Since everyone appears to be getting their last bit of summer in and no one appears to be in their sewing room, here’s a little off beat post for the few who are tuned in! I’m sure to purge more of my unserious subscribers, leaving only you, my besties, for the fall.

It all started when I was hand stitching late last Thursday night. We have two loveseats facing each other and Mr. SFO was comfortably snoozing across from me. The nights have been lovely and cool, so he opened the back door to let some air in. More than air came in. From that direction, a spider the size of a mouse ran at top speed under Mr. Duffy’s couch just in the shadows of my task lamp.

I am no girlie screamer, but something came out of my mouth and Mr. SFO was not too happy with being woken up. Wouldn’t you want to know, though? Neither one of us wanted to start pulling out couches to look for it, and my idea was to just try to forget it even happened. Snakes, mice, non-hairy spiders, anything– bring it on! But just not the “Jesus” spider of western Maine, please. In the morning, I Googled “how long can a spider live without water” and the answer was no comfort. Eight weeks.

Fast forward to broad daylight this morning, where again I was just cross stitching and minding my own business when the spider ran from under his couch to under mine. In the daylight, I could see it was indeed the “Jesus” spider– the big hairy ones we have up here. The name refers not to the profanity that comes out of my mouth when I see one. In fact, I am not a profane woman, swearing only in moments of profound sewing mistakes when no one is around, with usually the D— epithet.

When we first moved here, we turned over the old boat that came with the house, named, not by us, the “Swamp Thang,” and four of us took it out into the lake for the first time. As soon as we were in the deepest part, we discovered a fifth passenger– yup, one of these mouse-sized spiders. To keep a long story short, I will just let you imagine the capsize-inducing machinations as we all quickly rearranged seats. Mr. SFO, while shouting for calm, managed to get the spider onto his oar and flicked it a good few feet into the water.

You know how, in the movies, presumed dead monsters keep coming back to life in the final scenes? I’m thinking of “The Terminator.” The next thing we know, instead of sinking like a piece of lead, the spider was walking on the water (and there you have it– I coined the term “Jesus” spider) and some horrible, invisible force was sucking it back like a magnet towards the boat.

Seats were then quickly reassigned numerous times again, this time, as a guessing game–when the spider grabbed back onto the hull, we couldn’t see where it was going to come up over the edge. Monsters are always so much scarier when you can’t see them, right? To sum it up, all five of us ended up high and dry on the banks quite a distance from our dock, and it was a while before the Swamp Thang saw the lake again.

Back to my living room– Mr. SFO now insisted that we pull the couch out, tired as he was of my gasps. I cautioned against it– perfectly willing to stitch somewhere else for eight weeks, because I saw the speed this thing was capable of, and the next room over was our bedroom. We also chased a large snake INTO the garage this week, so there’s that. (Did you know I came up here for a quiet life?) We did pull the couch out– the spider was indeed mouse size, although Mr. SFO “assured” me it’s not half as big as the ones he sees outside. It must have already been suffering from dehydration, and just sat there– we got it with the bottom of a slipper.

Then– in a moment of calm, I saw that under the couch there was just a neat little rectangle of dust, where my Swiffer apparently doesn’t reach. That’s one for my housekeeping skills! And to my delight, I spied some other things. I can’t honestly say I was looking for them, but I was happy to see them, like when you meet an old friend in the grocery store. The whole event precipitated more cleaning than I intended to do in a morning, but it was fun.

1. Prairie Meadow Finishing Pattern

This loose paper reminded me I have all twelve blocks appliqued– there’s just a couple of those brown pennies to stitch on the last block, shown below. One of my summer goals was to block the blocks– lol- just mist them with water and pin them back to square. My applique was a bit too tight to start with and some of them are quite crinkly. I wanted to do this outside– we’re having the driest summer on record, and they’d be dry in no time. Then I can trim them up and THEN, it’s the fun part. I get to do some fun scrappy piecing on the borders.

I started this project when I was packing up our old house three years ago– where do these years go? The stitch-a-long started on my birthday, and I so wanted to finish it for my next birthday in 2023. This one’s for me! Sounds like a nice cozy fall project, doesn’t it? xox

2. Ice Skate Latch-hook Kit

I am not a snob about any type of craft– diamond painting, paint by the numbers, Perler beads– I’m in. So this beauty I’m guessing is from about 2010, purchased in Michaels. The DD was a figure skater, so there’s an armload of skate themed fabric and crafts about the house. Every 3 or 4 years, one of us picks this up, relearns how to use the latch hook tool, and hooks a few rows. Wouldn’t this be the funniest surprise Christmas gift this year for the DD?

3. Lori Holt Stitch Cards P

I think Lori’s on about Stitch Cards Double Z by now– look how close I came to finishing this, before it hid under the couch! I even bought a frame. Let’s do it!

And finally…

4. Village of the Month Finishing Kit sketch

More paperwork– I’m fantastic at generating it. Remember this? I started the year gung-ho on producing a finishing kit for these. Absolutely no one out there is looking for this thing– I’d still like to make it though. The border X’s would work perfectly, and it even looks like I had in mind some sort of gimcrack loopy-loop edging of the type I am always railing against to finish it up. I got hung up on making sewn cross stitch blocks– some of the x’s were awkwardly sticking out– they looked fine in the snowflake but not in the heart– I really didn’t like that stem on the clover, either. I had recently thought of making the little blocks out of HSTs or even hourglasses– and I’m determined to revisit this once Carefree Highways is finished. Will you be stitching long? Haha!

That’s all I found under my couch– in addition to a blue fabric marker. The discoveries made me feel happy and motivated– maybe you should check yours!

Speaking of Carefree Highways– here’s the latest photo, and I am even a row or so ahead of this. The next photo you see will be a finish- a design wall couldn’t even hold it at this point!

If I apply myself, I may even finish the center today– my goal is still to have it on the longarm by September 1st. I haven’t made progress on the border appliques since last time– I may load it without them, since the borders are going to be digitized machine embroidery quilting anyway.

This week, it’s full steam ahead on the Year on Sugar Meadow block– the meadow is full of all colors of wildflowers, and I caught this black butterfly on an exotic hydrangea we have. Look closely– a bee, in full flight, photobombed me! What are the chances of that!

And here’s the block so far..

Someone suggested I give the names of all the flowers we are stitching– it’s a great idea, but I honestly don’t know what they are! I have an app where you take a picture and it will tell you what plant it is. I might try that and we can learn together. Since I started doing this series, I have really had my eyes opened to the variety of flowers and leaf shapes out there– it is truly amazing if you just stop a moment to look.

So that’s my silly “last week of summer” post. I’ve been feeling very unfocused about the business lately. I do love the Year on Sugar Meadow, and it’s going to be a gorgeous quilt. I’ve also been doing bowl fillers and the tiny sampler each month, but in terms of future work, I really don’t know where to go. Usually by this time of year, I would have a three or four Christmas sets in the wings, and some good Halloween or fall starts. Cross stitch is super popular right now– if I was going for maximum profit, I would just be converting all my machine embroidery to hand charts, printing them up, and retiring. But my heart isn’t in that. On the other hand, I also feel like in terms of artistry, it’s time for a change and I lack direction on that, too. I do have my core customers who love everything– if you made it this far on this post– that’s YOU! So I guess I’ll just end by telling you how much it means to me that you’re here and I know I can count on you to stick around and see what happens. It’s a little crazy everywhere right now– let’s be patient with ourselves!

xox
Carol