January 798th

Finally January is coming to an end! This month has lasted about three years, and it looks like February is going to continue the cold days and colder nights.

Yes, we did have snow in North Carolina. The area where I now live is close to the state capital, and we had a "cone" of dry air that kept us from getting the deeper snows that hit other areas in the state. I am not going to mention that the dry air might be caused by the hot air coming from the state legislature.

And I still am fighting the cold. The cold may be winning.

However, I have managed a couple of things.

I fully finished a couple of projects in the last couple of days.

I assembled the Elizabethan Rose by Alison Cole. I think I stitched it last year or the year before. At one point, I was thinking about doing an ornament a month in 2026. If I do end up doing that, this could count as my January entry. 

And then, while I was rummaging around in one of the finishing baskets, I found this:

This is Merry Cox's Flower Pin Cushion & Needle Book. I won it in a drawing from a blog awhile back. (Hi, Stasi!) I stitched the design. In 2017. Then last year, the Examplary Sampler Guild offered the chart to the members and had a class with Merry. At the time, I thought that I should pull it out and put it together. Somehow it didn't happen right that minute, but it floated to the top of the basket and I did it today. Why I didn't assemble it after I finished working the design, I'll never know.

I think I should make a rule for myself that will make me assemble smalls as soon as I finish the stitching.

We all know that I don't follow the rules very well, even the ones I set for myself. I could try to change. 

But right now I believe I will take a NyQuil and see if I can get some sleep.
 

First Finish of 2026!

Daily Reminder from Brenda Gervais is done!

 Will I do another Blessing Sampler? Maybe, but I don't think so. I had decided that this was to be the year with no deadlines or schedules, and here I am, first project of the year, worked on a deadline. So, I think I'll go back to the idea of stitching solely as my whims and pleasures take me.

At least as soon as I feel like stitching again. Those last few stitches on this project were really difficult because I have the head cold of all head colds. I woke up Monday morning feeling like my head was packed with concrete. Since then, I have been sneezing and coughing and dripping and aching. None of these behaviors are conducive to pleasant stitching. So I'll just wait this out and get back to normal life when I get back to normal health.

Yardwork

 Before the second phase of the storm hits us (and this is the nasty part with freezing rain predicted for our area), I thought I better do an update.

The house is finished, the trees are planted, the numbers stitched, and I've started on the fence around the front yard.

I truly did not think I would get the house filled in before the end of the month. I know there are a lot of sampler stitchers who love building houses. They find filling in all those walls rhythmic and soothing and peaceful.

Filling in makes me bugnutz crazy. 

That may be why I haven't succumbed to all the precious Animal Crackers designs. Don't get me wrong. I think they're adorable and I would love to have the entire menagerie in my house. The problem is that there are a lot of areas that have to be filled in. I know I would get one halfway done and then it would disappear into the bin of Projects That Make Me Feel Guilty Because They Aren't Finished But Not Guilty Enough To Make Me Finish Them. 

There are quite enough projects in that bin already.

Anyway, I am going to work on getting the fence around the front yard stitched today while hoping the power stays on and the dead tree we reported to the HOA in November doesn't decide to fall down.

This is the kind of excitement I would happily avoid.

Construction Zone

 I have been building a house.

I thought I was going to get it built in a couple of days, but like all construction projects, I have run into delays--mainly, there are way more stitches than I thought. This is Day Four and I'm still not through. Fingers crossed that today is the day.

There has also been an unnecessary cost overrun. The designer calls for a specific overdyed thread. For one stitch. One stitch only. The color is not used anywhere else in the chart.

Seriously?

I mean,  SERIOUSLY???????

I do not fault the shop that kitted the project because they were just pulling the threads the designer specified. But I would ask designers to really think if one stitch needs to be in a unique color.

Otherwise, I'm very happy with the design. I'm just ready to be done with the house.

Moving along

Right after I turned the light off last night, I realized I hadn't blogged. Maybe it was because we had Friday the 13th on a Tuesday. Anyway, this is where I am on Daily Reminder:

 I'm so close to having all the border done. Maybe I should just keep working on that today.

Today has definitely been a stitching day. This morning the Dayton EGA chapter held its monthly meeting and Tricia Nguyen lectured. This was the third lecture I've heard from Tricia this week--she lectured on Nuremberg samplers for the Mayflower Guild, on Saturday, then had a wide-ranging talk on a variety of subjects for the Great Lakes Region on Sunday, and today she spoke about the creation of and marketing for embroidered boxes--which we now call caskets--in the 17th century. All fascinating, all informative, all made me just want to stitch more and more.

Today was also the last class for Zina Kasban's Elizabethan Rose. This has been a wonderful class, and I truly hate to see it end. I highly recommend Zina as a teacher, and I will continue to look forward to her classes in the future. Yes, I am a fangirl. I will be the first to admit it.

Unfortunately, I now need to shift laundry. I'd rather thread a needle.

Haul

It doesn't look like I'm going to stitch today, even though I really need to stitch. Don't even ask . . . 

But the mail carrier was very good to me, and some charts I had ordered have arrived:

 Christmas 2026 (or 2027 or 2028--whenever) projects

Another BAP--but please notice no alphabet and a fairly short verse--and no over-one--thus, a very good evening project. 

I have linen for all these but I am going to need to acquire threads. This may involve a road trip. There is nothing better than a road trip for needlework projects.  And I am more than ready for a road trip.

Turning Point

I have finally reached the point where I can turn the scroll bars and move onto the bottom of "Daily Reminder."

This is about the halfway point on the sampler, but I think it's maybe only a fourth to a third of the number of stitches left to do.

And I really need to be working on goldwork at the moment, but this has been such a pleasant stitch (meaning I don't have to think about it too much) that it's hard to go back to something that requires more than two functioning brain cells.