Just a Little Update

I have managed to take photos of Tina's book so I present the cover, interior and spine.

I loved making the book. I almost had to pinch myself to believe I was actually finishing it all on my own. Once I jumped in and started the sewing, the directions became very clear to me. I was giddy with my success. Not bad for a first effort.

I am quite proud of the spine and how well it works as a book. I used a thin layer of batting to give the spine some body and it came together fairly easily. I will say that I cheated and used the sticky back mat board to attach the batting for each piece. Also, since I have small kids, I used Aleene's craft glue rather than a hot glue gun. Angie had fun helping me glue a second layer of batting.

I wish the ribbons would make a pretty bow, but they look nice, all the same. You can see closer scans of the interior designs here and here. I have a few of Judy Odell's books, I need a few more.

The masses found in Tina's brain are not more tumors, they are blood clots. I never thought I'd be relieved to hear that someone "just" had blood clots. She is feeling a bit better. My Mom gave me Tina's new address tonight so I'm hoping to mail it by Saturday.

I won't be able to enter the tuffet contest--I ran out of a Dinky Dyes silk and no one around here carries her silks. Oh well, I intend to finish it as soon as I get a new skein so I'll post pictures of it later. Since this was to be a quickie project and shouldn't have gone past August, I plan to acquire another skein somehow and finish it in September. I love my tuffet-to-be and hope you will too.

I managed to stitch two ornaments for this month's SAL. You can see them at the Ornament SAL blog. Let me just say again: that was a ridiculous amount of beads for an ornie. It is heavy.

It's been ages since I posted a scan of Frog Prince 3 so here it is. Look: she has face and hair! I'm hoping to finish it by the end of the year. I still have a long way to go though. I'm afraid to think about how much confetti that table has. I mean, she's eating peas for heaven's sake! Peas! The world's tiniest vegetable. Sigh. And this would be why I removed the Gustafson's from my wish list: I love the designs, but the confetti is both necessary and mind-boggling.

HAED is starting to post freebies and the very first one was the Pirate Dragon by Lisa Victoria. It's a mini portion of the QS so I was thinking of stitching it rather quickly for Kian. I know I don't need another start. But to my credit, I'll at least wait until I finish either my tuffet or a bookmark UFO. Any bets on whether I can go down to fewer than 30 WIPs, SWIPs and UFOs by the end of December. Yeah, I think it's unlikely as well.

I have faithfully stitched on my Love Quilt project a little bit each day. At my current rate, I should finish it by the end of September at the latest. I ran out of one thread (seems to be a theme this month) and the new DMC skein is clearly a different dyelot, so I'll need to tinker a bt to make it look acceptable.

I'm trying to develope a rotation for my return to work. I'm thinking of focusing on WG, JG, Midi 1, Santorini and the Japanese Angel at work with a full work week being devoted to each, except that the last two would share a week. Frog Prince would be the Wednesday SAL project as well as the Angie bath project and I would still do the HAED challenge and Ornie SALs. During the partial weeks, I could stitch something else.

We have been heavy into the start of Kindergarten this week so I've had little computer time. Angie is loving school thus far, but I think it is sinking in that, oh wow, this is an everyday kind of thing. The school has lots of variety throughout the week so she won't get bored: swimming one day, computers and music another, art, gym. She is still doing Gymboree as well so at night there is very little trouble getting her to fall asleep. For myself, I wonder if I should ask the teacher more questions about how Angie is doing or just assume all is well. I'm going to miss the excitement of picking her up from school when I return to work. She's bubbling over to tell us about the fun she's had. Today she met Mr. D and he taught them dancing. Very cool stuff for Angie.

Unfortunately, her allergies are flaring and I'm not certain we will be able to send her to school. She will be so disappointed.

Kian is as handsome as ever. He's outgrown most of his clothes already and is in the six to nine month range for clothes now. I'm getting great exercise just lifting and carrying him. He is very into studying hands (his and mine) at present.

I'm just trying to savor this last little bit of leave before I return to work. Chas told me today that he has enjoyed having me home these past few months. That was nice to hear. As stressful as it has been at times, spending time with my family has been a treasure and a blessing.