Enabling (Graphix Galore!)

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WARNING! This is a graphics-intensive post! If you're on dial-up, grab a cup of coffee, or bail out now, Now, NOW, I tell you!!

I promised eye candy. Maybe the volume of eye candy will make up for the lateness of this post. The stitch weekend was two weekends ago now, and I blame the lateness of the post squarely on Michael. I think it was the night before stitch weekend was to start when he called me over to the XBox 360, and showed me the Marketplace screen, which showed, in glorious Technicolor (breathtaking CinemaScope, and Stereo-phonic sound...sorry...) an expansion pack for Puzzle Crack Quest. "What are you doing to me??" I asked. "I'm just making sure you come home again," he said. Too cute. I managed to control myself during stitch weekend, suffering only the usual lack of sleep due to late-night stitching, but once I was back home, I spent copious late nights Questing. The expansion pack added a potential mount of a...Pegasus!! I mean, really, how could I resist immediately capturing it and training it to level 18 so I could watch my mini-avatar flap around on shiny, shiny wings??!?

Sorry...thanks to the all but 2 of you that had no idea what I was talking about for hanging in there. On with the eye candy, already!!

Oh wait...that's more like foot candy. Some of us got pedicures (and for the record, none of my coworkers have made any comments about my beflowered toes, although I wear sandals every day). Judy was horrified when I told her how long it'd been since I had a professional one (like, five years, I think...I give myself home pedicures, though!) Totally worth 23 smackers for the massage chair, leg rub, callous removal and embellishment. Michael's comment? "Your toes are like...encrusted. Weird." =)

First thing Friday, we descended on Beads by Design in Marietta. I totally copied Jean by scoring some dragon beads to make into stitch markers...
I used some figure eight components, which makes them suitable only for size 3 needles and smaller, but I think I'm going to redo them with wire-wrapped loops (This is not my forte. It's not even my piano; I'm horrible at it and it takes me at least twice as long as any other human to do. There would also be twice as much cussing, if I cussed. As it is, there's twice as much indistinct mumbling.) The good news--Net stash gain: Zero!

After lunch and pedicures, we descended on Vicky's place (no blog), who was gracious enough to host us again, even though she was completely moving out THREE DAYS AFTER STITCH WEEKEND!! Even with that, she made us the cutest "party favors"...behold the pincushions in luscious fruity/vegetabley fabrics:


After completing the stitch markers, I was in a beady mood, so I pulled out a peyote and brick stitch ornament I bought about 8 years ago. I did this weird two-rows-at-a-time version of peyote, which worked really well until I got to the letters...then, not as well. I need to time myself and see if it really is faster than doing two regular rows.

Behold the camaraderie...



Behold the concentration...



Behold the comfort...


Behold the M&M's...
Dude. These are "premium" M&M's in almond (blue), mint (green), mocha (bronze...ugh) and double chocolate (purple). They are insanely expensive and insanely good. And, I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but they are shiny. I mean, really shiny. As in, they have some kind of mottled edible metallic paint on them. Coolest of cool...and they don't have hard shells. The mint ones were sooo addictive....

Behold the WIPs!!!
Cathy's (no blog) Wisteria Gazebo (by The Victoria Sampler)
Ann's stupendously gorgeous and impressive Heaven and Earth Designs piece (which I cannot remember the name of, but it's this Art Deco-ish fairy bedecked in animalesque patterns and shapes). Thumb included for scale...yep, it's over one! Patience of a saint, that Ann!
Deb's (no blog) Heirloom Wedding Sampler
Vicky's (no blog) Lady of the Mist by Mirabilia
Angela's (no blog) Quaker somethingorother WIP by Jane Timmers. Angela's taking a finishing class on this very soon (this week??) and somehow the kit just got to her right before the weekend!! (She made some good progress after this, tho'.) I love how she changed the black silk (ugh! on this fabric??) to this gorgeous blue.

And most importantly, BEHOLD THE CINNAMON ROLL!!!
That's a ridiculously good home-made cinnamon roll, made by the fabulous Cathy (no blog). Or maybe it's a praline roll. Hard to tell with the insane amount of icing I smothered it with (just the way I likes it).

After beginning with that sugar high, we set out on Saturday to shop for beads because a couple people wanted to learn how to make the bracelet that I deliberately, with malicious enabling intent innocently put on that morning.

Behold the stash...


Uh...whoops. That last is mine. I know, I know..."stash diet". In my defense, I bought the black and white beads to finish off some earrings that have been in the planning stages for a while. Speaking of planing, I meant to work on them right then, but I realized that although I had those beads with me Friday, they hadn't made it back for Saturday. I have no excuse for the silver springy beads.

Good thing Jill was there to remind me of all the niceties of how the bracelet was constructed. Don't you just love my moxy at enabling people to make something that I only vaguely remember myself and then glomming on to someone else's brain to help me remember? Anyway (my extant bracelet's in the middle)...

...they did juuuust fiiine...
Jean's bracelet
Andy's (no blog) bracelet and her lovely Baby Bug Ball WIP by Shepherd's Bush

And hey what do you know...there were even some happy dances!
Jill's Two Penny Fob by Indigo Rose. This is the first of two fobs and three total happy dances Jill had during the weekend. Way to overachieve. ;)
Linda's (no blog) socks...I can't remember the pattern or yarn, but I am proud of myself for not ripping them off her feet and running with them. Maybe I was able to restrain myself since it was about 95F outside.
Hey, that's mine! It's an ornament by Indigo Rose, and it's actually only the first of three sides. But since I did the whole thing in only a few hours, I'm keeping it in the current WIP pile. That's a blast from the past, that is, a kit from the very first Ornament Exchange.

Jill's second fob finish was a beaded pansy fob. Once I saw it, I said, hey, you know...I have that finished and unassembled, too...whattaya say we work on them together on Sunday?? Somehow, my experience with the Cubie seems to have not taught me anything. But this worked out much better, and look what we ended up with...
Jill went with green twisted cord around her edges, while I boringly stuck to the kit's directions of adding an organza ribbon instead. I've done another one of these fobs (by Tomorrow's Antiques), a snowflake, and with that one, you just added a bead as you whipped the backstitch borders together. However, the shape of the pansy was too irregular for that to work. The directions said to tack down the ribbon and then leave a "puff" before tacking it down again. Um...yeah...say what? I ruched the whole strip before tacking it down, and although it was a close call, I made it around to the other side with a whopping 1/4" to spare!
Here's a better view of the ruching, hopefully.


You may notice the glaring omission of the Ornament Exchange, the main event of the weekend. I decided this was enough craziness for one post. The ornament exchange coverage is coming soon....

JiffNotes
We came, we saw, we stitched.