Tuesday, April 24, 2012

IHSW & Other Things In Life

Good morning!  Let's start off with the most important news, shall we?  I had a successful IHSW in that I not only finished stitching my Stacy Nash (not without some bits of aggravation ... more about that later) but I started something new as well!  I guess I have become a chain stitcher.  I remember hearing some people referred to as "chain smokers" ... they smoke continuously, lighting their new cigarette off the one they are ready to snuff out.  Well, it seems I am the same way when it comes to stitching.  No sooner do I put the last stitch into one project than I grab another one to start.  A much better vice than smoking, for sure   : )

I am proud to have finished this Seek Joy In All Things Pinkeep Pillow by Stacy Nash although it was sometimes frustrating & sometimes boring (that honkin' big block of house in the center) although I tried to entertain myself whilst working on that house.  It occurred to me that "Stacy Nash" had the same amount of syllables & rhymed perfectly with the title of an old song ... "Monster Mash."  So there I sat, stitching on that big honkin' block of house, bored out of my wits, singing!

She did the Nash!
She did the Stacy Nash!
The Stacy Nash!
It was a stitching smash!
She did the Nash!
It stitched up in a flash!
She did the Nash!
She did the Stacy Nash!

If I put my mind to it I know I could come up with complete lyrics, perhaps get permission from the original people involved with the song to parody it, hire musicians & someone who can do a good Boris Karloff impersonation, record it, & send the demo to Stacy to use as background music on her website, let's say ... or it could be played during her introductions as teacher at stitching retreats, etc.  I am even seeing a pretty good music video here.  Thus travels your mind when you are faced with a big honkin' block of house to complete.  Anyway, here it is.
Wow!  What a lousy photo!  I surprise myself sometimes with just how horrible my photos can be.  Oh well, I shall continue on.  Those of you with sharp eyes (eyes that can make clearness out of blurriness) will see I stitched this design using 1 over 2.  I did that on purpose for a more primitive effect.  You may also see that I changed the color of the bird's beak.  Stacy wanted it to be a funky kind of green.  I don't think so Stacy!  Okay ... so I'm stitching along, purposely saving that big honkin' block of house for last.  Actually I saved the date for last but we'll get back to that.  When it came time to start the house, I stitched the roof, began the brickwork, & started the windows.  I stitched the front of this house in thirds ... the left brick area & 2 windows first, then the center brick area with 1 window & the door, & then started on the right side of the house.  The first thing I noticed was that the Stacy wanted me to put 6 "bricks" (stitches) to the right of those windows & I only had room for 5 (following in line with the roof).  I then looked at the left side of the house.  It had only 4 stitches.  Why oh why oh why did she not do 4 stitches on the right AND the left sides ... or 6 stitches on both sides ... but no, one side has 4 stitches & the other has 6.  Go figure.  Due to my sometimes extreme OCD, this drove me crazy!  However, "fixing" it to make each side have an even number of bricks was going to be a lot of work & I didn't want to spend any more time on this big honkin' block of house than I had to so I decided 4 bricks on one side & 5 bricks on the other side would have to do.  Sadly my OCD at this point was indeed extreme & it forced me to go back & see where I had made the mistake resulting in only having room for 5 bricks instead of 6 in that area.  Naturally I first investigated the roof thinking I must've counted wrong & positioned the chimneys incorrectly thus resulting in the roof being 1 stitch less wide thus resulting in the 5 bricks rather than 6 dilemma.  I counted.  I counted again.  That wasn't it.  I then looked at the reindeer above the roof & counted from the chimney up.  The chimney was positioned exactly where it was supposed to be underneath that deer.  ARGH!  Where's that error???  Where-where-where???  I then concentrated on the reindeer & there it was ... somehow when stitching that critter I miscounted & this resulted in the reindeer stitch that is supposed to match up to the first stitch of that chimney matching perfectly but being "off" by one stitch resulting in room for only 5 bricks.  Well, my OCD was bad but not bad enough for me to try to fix this so I continued.  The discovery of the error, however, so frustrated me that I forgot to change the color of my floss for the top right windowpanes.  The panes in that window are supposed to be the same funky green color Stacy wanted the bird's beak to be.  I thought "how cute is that!"  I thought it could kind of represent the rest of the house slumbering peacefully while the woman of the house was in her little stitching room getting in a few more stitches before joining her family in dreamland.  HA!  It was not to be.  I told myself that she got fed up stitching a project with a big honkin' block of house in the center of it & decided to just call it a night.  

You won't need real sharp eyes for this next "forced error" but anyone familiar with this pattern will know that the date is supposed to be 1802, not 1822.  I had no problems stitching the 18 & getting it to look nice but I can't tell you how many times I tried stitching that 02 with vomity results.  If by this time I had CARED I would have played with figuring out numbers that would (A) be particularly meaningful to me & (B) matched the style of the other numbers.  However, at this point I just wanted to get the stupid thing done & since the 2 wasn't stitching up too badly I decided to go with 22.  

One more thing about this project.  I stitched it on a mystery piece of linen that I received in a swap.  I didn't notice until I had started stitching that there was a great, big, fat flaw in the linen in one area ... almost like a hole.  A sloppy hole if that makes any sense.  Like "Oh look!  Shirlee must've poked her scissors through here.  Boy, is she stupid!  Why does she even bother trying to stitch anything!  She ruins everything she gets her hands on!"  You get the idea.  Since I had already started the project & had completed enough stitching to not want to just toss it out I continued to stitch hoping that big honkin' block of house would perhaps cover that holey area & hide it.  No such luck.  Because of the lousy photo I don't think you will be able to see this area even if you enlarge it but there it is ... right underneath the 22, right above the peacock's tail, to the right of the house.  I hoped it would sort of "disappear" when I pressed the piece before photographing it.  No such luck.  Now I'm hoping it will disappear when I adhere some iron-on interfacing to the back of it.  Maybe I'll just use it for a dust rag.

I don't think I took more than a few breaths between finishing Stacy & starting a new one & here it is!
Doesn't look like much, does it   : )   This is probably all you're going to see of it for a while as it's my next RAK & I can't let the cat out of the bag before it is finished & received.  I will, however, tell you it's not a cat design   : ) 

In a little over an hour John & I are going to head off to Lexington.  I have a doctor appointment at 3:30 but we are going up early so I can get an eye exam, order new glasses, & run a few errands before seeing her.  I got dressed for the excursion when I got up this morning, sat down here to read emails & check blogs & then something very sad happened.  My waistband was cutting off my circulation so I had to go back to the closet to pull out my "fat pants."  After losing 70 pounds last year I only lost one clothing size which will forever baffle & anger me but I didn't think I'd ever wear those fat pants again & actually had them sitting on a pile of junk in the corner of the bedroom with plans for some sort of disposal.  Luckily my lack of motivation these past many months has made me neglect doing anything with that pile of junk so the pants were still there & are now comfortably gracing my "gained 25 pounds back again" body.  I have "resuming diet" marked down on my list of things to discuss with my doctor.  However, I also have "chocolate chip pound cake" marked down on my shopping list for Whole Foods.  I need professional help!  But not until I eat that pound cake   : )      

18 comments:

Vickie said...

Oh my goodness Shirlee! Your Stacy Nash piece looks good to me. I love chocolate chip pound cake. Life is to short! I eat chocolate every day, no lie! I just have to walk. I have been known to take Percocet so I can walk so I don't go back up in pants size. So I feel your pain with that. I thought you said you can lose weight easy enough? Cheer up. Pick out some lovely glasses. Prayers sent for you my friend. :)♥

Dawn said...

Shirlee you are too funny. You sound like me when I make a mistake, your piece looks very nice. I always make one lil mistake to say that it is an original! but typically my ocd kicks in too.
have a safe trip. umm, we have chocolate on the mind, you with the cake and me with the cookies, lol

Anonymous said...

Hi Shirlee

I love your post today, it's so funny!
Your Stacy Nash is beautiful, congrats on finishing it.
Great start on your next one too!
I guess I'm a chain stitcher too because I like to get started on another one after I've finished one.
Happy stitching!

Anonymous said...

I just had to laugh! Breath girl, please! If there is an hole in the fabric, I do have to go to the eye doctor myself!!!! And it is lovely. We are aloud to change a few small things in what we do from other, I'm sure!
Hope the cake is as good as it sounds! I was on a diet once and my doctor then aloud me to eat one of my favourite sweets one day of the week! Maybe you can ad that to your to do list! After the chocolate cake, of course!!!
Hugs

dulcinella said...

how big can a hole be if one cannot find it even on a enlarged picture, knowing where it is?:-) I think you sampler looks great, your corrections to the original made it just more interesting! I enjoyed your post very,very much (although I must admit it sounded sometimes way too recognizable:-))

marly said...

Another new word. Vomity. Funny, that's what I was this morning. Why do these small projects present so many errors for us? Lucy had a broken linen thread right in the middle. I raveled a thread from the edge and wove it in and that worked. It looks great Shirlee, I'll bet you're thrilled it's over!

Marie said...

Such a light hearted, amusing post that served to make me not only smile but laugh ~ for that I thank you!

I started a new design last night and spent much time frogging due to the error in the chart. UGH! I thought stitching was suppose to be so relaxing and therapeutic somedays it makes me want to pull out the phone book and find myself a therapist!

Wow, 70# weight loss...good for you. Oooops, 25# gain, don't you hate when that happens?

Well, gotta run ~ for some reason I am craving Chocolate Chip Pound Cake.

Myra said...

OH Shirlee this post just cracked me up! Your SN piece looks great to me. "Vomity results"! Bwahahahaha!

Kaisievic said...

Oh, Shirlee, you have made me laugh and laugh and laugh. Loved the Stacey Nash song and you really don;t like that house, do you? I would eat the cake and forget the dieting but then I am not thin either!

Have a great day,

love Kaye xoxox

prims by olde lady morgan said...

Shirlee,

I love your Stacy Nash piece! I think it's a great photo! Love it!!! I am in awe of all you get done!!! OLM

Robin at The Primitive Hutch said...

Your just to funny Shirlee!
You really know how to make a person laugh! Your finish looks wonderful!
Prim Blessings
Robin

Chris said...

I love your Nash finish and singing! Lovely finish and great new start.
Enjoy the pound cake :)

Mouse said...

well I am giggling at the song and your stitching is lovely and it makes it more prim having it not equal and having a wee hole ?? in it makes it as old as the date on it ;)
hope every went well at the drs eye test etc for all of you and don't forget to share that pound cake will you ;) love mouse xxxxx

Laura Violet said...

Beautiful your new embroidery! *.* I like so much the stitched words *.* "Seek the Jot in all Things" *.* it would be a good lesson for every day! :)
A big hug!

Jenny said...

Stacy is perfect and I
think that the "hole-that-we-really-can't-see" is just the cherry on the top for a prim sampler anyway!

Sorry about the fat pants.. you are not alone. Poun-cake sounds perfect! LOL

TheCrankyCrow said...

Oh, I so needed a dose of Shirlee this morning - and you never fail to deliver. What a fun post - but, ouch - I can so relate to that OCD hunt for the mistake. :o And, I'm gonna to tell you this (although, if you're as much like me as I suspect, it likely won't make one whit of difference because YOU know that hole isn't supposed to be there - but anyways): When Stacy finishes and distresses her pieces, she sometimes sands them so they do have little holes like that in them. (Seriously.....) Anywho - I ADORE this piece!! I saw the pattern for the first time a few weeks ago, and I so want to do it....Trying to talk myself into "waiting" until I tackle some lurking in my stash and my hooking project.... But, thank you very little for getting that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day. :o Smiles & Hugs ~ Robin

Sandi @ The Primitive Skate said...

Another delightful post! I Love your little song. Put a smile on my face. Your humor is just the dose of medicine that I need to get me through the week. Love your finished Stacy Nash stitchery. You do Beautiful work.

sandraallen260@centurytel.net

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

ROFLMAO! You really are too funny!!

I too like my symmetry in my stitching and do change things so they match up. I can't see the hole either.

I've been making up poetry in my head while I stitch, it's about the same quality as your song LOL. I also write imaginery letters of complaint to the newspapers about random things which have annoyed me that day, usuall the Agony Aunt's bad advice or adverts that lie!