February TUSAL Update and Stargazer Progress

First and foremost, I'd like to say thank you, thank you, thank you!! to everyone for their kind words, thoughts, and prayers for my daughter through her recent bout with the flu. I'm happy to report that she is doing wonderfully and is back to 100%. As a matter of fact, she played in a 5-hour, 4-game volleyball tournament the very next day. She had a 101.4 fever at 8pm on Friday, but reported to the gym at 8am on Saturday, with a smile and an athlete's determination. Only the young can pull that off, lol! Thank you all again for your kindnesses...I shared each one with her and she appreciated them all very much. Y'all are simply the best :)

Now, on to the updates...
 
It's TUSAL time again!! What's a TUSAL, you ask? Well, look to your right, click on the TUSAL button, and it'll take you right to Daffycat's page. She'll tell you all about it :)

Meanwhile, here are my February orts...my little jar is about 1/3 full:

Apologies for the grainy picture, my phone's camera sucks.

I've also been stitching away on Stargazer, which is this week's rotation piece. My daughter's volleyball game was over quickly last night, so I was able to settle into the big comfy chair and stitch away while watching the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. 

Here's how far I got last night:

Stargazer, as of 2/12/13

I'm thrilled that I still have 2 more days in this rotation week to work on her. I know I've said it before, but I'm a Mirabilia/Nora Corbett junkie! I have 3 more Miras in line for new starts, but so far I'm doing good in leaving them right there on my craft stand. I'm using them for motivation to focus on my current stitching and finish up some of my Challenge pieces this year. I've decided to reward myself by starting a new Mira/Nora for every piece I finish. Sounds like a good plan to me!!

I don't know if anyone else watched the dog show last night, but I have to say - I'm pretty bummed that the Saint Bernard didn't win. However, Banana Joe, the little Affenpinscher that won it all, was A-DOR-ABLE! Almost makes me want a little dog. Almost.

I hope everyone is enjoying their week and looking forward to IHSW this weekend. I have a 3-day weekend as President's Day is a work holiday for me, so my hermitting will spill right over into Monday. I can't wait!

I'll leave you today with a pic of my big 'ol dog baby...a Saint Bernard, of course. This is Titan, and he's been Best in Show to us since the day we rescued him. No dog shows or competitions for him, though. As you can see, 'work' and 'effort' aren't in his repertoire...

 

       

Late SAL Update

Heather, from Heather's Stitching Story, held another SAL this past weekend. I joined in again, but haven't had a chance to post my progress from it until now. I managed to get a progress pic when I finished stitching Sunday night, I just didn't have the energy to put up a post.

I'm working on Stargazer, which is this week's rotation piece, and I was able to make some pretty good progress. Especially considering I didn't stitch nearly as much as I intended to over the weekend. The best laid plans, right? Anyway, here's where she ended up on Sunday night:

 Stargazer as of 2/10/13, after Heather's SAL

February's TUSAL report and more Stargazer progress to come later this evening... 

Hope everyone is having a great stitchy day so far :) 

Late Update and Another SAL w/Heather

Happy Saturday all!! I hope everyone is having a wonderfully cozy and stitch-filled weekend! For my followers on the East Coast...my prayers are with all of you that you maintain (or quickly regain) power, have an ample food and water supply, and find the patience to weather winter storm Nemo and the cleanup to come in it's wake. God Bless You!

I'm late with my rotation week update but, then again, what's new? My week with Fractal Tiger ended on Thursday and I intended to post my progress on Friday morning. My daughter had other plans...she woke me at 3:30 Friday morning to let me know that she had thrown up. This continued about every half-hour until after 8am. Needless to say, aside from work, any plans I had for Friday were immediately forgotten. Thankfully, she's much better now, and I managed to get some stitching in after having a nap with her yesterday evening. 

As most of you know, I completely changed out the fabric on Fractal Tiger. I switched from 14ct Black Aida to a piece of 28ct pewter of unknown origin. In case you missed it, that post is here. I'm really liking the change, but the time it took to make it and my level of busy last week didn't allow me to get as far as I'd like. Here's where I ended on Thursday:

Don't mind the green thread...I don't grid, so that was my 50-stitch marker :)

This is most of the first column of page 1. Maybe now that I'm happier with the fabric, I'll be able to make some real progress next time it comes up in my rotation.  So, on to the current rotation week...next in line is Stargazer. I love, love, love this one (as I do all Noras/Miras) and I see myself making some major progress this weekend. Here's where she was after her initial CJC start:

Since I've joined Heather's SAL again this weekend, I will be updating Stargazer's progress on Monday, after the SAL has ended. I plan to spend this evening and most of tomorrow stitching away! I hope that's what y'all are doing to! Enjoy your weekend everyone :)

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!!