Oh look, it's raining again ...

I mean, "Hooray! July is here!" 

*ahem* 

I meant to write yesterday. The day got away from me.  I spent the evening working on my bunny stitch. 

I told my hubby that the closer I come to completing this stitch the more goof ups I make. 

Over the weekend I started stitching up the bee. 

And quickly realized I had made some mistakes stitching up the leaves.  I thought "I can make this work." until I realized I couldn't make it work.  

Bah!

So yesterday I spent my lunch hour ripping out stitches.  

Ugh ... no matter how I try to rip out a large number of stitches, it turns into a mess and then the mess takes longer to clean up than if I had been able to just take the threads out. 

Last night I diligently worked on this little bee and put the final stitches in around 9 p.m. 

Finally! Now the back stitching can commence. 

This cross stitch project has been my main focus. 

When I wasn't working on my February Lady Sweater.  Mostly I've been working on my sweater in the mornings, before getting ready for the day and work. 

I am done with the sweater body.  Yay!  Time to start the sleeves.  I have just over four skeins of the Temu yarn to work with.  I'm optimistic that each sleeve will need only 2 skeins each. 

I had the idea that I would write a post at the beginning of the month stating what active projects I have, and what I hoped to get done by the end of the month.  Overly enthusiastic, perhaps. The list will help me get things in perspective since I'm still kind of all over the place, project-wise. Frankly, until I get this bit sorted out I don't feel I can move forward and make a flosstube. 

So things that are currently in the works/percolating along. 

Knits

February Lady Sweater - I would like to get this complete by the end of the month

Monkey socks - Another project I'd like to get done by the end of the month.

Princess Passenger socks - No deadline since I'm only going to work on them when I'm a passenger.  I will pick up stitches on the heel flap in the house.  I don't think I'd be able to do so in a bouncy vehicle. 

Quilts

Sandpiper quilt - I have the top all sewn together and the backing sewn together. I'm debating on whether to put a label on, or not.  The binding still needs to be cut. I would like to have this done by the end of the month. 

Just picture all my squares with sashing and borders around them.

Yes, this is my quilt backing, all in a heap. I think the color will look fantastic with the front. 

Dancing stars quilt - I have about half the quilts squares to sew, still. ... I think I'm going to hold this one until August, unless I get the other things done. 

I have no current photos of completed squares. Sorry. 

Sewing projects

I now have fabric for five WIP project bags.  I want to make them by the end of the month.  I could maybe accomplish this.  It's something to strive for. 

Spinning

My spinning has been pushed so far to the back burner that I haven't touched it in months.  I would like to spend one evening each week of July spinning my little heart away.  Currently the Tour de Fleece is going on.  I've never been good at following any kind of a-long, so I didn't even try to start it this year. 

No current photos of the wool I'm working with. 

Cross Stitch

Currently there are three cross stitch projects going. 

Bunny stitch before the back stitching. 

Where One Piece is. I haven't touched it in a while.  The goal is to get it done by Christmas, at least.  If not, then February next year. 

You may be surprised to read that I *finally* started my porkie cross stitch.  I decided to make it a birthday start.  Well ... I started it during my birthday week. 

It's not much but it is a start. I was still a bit intimidated to start it, and then I just went ahead and set up the aida cloth on my q-snap and started it. 

All the colors ... all 49 of them. 

I've been on the hunt for a porcupine needle minder.  Most of what I find are hedgehogs or images that really don't look like porcupines.  I may end up making my own.  Though I'm not sure how I will go about it. 

Project Name: Porcupine cross stitch

Chart purchased from Etsy: Purple Stitching
Started: June 2024, during my birthday week, 

Finished: 

Floss in called DMC colors: 167, 168, 169, 310, 317, 318, 413, 414, 415, 433, 437, 451, 452, 453, 524, 535, 611, 612, 640, 644, 645, 646, 647, 648, 762, 779, 840, 841, 842, 844, 927, 928, 934, 935, 939, 3021, 3023, 3031, 3032, 3041, 3072, 3371, 3756, 3787, 3799, 3828, 3863, 3864, 3866

Needle Size: 26

Made For: myself. 

Against my better judgement I kinda kitted up a few more cross stitches up that have come across my social media the last month or so. ... I'm really tempted to clear the cache, so to speak and take them out of the bucket until I get less projects on my plate.  As I keep reminding myself, there are no deadlines or urgent reasons to work these projects. So I just may file the floss back in to my storage system and put the charts away for now. 

My WIP bucket. My February Lady Sweater is in the blue daisy bag. 

I have this other project going.  It hasn't been touched for a while.  

A month ago, or so, I saw something on a few flosstubes and I thought "Hey, that's a good idea."

What, you may be wondering ... 

Putting a master set of floss on floss drops and sorting them by color families. 

I don't remember who came up with the idea but it took flosstube by storm, I think. 

This is a set of floss from Temu. The colors match DMC.  It's amazing! 

So my idea is to use this floss for my master set of colors and fill in the few that may be missing with regular DMC.  Also, if I need some floss in a pinch, I can use the floss from my master set. 

I think it will also be helpful to make color subs in the event I'm not wild about a color listed on a chart. 

I don't know how many I have put on floss drops yet.  I sort of burned out on it after a weekend of punching out floss drops.  I think I might have done some damage to my punch. Or, the card stock I was using for making themed floss drops was thicker than what I'm used to.

I'll post more in-progress project photos on my Instagram

Something just happened and I lost the tail-end of my blog post. I guess that is my cue to go work on my back stitching. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

 Happy Valentine's to all. 

My husband and I celebrated with a meal at home.  He cooked filet mignon and I made a salad to go with it.  Homemade ice cream for dessert. 

My man can cook a great steak. 

In my Facebook memories for this day a photo of us from one of our first Valentine's Day dinners popped up.  

I know we went to a supper club that is well-known for it's prime rib. 

My mother-in-law took the photo and told us to have a good time. 

We were such wee babes.  

Here we are, 27 years later. 

We first met when I was working at Wendy's. I'd say it was love at first sight.  Though it probably didn't seem like it, at first. We exchanged phone numbers and talked on the phone for hours almost every night before we went out on first date. Our first date was memorable.  The engine on the old Monte Carlo caught on fire and we had to pull over, by Pattison Park, and pop the hood and throw sand on the block to extinguish the fire.  Yes, we did continue with the date and went to a pizza joint in a town I don't remember.  

He said when he drove me back home I jumped out of the car so fast he thought he'd never see me again.  I remember being so excited that I couldn't wait to get on the phone and call one of my girlfriends to tell her how the date went. 

Happy Valentine's to my soulmate, and that we have many, many more. 

I can say soulmate because we've been together *forever.*

In other news ... I've been feeling a bit low the last several days so I haven't been writing or posting the #fiberuarychallenge posts over on Instagram. The recent weather kinda blows and I think the barometric pressure is sapping my energy.  Then last night I didn't get a good nights rest. 

And since I can't sit still unless I'm sick in bed, I've been working on my quilt blocks. 

The next set of my Dancing Stars quilt blocks

 The next block in my Sandpiper quilt

I also started my Emotional Support Chicken.

Project Name: Emotional Support Chicken
Started: Feb. 13, 2024

Finished: 

Designer/Source: Knitting Tree LA

Yarn: Scrap yarns in my stash and Red Heart

Colors: Brown and Saffrom

Needle Size: US #7, 4.5 mm

Made For: myself. 

I also finished my Harvest Cardigan.  I'm saving it for the next podcast I record.  You will just have to wait to see it. 

Spinning fiber also happened.  Not as much as I would have liked. I'm falling behind! 

Oh! I did have some fun mail today.  I ordered a floor lamp for my spot in the living room. I think it's going to work out. It's nice and bright and it is positioned such that it's not blinding anyone else in the room. The price is also very reasonable.  Less than $40. 

Earlier today I went to town, to pick up mail at the office and take care of one thing.  I swung up to Harbor Freight and picked up a generator. 

Guess you could say it's a Valentine's Day gift for the man of the house. 

"Stagnation of the lungs"

 Do *you* know what show that line is from? 

When I sat down to start writing this blog post, that was the first thing that came to mind, for some reason.  Maybe because that is how January has felt?  Stagnating? 

Maybe it's appropriate that my friend sent this gem through to me. 

Then, suddenly, it will be February in just a few days, and I will be thinking "Wow, that last little bit sure went fast!" 

The last time I wrote was just over a week ago.  Last week didn't feel that interesting as I was living it.  No sun.  Temperature's not as forecasted.  I was working towards a publishing day. Blerg. ... 

Tuesday I went to the dentist for a cleaning.  My hygienist is a really sweet gal, and we usually end up talking crafty things. Well, as much as we can while she's rooting around in my mouth, making sure everything is as it should be. 

When we were done, I got up and had pulled out my phone to show her something knitting-related and she saw the photo of Furby as my lock screen.  She enthused over how pretty Furby was and I had a hard time talking about Furby. 

Not in the way you might think. I wanted to tell her SO much about what kind of girl my Furby was that I got a bit stuck and didn't know what to say first.  She was my favorite girl and she is missed. 

It's been at least six months and I still get a bit teary-eyed and choked up at times when I think about her. 

*ahem* 

My son has been begging me to make eggrolls. Ever since the mom of one of his friends made eggrolls and he brought some home, he's pleaded with me to make them.  

I said I would if I found a good recipe.  Everything online calls for 100 ingredients.  I asked my mom's group if anyone had a good recipe. My friend E came through and gave me the recipe her mom used. 

Eggrolls were a big, fat hit! I even figured out a way to make them low carb, using low carb wraps.  

Another day I took advantage of the slowly thawing temperatures and cleaned out the chicken coop before work.  Yeah, I was out in the coop at 7 a.m., mucking it out. 

These two thought it was WAY too early for those type of shenanigans. 

The pine shavings were SO heavy from all the moisture. Then trying to move the wheelbarrow through the soft snow.  I thought I was gonna die! 

One of my hens was a bit miffed because she wanted to lay an egg and I kept messing about, and then I emptied the shavings out of the nesting boxes. 

Oh yeah ... when I first went out there I was looking at the tracks in the snow. 

Pretty sure this is a raccoon track. I am not fond of raccoons. 

Cleaning out took me about an hour.  I know I clean out my chicken coop more frequently than others probably do.  I want my birds to be happy. 

They are. 

I shot a quick video and my one hen had to come check out what I was doing.  This is my Stumpy Girl. 

Quilting ... 

The quilting has slowed down a small bit. Now that a few of the small sewing projects have been wrapped up I've not been quite as quick to run to the craft room in the evenings.  I'm still in there, though. 

I don't remember which night it was that I decided I was going to start working on squares for the Dancing Stars quilt. 

I thought I'd be so clever about it, too, and not look at the instructions. 

I have no idea what month this color set is. 

I sewed the pieces together in groups of two.  Then grouped two groups together. 

Like, I said ... I was being so clever. 

Three groups of four. 

I don't remember it being three groups of four ... Or the pieces needing to be sewn up into a Y seam. 

Drat!

It was supposed to be four groups of three colors.  

The first quilt square went in to timeout while I mentally kicked myself.  Then the next day I ripped seams and re-did the first square. 

Sewn back together as best as I could do.  There is some weird circular wrinkling going on. 

I know if I ripped everything apart and sewed it all back together, those wrinkles would likely not go away. So they will stay. Close enough. Not to mention 12 fabrics meeting in the same spot.  I doubt they would have come together again as nice as they currently are. 

Last night I ripped the remaining quilt squares apart, ironed and they are all ready to go. 

I have a goal of completing this set of squares by the end of the week, along with one square from the other quilt I'm working on.  Wish me luck!

And in the midst of the week I was out in the she shed and spotted a bag of DMC floss.  I was like "What chart is this for?'

I have no idea what project I picked these up for. *Eeks* It was nice to look at all those colors together.  So bright and pretty. 

About half of the fiber I weight out for January has been spun up. I have some kind of hang up about spinning.  It's all *right there* ready to go. 

When I have spun it's been wonderful. 

Saturday I finally did it! What did I do? I started some seeds!

I've been waiting for this moment. Then when it finally got here, I was like "What should I start?"  

Celery, onions and lettuce, duh! I also started a few herbs.  

My first set of mini soilblocks.  Aren't they adorable?

All the room in the house to work and plant seeds, and where do I go?  The kitchen table. 

Sometimes I really amaze myself with what I'm able to do in a tiny space I allow myself to work in. 

After I planted the seeds and dropped some vermiculite on it all. 

I decided to try something different this year.  No plant tags tucked between the soil blocks.  I have tape with numbers on them, and I have a notebook where I listed everything I planted.  Last year I had trouble with the plant labels sliding out of place. 

This weekend I'm going to plant some peppers, and ... I don't know what else yet.  A lot of perennial seeds were purchased and I'd like to set some of those started.  Just need to settle on how I'm going to start the seeds: Winter sowing, in seed cups, soil blocks ... I have a few ideas.  The mild winter is helping, too. Maybe plant a few small cups of seeds and set them out in the greenhouse? Or, I could use the material we got last year and make a low tunnel? 

My office chair out in the she shed got a makeover.  This chair is at least 12 years old.  Maybe 15? It's still in great shape but for the material.  The material is pleather and it's starting to split. 

It now matches MUCH better, I think. 

On Sunday the sun came out. 

Seriously ... My hubby and I were outside and when the sun broke through the clouds I went and stood in a sun patch. 

Our snow melted a LOT over the weekend. 

Yesterday was publishing day. 'Nuff said. It's publishing day!

Today was catch up day. 

When I was out in the coop this morning, before work, our barred rock roo decided to act up a bit with me.  I'm sure I did something he didn't like, such as sweeping away pine shavings so I can close the door. 

I grabbed him and held him for a bit and talked to him. Then he leaned his head over and nipped my hand.  Through the glove he managed to bruise me. 

The brat. I didn't hand raise him from a chick.  He was a rescue. There hasn't been any attitude until late last summer.  He would try to sneak attack me and I don't put up with it, so he's had his fair share of being held by me while I tell him he's a naughty boy. I thought we were making headway when he finally would take food I offered him.  Nope. 

The rest of this week ... I have Thursday and Friday off.  The last little bit of my paid time off before my work anniversary. My plan is to record a podcast one of these days.  

Soooo ... I guess that's all the news from Lake Woebegone ... 

Oh, and if you didn't know where the quote in the title is from, it's a line from the original "All Creatures, Great and Small."