A Finish (!!) and WIPocalypse, the last coming

"You're going to read over my shoulder, aren't you?"
"Yeah, just to make sure you mention me in every other sentence, at least. It's a proof-reading thing. You know you want to."

And that is how Handsome Helpful Boyfriend is helping me write this blog post.

I finally finished his secret Christmas stitching. A few days late and it would have been done a tad earlier if I hadn't lost an entire bobbin of 159. As I didn't have a spare, I ended up having to go to Hobby Lobby the next day and buy another one (and keep from buying all the Thomas Kinkade Disney kits). BUT, all that aside, I finally finished, and here it is:

"Spring Meeting" by Alessandra Adelaide

Stitched on 22-count "Precious Metals" Hardanger by Silkweaver Fabrics

2 over 1 DMC

And there you have it. It took me roughly 3-4 weeks to finish it and it would have been done on time but I ended up getting the fabric a bit late, mostly due to Hurricane Sandy.

I do have another secret stitch going on right now but it's incorporated into my rotation so there should (theoretically) be more updates coming. 

Handsome helpful boyfriend is very handsome and helpful and wonderful. He got me a Golden Kite pattern for Christmas of this beauty:

After a serious bout of handsome helpful puppy boyfriend eyes and "maybe you can start the parrot?" I have now incorporated it into my rotation. My long.... long rotation. Oh well! I just got a finish so I'm not complaining.

Handsome helpful boyfriend's mom also got me a lovely kit:

Definitely itching to start this one (along with all my charts) but holding off... for now. Maybe when I finish the horses I'll pull this one out. It's got beads and blending filament and all sorts of things to make it both a fun and challenging stitch.

Those are all the stitchy Christmas things I got, and it's plenty in my opinion. I will also mention that Lesli of the Fabulous Frogger was super naughty and sent me a $50 gift card to White House Black Market. I will most certainly find a very good use for it, thank you Lesli!

So now the WIPocalypse. Unfortunately I don't have any new stitching to show for any of my regular projects, so I'll just do a recap of the beginning of the year and where they're at now.

College of Magical Knowledge before WIPocalypse:

Now:

Mario before WIPocalypse:

Now:

Riding the Wave before WIPocalypse:

Now:

Tiny Rose Garden Mandala before WIPocalypse:

Tiny Rose Garden Mandala now (FINISHED!):

Middle Earf before WIPocalypse:

Now:

Greek Mandala before WIPocalypse:

NOT STARTED

Now:

So there you have it. I will not be participating in the 2013 WIPocalypse or the 2013 TUSAL, mostly because of Grad school and it being difficult to maintain obligations like that but it was fun this year and I'm glad I did it. Also glad that the world did NOT end because I didn't actually get to finish any (except one) of my WIPs. oops!

So today I go back to my regularly scheduled rotation. If you're curious about what's coming up next, I have posted the next ten rotations on the top of my left sidebar. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and that 2013 brings nothing but joy and good things. From Handsome Helpful Boyfriend and myself! 

Grab a cuppa! (also, giveaway winner!)

I wanted to thank everyone for entering my little haphazard mini giveaway. It's been a lot of fun reading your answers and today I wrote everyone's names out, put numbers next to them, and had Handsome Helpful Boyfriend pick a number between 1 and 21. He picked "2" which means that the winner of the giveaway is....

SHARINE!

Yay! Congratulations, Sharine! I've already picked the perfect thing for you, so give me a week or two to get it together and I'll send that out! Thanks again, everyone!

I meant to participate in IHSW this weekend. I signed up and everything, worked on Saturday, got sick today and stitched all day, and then I realized that wait a second - I'm stitching secret stitching and can't show you guys :( It's coming along nicely, though, and I really hope I have it finished for Handsome Helpful Boyfriend by Christmas, but I'll definitely report back. 

In other news, a few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Jo of Serendipitous Stitching asking me if she could send Handsome Helpful Boyfriend a present. I had no objections and about two weeks later got a neat little packet in the mail. We opened it up and imagine our surprise at the loveliness enclosed! Picture below, along with my last TUSAL jar of the year.

Isn't it WONDERFUL! Thanks so much, Jo! We really love it! The Hobbit is one of Handsome Helpful Boyfriend's favorite books, so this was quite a treat getting us very excited for the movie.

Which brings me to my next story for this post. Handsome Helpful Boyfriend finished the well he was on Wednesday night, and came home at 3am Thursday morning! We had been invited to go see the midnight showing of the Hobbit Thursday night, but declined thinking that Handsome Helpful Boyfriend had to get up at 5 to go to work Friday morning. This was no longer the case, but we still thought we'd just go see the noon showing Friday since we both had the day off work. Well Thursday night we went out to dinner with a bunch of people who were going to the midnight screening. Turns out they had extra tickets and somehow convinced Handsome Helpful Boyfriend to go to the midnight screening. Here I was thinking I was going to be enjoying my warm soft bed that night but no... off to the movies we went after a quick stop at home for a cup of coffee. 

It was a good time, though. This is a small town so only about 1/3 of the theater was full and some people dressed up as characters as well. The tickets were for the 3D screening, which didn't have much effect on me because of my eyesight, but the movie itself was immensely enjoyable. I loved all the tie-ins with LOTR and the little extras they added. True, it was a tad long, but at least I had fun. And Benedict Cumberbatch plays Smaug and the Necromancer, which brings me to my next (and final) story for the night.

SHERLOCK.

Holy crap I'm super addicted to that show! If you haven't seen it yet and have access to it via Netflix Instant or other avenues, WATCH IT, I say! It is such a refreshingly modern take on a classic without being annoying or over-the-top. Well, ok, a little over the top but Sherlock Holmes' character has to be a LITTLE over the top. There are two seasons out so far, with three episodes per season, each episode being an hour and a half long. I have watched both seasons all the way through, and then watched season one all over again. I keep looking over at Handsome Helpful Boyfriend and saying, "I want more Sherlock." "ok, I'll go produce some." Season three is coming... and I wants it now, precious.

WIPocalypse, the twelfth coming

Looks like I'm not going to finish any of my pieces before the end of the world. Oh well! I guess that's what's called the stitcher's dilemma or some such thing. I got a little progress though, so here goes.

Riding the Wave before WIPocalypse:

Last WIPocalypse:

Now:

And the only reason I got anything else done was because the Middle Earf SAL happens every month.

Before WIPocalypse:

Last WIPocalypse:

Now:

I'm pretty happy with the progress I'm not going to lie, especially since it's the last week of school right now so everything is due. I did complete one of three classes today, so just two left! Turned in the final project for one and just have a presentation and final exam left in that one, and a group project, small assignment, and case study post for another and that's it! Freedom for a month and a half to video game until my brain leaks out my ears and stitch until I can't see straight.

Speaking of stitching, you won't see much more here until after Christmas (BOOOOO) because I'm doing secret stitching for Handsome Helpful Boyfriend who is also a Hero because he has let me do my secret stitching while in the same room as he is so I can watch him play Skyrim and he hasn't peeked one bit. Nope, not one bit. I am also told to let you all know that you're more than welcome to send him plenty of Christmas presents this year since he's so Handsome and Helpful and such a good Boyfriend.

On another note, I want to do a small giveaway - especially for those of you who have made it this far. To be honest I don't even know what will be included in it yet so here are the rules:

1. Comment on this post with the following information:
2. Your favorite song or piece of music. HHB and I like all sorts of music, particularly classical (in my case) and jazz (in his case) and we're always looking for more stuff to listen to;
3. What kind of stitchy stuff is your favorite stuff to stash. Is it fabric? Threads? Silks? Beads? Dreaded metallics? Embellishments? This will most definitely influence the contents of the giveaway; and
4. INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. Sometimes people pose questions to me in the comments section and I can't respond via email because there's a "noreply" address in the field. SAD FACE.

Enter by December 14th and I will ship international so have fun.

Last time I got a question about my gridding thread - do I like the fishing line or not. I like it. I don't have a problem with it leaving marks, mostly because of my stitching style. I use a LOT of tension when I stitch and I think that keeps the line from making the holes bigger, for some reason. Also, the way I run my needle under the fabric has something to do with it, too. I think.

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen (are there any gentlemen?). Hope you've enjoyed and hope you have a great night.

Back? So soon?

That's right! My term paper due date was extended by a week (happy dance) so, despite being hard at work on it (no, seriously, I really have!) I set aside some stitchy time (and showered this time, too). As such, I finished another rotation on Riding the Wave. Here's a before:

And after:

Pretty happy with the result if I do say so myself. This one stitches up pretty fast, which is awesome.

As many stitchers are probably doing, I'm already thinking about next year. I think I'm going to try to finish College and Greek Mandala. Stop laughing. I know it's a longshot, but can't blame a girl for dreaming!

Short post tonight, but it's getting late and I have to be up early. Responsibility sucks. Happy stitching!

TUSAL and Goodies

It's about that time. Actually, it was about that time a few days ago, but it's that time for me so there. It's also the last three weeks or so of school, which means that I'm a hermit zombie.

TUSAL for November:

I'm hanging out with William Shatner again. I also flattened my threads a bit. Plenty of bits from my secret stitching - which I wish I could show you guys! :(

I can show you some goodies I got from the SNEAKY Lesli of the Fabulous Frogger. Originally she was just supposed to send me a book she had a million copies of. Well, she did send a book. And other things!

Check out this gorgeous hand made stitching kit to go!

And inside...

I feel so spoiled!! There are pockets and needles and hand-dyed threads and gorgeous scissors and check out that adorable little scissor fob!! What a great little travel case! It's absolutely beautiful, thank you, Lesli!

Besides that I mentioned above that it's the last few weeks of school. I woke up at 5:45 this morning, helped Handsome Helpful Boyfriend out, and have been doing homework since. The hardest part isn't the homework. No. It's keeping myself from gorging on chocolate. Sigh. I've self-imposed a "chocolate only once a day after dinner" rule. I've also been exercising more, eating better, and drinking more water. I have to admit, I don't actually have a lot of weight to lose, but man I can already see a difference. It feels good. I probably would feel even better if I'd showered today but... umm... I was homeworking, what can I say.

I promise to have a stitchy update soon on Riding the Wave. I've been alternating it with my secret stitching and I have two hours left in my rotation. Once it's done I promise to do a stitchy update! Until then, have a great one!

Batman is creepier than you think

WIPocalypse the 11th coming

I don't have much to report for this WIPocalypse, but thanks to the Middle Earf SAL I have something! So here goes:

Middle Earf before WIPocalypse:

Last WIPocalypse:

Now:

So that's what five days of after-work stitching when one has a bunch of papers and group projects due looks like. I honestly don't think it looks too shabby, if I do say so myself.

Besides that, Halloween was awesome. I dressed up as Batman and all the little kids wanted to get their picture taken with Batman and give Batman a high five and show him how far they could jump. Here are a couple of pictures:

I had SO MUCH FUN with that cape. I was swishing it around everywhere and at one point Handsome Helpful Boyfriend just looked at me and asked, "did you just woosh your cape at me?" Yes honey. Yes I did.

It's Been A While

I know, I'm terrible. Not only have I been swamped but I also haven't been in the mood to blog. Being very cranky lately and since I don't like to write about how cranky I am, I haven't been writing at all. So what have I been up to, then? Lots.

First of all, Halloween. I'm going to be BATMAN. I have a costume reserved and I'm going to be working circulation Halloween day - so I'm excited. Dressing up as Lelu (from The Fifth Element) for the employee party after work since I have to return the costume right after I get off work. So pictures of that forthcoming.

Second, I went to Michigan two weeks ago for a wedding, and what a trip that was! I was flying in to Grand Rapids and had a layover in Houston. On the flight from Midland to Houston I actually threw up. I do get airsick, but never to that point. But man... I just lost it. Awesome, right? On the way back I made it to Houston, and then got kicked off my flight despite having a confirmed seat because they sent a smaller plane and were overbooked by 16. Awesome. What made it worse was that Handsome Helpful Boyfriend had driven all the way out just to pick me up from the airport, and I couldn't make it home to see him. He'd even made me dinner! Instead, I got booked at a super shady hotel that I didn't get to until about 11:30pm, didn't get to eat anything from 2pm until about 5am the next day at which point I had to eat McDonald's since it was the only thing open (for those of you who don't know, I do NOT like fast food), and got up at 4:30am just so I could make it to the airport in time. The airport attendants were treating us like we cause the problem and were booking us on the "first flight out" which was at 5:45pm. I was THE ONLY ONE who was put on standby for all the flights of the day starting at 7:28am and they weren't happy about the fact that I insisted. They told me that I'd have to get up early (oh boo hoo) and if I didn't and they called my name I'd lose my 5:45pm reservation. Whatever. I'm glad I did it because instead of waiting around all day I showed up early to the airport and got on the 7:28am flight without a problem - and there were still seats open on it! At least two more people could have made it home on that flight if they had been aware of the option of standby. What idiocy. At least I got a travel voucher out of it that will more than cover tickets to California.

Michigan was beautiful, though. And the wedding was lovely. Here are a couple of pictures.

I managed to get there right at the peak of fall colors and was completely mesmerized by the beauty of it. It was extremely inspirational and awesome.

Next, I would like to say that Lesli RAKed me a gorgeous Halloween Spangler chart. I don't usually go for holiday themed charts but this one is just so lovely and wonderful.

It's also the biggest chart in my stash, stitch-wise. So cute!

Next, I think I'll do the TUSAL:

Guess what I was watching tonight...

Oh, you came here for stitching? Yeah... none of that to show. I have some secret Christmas stitching going on but can't show it.

I CAN tell you guys that there's a SAL going on right now started by myself and the beautiful Lesli. HAED released another Middle Earth map with higher resolution. a lot of people were interested. So October 25 (the date that Frodo decided to set out for Frodo) and for 5 days we're all stitching Middle Earth. So on the 25th of every month for 5 days (or however many days you want) we're stitching Middle Earth (or any other LOTR chart)! There's a facebook group for it - so whoever wants to should join!

And  I think that's it for now... whew.

WIPocalypse, the 10th Coming

I managed to finish another rotation on College last night and start the next rotation on Riding the Wave today. I have stitched an unprecedented 4 hours today - only because I decided to stitch while watching video lectures for school. Super exciting - but 4 hours of stitching! That's almost halfway through my rotation and I've already gotten a ton done.

Anyway, here's my WIPocalypse post for the month, only a day late!

College before WIPocalypse:

Last WIPocalypse (and last update):

Now:

I feel like you can barely see the difference. I also feel like this is the most confetti-heavy page I have ever stitched. Ever. EVER.

Mario before WIPocalypse:

Last WIPocalypse:

Now:

"Riding the Wave" before WIPocalypse:

Last WIPocalypse and as of this morning, but not now:

"Middle Earth" before WIPocalypse:

Last WIPocalypse and now:

"Greek Mandala" was not started before WIPocalypse.

Last WIPocalypse and now:

So there you go. A little bit of progress. Not so much but considering school, not too bad.

I'm regulating my sleep patterns. Going to bed between 10 and 11 and waking up between 645 and 7, so not too bad. Feeling better about that. School is still crazy and Boyfriend is still Handsome and Helpful. The only exciting piece of news is the incredible flooding we've had here. I actually got chastised by my boss for coming in to work on Friday. I had watched the news and called the inclement weather hotline and there was no news about closures but my little car would not have made it through the streets, so we got in Handsome Helpful Boyfriend's truck and he got me to work (and picked me up when the county shut down early). The library flooded, too and there were 80 something (if not more) water rescues just that morning. Here's a photo I got in the morning on the way to work:

The water is flowing over the sidewalk. I definitely wouldn't have made it in to work in my car. I kept getting flash flood warnings on my phone all day and throughout the night. But it has calmed down now and is nice and sunny. Also nice and cool - in the low 70s. Kind of nice, for once. I have to say, though, it was scary.

Hope you're all having a great stitchy weekend. Take care!