Archive for October, 2007
Brightneedle Ta-Dah
I have another small (literally) finish to show off. This was a retreat keepsake piece created by Ann & Liz at Brightneedle. It was to commemorate the 10th anniversary of A Stitcher’s Retreat that I attended earlier this year. It’s stitched 1 over 1 on 29-count Glenshee linen using DMC and Anchor floss.
This was a really fun stitch. It really helped remind me how much I enjoy over 1 work. 
It’s also my 25th finish for 2007. 
Happy stitching! 
Remember me?!
Sorry for the long delay since my last update. Life has been kind of crazy for me the past couple of weeks. I’ve been taking some training classes to prepare for a professional certification exam I’ll be taking this Friday. I’ll be SOOOO glad when it’s over because I’ve been stress eating my way through studying. 
Of course, on top of all of that was the fires we had here in southern California. They weren’t too close to me, but I had LOTS of friends affected by them. I even temporarily had some friends staying with me who had been forced to evacuate. Thankfully, all of their homes survived and everyone is back home now.
I did manage to meet my October exercise goal early. My goal was to walk at least 20 miles this month. As of this writing, I’m at 23.3 miles and should get in a couple more miles hopefully before the month ends on Wednesday.
I enjoyed the October challenge so much that I’ve set a new challenge for myself for November. I’m branching out and adding in more things this month. Hopefully this will help keep me motivated and on track even when I’m cruising to Mexico later in the month. 
Here are my goals:
Walk/Run - at least 25 miles
Swim: at least 8 times
Strength train: at least 8 times
Weight: Lose 4 pounds
Ta-Dah
Yep, I actually have a happy dance to share! I finished a piece last night while I was at the all night Stitch Inn hosted by my LNS (more about that later).
The piece I finished is the Spring Sampler threadpack from Little House Needleworks. This was my first time using the Crescent Colors Belle Soie silks, but it definitely won’t be the last! They were wonderful to stitch with, so I know I’ll be using them again on future projects. I don’t remember the fabric color name, but it’s a soft blue 32-count Lugana from Silkweaver. Here’s a pic of my finish:
As mentioned earlier, last night was the all night Stitch Inn at my LNS. We had a GREAT time, as usual. I finally packed things up and headed home around 3:40am. 
We got a couple of really cute Halloween projects to stitch and we made a Jack-o-Lantern scissor fob as a Make It Take It project. For the canvas project, we got a really cute witch’s hat which is a companion piece to one I purchased a couple of weeks ago (pictured below). The linen project is a jack-o-lantern lid for a cute little ort bucket we received. Here are some pics:
You can’t really tell it in the picture of the fob, but the large clear & black bead near the right side actually glows in the dark. The bead contains phosphorus which is what causes it to glow. It looks very cool, plus my newest Dovo scissors aren’t “naked” anymore. 
After I finished Spring Sampler, I spent the rest of the evening working on the Lizzie Kate Ho Ho Ho 2007 Limited Edition Christmas Kit again. I don’t have an updated picture of it yet, but I’m about 1/3rd of the way completed on it. I have 1 of the scene squares and 1 of the Ho’s completed.
I did pick up a little bit of new stash last night, too. She was offering a special Stitch Inn sale of 15% off any Halloween of Christmas hand-painted canvases or cross stitch charts. I picked up the Frightful chart and embellishment pack from Just Nan.
Even though I’m CRAAAAA-ZY tired 
today, it was worth it. I had a great time and got to spend some good quality stitching time with my friends. 
Happy stitching!
Michi-gander
How much of a Michi-gander are you?
Pretty amazing since I’ve never actually lived in Michigan. 
Chocolat & Fire Updates
Let’s start with the more important of the two topics du jour … the fires. Yes, things are starting to settle down somewhat here in southern California. We’ve had a definite change in weather today which should help a lot. The temperatures are 20-25ºF cooler than they were a couple of days ago. We’ve also gone from single digit humidity to levels ranging from 40-65% depending upon the area. Both of these factors combined should help firefighters make great progress in the fires that are still on-going. I’m also VERY happy to report that the homes of all of my friends who were in the fire zones survived. Fires came far too close for comfort to the homes of 3 or 4 friends, but thankfully none of them sustained any damage other than a bit of smoke damage. 
I did manage to get in some more work on my Chocolat class piece from last weekend’s retreat. The first part went pretty quick because it was a simple repeating pattern which meant very little checking of the chart. Here is a progress photo that I took last night:
I also started a new Christmas piece. It’s the Lizzie Kate 2007 Limited Edition Christmas Kit. It’s stitched mostly with Crescent Colors cotton floss with the exception of Santa’s face which is done in DMC. Here’s my current progress pic as well as a photo of what the finished piece will look like:
I should get in some good stitching time this weekend. My LNS is having an all night Stitch Inn on Saturday night that I’ll be attending. It starts around 5pm and goes until whenever. I’m usually there until between 2-3am. I know they have a couple of kits for us (one canvas and one linen), so I’m not sure if I’ll work on those or just keep working on my own things and take the Stitch Inn kits home to stitch at a future date. 
Speaking of canvas, I’m working on my witch’s hat canvas project, too. I don’t have a progress photo of it yet though. I can share a couple of pics of the finished project though. Mine will be slightly different though as I decided to substitute bright purple for the green. The whole thing is stitched with Mandarin floss, so it’s a really fun stitch.
That’s it for now. Happy stitching!
Fires
Yes, the fires are really bad here in SoCal right now. Thankfully, the worst I’m having to deal with is air quality issues. There aren’t any actual fires in my immediate area. To give you an idea of the air quality, here is a picture I took from my balcony midday today. In case you’re wondering, yes, that’s smoke, not clouds.
Please keep Jill (Jill in CA) and Nancy (nkuelbs) in your thoughts. They have both been evacuated from their homes.
Seven counties here have been declared a state of emergency. Over 300,000 people (yes, more than a quarter of a million) have been evacuated from their homes. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly the size of the city of Pittsburgh. 
Over 650 homes and over 160 structures (churches, businesses, etc.) have been destroyed. Over 520 square miles (1347 sq km) of land has burned. 
Chocolat
I had a great time at the Elegant Stitch Chocolat retreat. Chocolate was definitely the theme of the weekend. Jackie du Plessis is a wonderful teacher and Lois spoiled us rotten. She gave us each a pair of little scissors with a fob, an awl, a beautiful handmade fabric-covered box which contained some Thread Heaven and some handmade waxers, and a beautiful sterling silver Kiss necklace.
Jackie’s Chocolat class piece is just amazing! I’ve been having a wonderful time stitching on it the past few days. Here is a pic of what it will all look like when I have it completed … one of these years.
Since my last update, I also finished up a Halloween exchange on the USEBB. Terry stitched the Boo scissor pocket from The Drawn Thread for me. She even edged the whole thing in beads! It’s really beautiful. I got several compliments on it this weekend at the retreat.
I stitched a witchy pinkeep for Goldie. It’s from the new Pumpkin Patch chart from The Prairie Schooler. I used some black antique German matte glass head pins that I got from Merry Cox last year.
I also finished up the last two square for the Prairie Schooler exchange I was in on the PS board. There were only 4 of us in the exchange, so we decided to each stitch a square for the other 3 participants. We started in August and mailed out a square each month ending up earlier this month. Here are the 3 squares I sent and the 3 squares I received:
Sent:
 |
 |
 |
Received:
 |
 |
 |
That’s it for now. I’ll try to post some WIP pictures next time. Happy Stitching!
Weekly Weigh In/Swim Class
I had my weekly WW meeting today and I was down another 1.2 pounds. I was really shocked that it was that much considering I’d dropped nearly 4 pounds last week. Generally speaking, whenever I have a nice big loss, I usually done see much of a drop the following week. To say the least, I was VERY happy. This brings my total for my cruise goal to 5.9 pounds lost which means I’m 38% toward reaching my goal.
My swimming class also started tonight. As it turns out, I’m the only student in the class. So, I’m getting private instruction at group instruction prices. The coach was great! He was very encouraging and really great at explaining any adjusts he saw that I needed to correct in my form. I ended up swimming 8 laps (25m pool) during my 30 minute class. I’m forgotten just how much work swimming actually is! Oh well, it gives me another area to measure for progress.
Sunday Training Report
Ok, so I’ve decided to make this a weekly feature on my blog now. Each Sunday I will post an update on my training for the past week. I’m a total numbers geek, so I love seeing my progress.
Bike: 50m - 10 Mi
Walk/Run: 2h 59m 53s - 9 Mi
I’m definitely seeing progress in the walk/run category. Last week I was doing intervals of 30 seconds of running followed by 4.5 minutes of walking. This week my schedule bumped it up to doing 30 seconds of running followed by 2.5 minutes of walking. Twice during the week I actually did more intervals than the training schedule called for me to do. Each time I also added extra walking time at the end of the intervals. The schedule always calls for a 30 minute training time, but since I have the 5k race coming up at Thanksgiving, I also need to work on getting in extra mileage so that I’ll be ready for the race.
Today I did a total of 10 intervals (:30 run/2:30 walk) and then added the extra walking time. I got in a total of 2.7 miles in 50 minutes. I’m definitely feeling good about where I am in my training in order to be prepared for the 5k. I may be slow, but I’ll be ready. 
The time has finally come for my swim class to start, too. I’ll be heading over to the Y after work tomorrow night for the first session. Hopefully I’ll still be excited about it as I’m leaving to come home after class.
6 Months
Wow, what a difference 6 months can make it one’s life. It’s hard to believe that 26 weeks ago today I underwent 2 surgeries on the same day — a multi-level spinal fusion and an ulner nerve decompression in my right arm. Those first couple of weeks after my surgery were so rough, I’d kind of wondered if I would ever be myself again.
Now, here I am, 6 months later. I’ve been back at work full-time for just over 2 months (I was part time for a month before that, too.). I’m back on track with my weight loss journey. I’m back exercising again — not only just exercising, but running! If someone had asked me 6 months ago if I would be running now, I would’ve laughed at them, but not for long because it would’ve hurt.
That was then, this is now. Who knew 6 months could make such a change?!
On the training front, I hit the gym again tonight after work. I put in 4 miles on the stationary bike followed immediately by 1.7 miles on the treadmill using the hill program. This brings my total run/walking mileage for my October challenge up to 10.7 miles, so I’m over half way done to meeting my goal of 20 miles this month.
