max

I haven’t kept up with my end-of-month stitching updates as I’d hoped for the past couple of months. While I work to sort out projects for status updates, I figured I’d do some life ones too. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a non-stitchy blog post. 🙂

*Max at belt graduation August 2023 – photo via his training studio.*

Max is a few days away from starting fifth grade. He’s eager to get back to school and to see his classmates. I can’t believe it’s the last year of elementary school. Covid has definitely not helped matters, but the six years at his current school have gone so fast! I’m so proud of him. He really struggled in kindergarten and first grade, but he’s blossomed into a smart, funny, extroverted kid who’s generally really well-behaved and fun to be around. He’s still in his martial arts program, and although I would not categorize him as devoted to it – he enjoys it, and is currently at apprentice black belt – green stripe rank. If he passes his progress tests on the first try to get the next stripes, he could be testing for his full black belt sometime late 2024/early 2025.

Erich started a new job in April and enjoys it. We’ve had to adjust to second-shift work, but it’s going well. I get to see my husband for lunch most days of the week before he heads to the office. Max and Erich have time together in the mornings where I stay out of the way, and I take over the after school parenting. Weekends are family time. Erich had also really been struggling for several years due to his work status at the hospital, so seeing him in a much better mental state also helps mine.

I’m still working a hybrid schedule – one day in the office, four days at home. I’ve been warned that it’s likely to change to two days in office early next year. I work better and more productively at home, but it is what it is. (shrug) I finally have a strong team working with me where the egos are left at the door and we just get stuff done. It’s so refreshing. I’m finally ending days with less things on my plate than when I start my days.

*The first night of vacation – and a rare photo of the three of us together!*

We had our first family vacation in five years in August. We’ve had some little travels here and there, but a lot of them have been only Max and me. This time it was a full week together. We went to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, where we met up with my mom, her partner Barrie, and my brother, Scott. Hilton Head was my childhood vacation spot every June with my dad and my brother, but I hadn’t been back in about 25 years. I was so excited to share it with Erich and Max, especially since Max is the same age I was when I was introduced to the island. Things have changed in many ways, but in many others – it’s still so familiar. The live oaks with the Spanish moss draping, swaying slowly in the breeze, the hard sand and warm water. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed it.

Scott rented a charter boat for the Saturday afternoon we were there to enjoy a four-hour sail. We went out to international waters and spread my dad’s ashes among the waves according to the wishes he expressed to my brother before passing in 2016. Max got a little weirded out by it, since this was really his first encounter with any sort of funeral. Otherwise, it was honestly perfect – quiet, peaceful, and just… felt right. I’m glad that he can spend eternity near the island where he truly was always relaxed and happy. Once we spread his ashes, I noticed quite a few photos from cameras having green orbs on them. I know it’s probably just a trick of the sunlight on the phone, but I’d like to think it was Dad hanging out with us.

Our friend and Max’s adopted uncle, Matt, moved back in with us this past week. His rent was more expensive than our mortgage is, which is insane. His driving commute is definitely not ideal now – but hopefully it will allow him – and us – to save a bit of money. Our house is still a mess as we sort through and do some reorganizing, but it’s going to be a comfy, somewhat crowded home with tons of geekiness. 🙂

Life is good as we move into the cozy autumn season. 🙂 If I feel cold, I have this final photo to just make my heart a little warmer. Max and my dad’s green orb, enjoying the ocean as the sun goes down.

Happy Sunday,
Mel.

Considering how wild April was around here… I got quite a bit done on my projects! I’m happy. April’s short-short version, in no order of priority, are:

I’m back on track with WIPGO. Finished my stitches for March and all of April
My husband got a new job, started his training, and today started his first regular shift – which means a total adjustment for Max and me in the evenings.
Max passed his most recent belt test at martial arts and is now an apprentice black belt (yellow rank). 7 more stripe colors and he will test for his full black belt.
Work was crazy… total chaos. But that’s April at my job every year. Now with just a bit of added zing as the department gets bigger.
I got absolutely no writing done this month for letters. Very frustrating. Work stress just had me in a mood where in the evenings I needed to grumble and stab fabric.
I did get quite a few postcards out for Postcrossing, though.
My eye doctor has confirmed that I get to avoid bifocals for another year (yay!)
Erich’s new job confirms that we can actually take our first family vacation this summer since Max was born because Erich finally has TIME OFF.
Max is all signed up and ready to go for summer camp. (Day camp – not away camp).
I’m now the Secretary for the Tudor Rose Sampler Guild, and loving the energy. Me taking minutes during meetings? Sold. Great way for me to be involved, especially as a long-distance member.
What the heck Boston Bruins?!? Grrrrrr….
Cities: Skylines is an obnoxiously addicting computer game.
So is Dinkum – which is the Australian-themed Animal Crossing. Introduced to this one at PaxEast.

And onto the April stitchy updates. The theme of this month was “frogging and move forward.” Oh, so much miscounting that had to be fixed to get anywhere.

Picking up where I left off in March, I completed my stitches on the Halloween Candlestick SAL from Lakeside Needlecrafts. This was a SAL that I had a very, VERY small start on last October.

*Halloween Candlestick SAL as of 4/30/23 – stitched 2 over 2 on 32 ct Pumpkin evenweave from Fabric Flair with charted DMC.*

It turned out that my small start of only – 30? – stitches from the link above was already miscounted. That’s what I get for rushing it through during a short SAL! Thankfully I wasn’t off by too much. Repaired the count and moved it forward. It’s now starting to look much more like the center ghost-shaped candlestick. I can start removing some of those grid lines that I needed to center it. With Halloween Candlestick done, I could cross off my final WIPGO goal for March. Huzzah!

Next came Book of Ink Circles (aka BoINK) by Ink Circles. I joined a challenge on this one to stitch for Stitchy Clue in Semi Sane Stitchers, but had to bail on the game after only a couple days… just too much with everything else going on. One 600 stitch roll just killed my momentum for the game. I’m not a fast stitcher, even when I’m just doing lines like on BoInk. But hey… again, made some really good progress here:

*BoInk by Ink Circles as of April 16, 2023. Stitched 2 over 2 on 28 ct Thunderstorm linen by Silkweaver. Outlining in GAST “Cinders”.*

I added another row of squares at the bottom of the framing for this one. One more set of those large squares with the notches from the top row, plus the adjoining middle squares, and then I just have the edge work to finish for the full frame. And then the fill work will begin! My d20 needleminder is positioned in the exact center of this piece, just for perspective. It’s not as big as I thought it would be. I seem to say that about a lot of projects.

The next piece I worked on was Early Americans. With Betsy Ross and Molly Pitcher squares completed, it was time to move onto a new one. I decided to add one of the gents – John Hancock. It’s a much lighter square than the other two so far. I’m nearly halfway done already.

*Early Americans: John Hancock by Little House Needleworks as of April 16, 2023. Stitched 1 over 2 on 40 ct Granite Dust linen by Silkweaver with charted threads.*

Very brown, I know. But it moved quickly! After how long Molly Pitcher took me, it felt so good on this piece to get through a bunch of the block in one go. There’s a pretty heavy roof on this one, but it’s straight back and forth rows – so again, should go quickly. And then three down, six to go! Maybe Martha Washington will be the next, since that one is the one with the exceptionally large house.

I then took a break from WIPGO for a weekend online stitch-in with the Tudor Rose Sampler Guild. Members in the Dallas-Fort Worth area had an in-person stitch in, and I hosted the remote one. I decided to pull out my Temperature Tree SAL and start adding some leaves on it. I was able to get all of January and most of February’s high temperatures recorded!

*Temperature Tree by Stitchin’ Mommy as of April 30, 2023. Stitched 2 over 2 on 32 ct Dreamin’ Lugana from Silkweaver with custom DMC temperature range.*

Really, really liking how these colors are patterning so far! Eventually this piece will come up on my WIPGO this year. When it does, I’ll post my exact temperature breakdowns and the colors I’m using for each range. But the quick summary is that I have 4-temperature increments. I start at 23F (-5C) and below, and the highest is 96F (35C) and above. So far it’s clearly cold – but that’s January and February in New England! The colors will get much warmer in tone to deep reds for the summer. Each branch on this one is a month, and each leaf is colored to the high temperature for that date as recorded on Weather Underground. Knowing how fast these leaves stitch up, I’m going to plan to do some on other meetup weekends with the guild. This will definitely get done this year!

Next up was L ive on Little by Plum Street Samplers. This was the second piece that needed some frogging work before I could stitch. The entire white line that starts running to the right at the roofline was miscounted. I had some legs going over one, some going over three. Really not sure what I was doing when I originally put them in, but I figure I may just not have had good lighting! So I had to carefully frog those stitches out.

*Live on Little by Plum Street Samplers as of April 30, 2023. Stitched 1 over 2 on 40 ct Old Massachusetts linen from Primitive Hare with charted threads.*

My floss was pretty ratty after that, so I finished off the end that remained good. I then moved back over to the bricks on the “front” of the house to do a little work there. But I didn’t get much done. That’s okay. Not quite feeling this one right now. But the correction work is done. That’s what’s most important. I won’t be stuck. I’ll get back to this one!

Finally, I stitched on Winter Welcome by Park Hopper Bart for a couple of evenings while watching Bruins hockey. I did some very good progress on this one, especially considering the evil Etoile thread. One more good round of stitching, and this one will be done!

*Winter Welcome by Park Hopper Bart as of April 30, 2023. Stitched 2 over 2 on 32 ct Winter Berry linen by Fortnight Fabrics with charted threads.*

This project is very hard to photograph well. The fabric is a beautiful blue, but it just washes out in photos. The white floss is much more visible against the fabric in person. I’m guessing I may have about 4 hours left of work to wrap this one up. Not much at all! The rest of the “Winter Welcome” text on the bottom, a few smaller snowflake motifs in the center and on the side of the words, his arms, his carrot nose, eyes, and hat. That’s it!

So a very good month. I’m happy with the stitching progress. Now it’s time to settle into the insanity of Stitch Maynia. I want to film a FlossTube this week for Maynia. I’ll probably do it on Friday night since Max has a “parents night out” event at his martial arts studio and I’ll be free for about 3 hours.

Until then – happy stitching!

Mel.

Life Update as Summer Comes to a Close

April Stitching/Life Wrap Up