I'm Back

I haven't posted in a while because I was really sick for a few days.  I had to have an antibiotic shot Friday and one Saturday, plus take these huge, horse pill, strong antibiotics twice a day, plus pain meds and I was totally out of it for about three days.

I weighed 169.4 at the doctor's office.  When school starts, I'm going to try to start counting calories again.

I really wanted to start Titania while I was sick in bed, but I was just too woozy.  I finally got her started, though.

7/26/15

 

 

Totally LOVE my Queen Mab needle minder from Golden Circle Designs!

7/27/15

I wanted to be further along on that wing, but yesterday I was feeling woozy again and had to frog several sections 2 and 3 times before I finally decided to take a nap.  I'm going to work on it some more a bit later this afternoon.

While I was so sick, I was enabled by a couple of stitchers to order a few more things for my stash.  Messy Stitcher on youtube did Promise Me by Lizzie Kate and I had to get that to make for my daughter.  I was also enabled by Jo at Serendipitous Stitching to get Joan Elliott's Bewitching Cross Stitch because of the cutest little design she did called Believe.  You can see her project on this blog post.  That one will probably go to my daughter, too.  (I rarely keep any of my cross stitch projects.  I'm always doing them for someone else.)

I'm beginning to feel a bit woozy again, so that will be all for now...

Titania Practice Finished

Now I get to start on a big project!

Titania 2

What I've got left on practice Titania now are the backstitching and the beads.  My daughter has decided she likes Mermaid of Atlantis after seeing Carolyn Mazzeo's on youtube.  It may take me a while to get around to that one, but it does have some gorgeous colors in it.

I went and picked out the frames for my glasses yesterday.  I should get them in a week or so.  Hopefully I'll be able to see my stitching better with those.

Titania

I haven't been counting calories for a few days.  I haven't been eating a lot.  I just haven't counted the calories.  When I went back to the doctor Thursday for my wellness checkup and I weighed 170.2, I just gave up.  I'm just going to give it a rest for a while and get back on it maybe when school starts.  I'm not overeating, though.

What I have been doing is practicing on Titania.  Since I'd never stitched on 32 count fabric before, I really wanted to practice that and beading before I started on the real thing, so I got a piece of scrap 32 count fabric and marked off a 50 stitch x 50 stitch section of Titania and I've been working on that.  Most of the first night was spent winding floss onto bobbins.  I took a picture each night. 

7/17/15

7/18/15

  

7/19/15

The awesome needle minder was purchased from Gina's Unique Boutique on etsy.

It has not been nearly as difficult as I thought it would be to work on 32 count fabric.  It took me a little while to get used to the pattern, but it hasn't been as difficult as I had imagined, either.  I'm going to frame this one and give it to my daughter for her dorm room.

The summer's almost over and I am so not ready to get back into the stress of teaching.  I got a phone call from a fellow teacher the other day and she was telling me how many of our teachers have been cut and our principal has been in a really bad mood.  Morale is probably going to be low and we'll have much larger class sizes and program cuts.  I am not looking forward to this year at all.

Well, that's all for right now.  I will post more later.

Day 49

I missed yesterday, but I ate about 1400 calories yesterday and day before. 

I had to go get shots for my back today even though my daughter and I have wellness checkups tomorrow.  I was trying to wait until tomorrow, but it just got to be too much.  I weighed 168.2 at the doctor's office.

I've been watching a bunch of videos on youtube by cross stitchers.  That's been really interesting.

I ended up having to buy a piece of cross stitch fabric from ebay for something I wanted to start this weekend.  It turns out Silkweaver has not actually mailed my fabric.  They've only printed the mailing label.  What in the world is keeping them from going ahead and mailing it, I don't know, but I won't be getting it by this weekend when I should have had it last week.  I am so not happy about that.  While I really do like their fabrics, I don't think I'll be ordering from them anymore.  This is absolutely ridiculous.

Those shots made me really dizzy this time.  We went to Walmart while ago and I nearly had a wreck on the way back home.  I'm going to lie down for a while and try to get over this wooziness.

Tempest Finished

I used Thread Heaven for the backstitching.  I didn't use it on any of the cross stitching.  It really helped with the backstitching, but I'm not sure I'd use it for cross stitching.

I'm glad to get him finished.  Now I've got to find a frame to put him in.

Tempest 10

Here's how far I got on Tempest before I got too sleepy to carry on.  I've just got a bit more at the bottom on the border to cross stitch and then finish the backstitching.

I haven't started on Titania yet.  I fully intended to as soon as I got all the supplies, but I'm not good at having several cross stitch projects going at once.  I generally like to finish one thing before starting another and I wanted to finish Tempest before my daughter goes to college.  Since I'm almost finished, I'll get to start Titania soon.

Tempest 9

Tempest today.

Tempest 8

Here's Tempest now.

I'm still having issues with Silkweaver.  Their customer service is truly abysmal.  They still haven't sent fabric that I ordered over 2 weeks ago and I called yesterday and they said it was being mailed yesterday, but it wasn't.  Messages go unanswered.  It's ridiculous.

I got my Raven Queen pattern yesterday!  I was excited about that.

I still haven't worked on Titania, but I've been trying to finish Tempest before my daughter goes back to college.

Tempest 7

After many hours of backstitching, I've got this much done.

I didn't get anything ready for Titania.  Once I started backstitching, I didn't stop until my eyes blurred.

Day 43

I consumed about 1200 calories yesterday.

My fabric came in today!  It turned out quite pretty but now I'm concerned about working on 32 count fabric.  It's tiny and I'm not real confident that I can see it that well when I start working on it.  I'm going to give it a try, though. 

That's Fairy Land for Titania, Wandering Ivy for Adia, and Magical Garden for Petal Fairy.  I'm really liking the Fairy Land.

I haven't gotten much accomplished today.  We had to run a couple of errands and just got a back a little while ago.

My daughter is making cookies for a friend of hers that's in boot camp.  We'll have to mail them tomorrow.

I'm about to work on Tempest a bit more and get my supplies sorted out for Titania.

Tempest 6

This is what Tempest looks like now.  I think I'll do some backstitching today.

Day 42

I consumed about 1200 calories yesterday.  I say consumed because some of the calories came from a coffee drink.  I normally don't drink my calories, but I wasn't hungry and I really wanted the coffee drink.

We're about to go into the city again.  I'm hopefully going to make working copies of Titania, Adia, and The Woodland Fairie.

Raggedy Man was back this morning, so he's doing ok.

I haven't been hungry today so I haven't eaten anything.  I have no idea what I'll do while I'm in the city.

I still had a headache this morning, but that's better now.

I ordered Jamaica Sunset for Ella, the Frog Princess since today's the last day of the sale.  At least I won't have to wait for fabric when I get ready to do the Mirabilia patterns that I want to do.

I think my daughter is about ready to go so that's all for today...

Tempest 5

Here's what Tempest looks like so far...

Finally got tracking information from Silkweaver.  My fabric is supposed to be here Friday.

Day 41

I ate around 1000 calories yesterday.  I was still nauseated all day yesterday.  I finally started feeling a bit better during the night.  I wish I could eat like that all the time without the nausea.  The nausea seems to have passed, but I still have a slight headache today, which makes me believe that it was some sort of migraine.  I used to get those quite often.  Or, actually, it could have been anxiety.  Or a bit of both.

Raggedy Man was here yesterday and this morning.  He's gone off again, though.  I have no idea where he hangs out, but his fur was full of burrs.

My raccoons are still coming up every night.  There are now several babies with them.  I can get some of them to take the vanilla creme cookies from my hand.  We also have an opossum that is my daughter's favorite.

I received my supplies for Fairy Dreams from 123Stitch today.  I've got to get all of that sorted out later.

I still haven't heard from Silkweaver.  I may call this afternoon and check on the status of my orders.  It's very irritating that they haven't answered my message.

I need to go back to the city to make my working copies of Titania and Adia.  I may do that tomorrow.  I was considering going today, but I have to clean out the laundry room.  After that, I will be working some more on Tempest.  I don't like to have several projects going at once.  When I used to cross stitch years ago, I worked on only one thing at a time - maybe two, so I'd really like to get Tempest finished or very close to finished.

So, I need to go get busy on the laundry room so I'll have more time to stitch this afternoon...

Update:  I ended up calling Silkweaver.  The guy I talked to told me he'd look up the orders and call back in 5 minutes.  I waited 25 minutes and finally called back.  Then I was put on hold and nobody ever came back.  I finally called back and talked to this guy named Jim.  He was really nice even though I wanted to bite his head off.  He said 2 of my fabrics had been mailed Thursday and another will be mailed tomorrow.  I'll have to wait and see if I get those fabrics tomorrow.   He said they were mailed 3-day priority.

Tempest 4

Here's how far I got on Tempest last night.  I would've gotten more done if I hadn't had to take out stitches about five times from one of the spines on the wing on the right.  I just couldn't get it right.  I hope I've finally fixed it.

I emailed both 123Stitch and Silkweaver.  123Stitch sent out my Raven Queen pattern within the next few hours.  Silkweaver never answered.  If they don't answer this morning, I'm going to call to check on the order.

Tempest 3

Here's how far I got on Tempest last night.  I really need to start taking pictures somewhere else.  The lighting isn't good in our den.

Silkweaver is having a 30% off sale through the 8th so I ordered Sudden Storm for The Raven Queen.  I ordered The Raven Queen from 123Stitch the day they put her up on their site and they keep pushing back the shipping date.  Right now it's at the end of July.  I'm upset about that, too.  They don't even have the pattern on their website anymore.  I'm going to email them today about that order and see what's going on.  I guess I can wait on both the fabric and the pattern for that one because I'll be working on Titania, Fairy Dreams, and maybe Adia, but it's extremely irritating.  I am not a patient person...

Day 39

I'm not feeling well today.  I woke up with a nauseating headache so I haven't done anything since then.  I figured I'd better go ahead and post since the day's almost over.

I did go off plan yesterday, but not too badly.  I had a really good salad at Chick-Fil-A while we were in the city.

We didn't get to see fireworks because the weather got bad and it rained all day.  It's rained here on the 4th of July for the past 6 or 7 years.

I also didn't get the working copy of Titania made.  Office Depot closed early.  I was really disappointed about that.  I did get a few skeins of floss I needed at Michael's, though.

My stray cat hasn't shown up again today.  I named him Raggedy Man.  I shouldn't have done that.  Now I've gotten too attached to him.  I worry that something has happened to him.

It's getting to be pretty bad weather out there again today.

Boyfriend is supposed to be leaving today.  He does have class tomorrow so he'd better not miss it.

That's about it for today.  I'm just taking it easy trying to get rid of this headache.

Tempest 2

First of all, I apologize for the lighting.  It's the middle of the night... or very early in the morning.  I've been working on Tempest and I'm still not happy with it.  I don't like the way the stitches look and I've about decided that my old floss is useless.  I'm going to put some pictures below of some of the little animals I stitched so you can compare the stitches.  The ones on the little animals are full and nice.  The ones on Tempest are thin and flat.

Here's what I've done so far.  I keep doing a little more and a little more trying to decide if I want to toss it or not.  I backstitched a little bit to see if that would make it better.

Here are the little animals I stitched.  The black on the raccoon's eyes and nose came out thin so I'm going to go back over those.

Again, I apologize for the lighting.  The pictures actually look brighter on my phone.  Anyway, you can see how the stitches are full and fluffyish.  There's pretty good coverage.  Tempest just isn't looking like that and I believe it's because the floss is so old.  When I was backstitching, it kept splitting and breaking.  I tried taking a close up of Tempest.  I'm not sure if you can really tell anything from it.  I'm really rather embarrassed by the way it's looking.

So, I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet.  I'll stitch some more and see if I can decide.  What do you think?  Any suggestions?

Day 38

Off plan yesterday.  I did eat some of what the kids cooked for supper.  I will most likely be off plan today as we're going into the city for the 4th.

I won't be getting any stitching done today as we'll be gone, but I'll be able to get some floss and make a working copy of Titania.

This one is short.  I've got to get ready to go and I'm running a bit late today.  I do feel better than yesterday since I managed to get a good bit of sleep last night and my cat showed up this morning.  I was so afraid something had happened to him.  I don't know where he hangs out when he's not here, but he just hasn't decided to quite live here yet.  Ok, I do need to go now...