An Artist is Born! (cough, cough)

Today I took a painting class. That wasn't the really stunning thing though. The really stunning thing was finding out that I qualify for Senior status. Oh yeah, me. As if. I'm sorry, I'm not being mean. There's nothing wrong with being old, older, elderly or ancient. However, I have it on good authority that I'm MIDDLE-AGED!!! Now I find that 50 and older means you can take SENIOR CITIZEN CLASSES at Continuing Education places! Well, okay, I won't complain. It's NOT like I GOT A SENIOR DISCOUNT or anything because I DID NOT! I was NOT offered a senior coffee, a ride from the parking lot, a helping hand across the road nor a cookie. I WAS made to SIGN IN at the senior center as a non-member (phew!) and forced to donate 50 cents because of my non-member status. Okay, they didn't force me but those little old lady eyes scared me into it! Anyway, onward to the class. I'm sure this is furthering my education in art so I learned to paint following one of those guys that shows you how this works on his canvas and you replicate it on your own. What I found out is that: 1. Being a JUNIOR senior is fun (yes, I came up with that idea myself, again, see paragraph one.) 2. Senior citizens have sharp senses of humor. 3. Guys hang out at these places, giving us old ladies a sense that there could be men in the future should our spouses leave us high and dry. 4. I was the only one who had to exit the room quickly at one point because I was laughing hard and I was NOT wearing Depends. I'm not saying anybody else WAS, I'm just saying that I feared for my underwear! 5. Having a day where somebody else is in charge of the teaching is a really good thing! 6. Yes, I will do it again. If you see badly painted canvases entering the shop, I can tell you one thing - they're NOT mine! Stitch on!

Where did the time go?

Dear Stitchers,

Hope you weren't holding your breath waiting for a post from me! After all I noticed it's been 6 months so you probably figured I stuck myself with a needle and never recovered. SO not true! Life got in the way or something like that.

But here I am to tell you ... ARGH! I have too many projects to stitch! (Take a deep breath Theresa. You can do this. You must do this. All these stitchers are depending on you to show them the way!)

Let's put it this way. I'm in the midst of Rainforest Crunch with my ANG Chapter...well not really the midst. I think I'm on the 4th block. Last night I realized it's going to be a really tight fit because some smarmy shopowner took it upon herself to take the 11" piece of canvas that wouldn't sell when you need 12". Then she forgot to take that into account when she started 2" in and 2" down. (sigh)

Next, I'm on star #2 of Oh My Stars. One of the girls in the group (okay, woman but doesn't girls sound better?) - FINISHED HERS. How unfair is that? We just started in February supposedly. I mean not to be rude but come on! It's just not polite to make your local shopowner look like a loser. ;-)

Next I'm still STITCHING THE "THING" of the month and the ad for it is coming out this WEEK or so in Needlepoint Now. I guess that should make me finish them, right? I'm happy to say I think I have 2/3 of the 11 pieces done. What's 2/3 of 11 anyway? Okay, maybe a little less than 2/3. Whatever.

So saying, NO PICTURES TODAY. You don't want me to repeat my computer problems to you. Let's just say I have all that kind of thing going on too. I suppose I could take pictures with my phone and then figure out how to upload those but that would require more thought processes than I can handle today.

Today I'm trying to price all these new canvases that just found their way here. Good night, it's 3/17 and these are from the January market! And I have MORE orders not here yet. Don't ask ME what happened. Soon I'll have to start calling and asking what happened to my order. After all, June is just around the corner and I'll go there and not order all over again. Yes, I said "NOT ORDER". I say it before every market. Then I go and see all that beautiful stuff and something shuts off in my head and...there I am again.

Enjoy your stitching and don't even THINK of gardening yet!

Reading, Stitching and Zombies

There was a stitch in today at the Homestead and we were talking about books. Who among us does not love to read? Out of the 5 of us there, it turns out 1 of us does not love to read (gasp!) The other 4 of us do! (and you gentle reader? Obviously you do!)

Anyway, the 4 of us were vehemently - well okay - agreeably but loudly - discussing books and happily confusing each other by talking all at once when ONE of us thought that SOMEBODY was referring to those books called something like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Our famed and favored eldest member struck that one down with a simple "I don't like zombies" much like you or I would say "I don't like vegetables" and went hurriedly on to explain what book she was reading. My stitching neighbor and I went into paroxysms of mirth over her zombie comment and I had to ask if she like vampires to which the answer was "No I don't like any blood suckers." What? Do they really exist? Besides mosquitoes I mean.

I suspected at this point I had had FAR TOO MUCH CAFFEINE AND SUGAR but honestly, now that's it's late at night and the caffeine and sugar is gone from my system, some much more serious questions come to mind like

... do zombies stitch? And if so, at Halloween do they stitch people in various normal poses? And what about vampires? It seems to me that vampires are a vast untapped market for needlepoint customers. Does anybody out there know a vampire itchin' to be stitchin'? Don't even tease me about werewolves for pete's sake! How would they hold a needle? Honestly, I'm not THAT stupid!

So saying, I must sign off and go dream about...a normal life. :-)

Back from Vacation

Wow! I returned from my wild west vacation to find that my background was "missing" on my blog page. I don't know why since the html code was still there. Nobody said I was a programmer, I'm just a user. Uh-huh. My sister is kind enough to call me a super-user but...still...I just follow the instructions.

So I took off the old and put on the new autumnal background. I hope you like it. I changed out the window at work today too. I took down the cherries and put up the acorns and fall leaves. I took the floral and cherry canvases out of the window and put up Christmas and snow. I know. The "s" word. That was brutal. I would have put autumn and Halloween in the window but last week I put all of them way far up on the walls and I wasn't going to pull any of them down to stick them in the window. Besides, people should be stitching their Christmas already. Finishing deadlines LOOM BEFORE US!!! I'm starting to get the panicky calls from stitchers asking about the deadline. I tell them Christmas comes every year but few are amused.

I suppose you want pictures but today you're stuck with me rambling. How's this? I got some bright pink window paint and painted 200,000 Miles on the back window of my car this morning AFTER I had it washed. This is so that THE WHOLE WORLD would know that my car rolled 200,000 miles. As you must know, I'm also having a 2 day sale to commemorate this momentous event. Sometime around noon it started raining. Portions of my bright pink lettering flaked off and became one with the rising floodwaters of the parking lot. Other tiny bits of pink ran down to make my car look like it had a mild case of measles. (sigh) I drove it home sadly as no strangers honked and waved to help me celebrate my so far once-in-a-lifetime event. Then I wiped off the rest of the tiny dots as much as possible so that they wouldn't melt overnight causing my blue car to look like it had now contracted a case of oozing Barbie-itis. Yes, you get to read here ALL the excitement in the life of your local shopowner.

But seriously. Now I will park my behind in my chair and continue to work madly upon next year's Project of the Month which Shall Remain a Secret Until its Revealing. That could be some time away at this rate. I like them though. That's all I can say. Oh that and it's fun. :-)

Don't Hate Them Because They're Beautiful

Remember that commercial where the girl didn't want you to hate her? Was she beautiful? I don't know but I always thought it was funny...like anybody would say that.





But in the case of these TREES, I thought it was realistic. I got them back from the finisher on Saturday and thought I should POST them so you know I really DO stitch things. I asked her to make them 3D and standing on bead feet. She put those adorable ribbon doo-dads on the top. What do you think?


For those of you wondering what they are, they're the first four trees from this year's Tree of the Month Club. I have a couple more stitched but not sent out yet and I'm bringing two on vacation in case I have any stitching time. :-) These have actually been fun and I hope to get them all finished. I can see them all on my fireplace mantel at Christmas but you know darn well they'll be in the shop so that people can see them.

Back to cleaning! Theresa

THE ROOM...

Whoever had this Stupid Idea to clean up The Room? Was it me? Are you sure? Because I found stuff I didn't know I had. Maybe one of my friends snuck some of their stash in there. Which is entirely possible...but knowing them, not really probable. Anyway, I think I should have a HUGE stash sale.

The problem is see, I have cross stitch kits and fabrics. I have tons of fat quarters and some yards of fabrics for quilts I've never made. I have TONS of yarn for - well apparently for projects that never got started. I have BLOBS of books...I have a hard time letting books go though. Then I found this storage box with all this fake fur in it and a bunch of bear parts and patterns. I guess I was going to make my own bears! What? How long ago did that illness take over? I have like THREE different patterns in there! Which I got as far on them as the purchase. What a surprise (sarcasm).

This is NOT the first time I've purged. It may not be the last. The good news is that I don't buy like I used to. I mean fabric. Or cross stitch. Or TOO much yarn. I'm not saying boo about needlepoint. :-)

So here's my question - who wants to buy my stash?

Needle Case

What am I working on (besides the sewing room?) This is an adorable needle case from Birds of a Feather. It sat in the shop and stared at me for long enough! I have a thing for anything that reminds me of French Provence and for some reason this one did. So I grabbed it - for a shop model of course - and four colors of Vineyard silk. Of course it's all in continental so they'll be no snagging when it gets handled.

The silk feels like butter when it's stitched. The colors are bright enough that you'd never lose this in your stitching tote. The inside has four felt "pages" already sewn in for your needles. When you're finished you just stitch down the already attached cotton lining and the zipper is attached too. Yup, a pre-finished product. My favorite.

Speaking of pre-finished, I can't wait until the new leathers from Lee Needle Arts come in. It will be a while as they only had demos at Market of their new leather pillows and their newest purse. They also have an e-book cover - of course I ordered one! What's an e-book without a nice leather Lee cover? :-)

That's all for now! I just wanted to post a picture so you didn't think I was slacking!