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!

The ROOM OF SHAME...

Dear Friends,

Yesterday and today, I've been locked inside the "sewing room". Only God knows why it's called that...I don't sew in there. Neither do I cross stitch, quilt, crochet, knit, felt, needlepoint or do anything at all related to sewing in there. Mostly I throw stuff in there on the floor. Sometimes there's room on the table where the sewing machine is and it will make it there. If there were room on the bookshelf and it were a needlework book it would make it there. But room on the bookshelf ran out eons ago. So instead there's a pile of charts and books on the floor. So that is what my post is about today. The ROOM OF SHAME...

Let me take you on a little tour of my room. When it started out it was really lovely. (I SWEAR!) My husband saw it as a wonderful place (woman cave) for me to go and - um - I don't know WHAT he was thinking. You know, men have their room with all their tools and stuff? And they build things there? (I guess that's what they do.) I think he thought I would do the same. Well that's boring. How can I talk with him if I'm up there? So I just haul out my current project and plant my behind in my chair and talk or watch t.v. with him, right?

Back to the room. It has a HUGE Sauder armoire (one of those put it together yourself things) to the right when you walk in the door. In there I put all my quilting stuff. Yes, I used to quilt. I used to collect fat quarters. I think I thought I would make something of them. My favorite thing to do was applique quilt. Big surprise there, huh? Hand stitching has always been my favorite. I loved the quilting part. If it was machine piecing, forget it. My points never matched up. Somebody once told me it all comes out in the quilting. They lied. The bad thing about the armoire is that it's kind of dark in there so I can't see the fabrics. That's just as well though. I do NOT want to know what's in there any more. But soon I'll be clearing it out. I can't stand it. I have too much fabric. I started bringing it to work a while back and giving it to people to use for ornament and stand up backings. But that didn't make much of a dent.

To the right of that is a short black 2 drawer file cabinet. Hey when they're cheap you don't worry about matchy-matchy. I got it for free so that's cheap! In there are loads of old Brighton EGA newsletters - which I should probably toss, and personal writings - which I should probably toss! But I haven't in case I ever write my memoirs. HA HA, that's a huge joke. Well it is for me.

Next in the corner is an "antique" sewing machine. I bought it at an auction. It's in a cabinet. I'm ready to sell it because my mother-in-law gave me hers which is MUCH better looking and she actually used it! Then to the left of that and underneath the window is one of those 8 foot tables. My sewing machine actually DOES sit on this and I have been known to run a few seams on it. But it's been easier to bring in downstairs to the kitchen table because that's not filled up with "crap!" The 8" foot table seems to catch everything. The unfinished projects. The things I need to do something else on. The stuff I haven't put back yet - the floss, the beads, the tool somebody borrowed, the button box, the ribbon box, the perle cotton box, the box of fun threads, the spool of thread I didn't need, the Elizabeth Bradley kit I was working on, the punchneedle piece I meant to do for my sister last year...you know the stuff I mean, right?

Then on the left wall is a tall (white) cabinet with doors (thank God) where all the inactive cross stitch projects are hiding. One year I weeded out everything except those I'm really going to do. Ha. To the left of that is the tall bookshelf which surprisingly hasn't crashed to the floor yet. To the left of that is another white (hey this side of the room is matchy-matchy) doored cabinet hiding my shameful stash of yarn!

And on the fourth wall in the far corner is a closet which I cleaned out today (after I reached it, that is). I had NO IDEA I had stashed yarn in there too. Good thing Threadbear has a yarn garage sale yearly. Phew. What was I thinking? Of course it was about 10 years ago. You know, back when I had time to knit. :-) I found some cool things too though, like my Girl Scout sash with those badges you earned for completing something. I can't remember what they were for now but it looks pretty cool! And my elementary school stuff. And my high school stuff. And my 10 year high school reunion. We never had a 20 year. Or a 30 year. I guess I'm not the only Queen of Unfinished Projects. :-) Or they're all really afraid to see what everybody looks like. :-) Oh and my wedding stuff was in there too! So it's pretty much the "historical closet.

Then continuing down the left wall, we have a tiny 2 drawer dresser that has more quilting stuff in it - square blocks that haven't been made into quilts of course!

The reason I started this whole mess is because the Homestead Needle Arts Garage Sale is coming up and I thought I was going to put in some stuff this year. Well, I still am. I just didn't realize how much stuff I have that IS NOT needlepoint. What a shame. And that is why it's a Room of Shame...let alone all those unstarted and unfinished projects!

The Story of the Little Turtle

The Story of the Little Turtle by Yours Truly...

Once upon a time, a shopowner took her dog out back of the shop to play ball. In the midst of playing said ball, the shopowner discovered a very small (1-1/2" size shell) turtle on the concrete. The little guy wasn't moving and didn't even pull his little arms and legs in when he was picked up. By the shopowner not the dog.

So the shopowner and the dog went back inside the store with the Little Turtle. The shopowner took a small pink paper plate and put 2 tablespoons or so of water on it. She placed the Little Turtle half in the water and half out. She figured he was dehydrated. The Little Turtle didn't move for ...

quite...

some...

time.

When he began to move and attempted his first escape, the shopowner scooted his Little Turtle butt back onto the plate and then got a little plastic cup and put more water on the plate as it appeared some of the water was missing. Meanwhile she waited on customers.

Later when she turned around she found that the Little Turtle had managed to crawl off the plate, shinny down the legs of the table (okay, he might have hurtled himself off the table) and the likely turtle ran over to the Mill Hill bead wall, apparently looking for a good time - possibly a tight fitting bangle bracelet for his Little Turtle arms.

The shopowner thought to herself "Well! This won't do! I can't have a Little Turtle loose in the shop where an unknowing customer foot or a big golden retriever paw would do Little Turtle in!" So she found a very much LARGER plastic bowl with TALL sides, did the water trick again and put the Little Turtle in it. It just happened to be a heartshaped clear plastic bowl usually used for candy at the shop. (Yum. Little Turtle germs.)

After the work-a-day was over the environmentally sensitive naturalist (not nudist!) shopowner took the turtle for a ride in her Pontiac for 35 miles. She would have been happy to place the Little Turtle in a pond closer to his Grand Blanc habitat but not being a Grand Blanker(?), she had no idea where the nearest pond that she could access might be. She sure knew that there were 3 large ponds and a REALLY BIG LAKE near her home.

The crazy - um - Env. Sens. Nat. shopowner (see above) took a picture of the Little Turtle so she would always remember him (no really, she wanted to identify his type later), and let him out of the bowl gently into one of the large ponds near her home. (This is not the pond by the way - background was changed to protect Little Turtle from both fans and stalkers.)

The Little Turtle looked quizzically up at the shopowner as if to say "What? You're not going to make me into a tasty Little Turtle soup?" The shopowner said "Go Little Turtle. Go eat something and keep growing. Have a good life. Maybe come visit sometime. I like to look at turtles. And if you ever meet a hare racing for a good time, just remember you always win." So the Little Turtle walked out of the bowl into the leaves and the pond that was to become his new home until he decided to move again.

The End

P.S. No turtles, golden retrievers or customers were harmed in the writing of this story.

Needlepoint Stuff

Okay, who here wants to be the one to remind me to post every week? I really need somebody to remind me. And please don't tell me to pick a day and do it that day every week because I usually don't know what day it is. Really. I mean I know when it's Tuesday because I teach that day and I go to work after the weekend but other than that I usually don't know. I didn't used to be this way but the days blend into each other when you enjoy what you do. In fact sometimes people remind me it's Saturday and I'm supposed to leave the shop at 4:00. Really.

Would you like to see some pictures? Here's a few. I finished the April tree but only started the May one two nights ago. That's bad. After all, we're already a week into May.

Next, I finished a frog frame weight. I was ready to send him (her?) to the finisher when I thought maybe I should add some ruffles or a 3D cherry to the back. In real life it looks like somebody on LSD stitched this but I wanted it to be a very HAPPY frog. After all, it has to hold my stitching.

Next, this darling came back from the finisher JUST PERFECT! It's a tree topper and in between it's a very mini pillow. How cute is this?

That's all kids. Don't forget to remind me to post next week! Theresa

What Was Between My Legs Last Night

Isn't that a great title? :-)

Okay, here's the story and this is NOT an April Fool's Day joke. Star and I were on our daily walk. This is our second daily walk in a row! Having gone QUITE FAR (at least a mile) we were both pooped which is likely a good thing considering what happened next. We were homebound, a mere 3 houses from our abode when SUDDENLY ...

Two hell-bent on running squirrels came out from the 3 story high pine trees lining the road heading
>
>
>

STRAIGHT TOWARDS US!

Star had just finished checking the latest p-mail at said neighbor's mailbox and went into full doggy "I see a squirrel" mode whereas I was stunned into a complete statue. We probably looked about the same except I have less hair and am taller. With a shorter nose.

May I say that we live in a completely squirrel-balanced neighborhood? That is to say, we have every ethnicity of squirrel in our area. We have the grey squirrel, the brown squirrel, the black squirrel and the half size but three times ferociously nasty red squirrel.

Apparently the grey squirrel heading straight down the muddy dirty road towards me had done something to really upset the black squirrel chasing him. I had NO TIME to take cover or even time to think of a command to yell at Star. I did note she was on FULL ALERT. I also had time to have a major flashback to the time I was attacked in our shed by a red squirrel ...but that's a story best told on another day.

I was SURE they would swerve but AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH, the grey one ran RIGHT BETWEEN MY LEGS brushing my left pant leg as he went, apparently having a greater fear of the black squirrel than of me or Star! The black squirrel, not to be outdone - or outraced apparently - began to swerve and then realized he was losing his prey and ran BETWEEN Star and I.

Star and I turned as one to watch them run into the woods behind us and continue their fight in some unknown (and unsuspecting) tree. "Wow" I said to Star, "that was wierd." She looked at me and I'm sure she agreed. Then I told her what a good dog she was. Heck, she could have had some nice squirrel meat in her mouth but I think something told her those two were Trouble. (Note the capital T).

So that's what was between MY legs last night. What were you thinking? :-)

Theresa