Fair & Square Exchange

I was starting to fix dinner and Rick came in from the mailbox with what Patternnuts calls a puffy! I had a puffy envelope addressed to me and it was my Fair and Square 4th of July exchange from Joan! Yippee!

Here are the wonderful squares she stitched. Look close at the way she stitched the personalised square...isn't it darling?
Here are all the lovely goodies...Joan made a project bag and tuck pillow with firecrackers. She sent some of the fabric used in these. She also made some teardrop floss holders and the cutest chicken pincushion ever! She sent a holiday pin and a flag-painted bucket, some York mints, sweet holiday ribbon and a sample of lotion.
A close-up of the tuck and chicken. Too cute! Wasn't I spoiled?

Thank you so much, Joan!

I've been working on my return exchange to Joan but I doubt I can top what she has sent to me. Oh...dinner was Chicken Parmigiana with spaghetti and steamed cauliflower. It was late but pretty tasty! Super easy too...email me and I'll send you the recipe.

Our Tulsa Talons won last night against the Manchester Wolves. It was a rough game, a comedy of errors to be exact but we scratched, clawed and bit our way to a last-second victory. Whew, I am too out of shape for that much excitement!

SBQ for 05/14/08

This week's SBQ is:

For seasoned stitchers: Define a stitching term or acronym for new stitchers.

For newbies: What stitching term or acronym would you like defined?

I like the term ORT. This means Old Ratty Threads...you know~the little thread ends you snip off. Some stitchers keep a container of some sort to put their ORTs in. I use a jar. There are even ORT containers on the market now!

Just for fun, that is my ORT jar above!

Do you keep ORTs?

AIRMAIL

I always love seeing AIRMAIL on an envelope! Here is my "floss" Mother's Day card from Barb in Australia. She stitched the card and made a little matching bookmark with the cutest little kitty. Can you see the teeny little bead eyes? It's in my favorite colors too! SWEET!

I really love this! Thank you, Barb!

A Day Off

I had the day off work. I had to visit the dentist but it was just a cleaning so no worries. I've lazed around all day enjoying having little to do! I even had a wee nap.

I've started my Fair & Square exchange piece for Joan S. I hope it stitches up quickly so I can send it soon. I have until June 2nd to send but I'm always too excited to put exchanges off! This ones was driving me batty having to wait until that pinkeep was finished!

Jess was quite miffed that I completely forgot to mention her Mother's Day giftie to me...a gift certificate to The Silver Needle! It's tucked into my purse ready for some stash shopping the next time we go to Tulsa. Which will probably be June 7th for the next Talons game. Who can afford the gas? Can I wait that long? It's burning a hole already!

Speaking of the Talons...we beat the Dorados. They gave us a great game too. Our record is now 7-0!!!

Happy Mother's Day

I've had a fun and busy Mother's Day. I had a card yesterday from Barb in OZ; I'll try to post a picture early tomorrow...it's really cute and I'm eager to share. Barb, I know I owe you an email but every time I think about it I'm already in bed and the computer is turned off! I'm writing myself a note...

I also had ecards and emails from flosskids and I just found out I won the Flossmoms Mother's Day giveaway! I was nominated by my flosskid StressedStitcher AKA Rachael. Thank you, Rachael! You are such a great kid too! Rachael and I both won gift certificates to Patterns Online! How cool is that?

We went to Edmond to visit with family and (of course) see my mom. She loved the pinkeep as I knew she would and we cooked out hamburgers & hotdogs. It was a really fun day.

I hope all you mothers out there had as nice a day as I had!

Pinkeep finish photo

Here is a picture of the finished pinkeep. I seriously need more practice at finishing...and a bit of photography skills wouldn't come amiss either! It was murder keeping the birdhouse poles straight and getting it centered. I think mom will like it and dad assures me she hasn't been snooping on my blog of late.

This cutie is from the Leisure Arts book Something for Every Season. It's the design Birdhouse Bookmarks (#2) by Jane Chandler. I stitched this in DMC on 32 count Belfast linen hand dyed by myself.

I was so freaked out by the spider last Thursday I completely forgot to mention that I visited vampires...I donated blood for the first time! We had a blood drive at work and we weren't very busy so I had a go. It wasn't bad at all~I am not afraid of needles or the like. The teeny needle mark on my inner elbow is nothing compared to the dark bruise on the back of my arm where the blood pressure cuff pinched the dickens out of me! I'll definitely go donate again.

It's another Talons home game Saturday! We play the Rio Grande Valley Dorados. I've no idea what a dorado is??? This will be our last home game until June 7th. I'm sure Rick and I will be in arena football withdrawal by then. We usually listen to the away games on the radio or watch on the Internet but it's still not as good as in person. A note on something weird; I told Rick that Jeff Hughley was my hunny and Rick said Hughley was his hunny too...

The house needs cleaning, a F&S exchange needs to be started, the cat needs feeding...

Quickie

OK, I have (just now) finished the pinkeep. It looks all right ~ it was good practice for my finishing skills but I do wish it were better. I am terrible at adding trim & bows! No photo yet. It's too dark to take decent pictures indoors with my camera. I should be able to get a snap up for you in the morning.

Yay, it's finished! Now I can work on my Fair and Square exchange piece. I've been wiggling to start it but the Mother's Day deadline was first up. I really, really like the chart I've chosen and I am sad I cannot show you pictures of the WIP. I will be sure to share when it's been received!

A not so nice surprise

Rick is doing yard work and I'm putting the pinkeep together when he calls me to the back door. I can tell from the tone of his voice that it's not just an "I wanna see you" type of come here. It was a "somethings wrong" kind. He'd moved some stuff on the patio and found this:

A Black Widow spider. Just what we want to see this early in the season! I still have the creeps and can feel imaginary spiders crawling on me!
Um, Rick took care of her; sort of...

I'm afraid we find these rather often around our house. Outside, usually...only once was the spider inside the house. Do you want to hear the story?

I used to keep a large aquarium and would test the water quality every week. The test kits were stored in a shoe box under the tank in the cabinet. The box had holes on each end and I'd always poke my thumb in the hole to lift the box. One Saturday, as I was getting the box out...I thought I felt filter floss (kind of like fiber fill) and kept wiggling my thumb thinking, "I don't remember putting any in here." When I got to the kitchen sink, I set the box down and opened the lid. Imagine my horror to find I'd been skootching my thumb all around in a black widow's web! The spider sat in the middle of the web; horrified itself by all the thumb skootching.

I sat down right on the floor and called Jessie. She checked the box I was pointing at...I couldn't breathe...and was quite concerned I'd been bitten. No, I was just very faint. Once I could stand up again we took care of her, well, sort of! I never picked up my test kit box with my thumb again.

Wet & Wild Wednesday

It's wet because it has rained all day...wild because I made salsa. Care to taste? I also made faux fajita quesadillas for dinner. To go with the salsa, of course! Fake fajitas because I can't afford real fajita meat so I use fajita-seasoned ground beef. Hey, it works and turns out pretty darn tasty too!

Yum!

I am nearly finished with the birdhouses. There are now flowers and ivy vines going up the poles! No picture because I really need to get back to stitching...I'd like to have the pinkeep ready before the big day!

I sure wish you'd share this salsa with me...

WIP continues

MOTHER'S DAY

SPOILER ALERT!

Mom, if you are reading this,

please go away

for a few more days!

Here is where I'm at today. The design has only minimal backstitching so I should be able to finish the stitching tonight or tomorrow. Then, to assemble the pinkeep. I'll post a completed project picture when I'm finished.

Thanks for all the great comments! I've been really chuffed to post and itching to stitch the past few days and I'm sure it's because of your wonderful support.

***hugs***