This week was no different in the insanity, although it took a different twist.  Erich’s job was transferred to a new hospital as of this past Monday, so both of our commute schedules have changed again.  In his case, it’s much, MUCH better.  He’s gone from a 1 hour and 20 minute drive to Dorchester, MA to approximately 20 minutes over to Fall River, MA – much, much more tolerable.

In my case, it’s a mixed bag.  Technically it’s a bit of a shorter commute for me, but unlike with driving, I now have a very firm schedule as to when I need to leave the house because I’m back on the commuter train.  For me it’s about 90 minutes each way to and from Boston.  The train is much easier than driving, and once I get used to the train schedule, I’ll be back stitching on my commutes.  This week, though, was a bit painful with the adjustment.  Hopefully my brain will make the switch soon.

Wednesday was my birthday.  Erich and I went out to dinner after work and had a relaxing night.  I took Thursday off – I had a scheduled dentist appointment, and decided I’d just take the entire day so I could have some “me” time – I got my nails done and went milling about Thistle Needleworks over in Glastonbury, Connecticut for a couple hours.  I didn’t buy much, but did pick up a couple of the colors I still needed for Deep Blue Sea.  That evening,  Erich and I gathered with friends for a laid-back dinner at one of the centralized hangouts we like to go to.

Yesterday morning I went to my monthly stitchy gathering at the Warwick Public Library – the Rhode Island stitchers gather there every month on the second Saturday morning.  It was a quiet month – only four of us this time.

And then last night was the Patriots game – I was relieved they won.  Hopefully that will quiet down the Tebow mania for a while!

+++++++++++++

I’ve been doing well on stitching this weekend – I’ve become a bit burnt out on new starts, so I’m putting my Crazy January on pause.  My current projects are just screaming a bit too loudly for attention!  I’ve been focusing on Deep Blue Sea so far this weekend, correcting my miscounts from my January 1st progress and pushing forward on the next two colors.  Once that’s done (hopefully this afternoon), I’ll be picking up Floral Bellpull, since it’s the Wentzler I want to complete this year above all others.

Remember that WIPocalypse signups end tonight at midnight my time – so if you’re reading and waffling, jump in and join us!

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It was good to do some stitching on this again – it really hadn’t seen my needle for about a year and a half.  It’s one of the pieces I really hope to finish in 2012.

*****

That said – bring 2012 on.  2011 was quite possibly the hardest year of my life emotionally, and I will not be sorry to see this year end.  Both personally and professionally, this year has been challenging and exhausting.  The personal issues are ones a bit *too* personal to discuss online, but they were serious ones – ones I knew I had to deal with head on and essentially alone.  A few friends do know about everything, but after a couple of missteps in confiding to friends who I thought would be supportive as the situation unfolded, I decided instead to shut down and just work through everything on my own.

The good thing on the personal front is that I know things are healing and getting better, even though from time to time, I’ll get a wash of overwhelming emotion and just need to acknowledge it, release it, and continue on.  The professional issues sorted themselves out, for the most part, as the year progressed and I’m hoping that they’ll continue toease with some recent news at work.  The problem is that I got smacked with both major problems within a two week span at the beginning of the year, and I truly spent the entire year in survival mode for the most part as I just tried to keep myself righted (and sane).

But yeah – I don’t want to ever relive a year like 2011.  And I don’t wish anything similar on anyone.

I’ve also learned to put on a VERY convincing “things are fine” face, when no… they haven’t been.  But they’re getting better.

And ultimately, I think that’s all that matters.

Happy New Year everyone – may the next one bring all of us better times.

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I’m doing a very quick entry because I’m running late this evening, but I didn’t want to forget my Totally Useless Stitch-a-Long post for the month. (Daffycat has opened next year’s signups, by the way. Jump over here and check it out!)

My jar is officially filled to the lip now, albeit with a lot of loft. This month I focused mainly on ornaments. I’ve also done a little stitching on the final round of the Mirabilia round robin (which I should wrap up this weekend).

I’ve finished my ornament for my personal exchange for Rahenna just a short time ago. I’ll post a photo of it once she receives it. I’ve been good and have avoided opening up my package from her… my willpower is about to give in!

I’m off to finish packing. This weekend is an annual trip to Cape Cod with my group of friends. We do Thanksgiving dinner, play lots of board games, drink too much, and just enjoy a couple days in a timeshare condo away from the craziness back home. I’m just waiting for our roommate Matt to get home so he can help me lift the turkey (25 pounds!!) and the brine pot into the car, and then off I go.

See you on Sunday – hopefully with a round robin finish!

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It was good to sit down with it for a few days.  I’m happy with what I got done.  I’ve nearly completed the actual crosses on this square.  I’ll finish the backstitching before I move onto the next one.  Morning Glory is the fourth of six – so I’m making good progress, and I think there will be a finish in the first quarter of next year on this one.  (If I didn’t have ornaments to stitch, I might say this year!)

I’ll feel quite proud when this one is done.

Through the rest of the month there is a SAL for HAED projects.  I was going to pull out my Muse of the Midnight Sun, but then something very funny happened today…

With no plans whatsoever, I was invited to go to Stitcher’s Hideaway in mid-October!  I’ll be joining Lisa and her mom, Kathy, for a two-day class with Jeannette Douglas in Mystic, CT.   Lisa’s sister was unfortunately unable to get the time off from work, and since all of her fees are already paid, Kathy invited me to take the spot.

I guess it was fate – I wasn’t able to afford it and had decided to hold off and save my money for the alumni retreat in March.  As it stands, I probably will be commuting to the classes rather than stay at the hotel to save some money.  Providence to Mystic is just under an hour, and that’s shorter than my normal commute to work (by quite a bit), so it’ll be an easy drive.

So that’s changed my stitching plans for the next few weeks by quite a bit.  Rather than my HAED, I’ll be focusing in on the Mirabilia RR so I can get her mailed off before the retreat weekend.  There’s also going to be a fall-themed ornament exchange at Hideaway, so I’m going to attempt to get one done.

I also did something a bit crazy on Friday afternoon and jumped into what will be my first Chatelaine stitch.  I decided to join Rachel (and I imagine others who I know from stitching & blogging) in the Mystery Mandala XV starting in January called Deep Blue Sea.  As I said – first Chatelaine design.  It will also be the first time I’ve ever done any sort of mystery stitch, so I’m quite excited.  Since it’s one of the mandalas, I know it’s going to be gorgeous.  Since it’s themed to the sea, I know it will have some gorgeous blues in it, with likely greens and flashes of brights.  I will not be kitting it exactly as suggested.  DMC will be heavily used with perhaps a few more expensive threads as I can afford them.

It’s midnight, so I need to get to bed.  TUSAL tomorrow!

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I’m only working two days this week – I have Thursday, Friday, and next Monday as vacation days, so while I didn’t get the usual house chores for the weekend done, I’ll do them later this week.

I did, however, get a lot of progress done on a massive project – organizing my stash.  I last did this back in late 2010 – if you’re reading my blog on its actual page, you might notice that “stash” tab at the top of the page.  Yeah… that’s about when I last looked at the list.  Unfortunately, that was done shortly after I returned from my first Stitchers Hideaway retreat last October.  Since then, I went to another Stitchers Hideaway retreat, the Celebrations of Needlework show in Nashua, and a new LNS (Bush Mountain Stitchery) opened up a mere 2 hours from my house.

My stash intake has been a bit out of control this year – and I jokingly blame Lisa – who has been my partner in crime for all of these adventures.  Not really, of course.  What’s actually happened is that over the past year, I’ve had one of those lucky times in my life where my knowledge of my own hobby expanded greatly.  I’ve been stitching for many, many years (25-ish), but my knowledge of different designers and fabrics and fibers really only started to expand about six years ago, and common in-person connection with other stitchers honestly didn’t start much before last September, when the Rhode Island Stitchers group first started getting together.  Once those pieces started falling into place, I began learning from other people rather than just the self-taught things that I’d picked up along the way.  I’m no longer just admiring things over the internet but completely intimidated by them – I’m finally feeling some confidence that I could actually delve into those crazy projects by Heaven and Earth Designs or Chatelaine.

It’s glorious, really… but also a bit dangerous on the wallet!

With Lisa’s help, I sorted through 99% of my charts, and she was kind enogh to organize them in piles by designer before putting them back in the magazine holders from IKEA that I keep them in.  I’d already made a good dent in my magazines several months ago, and I also did an inventory of my spare specialty flosses.  I’m not going to bother with DMC or Sullivans floss – Lisa had a good point when she reminded me how often that inventory’s going to change, and it’s too much of a headache.

Among my stash I did find duplicates of a couple patterns (apparently I really, really like them) – so two items are already reserved for the WIPocalypse stash box!

Erich and I got together with the guys on Monday and played a session of his long-standing (and long on hold) Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I have to admit, I just don’t have the mental stamina for it anymore.  Maybe it’s because I’m out of practice with the mental focus required for gaming for many hours on end, but after three hours or so, my brain just starts to wander.  I seem to always leave the games these days feeling guilty because I’m just not able to “stay on task” such as it is, despite the fact that for quite a bit of the time, there’s simply not much for me to do.  And yesterday was one of those days where I really should have paid attention better – the module Erich incorporated into his campaign was a bit overpowered for our group.  We struggled through it with a lot of trouble.

Ah well… it’s only a game, right?

But still – a good weekend, with decent weather that defied the rainy forecast.  The rain arrived this morning rather assertively, and it’s been cool and damp all day and will likely stay that way until sometime Thursday.  It’s actually cool enough that we almost – almost – have all of the windows closed.

Tonight I’m already in bed before 11 pm, which is highly unusual for me.  I had a cup of Sleepytime tea about an hour ago, hoping I can catch a bit more sleep than last night because I was dragging all day.  Hopefully tomorrow won’t be too insane and I can enjoy my second long weekend.  :)

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Yesterday morning I had a great time stitching with the other members of the Rhode Island Stitchers group, including a couple of new women who I hope will return. The library is much quieter in the summer, but it’s been a boon to our group – we were sitting at only 4-6 members for quite a while, and the last three months have been great with upwards of 12-15 every time.  It’s wonderful to see all of the different projects everyone’s working – we all have different interests and tastes, even though there’s also quite a bit of overlap.

Afterwards, I drove Matt to work at Battleground in Plainville.  Since Erich and I had evening tickets for the final Harry Potter movie at Patriot’s Place in Foxboro, I decided to stay at the store and relax rather than drive back home.  I’m about a week late in sending off Linda’s piece for the 2010 RR, and so I’m frantically trying to get the final stitches in before I mail off on Monday.  Catherine, who I send to for this robin, has been out of state on vacation, and if I mail it to her on Monday, it should arrive shortly after she returns home.  So really, it’s not a huge deal that I’m late, but it’s still annoying me.

Anyway, I got some good stitching in on the piece yesterday.  I have perhaps another 100 stitches to go, and then I can package Linda’s up for the mail.  Photos will come later today.  :)  I’m also going to get some work done on the 2011 round robin piece for Tali – which is Mirabilia’s Sleeping Beauty.  That’s due to be mailed on Friday, and I think I’ll be in good shape to plunk my hours in before then.

Erich and I decided to treat ourselves to the fancy seats at the theater for Harry Potter.  The Showcase cinema at Patriot Place has a Lux Level, which is a 21+ seating area with very comfy leather seats, in-seat dining and a full bar.  The tickets themselves are a bit outrageous, but the food is priced reasonably – especially for a movie theater, and the drinks are good.  The seats in particular are great – they’re wide (great for my plus-sized butt), with a small swing-arm table for your drinks and food, and there is a center elbow rest between each set of two seats that goes up, so Erich and I were able to cuddle on our own little loveseat in the theater.  The only thing missing is an elevated foot rest.

The movie was… okay.  I don’t know.  My feelings on it are really mixed.  I think if I’d never read the books, I’d be very pleased, but I admit to being disappointed.  I don’t like all of the scene rewrites made for the movie (especially after part 1, where the movie did stick quite well to the book), and I felt the pace was really, really rushed for absolutely no reason.  It’s the shortest Harry Potter movie, and frankly it shows – it felt flat and rushed and almost like a checklist of scenes with no depth in the vast majority of them.  I haven’t liked Yates’ style since he took over the franchise – it’s really just a shame that he’s on record as stating he doesn’t like long movies – it’s pretty clear he’s more interested in time than quality.  Huge plot holes everywhere, including items that WERE brought up in book one that just get erased in book 2.  I expected to be emotional, as it’s a very emotional story.  I was crying when I read the book.  I just sat there in stunned silence during the latter half of the movie, and was honestly rather angry when I left, especially by the last ten minutes or so.   Maybe that will change when I see parts 1 and 2 together – but yeah, I thought the final movie was such a huge letdown.  It didn’t need to be – if it had actually stuck to the book, it would have been fantastic.

So today while Erich’s at work I’m doing some projects around the house.  I’m about to get the first loads of laundry in.  I have some cleaning to do, and then I’ll get to work on some stitching.

Hope you’re having a good weekend.  Stay tuned for another entry this evening, including a new stitchy giveaway!  :)

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I seriously can’t believe the year is half over already. Granted – 2011 has been a very bad one for me so far, and part of me is wishing it would move its butt out of the way so I can get to (hopefully) a brighter 2012, but at the same time, I feel like time is flying past me in a crazy, out-of-control sort of way that leaves me feeling like I need to get my own butt in gear and catch up.

I hope my fellow Americans had a relaxing, fun 4th of July – and that Canadian readers had a fun Canada Day. Ours was filled with activities over the weekend, but the 4th was intentionally quiet for us. Erich’s going to be working the majority of July on big projects for his company, and so his fun and relaxation was really the important thing, since he’s not going to have full weekends for many weeks.

We went to an impromptu BBQ on Saturday afternoon hosted by our friends Marc and Erin (and their adorable baby boy, Jack). It was a small affair with only six of us – honestly a perfect size. I brought my mom’s BBQ Beanpot recipe that is stupid easy and so, so good. I should post that tonight, actually…

On Sunday Erich and Matt went off to play a Star Wars d20 game with the guys (translation for the non-geek readers: think Dungeons & Dragons, but with the Star Wars universe as the setting), which means I had the house to myself for many, many hours. I spent virtually the entire day in my stitching chair working on round robin stitching and watching episodes of the X-Files that I hadn’t seen in years.

By Monday I’d developed a weird cough that had me feeling a bit off. We spent most of the day relaxing in the house due to the heat, nibbling on burgers and dogs all day, playing games and watching episodes of Dexter. The cats, as you can see in the photo at the top of this entry, had wonderfully lazy afternoons cuddling up together in our sunroom. At night our neighborhood exploded with fireworks, as they’re now legal here in Rhode Island, and we watched our next door neighbor’s rather impressive display. The bugs finally drove us inside. The night ended with a slight scramble when I heard a HUGE buzzing near our family room light. I thought it might be one of those big bumblebees that I refer to as “drunken bumbles” because they seem to crash into everything. Anyway… the bug was bouncing furiously around the light, then careened under the dining room table, where I managed to get to it before Noby and Gus did anything to it. It turned out to be a Junebug. It was promptly scooped up and dumped outside.

My cough then decided it really wanted to make me miserable by preventing me from getting any form of sleep that night, so yesterday’s return to work was impressively zombified. I couldn’t tell you what I actually did yesterday, but apparently I did do quite a bit because I have several “finished” checkmarks in my planner list. All I know is that I crawled into bed promptly upon arriving home last night in the 7 pm hour, napped fitfully until after midnight, when Erich found some nighttime cold meds, was up from about 12:30-2 am, took the nighttime meds once my previous round had “expired,” and those finally conked me out for the rest of the night.

I’m feeling a bit better today, although I’m a bit out of it from the weird sleep schedule last night. The cough is still here, although not as bad as yesterday. I have no other symptoms, which is very, very weird. Allergies, perhaps? Or maybe a cold that’s so light that I don’t notice it over my normal allergies? Who knows. Whatever it is, it’s annoying.

In other news, I keep watching what’s happening at home and groaning. Montana is not having a good year. In early June, they had massive storms that flooded virtually every river in the state. The larger problem was that it had been so cold this spring that most of the snowpack was still there – and now it’s melting off, keeping the floodwaters active. And then on Friday, an oil pipeline near the refinery in Laurel (about 16 miles up river from my hometown of Billings) ruptured, sending oil down the Yellowstone River for upwards of – at last check – 125 miles. They’re now testing soil in North Dakota, fearing that the oil could reach where the Yellowstone meets the Missouri. Seriously, it’s like they can’t win recently. Last year, a tornado took out METRA (aka Rimrock Auto Park Arena, as I think it’s lamely named now), which is the state’s largest indoor arena. And now all of this. It’s just a horrid turn of events in a state that was already poorer than most of the country. *sigh*

Anyway. God, this is becoming a depressing entry, isn’t it? It’s not intentional – blame it on my weird cough. Onward to happier things!

It’s July, which means that there are some lovely stitchers doing midsummer giveaways.

Parsley has a fabulous Christmas in July giveaway full of ornament stitching goodness.

Debbie is giving away an amazing die-cutter machine that’s great for quilters and crafty finishers alike. I haven’t joined this one because I know I don’t have the time for another hobby, but still – this machine looks awesome.

I’m itching to do a new giveaway soon. Maybe I’ll put something together on my next wandering up to the stitchy store.

If you haven’t yet, please pop back two entries and give me opinions on what I should stitch for the next square in the Mirabilia round robin!

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I updated my status on Rachel’s round robin earlier this week.  Kris’ piece for the 2011 edition of the UFO round robin is now ready to travel again.  :)  This piece is quite busy, but it has adorable colors in it – and was a perfect springtime stitch.  It’s the Spring Sampler from Kooler Design studios.  When Kris sent it, she’d just started it:

And here’s how it’s being sent to Blu tomorrow:

I got to cross stitch a peep!  The little spots are jelly beans.  Once there’s some backstitching in here, it’s really going pop.  :)

My next project is the Mirabilia RR, which I have a comfortable start on.  Hopefully I’ll have it done by the weekend, although this is my busiest week of the year at work, so I may not get it done until next week.  Regardless – it’s my go-everywhere piece until it’s done!

So early this afternoon, I got our laundry done and finished my hours on Kris’ piece.  Erich was playing Dead Space 2 on the Xbox.  I swear half of my stitching is done to the sounds of violence in some form.  It’s really odd.  But anyway… it was absolutely gorgeous outside, and I told Erich that as soon as the laundry was done, I really wanted to go somewhere so we could enjoy the day a bit (mostly so we didn’t spend the entire weekend in front of the TV).  Saturday had been a wash-out, and I definitely had a case of cabin fever.

We headed out around 3 to head up to Battleground.  Matt was working today, and he had told us he was pretty sure it would be dead due to the holiday.  We figured we’d take advantage of the quiet time to geek with him.  I’ve been itching to do some Warhammer painting, but it’s not really something I can do easily here at home – so it’s really a Battleground-specific project.

We headed north, and pop! goes Erich’s left front tire about 4 miles from home in Pawtucket.  Now… this was not unexpected.  When Erich had the massive car repair last month, we were told that there was a bubble on his tire and that the rim looked cracked.  Thankfully it happened in such a way that Erich was able to maintain control easily and pull over – and into a relatively good location to swap out the tire.  Donut was switched out on the axle, and we continued on our way.  I’m very happy that this didn’t happen during a commute or during bad weather, though!

We got up to Battleground, and found only my car in the parking lot (Matt’s been driving it lately).  For the next hour or so, the three of us were the only ones at the store.  All of the doors were open, giving the place a nice, fresh breeze.  It was great. I got to work painting.  Erich decided he wasn’t in the mood and curled up with a good game of Civilization 4.

About three hours later, I’d put some serious work into my figurines, and managed to finish my first two:

Erich put these two together and primed them, but I did all of the painting, very slowly by hand.  For perspective, the taller one is probably about 3 inches tall.  The smaller one is, obviously, half that.  So the details on these things are insanely tiny.  My painting skill is not great, but I’d say they’re pretty good for my first model finishes ever! (now I just have about 50 more to do…)

I know they’re not exactly the girliest thing out there.  I do have a batch of completely over the top girly ones in store – intentionally so to annoy all of the guys.

For those who aren’t familiar with these figurines, they’re Orks (yes… spelled that way) from a tabletop game called Warhammer 40K.  It’s a futuristic war strategy game where players battle each other with squads of different races of figures. Different types of figures are worth different point totals and have different abilities.  It’s quite complex.  I haven’t played yet beyond an intro game, but I wanted to try my hand at creating the figures.  :)

So overall, a very productive crafty weekend here!

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But that is what I have to write about.  I have no first-hand knowledge of Japan, nor would I claim to.  I just hope that the determination I’ve learned and read about the Japanese people shines through and gets them through this tragedy.

So forgive this entry, which probably sounds completely flippant in light of things…

The past week or so has been pretty wild in Measi land.  I swear that St. Patrick’s Day/Evacuation Day is the only reason I know what day it is.  To sum up my week:

• Friday afternoon through Sunday:  Attended PAX East in Boston with Erich (I’ll be putting my recap entry together this weekend.  It definitely deserves its own entry)
  Also during the weekend… 
  • Friday night – severely bruised my right pinky to the point that rubbing nail polish remover hurts like hell… over fake nails.  I’m still worried I may lose my nail completely, but I have hope it’s going to heal.
  • Saturday morning – got the other 9 nails done anyway.  In a pretty green for the holiday.
  • Also Saturday morning – monthly stitch-in with the Rhode Island Stitchers (in which I got virtually nothing done other than drool over the hooked rugs that the Little Rhody Thrummers group had set up in one of the other rooms)
• Sunday night – start the post-con laundry catchup, and suddenly I hear Erich yelling “we got a problem!” from the basement.  Our water heater and storage tank had ruptured, sending water everywhere across the floor.  Thankfully we caught it early, and aside from possibly a couple things at the bottom of a single paper box that was in the water flow, I don’t think we’ve lost anything of value.  Hopefully.
• Monday – Erich stayed home, called the oil company, and they came out to replace the heater.  So much for our tax refund.  *groan*
• Later in the day, he got slammed with a nasty stomach bug that we’re thinking was a case of food poisoning with how it came on.  He couldn’t pick me up from the train, so I ended up on an adventure to get home from downtown Providence (finally ending in a taxi home because there was weird stuff happening at the bus depot)
• Yesterday – Erich’s PT Cruiser starts really making a loud, grinding noise.  Like… really loud.  And today it’s worse.  Bad enough that it’s  now officially at rest until it goes to the shop.  I’m thinking it’s something to do with the wheel bearings.  Hopefully it’s not an expensive fix.
• That, of course, means that we have three people who need to go to work in different places tomorrow – and we have one car.  So it’ll be another fun trek through Massachusetts tomorrow morning – first to drop Matt off in Plainville, then Erich in Dorchester, and finally landing in downtown Boston.

So yeah – it’s been an expensive week and a crazy one.  I seriously can’t wait for the weekend.  I dream of sleeping with no alarm clock.  It will be done on Sunday.  Oh yes – it will.

On the plus side, today was absolutely gorgeous – the first real day of spring (yeah, yeah… Ostara’s a couple days away still, I know…).  Everything just smelled good – nice and clean and earthy.  I love it.  My daffodils, hyacinths, and day lilies are all coming up through the ground.  My mums are already making an effort, too, even though they won’t bloom until August.  I’ve seen a few forsythia bushes in the city heat islands starting to bloom.  During our drive through Milton, MA this morning, I noticed that the yards are starting to green up, too.  I cannot wait for the first night we can keep the windows open.

Needless to say, it’s been quite the unusual week.  I’ve managed to get several hours of stitching in, too – all on Annette’s Mira RR.  My progress is coming along well.  I’m hoping to have all of the cross stitches done so I can add kreinik and the beads starting late this weekend and have it ready to go within the week.  I really don’t want to be stitching up to the last minute on it.  I’ll post a pic once my square is done.  I will say – I’m quite happy with my stitching so far.

I’ll end on a few randoms…

There’s still time to enter my Blogoversary giveaway, too!  Just look at my sidebar for the link.  :)

Also – Rhode Island Stitchers (my local stitch ‘n bitch group) is hosting a Spring Giveaway with some fun stash, if you want to try your chances!

Sue, the organizer of Stitcher’s Hideaway, posted her blog report on the Alumni Retreat (what happens in Mystic stays in Mystic…).  I think the photo of me worshipping my Saturday morning coffee may be about as truthful a photo as you’ll ever see of me.

I’ll write more this weekend, hopefully over a calm cuppa on Sunday morning.  :)

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My first finish of 2011 is in the books – just in time for my mom’s belated visit for Christmas!  It’s Windows of Faith, Hope and Peace from Primrose Needleworks, and was featured in the 2010 ornament issue of Just Cross Stitch.  It’s stitched on Silkweaver 28ct opal. Porcelain, and I decided to stitch the entire thing in DMC 334.   I did not make the cord on this one – I had a piece of off-white cord lying around, and wanted to use it up.  Mom loved it, and she’s VERY impressed with the finishing.  Hooray!

The ornament took up all of this week’s stitching time.  I had a lot more left to do than I thought.  So this next week I’ll be working furiously on the UFO RR piece due to be mailed on January 24th.

The Feb 2010 UFO RR is wrapping up.  About half of the pieces have now returned home.  My final round was spent stitching on Catherine’s adorable little baby quilt.  I completed one of the hearts and a sheep on it (top and bottom right corners on the photo) before sending it home on Monday (she received it on Friday).  Her piece isn’t quite done, but it had fantastic progress over the course of this robin.  This is a very large piece, so I struggled a bit to get a good photo – sorry about the angle.

For anyone reading who is interested, a new Unfinished Object RR is starting, and it’s now in the signup stage.  So if you’d like to check it out (and the previous versions), please go HERE.  The link will take you directly to the new robin starting up, but if you go up the forum hierarchy, you’ll find other robins.  It is a lot of fun, and if you have a piece that’s been stalled for a while, it’s a great way to get it moving again.  It just requires a long commitment.  Usually these robins will take just under a year to complete.

I’m going to get a few other things ready around the house before Mom gets here.  I’ll be catching up on blog posts this week now that the holiday/birthday/massive work deadline/Mom visit stretch is over.

Thanks for stopping by!

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