Nothing good can come from power tools and liquor

There's only one power tool in our house. A drill. Okay, a drill and a Dremel tool I got for craft stuff. So, two power tools in our house. Neither Joe or I are inclined to build things. It usually ends up with us not speaking to each other and a dresser with upside down drawers. We've accepted that we should never assemble things together unless counseling and liquor are involved (the same thing with furniture moving, nothing good comes from furniture moving). Even then, should liquor, bad carpentry skills and power tools be combined?

So imagine my trepidation when Boybat came home with his pinewood derby car.

I thought at least the damn thing would be vaguely car shaped–add some paint, some stickers and call it good. Noooo, It's a freakin' rectangular block of wood with 4 nails and some wheels. What the hell Boy Scouts? I'm not letting a 7 year old loose with a hand saw and a block of wood.

There's not much you can do to a block of wood with a drill to make it look like a car.

After Boybat and I got as far as we were going to get with the hand saw, Elmer's glue and a Dremel tool, I got to settle in for some stitching this weekend.

I put a pretty good dent in the as yet unnamed project that I've been working on. I decided to back stitch a few of the flowers just to see if I like the shapes. I'm still trying to decide if I prefer the medium pink or the dark pink back stitching on the large flowers.

Another finish!

WooHoo! Another finish!

I designed and started this when Boybat was 3. It was about then that I stopped cross stitching for a few years. Apparently, at that age, he was not nearly as self sufficient as I thought he should be, and required me to do things like feed, clothe and nurture him. This put a serious dent in the "me" time that I keep reading about in magazines that I wont admit to reading because they make me feel old and responsible.

I took this pattern back up again this summer after discovering it in a long lost basket of household flotsam. Since then, it would get put aside in favor of other projects, mainly other projects that didn't have red or blue floss in them. Friday, I finished up the last 45 minutes of stitching and can declare it done.  

Now I can start another project without feeling guilty.

Stop Looking for it

I was going to show the progress on my latest project, but I can’t seem to find the camera.

I know I had it on Monday. I probably put it aside while saying to myself “I’ll remember that I put the camera here.”  Which really means it will be years until I find it again if I keep looking for it, or I’ll find it tomorrow if I stop looking for it.

I have a mental list of things that I should probably stop looking for so I can find them.

As an added level of annoyance, Joe, who can be looking directly at something while he asks me where it is, often knows where the things I mislaid are.  Even if they’re in the most bizarre  places. He knew that the hammer was in the china hutch–I couldn’t tell you why it was there, it probably made sense to me at the time.

Maybe I can show my progress tomorrow after I stop looking for the camera.

Update: This morning I forgot my phone and asked Joe if he saw it. He told me right away, "It's by the camera." Smart ass.

Oogie

I have a favorite spot in the house. I read here–mostly sci-fi adventure and mysteries, watch movies–right now it seems to be James and the Giant Peach (over and over and over, Boybat's current favorite), and cross stitch. Lots and lots of cross stitch. 

If you're like me, your favorite spot in the house has developed a butt print. If I end up sitting anywhere else, it's like trying to wear someone else's shoes. It can be done, but why the name of all that's vaguely oogie would you want to?

Oogie-def. not quite disgustingly gross but closer to disturbingly yucky.

Sitting in someone else's cushion butt print is oogie. Come to think of it, so is wearing someone else's shoes. Especially bowling shoes.

Damned Browser

I'm getting ready to order everything I need to start "Lo How a Rose" from the 2001 A Cross Stitch Christmas book. 

I saw it finished on a different blog and fell in love with it, tho' now that I look at the original, I think the stitcher may have substituted colors for what she liked.

Now I'm mad. 

Not because the colors were changed to suit her, but because I really liked those colors and now I don't remember what blog it was so I can see the color scheme again. 

Damn you, "clear cache" function on my browser. Foiled again.

Denim and Doritos

Holy crap! The "skinny" jeans that have been making friends with the dust bunnies in my closet are too big! 

For years, I've stored that guilt-laden denim albatross, only to stumble across them while cleaning the closet, sigh, and go find a bag of Doritos to drown my disgust and desperation in a soothing cloud of orange, nacho flavored, fake cheese dust.

So join me in a "Hot Freakin' Damn" dance around the house, to be followed by a trip to Macy's to buy a new pair of jeans.

Yay me!

At Least the House is Clean

There has been zero time for stitching this week.

I forget what was going on Monday. Tuesday, Boybat got his report card and did such a great job that we went out to dinner at a restaurant of his choice. Last night was the gym (it was all I could do to get up the stairs to the house when I was done, damn, I was sore) and trying to clean before Jackie got here to clean.

Hopefully, I'll have some time to stitch this evening. The house is clean, homework is done, dinner is finished. I'd like to get the white checks finished tonight.

Oh, Hell, Archer is on TV tonight. I'm not going to get anything done.

Sewing in Straight Lines

I have a sewing machine. It lives in my basement closet, and I've used it 4 times in 2 years.

For as much as I love to cross stitch, I HATE sewing. When I was about 13, my mom struggled to teach me how to use her sewing machine. She didn't struggle when she used it, she ran that thing like a pro. Sewed almost all of mine and my sisters clothes when we were little. No, what she struggled with was me and my lack of sewing talent. It's that eye/hand coordination thing, I suck at video games too, so much so that boybat asks me to leave the room when he and Joe play Wii. I have great eye/hand coordination when its something that doesn't piss me off so bad that I go temporarily insane and scare the cat, like...uummm...well, I'll think of something.

When I started working for Debbie Mumm, I got another sewing bug. I figured, what the hell, I was older, wiser and more patient, right? I worked there as a watercolor artist and a graphic designer, next to me were the quilters. They made sewing look as easy as burning toast. Joe, after much prodding from me, got me a sewing machine that year for Christmas. Even with experts to help me, I never got past being able to sew a straight line. Don't get me wrong, I sew a wicked straight line (kinda like my knitting, I can knit the hell out of squares). 

Nowadays, I get that machine out to serge the edges of the linen for my stitch projects. Yesterday, I felt adventurous and sewed Boybat's Boy Scout badges on his uniform–the fabric glue I had been using was wearing off. I like fabric glue, doesn't work very well, but I like it. The time before that was a year ago to hem some of boybat's school pants.

I have recognized my lack of sewing skills and have come to peace with it.

Know anyone who will sew Boy Scout badges on a uniform for me?

Quiet mornings

It's Sunday morning here at the Butler home. Still quiet.

Oops, spoke to soon, I hear Boybat stirring in his room. I wish I could wake up like that kid, full of energy in the morning. From 0 to 100 mph.

I got the errands done yesterday. Fortunately, there weren't that many, because I hate errands, unless it involves pedicures–does that make it an errand if I enjoy it? Crap, forgot to pick up the dry cleaning. It'll wait, the longer it stays at the dry cleaner, the longer it stays clean, since I seem to bring ALL the dry cleaning in at once. Joe makes a pile of them in the laundry room, so about every three months I  say something like "have you seen my damned green sweater set?" The reply is always "its downstairs in the dry cleaning pile" and I inevitably tell him "It's not doing me any good down there, is it?" It's a ritual now, we've been doing the same cycle for almost 12 years. If it stopped, that means something has gone terribly, horribly wrong. Armageddon wrong.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to take the floss for this new project off the bobbins (that's them in the picture) and get it on floss project cards (not nearly pretty as the bobbins, so no picture). That way, I don't have to find out what color number goes with the pattern symbol. With the color key on a separate piece paper–which is never where I thought I left it–and all the color changes I'm doing in this pattern, it was taking more time to find the next color to use than it was to actually stitch the color.

Gotta go, Boybat just opened his door.

Starting Over, and over, and over

I started a new project yesterday. Actually, I started a new project for a third time yesterday.

It's a pattern that I designed, hard to explain but it involves stylized flowers and bright colored borders behind the flowers. Flowers you say, incredulously? Yes, dammit, I am a delicate and fragile flower myself...Bwaaahaaahhaaaa, I tried to say that with a straight face, I just couldn't do it.

The fact that I designed it means it doomed to starts and stops and color changes as I go.  By the time I'm done with it, it may not look like anything like the pattern I started with. 

My first start–after getting about a fifth of it done–I decided I didn't like the fabric it was on, got disgusted and put it in the "basket of the ostracized projects". Those projects are not allowed to play with the good projects, they would be a bad influence, the stitching equivilent of smoking under the bleachers.

A thought just occurred to me as I was picturing the previous sentence, this must be why all my friends look at me furtively, they're waiting to see what bizarre tangent I'll take. I'm not really crazy.

The second start–almost 2 years after the first start–I didn't like the colors anymore, the design needed to have bright, summery colors, not the ones I started with. The ply was wrong too, should have gone with single ply thread.

So, this is my third start of the same project. Right colors, right fabric.

I think.