Mrs. Abbott is finished!!

Here she is! Yippee (picture me doing the afflicted Elaine [Seinfeld] dance)!!!! This is only my second finish of 2009 so even if I weren't as thrilled with the pattern as I am I'd still be excited. I finished her last night, and after taking the pic for this post, I actually put a few stitches into Wheels. I think what I am going to do while I work on Wheels is take Mr. Abbott to work with me and work on him during my lunch hour (on the days I stay in for lunch, that is), then work on Wheels in the evenings after the Munchkin goes to bed... that's the plan anyway.

Well, I hope you've all had a lovely start to the week and that you get lots of stitchy time in!

Til next time, Robin

Stash & Some Progress

Hello! How's everyone doing?

Since I seem to be a one project at a time kind of girl (I just can't seem to bring myself to do a daily or semi-daily rotation), I thought I'd mix it up a bit and show some of the stash I've acquired in the last few months... hopefully I'll have some fabric & fiber to show soon - my birthday is coming up so I'm hoping the hubby will let me go to the LNS (sans ma fille) I've been dying to visit but have been unable to get to.

At any rate, here it is... I've noticed something... although these were not all purchased at one time, I seem to have a marked preference for CHS. In fact, I really really love her designs. I'm not gonna go Kathy Bates on her or anything, but, well... you get what I'm saying! :) The images should be clickable... the one in the upper right hand corner of the 1st image is Flora and Fauna by Willow Hill Samplings. I also got Dorothy's Garden as a result of drooling all over Glenna's progress pics of that pattern.

Here's my progress with Mrs. Abbott.

I'm still loving this pattern, and cannot wait to get started on Mr. Abbott. I should be able to finish this in the next few days, I think, then it will be back to Wheels for Amy. Hopefully that will a go a bit more quickly than it seemed to when I worked on it last month.

Not much new going on... my MIL is doing much better. She has been moved to a "regular" room at the hospital. The doctor said we should anticipate her being there for another month, then we'll have to see how complete her recovery is before we make plans for any next steps.

Leah and I have been sick this week, but other than a lingering cough, we are both feeling much better.

Thanks for all of your comments and advice on my last post (Tanya, I haven't forgotten you - I just haven't sat down to type out an email - stay tuned!)!! :) I really am so glad to have joined this little community. It's great to have a place to chat about my little obsession with like minded individuals.

Until next time, happy stitching!! ~Robin

Mrs. Abbott, advice please, and etc.

My my time does fly by doesn't it?

Here is my progress with Mrs. Abbott since my last post:
I think she's coming along nicely... I am really enjoying this pattern. It isn't particularly difficult (not many color changes) and it is so small that every small amount of progress feels like a leap forward in terms of "percent complete". I can't wait to have them both done and framed gracing the walls of our bedroom... they won't take up much wall space but will really complement what we already have in there.

After Mrs. Abbott is complete I'll resume (and hopefully finish very shortly) the Wheels Announcement for Amy. I'm starting to feel guilty for neglecting it for so long! Then it will be on to Mr. Abbott, and some other projects as well... I've done a bit of stash enhancement recently and will share pics in my next post or so.

Now for the advice part - Any hints on making a "neater stitch" (is there anyone that rewinds and repeatedly plays the scene in the Gwyneth Paltrow Emma where she & Harriet are outside stitching and Emma tells Harriet "if you pull this way dear, you'll find it makes a neater stitch."... no? um, ok... I don't either... I've just heard some people do) when stitching with one strand of thread? I've been railroading when stitching with two strands for a while now and find my stitches to be pretty much uniform (I think) when using that method, but am having a harder time with just one strand (which is what I'm using w/ Mrs. Abbott). Tips? Thoughts? Thanks in advance!!

You've probably noticed that I've added a playlist since my last post (shamelessly copying Terri & Vonna here). My question to you - should it stay or should it go?

My MIL is doing a LOT better. She is still in the hospital, but they are talking about moving her to a "Regular" room this weekend. We are still cautious, but are definitely breathing a bit more easily, and are far more optimistic than we were a week ago.

Well, that's it for now. Thanks so much for your comments! It's like a special treat when I see a new one has popped up. I really appreciate the time you take out of your busy days to read my posts and comment.

Happy Stitching! ~Robin

Mrs. Abbott, I need what???, and the Hospital

So... long time no post, eh? Things have been busy here... I'll write a bit more about my MIL and her condition at the bottom of this post, but I do want to thank Tanya, Jacque, and Terri for your kind comments and encouragement!

Below is my progress on Mrs. Abbott. Stitching time has been scarce lately, but here's where I am.


I haven't worked on the Little Wheels Announcement at all since my last post. I'll pick it up again soon, but for the moment this will be my focus. Lots of stress = Robin works on what she loves. :)

I do need to give a special shout out to Tanya... for simultaneously helping and horrifying me. Hehe... Let me splain. I have been doing the "half arm extension" maneuver without even noticing for a while now (especially when my lil punkin shoves something in my face and says "Mommy, look at this!!"), however, I have been living in a state of denial for at least the past 6 months. Denial of what you ask? Denial that a person of my tender years (I haven't even hit the mid thirties, people!) could possibly need... reading glasses. Tanya helped me step out of my state of denial, however, when she suggested in a comment that using readers might make it easier to see my 40 ct. project. I happened to mention this to my step mom while I was at my dad's last weekend, and she disappeared then returned a few minutes later with the most obnoxious pair of readers you've ever seen (she got them as a gag gift for her 40th b'day). I put them on, and... Oh dear LORD... I could see!!! Nooooooo!!!!! LOL! Thank you, Tanya! I will probably work on 40ct. again in the future thanks to you. That's a good thing. Not loving so much, though, the admission I've had to make as a result that my truly horrible eyesight has taken yet another step toward true blindness. I am comforting myself with the fact that, currently, I only "need" them for stitching.

My MIL is still in the hospital... She's been there 3 weeks today. Communication with the medical team has improved - I think my husband and his sister have gotten better about proactively asking questions of nurses, doctors, and the various specialists. Things are still very uncertain... she has had some bad days, and a couple pretty good days, and a truly horrible day yesterday. Today was a much better day. They've run just about every test they can think to run and everything comes back "normal", so we're pretty much in a holding pattern right now, taking it day by day. That's the way it's supposed to be though, I suppose. The Bible does warn us against borrowing trouble from tomorrow...

Again thanks for your kind words, ladies. Those, and reading your posts (but not commenting much, sorry!!) have been a comfort to me these past few weeks.

Until next time - take care and happy stitching! ~Robin

A Baby Stitcher (Literally), Progress, A New Start & The Hospital

So... It's been a while, huh? I'll get to the reason at the end of this post. For now, the fun stuff. Leah has been determined to stitch so I finally grabbed some extra DMC, and some Aida I inherited that I know I'll never use and let her go to town. Here are the results. She got tired of it after about 5 minutes, but it was adorable to watch her fierce concentration. :)

Here is the progress on the Wheels Announcement... I've decided to take a little (a week?) break from this. I've been working on it faithfully as much as I can, and can't wait to bless my friend with it... but I am facing burnout with it. This pattern is totally not my style, and I never would have chosen it to stitch (It's a good thing Amy chose it b/c if I had chosen for her I would have been waaaay off base in my pattern selection) so it has really been feeling more like work than anything.

A friend of mine took Leah to a birthday party featuring ponies (my child is horse obsessed and has been since she was teeny) on Saturday, so I got a couple hours of free time. I decided to reward my hard work on Wheels with a pattern I've been dying to start for a while now:

The kit shows these finished as pin cushions, but I'm going to get them framed instead... they'll go really well in the master bedroom. So I got a few hours in yesterday and about an hour in today, and here's where I am with it:

One thing... these are done on 40 ct... Holey Moley!!! Tanya, you're my hero!!! I think I might actually go blind by the time I am done with these! :) I can't imagine working 40 ct. exclusively... my eyes are horrible w/o my contacts, but are corrected to 20/20 when they're in. My eyes actually crossed trying to adjust to seeing the tiny holes, lol!

I am going to work on this first one (the ladies) this week, and on Saturday when I get to crash my dad's place for a full day of mommy/ stitching time. After that I'll start a regular rotation of 2 sessions on Wheels, followed by 1 session on Mrs. Abbott.

So... where've I been... well, my mother in law ended up in the hospital the day after my last post with a perforated ulcer. It was definitely touch and go for a while. They actually had to go in and do "do-over" surgery last Monday. My husband has been at the hospital as much as possible throughout, we've had family coming in and out of town to see mom, and I've been trying to see her as much as I can while also attempting to maintain a relatively normal existence for Leah. We are all cautiously hopeful at this point that mom will eventually recover, but we certainly don't expect her to be back to pre-incident levels at any time in the near future.

On a hospital tangent... I have to say, for a highly rated hospital, I have not been particularly impressed by Fairfax Inova. Leah had a procedure done there last fall and everyone was great, but this experience... communication has been horrible, and while the Dr's have been very nice... I don't know, blah blah blah. I just expected a bit more communication, and a bit more of the doctors in terms of some tests she appears to need, tests that still haven't been read (sonogram on the heart a week ago, and still no results?? Hello???!!)... We'll see.

Well, thanks for stopping by! I hope you've had a great weekend!!