College #58

Not as much stitching done this week as I expected, but more than I used to get done with school. I did a lot on my secret stitching piece and got it up to 21% finished. It's not a huge piece and 1% is about 250 stitches. I'm going to a friend's for a stitching hang out today so I'm hoping to bump it up 1-2 more percent today. Cross your fingers!

I have also been working on my AAN Halloween SAL and am about halfway through part 2. I'll post a picture when I finish this part. Part 4 has already been released so I have a bit of catching up to do, but part 2 is the biggest so parts 3 and 4 should go by a lot faster.

With all that in mind, I still managed to put a decent dent in College.

Before:

After:

And with all that stitching going on I still managed to get some wedding planning done. Handsome Helpful Fiancé and I bought our wedding rings this past week. And his little cousin who is going to be our flower girl got her dress. Our reprinted (grumble grumble) invitations came in and I got the enclosure cards done. This week's to do is to finish the registry. I wanted to thank everyone for all the ideas you sent me! We've decided to do a honeymoon registry but also wanted to do a traditional registry for anyone who might not be comfortable with a honeymoon registry. Going to keep it pretty simple, though.

We've had thunderstorms all weekend which is a nice change from blistering heat. I woke up at 5:30 this morning to the sound of thunder, flashes of lightning, and pouring rain. It hardly ever rains out here, so when it does it's a big deal. It also means that we get flash floods.

I'm still waiting on one of my grades (they're due May 28th) but in one of my classes I ended up getting 100% - grad school win! I have to say, I'm loving freedom. Granted, free time still feels really weird to me. It feels like I'm being lazy instead of relaxing, even when everything is clean, dinner is cooked, the fridge is stocked, etc. I'll get used to it, though. And stitching is just so relaxing and wonderful.

So the stats:
Days until wedding: 132
Anticipated completion date for "secret stitching": 7/19/2016
Anticipated completion date for College:  9/28/2016

College #57

Thank you everyone who gave me encouraging words both here and on facebook regarding my grad school success. It means a lot to me. So far I know that I passed my final portfolio (like a thesis) and I got 100% on another class. Still waiting on my third, and final, grade, but I'm hoping for the best. I will find out May 23rd.

The first day, I didn't know what to do with myself. I was dizzy and stressed out and just wanted to sleep. Which is exactly what I did. But when, about five days later on Friday, I didn't feel better I finally went to the doctor. Turns out my ears are clogged which is causing the dizziness and general gross feelings. So that prohibited stitching because dizziness plus stitching don't mix very well. But I managed just over 1,000 stitches anyway! Yay for no school!

Before:

After:

After two years it feels really good to be able to stitch for extended periods of time again without guilt. Granted I still feel guilt. I still have sensations of having to do homework, if not now then in a week or a month I will have to. But I don't. Hurrah!! That puts my degree count at four, which is more than plenty. My parents have forbidden me from any more graduate studies. I'm really okay with that.

In my last bit of stitching news, I did buy (yet another) pattern. This is one that I've been eyeing for about a year and yesterday Martina posted that it is being retired so really I had no choice but to buy it. Right? Right. Here it is, Old English Walled Rose Garden by Chatelaine Designs:

I haven't bought the kit for it yet. I'll be putting it on my birthday wish list. But it's going to look so lush and beautiful once it's done. I have a rotation of smaller patterns that I work on. I don't put the progress of those up here until they're done, because they are smaller patterns and I think this one would be included in one of those rotations once Greek Mandala is finished, since I would need the scroll bars for it.

So that's it! The stats for the week:
Days until wedding: 139
Anticipated completion date for "secret stitching": 10/7/2016
Anticipated completion date for College: 10/28/2016
Anticipated completion date for Library Adventures: 4/26/2020

Happy stitching, everyone!

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please...

...I'M DONE WITH GRAD SCHOOL

CHEERS

Library Adventures, page 24 finish!

I'm a day early, I know, but exciting news is that I finished page 24 of Library Adventures! It was a smaller page so it didn't take very long, but I'm excited nonetheless.

Before:

After:

I think the page looks really good! You can see the dragon tails and the scales. I'm pretty excited about it. But, it's going away now for a while and I'll be taking College out again, hoping to get another page finish on that.

There's not much excitement here. I'm only a few days away from finishing my grad school program. Besides that, wedding planning is in full swing as there's less than 5 months left. I have reordered the wedding invitations (grumble grumble), set up the rehearsal, and now I'm working on the wedding registry, which is a bit of a pain since Handsome Helpful Fiancé and I have been living together for two years and we have pretty much everything we need. Can't I just register for stitching patterns? I'm surprisingly not stressed out, though. Considering my venue has already burned down and I had to find another one, everything from that point on is pretty stress-free.

In more stitching-related news, The Crafty Princess has been a bad, bad girl and RAK'd me this beauty:

I'm so excited! He's gorgeous! Though stitching all that black is going to be a new experience for me. I'm ready for it! I swear, when I'm financially secure I will return all this generosity I've been receiving. The stitching community is so full of wonderful people who are far too kind to me.

This week's stats:
Days until end of school: 3
Days until wedding:147
Anticipated completion date for "secret stitching": 7/21/2016
Anticipated completion date for College: 1/19/2017
Anticipated completion date for Library Adventures: 1/9/2019

Library Adventures 2

Finally, a stitching post. School is winding down, things are falling into place for the wedding, and I can finally breathe again. Almost. Another couple of assignments to do, but I'm finally caught up on everything I missed last week. Including stitching!

Before:

After:

I'm thinking page finish soon! Not that it's much of a page, but a page finish is a page finish.

In other news we have found another wedding venue. Handsome Helpful Fiancé and I can breathe a little easier now. We get to keep the same wedding date, the venue is being extremely flexible and letting us keep all of our vendors, and it's only 5 miles away from our previous venue. We're trading redwoods for an ocean view (the venue is, quite literally, on the water) but that's ok. I don't think we're trading down, just trading for something different. Either way we will get to be with our friends and family the day of and that's what matters most.

I'll keep it short today since I wrote a novel last week, so here are the stats:

Anticipated completion date for College: 11/13/2016
Anticipated completion date for Library Adventures: 10/25/2019
Anticipated completion date for "secret stitching": 7/20/2016
Days until end of school: 9
Days until wedding: 153

Happy stitching everyone!