A Beary Cute Finish!

I actually had two finishes this week - I feel terrific clearing out all these little kits! The first finish was Make it Sew, by Jessica Savage in the July 2020 CrossStitcher magazine.  It was part of a series, another one where I was supposed to use a sewing machine charm, but I used what I had which was a charm that says "procraftinator":

My next finish is Popcorn the Bear by Fiona Baker.  The duck is evidently named Souffle.  This was a kit from the World of Cross Stitching in 2023 but who knows which month because they didn't see fit to include it:

So far I'm right on track to have a finish even six days...yay me! I think I calculated 17 years to finish all my stash before I'm either dead or too gaga to stitch, so I just need to keep this up for another 16 years and 11 months, haha.

The only big piece I worked on was Rain Dance because I feel like I've been really bogged down with Big Bird on the left.  I got some of his beak done and more on the little symbols up top and for the first time in a while I feel like I can tell I touched it.  It's supposed to start pouring rain in an hour or so and not stop for four days, so maybe the Rain Dance worked?  We normally get about 10 inches of rain a year and we're supposed to get 4 inches today so fingers crossed we don't get flooded - I feel like we're the last people left in California who still have a dry house!

3 Finishes and a Float!

 I did a big recataloging and recalculating of my stitching.  I had previously figured that I needed a finish every 11 days in order to finish all my stash before I was dead. So 26 finishes later, I somehow need a finish every 6 days....I'll have to start running and be a vegetarian again because I just need to live longer...it's my only hope, don't tell me to stop getting stash lol. 

I did get 3 summery finishes to round off 2023! First off is a kit from CrossStitcher, it was supposed to be a stuffed hanger with some stuffed strawberries dangling from it, but they lost me at "catch stitch the edges" - I gave up and did a running stitch because that's as fancy as I get, but I'm deeply in love with how it came out:

My next finish is Tending the Hollyhocks by Calico Confectionary:

And then my last one is a Mill Hill kit called Lizard. On our honeymoon, we stayed in Mexico in this wonderful, gorgeous former Spanish monastery with peacocks wandering around and a gecko that kept crawling across our roof, and I've had a soft spot for geckoes ever since.

I took Lizard on our trip to Pasadena, we came up for a long weekend while I helped decorate a float for the Rose Parade again.  My job was taking a tray of cut up statice and pulling out anything brown with a pair of tweezers:

The float this year has a Hopi Indian theme, and the pictures on the baskets are all organ donors:

My shift was cut off early because the florists arrived, and volunteers aren't allowed on the floats until the florists are done.  It was amazing to watch cart after cart of flowers get rolled in, and some volunteers are on mister duty to walk around half the night spraying the flowers to keep them fresh for the parade.  Someone else had the job of filling about a million vials with water for all the roses.  

 I had a chance to walk past a graveyard of past floats - they try not to throw anything away. These scrap heaps are scattered around the parking lot.  The dumpsters have big signs that they're for compost only - none of the plants go to a landfill. The dumpsters are provided by Miracle- Gro, so maybe you're buying ground up float if you buy a bag of compost?

This is the closest to the parade I've ever decorated, so I got to see the big tent city set up at the front for people from all the floats to check in.  I took a picture of the Louisiana tent because my family lived in Gretna until Katrina.  They moved to Miami, which in my opinion is a stupid place to move if hurricanes are your problem, but they won't come to California because of the earthquakes, lol. Aside from a nod to my kin, I also appreciated that while every other float had a generic white tent and food in foil pans, Lousiana had a full building with an awning and a patio and a menu of proper southern food and some beauty queens circulating.  Classic Southern!

Since my shift ended early I went back to the hotel and picked up the pack and we went for a little nature hike. We saw our first bobcat:

And Kuna took a nice early bedtime.  She spends most of her life like this now, this is what retirement is like for dogs lol.