It's been a while!

I can't believe it's been six months since I last blogged.  I can't believe it's been six months since I really stitched anything!  I've been trying, really I have, but I just can't seem to put together more than a day or two at a time to stitch.  I know some of it is because on the project I wanted to work on the most, I'm at a point where I have nothing left but Queen Stitch and I HATE those so I've been putting off  working on it.  I started back on A Petit Sampling Etui several months ago and made great progress on the first panel of the box.  But now I'm at the point of nothing left but those damn Queen Stitches and a bunch of over one letters and I just haven't wanted to pick it up.  I was doing so good until that point!  Still having issues with staying awake on train and stitching at night.  And my new glasses didn't help as much as I was hoping they would.  But here it is in any case. 

I've also been trying to put some work into working on my Casket materials but can't seem to get anywhere with that also.  I started payments for my double casket early in the summer - $110 a month for 24 months and as soon as I can get the cash together I need to put the deposit down on the second class of the series (the first class is complete as of this month).  This one is all about stumpwork.  I've put so much money into this and I'm frozen.  Only one panel is designed and I haven't even started to try to learn the stitches I need to despite the several kits I have purchased.  It's driving me crazy.  Here is the start of the pin cushion.  It's tent stitch over waste canvas.  It looks pretty crappy now but it should look ok when the waste canvas is pulled off.  The stitches will look all puffy.  At least that is the plan anyway. 

 

Not much else going on - I did my usual it's summer I don't want to work on the house routine so nothing has happened there. 

 

But my biggest news is I'm going to Africa in two weeks to attempt to summit Mount Kilimanjaro!  How about that!  It's 19,430 feet to the summit.  It's a fund raiser we came up with to benefit an orphan school in Moshi Tanzania.  Before my brother-in-law passed away last year, he asked that we help out his favorite nurse with her mission work and one thing lead to another and well I'm climbing a mountain.  :-)  Pretty cool huh?  Lot's of photos will of course follow so wish me luck. 

 

Thanks for stopping by after all this time!