It's a Marty Party!

The Clay County Fair is going on this week. There's lots of fun to be had out at the fairgrounds, and lots of fair food to be eaten. Tonight one of my all time favorite artists performed, Marty Stuart. I've loved his music for years. This man can play most anything with strings and he can sing. A lethal combination in my book. Not to mention he is an ardent collector of Country music artifacts, can write and has been know to take a good photograph or two.

So this afternoon I "talked" my friend Kim into meeting me and mom and going to the concert at the fair. It was worth the price of admission! Here's a few pictures.First a little Marty by himself.

Then the whole band. Well it is hard to see the drummer here, but look at the picture above and you'll be able to see him. All of these guys are talented, and all can sing. Tonight there was everything from some rocking bluegrass, Marty played that by himself...just him and his mandolin and it was amazing...then there was some old time country, some gospel and some rock-a-billy. As usual a little something for everyone.

Oh, and as for fair food. Kim managed to find her a corn dog and mom and I shared a funnel cake. Life is good.

Picture Day

I know, I've been a little lax with the pictures, but I'll make up for it tonight.

First, I'm so excited that I managed to finish one goal this month. Not that I write them down, or even really think about them ahead of time. However, when I picked up Misty Morning Vineyard (MMV) on Friday I realized I really wanted to get the arbor done around the only peacock I have completed. Well I managed to do that this morning.
A little up-close so you can see the pretty peacock and arbor. I also put in another row of squares on this side as you can see.

And for the overall view, or, now you can see how little I have done on this monster...With that done I turned to Blackwork Band Sampler for a bit today, but it will be put aside tomorrow for Traditional Elegance 2. Thursday's are my day to work on a long standing WIP, now in reality Blackwork Band is older, but for some reason TE2 has been calling my name lately. Maybe it just seems like I could finish it faster. Hopefully after tomorrow I'll have something to show you on that one.

I've finished some knitting lately. A square for the Victory Junction afghan's we're doing over on Ravelry.
I also finished the October dishcloth, Paglia.Last, and maybe the least in this case, I decided to make a "tawashi". The pattern is free and I found it on Ravelry. See you should be a part of the phenom that is Ravelry! It's crochet and took next to no time to make. The great thing is that because you make it with acrylic yarn, it's antibacterial, or so I'm told, and totally washable. So, no buying sponges or things to scrub pots with anymore, I'm making this little things up and giving them to everyone this year. This one is called Frilly Tawashi and I made it up on WVU colors, so it'll go to my mom.Isn't it just the cutest thing? There are more patterns to try, so stay tuned, I'm sure I'll be playing with them all.

I think that's all the pictures I have for now. In a few weeks I might have pictures of tiny tomato plants. We planted some seeds today and hopefully they will come up in the next couple of weeks. I love fresh tomatoes. Have to get out and clear a space for some other things, like cucumbers at the least. I also have to clean out some of my containers and put new soil in them for some herbs. Need to get some other plants, but haven't decided what else we want to grow. Probably will head to the garden store early next week to see what they have in. I love peppers, so maybe some pepper plants. I'll keep you posted.

SBQ

This week's question is....

What items do you consider essential to your needlework that you keep
in your stitching bag?


Interesting question. I always have a pair of good embroidery scissors, with nice sharp points in case I'm doing cut work. Also a package of my favorite needles, gold John James petites, probably size 26 or 28. I also normally have a long beeding needle, just in case I want to add a little sparkle to something. I also usually have a laying tool that fits on my thumb. Last, I try to have one of my small tape measurer's in my case. I consider those the essentials. If I'm going to a class or traveling, I might add in some extra needles of different sizes as well as some ivory Nymo beading thread, oh and sometimes my lucky buckeye I got in class one time. Pretty much, that covers the things I have to have. Unless you count my cheater glasses if I think I'm going to be wearing my contacts when I want to stitch.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a picture of what I've accomplished on Misty Morning Vineyard (Martina Weber) since I started working on it last week. My goal is to give you a picture when I finished the arbor I've been working on. Truly I'm such a slow stitcher. I know a whole boatload of stitchers who would have been almost finished with the whole thing in the time it's taken me to do this arbor. In my defense, I was working on it while I wasn't feeling to great and I was clipping right along when I realized that I had totally misread part of the chart and had to "frog" a bunch of leaves. However that may be what I get for trying to stitch while watching Dancing With The Stars. Really, how can you count when you're faced with the proof that there must be a "shirt crisis" in L.A.? Not 1 but 2 men couldn't find a shirt to wear? Clearly, there is a shortage of shirts in that fair city. Wouldn't you have miscounted?

March Madness in April and other craziness

March Madness is over for the time being, but Sock Madness continues. Since I made it through round 1 I'm currently trying to knit the sock for round 2. I'm not saying I won't make the cut, but I'm highly skeptical as I'm using this sock to also kill another obligation. That means I'm not knitting this for my small-ish sized foot, but rather for a fairly larger sized foot. Oh well, I love the pattern and the yarn I'm using so that's the good news. No pictures yet, maybe I'll post one when I get the 1st sock finished. I'm working on the foot...all 10 inches of the foot!!!

Stitching wise, March wasn't bad, although I didn't really stick to the theme all that well. Still I accomplished some things and I'm happy. April brings a concentration on those larger projects that are in the UFO/WIP's pile. It's not like I don't have a few of those. I won't be doing much stitching until I get these socks finished, but after that I'll hit the big stuff pretty hard. I am still trying to stitch on Thursday evenings, and may take a break from knitting tonight to stitch on one of the projects I've listed. TE2 seems to be holding my attention lately, although I heard the call of a peacock and thought I'd bring it out of hibernation for awhile.

Otherwise, life continues on. I have neglected my blog, and my reading of other's blogs awfully. Hopefully it will get a little better soon.

A Great Big Happy Dance!

1995 Commemorative Sampler
Designed by Jean Farish Huls
forThe Spirit of Cross Stitch Festivals

I took this as a class in 1995. I think that was the first year I attended Spirit. Jean Farish actually taught the class, which I think was listed as an intermediate class. Mainly because of the pulled thread work on either side of the quote. It's hard to get a good picture of this, although this is pretty close to the colors. I didn't try to get close-ups of the pulled thread work, but if anyone wants to see it I'll give it a try and edit this post with them. I made a single change. After "In Celebration of" there is supposed to be a line that says "Spirt of Cross Stitch Festival". To be honest, I really didn't want that on my sampler. So, instead I took it out. Now it's just in celebration of...well life I guess, and stitching, and all the wonderful things that I've gotten from stitching over the years, like friends I've made because of it. So in reality, it's in celebration of all of you who I know through this blog and who have been my friends for years and who share my passion of all things made by hand.

I think I'll go work on something different from my stash in the spirit of March Madness. I've been so obsessed with finishing the commemorative sampler that I've not kept up with this month's theme. Must rectify that. I have a meeting tonight, so before I have to leave I think I'll stitch a little. Enjoy your Tuesday!

ETC: The year I took the class, as Jill pointed out it wasn't in 2005, but rather in 1995. Big difference.

One year ago today!

Can you believe that one year ago today I started writing this blog? My how time does fly. It's been an interesting year, but I have to admit that I hope the coming year is much better then the last one. So, Happy Blogiversary to me!!!

In stitching and knitting news there really isn't much to report. I've been working on another gift, the coffee "Slingshot". I'm hoping this will work out well. If so, then I think I'll make a few to give to some of friends from church. Stitching wise I've kind of stopped working on different things every day and am trying to finish a sampler that I started in 1995, yes, that sampler. I'm halfway done with the pulled stitches on the right side. That means I have the pulled on the left side and some beads to put on and it's finished. I so want to get this one done. Hopefully tonight and tomorrow I'll have some time to work on it and finish so I can take some good pictures.

Speaking of pictures...I think I owe you all better pictures of my Chocolate Zombie socks.
I'll leave you with some pictures of the azalea bushes at the side of our property. This year they seemed to be so full of blooms that they look like waterfalls of pink.My dad's lemon trees are also blooming. I can't send you the amazing scent, but I can send you a picture, or two, of the blooms.They are so sweet smelling. If you've never smelled citrus blooms you have no idea what you're missing. It amazes me to think that these small blooms will develop into large lemons. Not the small ones those of us in the US are used to seeing in the grocery store. These are large and full of juice.

I leave you with a butterfly in the lemon tree, enjoying a wonderful spring-like day.

Whee! Glad that's over!

I think I survived Round 1 of Sock Madness 2. According to the website there have been 21 people in my division who have finished their Zombie Socks. When I left for class there were 19. I think I've made it since the cut-off this time was 40.

I have to say I love this pattern. I wasn't to sure about them to begin with, but I'm so in love with them now that they are done. Plus I had ton of yarn left over. After so many people not having enough I realize that I'm lucky. Oh, and this yarn, it was fantastic to work with.

All right already! I know you want to see the finished product. This picture is a little dark. I took it in a hurry so I could get it posted. I'm going to take one tomorrow in the sunlight and let you see them then.They fit perfectly too. You can't see the pretty pattern with the dropped stitches. I promise I'll take pictures tomorrow that show all that off. Also the pretty chocolate color of the yarn.

I really don't like scary movies, so I had to name these Chocolate Zombies so they wouldn't feel so scary. Sad isn't it?

So, now I can relax for a little while and think about what other yarn I need to get for this. I hope the laceweight stuff isn't next.