Marvelous Monday Update 2/25/13

WEATHER
Aye-Aye-Aye!!  All across the midwest has been hammered with snow in the past couple of weeks.  So far in February, we here in northwest Illinois have gotten 15" which is 9" above average for the month.  Yet we're still 8" below average for meteorological winter.  Last week, I headed to work and got about 12 miles from home before deciding turn around and go back home.  It took me an hour round trip!  Heavy winds caused white out conditions.  The rain from the afternoon before had created an inch (or more) of ice on the highway and then it snowed on top of it.  Two days later, I woke up to 4.5" of snow on my driveway.  Starting at 4am, I cleared snow... and more snow... and more snow.  Two and a half hours later, I went to work.  By the time I got home from work, there was another inch or so that had to be cleared off.  Now forecasters are saying another snow storm is headed our way.  Snow shoveling counts as strength training, right?

STITCHY NEWS
Even though I've been working on Welcome to My Home, it doesn't seem (to me) to be much progress so I'm holding off on a photo for another week or so.  Since I had a "snow day" on Tuesday, I took advantage of my day off by stitching on Japanese Garden.  I've made quite a bit of progess.  Thirty more minutes of backstitching and I'll have the entire top section of JG finished except for the beadwork.  Here's what it looked like when I left off last November:

And here's what it looks like now:

I started a Hardanger SAL over the weekend.  I'm blaming it on Pam, lol.  I've only done a little bit of Hardanger so I thought this might be a good way to become more familiar with it.  The frogs hit full force. I had originally stitched the center parts in a dark and medium purple, but after seeing it I didn't like how it looked.  Throughout stitching the project, I kept having to rip out and redo stitches.  It was not fun :(  I only have a lazy daisy flower left to do in the upper right corner.

Not sure why the photo looks pinkish.  The thread is actually DMC 211, which is lavender.  The fabric is white.  Not bad for my foray into hardanger.

That's all this week.

Until next time,

Marvelous Monday Update 2/18/13

Happy Monday!!  It's been a couple weeks since my last update.  How've you been?

WORK
It's been 60 days since I started my new job.  It's gone by so fast and it feels so comfortable... that I've been there many years.  We had another birthday potluck/treat day last week to celebrate the February birthdays.  I tried out a new recipe.  Fudge Brownie Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting.  Work starts at 8am.  By 8:15, there were only 3 left.  By 10am, they were all gone!  Since I had lots of frosting left over, I made more cupcakes over the weekend.

A tidbit of infomation: Walmart sells Wilton decorating supplies. JoAnn Fabric sells Wilton decorating supplies. Walmart sells the large decorating tips, but not the couplers to go with them. JoAnn Fabrics sells the large coupler, but not the tips. Go figure! I imagine the JoAnn Fabrics Superstores probably have the tips, but the smaller stores do not.



MORE COOKING
Last week, Valerie at FogCity Dweller mentioned on her blog that she made Curried Shrimp Chowder. Like Valerie, I felt that some changes were needed. I added a little over 2 times more curry, extra basil, canned roasted tomatoes, extra garlic, red pepper flakes, and cornstarch as a thickener. I also used a 12oz package of shrimp.  I also left out the celery because I didn't feel like buying an entire bunch of celery and use one stalk for the soup.  I added celery seed as a substitute.  If I were to make this again, I think I'd leave out the coconut milk and use cream of chicken soup instead and would add more bacon - maybe just another strip. All that aside, it tasted pretty good and made a huge batch.

RANT
Remember at the end of December, I was privvy to that huge snowstorm? I had someone with a plow truck come and clean my driveway. He pushed the snow onto part of the sidewalk. Then, I was sick for 3 weeks and didn't get the snow cleaned off. I came home from work one day with a notice taped to my front door saying that I could pay the $20 fine or appear in court for violation of the snow ordinance. I paid the fine. The court date was 2/14.

When I went to the post office last Saturday, there was a notice for a fine of $75 for a "failure to appear" in city court! Argh!!! So, now I'm going to have call and chew some butt and get that thing revoked. Can you say one hand not talking to the other? (i.e. City Finance Dept vs. City Attorney... who's a putz to begin with)

STITCHY STUFF
Once again, I've been procrastinating over working on Japanese Garden.  I don't know why I do this because once I get started, I enjoy working on it.  Last week, I started a new project called Stars Over Pines.  I finished it last night -- my third finish of this year.  Since I stitched it over-one, it ended up being about 2 1/2 x 3" in size.

 

Stars Over Pines

Designer: Blue Ribbon Designs

Fabric: 28ct Silkweaver Opalescent Lugana - Ivory Shimmer

Fibers: GAST, WDW, DMC

Stitched One-Over-One

Until next time,

Marvelous Monday Update 2/4/13

WEATHER
I think Mother Nature and Father Winter have been at each other lately! It's the only explanation of why we've had a 67F temperature swing in two days. Last Monday and Tuesday, it rained like cats and dogs. The temp was 60F on Tuesday. When I got up on Wed, it was -7F! We've gotten at least 10" of accumulated snow over the past week. That includes the 4" of snow I had to shovel off my driveway at 4am this morning!

STITCHY STUFF
It's been two weeks since I showed progress on my work project, Welcome Banner. This is one of those kits that uses full stitches and then uses backstitching over part of the full stitches to outline. I really don't care for the look of those kinds of charts so I've been creating fractional stitches... a lot of them. I think it makes all the difference.

Other WIP photos can be seen HERE.
I pulled out Eight Immortals and spent a week working on it. I've made quite a bit of progress. Here's what it looked like last November when I last worked on it:

and here's what it looks like now:

Isn't she beautiful?

Until next time,