Update and Birthday

Since I posted in the middle of the week about my grandson Kai's birthday, I figured I'd start with that. He had his birthday party at the zoo. It was so hot I just couldn't go walking too much so I only have a few pictures of a couple of animals. But I have a few of the kids playing and a fabulous shot of a peacock that decided to come visit.
So please excuse me, this post is going to be heavy on pics for a change.

Literally a foot away from me.

Kai just before he chased the peacock away for the 2nd time.

There are 3 river otters inside that log. It was too hot even for them to come out to play.

Can't believe we got all of the kids to sit for about 30 seconds.

 

My hubby had baked a cake earlier in the day, so we turned it into a birthday cake, since we missed the cupcakes at the zoo.

The Birthday boy, Kai

Big brother Sky.

Kai and Skylor playing with the swords I bought them.

I did spend part of the week stitching on my Sea Otters. I love this cute design. I should have it completed when it comes around on the RNG next. First, where I left off, then where I ended up today.

Maybe I should have done the eyes and ears backstitching, he looks a bit odd without them defined.

Again, I have not "spun" the RNG to find out what's up this week, so I guess I'll surprise you with my next post. So until next time, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and week ahead!

What a week!

Before I get into my stitching update, I have to say, I've had probably the most stressful week yet at my job. I actually broke down in tears one day this week. We've been working really hard to keep up with our deadlines, but it seems the "faster we go, the behinder we get". It's been a challenge and at times a bit hard to take, but I'm not giving up and I won't. I've learned so much more about the guidelines we have to follow as a "medicaid" insurance company in the past couple of weeks. Suffice it to say, it's been fascinating.

Ok now, on to the stitchy stuff!

Last week my random number generator came up with 13. So I got to work on my otters a bit more. This is where I was when I put them down last. Now even though work has been crazy, I've tried to put aside time to stitch every day. All week long, I was "supposed" to work from home each night, but something seemed to be dead set on me not being able to accomplish that feat. Monday, they had to reinstall my computer at work so I couldn't access it remotely. Tuesday was just NOT going to work for me, I was so tired, I couldn't concentrate on work. Wednesday, I tried logging in, it wouldn't let me since they reinstalled on Monday and it was too late for the helpdesk to be of any real help, yesterday I called the helpdesk as soon as I got home from work to get it so I could log in, well the girl that I talked to did a very good job of making it so that I could log in, but then she stayed logged in so when I got back from picking my hubby up from work, I couldn't get her logged out, and of course, no one at the building to go shut the machine down and restart it, so yesterday was out too! OY!! So I get to fit 8 more hours of work in to tonight and tomorrow. Wow that was a bit of a story huh? Needless to say I've been in need of relaxation!

Now throughout this week I've been working on stitching a little bit each night to help wind down. One evening I realized that the blue that is called for on the pattern looked a little dull when used on this beautifully hand dyed fabric that I got from Stitchnmomma. So I asked the crazy women in this challenge which they thought looked better. My first instinct was the bright blue, but then after looking at all 3 decided that the middle 826, looked the best. So off to the frogging I went so I could make it look fabulous.

This is what it looks like now after a weeks worth of here and there stitching. Not too bad if I do say so myself. Let me know your thoughts on the blue if you care to, not that I'm likely to frog more, but I'd like to know what you think.

Thanks for taking the time out of your day to "listen" to me vent a little. It's been hectic, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world....well, maybe for more stitching time, but wouldn't we all?



So,until next time...Happy Stitching!!

Days 12 and 13

Day 12, oh Day 12, how I grumbled at myself. I spent most of the evenings available stitching time gridding. And not just ANY gridding, but gridding on a spot of fabric that doesn't have any stitching on it! Oh how foolish I felt. BUT the good thing is, I learned a lesson from it. I won't be doing that again. Yes, I do try to learn from my mistakes. I try to learn from others mistakes too, cuz I know I won't live long enough to make them all myself. :)

So once I discovered my big waste of time, I was pretty deflated and demoralized and figured the best thing I could do was put a few stitches in and put it up for the night, I'd come back to it later when its number came up again. These are my few stitches, at the top of the area that will get stitching. "Ah well, live and learn", as the hubby says.







This is what I got done on the next stitching session. Not too bad, huh? I started at the center where the quilt is located. When I get back to it, I'll try to put some of the blues in, just for a bit of contrast.

I bought this pattern about a million years ago. Ok so I exaggerate, it WAS about 10 years ago though, before I took my long vacation from stitching. I even bought the major colors in the pattern, so I'd have all the same dye lot. I just didn't have the fabric for it, and I couldn't find it. Not really sure I looked very hard for the fabric either. The pattern was quite intimidating to me, but I really loved it. So now that I have been introduced to Mystic Stitch and HAED patterns I am not so intimidated by this one. It doesn't have nearly the amount of confetti as the others and not full coverage of the cloth. It's also got fairly large blocks of color to make it faster.



Day 13 was another evening spent in frustration. I had planned on doing one of my sea otter patterns.

The chart for this looks like it was hand drawn and very small and dark. I have a scanner that is "supposed" to be able to enlarge areas, but I couldn't seem to make it work this night. Oh how I struggled with it. So I tried another one of the sea otter patterns that I have, no pic of it, sorry. The chart for that one also was hand drawn in appearance, but it was larger, and I could actually see it to try it out. Well the fabric I was going to do this one is a 20 count Lugana. I'm NOT a linen stitcher. I have always used Aida and I've never had a problem with tension or stitches laying well. OMG is linen different! Apparently my style of stitching is NOT meant for linen. So I frogged all of what I managed to put in the linen. Bailed on the idea of doing the really detailed version of my sea otter and quit for the night.


Not one to give in and completely give up, on day 16 I had a Day 13 Redux.

I found some hand dyed Aida fabric, from one of my stitchy friends on the 2012 Cross Stitch Crazy Challenge group, and my Endangered Young 'Uns booklet that I bought to work on for a charity quilt, and started again. I didn't do a whole lot due to time constraints, but I did finally give day 13 a proper start.

My friends and family chose 13 in one of my random number requests, so I worked on it again the next night and got a bit more done. So I am FINALLY working on an otter piece for myself. Yay!!









Later this evening, I'll post more progress pics from the bass and treble clefs. Thanks for playing along with me on this journey.