Sunday, October 11, 2020

October Update

 Hello from the other side of summer. 

It's been a topsy turvy year and I'm not just talking about Corona-Panic. If something could go sideways this year it did. I've found myself with very little time for blogging, so I've begun posting on Instagram. You can find me here: @kaelyn_angelfoot  for more frequent updates.

My cousin has been staying with us since May and now that we have her schooling settled, I've started preschooling the Dictator, who is now three and pestier than ever. We're using Easy Peasy as the base and adding a variety of activities from other, more hands on homeschooling blogs.  

A couple of other blogs worth noting are

My Bored Toddler - Which has a large variety of activities, especially sensory bins which are a huge hit in my house. 

Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls - For a lot of excellent activities with items you usually have on hand (or I have found most things I need at the dollar store).

 All that is burning a lot of my time but I've still managed to get in a few stitches here and there. 

 

Sampler 26 by 2x2 Stitch Art

Isaiah 40:31 by Designs for the Needle (new start in September)

Woodland Enchantress by Dimensions

Ocelot Kittens from Endangered Young'uns by Gloria and Pat

I've also started a new crochet afghan for the cousin, because she "borrowed" my heavy winter afghan and I'm going to be wanting it back in a few. It'll be her Christmas present "IF" I get it completed in time.



The pattern is Wool-Eater by Sarah London. I did make a couple of adjustments. After following the pattern exactly, including hook recommendations, I changed it up. I use a 5.5mm hook instead of the recommended 4.0. I also picked up a hook with a longer shaft before the handle, because sometime there are 11 loops on the hook and my ergonomics with the short shaft made things difficult. And finally, I shortened the chain 5 to a chain 4, and I'm much happier with the result.

Monday, August 3, 2020

Phoenix Finish

A few weeks ago I finished the Phoenix through round 93 or 92? Something like that. I added several hdc rounds to give it a solid border, which I think is what caused the rippling.


After a quick wash and dry, it was rapidly repossessed by the Dictator. He calls it "rainbow blankey."


Since then, I've done a lot on a few of my cross stitch projects. I carry Ocelot Kittens to a meeting I have twice a week.


And the two samplers I have started from 2x2StitchArt both have two full page finishes.



This week, however, I've been delving into the world of applique and planning out an epic quilt that I bought fabric for at least 5 years ago.



It took three nights, three books, about a dozen hours, and several different applique methods, but I think I finally settled on one I like. Last night was spent planning and sketching and tonight I started the embroidery machine working. It ate the second pattern I started embroidering, so I only have one of twelve done so far. This project is going to be a combination of applique, reverse applique, embroidery, and patchwork and I'm just hoping it will look put-together once I'm done.

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Day WHATEVER DAY IS IT REALLY? - Coronatine

Michigan is slowly starting to come out of shut down but the rest of the world has literally GONE CRAZY. Which I will not be commenting on here other than REALLY?????

We actually were able to eat at a restaurant today. The Bug was really super excited because he loves eating at Big Boy's and we had been telling him it was closed for the last three months.

Lots and lots of stitching in the last month and a half.

"Footprints" made it a little further than this and then I discovered that all the lettering was shifted by one space, so it'll all have to be frogged and restitched. I was rather disgusted with myself and put it away in a fit of exasperation.


"World Travel Bookshelf" was resurrected with the acquisition of a few colors of floss I was missing.



 And you remember that pale tropical colored Sampler project? Well it was way too pale for the fabric so I frogged it completely and restarted it.  



  I also started "Fantastic World" to give tent stitching a try on a HAED. I don't think I'll do any other's like this though. Although I love how fast it's stitching up, I feel like it's slightly unfinished.


"Guardian Angel" received some love.


Sampler 26 is almost 1/6 done.


Last but not least, mini Ocelot Kittens!


A little creepy for sure without eyes yet but we'll get to those soon.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Day 31 - Coronatine

As expected, I finished my coffee/toddler project well before Coronatine ended.


I wish I could get an accurate picture of the color of the fabric. Its definitely more of a reddish/orange/salmon color but it always comes across as bright pink in the photos.

The autumn sampler I started is turning out well. I'm always a little iffy when it comes to choosing my own colors but in this case it seems to be working well.


I also started the other sampler project that I picked up at the same time.


I haven't decided whether to continue or frog, so I'm letting it sit for a while. I think maybe some of the colors in the variegated may be too light for the white fabric. However, that floss will work fantastically on the blue fabric I have for my Ink Circles project. Now I just need to frog Circque du Couers and restart it.

Well that makes four finishes in four months (and at least that many new starts) but I'm thinking I may get back to my Phoenix blanket now and see if  I can make some progress on it. It's only a few rounds from being finished, I just need to remember where I left off.

As far as Coronatine goes, my state has about reached it's limit. We have lots of protests going on, millions of people unable to work or feed their families, and thousands of small businesses going under. Meanwhile, our state government has failed to enact steps over the last six weeks that will accommodate increased capacity for the inevitable second wave. I'm extremely peeved and feeling pretty helpless and angry right now.

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Day 22 - Coronatine

I had a finish today!


I'm not going to add the lettering at the bottom, although I will leave a note when I frame it what the title of the pattern is.

A lovely lady RAK'd me a pattern that I was admiring her work on and since I had the fabric on hand, of course I had to start it.


This is the first of 36 different motifs in this sampler. I choose a set of autumnal themed colors for it.


I'm going to figure out how to randomize color placement so that it does not have a rainbow look when done.

I'm also making great headway on my coronatine project.


Finally, my afghan has green completed and I've moved on to building the next blue row.


That is all for now. Moving along.

Saturday, April 4, 2020

Day 12 - Coronatine

Well, we're trucking along and by trucking along I mean going nowhere at no speed at all. It's starting to affect the Smidget's mental health. Some days he wants to go outside and play all day and some days he's' in a weird funk and doesn't want to do anything so we watch Paw Patrol and How to Train Your Dragon all day.

I'm usually not one for a lot of food pics but since I've figured out how to make a decent Thai peanut sauce (extra peanut butter!) I've been eating a home-cooked version of Noodles and Company's Indonesian Peanut Saute on like a daily basis. Because it's tasty and I have everything on hand.


Also peanut butter might be addictive. Here's the Recipe: CopyCatPeanutSaute.
I made it exactly as directed and then fiddled with the ingredients and amounts until I found a version I liked. The first thing to go was cooking the chicken in a bunch of stuff. It's really not needed because you drown everything in the peanut sauce. Second, rice noodles instead of linguine. So I cook the chicken while the rice noodles are cooking, fry up the veggies and make the sauce and then combine it all and top with green onions. Last thing is to adjust the quantities for a single serving (I'm the only one in the house that appreciates a sinus-clearing spicy-sweet peanut sauce) and fiddle with ingredient amounts until it was the right level of spicy and peanutty. A jar of minced garlic and a tube of ginger paste from the produce section makes this recipe much faster.  Forget fresh squeezed lime and just roll with a bottle of lime juice. We're all about making things easy around here.

I tacked another row onto my Reflections afghan and started the blue squares for the next row. These are 4 inches across so three repeats should do it for the width and then a fourth repeat for the height. 28 blocks down, 164 to go.


My Coronatine project is about a third done, although I have not been working on it every day. Still, with Hurricane Gretchen threatening another five weeks of lockdown, I'm quite confident I'll be able to finish it before things open up again. 


Stay healthy, stay sane.


Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Day 7 - Coronatine

Day 7 was rough. It was cold outside, the Smidget and I both had headaches. We discovered PBSkids games online and spent a lot of time flying dinosaurs into storm clouds.

I'm really trying hard not to be harsh on myself as I have temporarily revoked all rules about limited screen time and healthy eating habits. Pop-tarts and cartoons, here we are to stay. I thank God daily for streaming video and Dora the Explorer. I can't really explain to a two year old why he can't go with me to the grocery store or play at the play-place. We're going to walks when we can but I'm unmotivated to spend 20 minutes bundling us up just for a walk around the block and we've had more cold days than warm ones.

I spent some time weaving in the end on one of my mandala blankets. I think we're at 33 rows out of about 50 and I don't think it's going to be as big as I'd hoped even though I'm using the recommended hook and yarn sizes. I may have to do some math to repeat a set of rows.  And while I was weaving in the ends, I misplaced the hook and haven't been able to recover it yet so I moved on.


To this motif blanket, which I added two rows to last night and started weaving in all the ends while watching NCIS LA.


I now have just about all the motifs that were completed added, so I'll start working on the next row of greens. These little guys are just 4 inches across. I think I calculated that I needed somewhere around 200 to make a full afghan.

Hoping for a better day today (Day 8), but we started the day by snarking at eachother so I guess we'll see.

Friday, March 27, 2020

Day 4 - Coronatine

Lets see today is um... Friday, right?
It's hard to keep track without all the usual activities. Every day is exactly the same.

So mental health-wise, we're all doing better. I was able to get the Smidget outside for a few hours on Wednesday and a few hours on Tuesday. Going to try again today because tomorrow it looks like rain all day.

My new loot arrived yesterday. I'm waiting for someone to accuse me of Russian Collusion because I ordered these Russian cross stitch kits. 


They are two out of four seasonal snow globes and I plan to pick up the other two sometime soon.

My Coronatine project is coming along. I plan to finish it by the time we are released back out into the wild.


And I even managed a little crochet yesterday while The Smidget was throwing sand and mud around the backyard.


We've been abiding by the Governer's Stay-at-Home order, making do with what groceries we have in the house (we're fine, don't worry) and generally not sticking to any of our healthy eating and low screen time standards. The Smidget now alternates between wanting to be Dora and wanting to be Diego. Thank goodness for streaming video.

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Day 1 - Coronatine

Well here we are like five months after my last post. We've had ups, we've had downs. I acquired a work from home job and then got laid off due to lack of work about 6 weeks later. I've started several projects since my last post, and more importantly, I have finished two projects this year already. The first being The Castle, my oldest project.


And the second was Small Cuppa, one of my newer projects. No, it didn't all line up when I closed the frame of the cup, yes I fudged it anyway.


As a family, we were sick this winter, almost constantly, from Halloween until just a couple of weeks ago and now that the Plague is making the rounds I expect we'll be sick again before too long. It seemed never ending this year, one cold after another, but most significant was the weeks-long fatigue that seemed like it would never end. I was so tired I was barely functioning and I'm afraid this blog took the hit.

Mostly I'm back because I've been feeling a need to document what is going on these days and I wanted something a little less transient than social media.

The hubs was ordered to work from home about a week and a half ago. We've been slowly watching our civil liberties be eroded by the panic and fear. And yesterday, our Governor dropped a state-wide  "it's not a lock down but it's really a lock down" order, requiring all non-essential workers to stay home for three weeks, certain reasonable exceptions in place, for now anyway. This has resulted in multiple rounds of panic buying at the grocery stores, even though the food supply chain is fully intact. I nearly had a meltdown yesterday when I couldn't find Cheerios in the store. (Long story short, the Smidget has a pretty limited diet due to food allergies and Cheerios are a staple, most substitutes he cannot eat.) I was able to acquire some at a different store thank goodness or we would have been in so. much. trouble.

I am already at the end of my rope. I have a toddler who is both hyperactive and extremely social, so even if I give him a movie to watch, he wants to sit on my lap. It's cute and adorable but I'm all social'd out after the last week and a half of trying to meet the Smidget's social and play needs and the hubs, who is also an extreme extrovert, and literally never getting a break. I haven't been sleeping well for about a week, my vitamins are out of stock everywhere so I haven't been able to take the supplements that keep my mood stable. I can't even take the Smidget to the grocery store at this point, let alone anywhere where he could have fun and play and burn off some energy. It's been too cold to play outside for long, although that might start changing soon. Consequently, he's both cranky and hyperactive and not at all inclined to listen to anybody. We spent most of today yelling at each other and if I have to listen to one more episode of Dora the Explorer, the consequences will be severe.

I am grateful that we have not yet been impacted significantly financially at this point but we were only promised two weeks work from home and I literally don't know what will happen at the end of this week, whether they will continue to pay salary or whether they'll temporarily lay everyone off. 

In a last-ditch effort to maintain my sanity, I started a new project yesterday. I'm going to attempt to work on it every day of the "not-lock-down" and as it is smaller than most of my projects, I expect it won't take to long to finish. The project's text is a blessing that I wish upon every parent stuck in the house with one or more small children right now.



The pattern was acquired on Etsy and due to the salmon floss matching the fabric I chose, I swapped it out for a yellow.

I expect I'll be updating every couple of days, if only to get my thoughts out of my head. I hope you all are hanging in there okay these days.