Dog Days of Summer and Dog Days of Stitching

Let me just start with the bad news.    Not bad-bad,  just a big fat bummer bad.   And this is a big one……in more ways than one.  The French Alphabet.     Two vertical threads where the border will be at the very bottom right, are “broken” ??  How?  I don’t know.   I have contemplated using Fray Check - but decided 

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against it.  I have thought about a super light-weight interfacing on the back.   I tried to re-weave it using a thread from the salvage but I couldn’t see it well enough - even with magnification - when done, it looked like a tangled mess on the back like when your bobbin is wrong with the sewing machine.  For now, I am staying away from that area,   I am not happy with this piece at all right now but I am going to soldier on.  

To add insult to injury, I had a day of frogging the previous day's stitching.    I now have adopted stitching two lengths of thread a day approach on days that I stitch. (?)  Shouldn’t that be every day?   IDK. Life gets in the way some days.  Next goal to complete the top border and then the top row of the alphabet.   Come heck or high water, I will get it done.  

The glasses are for prospective on the size of what I call my tablecloth piece.  

Better news, the Shakespeare’s Peddler Retreat was great, great, great.  Theresa runs a very organized event.   Every detail was planned and covered.   Her humor and fun little announcements and games were great.   It was also so great to see many of my needlework friends who I only see at retreats.   And to meet some new friends.  There were some Floss Tubers there too.   And a blogger or two as well.  It is funny since we invite Floss Tubers into our living room we think we know them.   The overall theme was “neighborhood” and our tables were named  like “DMC Drive”, “Smyrna Crossing”, “WIP-poorwill Way”.  The table gifts everyone gave were awesome -  I need to step it up some.   There was no class - just stitching.  Theresa had a trunk show and gave us a stunning kit.  (below)  And there was a rummage sale of charts that others brought in.   Alas, some jumped into my bag.     

I would definitely attend and recommend any of her events 100%.   Here I am being an enabler.  Isn’t this needlework community just beyond great.

The Show ‘n Tell was beyond fabulous.  

Look at the teeny tiny animal crackers in this stitcher’s sewing kit.

Clara, 1876 was about an inch and a half tall!!!  So that gives you a perspective of the size of the Animal Crackers.

As you can see, someone celebrated one of those milestone birthdays during the retreat.   Stacy, my travel and stitching buddy, really went all out to make it a very special day for me.  

Home I came and the purging of everything craft-y-like started.   When I made the choice to finally do it, I really wanted to jump right in but I put the brakes on.  I told myself I didn’t need any more  half-a$$ projects on the list.   Starting with the guest bedroom closet, the blankets, pillows and other bedding not/never to be used were donated.   This gave me room to put my paper crafts on the shelves in plastic see-thru bins I bought.   I mean, how many sets of colored pencils does one person need?   Extras boxed up  with some to the grands and others to donate.   

Everything out of the closet.  .

I ‘hope’ I have found all the paint brushes and have them in one place.   A zip lock bag of at least half of them has been packed away in the donation box.

Everything that needs to find a ‘family’ has landed in the room I use for crafting.  Things you can’t see that are sorted are the three boxes of small frames that were reduced to two boxes.    All the paper mache finishing boxes are now all in the same bin.  I found 5 bags of polyfil.   Two were opened and I have reduced it down to 4 bags.   I found 13 pillow forms - all now together in the blanket chest.  Each of the above were in different under the bed boxes, different shelves in the closet, different closets in different rooms.   Argh!  I just about have the guest room done and I think I will need a week more to thoroughly and completely do the craft room.  No pain no gain.

I have done little cross stitching  or at least it seems that way when I look at my progress.   Both WIPGO assignments were completred.   I did finish the stitching for  the HOD Rocking Horse but did not fully finish it.       

I did not finish the July Gingerbread house yet.   Operative word - yet.   I think the new pattern comes out the 5th of the month so I better get on it.  Cathy H from HOD always does the best color combinations.

New numbers were called today for WIPGO and I need to look up what they are. 

I did work on Harvest Friends a little.

I got myself one of those Bird cameras.  Actually my husband treated me for my birthday.  I am not having much luck.   The first location was too much foot traffic and no birds but the goonie  birds pix of my husband and myself.    I dumped all the food, filled it with newly purchased feed even spreading some on the ground below it.   No birds.   Next location was besieged by every ant in a the back yard stopping in for a visit.  Somehow an alarm was activated in this location and any time you got in range you heard  “Alert - leave this area - recording in progress.”  It was kind of like “Danger,  Danger Will Robinson!”   Moved again to an area minus the over abundant ant population and I wait.     No more alert but no birds either   I researched it and it says it may two weeks up to a month for birds to get comfortable to visit.   So I start the clock again.

For August, my WIPGO pieces will probably be the only ones I work on.   I have some stitchy gifts to make and I will need to concentrating on them.  I have a lot of deadheading in the gardens to do.  

So that’s  update from my corner of the planet.  Thanks for stopping by.  Stay safe, be kind, be happy…..and keep in stitching and making.