Birdie WIP

I've been going to town on my birdie WIP.  It's been a fun stitch.  Here is "Birds of a Feather" stitched on linen with DMC.  I have one birdie to finish and then I've got a few orphan stitches, all the backstitching, and then a bit of beading to do (no French knots for me!).

DH got 95% of the plumbing done over Memorial Day weekend.  His next project is completely tearing up and replacing the floor in the utility room down to the piers and beams.  While he is doing that while the floor is completely open, he will finish the other 5% of the plumbing.

Tomorrow - as it will be June 1st - I'll start stitching on the June square of "Crabby All Year," even though I'd really rather finish my birdies.

LoneStar

Pole vaulting

DH has been wrassling with the plumbing in the utility room all weekend.  He got a good start on Saturday (with no unexpected sewage problems).  Sunday afternoon was not good.  After making two trips to Lowe's, he finally decided to quit early.

He went out to his hunting blind to put out some wild pig attractant near it.  (He's yet to shoot a pig this year and we'd both dearly love some fresh sausage.)  He also took the pole pruner with him to trim some branches on the trees near his blind.  I settled in to stitch in his absence.  

A little while later, DH came in the door with blood all over him.  No, it didn't belong to any critter, it belonged to him.  Apparently he managed to whack himself on the forehead over his left eye with the pole pruner handle.   He was sawing on a branch that unexpectedly gave way and the pole pruner rebounded off another branch and then rebounded off DH's head.

After cleaning him up and getting a good look at the wound, we decided to go with butterfly bandages instead of trying to go to an after-hours clinic for possible stitches on Memorial Day weekend.  DH spent the remainder of the evening with an ice pack on his head while we watched reruns of "Law & Order" on the boob tube.  

As an aside, this particular station has started rerunning L&O from its beginning.  We watch episodes on the weekends occasionally.  It's funny to see show from the 1990s and see how well people coped with life without cell phones, let alone smartphones!  And the computers!  HUGE monitors crouching on the desks.  Some of the earliest episodes show monitors without MS Windows.  And yet we all managed to survive and live in such primitive times.  (Yes, Virginia, that's heavy sarcasm.)

I've spent a lot of the weekend stitching.  I'll post a picture in the next couple of days.  I don't think I'll ever do another SAL as the one I'm doing for "Crabby All Year" is annoying.  While I like stitching on "Crabby," I find it annoying to put down my current project at the start of every month to work on that month's "Crabby" square.  Oh well.

LoneStar 

Sunny days

My sinuses and allergies are still kicking me in the pants.  Rah.

While my favorite flower the Texas bluebonnet is long gone, other wild flowers are now in bloom.  We've had this yellow wild flower growing on our property in various places for the last couple of years.  I have no idea what it is, but it reminds me of Black-eyed Susans.  DH knows I like them, so he has not been mowing this small area near our loafing shed which is full of them.

And I haven't been stitching as much as I'd like.  I stitched two mornings this week on my "Birds of a Feather" WIP, and then spent this morning frogging everything I'd stitched.  Phooey.  Instead of stitching two over two, I stitched one stitch two over three and didn't notice what I'd done.  Of course this messed up several other stitching areas, hence all the frogging.  Durn amphibian.

You can't tell much, but I've stitched a bird tail, the tea cup handle, and the outline of the saucer.  It's stitched on 28 count flax linen with DMC.  This pattern will really come to life when I do all the backstitching at the end.
 
LoneStar

It just wasn't his day

DH and I have been battling our allergies/sinuses for two weeks, hence the lack of blog posts.  We've both felt lower than a snake's belly in a wagon wheel rut on a canyon floor.  Living in a valley in the spring does that to you, especially with a wet, warm winter.

DH felt well enough this weekend to continue his plumbing work in our utility room.  It was going to be an easy one day job.  He was doing some preliminary work before Memorial Day weekend when he would have more time to do a more involved project.  The job entailed replacing some pipe to the septic system, AKA "sewer" pipe.

It just wasn't his day.

About halfway through Saturday morning, I heard him shout, "DANG!"  Actually, it would have been more accurate if he'd have hollered, "CRAP!"  Literally.  Yeah.  A pipe fitting came undone that shouldn't have and DH had to deal with, well, "sewage."  

It just wasn't his day.

He had to make two trips into town to Lowe's for more plumbing parts and didn't get finished until this afternoon.  And I was without my washing machine during this time.  I didn't need it, but just the thought of not having it made me antsy.

It just wasn't his day.

And did I mention that he had to dig holes with a shovel, his least favorite thing to do?  Yeah.  He was not a happy camper.

And I haven't stitched much, but hope to have a picture tomorrow of what progress I have made.  

LoneStar

I'm not dead yet

I'm not dead yet, nor have I dropped off the face of the earth.  I've been under the weather here lately.  Living in a valley in the springtime with all the abundant pollens from a rainy late winter and early spring will do that to you.  

I haven't stitched as much lately.  I typically read more when I'm not feeling well.  I read the "Hunger Games" trilogy on my Kindle and I enjoyed them very much.  I also read the latest "nine-ology" of books in the Star Wars universe.  

I didn't stitch on my BAP at all in April.  For May, so far I have stitched the May square of "Crabby All Year."  This square made me laugh.  When I get all the stitching done, I'll add the buttons.  This square has two round brown buttons that will go under and behind the rabbit - you guessed it - rabbit poop!

A few weeks ago, someone posted a "help me find the pattern in this picture" request on the 123 Stitch Message Board.  Someone immediately knew that it was from the UK Cross Stitcher magazine, December 2011 (Issue #247).  I liked the pattern so I sought out my own copy and got one off eBay.

I'm one of those people that rarely buys a stitching magazine unless I'm looking for a specific pattern in a specific issue.  Once I get it, I tear the pattern out and then pass the magazine  along to another stitcher.  I see no reason to keep volumes and volumes of magazines just to say that I have them. 

So I started stitching on this pattern and after stitching two lengths of floss, I frogged it all and changed the fabric because the floss was blending into the original fabric.  One of the problems with UK magazines is that they aren't real specific as to fabric.  This one told me to use a "rustic evenweave fabric."  So I chose one and it didn't work, so I went back to my fabric stash and chose another.

And no, I won't be making a tea cozy with it.  I'm a southerner - I like my tea iced and sweetened.
  
DH has been working on our HVAC.  He has all the duct work done and won't have to be in the attic for awhile.  In between keeping the rapidly growing grass mowed, he is now working on some plumbing in the utility room. 

LoneStar
 

Emma's new friend

You may recall my telling of our recent visit from Pepe LePew.  DH's office had to cancel and reschedule several of his patients for that day while we dealt with the aftermath at home.  The office scheduler told the patients that DH had had an "incident with a skunk" and wouldn't be available for appointments that day.

One of the "reschedulees" was one of his more fun patients.  When she came in for her rescheduled appointment, she presented DH with a "skunk kit."  She'd gone to the dollar store and filled a little basket with the most odious things she could find.  Bad cologne, stinky car air freshener, smelly soap, etc.  It was hilarious and creative and DH really got a kick out of it.  But the best thing she put in the basket was a dog toy in the shape of a skunk.  She thought that if Emma had a toy skunk to play with then maybe she wouldn't "play" with the real ones.  

Yeah, right.  Good theory.  At any rate, the toy - nicknamed Skunky - is her new favorite and MUST be by her bowl (with her other toys) while she eats.  It has a really annoying squeaker, too. 

LoneStar

Another Christmas finish

On Wednesday, I finished up my Christmas ornament for the month.  I stitched "Joy Y'all" by Redbird Designs on a scrap of 32 count mushroom Lugana I had in my stash with DMC and the GAST colors I had on hand.  As usual, I substituted beads for the french knots on Santa's hat.  He was a fun stitch!

Now I'm back stitching on "Harana."  It was quite an ordeal getting ahold of the designer.  I googled her and found her on Facebook.  I don't do Facebook.  One of the guys DH works with was gracious enough to contact her on Facebook on my behalf and gave her my e-mail.  After several days, she got back to me with the floss colors for the two "extra" symbols and also a color correction for a third symbol!  I had to frog a small area that I'd already stitched!  Whoops!

And another thing, the chart is very fiddly to begin with.  It is printed in black, red and blue.  Some of the symbols are the same, just printed in a different color!  ACK!  I'm having to be extremely careful when reading the chart.  (Not to mention the fact that my working copy is in black and white, so I have to keep the original nearby to check on the color of the symbols.)

And for crying out loud, who designs without putting their contact information SOMEWHERE on the chart?!!   

In spite of all the headaches, I still like the design and am enjoying stitching it.

LoneStar