lovely colors

I managed to stitch on the train yesterday and this morning! Miracle of miracles. :-) My eyes are getting older - I am having a hard time seeing the 36 count with the motion of the train. I have to be really careful I don't skip or add a thread when counting. I guess it's time for glasses that aren't cheaters.

Bank of American has given me until June 30th to close on the house. We think the seller is moving this week and might actually be already gone. My agent is trying to confirm this. I plan on going into the house at some point Saturday or Sunday with my brother who is going to help me make the repairs. We thought it a good idea to look first so we are ready to go the weekend after with all the tools and suppies we need for the repairs in hand. I'd love to close around the 20th. That would give me several days to clean and paint before moving on the 25th and 26th. :-) This might really happen. :-)

new start

Here is my new start - the With Thy Needle and Thread mystery. I'm doing mine on Silkweavers 36 count French Vanilla. When I went to pull it out of the bag just now to take a photo I was startled on how little I had completed. It felt like I stitched all long weekend. But I the reality was closer to I picked it up a lot but didn't spend much time stitching. I got a lot of packing completed and that feels good. I have a lot more to go though.

Happy Birthday finis

Happy Birthday - design by Blackbird Designs

32 count Silkweaver's Purely Primitive

Recommended overdyed floss

I finished up Happy Birthday yesterday. Almost half way! Next up Swan Lake. I really like that one. It's a good thing I'm taking a little break however, I pulled my floss for it last night and was missing a couple. Need to call Drema. :-)

Those of you in the US enjoy your long weekend! I have no plans except to play with the dogs and a little lawn work here at my parents house. I'm hoping to get to the new house at some point on Sunday so I can get a time estimate from one of my brothers on how long the repairs will take. Then I can safely book how much time I need with my realtor as he needs to be there while I'm there.

so close!

I'll finish up Happy Birthday on my way home from work tonight. Yeah! They a new start for me.

I don't mean to sound so negative about the seller (and thanks for the nice supportive comments! you guys are great). But I do see things from such a different side. When the banks were giving away mortgages without proper checks at 110% percent of the hugely inflated property values I walked away. I didn't drink the coolaid. I waited and saved and waited more. And I finally can buy a home the right way. So while I really feel for this family who is loosing their home, where were the people they trusted telling them maybe this was not such a good idea? I'm not responsible for their bad choices. I'm actually part of the solution for them and for the market in general.

But I did hear some hopefully good news - the seller is planning on moving next week and I should be able to get in the house and make the changes I needed to make before the FHA Inspector comes back. Cross your fingers that the place doesn't get trash on the sellers way out. It's always something. :-(

where does the time go?

I'm almost finished with Happy Birthday. As soon as it's off my hoop and ironed, I'm going to put it away for a little bit and start on the three part mystery from With Thy Needle and Thread. I'm all ready to start. But I think it's smart to at least finish the block I'm working from Anniversaries from the Heart.

I'm still working my house in Gurnee and it's been so up and down I can't stand it. Late last week I received notice that Bank of America said my offer was the correct amount and miracle of miracles on Monday they approved my short sale! Not two hours after finishing my happy dance I received a call from my agent. The seller is despondent over losing his house (which by the way he has been living in for three years without making a mortgage payment) and has decided not to make the five fixes that FHA has required before they will approve my loan that he agreed to do five weeks ago (shame on my agent for not getting it in writing). So now I'm back to scrambling. I have asked if the seller will clear out for one weekend day so I can go in and make the fixes myself so I can get my loan. They are small - so small as to be ridiculous - but they must be made. I figure they will cost less than $100 for all five and take only a day. Mostly scraping some pealing paint and some repainting of the outside window trims and deck. One bathtub handle needs to be replaced and two electrical outlets need to be switched to GFI outlets. The fence in the backyard needs a few boards replaced. That is it! But FHA is holding all the cards and I don't have enough money for a down payment to go with a conventional loan. I haven't heard anything yet and once again I'm being held hostage and no idea what is going to happen. I just want a house! How hard can this be? And the reality is I'm helping the seller out by doing the short sale - he is avoiding a foreclosure which will be reflected on his credit for 10 years! The short sale falls off after 3 or 4 years. And he won't be evicted - he can move out in an orderly fashion. If you had small children like he has, what would you do? I just don't get it.

a good weekend

I started to work on Happy Birthday this week. I was totally going to put this aside and work on a WIP but when I went to pull out my stack of WIPs I discovered that I had packed them! And now since I'm not moving best case until mid-July, I think I need to find what box they are in and pull them out. I really need a change for a couple of weeks.

The pugs and I had a great agility trial. Once again our Q (qualifying) rate was low and it totally doesn't really represent how good Clancy and Aoife are doing. Clancy went 1 for 6 for the weekend and it was just really small things keeping us out of the money. His excellent jumpers runs are amazing and he is really into the game. Aoife has only been doing Jumpers for the past few trials because I still can't get her to focus on a standard course and there is no point in paying to have her run around and bark at me but she too is running great, super fast jumper courses.

Here is Aoife poising with her first place Open Jumpers ribbon which was also enough for her Open Jumpers title. She is now in Excellent A Jumpers and is running the same jumpers courses that Clancy is.

Clancy qualified in Excellent B Jumpers on Saturday with an 8th place finish. Good for a pug but not his best time of the weekend. He dropped the triple on Friday and Sunday and either finish would have placed him in at least 6th place which is amazing when it's all said and done for a pug.

Next weekend we have another trial and then I'm taking a bit of a break to save some money for the move. Or at least I'm still hoping I will have a move planned. It's all in the hands of Bank of America at this point. That's the sellers lender. I only gave them 60 days to decide whether or not to approve the short sale to me. My attorney advised 90 days but I didn't want to lose the entire summer in case they ultimately voted against me. The stress is getting to me. I so want to move now! :-) And then I can be really broke but it's a good broke as it's for my house and making it just the way I want it.

Farm House finis

Farm House - design by Blackbird Designs

36 count Silkweavers Purely Primitive

recommended overdyed cotton floss

Another one bites the dust! I so wanted to work on something else (I'm really bored with this color palette) but I didn't have time last night to pull something else together. I should have just grabbed one of my many WIPS but I didn't think of that either until just now. :-)

windows!

I have a door and windows! Yeah!

And what is the big deal you ask? For those of you who are newcomers to my blog, you might think this as very normal. But those of you who have been visiting for years, know that me not stitching on a regular basis is not the norm. But I'm making progress. :-) And I love to get back to my usual rate of finishes. Especially now that I might have a house to put them in.


I picked some spring flowers yesterday from my garden. Is there anything better than this?

sunny weekend!

Northern Illinois had a sunny warm weekend for a change and the pugs, lab and I enjoyed every second of it we could. So I didn't at much stitching in as I wanted to but I did get some in! All that is left on Farm House is the house and it's a big one. I'd love to have this puppy in the can by Friday but that's wishful thinking on my part. :-)

Have a great week!

making progress

I've made some progress the past couple of days on Farm House. I haven't managed to stay awake on the train ride into work but have managed to stitch on the way home. I'm hoping now that's is light (or almost so) when I leave the house in the morning, soon I'll be staying awake on the way in also. :-) It would be good to get back into the swing of things. I think when I finish this block I'm going to take a break for this piece and work on something else. Maybe a small finish will motivate me to work more on my stitching. And I have so many to choose from. :-) It will be fun just to look though my stash.

Not much news on the house front. The sellers now have a contract from me and I'm hoping for short sale approval from their bank within the next 60 days. That's pushing it but I don't want to be held hostage by them and I'm thinking more houses will come on the market starting in the summer. Cross your fingers for me. I originally didn't want to go the short sale route because not many are approved. But it was just too good of a house not to take the chance. Walking into a house with $30,000 of equity in this market is worth the try. :-)

snow?!?!

Spring snow is always so startling. Especially when I had no idea it was coming. We got about an inch and a half and the only one who seems to be enjoying it is Isabelle. :-) I did get some stitching in but not as much as I had planned. I found home improvement books to be far more interesting. I've been going to Home Depot and looking at the books and if I like them, buying a used copy on Amazon (some for just pennies). I had a ton show up on Saturday and spent hours looking at how to re-wire, trim and tile.

Isabelle is getting so big! Here she is with Aoife taking a nap. She is now double the size of the pugs. They just run under her when she is in the way. :-) Isabelle is five months old this week and I expect her to continue to grow for at least through the end of the year. At this point I'm hoping I end up with a 24 inch agility lab rather than a 20 inch one. There are far less dogs in the larger class and fewer border collies.

Have a great week!

house buying pain

Is buying a house ever hard! At least 20 times (or at least that is what it feels like) the deal felt like it was going to go bad and something happened and it was saved. But now I'm in a holding pattern again. The seller needs to make some repairs for my FHA Loan to happen but it's a short sale and the bottom line is they don't have to do anything if they don't want to. If they don't make the repairs I have to walk away. But in the meantime, I've had to pull my financing deal (I locked in 4.75% and had to let it go) and I won't be closing in April. At the rate I'm going not even in May. The stress is killing me. And I started to pack in anticipation of moving at the end of April so half my craft stuff is packed while the other half is not. I'm living in box land. So between the stress at work and at home I haven't been stitching. I'm starting to miss it. I have no plans for this coming weekend and I'm hoping to get some time into some of my projects.


The pugs are doing great with agility. Clancy has earned three Qs (one of them a third place in Excellent B Jumpers) in the last couple of trials and Aoife got a first place last weekend in Open Jumpers. A bit of a break until May and we go at it hard again.


Here is a photo I took yesterday of little Isabelle. She is huge! And she is living on my coffee table. No matter how many times I tell her no or off, she gets right back on. It's driving me crazy.

I got the house!

If all goes well I will be officially become a home owner on April 28th. :-) This is the most money I have ever spent for my dogs. :-) They will love the big yard and I can finally get a doggy door!

not much stitching going on

Life has gotten in the way of stitching these days. Between the dogs (with the puppy being a particular time suck), agility and looking for a house, I haven't had a lot of time left over. But here is my progress on Farm House by BBD little as it is.


I made my first offer on a house the Sunday before last. I didn't get it as the seller accepted a cash offer. However, I got a call last night from my agent saying the cash offer fell through so I'm back in the running. I'm finding the entire process to be quite stressful. :-) But I should know something by the end of the week.


I had a three day agility trial with the pugs last weekend. We went 0 for 12. :-( I was so bummed. I've been working so hard over the winter to sort out some kinks but we are still not quite there. I have another this weekend and next weekend and I'm hoping for better results. Thanks for stopping by!

well color me stupid

So last Thursday I started on Farm House the next Anniversary of the Heart series. And got a lot done in just one train ride I thought. On the way home I picked it up again totally meaning to keep my momentum going. Then I noticed that I started this piece one block short on the left. I would have to pick out what I've done and start over. Bummer! I so didn't feel like doing that then and in any case, I wanted to have the chart from the one above just to make sure they lined up correctly before I start again, I just put it aside and napped on the way home. This loomed over me all weekend. So much so that I didn't open my stitching bag. So this morning I remembered that I still needed to check the first chart to line every thing up and I tossed it in my bag. The start of daylight savings always messes with me so I just slept on the train into Chicago and never even looked at it. When I got to work I made a quick copy of the top of Farm House and the bottom of Snow Garden so I could tape them together so I could see exactly where I needed to start.

So what did I see when I lined everything up? That I didn't mess up! The lovely BBD ladies made the left hand edge almost the same in both charts and I wasn't off after all. :-) Yeah for this. But I did lose an entire weekend of stitching. Bummer for that.

I started my house quest in earnest this weekend. How distressing and depressing it turned out to be. What I can really afford right now are short sales and bank owned homes. At least half of the ones I looked at where unlivable in their present state. The people living in them either striped them bare before moving or just gave up on doing anything even remotely resembling maintenance. I actually went into one place (that I had high hopes for) that had two feet of water in the basement! The other half needed major work like roofs and windows and things like that and I don't want to start out my home ownership adventure doing that.

So I'll pull ten more or so and go out again this weekend. I'm really sad that I might not be able to have a yard after all. If none of the older homes in the area work I might have to start looking at townhouses. They are newer and for the most part in good repair but very, very few have yards and fences for the dogs. Or another option is to start to look in Wisconsin for houses. But that will add an hour a day to an already almost three and a half hour a day commute. I don't like either option very much at all.

Pink Hill Manor finis

Pink Hill Manor - design by Blackbird Designs
32 count Purely Primitive by Silkweavers
Recommended overdyed floss

I finished up Pink Hill Manor on the way home from work yesterday. I'm a third of the way complete with Anniversaries of the heart! I'll start the next one this evening or in the morning. Isabelle and I have puppy class tonight and she will come home tired so I might be able to stitch without her trying to eat my hoop. :-)

a great weekend

The pugs had a great agility weekend. Aoife got two second place finishes in Novice FAST and her Novice Fast title and Clancy got his first ever Excellent Standard Q! And since he is still in the A class, it was first place! I uploaded a bunch of youtube videos from the trial - the link to my page is on the left side of my blog. Aoife didn't run nearly as well as Clancy did - she was her usual crazy self. On Saturday the only thing that kept Clancy from Qing was dropping the top bar of the triple jump. Broke my heart for him both times because he gives everything he has to the moment and was so awesome on both courses.


I didn't have time to stitch - I stayed the weekend by the trial site at a hotel and played with friends on Saturday.

But I did have time on the train! I'm getting close to the end of this one. Hopefully this week. In fact tonight I'll toss in the next chart with the floss just in case I'm closer than I think I am.

I made some progress

Took the train in this morning and look! I stitched! :-) This should go quickly now that this house is done. This is one of my favorites from Anniversaries of the Heart.

I finally a picture of Isabelle where her eyes aren't glowing. It's so hard to take nice photos of black dogs. Between her color and the fact that she almost never stops moving, it's been tough. :-) I really need to get a good photo of her with the pugs. Then you can see just how much bigger she has grown.

I'm very saddened by the loss of Lisa Roswell and I wish her family well during this time. She was one of my favorite newer designers and she will be missed.

Georgie

I had a question last week regarding the fabric around my embroidery hoop. I've seen it called many things, I always call them my hoop huggers. I put one around everything I'm working on whether I'm using a hoop or q-snap. They are super simple to make. This one pictured started out as a 6 inch strip of fabric. I measured the hoop around the outside and multiplied that amount by 2.5. I cut a length of quilting fabric to that measurement six inches wide. I turned under the edges on both sides to make a nice clean edge, stitched up the two ends together to make a continuous piece of fabric and put 1/4 inch elastic under the long edges to gather it and make it stretchy. I like mine wide enough to tuck the extra linen into it while I'm stitching. It does keep the linen nice and clean and every so often I just pop the covers into the wash.


I have seen them on sale on the internet but unfortunately I don't have those links anymore or I would share them.

Just to clear up any confusion I do live with four pugs. :-) But I only own three. Georgie officially belongs to my mom who I live with. When I move out in a couple of months Georgie will remain behind but don't worry, he won't be alone. He will be living with Lily the big yellow lab that also belongs to my mom. In the event that something happens to my mom, I will happily take Georgie at that time to live with me.

back on puppy patrol

Now that I'm back on puppy patrol, I don't have as much time to stitch at night as I did the days Izzy wasn't around. But as I've said before, any progress is progress! :-)

No plans for the weekend except the International Kennel Club Dog Show in Chicago (need to buy puppy stuff!) and dinner with friends. Hopefully the rest of the time will be spent stitching and playing the pugs and lab.

I had a great suggestion for my blog name - three cool pugs, me & the lab experiment. I love it. :-)

Have a great weekend!

all I can do is smile today :-)

Loving my progress on Pink Hill Manor. My dye lot of Jacky Brown isn't as pink as the photo and it's a nice color.

Thanks so much for all your kind words regarding the return of Izzy! I'm still pinching myself. I got a call last night from my BIL and they just couldn't take the chaos of two puppies anymore. The two puppies were not playing well together at all and were total terrors when they tried. Izzy who had totally bonded to me didn't want much to do with them and they thought her offstandish and not very affectionate. Hunter was preoccupied with playing with Izzy and in turn ignored them. While the puppies were with me I crated trained them so they would sleep in crates at night giving them a break. But my sister and BIL are not fans of crating so they let them roam around at night. They would disrupt the household in the middle of the night with their antics and no one was sleeping. All good for me it turns out. :-)

When I got her home Izzy ran around with the pugs and greeted each one. The pugs were like, where've you been Iz? Georgie was especially happy to see her. She didn't stop waging her tail until we went to bed and she fell asleep.

She is bigger than all of them!

I'm one happy camper. And I am here to tell you, it really is easier with only one puppy. Breakfast was so easy without Hunter around. I think most things will be easier with just the one. I'm so glad I get to find out.

Now I really need to find a new name for my blog. :-)

She's back!! :-)

And all mine now and forever. :-)

it's almost a house

I stitched over the weekend! Miracle of Miracles. :-) I didn't have as much time as I had planned. I kept getting distracted by this pile of dust and this pile of laundry, oh, look there is a dust bunny! And before I knew it, it was Sunday afternoon and I finally sat down. But the house is nice and clean.

No train ride today - I'm working from home. So there is a good two hours less that will get stitched today. :-( But the extra two hours sleep I got this morning sure was nice.

a great start

I had a really good start to Pink Hill Manor. Almost the entire border complete in just two train rides? I wish they were all so constructive. But the seasons are changing and it's almost light for the morning train and light for the evening train and that really helps keep me awake. Who knew I was half bear? I'm coming out of hibernation! LOL!


Have a great weekend! The pugs and I are going to do our best for the same. Most of the snow is gone now and all that is left is a yard full of mud and dog poo. I know what part of my weekend will involve. Yuck.

A Wish For You finis (for now anyway)

A Wish For You - design by Blackbird Designs

32 count Purely Primitive by Silkweavers

Recommended overdyed cotton floss

I finished up A Wish For You on the train ride into work this morning! Yeah! I got another couple funky dye lots of some colors so my windows look totally hosed. I need to just stop stitching when this happens and pull something else out of my stash rather than complain when the piece is completed. I plan on adding a different saying that continues throughout the entire piece ala House of Hawk Run Hollow. I just need to find something of suitable lenght that I like. Once the last two charts come out I'll see just how much space I have to work with. I'd like to do 2 over 2 but I'll make 1 over 1 work if I really like something that is longish.

I'll get started on Pink Hill Manor on the way home from work tonight. This is aonther one where I love the chart but not so much the colors. But I'm just not up to changing it around right now. I just want to stitch and not re-design. :-)

back to it

I've been trying to find time to start stitching again. Enough feeling sorry for myself already! :-) I'd love to get this piece finished over the weekend and since I don't have any plans, if I just plant myself on the couch and ignore my Facebook page, I might actually do it.


I've starting house shopping! Prices in the area where I live and want to buy have finally come down to reasonable prices and with interest rates where they are I think I can finally do it and still eat. And that means the pugs eat! So it works for everybody.


Izzy is doing fine and my sister and brother-in-law love her very much. I just worry they won't have time for her like I would have nor have the skill set to train a high drive dog. But I'm sure it will all work out. I'm going to hold off on my lab puppy search until I'm in my new place. I'd love to have a puppy more of less potty trained before I move but I don't want to complicate my life even more right now.

She's gone :-(

I came home from work yesterday to find the house emtpy of labs. I miss Izzy already. But I know she will be fine - my sister is kind even if my brother-in-law is isn't.

I'm still here :-)

As you can see not a lot has been stitched in the last two weeks. Mostly because of the following photos. It's still full blown puppy time at my house. :-) So between the puppies, a blizzard and jury duty last week, I haven't had much time to stitch. And whenever I try, one or both of the puppies wants to eat my project. Not good.

But here are some random shots from the last couple of weeks. The aftermath of the blizzard. I missed the snow of '99 as I was living in LA at the time and I was only 5 years old for the snow of '67 and I don't remember much. But this will will linger in my mind for years to come. 20+ inches of snow is a lot. It's hard to tell from the photo just how much snow is in the backyard because of all the blowing and it's also hard packed and the dogs are running on top of at least 12 or so inches. Over the course of the storm I had to go outside every couple of hours to keep shoveling snow away from the door because it would have been five or six feet high if I didn't and we would not have been able to get out at all. This is Hunter, Izzy and Georgie running and playing. Hunter loves it, Izzy and the pugs not so much.

Hunter playing while it was still snowing. I had to shovel a path for the pugs.

I don't let Hunter on the couch but every time I turn my back this seems to happen. That's Molly with him.

Izzy loves to go back to bed after she goes outside - every time she comes back in she runs right to the bed and snuggles in. She is not much for the cold and snow.

See what I mean about turning my back? Hunter, Aoife, Izzy, Molly and Clancy all taking a nap. When Izzy came two and a half weeks ago, she was smaller than my smallest pug, Aoife. Now she is bigger than the biggest, Georgie.

Molly and Izzy taking a nap. Yes, Izzy is special and she gets to sleep on the couch.

I have all but begged my sister and brother-in-law let me keep Izzy. My sister is willing but my bil won't. They have no clue what they are taking on. Maybe if they had been able to train Hunter to do anything I would not be so adamant that they are making a mistake but that 5 month old lab is out of control and they are clueless as to what to do. Now they are going to ruin another. And my bil has stage 4 colon cancer and is in no condition to take on another puppy and my sister isn't up to the job either as she is sick with an autoimmune disease. I told them it was stupid idea before Ken got sick but now it's asinine and borders on insane.

I love that little puppy so much. It hurts just to think about her leaving but I expect one day this week I'll come home from work and she will be gone. No good deed goes unpunished for sure. :-(

a wild week

It's been a wild couple of days at my place. Last week my brother-in-law had some pretty intense surgery that was very unexpected. He originally was supposed to go in on Wednesday but the surgery was stopped midway through after the docs realized that it would be much more complected then they first thought and rescheduled him for Friday. So I picked up my sister's 16 week old yellow lab, Hunter. Such a sweetie! The pugs even like him despite his larger than life size. :-) My sister needs to be at the hospital as much as she can and not worrying about Hunter was a huge relief for her.

Sweet Hunter.

Hunter and Georgie deciding what to play with next.

Then just to really complicate things more, the OTHER lab puppy my sister and brother-in-law purchased a month ago was scheduled to arrive into town last Saturday and once again I was pressed into service. Meet 9 week old Trixe (I've been calling her Izzy, short for Isabelle).

She is the sweetest thing ever. I'm secretly hoping she will be just too much for my sister and brother-in-law, with his very long recovery before him, to deal with and she will get to stay with me forever. :-) Yeah, I know, it's just wishful thinking as my sister stopped by last night to meet her and also fell in love. As it is, it will just kill me to give them both up after three or four more weeks. I think one little black lab is perfect payment for all my trouble. :-)

Izzy would make a wonderful agility dog. At nine weeks old she is just a tad smaller than the pugs. By next week, she will be larger then all of them.

So not a quilt or stitching piece was worked on since mid-last week. I just don't have time with all the chasing after puppies I have to do. :-)