A Little Stitching Progress, and a revived UFO.

I am SO FAR BEHIND on reading blog posts and commenting, but I will be using this week to catch up!  My feedly list is bursting at the seams :D  I've discovered Flosstube videos - I never knew that was a thing! - and I've been fascinated!  Don't know if I'm fascinated enough to ever do my own but they are so much fun to watch.  Very Enabling, though, so watch your budget if you start watching, too.  All you have to do is go to youtube and type in flosstube.  There are hundreds!

Anyway, I've been stitching some.  Here's my update on Unspoken - last time:

April that I forgot to post here, but wasn't much:

And now this time:

I think I have finished most of the confetti; only a little to go and then this page will speed up :D  Just a lot of white and off white in big areas.

I was working on my craft room, trying to get it organized (it's an ongoing battle) and I picked up one of my UFOs and just - randomly started it up again.  It's 'Smell the Coffee' by Janlynn:

I know this kit is OOP - I bought it eons ago at a discount store.  I had only stitched this:

I have worked on it two evenings while watching those Flosstube videos and now it looks like this:

I don't know how long it will keep my attention but right now I can't seem to put it down.  Weird.

Crafting ADD

I has it.

A new cross stitch project (my own pattern!), my second finished coloring poster, 'Cherry Basket', my first book-folding project, and my solid-color Rings of Change is now almost as big as the finished Mini-Rings.

I haven't touched the striped Rings of Change again (yet), but I have worked on Unspoken and Lovers.  I'll show them soon!

I managed to get another bird at my feeder; I wasn't at the right angle to get a good shot but here's a handsome Blue Jay investigating the pickings!

These birds are so loud!  And they'll eat the fruit crop right off your trees, but they are very nicely dressed, I always think!  Oh, and this morning when I left for work, I finally saw a tiny brown hummingbird at my liquid feeder!  I KNEW someone was drinking that!  I wish I had my camera in my hand but alas, I did not!

Worth the Wait

Haven't posted in a few days - it's been busy and stressful but I'll not go in to that right now!  I have been stitching; I'll try to post about that tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago I started reading this blog, by Beth, and it made me really want to put up a bird feeder or two.  I went to the store and priced them, and anything well-made was out of my 'petty cash' budget for now.  So I got a little hummingbird feeder to start, and thought I'd wait to get a big one later.  But then my Mum told me that there were two really nice ones in her side yard, left behind from the last owners - the side yard is fenced in and has a building in front of it, there is only a very narrow opening to get there.  It's also full of a huge magnolia tree, so I have been back there maybe once?

Anyway, I got one of the feeders as I only had a place to hang one big one (so far) and filled it with seeds and suet blocks and put it out.

And waited.


And waited.


And waited.


And finally, early this morning, after a week of nothing, I got a visitor.

A very handsome fellow, and if you look close enough, he has a sunflower seed hanging out of his beak!

So very much worth waiting for! :D  Now if I can just get some hummingbirds at the little feeder - something's drinking from it, but I haven't caught anyone in the act just yet.



Extra info for this pic:

1. The bird feeder had been sitting back there so long it had moss growing on the roof.  It was pretty, so I left it.

2.  I love the way early morning light looks in pictures, but I hate getting up early enough to actual take advantage of it.  If I hadn't had to go to work, I wouldn't have gotten this.  He was there when I came home at 11 for lunch, but the light wasn't nearly as pretty.

3.  The tree has a strap around it because we transplanted it last fall.  It is a grafted apple tree and it was in the way of my father's building project.  It has four different varieties on it and we hated to cut it down, so we risked moving it.  I have pictures, I'll show you someday.  When it was moved, we discovered that it was actually two trees, with their roots entwined and growing so closely that it looked like one big trunk.  So they are strapped together to keep the little one from falling down, and will have to stay like that for a year.

4.  I really need to mow my yard XD

Stashy Saturday

It feels sooooooooooo weird not to post a letter!

Here's a bit of stash that I've fallen in love with recently - I always wanted to get a needle minder just to try them out but I kept putting it off - they were pretty, but I didn't think they'd make that much of a difference.

Then I saw this one on sale and thought 'why not'?  Because that was one of the books I liked that they made us read in school.

Well, I found out that I love a needle minder!  So handy!!!  And since I adore books and reading, I decided that I needed a couple more, so I wouldn't have to transfer this one from project to project.

I used the craft portion of my last payday for these:

So cute!  My camera focused on the printed background instead of the books; they are not that fuzzy! I'm hoping the seller (PinoyStitch, on etsy) will do an Agatha Christie title.  She does have a poll where you can vote for the next book you'd like to see, and she added Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express for me.  So I will be keeping my fingers crossed!  She's got a lot of other titles I want, too, but I found a seller on Facebook that will do round button-style ones to order, so I'm saving back now to get one with Spike on it XD XD XD

I also bought this needle holder from her:

I may get another of those, too, as I've lost this one three times and counting...  I had to borrow the picture from her shop.

Z is for Zoe!

Z is for Zoe Washburne.

Another character from 'Firefly', Zoe is second-in-command on the Serenity.  She is one tough lady!  She fought in the war with Mal and still acts like he is her commanding officer.  She is married to the pilot, Wash, even though when she first met him she did not like him and said something about him 'bothered' her.  Fandom thinks it was the weird mustache he had at the time!  Here's a LINK to read all about Zoe.

Zoe is played by Gina Torres:

The gun is perfect for Zoe; she always has a gun of some sort.  It's usually a rifle, but occasionally:

And so!  Z is last and Zoe finishes it all up!  I took a picture as soon as the marker lines were erased :D  I didn't iron it yet, obviously, but here's the completed project :D :D :D

This was fun, but next year, if there is an A-Z challenge and if I join, I'm doing something different!  

Well, probably.  That Geek Alphabet by the same designer does look like a lot of fun...

Oh, and Spike?  Totally and forever my favorite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Y is for Yolanda

Y is for Yolanda!

Y must have been a harder letter - I didn't recognize who it was at first.  Yolanda is a Firefly character; she was in a total of two episodes, and they weren't back to back.  Yolanda is also not her real name (probably).  Her name used in the websites is Saffron, but it's probable that isn't her real name, either.  I'm not going to say a lot about her as it would spoil the episodes, just that she is a con artist who usually pretends to be sweet and innocent and then seduces people so she can rob them.  She also used the name Bridget on the show, and I laughed when Mal referred to her as 'Yo-Saff-Bridge'. :D

Yolanda is played by Christinia Hendricks.

The lipstick kiss is her symbol not only because she seduced people, but also knocked Mal out by kissing him when her lipstick had a powerful drug in it.  (I've seen that used in several shows, and the writers never explain why the drugged lipstick doesn't knock the girl out, too.)

Got to work it in... hmm... probably, Yolanda and Spike would have gotten along.  I can't see her pulling the wool over his eyes, though.  Spike figured the other characters out pretty quick, usually.  Spike is very smart and even Angel admitted it.  He just gets bored and forgets his plans.  I think Spike has vampire ADHD.  Spike is my favorite!

Only one letter left to go!

X is for Xander

X is for Alexander Lavelle Harris - always known as Xander!

Xander I like - maybe I have a weakness for sarcastic guys? LOL!  Here's his LINK, and it's long, too.  Xander is the one normal character, supposedly, on the show, though for a normal guy with no powers, he sure did attract the monsters!  Fandom (especially fanfic writers) loves that :D  

I like Xander bunches; he's in my top five characters.  Every TV show in the world, as the seasons get longer, seem to give their characters more and more angst and less and less happiness, so, like Willow, I like him better in the earlier seasons.  But I don't dislike later-season Xander as much as I do Willow.  He was still a pretty good guy, they just cranked his insecurities up to 11 and he made some bad choices.  But he, at least, tried to make up for them.

Xander is played by Nicholas Brendon, who has some very yummy shoulders.

And he's cute, too - that helps.  Even with the dorky clothes they stuck him on the show, up to and including the work uniforms.  Half the females on the show had a hidden crush on him at one time, but wouldn't admit it because they thought he was a 'dork' or a 'loser'.  Cordelia was one of them.  So was Willow.  So was Buffy. So was Dawn.  Drusilla liked him.  She called him 'Kitten'.  Spike, sarcastically, called him a 'Nummy Treat'.

Dorky shirt.  Nummy shoulders.

The eyepatch for Xander is 'cause he lost his left eye in the final season.  It was gouged out by a bad guy called Caleb, who wanted to take care of the fact that Xander, being normal, was the one who could 'see' what was going on all the time, not just with that particular bad guy.  Spike tackled Caleb, saving Xander from being hurt even worse.  Spike is my favorite!

Xander and Spike don't get along... uh, kinda?  Or so they insist.  And yet they hang out like buddies in more than one episode.  But only 'cause they have to.  Yeah, yeah, sure.

((They are secret buddies.  I'm sure of it.))

(((Especially if you ignore some of the later seasons.)))