Good to be back again.... Update April and May...

Hi all,

Well, life does have it's little turns at times. I have been in the hospital in the last month, and am healing well, but what a surprise. Found I had uteran cancer and had to have surgery almost immediately, which I am very glad they were able to schedule and take care of quickly. Thankfully, and I give praise to God, I am fine, they got everything and I do not have to have chemo or radiation therapy. God is so good! I was really praying that God would make this as easy as possible and that I would not have to have any treatments afterwards. The doctor said they caught it at the earliest possible time, and that is good! I had a wonderful doctor, Dr. Padilla-Paz -- he was the most attentive physician I have ever had, and a true gem! Truly, I pray the blessing of the Lord all over that man's life and his family.

So, now that i am out of the hospital and mending -- I'm taking life a little easy at home. Resting a lot, sleeping, and doing some housework, but just what I can manage and not pushing it. My DH has been an angel...truly! I am back to cooking meals again, which is fine, I enjoy cooking most of the time, and it's been good to get back into the swing of things at least to some degree. NO yard work for me as yet, as that is a little more ambitious and I need to let everything mend inside, so I"m not pushing the lawn mower these days . I will be glad when I can, it saves me having to work out schedules for people to do things for me, and I honestly enjoy being out there too, so I'm looking forward to when I can resume my gardening duties.

Since I have not been working as hard, and resting more, I have picked up my needle and started the SALexandra project, which utilizes some of the Sajou patterns and we will be making it into a little tri-fold piece when we're done with the stitching. It's over one, and I am using Baneberry (Vikki Clayton silks) for the design, on a lovely porcelain pink Dower 30 ct linen. It's turning out so nice!!

The other project I started is also a freebie from the web. It's a sampler called "Many Years Sampler"...for obvious reasons . I honestly am not sure what the end size will be, I'm using a half yard of linen, figuring it can't be any larger than that . I have downloaded the first 4 parts, and am about half way on the first part, using Vikki Clayton's Garnet Premium silk, 1 strand over 2 threads on 36 ct linen -- Lakeside's Maple Sugar, which is a really lovely hint of pink beige tone. The subtle change in the thread from a lighter red to a dark red with some hints of purple look very nice and dramatic. It's a lot of fun to stitch with over-dyed fibers as you never know how the piece will look until you start stitching. The variation in the thread also creates it's own interest and makes it much more fun to stitch with.

While I have been recuperating, I have worked a bit on my list of UFOs and Kitted projects. I am past 100 in the count!!! Shocking, yes!!! But there are a lot of kitted projects that have not been started, so they don't count as UFOs . Or at least that is what I am telling myself. I figure that the UFOs that I have which in most cases are barely started are almost like new projects, so they might not even count as UFOs .....do you like my rationalizing? It might work. Seriously, there are a few projects that I will just toss, they aren't worth bothering with, they are old and not interesting to me any longer. I have one project on aida, that's how old some of these projects are, and that one definitely gets tossed . Most of the UFOs though are projects I would finish, and some I will give away, others I will finish into stand ups or other things that don't require framing. I really do want to finish most of them. The ones I have questions about I will set aside and take one day to just deliberate whether they are worth bothering with or if I should reclaim the fabric and fibers and put the pattern away for another time. Sometimes it is worth doing that if the project is in a color that no longer suits your decor, or if somehow you just can't see yourself finishing it and hanging it on the wall on that fabric or the combination you picked originally. Many would be better done over on a different fabric or with different color schemes. So eventually I will be going over all of these projects again and making some decisions about what stays and what goes. The nice thing about that is that it will dwindle the list by a few projects, and that won't bother me at all .

I haven't managed to list all my WIPs or UFOs though, so there is more work to do and who knows what the final number will be. That might actually be a little spooky when I finally get to that place.

My plans are to make a list of the projects, and show what they are here....so you can review them....laugh and/or cry ....depending on how it affects you . I may do a little pouting myself after I find out how many there are. I have pulled out about 8 projects to set aside to work on this year. I figure I can finish them and maybe even make a dent in a second set of 5 or 8, depending on how diligent I am. I would like to finish some current WIPs and continue to work on the two new projects i started this month. They were more therapy than anything else. After getting out of the hospital, I just wanted to play, have something to do that was totally different and fun, and so that is how the two new projects were started. I like them a lot, so they will not become UFOs, of that I am sure.

Not sure if I mentioned it, but my only Finished project was a Bent Creek Zipper from way back for "Summer". I had purchased the frame well before I finished the project, and it had sat there forever waiting for me to get the stitched piece and frame together. At the end of April I did manage to put some time aside and assembled the piece. IT looks very nice now hanging near the breakfast bar in the kitchen area. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow and see if I can't upload it for you to see. It's about time I added something to this blog that was a completed project. I have a lot of Works in Progress, and maybe this week I will set aside some time to photograph them all and give a pictorial update of what I have done in the last 6 months.

Hugs to all, enjoy Spring! It's raining outside -- which is wonderful. I hope we get a lot of it this week! It will cool things down and help make things more tolerable since my air conditioner is not connected as yet.

Bye for now, thanks for visiting! (or commenting)
Cathy