What's Up Wednesday! 2/25/15

THEATRE
As part of our Valentine's Day celebration, the BF and I went to a play called "Suite Surrender". Set in 1942, the luxurious Palm Beach Royale Hotel is under siege as two of Hollywood's biggest divas vie for the same suite. Mistaken identities, overblown egos, double entendres, and one pampered little lap dog round out this comedy. Turns out the "hatred" between the two divas is all a farce for attention and publicity.

STITCHY STUFF
It's time to report on the Smalls SAL hosted by Stitching Lotus. I was also QSW (Quick Stitch Weekend) for one of the FB groups, so I killed two birds with one stone. I had not one, but TWO finishes! ::happy dance::

January Monthly SAL

Designer: Palkó . 

Fabric:  28ct Linen 

Fibers:  Glissen Gloss handpainted Japanese silk #509 

and HDF silk in Orb

February Monthly SAL

Designer: Palkó .

Fabric: 28ct Linen

Fibers: Anchor Marlitt 815 and 

DMC Color Variations 4180

I'm still inching my way through Midnight Watch.  I'm hoping to have another happy dance by the end of March.  (Where did February go?)  MW has been a fun stitch, but I'm ready to start something new and work on JG.  Maybe I should work on JG before starting something new.  Yes?

I've had to reconfigure the last row of the alphabet that contains the year and stitcher's initials.  The chart has 2009 and I want 2015.  Hopefully, by the next update I'll have that part stitched.

Until Next Time,
Meari

Marvelous Monday Update 2/16/15

VALENTINE'S DAY
Hello friends and fellow stitchers. Happy Belated Valetine's Day! I hope yours was a good one. The BF surprised me with a dozen red roses. It was the first time he's ever gotten me roses... it was so special :)

For him, I made this card and bought tickets to a play for next weekend. Although he likes plays, he said he liked the card much more. And can you believe he said his roses "pale in comparison" to my card?!

Design: Little Heart Swirl

Designer: Northern Expressions Needlework

Fabric: 28ct Waterlily Linen

Fibers: DMC 107 (discontinued)

Embellishments: Repurposed paper lace, Cardstock,

Handmade cording with JP Coates 143

STITCHY STUFF

My goal for last week was to finish the floral vine to the left of the house.  As you can see, I exceeded my goal and am over halfway done with the alphabet.  It won't be long before I'm announcing my third finish for 2015.  Yay!

WORK

Some of you may recall that I participate in my employer's healthy lifestyle program.  Participants have to earn 5,000 points in order to earn a discount on the cost of our health insurance.  Last year, I earned 10,000 points through healthy lifestyle choices.  Ten percent of the points from a previous year carryforward to the current year, which means participants don't have to work as hard to earn points (if they don't want to).  Since I had earned 10K points (the highest level "Platinum"), my name was put into a jackpot drawing with all other platinum earners in the entire program (not just the ones at my employment).  Guess what?  I won a jackpot prize!!  I'll soon be the new owner of an iPad mini.  Woo Hoo!

That's all I have for this week!

Until next time,

Marvelous Monday Update 2/2/15

WEATHER

It matters not if Phil sees his shadow...

It's still 6 more weeks until Winter is over.

Just look outside!

Here in the midwest, we've just been dumped on by Mother Nature.  On Sunday, I woke to our first major snowfall of the season.  Three and half hours of shoveling led to shaking and shivering like you would not believe. I've never experienced such a thing before!  It was so bad that I couldn't operate a pair of scissors efficiently and pouring hot cocoa powder into a mug proved to be a spectacular feat.  After imbibing on two mugs of cocoa, a 2 hour nap ensued.  Later in the afternoon, I went out again... only 2 hours that time.  And again at 4am this morning... 50 minutes.

View From My Front Door

Snow Pile in Backyard - All from one snowfall!

Street Side

To the right of the snowpile is my sidewalk.  I had it cleaned yesterday morning. Thanks to the snow plows, it's now covered in the hard-packed nasty street snow.  As you can guess... I'll be shoveling that mess later today.

The Homestead

On the lower end, the pile along the driveway is about 3ft high.  The pile on the upper end is about 4-5ft high.

Somewhere in there are two bushes that are 5 ft tall!

BIRTHDAY... EXTENDED

The remaining cards arrived from the Birthday Card/Floss exchange I mentioned in my previous post.  (The floss in the background are the same ones from last week.)

Thank you, ladies!  I enjoyed opening all the cards.

My SM Sue, sent me a wonderful birthday surprise.  Two handmade infinity scarves and a cute little owl locket.  Those scarves are so soft!  Thank you, SM!!

STITCHY STUFF
I had hoped to share my Little Heart Swirl finish (Yes, I did finish it without throwing it out the window!), but I decided to wait until it is finish-finished.  So, maybe next time.  In the meantime, please enjoy my other WIPs.

Other progress can be seen HERE.

I am pretty excited that I've gotten so much of the border done.  As I looked at the flower vine on the left side, I realized I used the wrong colors and ended up frogging/restitching it.  Why didn't anyone tell me???

Other progress photos can be seen HERE.

It's been quite a while since I've worked on this.  It's my "work" project that I stitch during my lunch hour.  The great thing about progress photos is that I can see how much I've really done since the last time I picked the project up.  It's encouraging to see the progress!

HOOSIER SPRING RETREAT
Anyone going to the retreat?  I've been meaning to go for several years but the timing never seemed to work out, or I'd find out too late, or I'd already committed to another retreat.  This year it just worked out!  I've arranged for time off work and paid for my lodging.  Who's going?

Until Next Time,
Meari