i-Challenge

Happy New Year and Happy New Project(s) to everyone.   

I am participating in the 15 in 2011 Challenge and hoped I would be off to a good start.....(enter Mr. Wonderful.....more on his involvement further in my post).   I feel a little sheepish looking at other's challenge list because I picked several smaller projects so as to not overwhelm myself.   No need in setting myself up for failure was my i-Rational.  

I actually try to use my Longaberger Baskets!

So today, I get up at near the usual time since that crazy i-Body clock doesn't know how to change.  I have been busting to start this challenge and admit wanting to get a head start long about Christmas evening but i-Behaved and i-Resisted.   Like so many of us, stitching time for me kind of took a back seat to decorating and baking and wrapping so once the majority of excitement wound down, I was ready to put needle to thread.   But alas, i-Resisted a head start and gave myself time to spend time with family and friends and get in a bit of i-Reading.



Bent Creek's The Plum Berry Sampler

I set up my basket of projects earlier in December (for what I am dubbing my i-Challenge), putting them in what i-Think will be a good rotation - larger projects interspearsed with some quick stitches as well as a variety of linens and fibers so I-won’t get bored.   I had actually forgotten what was first up until i-Pulled out my basket this morning.

To the stitching part, I am stitching away and the first thing I decide is, I don't like the suggested floss for the leaves and vines.   A quick visit to my craft room and floss stash and I am ready to start again.......but alas - this is where Mr. Wonderful gets involved - I hear a lot of grumbling and questions being shouted from the dining room.    Up I get about 4 times to answer his questions before I resolve to just throw in the towel and put stitching off until later.

Mr. W. bought me an i-Pad for Christmas and he has decided now is the time we are going to work on uploading stuff.  He couldn't understand why I couldn't open my i-Tunes library and see all my i-Songs and my answer was i-Don't know.  All kinds of things were being said......"like I don't know what you did with them";  "I don't know where you saved them"; and so on.....not to beleager the point but think of Edith and Archie Bunker and you get the general idea.    Now we get into i-Logic - what is logical to me is not to logical to Mr. W. or for that matter my logic probably makes no sense to anyone else in the free known world.  Enough said on that.  

Further we need to put this all in perspective - I remember offices without computers on the desks; I remember using an IBM Selectric typewriter and using the little wheel eraser with the toothbrush bristle brush on the other end; for heaven sakes I remember the mimiograph machine and cranking the handle and the purple inked masters.....so give me some latitude with my questions Mr. Wonderful!    I have i-Tunes, an i-Pod, an i-Pad, an I-Challenge.....eye....yeye....yeye! it what I say.   I don't know from "jack" is what I really want to say but that would definitely lead to further i-Trouble.

So fast forward past all the techno-mumbo-jumbo save for the part that the reason I have no i-Tunes library is that it was never saved to my new laptop.  Oops!  I guess that was a file Mr. W. neglected to copy over....I'm  a just-tell-me-what-I-have-to-do-kind-of-gal here so let's move on so I can stitch.   That ever present theme is in the back of my brain just lingering like some sort of evil spector and its little voice chanting stitch stitch stitch, you want to stitch.

So we are sync'd Laptop to iPod and Laptop to iPad and he has decided I should just upload the music I want from the CD's we have......NOW.....and what, not stitch?    OK, the aggravation level is up on both sides and since he never ever ever (really) never says a word about my various projects strewn around in various stages of completion throughout the house, I figure I need to give him my full attention.

Mr. W. is showing me how to do the uploads.   I have pencil and paper to take notes - click here, highlight there, enter, etc., etc.    He tells me I don't need to write anything down.   (he is actually correct, it is incredibly simple)   The original i-Tunes Library was created with the help of one of my children and their logic is not Mr. W.'s logic.....so trying to sound semi knowledgable (I was careful not choosing the word - intelligent) I asked Mr. W. about creating Playlists.   I don't need them he says.   But i-Want them.  Again a slam of how everyone's logic is different.  I decide instantly it will be better for me to research the whole Playlist thing on my own at a later date.  

Again, we fast forward and he has me sitting at the dining room table loading my CD's.  Truly a no-brainer and now I am the i-Multitasker.    I have my laptop to my right with my CD's, my french vanilla coffee to my left and my stitching right in front of me.   As soon as the little disk drive thingie stops whirling and I get the little 'bing' noise, I slide over and eject the CD, put in a new CD and start the process again, I slide back to my coffee and stitching and I am a happy camper. 



We all recognize those telltale little holes in the linen.

 This little crazy method has not been without flaws however.  Enter i-Frog.    When I changed the floss color for the leaves and vines and changed from glasses to cheaters to glasses to cheaters several times early on in the i-Adventure with Mr. W, i-Miscounted the numbers of strands of floss.    I stitched up several leaves and thought..............hmmm, they look fluffier that the other stitches.   And I thought .....hmmmm, must be my imagination and the difference between DMC and WDW floss.    How about i-Wrong.    Seems I was using 3 strands of the WDW and not two and didn't figured it out until I re-threaded and put in a couple of stitches with the correct number of strands.   No biggie.  i-Frog.



I used their suggested floss but probably not the suggested linen.



 

Now to the letters, I didn't like the too little contrast between floss and fiber so   i-Changed floss again.   Another trip to the craft room between CD changes.    I decided to use CC Shamrock which cracks me up because it is shades of blue and not shades of green like one would expect Shamrock to be.   I also selected WDW Purple Haze for the featured stitches between the lettering.   I like the tonal quality of these two and the green I selected for the leaves.   My pattern looks a mess with all my color changes i-Noted but I am now happy.  Now my whole idea for finishing this little goodie has changed.   The colors I am using will go well in my bedroom and if I ever continue my i-Quilting escapades, it will look nice as a pillow on top of my Hokey-Pokey quilt in William Morris fabric!! 

To make things even more interesting, I dreamed up the idea of i-Multitaking even further........I figure I can i-Blog in between stitches and CD's.    This I am not sure is truly a good i-dea since when I attempted to upload photos, I got an error message from i-Sync. 

I like these colors

Time to move on....Mr. W. wants to do the 'next step' which has to do with the i-Sync which Mr. W. disconnected earlier without me knowing.    My i-Sync error that I got and thought i-Corrupted everything was not my doing.   Problem is I haven't loaded all my Beatles CD's yet!  Eject Yellow Submarine and insert Rubber Soul.....  He must be iCrazy if he wants me to move on before I upload my Beatles.  I am so glad it is only Saturday! and I have off tomorrow............