My favorite household chore

Right up there with hanging out my laundry is washing windows.   I know, crazy huh?  but I love washing windows....except car windows!   It has been unseasonable warm for us so I got started  washing windows this past weekend.   I didn't get all the way through the house but I made a good sized dent.  One more warm weekend and I'll be done!    I've also been on a major tear to clean closets and drawers and just generally eliminate all that ephemeral that accumulates!  I've been keeping three rules - Do I really use it? Keep it.  Have no need for it, don't use it? Donate it; and really this is a hot mess/trash it.   It feels almost as good as washing windows.   Not only do I know where everything is, everything is neat and orderly and I feel like my house it lighter!  It really isn't OCD just my need to have everything where it belongs because I hate to waste time looking for things!

Saturday, I tackled under the kitchen sink, the pegboard in the kitchen that holds 'stuff', the Hoosier Cabinet, a dry sink and the pie safe.  Boy does it feel good.   Some things got trashed and unfortunately the rest is sitting on my dining room table waiting for me to either donate it or send it to the consignment store.   Progress albeit small.     I even spent a rainy Saturday evening weeding through my patterns.  (wow, big ole time and hopping weekend lifestyle I have!)  For my patterns, I used the same realistic approach, regardless of whether I liked the pattern or not.....was I ever going to stitch it.   I just need to hold that same mantra when I am at Salty Yarns again......liking it doesn't mean it has to jump in my bag!

As for stitching, I have taken nary one stitch in Corsica River.   I just have to be in mood for the bohemoth of a project and I have not been anywhere need that mood.    Instead I have been working on a couple of small, instant gratification projects.   Truth is,  I just haven't seemed to have had the time to stitch.   It is not a loss of mojo thing.   When I finally sit down at night and grab my stitching, I am asleep before one stitch gets completed.

I read two books recently.   The Boy Who Said No which is about a boy growing up in pre and post Castro Cuba.  I also read The Book that Matters Most - get out the tissues on this one.  I am already halfway through my 2018 Goodreads goal!

As for stitching, this is what I did get accomplished in the last several weeks.  First up, from With Thy Needle and Thread's Acorn Harvest.

This was a limited edition stitch.
Only one per customer.   Somehow I cajoled 3 others to place the order for me so I could get 4.   One for me and three for gifts.   I finally got mine kit last weekend and it stitched up and was finished in 3 days.

 EZ-PZ to stitch and EZ-PZ to put together

I've also been working on a Lizzie Kate's Hip Hop spring pattern.   What are we going to do when there is no more Lizzie Kate?   Their patterns are fun and easy and just make you feel good.    This kit doesn't disappoint.  Cute fabrics and embellishments.  So because I am needing more the reward of finishing something and tired of being tied to the monster of a project, I have made this little bit of a project as the one that goes in my tote bag to work with me.  15 to 20 minutes of stitching at lunchtime on something this small should yield me a finish in no time.

I have managed a wee bit on Halloween Quaker.    When I stitch before work, this is what I work on. Bit by bit I'll get there.

Any forward progress is good progress.    Hopefully more progress in the coming weeks.   Maybe I will even get the desire to pick up Corsica River again.   At the current rate, I have accepted it is very doubtful I will catch up on time to finish by next February.  Unfortunately that is not enough of a challenge throw down to get me to pick it up and prove myself wrong.  

Thanks for stopping by.  Keep on stitching!

Lack of progress

So little free time to stitch.   That darned think called work is getting in the way again.   Sometimes it is just how it goes.   And then there is being a klutz.  I did a dumb thing.    I reached into my stitching bag Thursday night as I was on my way out the door to my EGA meeting and hit the LoRan metal board just right and got myself a nice gash on tip of my index finger.   Think paper cut but more, much more.   Of course it is my left hand.  Went to the doctor Friday to get a tetanus shot and Doc wondered why I waited a day to come it.  Umm because Thursday night I was on my way to my monthly EGA meeting.   Duh! Stitching of the medical kind was going to have to wait.  My girlfriends and stitching come first.

At EGA last month we received a small surface embroidered heart to stitch.   This month we had a lesson in lacing that piece onto mat board.   It is nice to get these little projects that teach us something new and can be completed so quickly. And I have even more admiration for the likes of Mary Corbit and surface embroidery.  With my boo-boo finger, I didn't' get too far on the assembly portion.   Dag Nabbit! Frustrating for sure.

On a better note, I think I finally have the right magnification for stitching.   I was at a friend's and I commented that I had been struggling to focus, changing glasses, adding clips-ons,  and still couldn't seem to find the right cheaters.   I was thinking I needed to go to the eye doctor.   She passed me her 4.0's and I put them on, looked at my stitching and think I heard angles sing.   Came home, logged on to Amazon and ordered a four-pack that very night.

Before my mishap,  I did manage a  teeny tiny bit of stitching on Halloween Quaker done.  I am still enjoying this piece.  Funny how it is all relative.   There was a time when I would have thought this was a big piece.  Compared to Corsica River, everything else is small.  My cut finger doesn't account totally for nary a stitch on Corsica River these past two  weeks.....not the way to go if I want to catch up.   Oh well.....

Now I have a thought provoking question for you.    Are you a process stitcher or a product stitcher?   Do you enjoy the process of stitching a piece or do you like completing a piece and having a finished product?  And my question to myself is.......what am I going to do all weekend when I can't stitch.   I hope not get into other trouble.  First thing may be to wrap the edges of my LoRan board with painters tape.

Thanks for stopping by and keep on stitching!