A Little More Progress

Well, I didn't make my deadline for Chris' birthday present. His birthday was Wednesday and his present is still only a little further along. I hope to make more progress and post a picture later this weekend. However, I have been stitching a lot on Cirque des Carreaux. I'm really liking the colors now that I've done a little more. The greens just seem to pop on that fabric. Oh, and I have had to rip out more. I've really got to start being more careful when I'm counting. I plan on taking this along when I go to Nashville on Thursday. I'm really getting excited about this trip. Our business has been doing very well. It seems in times of economic harship, people tend to stay at home and cocoon. They have to do something to keep busy so people seem to be stitching and knitting more. It should be interesting to see how the show goes this year. My manager said attendance was way down at the show in San Diego. It will also be interesting to see what changes TNNA makes. I did notice there were more needlepoint designers listed as exhibitors in Nashville. I'm hoping that this show stays mainly cross stitch. Will let everyone when I get back.

I plan on doing lots of stitching tomorrow during the Super Bowl. Have to love those commercials. Also there's a little team called the Cardinals playing and everyone seems to think they haven't got a prayer. Hmmm...we'll see how that goes.

GO CARDINALS!

YEAH!!!!!

Ok, now I've never been much of a football fan so all I've got to say is:




G-O-O-O-O CARDINALS!

We're going to the Super Bowl!!!!!!

AGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Ok, I'm now convinced that if a cross stitch piece can be cursed, then this one is. For sure! After promising that it would hit the trash can if I had to rip it out again, sure enough I discovered that I was one stitch off in the outline of the large motif on the right. Now normally one stitch here or there would bother me. I would fudge around it (that's why I ALWAYS stitch the border of anything last). But in this case one stitch was a disaster. I didn't discover it until I began the small motifs on its left side. I couldn't make the last one work so I started counting. And counting again. I then discovered I had made one side of the diamond one stitch too small. Now I suppose I could have just moved the smaller motif or made it even smaller but then I realized that this mistake would keep on affecting the rest of the design to the right. It would only keep getting worse. So I sat there and tried to talk myself into chucking it. I just couldn't do it. It had to come out. So after about an hour and a half, I was back to where I had begun my evening. But once I fixed it, I was quite happy with the results. I tried to post earlier but my camera wouldn't take a clear picture. It kept wanting to make it all fuzzy. I just figured that whatever had cursed this design was just trying to prevent me from displaying it. Then I realized my camera was on the wrong setting. I figure not too much else can go wrong, can it??

I do need to get working on the China design for Chris. I need to allow enough time to have it framed and sent to Minneapolis. I need two weeks for the framing. I just realized it's probably not going to happen. His birthday present will just be a little late this year. Hopefully by the time I go to Nashville in early February, it will be on its way.

New Year's Eve in Arizona Part 2

Last night Dave and decided we had a new New Year's Eve tradition: going out for wings at the local pizzeria. It was cold (ok, not as cold as some places are) and the sky was so clear. There were no stars out yet but I did catch this photo of the crescent moon and Venus. Last month Venus and Mars (I think) were in conjunction with the crescent moon but it was too cloudy to see anything then except the moon. At least this month, I got to see both. Happy New year (again!)!