Summer Finishes

Yipee. I found my camera and could finally take some pics. I finished the little Assassi Dragon Scissor Fob last month. It is over one and tiny. The Emerald Orchid Bee by Dimples Designs took several nights and inspite of its small size is farily complex piece. It is really sparkly and fuzzy. In the green portion of the head there are 14 stiches comprised of 5 metallic/DMC blends. There is one color that is used for a grand total of 1.5 stiches in the entire piece. Lots of color changes, fractionals, and blends but as usual Dimples Designs are worth it. I have at least a dozen more insects in my collection to go. Ouroborus is done. It took a year, a month, and a day to finish. Of course I have absolutely no project fidelity so I worked on lots of stuff in between. I loved working this piece and was almost sad to finish it. It was like losing an old friend. It is one of my all time favorite designs.

Hastur is Fine

I dropped Hastur off at the vet's this morning and was not expecting to hear how the surgery went until early afternoon. The vet calls me at 11 am to tell me that he did not have the surgery. The size of the lump had gone down and she redid some of the cytology. He just had an infection and it was causing the area to swell, however, his initial tests had tumor like symptoms. Apparently there are some scavenger cells that can mimic the atypical multi-nucleated cells of a tumor. So he came home at 11:30 with an even more shaved neck and lots of antibiotics but surgery free. We have to keep an eye on him for the next couple of weeks but all should be well. Thank you for your kind words.

Hastur the Dachshund Goes into Surgery Tomorrow

This past week has been a wild ride for myself and my tiny family. My dissertation topic has been change but there is a lot of political B.S. attached to it. Thank goodness I have a wonderful and powerful committee chair who supports me. I have been offered a PostDoc at my current institution (I keep getting offers from different places even though I won't graduate for another year) and decided to accept it. I will have the freedom to continue my own research in addition to my PostDoc requirements.

So with all that going on I find a lump on Hastur's neck and some of it is scabbed over. I take him to the vet's fully expecting it to be an abcess. It is a tumor and due to the sample she evaluated yesterday there a good possiblity that is cancerous. We will remove the entire tumor tomorrow and wait about a week for the verdict. So please keep your fingers crossed for this little guy.

Finally some finishes

Greetings. Sorry about the delay between postings. I was having a ton of problems with my old laptop. I now have a shiny red and silver piece of efficient machinery in front of me. Her name is Dr. Vibby Girlfriend and she is fast. Her name is due to several in jokes between Persian Pen Name and I. It would take an entire post to explain how she got her name and probably would not be all that funny to you. Microsoft Vista is not all that but it was the only OS they were putting on the higher grade laptops.

On to the stitching.

I have actually finished two projects within the past month. A little Assassi dragon scissor fob and Christmas Labyrinth. Christmas Labyrinth has been a UFO/WIP since March of 2006...for good reason. Lots of quarter stitches and metallic fibers. For anyone who wants to do this project...convert the recommended metallics to Rainbow Gallery Petite Braid. The metallic I was using was a PITA to work with and also keep ripping up the beautiful silk variagated fiber. Also, the green backstiching color as charted does not exist. I used Krienick 009V, emerald green. I am done complaining about a truly annoying project that is totally worth it in the end. I have posted pics with and without the back stitching, so you can see the fun fractionals. So without further yammering the pictures.