Can I Dazzle You With Needlework Pics?

It's been so very long since I've even thought about this blog, much less considered posting. I feel I've busy accomplishing very little. So much has happened this past year. For starters, my mother had a heart attack on January 9, 2007, the day before the 8 year anniversary of my grandmother's death. Pretty scary. They took her down to surgery daily to wait for a quadruple bypass, only to have it canceled and rescheduled the next day. It was four days of going down in the morning and waiting then at 5pm cancel, reschedule. Finally, at 7pm that Friday night they did the surgery.

She had many complications after she came home. Incisions becoming infected, then opening, very slow healing. My daughter left for the army the day Mom had her heart attack. A few weeks into basic training and she injured her feet and had to wait months for discharge. Apparently, the boots she was fitted with caused tarsal tunnel. She had surgery on the worst foot this past March and will have the second one in August.

Much stress didn't help me with my sciatic nerve pain. Much has happened with that, and I might write about it at another time. That's just a brief synopses of while I was missing.

On to the needlework pictures I promised. I did finish Venetian Mask in the beginning of December, 2007. For a Christmas present to myself, I framed it and Duane hung it on the wall just above the TV. Every time I look up from my chair, I can see it. (click on picture for a bigger size)




My youngest son was supposed graduate high school this year. Then beginning of last month, he said it wouldn't be until next year. I wanted to do something special for him. So, I started HAED's Wolf Mistress. It's 186,200 stitches!!! I calculated how many stitches I would have to stitch, daily, weekly and monthly to have it finished in a year. Now, I find out he's graduating next month. Sigh, no way I'll have it finished that quick.

Here's where I was as of 5/5/08 and as of 5/15/08.


My weekend project since the beginning of April this year has been Silver Lining's Broadway Rose. Here is where I am before I get started with this weekends progress.



Sadly, there hasn't been much knitting recently. I did quite a bit of lace knitting over last summer, but haven't taken pictures yet. Something to look forward to.

As I said, the stress of the past year has my sciatica really bad. Unfortunately, in the throes of pain and frustration I threw my spinning wheel in a corner. Bad mistake, I lost so much strength and muscle tissue in my legs. I really should have spun even for a few minutes every couple days. Sunday, I dragged it out and oiled it up. My hands knew what to do right away, even my legs knew what to do, however they didn't last long. After ten minutes, I felt like I had been on very long hike up hill. I am persisting and make sure to spin every day, even for a few minutes.

Finally, we have a new addition to the family. Last August, we stopped in the pet store, and I fell in love with this cute little bunny. He was rocking and rolling, running from side to side of his cage and kicking his heels up. It was anniversary of Elvis death, so we named him Elvis. Lexie has been pining for a companion for quite a long while, so we thought, why not? Wily bugger was really Dammit just doing an Elvis impersonation. Here is little Dammit and Lexie.



The pet store said he was a Havana, but after some research I found out he's really an English Spot. Which goes a long way to explain some things. First of all, he's a loyal Led Zeppelin fan. There aren't words expressive enough to express his devotion for Zeppelin. Only Lexie and green leaf lettuce rate a tad higher. Now, I bet you're wondering how we figured this out.

The first week, we kept him in his cage to get accustomed to the place and other residents. Lexie was beside herself, when she first noticed what was in the cage. She sat beside it constantly peering in. Then came the day we let him out for a short time. At first, he didn't seem to like her very much. But, once the choice became clear, it was either her or five cats, his devotion to Lexie was set.

He became Dammit when his fetish or appetite for carpet couldn't be discouraged. It only took a couple days of squirting Lexie with the water bottle to discourage her from plucking at the carpet. Dammit became Dammit when he went through several gallons of squirtings. The carpet here was trash when we moved in five years ago. They would need to replace it at any rate. However, when we do move, yeah, I guess I will have laminate any carpets with plastic. This is how we found out he is a fan of Zeppelin.

On Saturdays at noon, the local radio station plays an hour of Zeppelin, which I had started to listen to. The second week, I noticed the bunnies would come out and sit near the speaker. Only during the commercials did Dammit chomp. After the show, I went through Duane massive cd collection and found his Zeppelin cds. Most peaceful afternoon I had with Dammit. Little bugger sat happily by the speaker with no interruptions other waiting for me to change cds. I have other Dammit loves Zeppelin stories but will save them for other postings.

Here's Dammit and Lexie today.


Notice, I have some plastic down and he only made new spots. Zeppelin 24 x 7 and the neighbors would cut my electric line.

BTW, we have other Zeppelin fans in the house. I'll leave you with pictures of Bootsie and Tennessee watching the TSRTS dvd of Jimmy Page's solo.