Annette's Acre

On January 4th, I made a few goals for the year…

General….

• Listen to More Music
• Play More Games
• Work Smarter
• Read

Stitching….

Unless I’ve worked on a piece since January 1, it is not considered a WIP and I’m not feeling guilty!

I’m pretty happy with my progress on all the “General” goals.

Music: I definitely increased the iPod usage, wearing out the battery in my first generation Nano and going thru a number of iTunes gift cards.  DH bought me a new red Nano (name: Rhed) for Christmas and I’ve already added new CDs along with putting on the current favorites.

Games: My DS and PSP are in use (especially with the new LittleBigPlanet on PSP that I got for Christmas) and we’ve added new PS3 and Xbox360 games to our library this year.  We all work on the Xbox360 “streak” (number of days played in a row) and hit a high of 49 days at one point this year (currently we’re at 43).

Read: I read 91 books this year.  A definite increase over 2008 (66 total).  Can I reach 100 this year?

Work: It’s been a crazy year, but I am getting better at spreading the joy around to my development team.

Stitching wise, I have 37 items on my “2009 Finish” list.  Not bad.  A mix of knit, crochet and cross-stitch and that will continue in to 2010.

As for the “Five WIPs at a Time” plan?  Not quite as successful.  In fact, I quit keeping track pretty early in the year.  I did have a couple of big finishes this year and a new ornament is on the tree, so I’m pleased overall.

I’m definitely sticking with the “No Guilt” approach

Tomorrow – 2010 goals/plans

This is Titania for Kathy’s Mirabilia Round Robin:

30+ colors in this bit!

I had a wonderful Christmas…

I finished Christmas Eve by Prairie Schooler (click to biggify)

My family showered me with wondrous gifts:

• A new red iPod Nano (to replace my old one that is no longer working well)
• A red Arizona Cardinals sweatshirt
• A Levenger bookbag (which is all kinds of awesome)
• Footloose and Dirty Dancing soundtrack CDs
• iTunes card
• My favorite See’s candy

Of course, they made out pretty well, too   K scored a ticket to a show next year with Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie.  Of course, I bought one for myself, too…

Christmas isn’t over yet for us.  We’ll exchange gifts with Mom & Al on New Year’s Eve.  They are off visiting my brother and his wife (and my new niece, Reagan)

Hope your holiday was wonderful!

May you all have a wondrous holiday season……

Not much going on ’round here….  I’m checking off my last days of work for the year (7!) and getting the Christmas shopping done mostly online.

I received a lovely gift from the fantastic Goldie.

See it closed:

And now open!

Totally cool, eh?

Also Santa has made an appearance….

Maybe I’ll add his hands tonight…..

Quick post….click to biggify

Mirabilia RR complete!

A Queen Mermaid block for Rachel.

My Prairie Schooler start:

I blame this on Stewey’s recent post on Spinster Stitcher, by the way

Ah, Saturday!  One of my favorite days.

A mix of ups and downs today in the errand-running department.

First stop was my salon, to have my nails done (something I do every two weeks).

This is OPI’s Smitten with Mittens.  Nice a spah-kly, I must say.  My nail tech, Christie, is great with nail art – always something fun and seasonal.

Next stop was my framer’s with a freshly pressed Boo Club and my Mermaids finish from awhile ago.

Unfortunately, I found their retail space filled with something other than my framers   I checked with a neighboring shop and found they had gone out of business a couple months ago.  (Obviously it’s been a while since I needed framing….oops).

After a momentary panic, I decided to give my LNS a try.  I had one thing framed there years ago and while the result was fine, the gal had precious little people skills and all of her frame suggestions made me shudder.  I finally walked behind the counter and pulled corners myself until I was happy.  I was blessed with a wonderful pair of gentlemen that had done my framing for years after that, until they both retired in late 2008.

So off to the shop I went.

The new framing lady, Sandy, was great.  It took us awhile to find something appropriate for Mermaids (ended up with a darker blue, very simple frame) but we both knew it when we saw it.  For Boo Club, the first frame she pulled out was perfect!  It will be a few weeks before they are ready, but that’s fine given neither are gifts

While I was there, I picked up just a couple other items…

Counter-clockwise, starting top left:

• October Blackbird stockings (and fabric)
• September Blackbird stockings (and fabric)
• Bulk pack of Bohin 28 needles (Best. Needles. Ever.)
• Quarter of Vintage Lakeside Blue linen in 36-ct and
• Various DMC  for….
• Prairie Schooler’s Christmas Eve (Sampler of the Month at my LNS)
• a couple other items not shown as they are destined as gifts

…and it was all 15% off thanks to my Attic Addict discount

Christmas Eve will get started once I finish off the Mira RR this weekend.  It will.  Don’t laugh.  I didn’t say it would be finished for Christmas, though.  I’m not *that* crazy.

Left there and off to a quick stop at the grocery store (for the stuff I forgot yesterday… ugh).  I noticed a frame shop nearby and stopped in to discuss their needlework framing techniques as well as check out their other finished items (I do occasionally frame stuff other than needlework after all).  Steve was very nice and gave good answers to my questions. He recommended the small stainless staples and heavy needlework board, though I did specify I’d expect the staples on the *back* rather than top, which he agreed to do.  I’ll take in my next smallish finish and see how they do.  They have a much larger selection of frames/mats than my LNS does, so I like to have a choice

After all that… home to find beef vegetable soup in the crockpot and the Christmas tree up and lit thanks to my fabulous DH   I did suggest to K that we leave the tree as is (only lights… no garland or ornaments LOL) but she gave me “the look”   I guess we’ll be decorating later!

Found this on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books…

I did finish Boo Club during my vacation last week.

I wanted to press before it made its blog debut…. but well….

Imagine it without wrinkles. Please. (Click to biggify)

I used mostly the fibers called out.  Mostly.  For some reason I didn’t have the WDW Taffeta, so I used the DMC equivalent (3740).  Border is done in black and white Anchor, not the WDW Mascara and Whitewash.

I took a few liberties with the Ghost block:

I changed the colors for the words, the small border below and moved the buttons.  They were supposed to be bat bodies.  Thanks to a counting mistake, they became eyes

It will get pressed before I take it to the framer’s this weekend.  Really.

Here’s the second finish:

LHN’s Fa La La. 

I changed the DMC for the hair on the left girl, but I don’t think the color changed noticeably (838 instead of 801).  Yes, there’s a bit of a muck up on the left (if you notice).  I had all the leaves except the bottom two bunches done and there was no way I was frogging it all…

Back to the Mirabilia RR. I did make progress last week, but she’s not quite ready for mailing.