You know, sometimes I just get scared........

Sometimes I let my emotions and my fears bubble up like a thick, foul tasting goo...and I get scared. Scared because of gas prices (currently $3.70 here, up 15 cents in 3 days!), I wonder what fuel oil is going to go for this winter (last year, my monthly budget was $300 a month!) and what will a bale of hay go for this summer? I've heard everything from $2.50 - $4.00 a bale.

It seems like everything is collapsing, going toes up. Prices up, my salary not so much. My grocery bill is up. I've consolidated my errands into one trip per week. We've cut back from driving anywhere unnecessary.

And then, I came across this article on Legacy:

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSL2992875220080429

DMC has filed for credit protection. What will we do without DMC?

I shudder to think..........

Military Ball and Stitching News

On Friday night, David and I attended the AirForce ROTC Military Ball. It was a dinner/dance/awards ceremony for the Cadets. We were all dolled up in our evening attire:


Mike really cleans up good, don't you think?
Dinner was scrumptious and Mike was awarded 2 certificates for leadership. We are very proud of him. There was a dance following the awards ceremony, but of course, we didn't stay long. We didn't want to embarrass the kids with our dancing...LOL!!!

On Saturday, we took Mike's motorcycle to the repair shop (what an adventure that was!), made the rounds of the stores in the Mall because Mike needed some things for when he goes to Combative School at the end of May. Did I tell you that he's going to learn the fine art of hand-to-hand combat? I can't wrap my head around that at all.

We met Jenna's parents at one of the local steakhouses for lunch. Jenna's parents are so nice and we felt very comfortable with them. I have to say that I was sorta nervous about the whole thing, I am not a good conversationalist and Mike made me promise not to embarrass him too much. I think I kept that to a minimum and I think Jenna's parents thought we were ok too.
We got home in the early evening. All in all, we had a wonderful time with our son, his girlfriend and her parents!

On the stitching front, I finished Blackbird Designs, Their Song.

I want to get it framed right away and the week I put the last stitches in it, Michaels had a 60% off coupon for framing. Against my better judgement, I decided to give it a go. Well, I won't be going back there to have anything framed. The puppy behind the counter was pretty condescending. I asked him a 100 questions and he insisted that I put a mat on the piece because he told me that they wouldn't be able to stretch it evenly and the mat would hide it. Are you kidding, I thought? If it's stretched crooked, how will putting a mat on it straighten it out? I sorta raised my eyebrow at him and he stammered, "You know something about framing, don't you?" Yeah, I do and I told him I knew he was bullsh*tting me. He turned crimson and said, "Well the average person doesn't know anything about framing". So I politely said to him that I would stretch the piece myself and when the materials come in they can call me to bring the piece in to finish framing it. I only brought it to Michaels because I knew it would cost me less than $50 to have it framed. But never again. It's worth it to take my needlework to the real framer, even though it costs much more than the local arts and crafts store. I guess trying to pinch pennies doesn't mean much when compared to the amount of time I spent stitching it. I've learned my lesson!!

Next is my progress on Nellie's Garden Revisited and 2 new acquisitions to my ever growing stash. I love Stacy Nash! The left photo is her 1802 Biscornu Pinkeep and the right is Emma & her Pony needleroll. Sorry for the blurry pictures, the camera is refusing to focus if I zoom in.

I haven't worked on Nellie since last week. I am not in the mood for big pieces so I am concentrating on stitching smalls. They are giving me instant gratification so there's instant satisfaction. But I am surprised how long it's taking me to stitch them up too!

Right now, I am in the mood for quick finishes. I have the attention span of a gnat right now so large projects aren't holding my attention. Soon, I will have a new mattress style pincushion and 2 pillow type pincushions. I am piecing together the Mary Garry's, Raining Pins and Needles right now. I hope I haven't ruined it though cause I got the bright idea to angle the corners instead of making it a rectangle. The corners are coming out rounded. We will see how it comes together. I took a picture of it but true to my crappy camera, the photo was so blurred you couldn't make it out. Now the camera refuses to come on...grr-rr so I can't take another picture of it.

The weekend is beautiful, it's like summer here. We planted (or I should say, the David) planted 4 forsythia and 2 lilac bushes for me this morning. I know how he hates digging holes for me cause he thinks it's going to be more work for him. I bought these plants at the Christmas Tree Store and didn't pay more than $3.99 - $4.99 for them so if they don't make it, I'm not out much money at all.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and I am so thankful that you stopped by to say hi!

What I've Been Up To This Past Few Weeks

This will be coming home with me when it's released to the shops. I love it!! It's a new design from Carriagehouse Samplings called Blackhorse Inn. It's got HORSES!!! HORSES!! Yay!!

I have been stitching. Small things, mainly pincushions and pinkeeps. I had a few designs that I started as *in-betweens*, you know the projects that help you keep your sanity between the big projects, the projects that you stitch hours on and only complete a small piece of the pattern. In my Wip basket, it seems that all I have left are big projects. So, I finished stitching a variety of pincushions, most notably, Mary Garry’s, Pins & Needles, Blackbird Designs, Bluebird’s Pinkeep and the Needles pincushion from the Autumn Song Loose Feather’s pattern. I have to put them together, which I believe I am going to do this weekend, in between re-painting woodwork in my sunroom. The Mary Garry piece will be made into a mattress style pincushion. The others will be your run-of-the-mill pillow type cushions. I did finish Their Song last week. I want to get it framed but right now, I can’t justify the money. So unfortunately, it’s gotta wait. Stay tuned for pictures.

Have you ever been in a position where none of the Wips that are in your basket are calling you anymore? That’s where I am at right now. No whimpers, whines, screams or begging coming from the basket. So what to do? Do I pull something out and force myself to work on it or start something new? I told myself that I wasn’t going to start another new project until I finished some of my Wips. I worked a little on Where My Heart Blooms but there’s not enough completed to give you any reason to ohh-and-ahh over and it's not making my heart sing. So my choices were:

A) Not stitch (Heaven forbid!) or,

B) Start something new.

Guess what I chose?

Yeah, you know me too well. I chose to start a new project.

For awhile now, I’ve wanted to stitch Nellie’s Garden Revisited as a memorial sampler to my Mom who passed away 12 years ago but other designs always seemed to win out over poor Nell. I am glad that I finally chose this sampler to stitch.

My Mom was a lady who put her family before herself in all matters. I wanted to find a sampler that was simple and sweet. Mom wasn’t into frou-frou or fancy things (although she had fabulous taste). I chose Nellie’s Flower Garden Revisited because her name was Nellie and the sampler has a sweetness about it. No frills but simply tasteful. I started it last night on 32ct. Lakeside Linens, Vintage Pearled Barley, with the available GAST that I had on hand. I have to pick up a few more skeins to complete the palette. And I will be personalizing it with her name and birth/death dates along with some simple tribute yet to be decided.

Anyway, I hope to have photos up on the blog tomorrow. I just wanted to say hey to all of you, thank you for coming by to visit and also to tell you thanks for asking about Joey. He’s fine and pretty antsy now, he wants Spring as badly as I do!