Texas! (again :) ) and some other progress

Welp, I started off with a wild and crazy Friday night.

I broke out my new vacuum sealer and spent the night inventorying the freezer, properly sealing things, and processing veggies for the freezer.    Wooooo.   Young me would be soooo envious of old me's Friday night partying ;)

I actually wanted another model of a FoodSaver (I've had one in the past), but it was more than twice the price of this little unit and I wanted to make sure I'd actually use it a bunch before I spent the money on the fancy one.   To be honest, this little sucker is running like a champ and has most of the features I could ever use, so I don't even know if I'll need the more expensive one, now.

But by the end of the night, my kitchen was totally trashed, but hey!   No more veggies on the counter top! (until Saturday when I harvested again, any way).

I decided the weekend (after my Friday night 'party') would be all about no-chores.   Which was awesome, but I'm sure I'll regret later.   A huge cold front moved through the area on Friday night and there was a high of 78 on Saturday.  I'm sure when I get around to finishing some of the yard-work I've been stalling out on, I'll regret not doing it in less sweaty weather when I get the chance :)

So I decided to go ahead and knock out Texas:

And here it is sew into the wall hanging.    When I get back to the machine, I'll get the binding on all of the pieces so I can get them up.

And then I started a piece for my boss.   Her birthday is this week and since she started here earlier this year they've buried her in a crap tonne of administrative work, so it seemed apropos (even if strictly not work apropos ;) )    I bought the hoop above (used for the Texas piece) to display this, but I think it's going to be too big, so I'll have to get a bigger one.   I don't generally use hoops, so I was a little frustrated it's too large, though it's turned out to be helpful for the tiny things I can't put in my qsnaps.

This piece is on a mystery piece from my stash.    I ended up with a bunch of fabric from a friend who no longer stitches, and I'm pretty sure this is from her because it's opalescent, and I generally don't like that style of fabric - I think it'll work great for this piece.   It's gotta be done by Wed!

Pooh the Barbarian

First off - I know, I know.
This piece involves some questionable legalalities, and please don't sue me, Disney.

But I did a thing!  I was super excited and had so much fun with this.

And just so you know how this happened:

At some point in the past week, somewhere, in one of the general FB cross stitch groups, someone posted a finished Winnie the Pooh thing based on this illustration:

Someone else asked where they got the pattern, and the stitcher mentioned it was a freebie, but she didn't remember where she found it.   This got my little wheels turning, because it's a Winnie the Pooh, and that IP belongs to Disney, who isn't so much up with "free."

Sure enough, I used my GoogleFu to find the blog where someone did, indeed, chart out this saying (for a swap).    She actually has a download link to the PDF of the pattern she made.   Now, I'm not going to link to it, because, again with the questionable legalities, but it's not hard to find with Google and the correct phrasing.   I mean, we're individual bloggers, parody, personal use, etc. etc., but I just don't want to have that fight.

Anyway, the hamster wheels kept spinning in my head and I really, really liked that chart and had an idea.

I have occasional giggle fits whenever I see the different quotes that people overlay on Winnie the Pooh illustrations, and this one is probably my favorite:

The innocence and sweetness of the Pooh juxtaposed with the brutality of Conan is just too much for me.

So I did what any overactive mind does and I used Patternmaker to make the mostly same chart as the other blogger and then I did the lettering for the Conan quote.  I did, briefly, consider changing "lamentations" to "bothers" in true Pooh fashion, which also makes me giggle, but ultimately, that lamentations word is so crucial to the quote that I wanted to keep it.

The obvious thing I changed in the design was adding the iconic red shirt to Pooh.   I think, by virtue of my age, I'm much more familiar with Pooh in his red shirt (actually, now that I think of it, I think 99% of my Winnie the Pooh memories/familiarity are thanks to the Kingdom of Hearts videogames). I am more familiar with Piglet in his darker pink/purple jumper, which is how other blogger designed it, but I like the version with the green the better and went that direction.

I didn't pay attention to the colors the original designer used, and chose what I thought would look good from the floss I have on hand (which would be all DMC).

I decided to backstitch the woods with 2 strands instead of 1 (which is how I backstitched everything else) to give it a bit more solidity/depth.   I also only used one strand when I half stitched the sky and shadows because I wanted them to have a lighter effect.

In any event, I love the heck out of this piece and I had so much fun stitching it.

Winnie the Pooh (and characters) are © Disney, the Conan quote is probably © Universal (the studio that made Conan the Barbarian), but even that quote is derivative of something that Genghis Kahn supposedly said.

#TBT - Sue Hillis

I thought I'd throw in the three pieces I did when I started stitching again in NC.  I did these in late 2010.   I really liked these and I need to get them displayed.

When I first arrived in NC in 2009, I went to a get together started at the Lazy Daizy, a cross stitch shop in Raleigh.  I met with a few stitchers I had met online through the years (and ones I had met in real life, before hand, too!).  We also went to the French Knot, which was a needlepoint/framing place closer to the Arena.   I picked up a few charts, got a few threads for some pieces I fully intended on stitching, ate some lunch, and had good times.

I picked up a few little Sue Hillis charts - I love her post-stitches series.    One was "Burnt to Perfection", which is part of her pirate series (which I'm in the process of getting all of, because they're so freakin' cute), and the other was Wine a Bit.  I finally got around to them over the holidays in 2010.

Burnt to Perfection - I did this one as charted, and I stitched it on 25 ct ivory evenweave.   It think it was some of the last dregs of the 25ct I initially bought in 1996 when I purchased everything for TW's Castle Sampler (the start went badly, so it's been slowly gobbled up over time).

Finished 1/1/2011 - Happy New Year!

I really want to get this framed (with glass) to hang over the stove.  I know the charm is a little gas grill, but hey, you don't need open flames to make something... toasty.

Wine a Bit was started as a gift, which I then decided to keep for myself (haha!), and it was stitched not-quite-as-charted.  I subbed red and green overdyes from my stash for all of the red & green floss (as in, I used one red overdye instead of the however-many threads called for, ditto for the green).  I'm rather happy with how it came out, especially in the lettering.

12/18/2010

 I have an entire wall decorated with wine labels (and wine labels decorated through out the house in other areas, too), but I was thinking of making this one into a flat-fold to put on my wine rack.   I'm not going to lie - every time I look at this, I get fixated at  how well my initials came out.

Both of these were really fun to stitch, and they always remind me of what a nice welcome I got here in NC.

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Hopefully the next time I post, it will be with the next RR installment!   I had to cancel my plans for tomorrow night (well, rather the event filled up before I could sign up), and I think I need a break from the LadyCave, so stitching to a movie sounds kinda nice - of course, that could turn into playing Assassin's Creed pretty easily.   The LadyCave is coming along and I can't wait to get it a bit more organized to share pictures, I'm pretty close to the end of the second game.  I'm getting closer to finishing LadyCave, but I spent Saturday at a friends' place, helping the wife put in flooring and stuff so we could surprise the hubby with a new office when he came back from an out of town trip (total success!).

For this weekend, other than LadyCave work (driving the 4+ hour round trip to Ikea) and relaxing, I will hopefully have lots of stitching time.  It's getting a bit toasty out there, so I don't really want to do anything strenuous (I think driving to Ikea would be it).   Next weekend I'm at the beach for a wedding, and the following weekend, my best friend is in town for the Mead Festival!   Although, since LadyCave is also the guest bedroom, maybe I should work on that!