Category Archives: Cross-Stitch

Prague

Holly Doyne Posted on by

This is actually our first full day in Prague. Not the first time we have ever been here, mind you but …. never mind, all I am doing is increasing the confusion. It does seem like most on this adventure arrived in Europe yesterday straight from the US. As we gathered in the lobby this morning for an included 3 hour walking tour of the city there were more than a few yawns gracing faces. 

[Side note – even in this well educated group there seems to be a bit of obliviousness about virus transmission and its lack of respect for “people on vacation” in spite of the warning from both guides about people on previous trips not getting past the first stop or getting stuck in a hotel for 10-14 days at the end of the trip before being allowed into the US. People take vacations, viruses don’t]

Our hotel is within 3 blocks of the division between old town and older town. I hesitate to say “new” as the implication of new begs the reality of new = 1400s…

So there we are, a gaggle of primarily western dressed adults following a behind one of those ubiquitous tour signs on a stick. I guess it is better than following an umbrella on a sunny day. I lasted about 90 minutes, which is actually pretty good for my tolerance of groups before heading back to the hotel. I just might have also been influenced by increasing crowds and my camera battery deciding to die. I tolerate crowds better if I wield a camera. A phone just doesn’t provide the same security. Also, the further we walked into the main pedestrian zones, the more crowded the area. Let me just say that there are those who believe that being outside, no matter how crowded negates needing masks… All though on the decrease, the daily number of new COVID cases here is neither negligible or insignificant. 

My plan is to head out fairly early in the morning to capture the few pictures that I really wanted.

Meanwhile – updates on stitching…

Pattern, fabric 18ct aida and specialty floss all from Forbidden Fiber Co

Next – what looks like a small start but is actually over 800 stitches 

The fabric is a 16ct Aida from Fortnight Fabrics, the floss is 10247 – dark blue jeans from Threadworx and the pattern is Leo Rising from LongDog Samplers. (about 160 wide by 295 if I am remembering correctly. 29k total stitches….

Rivers of Ice

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(Wiki information here)

We sailed all the way to the Marjorie Glacier which is 21 miles long and comes into the fjord at right angles to the Grand Pacific Glacier which clocks in at 35 miles long. As rivers go, that isn’t all that impressive. But as massive sheets of ice grinding slowly and unstoppably forward with a depth at one time that was over 4000 ft … (All this is in Imperials measurements due to them being provided by the park rangers on the tannoy. The park rangers are not shy, pushing a clear message of environmental change and responsibility. I am just not up for converting to real numbers).

My cabin is on the Port side and far forward for which I am more than grateful today. As we slowly drift toward the mountain wall, Majorie Glacier appears more clear. I can see follow her backwards into the mountains as she travels downwards and curves around the peaks. The Grand Pacific Glacier doesn’t have that wonderful blue crystalline front appearance being covered with all the dirt and rocks which it has picked up on its journey toward the fjord.

Mostly what I have are pictures.

On the way up Glacier Bay

.Marjorie Glacier

 

and then the Grand Pacific coming into the end of the bay

which doesn’t look all that exciting.

There were the usual tiny bits of ice floating…

and then we traveled back out on our way to Ketchikan – which included dozens more of small glaciers, some melting snow and amazing scenery.

and, then there is the LongDog Sampler – You Belong to Me which is now ABB – all but Backstitch. Stitched on 16 ct Scroll by BeStitchMe with 4067 Sulky bendable.

 

A library!

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I had thought they were all just about gone, except for Holland America which recognizes that people need books,

But the NCL Jewel came out of dry dock this past year and the library remains. Located on Deck 12, there is a card room with more than a half dozen tables next door. I am ignoring the poor ladies who work in the Spa trying desperately to drum up business every time anyone walks by.

But the library, it is a good size room with a dozen plus cozy seating areas. There is a table in the center which, as it appeared today, is the spontaneous morning get together location for any crafters or fiber folk on the ship.

There are three walls of book cabinets containing a variety of hardback books ranging from reference materials through various fiction genres and several languages. The cabinets are locked, glass fronts managed by a staffer who comes in to the desk twice a day to manage book checkouts. As you might suspect, the honor system just doesn’t work under cruise conditions. At least not on most of the ships I have sailed.

I spent the morning quietly stitching in the library, the afternoon enjoying the peace and quiet of my cabin. There are under 900 passengers on the ship. For those who normally travel on small ships, this is a huge number. For those used to the hustle and bustle of large ships, I can sit in one of the lounges and not see anyone for up to 30 minutes. Nice & quiet!

Since NCL gives me meal coupons for the fancy restaurants, I teamed up with another one of the solo travelers to use one last night. We had a pleasant evening; she just retired from the BC Provincial Paramedic service.

Otherwise – my true – new cruise new start…

Nightmare before Coffee from the WitchyStitcher. DMC floss on 16ct  Tumbleweed by ForbiddenFiberCo. Nice addition to my coffee wall? No?

Some progress

Holly Doyne Posted on by

There are days when I work on a number of projects – ranging from stitching to cleaning to reading or machine embroidery. And sometimes within a category the item/s are one or many.

Today was a bit more sensible. From my upstairs window, I could see Sausalito and the Bay Bridge clearly for a change. But then it is Sunday with noticeably less air solution. There were a variety of entertainment options – Baseball has started which provides the listen/watch option. there are audio books, and then there is the insanity of YouTube for which there are a bijillion and one choices.

But the day came down to opening yesterday’s mail which had arrived later last evening. George refers sometimes to my daily packages; which are neither daily nor often packages. I don’t call envelopes packages, but anyway….

I finished Galaxy Girl – which required almost 400 stitches

I might yet go back and add some backstitching – it depends on how she looks when set in a framing hoop.

Floral dreams is 4300+ stitches (not the 2600 I was remembering) so adding 1350 stitches meant progress but there are a lot of flowers and color changes left. I would really like to get this finished as the Raccoon from the Year in the Woods series really is asking to be started….

Again, a Barbara Ana pattern.

and finally – 

554 stitches of fill-in of the Nile skiff. a fish, and what looks to be a dog head. I don’t see this finished before I head to San Diego for the NCL Jewel – but it just might be a cruise finish…

(You Belong to Me – LongDog Samplers).

and tomorrow is Opening Night for the As. For anyone who has TV access – you just might want to see the 20 minutes before the game. Apparently the lousy As front office has figured out that the Drum Section (which makes other team’s fan groups totally insane) might just as well be incorporated into Opening Night. Jorge (the head of the ’68ers Fan Group is working out the details but we just might be on the field to drum in the players…. (of course with an 1840 game start, the time zones suck for most of you….

Overly ambitious

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Remember I said that I had two cross-stitches I was planning on finishing today?

Well, I really hadn’t looked at how many stitches were left on either one. The First – Galaxy Girl (Barbara Ana) still was only at 82% after adding more than 1000 stitches today. Somehow, I was thinking she was 1200 stitches – not the realistic 1821.. So this is as far as I got –

the colors are the called for DMC, the fabric is one of this year’s Sparkly of the Month from Fortnight Fabrics.

But really, there were other distractions today – the Mets lost, the Twins lost, but the As somehow managed to pull off a victory in the 9th. Changing colors a lot really isn’t compatible with screen time.

And then there was a trip to the dogs – well actually a trip out to drop off keys to Dani & Alex followed by a stop at JoaAnns on the way home. Well, it is on the way home and picking up skeins of replacement DMC 712 is never a silly idea.

I hear the hot tub and sleep calling me….

Spidey Senses

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I met one of my baseball friends (from RF 149 and a member of the drummers) for coffee and pastries. We have mostly been communicating by text over the last couple of years. She works for KQED and feels fortunate to be able to still work from home most days. Reasons include decreased commuting time (Alameda Island to SF) and just the general hassle and cost. She usually drives to the games as well and has kindly offered to take a bunch of excess “stuff” to the next tailgate in her car. By excess stuff – I mean all the t-shirts, souvenirs, bobbleheads etc that have come home with me over the last several years.  I normally wear t-shirts, and really – how many bits of cardboard, bobbleheads or pennants does one really need?

Also, with Passover starting tonight, it was my last chance to enjoy food out with a friend. Did I mention scones and muffins? Anyway – I drove over to Alameda (through the Webster Tube) and made a stop at Michaels. One always needs floss.

From there it was to Signal’s on Webster St where we enjoyed excellent coffee as well as stopping up the last scone and muffin. They are also on the delivery route for Boichik Bagel but had been sold out hours ago.

But this is where the Spidey Senses kicks in. Apparently Alameda goes all out for Halloween with many just leaving the decorations up all year. Click on the picture if you want a better view. Me? I don’t think I would want a pair of giant spiders hanging off my house.

 


From there I headed over to Needle in a Haystack to indulge in fondling specialty threads and filling in some missing threads and beads for the series I mention below.

Aries is ABB (all but beads) which I was able to do once home. It had been on hold due to missing one of the Caron Waterlillies. This is the third of the Zodiac Girls from Nora Corbett that I have stitched so far. Stitching on 32 ct Vintage Country Mocha (or French Cafe) with all the called for threads. I haven’t decided whether to add the Greek or Hebrew signs at the end when I add the backstitching. .

Which meant then I was ahead of schedule on those and moved on to a couple of small Barbara Ana Dreaming whatever which I hope to finish tomorrow.

Turning the corner

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I am sure you don’t remember, and the date/time of start isn’t really all that important. But I have been working steadily (more or less) on this particular project since I started it last fall while sailing along on the Star Legend. The particular project to which I am referring is the LongDog Sampler – You belong to Me.

According to the notes from the designer, her father had served in North Africa during WWII as part of the British Forces. This explains the Egyptian orientation as well as the fox and rats lurking in the picture.

I have 8/12 pages completely done, and portions of the last four. In reality I am at 84.5%, I have made it to the lower corner and am starting across the bottom of the piece. My reasons for doing it this way – well there really are no reasons, it just felt like the way I wanted to stitch at the time. And that last 15% is about 6ooo stitches.

Anyway – in case you couldn’t see it – here is the corner

and perhaps I should admit that I was worried about the size of the fabric since I really liked this piece for the pattern. I had calculated out that I would have some margin. But it isn’t a lot and I will likely have to sew on some strips in order to be able to frame it.

 

On the entertainment from – today’s robo-call was about phone, internet and cable services. Reported to be from Knoblauch Services. Spammers with a sense of humor? I can’t believe that this was serious phone call – Garlic? Really?

Mostly Mira

Holly Doyne Posted on by

Or actually under the name of Nora Corbett. But anyway – it was an unusual stitching day for me. I really only worked on one project which resulted in visible progress. Not unexpected for 1400+ stitches. If I had had a particular specialty floss in my staff (apparently ordered but not in stock when the pattern was sent) I might have finished those last 500 stitches which would have left it ABB (All but beads).

specifically – this is Aries from the Zodiac Girl series – What is left is finishing up the one lower side to match the other – the missing color on the empty side, a couple of strands of stitching and a few hundred stitches on the top. And beads, let us not forget the beads….

On other front – nothing exciting in the mail and no cleaning accomplished.

Wait! I emptied a waste basket and took a box down to the garage – does that count?

 

Ear, Ear

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‘ere it is!

First things first!  Meet the JackRabbit. Pattern from Cottage Garden Samplings stitched with the called for threads – except for the flower, I substituted Forbidden Fiber Cos Galaxy on 16 ct Earthen by Picture this Plus.

 

the last 150 stitches took the longest – you see all those tiny purple rosettes? four purple with one stitch of white in the center. Wash, rinse, repeat more than 26 times..

After taking time this afternoon to see CODEX (link here to the information on this international book fair). Last year didn’t happen – so this every two years event may well now be on even years. George & Miriam had a wonderful time. Angel also found it interesting. I wandered around, talked to a few of those displaying everything from handmade paper to hand bound art books to ….. you get the idea. Me? As pretty as some of the items were – I am just not the kind of person who wants something on my shelf or table that needs to be handled literally with gloves.

 

The four of us hand dinner at Saul’s before heading home. This is the first time I have had the experience of using a QR code reader to order and pay for our selections which were then delivered by the wait staff.

Gwen turned 12 today. Quite old for a golden retriever. Posed in her new backyard I know that she got some special treat to eat.

And, finally, I was able to put more stitches into Aries (the third Zodiac Girl) from Nora Corbett

I added to the lower portion, stuffed in some more browns – so far this has been all tans and browns except for the Light Effects – E436 which is actually kind of a brown. You can see a bit of pink/mauve/violet which is Caron Watterlillies 138 – Mulberry. I am close to 40$ of the stitching complete so hopefully I can finish this up by the end of the week.

Hare today, done tomorrow

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

and sorry for the bad pun, but I just couldn’t resist.  I will explain in a minute

One of the things that I am finding is that the days really seem to blend into each other. To be sure I know what the date/day of the week it is – I have to clearly and carefully look at my phone. Or a wall calendar (there must be one somewhere?) or someone lets me know. As in today – it was about 1300 when I figured out that 1) it was Sunday 2) I was to have been on a Zoom call at 0830….

ah well. Excuses? Reasons?  Nothing that really washes.

One of my neighbors stopped in for a couple of hours this afternoon. She likes to sort and organize things. Me? ARGH! I will do almost anything other than clean or organize until there is absolutely no choice. Well, the Sulky threads and my desk were both at that point. Morgan happily sorted the Sulky by type and color number. In return, she was willing to take a couple of skeins of sock yarn off my hands. Excellent deal for me on both fronts! And I spent the time cleaning both the floor and desk in my craft room. I can now safely walk in and can also use the desk/sewing table, craft surface.

Which then leads me to the jackrabbit.

I just have his ear left, part of one flower and a couple dozen of those little purple&white dot things. According to Pattern Keeper, I am at 95+% complete. Not bad at all. Then I start the Raccoon as the second of the three spring critters. (The third is a really cute Ferret. And ferrets are not cute in real life).

This time it was

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

worth waking up at 0500 for a webinar out of University of Copenhagen.

And probably only because the original speaker cancelled which left Samir Bhatt filling in. He is a brilliant epidemiologist and systems modeler who clearly and succinctly walked the audience through what modeling can and can’t do; the value of scientific consensus; and the role of policy makers. He made no claim about predictions and discussed the value and limitations of various forms and quantities of data that feed all the predictive models. He holds joint appointments with University of Copenhagen and University of London.

I want to be that smart if I ever choose to grow up!

Meanwhile, I might just be back on PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) just as a bit of heat hit the area. It currently is 29*C (that is 85*F for the Luddites) which is down from the high. I wasn’t prepared for this much warmth. It is only April after all.

On the positive side – the deer haven’t shown up today. Our front patio is rather sunny which is great for my collection of solar flamingos but not great for plants or any critter that would want to rest in the non-existent shade.

Noah scanned several patterns for me, so now all that remains (!) is the process of skinning them in PC stitch so that I can load them into Pattern Keeper.

I have made significant progress on Jack Rabbit (~60% complete) – the 3rd/12 from Cottage Garden Samplings which means that I need to get going on converting Raccoon which is the April pattern.

after adding about 550 stitches today I decided that there was no time like the present to get started on the Nora Corbett Aries – the third Zodiac Girl that I am tackling.  It took a few minutes to get organized and to change out the QSnap and fabric that I had chosen. There is being stingy with margins, and then there is just being stupid. These patterns have DMC floss, Caron Watterlillies and lots and lots of beads. By my count – about 20% of the 5011 “stitches” in this pattern are actually beads. Ugh. I also am not thrilled with finding that I needed DMC Light Effects for her “horns.”

I need to catch up my Temperature Bookshelf which sat idle here in Berkeley while I was galavanting out around the oceans. And then there are some of the left overs from last year that I really, really would like to be able to count as finished.

This lifetime? or perhaps the next?

 

daylight savings time

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sucks to put it mildly.

I really have no clue why this particular one hour shift in clock time puts me so out of whack. It isn’t like I haven’t had to deal with a lot of time zone changes in the past; often more than a single hour at a time. But the one hour of “spring forward” drives me almost around the bend and upsets my sleep cycle for days.

So here I am on a Monday what should be morning but is now afternoon based on the wishes of decades ago people who wanted more evening hours in the summer combined with the current crop of fools who think that this is a good idea. In today’s society – it doesn’t make sense. We don’t save power, whether electricity or gas. We don’t decrease accident rates; in fact the converse probably applies. What it comes down to is that certain groups of privileged seem to think that they are entitled to an extra bit of light in the evening regardless of the cost in early morning darkness, agriculture, or upset sleep schedules for about  90% of the rest of us mortals who don’t get a choice.

This one hour, for about 2-3 weeks may help those on the US West Coast who are working remotely for firms located three time zones ahead of time. Starting work at 0700 rather than 0600 if those states haven’t shifted. But actually, most have so the point is moot. It doesn’t help me for those 0500 web meetings that are temporarily shifted to 0600 as most of Europe will shift in the next two week.  All it really achieves is making me cranky, which you had probably already guessed.

In more reasonable news –  the Swan is finished.

The Hellhound left foot prints in the Supernaturals SAL

and the JackRabbit is up next –

and using the magic of FaceTime – Jill walked me through skinning some cross stitch patterns with PCStitch. Now, if I could just convince that particular laptop that staying connected to the internet was the way to go…

 

Pisces

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There is a cross stitch series designed by Nora Corbet called the Zodiac Girls. Not that you remember, but Aquarius was the first I stitched in the series which made Pisces the obvious second.

Rather than skip around on a number of projects today – I decided to see if I could get the stitching part completed.

x 

and here she is – with it taking me 1521 additional stitches today. Which I will admit is likely to be the most that I have ever put into a single project at once.  There is still beading to go – about 780 beads worth as well as some back stitching. But that is for the present time. 

Meanwhile, Alex is steadily doing better. Noah has moved downstairs to the now vacant apartment and the house seems terribly quiet – no feet over my head nor dogs barking downstairs. I am thinking about asking Dani for a recording that we can put on an alarm system……

a day with the dogs

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

or, in fact, my second day with the dogs. Mostly consisting of letting them out, chasing them back in, and ignoring the cats on the other side of the fence.

Alex is holding his own – surgery is scheduled for Wednesday. So, other than giving him the occasional hand – I am dog watching and stitching. Speaking of stitching – it is the last day of Embroidery.com ‘s Love to Stitch 2022 challenge. The idea was to stitch a minimum of 30 minutes each day and document with starting and ending photos. This is not an issue for the average person who uses Facebook or Instagram. For the non-luddites but social media avoiders, it was possible to email in everyday. It was possible to miss up to four days. Lucky for me – since I remembered on the 2nd (means the first is my first miss), the 11&12th for whatever reason, and the 14th. I stitched on all of those days, just forgot to send off the email!

But anyway – I made a reasonable amount of progress this month – I already noted that I finished the January Quaker, the Fox, the Barbara Ana SAL and the Owl Forest Cook & Cat. 

The Swan has been started, I have made decent progress on the February Quaker

 

I have only the last few days of Feb to add to the temperature bookshelf and have the March shelf ready

and completed another section of the Zodiac border. 

Three things at once

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We always talk about multi-tasking as if it was a binary issue. In reality, all of us are doing multiple things at the same time – at least if you want to include all those autonomic functions which are keeping you alive. But I don’t think that those are included when most people discuss their alleged abilities.

But it is the belief in their invulnerability that leads them to text while driving, read their phone while crossing the street, wear headphones while jogging or riding a bike…. Doesn’t it seem like a lot of the problems result from the interaction of the average person with their phone taking priority over other people, the task at hand, or even potentially staying alive?

Ok, leaving that soap box aside, most of us firmly believe that we can do multiple things at the same time and do them well. Not reality for most of us, but admitting that one is mortal? Well… the reason I am on this tangent started out this morning simply enough. I have an audio book (well, I have a lot of audio books) which is almost finished and I really wanted to hear the last hour. I have some stitching. And finally, I have some machine embroidery that I have been avoiding for a while. No good reason except that it requires at least some attention causing other tasks to be stopped and started.

If I was smart, I would combine it with cleaning and organizing – tasks which I am more than willing to put down at no notice. Because reality says that no one really can fully pay attention to several things at once. Please queue picking out stitches and restarting embroidery. Enough said I would think.

After finishing the Fox, I started the Swan – second pattern in the Year in the Woods series. I managed three trees, four white snowflake kind of things and a start on a swan’s wing. This is to the tune of 763 stitches, meaning I am a whopping 12% done.  No, I don’t count stitches, my software does that for me. 

Ah, tomorrow is another day and I have t-shirts to embroider and fabric to cut.

By one point

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It was a busy day. Alex was seen by Ortho who scheduled him for surgery next Wednesday. Even better – they think they might be able to put him into a boot by two week after which means that he could be at least partially weight bearing. And that is not an insignificant benefit. Dani also took all three dogs and Alex home last night. We are going to see how well the downstair there will work for Alex on crutches. I would rather have him home, and drive out to lend a hand while Dani is at work than leave him in transition forever.

I am just 150 stitches short of finishing the Fox –

All that is left are white snowflake type items. 17 small and three large. I counted. Once it is finished, I can move on to the Swan (Feb) hopefully before the end of the month.

Also related to February is From the Hearts Monthly Quaker.

I was able to stitch almost all of the large dark pink plus the upper green small quaker while at the game. (More about the game at the end).

And then there is the Zodiac series which I completed the monthly portions last year but sort of had planned to stitch the frame as I went, and then didn’t get there. This was followed by trying to decide if it really needed the frame. After today, I think it is obvious to me that I am going to have to stitch the rest of it.

I have two choices; pick out the portion of the frame that I have completed so far (about 3k worth of stitches) or just stitch the rest of it – about the same number of stitches.

Looking at it, I need to finish.

It just looks more complete.

which leads me to the last bit – the bit about the game. The Washington Huskies were here today (which means that they should be playing Stanford on Saturday). The Bears held their own through the first quarter but fell significantly behind in the second and third. After clawing their way back to a tie in the last few seconds, fouls and free throws handed the game to Washington. Literally down to the last seconds. The Washington player missed her two free throw attempts, but Cal managed another foul in the scramble for the rebound. The second of those two free throws won the game as Cal couldn’t get a basket with less than two seconds to go.

The last home game is Saturday. I am hopeful that George will have recovered enough from today’s dental treatments to come to the game with me.

Happy 2sDay

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It seems like people get excited about silly things – in this case a date that is 2/22/22 or 22.2.22 depending on your particular country’s date format. There are claims that it is a “Once in a lifetime occurrence.”  Well, duh. Every date is a once in a lifetime occurrence. Obviously, at least in the US – it is being used as an excuse for yet another sale.

I don’t get it – the date is 2/22/2022. That is not all “2s”  The same way I don’t remember equal amounts of silliness about 1/1/11. But then, thinking about it – I was at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan about that time and had more important concerns on my plate than stars aligning in whatever quarter or a confluence of interesting numbers in the date.

In better fun –

I was able to make a bit of progress on the LongDog – and hit 51% completion (I am not dancing around – there are still about 19K worth of stitches to complete). Note, I stitched the second 2 of 2022 – so now I have to finish this year

But I did manage to complete the second Dino on the CloudsFactory SAL

Specifically the 11xx stitches of the K Dino.

On Monday mornings

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last spring and summer, I went walking with another woman in the neighborhood. The habit dropped this fall when she and her family were out of town for the fall semester. Connecting up again has been kind of chancy what with everything going on in both families, but we finally managed this morning.

The plan was to meet up at The Caffeinated Cat near Shattuck and Vine, grab drinks, and walk around a different neighborhood for a change. But both of us had forgotten a key point. Today is President’s Day in the US. It is a federal holiday which also means that schools are closed. The day was also bright, sunny, and heading toward not cold. As a result, there were students everywhere along with the local crowd doing its “work from home” at the local coffee shop.

The place was packed. As an alternative, we decided to motor over to Berkeley Bowl West, let Barbara get in a bit of shopping and grab coffee/sandwich from there. Respectful of their employees, the Bowl was closed. As a final effort, we stopped at Safeway where I had already been once to grab bagels so that she could get dinner ingredients. I got sandwiches which we wound up eating on our back deck.

So much for the walk. Hopefully next week

 

—–8-< ———

The Barbara Ana is complete – I fought through the Diamant (the metallic gold in her hair and the last key) as well as finishing her sleeves. Those last 65 stitches took a frustrating hour.

Clue #3 on the Supernatural Monsters arrived and was stitched – the summoning Sigil.

I am finding the stitch-a-longs fun – I have never seen the show. I am now worried that if I watch it, I might not want to finish the stitching.

And finally – we are apparently now in Pisces – so the next Nora Corbett Zodiac Girl got started.

doesn’t look like much, but it is a few hundred stitches starting at the top, stitched on 32 ct Vintage Country Mocha linen with the called for floss. Hello? It is DMC!

and more of the same

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but if one takes enough meds – well, the ability to care, much less make sound decisions might just be a bit impaired.

Which is why I found myself at the Cal Women’s Basketball this afternoon. The game was a reschedule with Arizona (COVID) and, as of last evening, cancelled and would not be rescheduled. Once again, the issue apparently was with the Arizona team. So any of you bright people want to believe that giving up masks, eating out a lot, and taking strangers hands to stand in a circle singing “Kum-ba-yah” … well. The pandemic is not over.

Found by Noah fr Reddit

Back to the game. Game is scheduled. AZ is not playing. At 0400 in the morning CALState LA decided that it was worth a drive north for a chance to play another game. You have to respect that kind of willingness and dedication. Bus ride that sucks under the best of circumstances. That is 376 miles and 6 hours of driving under the best of circumstances.

1300 in the afternoon means that just about anyone who is on campus is in class. One of the solutions to getting an audience was provided by campus catering who showed up with trays of food – free to all the students. (Feed them lunch, they will come?)

By half-time there was enough left over that anyone else – staff, spectator, or band, that wanted food could eat. They had friend chicken sandwiches, a veg alternative, French fries and coleslaw.

this pretty much was most of the attendance. Empty to put it mildly. Score at the half was 53:23 Cal.

 

Otherwise –

I have Aquarius completed but for the beading

 

and figured out that this Barbara Ana Mystery 2 Part Stitch Along is not featuring another one of her ladies.

not unless a lady has ears….

Critters

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in stitching don’t look like their real life counter parts…

 

For example, I don’t think any of us really has a clear idea of a werewolf’s appearance. Admittedly, one will find a whole range of options dating from medieval times to current authors (queue Kelley Armstrong, RJ Blain, Heather Graham, & Lori Handeland to name a few). This means also variations from slathering beasts to sophisticated individuals passing in today’s society).

The Supernatural’s monsters are more on the slathering beast end.

And then there is the seemingly endless stitching required to complete The Fox (Cottage Garden Samplings)) whose tail seems to go on forever… Somehow I don’t think the bits of this, that, trees and cottage are going to take anywhere near as long…