Off To A Good Start

No complaints about the new 2009. Things are going along well. The pets are happy and healthy and all accounted for. The only one giving us a bit of a headache is Carmella. She has apparently "matured" a little quicker then her brother Roy and has spent the last four days and nights howling non-stop! She is quite attracted to Coal, who shows no interest in her what-so-ever except as a new playmate. This really aggravates Carmella who is searching for a MATE, period!

Things at the gym move along at the usual hectic pace, but no major controversies or conflicts....so far.

I've fallen terribly behind with my own blog and the reading and commenting on others. I have a good excuse though.....lots of stitching. Included in the category of stitching is "stash acquisition". Here are a few of my recent purchases. A year's subscription to "Just Cross-Stitch" magazine. The first issue arrived today. Three Carriage House Samplings: "Frederick", "Noah's Stocking", and "Gingham Dog & Calico Cat"and "Hallowe'en Queen" by Not Forgotten Farm. I really let lose in late December and early January with on-line purchases. I have an outstanding order of threads and a new Mirabilia mermaid chart from Stitching Bits and Bobs, order on 13 December. I love their stuff but the shipping from them is horrendously slow. The pictured charts I ordered are from Laurel's Stitchery and they arrived in just 8 days. So now that I have these charts and more stuff on the way I need to get down to work. It's not that I haven't been stitching at all. I've made some progress on the French Sampler and started on Workbasket's "Quaker Cat". She's done in pink and brown(DMC Color Variation 4145) to match my niece's bedroom. I plan to finish her as a box covered in pink and brown paisley with the cat mounted on the lid. This seems to be my favored finishing technique for the Quaker animals as I finished the sheep and the rooster in the same way. Cow is done and waiting to be mounted on a box when I find the right shape oval and the proper matching calico fabric to cover the box. No lack of shopping for crafty, stitchy, knitty supplies lately. My local JoAnn Fabrics is closing and having a huge 40-60% off sale. Each week the percentage off gets higher. Last week I got DMCs for $.20 each. That's the best price I've gotten in years. I was kind of surprised to see the big sell-off at JoAnn. The store is reopening about 10 miles further away from my house as a "super-store" and I thought they would just ship everything over there. Although I know the selection will be excellent at this new store, since I worked at a JoAnn's Super Store in Florida about 10 years ago, I find the whole "super-store" concept, well,over-stimulating! I get Shoppers A.D.D. every time I go into one of these places...Super Wal-Mart, grocery super-store, JoAnn ETC. The regular version of these stores suited me just fine. Now I can hardly go in for a spool of sewing thread without coming away with 75 other items I didn't know I really needed in the first place.

Back to stitching. Here's a little Primitive Pumpkin that I whipped up last week. I borrowed the letters and the little motifs from various Carriage House Samplings charts and stitched it up on some hand-dyed orange Aida. I used a stick from our yard and some coiled copper wire to finish it off. My first attempt at designing and stitching something other then a gymnast. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Here are some pet snaps for today. Coal and Sammy reunited and enjoying each other's company.

Alix, still queen of the couch.

Cold and foggy, but no snow yet. My parents in New Jersey are being piled on with snow today. I still have a nice "nesting feeling" going on, so it's back to some stitching this evening.