Wild Berries and M Woods

A beautiful sunny day here in South Florida.  Not yet broiling out - but getting there!! I had a guest join me outside for my morning coffee today.  Seems to be enjoying himself.  Think he's thinking, "Now where is that cabana boy with my DRINK?!"  Wish I caught the plants earlier - they're covered with beautiful purple flowers at dawn, but they wither as the day wanes on.  

Finally completed "Wild Berries" and really like how it turned out.  Tomorrow I plan to get over to Cross Stitch Cupboard in Fort Lauderdale to drop this off for framing, along with my Village of Hawk Run Hollow and Shepherd's Bush Green Snowman.   Will be great to see the gang there on Tuesday night. Been WAY too long since I joined the stitch-a-long group!  

And, I had a package arrive here Saturday full of the most GORGEOUS silks by Gloriana (Tudor silks) as well as (gulp) 50 count Lakeside Linen Vintage Meadow Rue.  These were the June sampler of the month selections from The Attic in Arizona, and I can't wait to start this one.  

The photos just don't do these silks justice -- they are MUCH brighter in person, as is the linen. I really need a NEW iPhone as I still have the 3GS model. But, if you zoom in you can see just how teensy this 50 count linen is (the color is beautiful). Sorry about my shadow - was taking pics out in the sun to "try" to get the color right.  Didn't quite work. Oh well! 

 Here's the chart for M. Woods with the model done on a lighter shade of 40 count linen, I believe. 

And, as you saw earlier -- an inquisitive friend had to come out to see what all the fuss was about.  He wasn't too happy that "his" lounge ottoman was being used as my photo studio! 

 AHHHH, much better! 

Happy Monday and happy stitching! Kevin and Seamus 

Seamus got a haircut!

And here's Mr. Seamus rockin' his new summer crew cut!  He looks about 20 pounds lighter.  Wish that worked for ME when I get my hair cut!  ;)

Getting there stitch by stitch... Had ANOTHER fiasco with the FROG last night! Grrrr!  This is my third time stitching this tree!! Hopefully, it'll be the "charm," as they say!  I want to get to the bird today! 

No explanation needed.  :-D

Wild Berries and a dastardly FROG!

If any of you have insomnia, you know what torture it is to spend the night shifting and re-arranging pillows and so forth -- ANYTHING to get some SLEEP!   I usually can't sleep more than three hours at any one time, tops.  I know that it's bad for me - trust me.  But I take a slew of medications for my bum back, and I guess the payoff for trying to live with some moderate reduction in pain is lack of ZZZZ's. :-(

I usually can't even stitch when I'm up all night - I just cannot seem to get comfortable or can't focus my eyes something. Well, the past night or two I decided I'm going to change THAT and was progressing along quite nicely (I thought) on the newest Blackbird Designs "Wild Berries" when -- wouldn't ya know -- I discovered yesterday that I had managed to totally mess up my count.   Don't you hate that!? Drives me bonkers!! And this was such a careless error on my part.  But, of course, one little row of stitches off can really throw your project into a tailspin, right?  

And, once I start frogging, I seem to have trouble STOPPING!  It seems like I'll start out thinking, "Oh, I'll just need to take out this teensy little row," or "OHHH...this isn't TOO bad a mistake!"  WRONG!! Like a knit sweater with a loose thread that just unravels to pieces, that seems to be my "story" every time I begin to pull out a mistake.  And last night was no exception.  What started out as just removing a little bit of a border, ended up with my pulling out a good hunk of the border...and then the alphabet letters which were off....and then the tree trunk that was off...and then.... Well, you get the idea!

Tonight I conked out around 10 PM while watching TV (I must be revisiting my "teaching" hours!) and then, as usual, up I popped out of a sound sleep sometime shortly after midnight.  I took my pain medication as my hip was SCREAMING at me, then I checked on emails, then thought, "I really need to fix that Blackbird piece - insomnia be cursed!" 

I must have dozed off for a while because it doesn't seem like I made a lot of progress during the night. 

But I have the coffee cranking and I plan to spend the day moving right ahead with this.   Here's where I was at about 2:00 AM (I think?)  I can't even remember what time I snapped the picture!  Lol!  I am further than this now, but just don't feel like getting up to snap another photo. I must say -- the colors the Blackbird girls chose for this design are very appealing to me.  Hope the pic does them justice (I did click the "auto enhance" just to brighten it up a bit!)  Ok, JAVA - I smell ya calling to me!  Off to caffeinate myself and STITCH my fingers off!   Have a great Wednesday, folks.