23 September 2013

First Day of Fall...

...yesterday. Yep, I'm a day late in celebrating the arrival of my favorite season, but I have a good reason in that Mr. Wonderful has been doing his first midterms for his Masters this weekend and has been in sole and undisputed possession of the computer. I've been in 100% fetch & carry mode, keeping him fed and caffeined. While he's been doing that, I've started his Halloween ornament, Jack-A-Rachnid by Tempting Tangles from the Sept/Oct issue of Just Cross Stitch.

As you can see from the model, it's stitched on a pale yellow fabric. I chose to use very pale orange--peach, I suppose--and I really like how it's looking so far. If that picture is a little too much for you, here's something to make you feel better.

On Friday I baked some Cinnamon Scones--for medicinal purposes, of course--to help us get through a long weekend of writing, writing, writing. It's a rare treat for us, as we generally do try to behave ourselves. Sort of. Most of the time. Anyway, here's something weird: Tiger Lily is always interested in what we're eating, but not in eating it herself. She just wants to sniff what we've got, and then she's happy. Saturday she wanted a sniff of my strawberry jam-slathered scone and nearly took a bite of it, so I broke off a teeny tiny little piece (no jam) and put it on the floor... and she devoured it!  

We have a scone-eating cat.

That's your daily dose of weird.
                                         


11 September 2013

A VIP

A Very Important Project. This is my square for a quilt being made for a fellow stitcher who recently lost her husband to a brief and devastating illness. He was an outdoorsman who loved nature and hiking in the woods, and I wanted to choose a design that reflected that enjoyment. I also wanted something masculine. I was really pleased to find this free chart.

This is Spirit Bear, stitched on 28 ct. evenweave using DMC 3781. The requirements for the quilt were white evenweave and no over-dyed threads, so this was something very different from what I usually stitch. In fact, it made me realize that I never stitch on white as I had to buy some just for this project! I like a very full look to my stitches so I used three strands of floss, and went through two skeins and a smidge of another to complete this project (in case you're contemplating stitching this design).  


05 September 2013

Big Mail Day for Tiger Lily!

Oooh boy! Today was a big day at our house. Tiger Lily received a package of home-grown catnip from Miss Mardell in New York!

The first order of business is wallowing all over it, all around it, all over the immediate surrounding area.

At some point, her mind clears enough to realize that not only does her package smell heavenly, it has heavenly stuff inside it!
 

And then her mission is to get her package open!

She has spent the afternoon in a happy catnip fog. Kinda similar to when you get chocolate cake or new stash. What a good day.

Thank you, Miss Mardell!
Love, Tiger Lily