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!

Oops.

This weekend was super eventful or busy or, I don't know what I want to call it, but I definitely enjoyed being at home and getting stuff done.

I can't remember if I mentioned it, but we hired painters last year and they were... not good.   So it's taken me a year, but I finally (almost - I have three touch ups) finished painting the master bath.
And then we hired a handyman earlier this year that was pretty decent;  he told us his specialty was doors and we wanted to replace some doors (from the garage outside, from the back deck outside, and the front door).    What we neglected to clarify was the painting.   I thought the doors would be installed and painted.   Only apparently not.   So I've been super lazy about finishing the doors all the way (painting the inside and out, jambs and all).    This weekend, I was going to finish the patching and painting that I've been mad about (I want to work on the fun projects like stenciling!!!).

Anyway, Saturday morning I had planned to get up early, take Tiny to the lake for a walk, and then get going on projects, but I overslept and it's been entirely too hot to go on a 7 mile hike.  So I went outside to water the garden, only I found Japanese beetles (ugh) on the hibiscus plants I hadn't gotten around to tearing out.   I knew they were on the crabapple tree, and so I looked around, and sure enough, they're freaking everywhere.

So I watered, cut down the hibiscus (to minimize enticing plants), weeded, reorganized, and basically sweat a lot for a couple of hours.    And *then* started working on house stuff.

And then I got tired of house stuff (I painted the front and back doors and patched the wall in the front hallway) and decided to make those wall hanging blocks for my Victoria Sampler state hearts.

And I didn't pay attention... and when I was cutting I felt a suddenly thick slice and (rightly) panicked.    And found this:

Oops

I tried to find ways to patch it back together, but nothing was going to work, and luckily it was something small, so I decided to just order the VS chartbook (I had gotten this as a kit way back in the day) and just redo the stupid thing.    I also decided to go ahead and cut the pieces I would need to finish it as a wall hanging, because why not at this point, right?

But I did manage to not slice the rest of the states and get them sewed together.   Where I also discovered that I'd chosen directional fabric for three out of the four states!

This is the Little Golden Books fabric I found last week that I was so happy with.  I lived in California as a wee kiddo.

Because Cactus.   I love cacti.

And Hydrangeas because they are my favorite favorite thing about moving to NC.   I've never lived anywhere else where I could grow them, so I'm so excited to be planting them all over the place :)

And then finally, I decided to go ahead and put together the wall hanging block for the gift I want to make.  The recipient has no idea I have a blog (pretty sure), so I can show it off here (though not anywhere on social media).    I'm super happy with how the colors came out on this one, and I have to admit that if this had been the one I cut through, I would've likely lost my frelling mind ;)

So that's it for the weekend update.   I did a bit more work on Sunday (painting the bathroom, hanging the window cling on the side windows, etc.)  I'm hoping to finish the bathroom and front hallway this week/weekend, and then I'll have more time for stitching/sewing/goofing off.

I am really hoping for one last quiet weekend before social and doggie things start up again.   I think my next stretch of quiet should be in August, thankfully :)

Hearts of America - North Carolina

Well, I'm one step closer to the state bellpull I want to make - I've finished North Carolina!

This heart features a cardinal, dogwood, and a strawberry (the official red berry of NC)

I always liked The Victoria Sampler's little kits for teaching new stitches.  If there was something particularly difficult for me *coughbullioncough* I'd work on one of these kits.   When I saw the state hearts, I just loved them and got the three states I'd lived in at the time.  I recently purchased the charts (I think it's a 5 part series, let's hope I don't need another one!) to get NC, the latest state, since I can't find any kits anywhere.

I made two small changes:
1.  I stitched this using PB03 instead of the called upon Kreinik.  I just like PTB better
2.  I added little seed stitches to the strawberry, they're not super obvious, but I think it makes it look a little less like a cherry.  I thought about french knots, but I thought they might be too big.

Cardinal with a couple of specialty stitch bands

I'm very pleased with these dogwood flowers

Leviathan stitch was the feature specialty band for this piece

The strawberry I added little seeds to...

So there's another finish for the books;  two down for the Year of WIPs and almost down for WIPocalypse (the band is my final goal)

This week/weekend I'm going to a gaming convention, so I hope I'll have a fun report of the games I'll be playing then.  I'm looking forward to it - well, that, and a bit less snow as what we got this past week melts away!

IHSW - January

My first IHSW in a long, long time!  I'm going to try to take part in these more.  Even just one weekend a month to do my thing would be fantastic.

Now, truth be told, this wasn't the most IHSW weekend it could have been - I had some previous projects that were already scheduled for this weekend - I need to paint one wall and finish some repairs, do a little work with mounting the TV, getting all of our peripherals done, and getting the wiring behind the wall (Partner thought it a little silly, but it would make me happy, and it's relatively easy to do and keep in code).  Ultimately, it's good, because it means we'll have our entertainment set up (finally) and I'll be able to chillax and stitch on the couch even easier ;)

But first up?  I finished my Lavender Biscornu!

I also did a few stitches on my Ink Spot #19 that I did not take a picture of (probably less than 20 stitches)...

before realizing that I wanted to work on my North Carolina heart, which I finished! so there's that.

It was a great weekend.  I think we're all pretty happy now.   And as an aside, I've made progress on helping out my fish tank.  The 55 is about done cycling, but more important, the 20 gal got 'old tank syndrome' (my fault) and I'm almost done treating/fixing that so the fish can be safely moved to the 55.

California and Arizona - My first 2017 Finishes!

This weekend, I finished two of the Hearts of America series by Victoria Sampler.

My goal is to make a wall hanging out of all of the places I've lived.  I want to do it in such a way that if I move again, I can still add to the wall hanging.  I'm pretty sure I have a plan ready for it, I just need to get around to sewing these little guys into panels (my internal question: Do I start on these now, or wait until I finish the last state (NC)

I started both of these on February 5 (SuperbOwl Sunday, watching that awful game with friends).  I just did the heart border on each and then did the rest on Friday/Saturday while binge watching TV.

First, I finished Arizona on Friday.  It's the Hearts of America #48 kit from the Victoria Sampler.   It was designed/copyrighted from 2002.

Started 5 Feb 2017; Finished 10 Feb 2017

I lived in Tucson when I was a kid.  That's where my mom died and was buried.   I really love the desert, and if I had a chance to move back there (to Tucson or Phoenix), I would do it in a heart beat.  Unfortunately, either there are not many positions opening up in my field there, or they're not widely advertised.

I'm not super thrilled with the beaver colored cactus.  They should be greener, but I also wasn't in the mood to go hunting for an appropriate color substitution.  I'm also not sure if it would throw off the overall effect/color of the heart, anyway.

Next, I finished California on Saturday.  It's the Hearts of America #31 kit from the Victoria Sampler.   It was designed/copyrighted from 2002.

Started 5 Feb 2017; Finished 11 Feb 2017

I was actually born in CA, in the Bay Area.  I debate moving back there every once in a while, but never really manage to do it.  All of the jobs are either in the San Fran area or in LA, and I'm not exactly excited to move to either of those more heavily populated areas (and I kind of like the East Coast, though a good job in CO wouldn't make me sad ;) )

I love these little hearts.  They are tons of fun to stitch and I can't wait to get them displayed.

Hearts of America - Texas

Another finish!   This is an old (2002) kit from the Victoria Sampler.  They sell these bunch together in charts now, which is good, because I think I want to do more.  This is Hearts of America, #28 - Texas, featuring the Ribbon Stitch

Hearts of America - Texas by Victoria Sampler, Finished 7-22-2016

I really liked this cute little heart.   I decided to stitch this kit on the bus in the afternoon/evenings, because I get super motion sick trying to read on the bus, only that didn't work, I still had motion sickness problems.  So I've just kept it in my work bag and worked on it at lunches.   It was utterly filthy by the time I finished, it, but since it's all DMC, I went ahead and washed it with some dawn without worrying about it.  Much better now!

This kit featured the ribbon stitch (that band on top of the armadillo).   I do like how a specialty stitch is featured in individual kits by VS.   I have an old piece where I tried to teach myself bullion stitches.  That didn't work out so well, though.

I really like having this, and I keep thinking that I want to purchase the charts, so I can stitch all of the states I've lived in.   I go back and forth between stitching them as one big bell pull (on a solid piece of fabric), or finishing each state and adding them on as I go, so I can have a running tally of all the places I've lived?   If I want to talk about places I've "seriously" lived (more than a year), I'd need California, Arizona, and North Carolina... and there is a very high chance of me moving in the future, so it could be fun, and by individually finishing them I could just keep adding on and not worry about keeping extra material "just in case" (plus, this little guy wouldn't go to waste, not that re-stitching it would be difficult or time consuming).

Decisions.