of), very few of which I had in my stash. So I decided to go with good ol' DMC as I have all of the colors and a color card with real floss. I pulled all the recommended DMC floss colors, then I did a floss toss on the fabric. ACK! I think the designer must have just used a conversion chart for all those flosses without actually looking at the colors. No big deal, I fixed it. I got burned by iffy conversions several years ago and always double-check, but oh my land! What weird conversion colors!
My "Tribal Seahorse" fabric came in yesterday's mail, but I will finish the robin ornament before starting on it again. Yeah, I'm one of those kind of stitchers.
LoneStar
I happily started Tribal Seahorse on Monday. I stitched seven of the "blobs" before I realized I had left out a two-stitch row on the first blob and the lack of those stitches had thrown off all the other blobs. So I frogged all the blobs and started over. I was five blobs in when I realized that I wasn't really enjoying stitching on my chosen fabric at all. So I frogged all the blobs, cleaned off the fuzzies, stuck the fabric back in my blueprint flat file, and got on the internet and ordered different fabric. It'll be here next week.
So, in the meantime, I'm stitching "Nickademus," the sock monkey design by Raise the Roof Designs (page 90), in this year's JCS Christmas Ornament issue. Here he is after one night of stitching.
And I dabbled with the dark side last week. I was surfing around on the internet looking at places that sell OOP or HTF or old cross stitch patterns when I came across a brand-new pair of Freedom Gingher scissors. I thought they were kind of pretty and patriotic. They appealed to me because they weren't all flowery and girly like so many of the other limited-edition Ginghers. And they were priced...well they were priced low enough that a tightwad would buy a pair of scissors that she'll never use, but will enjoy looking at. May the Force be with you.
LoneStar
We won't talk about the Dallas Cowboys.
Nor will we talk about the Texas Tech Red Raiders.
The Texas Aggies won their game, the only saving grace to a weekend of football.
Saturday morning, DH and I went to Houston to a gun show. It was interesting. I think I got high on testosterone. I did enjoy seeing all the guns and the people who love them. And there seemed to be a freakishly high number of very tall and burly men there. It seemed pretty crowded. Men, as I have noted previously, shop different than women. They aren't as pushy or talkative. If a bunch of men are waiting to look at one item, they are patient and wait quietly.
I was appalled to see a number of firearms that were PINK. Get real. Women have been shooting and bearing arms for centuries. Making them pink will not entice new women to use guns. Well, maybe a fashion-conscious gun-using woman might want a pink gun just for the novelty, but c'mon! get real!
I have lots of tools. They are a woman's tools because a woman uses them. None of them are pink. They don't have to be pink for me to use them. You don't see tools made in baby blue, do you?!! I rest my case.
My favorite seller wasn't selling guns at all. An older gentleman was selling water color and pen and ink drawings of airplanes. I was very impressed and spent several minutes talking to him about him and his art. He flew planes in WWII and calls himself a pilot artist. I always enjoy unexpected encounters such as these.
I finished "Hootzi Humbug" by Just Nan this weekend. It was a bit fiddly to stitch together, but it came out nice. I made the mistake of doing the outline assembly backstitching in the same color floss as the linen fabric. When stitching it together, it was REALLY HARD to tell the floss from the linen. Note to self: don't do that again. I am now stitching on "Tribal Seahorse" by White Willow Stitching.
LoneStar
