Hastur Agrees

This is not a stitching post but I just had to share this link. Hastur the Dachshund agrees with the premise of the article which brings up an important point. The Lovecraftian viewpoint needs to be shared with our children. Enjoy. http://www.theonion.com/content/news/lovecraftian_school_board_member?utm_source=a-section

Revising the List of Shame (Goals for 2009)

I set my goals really high with the previous List of Shame. This upcoming year has a brand new sparkling list of goals. I am getting rid of the old list.

My New Goals with estimated amount of completion time

1. Finish TW's Autumn Fairy (3 months)
2. Finish Dragon Dreams' Fairy Tale Sampler (1 month)
3. Finish Mirabilia's Christmas Fairy (1 month)
4. Finish TW's Princess and the Dragon (2 months)
5. Start St. Basil's Cathedral by Dimples Designs
6. Start Snapdragon by Kustom Crafts
7. Start a Dimples Designs' insect
8. Start a Dracolair chart
9. Start Japanese Octagonal Box
10. Work on Olde World Map

Revisiting the List of Shame

Several years ago I created a list of goals that I intended to finish in one year. Last year I revisited the list and discovered that very few goals had been accomplished. Lets revisit the list and see what I accomplished this year. A new list of goals will be created on Jan. 1st.

1. Finish Olde World Map- hahaha
2. Finish Ouroborus by Dracolair- finished 2007
3. Finish Rose Tree in Bloom by Teresa Wentzler- another hahaha
4. Finish Red Dragon Bookmark by Dracolair
5. Finish Christmas Labyrinth- finished 2007
6. Finish Mini Mandala 1C by Chatelaine
7. Finish Wisdom from the Legends of the Dragons
8. Start and Finish other two Mini Mandalas (1a and 1b) by Chatelaine- Do two different mini mandalas count?
9. Start and Finish Mystery Sampler III by Chatelaine- finished 2007
10. Start and Finish Japanese Octagonal Box by Chatelaine
11. At least 3 Christmas Ornies
12. At least 3 freebies- Finished one (2007), Finished two in 2008
13. Start wedding gift for best friend (married two years ago)- finished
14. Start wedding gift for brother (married last summer)- finished but it became a Christmas gift
15. Start Fantasy Sampler by Dragon Dreams- Started Dec. 2008
16. Start The Guardian by Teresa Wentzler
17. Start Tricky Treat Cats
18. Start and Finish Griffon Bookmark by Dracolair

This is what I did this year
1. You are Never Too Old for a Teddy Bear by Dragon Dreams- WIP started June 2006? Finished Jan. 2008
2. The Dreaming by Dinky Dyes- WIP started Fall 2006, Finished Feb. 2008
3. Fish Tonight- Valerie Pfeiffer/Heritage Stitchcraft.- Started sometime in late 2005 or early 2006. Finished Feb. 2008-
4. Mystery Mini Mandala 1- Chatelaine- Start April 16, 2008 finished June 29, 2008
4. Needle Guardian- Teresa Wentzler- Started July 3 2008 finished July 19, 2009
5. Cockatoos Two by Britter Cup Designs- Started July 20 2008 and Finished August 2008
6. I love Penguins by Britter Cup Designs- Started and Finished August 2008
7. The Purr-fect Bookmark by Dinky Dyes- Started and Finished August 2008
8. Spyder by The Cross-Eyed Cricket- Started and Finished August 2008
9. Quaker Hedgehog by The Workbasket- Started and Finished August 2008
10. Mini Mystery Mandala II by Chatelaine- Started Sept 2008 and Finished Oct 18, 2008
11. Armadillo needlepoint- Started and Finished Oct 18, 2008
12. Dragons by the Fire- Black Swan- Started Feb. 2007 and Finished Dec. 16, 2008 - The BIG finish of the year!
13. Halloween Fairy by Mirablia- started Nov. 2007, Finished Jan. 2008


In a nutshell. While I completed 13 projects (possibly 14 or 15 depending on the stitching I can do before the end of the year), I only completed 3.66 of the goals I set. I knocked off another sixth of my goals. So 7/18 of my goals have been completed. I suck! I am totally revamping my goal list this year. It will be much more reasonable. Of course I will continue to monitor my progress of the original goal list because I am a masochist.

Snow in Texas!

Due to a freaky storm we had snow in East Central Texas during the day...one inch! I have never seen snow here. Ice once a year but not snow. It was a winter wonderland. Normally our snowmen consist of these balls of ferns that grow in the tree but not yesterday. Poor Genghis the Aloe plant. We were not expecting this weather so he was not brought in the house before the freak storm. Notice how the dachshund sinks into the snow and it touches his chest. Poor weiner dog! He had never been in snow before. However, it was nice dry fluffy snow. The sidewalks and roads were to warm for the snow and ice to stick so we had all the fun of snow without the dangers of it (at least on the ground).

Happy Halloween

Happy Hallowein(er)!

Pictures Galore

I can never get the pictures in blog to line up
right grrrr.

Explanation of Pictures: I have Princess and the Dragon before and a third of the way through the TWOctober stitch along the Wagon BB. I am really enjoying this stitch. I also posted a picture of Hastur that was taken while he was sleeping in this morning. The creature does not rise from bed until 11 am or noon if he can. I toil away on my dissertation while he lounges about. The last picture is I love Penguins by Brittercup designs. I stitched it for my DH. He luvs penguins! I am almost done with the Chatelaine Mini Mystery Mandala II. I would post pictures but it is a gift for someone.

Two finishes

I have had two finishes within the past month, Mini Mystery Mandala 01 by Chatelaine and Needle Guardian by Teresa Wentzler. I made a few changes to the Mini Mystery. I changed out on the of the blue flosses for a lighter one and left off the most outer row of the border. For the Needle Guardian I used the cotton version of the Dinky Dyes instead of the silk. It was a very colorful and fun skein of overdyed floss to work with.

Needle Guardian took me over two weeks to stitch instead of just a few days. It is not that big of a project. I have been drowning in work related activities. For the past two weeks I have been working 12-14 hour days without any real breaks, even during lunch I had errands or meetings to attend (I lost 4 pounds-this is a good thing). Getting a Ph.D. can really suck sometimes. I have two weeks off from the workshop scene and we start again for two more weeks of torture. Excuse me while I go scream in frustration. End of whine.

I have finally started my best friends wedding gift. I discovered last night while rooting around in my stash that I had all the necessary speciality fibers to complete it. I also discovered something about my stitching habits in the process. The great discovery is that there is no reason for when I decide to stitch something...I just get obsessed over a project and I have to do it. Normally this happens when I have an open pair of scroll bars. I have resisted working on this project for well over a year now and all of a sudden I have to do it. I don't know what changed but the good news is that by the end of August I will finally have a wedding gift to send to my best friend...three and half years late... Oh the project is Cockatoo's Two of the Feather Friends collection by Britter Cup designs. http://brittercupdesigns.com/featherfriends.html Not a difficult project by any means but I just had to get my stitching mojo in gear and focus it on that particular project.

Pictures Galore

I am too lazy to come up with much of a written entry today...so you get lots of pictures. Yippeeeeee...pictures. I must include the obligatory pictures of the adorable dachshund.

Picture list: The Dreaming by Dinky Dyes with changed floss and fabric colors. Mystery Mini Mandala 01 by Chatelaine. It is stitched on black fabric. I changed one of the floss colors from DMC 831 to 830 (or vice versa- I went with the lighter blue). I used the DMC conversion list instead of the NPIs. Last is a freebie You Are Never Too Old. Adorable but stitching with that many metallics totally sucked. Never again....

Bribing Myself with Stitching Goodies

I must confess to all of the participants of the 50 Project Challenge that I have broken my promise not to buy any charts with non-gift money. It is for a good cause. See, I love the mini-mystery Mandalas from Chatelaine. They are lovely, small, and affordable. I brought the first one and I have been working on it. Pictures of it should soon appear. The camera is in my DH's backpack. I just need to fish it out of there. I am bribing myself to lose weight with the Chatelaine mini-mysteries as the prize. For every 15 pounds I lose I get to buy the chart. I lost 21 pounds so I could buy the first one. I have from April 1st to July 1st to lose another 15 pounds so I can purchase the 2nd one. I have lost 8 pounds of it and have a little over a month to lose 7 more pounds. Bribing myself works really well and 15 pounds in three months at my weight is a very conservative and realistic weight loss goal. It works especially well in this case because of my great "hunger" to obtain new charts. Given this information please decide my punishment. I am thinking of adding 5 projects to the challenge before I can buy new charts. Is this adequate?

Shameless Plug (again): todays post by Library Overlord was especially funny. http://libraryoverlord.blogspot.com/2008/05/tales-from-dungeon-part-ii.html

The Camera Saga

I promise I have pictures of projects...but they are trapped on the camera. I haven't been able to find the cord to connect the camera to the computer. Today I found it!!! Of course the camera is MIA. Some days I just can't win.

Up date on stitching. I have been working on Chatelaine Mini-Mandala Mystery 1 and I am almost finished with the second part. I have taken some lovely pictures of it...

DMC Scare: I normally don't kit anything up until I am ready to work on it. Hence my stash is full of lovely charts and not much else. Well due to the DMC scare I "flossed" 25 projects. Most of them are TWs since they are hardest ones to convert to Anchor if the worst happens and DMC actually folds in 6 months. This whole DMC floss has been a total nightmare and it made me realize just how vunerable my stash is to the loss of key stitching industry players. On a side note flossed when you kit up a project with only the basic flosses .(I don't know if this is an actual stitching term. I just made it up to describe the lack of completely kitting up a project)

Shameless Plug: check out http://www.libraryoverlord.blogspot.com/ It is a humerous blog about one library workers saga at a large library. He is a gamer, comic book geek, and fanatasy fan. It shows but in an awesome way. Make sure you check out the links in the text.

So how well did I do last year

Below is the list of goal for 2007. Lets take a look at how much I failed to accomplish.

1. Finish Olde World Map
2. Finish Ouroborus by Dracolair
3. Finish Rose Tree in Bloom by Teresa Wentzler
4. Finish Red Dragon Bookmark by Dracolair
5. Finish Christmas Labyrinth
6. Finish Mini Mandala 1C by Chatelaine
7. Finish Wisdom from the Legends of the Dragons
8. Start and Finish other two Mini Mandalas (1a and 1b) by Chatelaine
9. Start and Finish Mystery Sampler III by Chatelaine
10. Start and Finish Japanese Octagonal Box by Chatelaine
11. At least 3 Christmas Ornies
12. At least 3 freebies- Finished one
13. Start wedding gift for best friend (married two years ago)
14. Start wedding gift for brother (married last summer)
15. Start Fantasy Sampler by Dragon Dreams
16. Start The Guardian by Teresa Wentzler
17. Start Tricky Treat Cats
18. Start and Finish Griffon Bookmark by Dracolair

Well, I guess 3.33 out of 18 isn't too bad. Hehehehe.......

I have gone over how fickle I am with projects. So below is what I finished last year.

1. I love birds by Brittercup started and finished March 2007
2. Assisi Dragon Scissor Fob- Finished June 28, 2007
3. Chirstmas Labyrinth- Started April 7, 2007 Finished July 17, 2007
4. Emerald Orchid Bee by Dimples Designs- started July 20, 2007 Finished July 23, 2007
5. Ouroborus by Dracolair- WIP started June 27, 2006 Finished July 28, 2007
6. Mystery Dinky Dyes Contest Piece August 2007
7. Chatelaine Mystery Sampler III- WIP started Jan. 4, 2007 Finished Sept. 4, 2007
8. Sun Dragon by TW- started Oct 1. 2007 Finished Oct. 16, 2007 9. "wheat" posted on My Aunt's Attic - started and completed Dec. 21, 2007

Completed Mystery Samper III

It is finally done...after 9 months. This piece had lots of beads, metallic floss, and used Dinky Dyes silk floss. The wording was all over one. The swans were my favorite part of the piece to stitch but I did love all of the beading. I am not joking. Beading was used as a reward for finishing all of the Algerian Eyelets (over 260 of them). My favorite floss was used in this piece. It is called Day Dream by Dinky Dyes and was used in the border. It is a highly varigated floss that ranges from pink to purple and blue to green.

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.

Blogger ate my pictures

Blogger does not like progress pictures to be shown. Blogger is hungry and has determined that feasting upon the pictures is a good and noble thing to do.
Sorry about the pictures. Iwill give blogger a few days to become sastified and then post some new pictures.

Blogger ate my pictures

Blogger does not like progress pictures to be shown. Blogger is hungry and has determined that feasting upon the pictures is a good and noble thing to do.
Sorry about the pictures. I give blogger a few days to become sastified and post some new pictures.

Some WIPs

I actually got to do some stitching this month inspite of being really ill with bronchitis and being out of town for almost a week. New Orleans was a combination of beautiful and horrific. The French Quarter had bounced back from the Hurricane nicely for the most part. There was still some major reconstruction going on and some buildings that had been abandoned. Then there was the rest of the city. I shudder to think of some of the images that I observed.

SBQ about Blogs

This is from the SBQ April 5: How do you decide which stitching blogs are worth repeat and/or regular viewings? Are there certain things you look for in particular? Are there things you wish there were more of? Less of? Is your blog a good example of what you like to read?

I like blogs that have lots of pictures, talk primarily about the subject I am interested in, and can make me laugh. I like stitching blogs to contain stuff about stitching. I am not so interested in the day to day personal things. If the person has been ill or having a hard time, that is good to know, especially if they are an online buddy. But I really don't want to know that you were out of lemon zest yesterday or your Lucky Charms cereal didn't have any marshmallows. On bulletin boards, I typically like to avoid religious or political discussions (what I would have to say would probably piss off 95% of the readers). Blogs, I am a bit more flexible towards. Blots are some one's personal space that I go to read. So if they want to cuss or talk about about something it is their choice. If it annoys me too much then I just won't go back . I can put up with annoying personal stuff if people post lots of pictures, especially stitching designs that I like. I also enjoy when people talk about technique, floss usage or the pitfalls of a design. If someone is on The Challenge I try to visit their blog on a regular basis to keep track of their progress and offer words of encouragement. If someone leaves a comment on my blog I try to look at their blog the same day.
I do visit stitchers' blogs that don't have a lot to do with stitching. If the blog is amusing or informative, I will continue to go back to it on a regular basis. I love things that make me laugh.
I try to limit personal stuff on my own blog unless it effects my stitching. Being ill effects my stitching. Going to California effects my stitching. But I try to limit these discussions. My blog is primarily stitching and I try to include pictures as much as possible.

With this said, I am off to New Orleans for a conference! Be back in 5 days.