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Showing posts from 2023

2024 New Starts

Not quite ready for a end of year review, so let's go with the new starts.I have been off this week and tried to finish Happy Haunts, but it is killing me. I don't think I'm going to make it through the week with it and it won't even be a row finish, let alone a total finish. I need a break from it. But that's for another post. So, I guess you guys knew that I wouldn't be able to hold off from new starts, but I came VERY close! I had the chosen six picked out, but when I added some fabric to a chart (I do have fabric in my stash) and added the thread (more about thread in a mo-mo), it was almost $700! I am NOT kidding...it was exactly $678.76, but that's pretty darn close to seven (and yes, that is with discounted fabric and a coupon)!!! For friggin THREAD! I can't say how many skeins I ordered, it was for at least one max color project and four others (yes, 4+1=5, my math skills will bite me later). I decided I could NOT afford that and was re...

A FINISH!

Yep, you read that right...a week ahead of schedule, I finished Maleficent! I am SO proud of myself. I literally did almost 6000 stitches in two days. As you remember, I left off last week here: I started her Jan 2, 2015. It's been a rough almost 9 years for sure and I had probably about a four year stitch break, although, when I did try to pick stitching back up, Maleficent was always the one I picked up first. It took a total of 879.13 hrs, there are 213,200 total stitches. About 10:30 last night I finished the final row: And, despite all the melted glue from the tape strips on her backside, I did manage to get it off the scroll rods and here she is in whole: She still needs to be washed and ironed, and of course, mounted to mat board. I think, now that we have a Michaels here, I'm going to take her there to get framed instead of Hobby Lobby. At least that will clear my conscious a bit. I do have major issues with Hobby Lobby's politics and business practic...

Quick update (yeah, right)

Hey, there is a first for everything, right? Frankly, I've been doing nothing but stitching, so there is literally nothing else to report and I'm trying really hard to finish Maleficent by Christmas. I left off on her here last week: And, now that I've made it through the major colors (I'm color completing if you remember), I'm whipping through the colors like wildfire now and she's here (and, believe it or not, there are quite a few different colors in there): Sorry the pictures are blown out, I really miss the quality of a camera...a phone really doesn't cut it, I don't care what people think. I will always be a camera girl. Phones are "cute" for pictures, but they aren't meant for serious photography except by professionals in certain circumstances and a low light, macro situation isn't one of those circumstances. And to be honest, I'm not sure why I stopped using my camera to take these pics. Probably laziness. I...

Trying to beat my Stitch Gene into submission

Despite all the external forces, I'm still struggling with my ADHD, so I got the "brilliant" (aka, slightly crazy) idea to color complete the final row, because hey, who doesn't want to solely focus on one color for weeks when you can barely focus on anything, right? And what better way to start than with the color with the most left, 310 black! But, despite the ADHD hanging in there, the OCD must be kicking in because I actually finished the black last night and got to move on to 939! I was quite proud of that...it barely took me over a week. Last time, I had just started the final row: I did stop a bit early last night because my head was hurting a bit (and my arms and wrists a lot, but more on that in a moment), but here is the finished black and a bit of the dark navy. I did get through most of that glue I talked about last time, although there is still more spread about. Here's a look at some of that mess (although not a good look): On to the ...

Stitching progress, but everything is against me!

I've made quite a bit of stitching progress since my last post (well, considering I've been on hiatus for years), but practically everything is going wrong! My ADHD is still fighting me. How did I ever have so much focus before? I did manage two row finishes though, despite fate's attempts at thwart-tation (I just made up a new word). I left off on Snow White last time here: And I finished row three, so I'm now at 215.4 hours and I also have some new data because I started using Markup R-XP, I'm at 59.8% with 41,451 stitches done, and 27,918 stitches to go. I'd like to say I'm using Markup to stitch with, but I still prefer marking on paper...old habits die hard and, as someone who works with technology for a living, honestly, I just don't trust it. And I'm not about to buy a different tablet just for Pattern Keeper or a tablet stand or other stuff just to make already printed paper obsolete, at least not now. But anyway, here she is in her r...

More Stitching...well, I'm trying anyway

I've been trying very hard to not spend any extraneous money. It hasn't been easy, but I've been focusing all my energy on paying off my vacation so I can then focus all my money on this stupid hvac. My water heater is now making strange noises, but I'm trying my hardest to ignore that. I think my stitchy bug has come back though, finally! I've been watching a LOT of FlossTube and I've got some more stitching done, although I am having some serious issues with my ADHD. All I think about all day at work is stitch, stitch, stitch and, as long as that's the first thing I sit down and do when I walk in the door, I'm good for a while. But the first time I get up to do something else, or if I get distracted for a few minutes and set it down then BAM! I can't make myself pick it back up again. Sometimes that means I've stitched for 10 minutes, sometimes an hour, but usually no more than. Or, even worse, I spend all day daydreaming about stitchi...

Pic failures and, well overall failures (but some stitching)

I had another few days off around Halloween with the specific purpose of taking a trip to the beach and downloading Lightroom so I could get my trip pictures taken care of (it is taking FAR too long trying to do it with Apple Photos). But fate, as per usual, had other plans. First off, we had two days of heavy storms, and then, my bosses decided to have an exec meeting and I'm the only person that can start the Zoom meeting for them, which meant that I could risk being on the road and potentially not being in a location to be able to start their meeting, or not going to the beach at all and making sure their meeting was able to be started...so I stayed home for their meeting because I'm a good little girl (a stupid zombie). As I sat fuming over my missed beach day, logged in 10 minutes early knowing full well that they would be at least 10 minutes late, I gave them another 10 minutes past their usual lateness before I texted someone to find out why I had been sitting there ...