Stocking Dude Progress

I haven't made enough progress on Anna this week to bother with taking a picture but I pulled out the stocking this afternoon and finished the little man's pants and socks and most of his shoes. His shoes are actually skates but I don't have the right color of perle coton for the blades, so I'll put them in later.

I was at the LNS yesterday and picked up Tina's Stocking (also by SB, of course) to stitch for myself when I get this one done for my guy. I bought a second piece of fabric when I got the fabric for this stocking, so they'll match. I might get the stitching finished on this one by Christmas; not sure if it'll get finished-finished but you never know.

And speaking of my guy...he works in another state and is there this weekend; yesterday afternoon we were talking on the phone and I mentioned that I had gone in to work for a couple of hours of OT yesterday morning (long story, that, and not going to whine about work, although I could for quite a while). So he said, "How long has it been since you've been to the French Knot?" (LNS near here). I said, "Oh, I don't know, a month or so" and he said, "Why don't you go? It'll make you feel better. I want you to go." So I said, "Yeah, I guess I could, why not." So we chatted for a few more minutes and after we hung up I got in the car and headed for the French Knot. Why not, after all. When I got there, I browsed around and spoke to Laura, the owner, and told her that my guy said to tell her "hi" (he had) and she said "Have you talked to him?" And I said that I had and then she asked "Do you know what he did?" Turned out that that sweet man had called her yesterday morning before I had even talked to him and ordered a gift certificate for me to celebrate passing my test. He's such a sweetheart in so many ways. I'm a lucky gal!

Photo taken at 9 a.m. this morning; the daily sleep cycle is already in progress:

Have a great week and happy stitching!

Lazy Sundays

I love 'em! The cats snoozed and I stitched, read the paper, watched a little TV -- a pretty relaxing afternoon, all things considered. One part of me would like to not have to go to work tomorrow so I could do it all over again but my practical side reminds me to be careful what I wish for! I've been unemployed twice and both times I did a lot of stitching and reading and worked the crossword puzzle every day, but I was also living on unemployment and without health insurance. Good job or bad job, a job is a job.

That's enough about that! Here's where I stand with the motifs on Anna Thies:

The pinky-colored rose on the left is part of the center motif, a wreath of roses and leaves. It's not a particularly large motif but it's time-consuming because it's fiddly, with several colors and nice shading. What you see done on it was not all done this afternoon!

Here's a closer look. I love the colors and the design; it's very pretty but, as I said, fiddly.

Everyone have a great week -- happy stitching!

Woohoo!

I passed my test! The results were posted on-line this evening and I am just tickled! I am now a Certified Professional Coder - Apprentice and will be have the apprentice status removed after I get more experience. It's an important step on the journey.

I thank God for giving me the ability to learn this stuff and for sending me the greatest support system in the world because I probably wouldn't have done this without my guy behind me and beside me. He encouraged me to go back to school -- kind of a scary thing when you're 50 -- and to get into the coding field and he spent many Sunday afternoons on the sofa with a magazine, being quiet while I studied or did homework. He helped me study a lot and there were times when I would have just said "the heck with it" and turned on the TV if it hadn't been for his encouragement. He never lost confidence in my ability to do this. This one's for both of us.

Almost a Butterfly!

Anna T progress for today:

There's not much butterfly left to stitch but my eyes were getting tired and I was getting tired, so I decided to pack it in for the day. Not bad for a Sunday afternoon. I spent part of it with Jane Austen again; I had seen about half of Pride & Prejudice a few weeks ago when it was on the telly, so I picked up a copy at the library the other day so I could watch the ending. Good movie!

Have a great week and happy stitching!

The End of a Very Long Day

I sat for my CPC exam today; it was held at one of the hospitals in Pittsburgh, in a section of the city that I'm not familiar with -- I'm not familiar with most of the city, actually, though I can find my way around the theatre district pretty well -- anyway, the exam began at 8am, so I was up at 4:30 and left the house at 6:15. I had to make a quick stop at the grocery to pick up some cookies to have to snack on, then I headed on into town. I got lost only once and made it in plenty of time. The test is timed for 5 hours and 40 minutes and it took me about 5 hours and 10 minutes. I was just finishing my last question when the proctor said we had 30 minutes to go. I took another 20 minutes to recheck a few answers and it was a good thing I did because I found one where I had marked the wrong block -- I knew the answer but had just screwed up blacking in the little circle. Anyhoo, I feel pretty good about it; I'm sure I missed a good few -- the test is 150 questions and there were a few that I absolutely did not know the answer so I just took my best guess. Anyway, it's done and now I just have to wait for my results. I should know this week whether I passed.

I was too pooped to pop when I got home, so I sat down with Anna Thies for a little while. Here's a full progress picture:
I finished the first motif the other evening:

I did most of this tonight:

This is the motif in the lower right corner and there's a mirror image in the lower left. I just love the colors in this sampler.

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I'm off to bed. TTFN!

More Stuff I Stitched a Long Time Ago

Not much stitching has been going on around here lately; I've put in a little bit of time on Anna T and have made progress on the first motif, so maybe I'll get that done and a pic posted in the not-too-distant future :-) In the meantime, I thought I'd share a couple more pictures of things I stitched several years ago.

This design was from Green Apple Designs and the date on the stitching is 1988:

It's self-framed. I don't remember whether I bought the frame for the piece or whether it was for something else and one day the light bulb went off that it would work for this particular design, but anyway, I thought it looked pretty good. The fabric is linen, 36 count I think, and I framed it with some batting between the stitched piece and the mounting board, partly for protection and partly to give the piece a little definition. My bedroom wall is blue and this looks nice hanging on it.

This was probably the first BAP that I did in cross stitch (I used to do a lot of crewel work and some of those were pretty good-sized) and it's dated 1987:

It's called "Calico Cats" and the designer is Dale Burdette. This is stitched on ivory-colored 14 count Aida and I remember that it was really fun to stitch. I liked doing all the different patterns on the cats and it felt like such an accomplishment each time I completed a cat and its box. This is in the spare room right now, for lack of a better place.

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I don't anticipate much stitching getting done this week, either. I'll have company for the weekend, and next Saturday I'm taking my Certified Professional Coder (CPC) exam, so I'll probably be studying most evenings.

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Have a great weekend and happy stitching!