Bookmark Finish!

This is some perfect spring color to balance all the rainstorms we're having.  I'm in heaven with this weather, I shouldn't say anything with all the flooding we're having but I wish it would never stop!

Here's "Blackwork Bookmark" by Susan Penny in from Cross Stitcher Magazine, April 2019.  Stitched with leftover threads from a kit.

DH had a very reasonable question about why this was called blackwork, haha.  It's funny that the    technique is named for the color, I guess backstitched bookmark would be a better title.  

In other stitching news, I'm glad I take pictures because otherwise some of these I wouldn't know that I had gotten anywhere at all!

Dinosaurs has more sky:

Zinnias has more leaves and flowers and it almost says Zinnias now instead of Zinntas:

Aliens has more of the stuff around the blast zone:

Triskele is almost done:

Celtic Angel has more wings growing - this is being stitched with the charted threads but it's on ivory aida instead of the blue in the picture.  It's amazing how much more purple the model looks!

And Octopus's Garden joined the rotation, there's a little more seaweed and border done:

Auntie thinks people are sneaking into her house and smoking her cigarettes and turning her lights on and off - she's definitely getting more suspicious in general, I think just because she can't remember anything at all now.  Sigh.  I'm meeting with a lawyer to get the conservatorship going and she may be ending up with a stranger coming into her house to take care of her.  She hates the idea but we're getting right up to the edge of what I'm willing to undertake in the caregiving line.  Double sigh.  I love her like crazy but I am so looking forward to going back to my proper job!!!

Bilious Birds Finish!

  This is Grave Fellows by Lindy Stitches.  The brownish birds were supposed to be gray, but it was too gray so I switched to something that I thought looked more autumnal but now that it's done it looks a little baby poopy.   It makes me laugh so I guess I'll keep it! My poor birds!

In more uplifting news, Dinosaurs has more sky:

Aliens are sucking up another human:

There's a branch growing through Autumn Meditation:

And my Zinnias are starting to bloom:

We had a break in at my church and had to cancel Ash Wednesday services so I don't feel like my Lent has gotten off to a proper start.  I haven't even decided what to give up.  But it's supposed to be a wonderful rainy weekend so I'm hoping to get more into the spirit.  Who would ever break into a church? Even if you aren't religious you have to know that's some bad juju. The mind boggles.

Two finishes and a Sweetheart!

 I'll start with the sweetheart - Jo at Serendipitous Stitching is hosting a Valentine's blog hop. We all sent her a picture of finish for Valentine's, and she assigned it to someone else's blog, so now we have to hunt it down and figure out who our secret sweetheart is.  This is the valentine I received, I haven't found who it's from yet:

I'm hunting for the one I sent!  This was a design from Tiny Modernist called "Elements of Love".  I was a science teacher before I became a pastry cook, so I have a lot of science-y designs in my life:

My two finishes:

"Harvest Sampler" (just in time for Thanksgiving, haha)

Just Cross Stitch December 2020

stitched on Oatmeal Aida with threads from a kit (one of those big plastic envelopes glued to a magazine that says you can make 25 cards or something and it has a bunch of threads and ribbons and felt in it)

The colors aren't as charted because the threads weren't any brand, they just looked autumnal and I wanted to use them.

"Fruity Gift Tags" from The World of Cross Stitching, it was from 2022 but it doesn't say the month.  This was a kit that came with the magazine. I'm supposed to cut it up and make little gift tags with it, but I kind of like how they look together; once I'm done stitching I lose interest anyway so they may stay together as one fruitastic team:

I still have my dream of finishing a WIP every 11 days, and this puts me exactly on track right now - 4 finishes in 44 days,  Now I have to find something I think I can finish by the 24th!

A Cardinal Finish!

 My first finish of the year, Mr. Cardinal:

This pattern came from Cross Stitch Crazy, it was part of a series of birds.  I don't know the year, the issue, or the designer because at some point magazines stopped putting all that on the pages. I love all reds and the bird was backstitched in white, a first for me!  

In the meantime I've been loving all the rain we've been getting in California, it's great stitchy weather! I cued up Inspector Morse and got some more sky done on Age of Dinosuars:

  

More of the black outlining on Aliens:

Some of the corner on Autumn Meditation:

more of the top of Harvest Blessings:

and I got to the bottom of Zinnias:

First week down!

I've been kicking 2023's a#%  so far!  New Year's Eve we took our traditional sunset photo, we celebrate at sunset so we can go to bed haha.

We knew it was sunset because of the time, but some rain was rolling in.  

Kuna looks like she's not looking forward to this year - I thinks she could tell it was going to rain and she wanted us to get inside.  I love love love the rain and she has suffered through some wet walks with me!

My final TUSAL result for 2022:

This beautiful creature won the "Sweepstakes Award" for the most beautiful float! This is the float I worked on for the Rose Parade, in all her glory! Some of that yellow was made from flower petals cut by me, and I couldn't have been more proud that we'd won if I'd designed and built the whole float myself!

My stitching has been diligent! I got to the bottom of "Zinnias" from Leisure Arts Magazine, year unknown but I'm guessing the 90s.

Got a flower started in "Autumn Meditation":

Started the letters in "Harvest Blessings":

"Winter Cardinal" has a chest:

 

"Sistine Chapel" has some of the border - there are four colors in this space, believe it or not:

I have a picture of "Reversed Sampler" so I did something but I don't know what:

And I finally took a picture of Aliens:

I'm trying to stick with a finish every 11 days, so I'll probably be stitching Cardinal like crazy to finish him by the 11th - fingers crossed!

A Cookie and a float!

THE COOKIE: 

A finish a finish! I was shocked that I didn't have any finishes for the WIPocalypse; I've got a tall stack of WIPs so I want to keep on crackin'! I was still in a cookie mindset and this was small and half done. This is the second of the "biscuit" coasters that I started during the Queen's funeral.  

I called it a thumbprint cookie on it's progress picture, because that was the closest name I could come up with, but Jo from Serendipitous Stitching kindly let me know that it's an English cookie called a Jammie Dodger.  

This photo is from Mr Paul's Pantry, which has the recipe I may be trying soon....cookies...mmm.  There are molds you can get to make the ridges, so maybe Santa will indulge me.  By "Santa" I mean DH, and by "indulge me"I mean want me to make him some new cookies, lol!

These are thumbprint cookies, which is when you get a lump of dough and mash your thumb in it to make a hollow for some jam. I had thought that the cracks were sort of what the pattern designer was going for.  (picture from Love and Lemons).  

WIP UPDATE:

I've made progress on "Waiting for Santa" from The Stitcherhood. The pattern is from last year's JCS ornament issue:

THE FLOAT

I went up to Los Angeles and helped decorate a float for the Rose Parade! 

This is the model of the float I helped with: 

The decorating is all volunteer; they're counting on the community to show up to help, and they do.  Our coordinator said they've had volunteers from as far as London and Amsterdam this year.  I won the distance prize for the day because my drive was two hours.  Yay me! 

This is where the float was when I got there.  

My job for the day was cutting up yellow flower petals to get glued on the lanterns.  If the petals are too big they won't stick, so they had a whole table of us human choppers cutting up strawflower petals.  

This is the underside of the dragon - the floats are required to have their entire surface covered with flowers, seeds, stems, or bark. The yellow stripes are done and they're letting them dry before they go in with purple.  They paint the surfaces with regular Elmer's school glue and then moosh the seeds or petals on:

This lovely lady is doing the big stones for the base of the float.  She's got a cardboard tray full of seeds to paint on as grout.  The judges mark down if there are any exposed spots, so the "painters" have to be very thorough:

This is another float that looks way behind schedule to me.  It's been sprayed and marked off but no one was working on it and only the head and legs were done.  I don't know whose float it is.  The plastic wrap is to protect those delicious seeds from the birds. The decorating happens in huge semi-open barns and they have a  problem with birds flying in and going crazy eating the seeds off the floats:

They said they won't put any actual flowers on until after Christmas because they just wilt, and the weekend before the parade they have a small army of misters running around spraying all the live flowers so they stay fresh for the parade.  I thought the whole thing was super interesting and I'll be really proud to see "my" float rolling down the street next month!

RIP Debbie

Still missed.....

For the WIPocalypse this month I don't have a single finish! I was ready to say, with complete sincerity, that I've only been stitching on Happy Easter all month, and then my camera roll showed up......

"Happy Easter" by CuteFoxyShop has most of the leaves and flowers and all the lettering done; it's mostly the background yellow left:

"Baking Hello Kitty" from Vervaco has more cupcakes and background pink:

"Reversed Sampler" from the Stitcherhood has a picture so I must have done something but I don't know what:

"Bam! It's Christmas!" by Emma Congdon has more red:

and "Grave Fellows" from Lindy Stitches has the big bird and headstone finished, two small birds and headstones to go:

 I must be cross-stitching while I sleepwalk or something because I had no memory at all about stitching on three of these until I saw the pictures!  Maybe I have an excuse I can use when I get more stash, haha.

The WIPocalypse question for the month is about Zoom meetings and have we been to them.  The answer is yes and they're a nightmare for me because I can't stay awake; I've fallen asleep during zoom church, zoom webinars, and zoom meetings for a volunteer group I'm with.  I keep my camera off for this exact reason.  I'm not even tired, I just hate Zoom so much that the agony makes me sleepy. 

It's finally started to cool down here and then the weather report says a monsoon is in the south so it will be hot and muggy again by the end of the week, grrr.