Time for a second WIP pic of the Japanese garden.



I actually enjoyed doing the queen stitches.

( a full pic under the cut )

I finished my Chatelaine workshop last week while watching Lost. I'm happy with how it came out; it's going on top of the ever-increasing Needs to Be Framed Pile. Doing all those jessica stitches were kind of a pain at the beginning, as I kept losing track of the number of legs, but I finally managed to get the hang of them by the end. I almost kind of miss doing them now.

Now I have signed up for Workshop #2, which is focusing on rice stitches. It will be awhile before I can really work on that one though, I have a couple of exchanges coming up that I need to concentrate on first.

In the meantime, I've read two more books since my last post.

The Fire Kimono by Laura Joh Rowland. I'm sort of losing interest in the Sano Ichiro mysteries the further it goes along, although this one wasn't that bad.

Also, I reread Watchmen since I saw the movie a few weeks ago. It's been a long time since I'd read it and kind of surprised by how faithful the movie was to the book. Also, Watchmen the second time around? Still not a cheerful way to pass the time. Actually, the first (and last) time I read it was I think, right around 9/11, so the story kind of freaked me out at the time and still kinda reminds me of that period. Strangely, the movie, while awesome, did not freak me out nor depress me as much as the book. I just enjoyed it's sheer awesomeness.

I think I'm going to read something a bit more fun now though.

Artsy closeup shot!


( the whole thing under the cut )

Eh, I must be pms'ing because I've been feeling kinda cranky lately. I had the past three days off of work which is a good thing or I'd probably be ready to rip somebody's head off right now.
But other than a general sense of blah, things have actually been okay.

Yesterday, I took my mom to see the Roman Art from the Louvre exhibit at the art museum. It was really fascinating and if you're in town, I highly recommend it. I realized though that my total knowledge of Roman history is derived from the HBO series Rome, I, Claudius and Gladiator (and um, Wikipedia) because in the first gallery, I was pointing out statues to my mom and explaining, "This is Livia. Remember, she was married to Augustus and poisoned off half his family? This statue is of Caligula. He slept with his sister and liked dancing. And killing people." Then I had pretty much nothing else to say in any of the other galleries because I hadn't seen the relevant subjects on tv. (I liked the collection of busts showing different women's hairstyles especially though. That was pretty neat.)

Then we had lunch at the museum cafe. Which you should do, because they have the best vanilla bean crème brûlée ever. OMG DROOL. We also had fried okra for an appetizer, which had a really good cornmeal batter and tasty dipping sauces, but was kind of gross because they didn't cut up the okra into pieces and just fried the whole thing. I love fried okra, but I've never had whole pieces of it before and that's for a very good reason in that it is pretty gross whole. It's slimy even after frying and has lots of little white seed pods and just in general, very alien looking.

Books I've been reading:
The Nature of Monsters by Clare Clark - I really didn't like this, but finished it because for the most part, I was stuck with it on a plane. Basically, a crazy pharmacist tries to create birth defects by freaking out pregnant women. None of the characters are remotely likeable. It reminded me of The Dress Lodger, but even more miserable, if possible.

Man, I don't think I've read a happy Victorian historical novel in ages. I'm beginning to think the whole of the Victorian era was populated entirely by lunatics and whores. Miserably grim lunatics and whores, none of your happy-go lucky lunatics and whores, mind you.

Okay, where was I? Oh yes, I'm continuing with Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles and I read Dido and Pa and Midwinter Nightingale. In comparison to Clark, Aiken is someone who can do dark, yet still have sympathetic characters and maintain a sense of humor. It amazes me how violent these are for children's books. I mean, people seemed shocked by how dark Harry Potter took a turn for, but this series has been around for awhile and ( so far in just these two books... )

Also, I finished Strange Poison by Dorothy L Sayers and am currently reading the next in the series, Have His Carcase. Lord Peter Whimsy is kind of goofy and amusing and Harriet rocks so far.

It is about a million and one degrees outside and I admit it is making me a little cranky. July and August are not my favorite months of the year.

Here's one of my recent cross-stitchy projects. I decided to try something new and made a mattress style pincushion. I used the Coté Passions' instructions, which despite being in French are still pretty easy to understand, what with all the pictures and Babelfish.


The pattern is called Blue Mountain Bunny by the Sweetheart Tree. I used Caron Waterlilies silk in Aquamarine.

I really like this style of finishing, except that it uses up a lot of fabric. Very easy to put together.



I needed something to take up space for the back, so I stitched a quote from Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. No particular reason why, it's just one of my favorite children's books. It's a bit hard to read in the picture, so here is the quote: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

I bought Blue Bell Blackberry Cobbler ice cream at the grocery store today. Going to pig out, brb.

The last cross stitch exchange I joined had a Little House Needleworks theme, one of my favorite designers. I was given Yuko's name and since she has let me know that she received her package, I can go ahead and post pictures of what I made for her. I'm amazed it only took about a week to arrive in Japan.



The back of the pinkeep has a little pocket for scissors and some shell rings to hang thread onto. It was kind of hard to get a good picture of the fabric color; the linen is 28ct Antique Green and it's a very light, mottled green.

I really enjoyed stitching for Yuko. We both have a love of all things pink! :) I'm very happy that she seems pleased with it.

Yesterday I received a cross stitch exchange from Nela in Venezuela. The Hooked on Exchanging board was doing an exchange based on free patterns and Nela sent me this wonderful embroidered box and matching scissor fob. They are sooooo pretty. And they're in my favorite colors of pink and green :D




Inside there are some thread/ribbon winders and a needle minder. Plus, she sent candy. You know you can't go wrong with candy.

Thank you, Nela!

A bit out of season, but I just finished putting this pinkeep together. It's a Little House Needleworks pattern that was in the Just Cross Stitch ornament issue last year. And since it was bunnies, I couldn't resist. I added another piece of fabric to the back so there would be a little pocket for scissors.

( stitching meme under the cut )

Went to see The Forbidden Kingdom at the Warren Theater today. Whoa, that was ... not good. Enjoyed seeing Jackie Chan and Jet Li fight each other, but that was about it. The rest was pretty cringe-worthy. (Like the stupid orphan girl who would only refer to herself in third person, WTF?)

I joined a new cross stitch exchange blog called Hooked on Exchanging. They were doing a pinkeep exchange and since that is my favorite type of finishing (I don't know that many, admittedly), I decided to join.

I received this yesterday from a blogger named Marion. It came from the Netherlands, which is the farthest away I've received any exchange so far. Very exciting. Isn't it pretty?



Marion also sent some extra goodies, like different kinds of floss and a piece of shiny, iridescent fabric (my camera can't capture how shiny it is.) Thank you, Marion!

Tornado warnings in January? I call shenanigans! It is really quite unseasonably warm and spring-like today, hard to believe that we had that crazy insane ice storm only a few weeks ago.

Had an awesome afternoon hanging out with brennye. It's been too long since we got to hang out. We went to see I am Legend in Bricktown. The first part of the movie was great. I think Will Smith is annoying when he's all hyper and hanging out with scientologists, but I have to admit I really like him when he's doing sad puppyface. *creaky voice* I remember back when he was Fresh Prince of Bel Aire..." *rocks in rocking chair* Anyway, I was really enjoying the movie and then I had to pee and when I came back, the movie just...went bad. Worst timed bathroom break ever. The beginning was quite haunting and thoughtful, but then later it was like it had the ending for some other movie just randomly tacked onto it. I found a spoiler on SF for the book's ending and it was like, ah, well, that makes so much more sense. Too bad they didn't stick with that. Must pick up the paperback now.

Anyway, then brennye and I had awesome noodles and chicken satay at the Thai Kitchen downtown. Sooo yummy! I can't wait to eat the leftovers tomorrow. ^_^

Since we hadn't seen each other since before X-mas, brennye gave me a travel Scrabble game (yays) and I gave her a cross stitched pinkeep. It was much fun playing Scrabble during dinner. And 'foment' is too a word! So nyah :P


And now for utter randomness, a crap that's in my bag meme. Click on the picture to see the notes on it. (Since there's not melted chocolate schmutzed over everything, that's not really a representative look, I have to say. )