STNA Blog Hop #15: Stitching When Sick

 
 It's Blog Hop time again!! Here is this round's prompt:

"Eventually there comes a time when you’re not feeling well, whether it’s the flu or a cold or something else entirely. The question is, do you manage any stitching when you’re under the weather or does it just have to wait for better days?"

Unfortunately, I find that I can't stitch AT ALL when I'm sick. I tend to get several sinus infections throughout the year, which cause blinding headaches and only go away with large doses of Nyquil and lots of hours of sleep. I don't normally get any kind of intestinal sickness or run fevers for any reason. I can only think of 3 times in my life I've been "that kind" of sick, and when I was it was during times that I had stepped away from stitching anyway.

I've tried to put in some stitching time while I'm down, especially when thinking about all the free time that's being wasted while I'm off work trying to recuperate. Unfortunately, if I can get the headache to go away long enough to see straight, I find that the medicine is putting me to sleep and I doze off mid-stitch. I've woken up to some interesting results from my medication induced sleep-stitching in the past, so I try and avoid that now. The last thing I want to do when I feel better is frog a bunch of nonsense!

How about you? Can/do you stitch while sick??

Visit all the blogs in this round of the Stitching the Night Away Stitching Blogger Blog Hop:
Find the instructions on how to participate in this round by clicking here.   

Fractal Tiger...The Aftermath

As promised, here's a picture of Fractal Tiger after I unstitched all my progress and changed fabrics:

Fractal Tiger...now on an unknown 28ct pewter fabric

Here's what it looked like before I undid everything:

 

On the original 14ct Black Aida

Long story short, I thought that by stitching this project on black fabric, I could somehow omit the million or so skeins of black floss and just allow the fabric to act as the background.

Yeah. Not so much. It didn't occur to me in the beginning that the background seeped in to the pattern itself here and there. Trying to stitch the dark blues and greys on black fabric and then looking back at the squares I'd "missed", only to find that they were meant to stay black and that I hadn't really "missed" anything, was making me want to run into the street, screaming and throwing things. 

I got through the better part of the top of the first two columns, minus the black of course, and was ready to rip this particular project to shreds. I felt like I was getting nowhere and there is no worse motivator for completing a project than to feel like you're stitching like mad and making no progress.

Hence, the change of fabrics. I've decided that stitching all that background may be boring, but also necessary. Also, changing to a lighter fabric is no longer making me feel like my eyes are working overtime to differentiate the navy from the charcoal. I should enjoy stitching...not have to search out the bottle of ibuprofen when I'm finished for the night. 

I have two more nights of stitching on this rotation and I don't even know that I'll get the first column done, but I'm determined not to give up on this one. I'm sure the finished project will be worth it! I hope y'all are having an easier stitching week than I have been. Another update to come at the end of the rotation on Thursday :)

Oh No She Di'int!!

Oh yes I did!

I completely unstitched and restarted Fractal Tiger over the weekend.


(No way! O_o)

Yep, sure did.

Undid all my progress, changed fabric, started over.

Pictures to come later.

Sigh.   

Say Goodbye to Christmas Gentlemen...

...well, for now anyway. The rotation week ended last night and it's time to put these guys away for another few weeks. Unfortunately, I didn't stitch as much as I had hoped this week, but I think I still made some pretty good progress. 

Start of rotation week:

You can barely see the white/ecru stitches that marked my CJC start

End of rotation week:

Progress as of 1/31/13

As you can see, I decided not to leave all the backstitch until the end on this one. There's waaay too much to do it all at once. Have I ever told you (753 times) how much I despise backstitch??! There's a reason it's abbreviated BS...

Today starts a new rotation week and I'll be working on Fractal Tiger. I love this project and I've been excited to get back to it ever since I started it! Not sure this is the best week to work on it, though, as DD has an all-day volleyball tourney this Saturday, we'll be taking our son for his birthday dinner (2 weeks late) after the tourney, we have a church youth group outing Sunday afternoon after church, and DD has 3 volleyball games this week. Phew! If I'm going to get any stitching in, I'm going to have to organize in advance to get everything else done!! I guess that'll be my challenge...to make ANY number of stitches this week, lol. Be it 2 or 200, I'll consider it a success :)

Here's where I left Fractal Tiger after his CJC start:

Progress after CJC start on 1/4/13

Also this week, since Tiger is too big to carry back and forth to work, I'll be working on finishing the February installment of the SamSarah Perpetual Calendar over my lunch breaks. I received the March charts from Cynthia at Beach Cottage Stitchers a couple of weeks ago and, if I don't work to get caught up, I'm going to still be stitching the March charts in July! 

I'll share some pics once I get February's charts all completed. Hope everyone is poised and ready for a great weekend of stitching...especially if it's as cold where you are as it is here (currently, 10F with a wind chill of -12F). And for those of you who will be watching the Super Bowl, good luck to whichever team you're rooting for, lol!!

Weekend SAL - Progress Report

As I mentioned in my last post, Heather at Heather's Stitching Story hosted a general SAL (stitch-a-long) over this past weekend. I joined in and, although I didn't have as much time as I would've liked to stitch, I did make some progress on my current rotation piece, Christmas Gentlemen. 

The SAL began on the same day that my rotation week begins, so I started off where I had left this project after it's initial CJC start. Here is how it looked on Friday:

Christmas Gentlemen CJC started 1/6/13

And here is where I ended last night:

Christmas Gentleman 1-27-13

 
Other than being gone for a couple hours tonight, I'm hoping to continue making some good progress for the rest of this rotation week. This piece is small enough to carry with me, so I can put some time in on it during my lunch break at work...providing I get one. Some days that's questionable, lol.

I hope everyone is off to a great start this week. Hello out there to my new followers and thanks for stopping in to share my little corner of the world!! I truly appreciate everyone of you and your comments, encouraging words, and kind motivations. You're the greatest!

Enjoy your week and I'll be back with another update soon. Happy Stitching! 

Weekly Progress and Heather's SAL

Hello All and Happy Saturday!! I should have posted Thursday night at the end of my rotation week, but it's been a hectic few days and I just haven't had the time/energy to sit down and focus on my blog, editing pics, etc. DD ended up at the doctor yesterday because of an unknown injury to her knee. She plays volleyball 6 days a week, between her school team and a weekend training camp, and it seems she has overused her knee joint in recent weeks. She's out for a week and has a lovely new knee brace, but will be back in action and good as new as soon as the doctor tells her she can. That took up most of yesterday, including accompanying her to an out-of-town match so she could still sit with and support her team. Being a member of the starting lineup, it's been very difficult for her to not be on the court. I keep telling her it's only a week, but I realize that's roughly the equivalent of 17 years when you're 12.

Anyway, on to stitchy progress, because that's really what you're here for, right?? Last week's rotation piece was Wisteria Fairy. I made HUGE progress on her, especially considering there were 2 nights during the week that I didn't work on her at all.

Here she is before the rotation week

This was at the end of IHSW 1/20/13

And this is end of rotation week 1/24/13

I really, really love this project and I hate to put it down, but I'm looking forward to the coming week and my next rotation piece: Christmas Gentlemen. 

Christmas Gentlemen after CJC start 1/6/13

I decided to pull this one out now, so that I can get as much done as possible while the weather is still 'wintery'. I tend to not stitch seasonal things out of their season, but because I've got more than one seasonal piece in my CJC, I'm going to try to step outside of my comfort zone a little so they all get equal stitchy love. Just not yet...lol. 

Since I'm participating in a SAL this weekend with Heather over at Heather's Stitching Story, I anticipate making significant progress on Christmas Gentlemen before the weekend is out. If you'd like to take part in the SAL, stop by Heather's page and join right in! We'd love to have you :)

I hope you're all having a stitch-filled weekend full of all the things that make you happy. Until tomorrow's SAL progress report...Stitch Happy!! 

Successful IHSW and DH's Progress

Happy Monday everyone!! I trust you've all had a relaxing and successful stitching weekend and were able to enjoy IHSW to the fullest extent. This is the first one I've 'officially' participated in (by that, I mean the first one that I made a conscious effort to use as a reason to sit home all weekend and stitch guilt-free, lol). I worked on Wisteria Fairy, as that is my rotation project this week. Since my rotations run from Friday to Friday, my whole weekend was focused on this one project. And it worked out well for me. Here is where Wisteria Fairy was left after her initial CJC start back on 1/6/13:

Progress on 1/6/13

And here's where she is after a long, relaxing weekend of stitch after stitch after stitch...

Progress as of 1/20/13

The middle section above, between the green leaf and the blue swath, is probably the coolest looking stitching I've ever done. This section gets its rainbow appearance through the use of a Kreinik BF called Starburst. When it came in my order of BF's and beads that I got prior to the CJC, I just couldn't imagine how it would look as part of the design. Now I know...and I Love It!! Here is what the spool looks like:

Kreinik Blending Filament 095 - Starburst

How Cool!! I can see me adding this to future projects or using it as a replacement for a single color of filament. With as many fairies and fantasy projects as I stitch, I should probably order some of these in bulk, lol! I'm imagining fairy wings, dragon wings, skirt panels, clouds, etc. all infused with this awesome coloration. Can you tell I find it exciting?! :)

Lastly, I wanted to show you DH's progress on his Accidental Bookmark. I'm pretty impressed with how he's moving along...especially considering he works 6 days a week and usually chooses video games over all else when it comes to his down time (which is very minimal after family/kids time, time for us, and various household errands/chores/repairs). Here are before and after pics to show his progress:

The Accidental Bookmark before

...and after!

I hope everyone is off to a great start this week! I'll be continuing progress on Wisteria Fairy through Friday, although I don't expect anything like what I got done this weekend. DD has 3 volleyball games this week (2 are about an hour away, so those will be late returns home), my mom hasn't been feeling well, and I spent so much time stitching this weekend that nothing got done around the house besides the laundry, so...there's that. Maybe I'll manage to get a few stitches in on my lunch break at work.

Regardless, I'll be back with another update, and a 'before' pic of my next rotation piece, on Thursday. Happy Stitching, Y'all!!