Happy Potato Day!

 I've been meaning to post and Potato Day is as good of a reason as any! Baked potatoes are my favorite for sure, but roasted, hashed, mashed, souped, French fried, home fried, potato chipped, latked, totted, or stuffed in a pierogi, I just can't think of a bad way to cook a potato!

image from Kevin is Cooking

DH went hiking through the Beartooth mountains and then we went to the Sierras so it's been a long aimless time for me.  I had expected to get a lot of stitching done but I fell into the Hamish Macbeth mysteries and was lost in the Highlands of Scotland for a while! But I did work on some things! The more worked on ones were...

Tiger Moth, which is done except for the backstitching. This was a freebie kit from CrossStitcher magazine:

Atlas Moth, ditto.  The two months are supposed to be turned into coasters:

Ladybug, part of a completely separate but still bug-themed coaster freebie set from CrossStitcher:

Bumblebee, ditto:

Bear Walk has more bear:

Ukrainian Sunflowers has more sunflowers:

Dinosaurs has more sky:

Underwater Kingdom has more octopus:

Flowers A to Z has an aster going:

Kuna turned 15 so her vacation was pretty much sniffing things and napping. We were both on the same page for this trip, haha.

Happy Super Bowl!

 You can tell I'm not paying attention because here I am haha.  I'm not into either team and I have a strong suspicion the game will be annoyingly contaminated with politics and Will They Get Married commentary,  so I'm starting a new rotation.  I've been monogamous which is why this is finished but I can't stand it and it's making me chafe.  

I  have a finish! On Feathered Wings by Dinky Dyes. I love white on red! I used blanc, 3865, and B5200. For my life I can't tell the difference between them so I just keep them all filed as white. 

    

I have a near finish! El Toro by Barbra Ana just needs his name and a the non-furry parts. Right now he looks really mad because he only has one horn:

Dinosaurs has crept along with more sunset:

This oldie from Daily Cross Stitch finally got started:

And this was a freebie from Wild Olive's blog, a flashback to my Xanadu era:

Viva Las Vegas!

 We spent the weekend doing Vegas in our own special way - we went to the park and looked at peacocks:

I went to Stitcher's Paradise and looked at threads and fabrics in real life! I ended up getting some patterns:

                    

And Kuna got plenty of beauty sleep:

I'm almost done with Turkey Time:

I'm getting there with Feathered Wings and El Toro:

and I've made it more than halfway across and down on Dinosaurs:

Nice boring week!

Did nothing this week except watch Midsomer Murders and stitch.  Well, I also joined Bluesky, the new Twitter.  They have a lot of cross stitchers there if you need some enabling!  A nice cold spell has settled in and possible rain this weekend so hoping for more of the same. 

The walls are closing in on Feathered Wings:

And more sky on Dinosaurs - if I wasn't taking pictures I wouldn't know I was getting anywhere, but there really is more blue and lavender on there:

Coming Up Roses!

 This was my weekend to help decorate the float for Rose Parade.  We stayed in Los Angeles and I got a lot of sky in on my dinosaurs. We haven't had cable in years so it was nice to be able to spend a Sunday watching football and stitching:

I spent Saturday sorting corn. The dried kernels needed to be separated into small, medium, large, chipped, and "yucky":  

This is the seed trailer where the corn comes from; all these barrels are full of seeds from every plant you can think of, and there's a guy in the trailer whose whole job is making sure everyone has the right colors and textures for their floats:

This is where the float is so far.  The corn is going on the yellow parts of the fish to look like scales. The theme of the float is Children's Day, which is a holiday in Japan that apparently involves flying koi kites:

I cracked the lens on my phone so the light is getting streaked out.  I'm far too cheap to get a new phone for something like that so you'll just have to enjoy the feeling of flying through the cosmos.  I don't know whose float this is but I love a pterodactyl!

This is the float for Louisiana, my spiritual home.  My family settled in Gretna, by New Orleans ,when they fled Cuba:

We had a new location this year, right across from the Rose Bowl, it was my first time in the canyon. I'm so glad it's still the Rose Bowl and not the Paramount Plus Frito Lay Bowl or something. I don't know why it makes me happy, but it does:

The float is sponsored by Donate Life, which coordinates organ donations. If you aren't a registered donor, you can sign up here:

On Veteran's Day we went on a hike and got a great view of Los Angeles:

Kuna is 14 now, which is definitely the sleep all day era. We got her up the hill but this is all she really wanted to do. I know the feeling haha.

No matter what's happening here....

Dinosaur Delight!

I got a lot of sky in on my dinosaurs, that's the only thing I've touched since my last post because I love them.  My little purple pteranodon is done and my big orange one is coming in. You can see a brontosaurus neck starting on the left.  

I'm glad I have something to keep my hands busy today!

 

Midsummer Mice!

 I hope everyone stayed cool for IHSW! I did almost no stitching but if I don't post now I may never post again, haha!

I've been working on the sky of Dinosaurs:

Also working on the sky of Pagoda:

Auntie's been in and out of the ER so I had the genius idea of starting all my Furry Tales mice by Lucie Heaton, since they're small and the mice are all the same color.  I've been gutting my magazine freebies and looting the threads of the things I'll never stitch, so the colors don't necessarily match the pattern.

Princess Mouse in honor of my sister the belle of every ball:

Gamer mouse also in honor of my sister, same girl, different mood:

COVID nurse mouse, it's entirely possible I'll make this into a card for Auntie's caregiver. Auntie was testing positive for 70 days with no symptoms at all (I thought we were done with COVID, sigh), then tested negative for a month and then ended up in the hospital with a plain old cold that got out of hand. Grrr:

This is Sewing Mouse in honor of me!

Cave Mouse, also in honor of me; same girl, different mood haha:

Hippie Mouse in honor of Auntie:

I got a little moused out at this point so this is Elmer the Elephant.  If you've never read the book it's about an elephant learning to love looking different, it's a very cute story.  

And this is supposed to end up as a coin purse - I think it's called a Tatreez style, JCS had an issue where they talked about this kind of stitching, and I think that's where this pattern came from:

Kuna says stay frosty!