SBQ- How do you share?

Today's SBQ is from Carolyn:

How do you share your finished pieces with others? Do you frame them, scan and/or photograph them, or do you have another method that you would like to share?

For online showing, I take pictures. They're shared on message boards and here on my blog and I have a Yahoo album of finished pieces. Need to add that link to my sidebar! I like big projects, and those don't fit on scanners very well. And the scanner is hooked up to another computer, so it can be quite time-consuming to get the pictures transferred. I do have a cheap camera, but the macro setting works very well for taking pictures of my stitched pieces now that I actually have a lamp that I can get at just the right angle for just the right amount of light.

Most things that I have stitched have been framed. To date, I've only ever finished one piece for myself and I only have 3 pieces that aren't framed, 1 is mine, 1 I did for my sister and the other I did for my mom. I should frame my mom's for her... Anyway! Smaller things usually get finished as tree ornaments. I LOVE Christmas and Christmas tree ornaments and am in the camp of you can never have too many ornaments. What if you end up in a house with cathedral ceilings and you can have a ten foot tall tree?

The joys of fabric viewers

I fell in love with Chatelaine Water Garden about a year ago. Totally head over heels! I've been having a very hard time deciding what fabric to stitch it on. (yes, I make these decisions waaaaay in advance of when I actually stitch the piece) I was playing with the Chatelaine fabric viewer and hit upon Ocean Dreams by Enchanted Fabrics. It's perfect! The only other thing I could come up with was white, which is the recommended fabric, and that's just boring for me now. I would link straight to Ocean Dreams, but I can't get the EF site to come up on this machine. Kinda maddening because I still need to decide if I want it in painted or flair. I'm thinking Painted, go for the more subtle look. Now that I have fabric decided on, I'll actually buy the chart and fiber/bead pack from European Cross Stitch before the end of the year.

I've also finally joined a club! I picked one of the Indulgence of the Month from Cajun Crossn. I'm about to start the process of re-producing an 8134 sampler and I want to use Gentle Art Sampler Threads to do it. Cori has a club for GAST, 6 skeins a month for $10 or 12 skeins for $20. I may eventually go up to 12 skeins, but right now 6 will do. I don't have an LNS anywhere around here that carries GAST, so this will be the next best thing. And I've heard so many good things about the threads in general.

One of these days I'll actually join a FOTM, and I would love to do the Dinky Dyes selection from Paw Prints. But right now I have a real and actual need for GAST, so that's what I'm going to do.

One year ago

One year ago today, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Waveland, Mississippi. The central Gulf Coast still has not recovered and many areas will never return to their pre-Katrina state. My area, which is 180 miles northwest of Waveland, also will never be the same again.

Our population sky-rocketed. Traffic was a mess, traffic lights had to be reset all over the area to handle the extra traffic, there was public panic. Yes, public panic. We ended up with about 2,000 people from the Super Dome. Narcotics departments on both sides of the river saw drugs they'd never seen here before, namely heroin and crack cocaine. Every single day. For two months. There was a carjacking at the hospital where my dad works, a sharp rise in burglaries and a couple of murders. We saw more crime in those two months than we'd seen in the last two years.

Then nearly one month later traffic came to a complete standstill when evacuation orders were issued for southwest Louisiana. It took me an hour to get home that day, and that was going the back way that is not an evacuation route. Lake Charles was a ghost town. And then came Rita. A week later I was shocked and appalled to hear a Red Cross worker refer to the hurricanes jointly as Katrita. I did manage to bite my tongue at that moment, since I'm in the tourist industry and they were tourists that day. But I've never forgotten it and I never will. It was insulting quite frankly. The Louisiana victims of Katrina that were on the news are a completely different breed of people from the Louisiana Rita victims. The Rita victims have quietly put their lives and homes back together. Without help from FEMA and the feds I might add.

I still applaud my parish for standing up to FEMA and saying no to a FEMA trailer park in Rapides Parish. A few parts of the country- namely Houston, now understand why the residents of Louisiana have a love/hate relationship with New Orleans. We need the tourism dollars for the state budget. What we don't need is the Lower 9th Ward. Pre-Katrina it was not safe to go down there if you're white. It had gotten to the point where tours of St. Louis Cemetary, which borders the Lower 9th Ward, were dangerous and sporadic. There are cops who wouldn't go down there for anything. The Lower 9th Ward ALWAYS had the highest violent crimes rate in the state, and usually the highest violent crime rates in the entire South. Rapes, carjackings, shoot-outs, murders, drug-deals gone bad and more happened every day down there. To save their own lives, NOPD generally ignored it. I never had the chance to go to the Chalmette Battlefield because the only way you could get there took you on the edge of the Lower 9th Ward. Many residents would not go into New Orleans without a gun. My dad was one of them.

I see Katrina in New Orleans as sort of a blessing in disguise. The 9th Ward was finally cleaned out and if the state has any sense at all they won't rebuild it. Most of those 60,000 people from there aren't coming back anyway. The New Orleans metro area is still losing residents, there are 18% fewer residents now than before the storm. They're leaving Orleans Parish for the surrounding parishes and states. With an idiot like Nagin in charge, I can't say that I blame them.

She held still!!!

Zoe held still long enough for me to get a picture!! I was going to post the picture, but apparently Blogger isn't liking pictures right now so have a link instead. I'm not quite brave enough to try and insert it from Photobucket with HTML.

I have completed my Marvel Little Mermaid comic book collection! I had begun to despair of ever getting all 12. I do have a few doubles now, but who cares! The last 6 are VERY hard to find, and I lucked out and got them in a lot with the first 6 for 12 bucks. Sweet! Now I just need the Limited Edition Sebastian issues and I can close the book on that section of my collection. Next up, two boxes of Corn Flakes so I can get the fleece blanket they're doing as a promo for the DVD.

Ernesto

Ernesto is scaring the bejeebers out of me! He's headed right for one of my best friends in Tampa. She's only lived there for 13 months and this will be her first major hit. Current tracks pretty much agree that he'll head straight for the Tampa area and then cut northeast, brush the Georgia and Carolina coasts and then head back out to sea.

The only thing predictable about him is that he is unpredictable and could still go anywhere. Nobody on the Gulf coast will be safe until he's back out in the Atlantic and heading north to freeze to death. There is one little piece of good news, Haiti is tearing him apart and he still has Cuba in front of him. This is good news for putting a lid on strengthening. The Keys are being evacuated right now.

All of my floss is sorted out by number family. I'm going on the hunt for as much Floss-Away as I can find so I can get it all properly sorted and labeled. Right now all the skeins are in quart size Ziploc bags. Where exactly I'm going to put them is still undecided, lol. They'll probably end up on my daybed until September 10th.

And only 15 more days until Ria gets here!!!!!!!!!!!

Gotta love typos!

When I hit the HAED BB this morning I was met by a post that said floss was 20 skeins for a dollar at Hancocks. Yes, 20 for a dollar!! It was a typo in the ad, but corporate told the stores to honor it. Needless to say Hancock's is this stitcher's best friend this weekend, lol.

I am now 10 skeins short of a FULL set of DMC. For 20 bucks!! I need to gather up more Floss-Away and tomorrow afternoon I'll get it all catalogued and see which 10 I'm missing. I never thought I'd be able to afford to have a complete set any time in the near future. This is going to make kitting so much easier! I just pull what I need and then replace it.

In other news all eyes on the Gulf coast are watching Ernesto. He's up to sustained winds of 60mph. 15 more and he'll make hurricane. It's too early to tell exactly where he'll make landfall. Will know more on that front Monday afternoon once he finally enters the Gulf. My brother is all set to start construction on his cottage next week, so Smith/Petit luck dictates that Ernesto will head for Louisiana. By Wednesday we should know for certain one way or the other. According to Dr. Jeff Masters at Weather Underground, it could go either way. The two most reliable models this year disagree. One points Ernesto at me, the other one sends him to Florida. Only time will tell which model is correct.

For next weekend, there is a 50/50 chance that I will not be online. Thank goodness we have a generator this year!

SBQ- Traveling

Today's SBQ was suggested by Anna M. and is:

What do you keep your WIPs and other stitching supplies in when traveling?

Whatever tote bag it will fit in! I have a nice sized stash of tote bags and I can generally find one that fits the bill perfectly. Since I keep my floss in Floss-Away bags on rings, space is rarely an issue.

I'm going to be in the gift shop most of tomorrow and I can't decide if I want to just work on A Favour or start my cell phone pouch. It may end up depending on how my hands feel when I wake up. I've decided to crochet a pouch that I can hang on the outside of my purse in the hopes that I will actually hear my phone when it rings. I'm doing it with the new DMC Senso yarn, the heather purple cotton/wool one. The pattern is a DMC freebie that I found on the Michael's site. The body is done with a 5DC popcorn stitch. Then I'm using the strap from another pattern that I found. It's made with a hook so I can take it on and off my purse and clip it to my jeans if I want to.

New Tate ACEO

Lavender Rose Fae. Be still my heart! I think White Rose Fae has just been de-throned as my favorite fae from her.

After weeks of searching, Ria finally has her ticket!!!!!! Starting September 12th, I shall be scarce everywhere, lol. Lots of giggling and talking will be done, lots of gas bought and lots of fun! I am so unbelievably excited!!!!!

Her BD present is coming along nicely. I've put Through A Mother's Eyes on hold for the moment so I can get it finished and framed. The backstitching is going to be a nightmare, but that goes with the territory of doing a Disney kit.

And in work news, I will not be the one in the gift shop all the time! This has me very happy as it means I can stay caught up on my stuff over here and devote major time to the membership mailout next month. Angel will be taking over over there. She's leaving in December to pursue her Master's in colonial Louisiana history, so we're going to go ahead and start getting used to not having her here in the office so everyone can just ease into the next phase at Kent House. But the first week of September will find me re-arranging the gift shop!

St. Basil's update

I'm now 4 weeks in on St. Basil's. I am so thrilled with the progress and how fast it's stitching up! Not to mention how much I love love love the fabric I chose.

And "A Favour" is also progressing nicely. I'm at about 1100 stitches in. I'll post another picture here when I finish my current row.

In other news, we're having a BIG shake-up at work. Trina has resigned. I cannot honestly say that I will miss her. I do think the resignation is over something very petty and rather silly, but it's her call. I do know she won't be getting any glowing references from our boss, due to the circumstances surrounding the resignation. And right when we're starting our busiest time of the year and me with my best friend from New York coming down in 3 weeks! So we have massive work schedule re-vamping ahead of us. My laptop here will start coming to work with me on a regular basis, and not just because my desktop at work is sick, lol. I'm not sure about Internet access though. Unless the guy who lives next door to the Big House has wireless that I can skeef, I won't be on during the day most of the time.

But on the bright side I'll finally get the chance to start charting the sampler in the KH collection! It's from 1834 and quite lovely. It's rare in that it's entirely cross-stitch! I plan to stitch it once I've charted it and I have my eye on Gentle Arts Sampler Threads. They have the muted colors like in the original piece.

SBQ 8/16/06

Yesterday was a day, so I'm a day late. Was offline all day and just played catch-up when I finally got home.

Today's SBQ's are from Ami and Anna.
#1: Do you have an organizational system for your fabric? If so, what is it? If not, what do you store your fabric in?

I use a drawer in my dresser! I have a 10-drawer dresser in my room and all of the pieces are laid out in one of the big drawers. I like to keep them as flat as possible and this lets me do that with my FQ's. I only buy linen, so keeping it organized isn't that hard, lol. I just have it stacked in the drawer laid out as flat as possible with tissue paper between each piece. Right now I have the color name, count and company on pieces of paper pinned to the fabric.

#2:How do people store their fabric, especially those small butpotentially usable pieces? Do they sort by count? How do they label it or otherwise know what each piece is?

I won't buy a piece smaller than 9x12. And I don't buy them very often because I prefer larger designs. Again, pieces of paper with all the info are pinned to each piece. I'm down to only two right now. One is an SMF piece, the other is Pearl linen that I'm going to use to make ornaments for two of my best friends as part of their Christmas presents.

The banner!!

Yes, I have a banner!!!!! It's a lovely banner. The most beautiful one I've ever seen. Here's the scoop on it.

The Little Mermaid is my most favorite Disney movie. Next year, it's going to Broadway! Yes, a stage musical version. For the Broadway play, several new songs have been written. One is sort of a duet between Ariel and Eric after the dinner scene where Grimsby ends up with Sebastien on his plate. It's called "If Only". Remember Ariel has no voice. The song is her expressing her longing to tell Eric everything he wants to know about the girl who saved him. The words on the banner are the opening lines of the song and my favorite lines in the song. It's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard in all my life and I think it's destined to become a Broadway classic. The song can be downloaded here for free if anyone would like to listen to it. It's the workshop recording and the actors singing are not the final cast.

I have the entire demo album on my computer and have made several CD's of it. It really is quite wonderful all around. "Her Voice" is also new, it's Eric's solo piece that he should have had in the movie!

The banner was made by the very talented Jo over at the Little Ariel forum. Yes, there is a message board dedicated to The Little Mermaid! It has one of the largest and most dedicated fan bases of any Disney movie ever made.

It really is a beautiful song. I listen to it over and over!

Minor changes

Minor change to my sidebar. It has a title now. Thanks, Kim! I'd still like it to be the scrolly font that "Recent Posts" and "Archives" is in, but I haven't figure that one out yet. I have my eye on a header banner, just waiting for permission from the creator to use it.

Heading out for my water class in about an hour. I'm looking foward to it. I feel so much better for a couple of days after I do it. It's nice!

S.E.X!!!!

(for those of you who may see this and are going "huh?" that means Stash Enhancement eXperience. get your minds out of the gutter!)

Major SEX today!!! 2 charts, fabric and ACEO's.

Fabric: 1 piece of the SW limited edition Wild Violets. Oh so yummy! Haven't the faintest clue what I'll stitch on it yet but I just had to have it. One of the prettiest fabric pieces I've ever seen in my life.

Charts: PR's "Romantic Stitcher" and the wedding announcement for my brother. The announcement will be stitched on SMF "Guinevere" with a yet to be determined variegated silk. It's a beautiful Celtic knot. I'm thinking I may do it with Caron Waterlilies because I can take the fabric over to the LNS across the river and do actual floss tosses. Then for the words I'll pull out a solid from the variegated. That solid will most likely be a Vikki Clayton since she has such a large range of beautiful colors.

And my ACEO's from Nadia came!!!! Oh my goodness they are so beautiful!! I got Mermaid Star, Mermaid by the Seashore and Rose Fae. Next up White Rose Fae, Snow Kitty Fae and Wisteria Fae. I can't get over how beautiful and detailed they are in person! The eBay pictures just do not capture their beauty.

My mom brought me back this nifty little Creative Memories album from Showcase. It's the slide-the-picture-in pocket pages and it's the perfect size to hold my ACEO's! I have two of the little books so I'm good to go for 32 ACEO's. What I'll do once I fill those up I haven't the faintest, but it will be CM of some sort. I want to preserve my little beauties for as long as I can.

SBQ

So I'm a couple days late. It's been more than a little weird at work. My computer up here is sick so I'm having to bring my laptop back and forth so I can keep working on all my stuff. Mailing list.

So, here we go.

This week’s SBQ was suggested by Ami and is:
For those of you who use hand or over-dyed floss, how do you store it?

Right now they're all in a pile on the bookshelf by my stitching chair. I have plans to get them into Floss-Away bags and sort them by manufacturer, but I need more Floss-Away first. I keep forgetting to order it. You'd think with placing 3 stash orders this week I would have remembered with one of them! But no, I forgot every single time. My collection is growing though so I really need to get on the ball before they start falling over.

Musings and wanderings

Started the water classes at the Athletic club yesterday. I am sore, but I'm not hurting as bad as usual. All of the soreness is from the weights in the water and not my usual muscle soreness. Kinda nice! I slept SO GOOD last night. Didn't wake up once.

My mom and I learning how to knit. She's left-handed so it's keeping our instructor, Judy at The Parrot Stitch, on her toes. I hope we can go for our next lesson next Tuesday. I want to learn how to purl! My end goal is to be able to knit socks. I have chronically cold feet and finding warm socks to wear in the winter is nigh onto impossible here in the Deep South where 50 is considered da** cold. Anything under that is hibernation weather and pile on the blankets! Knitted wool socks should fit the bill nicely.

When I was looking at Nadia Tate's ACEO's yesterday I saw Dolphin Mermaid. Lo and behold HAED released the chart yesterday afternoon! I really like that one a lot. The chart is on my wishlist now and the ACEO will be purchased next week when I get paid. I'm sure there will be a couple of other ACEO's that I get too. Probably Geisha Fae, and I really really really want Snow Kitty Fae. And Wisteria Fae! I have the chart already. And I really want Flute Mermaid too. Will have to wait for the print. I do play the flute, though I haven't had it out in quite a while now.

Squares 4 Survivors is undergoing a few changes. They're expanding their mission to include survivors of all types of natural disasters, with hurricane survivors still being the main focus. Mrs. Sandie has a round of voting going to determine exactly which charities they will work with.

And my brother is engaged! Can't remember if I mentioned that or not. His marriage to her has been the worst kept secret on the planet for 2 years now and it's finally official. They're hoping for May, but there's still a lot of details to be worked out.

I've been bitten!

By the ACEO bug that is. Specifically Nadia Tate. I just bought three: Mermaid Star, Mermaid by the Seashore and Rose Fae. And it all started because I showed my sister Nadia's newest fae which has a panda in it. Sis is a panda fanatic. She looked through Nadia's store oohing and aahing over the kitty faes and the mermaids. That was a first! She's never oohed and aahed over a mermaid before.

I've also been bitten on the wrist by an unidentified bug Sunday night, at 2 in the moring. I do remember killing the thing, but I have no idea what it was. It itches now and made a red bump.

I did actually stitch last night. I'm feeling much better. I went home, took a shower, played with my munchkin and ate, then started on one of the onion domes on St. Basil's.

The car is off to the Pontiac dealership later this afternoon to get the door fixed. It's been an ongoing soap opera over the last two weeks! We started out wanting to get the brakes redone. But the engine started running hot so we took it in to get the radiator checked. The first shop we took it to (our regular shop) their equipment was at another shop that day so they couldn't fix it. We've had a slight window problem for the last several months, and the sweet guys at D&J tried to fix it after they popped it out of the track- not knowing that it does that all the time. The door stopped opening from the inside. Then it wouldn't open at all. Now the whole lock mechanism has slid out and it won't shut it all! I get the pleasure of figuring out some way to keep the door closed long enough for me to drive it across the river to the Pontiac place.

I see some Afro-American ingenuity forthcoming in my future...

I've been bitten!

By the ACEO bug that is. Specifically Nadia Tate. I just bought three: Mermaid Star, Mermaid by the Seashore and Rose Fae. And it all started because I showed my sister Nadia's newest fae which has a panda in it. Sis is a panda fanatic. She looked through Nadia's store oohing and aahing over the kitty faes and the mermaids. That was a first! She's never oohed and aahed over a mermaid before.

I've also been bitten on the wrist by an unidentified bug Sunday night, at 2 in the moring. I do remember killing the thing, but I have no idea what it was. It itches now and made a red bump.

I did actually stitch last night. I'm feeling much better. I went home, took a shower, played with my munchkin and ate, then started on one of the onion domes on St. Basil's.

The car is off to the Pontiac dealership later this afternoon to get the door fixed. It's been an ongoing soap opera over the last two weeks! We started out wanting to get the brakes redone. But the engine started running hot so we took it in to get the radiator checked. The first shop we took it to (our regular shop) their equipment was at another shop that day so they couldn't fix it. We've had a slight window problem for the last several months, and the sweet guys at D&J tried to fix it after they popped it out of the track- not knowing that it does that all the time. The door stopped opening from the inside. Then it wouldn't open at all. Now the whole lock mechanism has slid out and it won't shut it all! I get the pleasure of figuring out some way to keep the door closed long enough for me to drive it across the river to the Pontiac place.

I see some Afro-American ingenuity forthcoming in my future...

Blegh...

I'm coughing and sniffling and my voice is nearly gone and my head hurts! And I don't have any medicine to take either. :( I'm so tired I don't even want to stitch at this moment (which is utterly pointless anyway since I'm at work), usually I'm itching to get home by now, and pick up my needle. Not so today. Had planned to start the water class at the gym this evening, but just the thought of it this morning wore me out so I said no. But it's not bad enough to go home, just bad enough to make EVERYTHING drag on and on and on.

I have a new Spring Cameo picture, but I'll post it later.

SBQ- Favorite Tool

Today's SBQ was suggested by Carol and is:

Do you have a favorite needlework tool that you like to work with?
What is it and why do you like using it?

Yes, I do! My Gazelle 2 floor stand. I had gotten to the point where holding scrolls, hoops or any other type of frame simply hurt too much and I had nearly stopped stitching altogether. So I bought my Gazelle and it was like being reborn! I've been a stitching maniac ever since.

And life is very good at this particular moment in time. Buble, popsicles and chocolate chip cookies. Heaven bottled up in 5 minutes!

Decisions decisions...

So, HAED is having a sale. I've spent the last two days agonizing over which Tate QS to get. Last night I looked through and narrowed it down to six. Three mermaids and three faes. Then I narrowed it down to 2- one mermaid and one fae. Mermaid Star and Wisteria Fae.

After showing the pictures to my mother, the decisions was unanimous. Wisteria Fae will be coming to my inbox! All the purples in her are just so beautiful. I will eventually get those 3 mermaids too and the other 2 faes on my list.

So now I'm off to lunch!