Hooray! NaBloPoMo is Winding Down

I’m very glad I decided to go ahead and commit to National Blog Posting Month (a.k.a. NaBloPoMo). It has renewed my enthusiasm for sharing my stitching successes and failures, along with tips I’ve learned along the way. I really enjoy interacting with all of you, dear readers.

However, over the past four weeks, I’ve also learned that in order to write about stitching, I have to actually stitch something! And it doesn’t work to try to do much of both writing and stitching on any given day, not with the full-time job and motherhood to an almost-three-year-old. (Yes, really. She’s almost three!)

So while I’ve had fun doing this, please be warned that come December, posts will not be as frequent. But I will keep posting. The good news is that I won’t be posting just for the sake of posting something on a given day. I can focus more on providing you with quality information. Fortunately, this month I’ve also learned that a post doesn’t have to be long to share a good tip. Pictures really are worth a thousand words!

And who knows? One of these days I might actually finish cleaning up all of the imported posts on my NEW site and be able to share that with all of you!

A Note of Thanks

Just popping in this evening to say that I hope all of you had a lovely day. And in the spirit of the day, I’d also like to express my heartfelt thanks and gratitude that you all stop by and read my long-winded explanations of obscure details of stitching techniques. It never ceases to surprise me that so many of you seem to appreciate my ramblings and put up with my lack of posting consistency.

So THANK YOU. Your support is greatly appreciated.

By the way, please let me know if I can answer any specific questions, or if you would like to see anything or any types of posts in particular. Right now I’m just blathering about whatever crosses my brain on any given day, but if you need information on something, please ask. If I know anything about it, I’ll write it up. And if I don’t, I can always dive into my stack of books and see what I can find!

A Wonderful Time Was Had By All

We had a wonderful day at the mini-retreat. The day started with greeting longtime friends and acquaintances, some of whom had traveled over an hour to be with us. Then it was time for breakfast from the hotel’s great buffet and omelet and waffle station.

Then on to the stitching! Here we have a room full of happy stitchers finishing up breakfast and starting to stitch.

Shortly before lunch, we had our first finish for the day. Here is my mother-in-law’s project from a recent regional EGA mini-seminar. This is Daphne Reborn by Michael Boren in the olive green color scheme. Isn’t it stunning? Congratulations, Mom!

One of the highlights of the day was the raffle. Tickets were 6 for $5. I started putting my tickets into  an entry  bag here and there when I came across the sweater. One of the ladies who helps to organize this event had hand-knit a gorgeous sweater in a lovely shade of blue in a size 4T.  I ended up putting my last 3 tickets in this drawing, and then I went back an purchased another 6 tickets to put in the sweater’s bag. So maybe I stacked the deck by purchasing so many tickets, but it paid off!

Isn’t it lovely? I do need to hang onto it, though. It will be at least a year before my daughter fits into this beautiful creation. Oh well. It will still bring out the blues in her eyes! (Thank you, Judy!)

My only complaint about the day was that it almost wasn’t bright enough if you weren’t right next to the windows. I’ll be sure to bring my portable light for the next event (currently being planned for March). I’m already looking forward to it!

Thank you, Janice, for organizing this lovely day!

An Unexpected New Start

Sometimes, life just gets in the way of stitching plans. In my case, I had thought I’d be continuing My Way and have it nearly done by now.

But it was not to be. Somehow I had neglected that this piece is just a bit too big to be carting to hospital waiting rooms.

Yes, E and I spent another night in the hospital two weeks ago after she underwent another surgery (as always, hopefully this is the last!) to fix her hips. (And yes, she’s back in a cast, but only for 6-8 weeks this time. Unfortunately, she’s much more aware of it at 18 months than she was at 5 months.)

So, being as I was still in the canvas mood, and since I didn’t have anything in progress small enough for stitching in the waiting room, I started something new. What else was I supposed to do? :-)

I was reading back over some old posts and reminded myself that one of my goals for the year was to start something by Jean Hilton. It just so happened that I had Jean’s Omega kitted up, so to the hospital it went.

By the end of the first day (after 4 hours of surgery + after she fell asleep at night), here’s how it ended up. My apologies for the blurriness!

Of course I changed the colors from Jean’s original. Why shouldn’t I? I also made the choice to stitch the center star in two colors rather than just one as in the original.

E came home the day after surgery, and no more progress was made that day. The rest of the week, however, was a different matter. Since she was sleeping a lot due to the pain meds, I managed quite a bit of stitching time.

A few days later, the rest of the borders were in:

 

Rainbow Gallery released this design in 1990, and a few of the threads have changed over the last 20 years. I decided to use two colors of RG’s FyreWerks for the center star and two of the borders and 1 strand of Trio (from brown paper packages) for the inner and outer borders.

Within the week, I did finish the piece, but you’ll just have to wait until Friday for the big reveal! :-)

Oh, and E is doing as well as might be expected, for a kid who was just starting to walk on her own and is now immobile. She’s figuring out how to drag herself around a bit, but isn’t too happy about it!

Rediscovering the joy of Hardanger, and a public service message

Thanks for all of the votes on projects from my last post. I decided to pick up my original Hardanger design.

I have always subscribed to the Janice Love method of stitching Hardanger "in hand" rather than on a frame. Due to my carpal tunnel syndrome, I can't tell you the last time I was able to spend more than about 15 minutes in any given week working in hand.

Thank goodness for modern medicine!

For the first time in years, I have been able to comfortably stitch away on my Hardanger. I had forgotten how enjoyable it could be. I've gotten a bit out of practice, so my tension isn't as good as it once was, but it's so amazing to be able to do needleweaving without waiting for the onset of pain.

I haven't made a great deal of progress, so no picture today, but I just wanted to pass the message on.

If you're experiencing the pain and/or numbness of carpal tunnel syndrome and have tried non-surgical treatment without improvement and if these symptoms are keeping you from enjoying your stitching, please do consider surgery.

I put it off for much, much too long. Fortunately I didn't end up with any permanent nerve damage, but I did need to set aside many enjoyable techniques, including Hardanger, off-loom beading, and shuttle tatting.

Take care of yourselves, everybody, so you can enjoy your stitching (and the rest of your life!) to the fullest!

The return of in-hand work!

Hooray! I can now think about finishing some of the hardanger projects or the beading project in my WIP pile.

Look what I managed to finish in only about 3-4 hours:

This is the primary Morning Glories temari from an online class with Barb Suess. There are two more from the class, and I hope to get to them soon.

I started this over the summer, but couldn't manage to work on it for any length of time. Now I can say that I've actually stitched a temari! It's not perfect, but I'm not totally embarrassed about it either.

I can honestly say that I have no regrets about going in for the carpal tunnel surgery -- except that I put it off for WAY too long. Aside from a bit of lingering tenderness at the incision site and the need to avoid heavy lifting or pulling, I'm almost completely back to using my right hand normally - including taking care of a certain little person.

Carpal tunnel surgery today!

Just a quick note today to say I'm finally getting my right hand fixed! I should be able to get back on the computer by tomorrow evening or Thursday (or I may just resort to left-hand only typing) to let you know how it goes.

We wish you a...

Good news and bad news

The good news is that I finished the first lesson (bands 1 & 2) of Hannah Thornbush. I'll share pictures sometime this weekend.

The bad news is that when the orthopedist looked at Erin's X-ray today, he found that her left hip had somehow slipped and is dislocated again. We're going back to the hospital tomorrow morning so they can fix it and recast her. Which means more anesthesia. Hopefully the anesthesiologist can do something different so she doesn't end up spending the night again.

Ugh. My poor baby doll. :-(

An update...

Let me start by saying thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers sent our way today. We are grateful for all of the support.

Erin is fine, but she and I are not home as we'd hoped. I'm writing this entry on a cool internet/movies/TV setup in the cheldren's area of the hospital. Unfortunately,the screen in our room is VERY blurry, so I apologize for any missed key strokes!

When we went into the surgical center this morning, we'd been hoping that the doctor would be able to manipulate Erin's hips into position without surgery. It was not to be. The doctor found that there was too much muscle, etc. in the way, and he needed to operate.

The procedure went smoothly from that point, until they tried to bring her out of anesthesia. That didn't go so well.. It's a long story, but it ended up with oxygen blowing on her face, her finally waking up fully SIX hours after sergury, and staying in the hospital overnight for observation..

Right now she's sleeping, and aside from an occasional whimper, seems to not be in pain.. I'm going to try to get some sleep myself...

Tomorrow is the day

I can't believe it's here already. Erin goes in for her procedure tomorrow (Thursday), and then she'll be in a cast from chest to toes for 12 weeks. :-( She's NOT going to be happy, especially since she's just recently figured out how to roll over (although then she gets mad because she hates tummy time!). Oh well. I'll try to post tomorrow night to let you all know how things went.

On the stitching front, I've been making rather slow progress on Hannah Thornbush. I'm still on band 2, and I apologize for the lack of pictures. The lesson for bands 3 and 4 came out on Monday. Only the second lesson, and I'm behind already. Sheesh!

After several emails back and forth with Denise from Threadneedle Street in Washington state, the correct color of silk I needed for Floral Rondel showed up today. Thank you, Denise! Now I can finally finish this!

Answering questions

Recent posts have generated a couple of questions from readers.

I'll address the stitching-related question first. A couple of readers have asked about Jean Hilton's ScottLee. I'm sorry to say that the instructions for this project are very hard to find. Jean taught it only twice: once for a national seminar, and once for a group of stitchers near Phoenix.

It is not available for retail sale (though perhaps her family might change that in the future - who knows?). I did not take either class, but I was lucky enough to be given the chart by somebody who took the class at seminar. I do not have my chart any longer, as I passed it on to another stitcher who admired it here on my blog. Right now, that's the only way it can be legally obtained - by gift or purchase from one of the stitchers who has the instructions from class.

Oh - and if you're one of those lucky few, I know of a couple of ladies looking for the chart!

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Erin Update: The second question was about Erin, and the next steps for her hip dysplasia. (Background: She was born with both hips dislocated as a result of pregnancy complications.)

We visited the orthopedist this past week. The X-ray only took two tries. The first try caught her in the middle of a wiggle and was blurry :-). After the second, non-wiggle attempt, succeeded, I managed to get a new diaper on with no accidents on the table!

The X-rays confirmed that both hips are still very much dislocated. Now I'm waiting for the doctor's secretary to call to set up the mid-June appointment for a "closed reduction" procedure. In this procedure, Erin will be anesthetized and the doctor will attempt to manipulate the hips into the correct position. There's a slight chance he may operate at that time if he thinks it will be a minor correction. If all goes well, she'll then be put in a cast from mid-chest to knees. If, for some reason, the hips won't cooperate, we'll wait 'til she's a bit bigger before going in for "open reduction", a.k.a. surgical reparation, before casting her.

As for the cast - don't ask about diaper logistics. It doesn't sound like fun. :-(

Update: In answer to Megan's question: the cast will be on 3-4 months (to let the muscles, tendons, etc. move into the correct position to support the hips), and yes, hopefully after that she'll be able to go on as a normal kid. The doctor says there's a chance she might need to have additional work done over the next several years, but we're praying this won't be necessary.

Thank you to Robbie and Jean for your support and sharing your stories about similar situations. I'm grateful for your caring notes!

Oh - and thank you to Carin for wishing me a happy birthday on Friday after reading through the archives! :-)

Rest In Peace, Jean Hilton

The news was just posted to one of the needlepoint email lists. It is with a heavy heart that I relay the news of Jean's passing. The counted canvas world has lost one of its greatest pioneers. Rest in peace, Jean Hilton. You have left a wonderful legacy.

Jean invented and taught an unparalleled number of the stitches that enhance the geometric canvas designs of today. If you've ever stitched a Jessica, Amadeus, crescent, double fan doubled, mistake stitch, or one of the variations of these, your life has been touched by Jean's creativity. There are many more, but those are what come immediately to mind.

Thank you, Jean, for sharing your amazing talents for creating imaginative designs and stitches. Your memory will live on as stitchers continue to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

This is Jean's ScottLee, the last piece she be taught at a seminar.

I'm still here

All right. I'm going to stop making comments about how long it's been since the last post, because the gaps seem to be getting longer. I'll post when I post!

That said, it seems that my return to work 3 weeks ago has helped put us all on a schedule. That, and the fact that Erin's sleeping for (slightly) longer stretches means that we've been putting her to bed around 7:30-8 each night (ok, most nights), and she'll be ready to eat again in 3 hours. Which means DH and I have free time before we crash! So yes, a few times this past week I've taken the opportunity to stitch for a bit. Hooray!

As a result, my Floral Rondel (designed by Judy Souliotis) is growing. I may take a break from all of the silk work to put in some of the gold outlines tonight.

One petal done...

I've found a bit of time to stitch over the past week, but it took me a while to learn that I need to take a picture of my stitching before actually sitting down to stitch, because I'm usually putting my needle down quickly to take care of a certain someone!

I took the opportunity yesterday to take a couple of pictures of my progress on Judy Souliotis's Floral Rondel. I've finished one entire petal of the center flower. The flower petals are stitched in Soie Ovale from Au Ver a Soie. Soie Ovale is a filament silk with a very slight twist, so it's essentially the same as flat silk. If you've ever stitched with flat silk, you know it's pretty important that your hands be VERY smooth. The silk can and will snag on any little rough patch of skin. Trust me, I know. It's something I'm continuing to struggle with as my hands recover from winter and as I continuously wash my hands after every diaper change!

As a result, between snagged silk and minimal stitching time, this is going pretty slowly. The shine of the silk is SO worth it!



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Erin update: It's hard to believe, but Erin will be two months old this weekend! I'll be heading back to work part time on April 6, after 4 months of not being there. In some ways, I'm looking forward to it, but it's certainly going to be a change of pace!

A very special post

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy Blogoversary to me!

And, to top it off, this is my 300th post!

True to her name, Erin (though she's only 1/4 Irish - thanks to MIL), got into the spirit of the day.Winnie-the-Pooh came by to celebrate, but Erin was already asleep!Mom's going to celebrate by trying to finish the first petal on the middle flower of Floral Rondel. Maybe I'll have an update in the next day or so.

Erin update

Yes, Erin and I are now both home. I was discharged on Friday, feeling much better, thank you. Erin had to stay at the hospital one more night, for a reason that completely irritated me. One of her challenges is the fact that both of her hips are dislocated due to the way she was positioned and the cramped quarters that resulted after my water broke. On Thursday, the orthopedic doctors fitted her with a harness that will hopefully reposition her hips, but they neglected to weigh the harness before they put it on her. As a result, her pediatrician couldn't tell if she was gaining weight, and needed to get her weight with the harness (which cannot be taken off except by the orthopedic doctors) on both Friday and Saturday morning. To say I was irritated by this turn of events is putting it mildly.

Anyway, we're home, and we made it through the first night. Miss Erin decided to challenge us by sleeping for four hours at a time during the day, and only 2 hours between feedings at night! Hopefully her internal clock will become more Mom and Dad friendly in the next week or so.

On to some pictures!

Here is her very first picture, taken when she was on her way from delivery to the NICU. Not a happy baby! She looks very short due to the fact that her legs were essentially in a yoga position.
Here she is after she's been cleaned up a bit more. Yes, that's Grandma's (MIL's) finger in her hand.
And a bit of a close-up, showing off her eyes.
For someone so small, she's commanding a lot of attention. I've managed to stitch a total of one length of thread over the past week! :-)

It's a girl!!!!!

I know, it's been too long! The short story is that my walking around early last week worked, and I went into labor Thursday morning. After I finally give in to an epidural around 8 PM, little Erin Christine found her way into the world at 11:03 PM. At 4 lbs, 2 oz and just under 17" long, she was a bit smaller than expected, and has spent the time since in the NICU, just moving to the newborn nursery today. She is a beautiful baby, and more details and pictures will follow.

Unfortunately, I was in a lot of pain over the weekend, and finally ended up on pain meds that left me feeling barely human. I stopped taking them Sunday night, and had weird withdrawal symptoms yesterday. When I still was constantly dizzy today while visiting the hospital, I ended up back in triage getting bloodwork done. Yes, I'm one of the few who manage to develop severe preeclampsia after delivery, with only a couple of the expected symptoms. They re-admitted me and immediately started an IV with the needed meds. I felt human again within an hour, but I'll be here at least 1 night. Hopefully Erin and I can go home together Thursday.

Thank you all for your concern and best wishes. I'll let you know when I'm home!

A change in location

I had grand hopes of finishing my Santa canvas before Christmas, but it was not to be. Instead, I've been working on a sampler pocket from Periwinkle Promises for the last several days.

Why, you ask?

Because this project has been my "doctors' waiting room" project, and it was what I grabbed when DH and I left home at 4AM Monday morning.

Yup. I've been in the hospital all week, and (I never thought I'd be saying this) hopefully I'll be here for several more weeks.

It seems that the complications I've been having have led to yet another: my water broke!

So now, they've been pumping me full of antibiotics to prevent infection, since that barrier is no longer there. At this stage, that's its main purpose, so BJ is continuing to develop, but has little protection against any nasty bugs.

So I'll be in the hospital for up to 5 more weeks. We're at 30 weeks today, and if all continues to go well, they may have to induce at 35 weeks, at which point the doctors say we're actually better off with BJ in the NICU for a bit. I don't really understand why, but we'll deal with that if and when we come to it.

Right now, I feel fine. I'm in no pain, and BJ is healthy and continuing to grow. I'm still stitching, watching TV, reading, and working through puzzle magazines. DH (thankfully) brought me the old laptop so I could let all of you know what's going on.

The camera is at home, so I won't be able to share progress pictures unless I figure out how to take them with my cell and email them to myself. Of course, I don't have anything else I have to be doing, so that might be a project over the next few days. I don't know if those pictures will be good enough to continue with the stitch studies, even if I have DH bring the stitch study sampler to the hospital. We'll see.

Thank you all again for your best wishes. I feel blessed that people I've never met are keeping tabs on us.

I'll keep you posted as best I can.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas (or holiday of your choice!), filled with the love and laughter of family and friends. Take a bit of time to stitch!

To celebrate, please enjoy this poem, of unknown origin, that's been making the rounds of other blogs and email lists (not very original of me, but it's fun anyway!):

'Twas the night before Christmas, and, oh, I was weary.
My stitching unfinished, my eyes getting bleary.
The stockings weren't finished, the chimney was bare.
And I knew that morning soon would be there.

My children and husband were tucked in their beds,
But visions of backstitches ran through my head.
I'd stitched ornaments and presents and gifts by the ton,
And now, I was finally, almost, almost done.

As I poised my needle for one more backstitch,
I heard something outside that made my hand twitch.
I jumped up from my stitching, and flew to the door,
Pressed my eye to the peephole, tip-toed off the floor.

My stitching forgotten, I peered into the night.
When suddenly, I got a terrible fright.
On my porch appeared Santa, holding his sack.
He knocked softly, and I took a giant step back.

I unlocked the deadbolt, and let Santa in,
He entered and gave a mischievous grin.
"Hope you don't mind if I come in the door?"
"Coming down the chimney can be quite a chore."

He said, "You're up late. Still working I see."
"Do you know how tired you're going to be?"
"I know, Santa," I said, with a sigh,
"But I'm still backstitching the stars in the sky,"

"And the fields on that stocking look blobby you know,
I need to backstitch the drifts in the snow.
I've been stitching and stitching and stitching, no rest.
I just tried to finish stitching too much, I guess."

"I know what you mean," he said with a smile.
"This is my busiest time of the year, by a mile."
He stooped down by the tree, and he opened his sack,
And began to pull presents out of his pack.

"I've got some things here I think you might like,
An oak stitching frame, and a brand new Ott-Light.
A bundle of floss, and a great big mat cutter,"
I smiled and felt my heart go a-flutter.

He put down gifts for us all, then he waved his right hand.
"Go to bed," he said, glancing at my floor stand.
He gave me a wink, and stepped out the door.
I just stood there a moment, glued to the floor.

After he'd left, I turned back to my chair,
Picked up the stockings, and started to stare.
The backstitching was done! The stars lit the sky!
And on my son's stocking angels sung on high.

I ran to thank Santa for this final gift,
And watched as his sleigh started to lift.
I heard him exclaim as he pulled out of sight,
"Merry stitching to all, and to all a good night!"

In case you were wondering, the picture at the top of this post is Rebecca Wood's "Country Winter" painted canvas, now on sale at NeedleNook of La Jolla.

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Pregnancy ticker: 29 weeks, 6 days.
I'm sure some of you have been wondering about why I haven't posted in a few days. There's a story behind that, but it will wait until tomorrow!