I hope everyone in the USA had a lovely Labor Day weekend with fun activities (or productive ones, if you did some catch up work).  Mine was good – some relaxing, some actual project work.  I managed to do a nice amount of stitching thanks to episodes of Torchwood, Doctor Who, and Battlestar Galactica.  Ye Olde Coffee House by Little House Needleworks got a much added boost, as you can see in the photo.  I also put a few hours into a piece I’m stitching as a gift, but can’t post photos of it until it’s finished and sent off.

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.  :)