Weather and some stitching for a Slow Sunday...

Well that certainly was a week of weather most of us could have done without, wasn't it? My prayers go out to all of those in the South suffering with no heat and burst water pipes and the rest of the country shivering with snow and ice... my fingers are crossed that that was the last gasp of bad weather... our forecast shows warming temperatures and I'm all for that... there is less than a month to go to SPRING... I know we are all looking forward to that... bring it on Mother Nature!!

The weather here was snowy and a bit of ice and plenty cold... one day blended into another with snow storm after snow storm after snow storm... I'm lucky that I didn't have to go out in it... and I have a great guy who takes care of my lawn in the Summer and my driveway and sidewalks in the Winter... he was here at least 5 times last week making sure I could get out if I needed to. My new car didn't get out of the garage for days last week... and I didn't get out of my pajamas either... several days didn't warrant putting a bra on... no where to go and no one coming to see me...  less loads of laundry too...LOL

And while I always believe that I'll get SOOOOOOO much done on days I stay home, I actually spent waaaaaaay too much time mindlessly scrolling the internet... a little knitting, got a sock done... a little crossstitch... worked on the Prairie Schooler Garden ABCs but didn't get close to being finished... I  did do  two charts from the new booklet by With Thy Needle & Thread called Jellybean Jubilee... now this is the CUTEST bunch of charts I've seen in a long time... I got my copy here at NeedleCase Goodies...

Here's  pictures  of the covers of the booklet...

My friend Darlene is trying to stitching all 7 ... check out her Instagram here and see what's she done... last I checked she has  think she's got 5 of the 7 finished... I don't know that I'll get them all done,  but I want to do the bunny or chick from each chart... I think they will be adorable as little pillows to scatter around my Easter/Spring display... here's what I've gotten done...

This one is called Easter Parade...

And this one is called Penelope and Peeps...

and here's a close up of that adorable bunny with the carrot balloon...

both are on a piece of 32 ct linen I painted for some other chart and changed my mind... the color here is reading more blue than it is ... think greener... DMC 164 and a tad darker... anyway I like a lot... don't know that I have enough to do everything I want from this booklet so I may have to paint/dye some more linen...now I will never get it to match what I did because... I didn't write anything down...I have great admiration for people who dye on a commercial scale... I don't keep track of anything and I don't measure anything... I look at the dye recipe's on the Rit Dye site... you can check it out here... and I kinda follow it ... but invariably I'll add a bit more of this or that so each piece I get is pretty unique... I'm okay with it... my take on it is, if it doesn't work for one project something else will come along... gotta roll with it...LOL

As for the Prairie Schooler Garden ABCs I'm up to the letter S...

I have cross stitched every day this week but some days I only put in 10 stitches before I fell asleep holding my needle... oh well, every stitch I put in is one more than I had before... right??

Here's the sock I knit... a plain vanilla stockinette sock with a solid purple heel... but oooooohhhh I love this colors ... 

this yarn is from Austermann and called Murano and I thought it would be primarily a blue and gold sock ... but when I unwound some of the skein I discovered this gorgeous berry pink moving into a purple and green and then  gold and then blue... the skein has even more colors in it so you'd get 2 very mis-matchy socks ... and usually I'm all for that ... but this time I want to get a second sock that has the same colors in it but in reverse order... the second sock is going to start with the blue section at the toe of the first sock... to accomplish this I ended up buying a second skein of this yarn... I don't know that there will be enough of a repeat of this wash of color in the first skein... and with two skeins I can play with another pair of socks in a different color wash... nice mindless knitting with pretty yarn... oh I checked to see if this was still available but it looks like it it gone... 

I spent Saturday working on the needlepoint stocking... those ornaments take a lot of time as there are so many color changes in each one... I promised myself all week that I would work on this, but it took till Saturday to get to it... it is going to be very pretty ... I've decided to eliminate some of the elements on the tree...there are strings of little gold balls ... but it is impossible to give them a rounded shape with as few stitches as they are painted with... grrrr... and they way they are painted they would also need a string added after the tree part was stitched...so I'm going to paint them out... I may add a simple ornament here or there if it is needed ... here's the front of the stocking... it is really hard to tell what I've done...

so here's the back... a little easier to see... I've got about 11 of those multi-color ornaments and couple of the 2 color ones done...

here's a close up of two of the multi-color ornaments...

My plan of action here is first stitch the big multi-colored ornaments, then do the simple round ones that take or or two colors, then the ribbons, then the candles and finally the tree... I go back and forth about stitching this stocking... some times I tell myself I should be monogamous to it and get it DONE... but monogamy is hard... other times I tell myself to work on it for 15 minutes every day... and other times I tell myself to devote one day a week to it... and other times I just avoid it all together... needlepoint is hard on my hands... lots of pulling and tugging of threads... I try to use as small a needle as I can... and while the smaller needles is thinner, the eye is smaller and it is hard to impossible to get some of the fibers threaded... yesterday I broke the eye of two size 24 needles ... pulled too hard ... went back up to a size 22 ... easier to thread but needs more effort to pull it through the canvas... oh I am whiny about this, aren't I?  I want to do this project but it isn't my favorite kind of needlework ... I think my strategy is going to be to devote a good chunk of my stitching time to it the rest of this month and March and see where I am at that point...I will stitch a couple of those cute chicks and bunnies from Jellybean Jubilee to break things up... seems like a good plan...wish me luck!!

This upcoming week looks semi-busy... need to take my son to the doctor on Monday, babysit on Tuesday and maybe a lunch with a friend another day and maybe take my son up to his friend's  house for lunch and ice cream... depending on the weather, which is is suppose to improve... warmer temperatures, maybe a bunch of rain... that should melt those piles of snow... 

I'll link up with Kathy's Quilts today... doing brunch with my son and his family and then a trip to Krogers for some fruit and veggies... and maybe a bouquet of tulips... my Valentine's gift faded but they were so pretty I think I'll get myself some more.

I hope that your upcoming week is a good one... I'm working hard to focus on positive thoughts... not always easy... saying lots of prayers for lots of people... still have some down moments ... need Spring to come early for soooo many reasons...

take care

happy stitching-

carol fun