Theoretically, the "A" is for "Analyst"

Wednesday morning at work, my BA (business analyst) was to give a training class for the application on which I've spent the last 10 months of my life (to the user acceptance test team).

I have it on good authority that his first words upon launching the application were, "This is the first time I'm looking at this."

And his second statement was, "So, what do you guys want to see?"

Awesome.

Squpdate

The scan I posted Monday of my Squirrel fob was actually from Friday. Look how far I've come!

I have decided that this year, I am going to try this weird, strange new concept: working on One Project at a Time. =) Now, I'm never going to be a true One-at-a-Timer...I'll still have a few different knitting projects going...a travel stitching project...I want to keep up with a SAL on Ye Shall Prosper (I'm ahead right now =). But look at the progress I've made on Mr. Squirrel! I hope to make more tonight during AI....

I did get an extra hour of sleep last night, which means I feel vaguely human today. =) I hope to catch up some more tonight. It's possible you won't hear from me again 'til after the weekend. The loose itinerary is Thursday stitch night, Friday I try to finish my major project in a half day then to the High Museum to see the terracotta warriors, Saturday we go see King Tut, and then maybe to Knitch. And merriment, merriment the whole time! =)

I found them!

I found pictures of Erin's blog candy (don't know why I forgot to link to her yesterday!) She had asked for "something beady" (given that choice, "something stitchy" or "something knitty"), so I made her some stitch markers (for needlework) and a bookmark (which I liked so much I need to copy for myself!) The book was part of her blog candy, since I knew one of her 1001 things was to read a manga, this is one of the very few "standalone" manga I know, I love the authors' work, and it was on the clearance table for a steal! =) Sadly, I futzed around with the bookmark FOREVER! Construction, what the tassle should look like...it all seemed to flummox me! But I love how it turned out!

Oh, mercy, I am sooo tired today. Last night I was awake from about 3-5:30 or 6...getting tenser by the moment 'cause I couldn't fall back to sleep! It wouldn't be so tragic if I hadn't gone to bed so late Sunday night and woken up early Monday, losing about 2 hours sleep there as well. I'm destroyed today. I hope I can catch up before this weekend, because DFs Teresa and Ann are coming into town and we have a wonderful but busy schedule that I'd like to enjoy. That'll be impossible if I'm this tired.... Based on past experiences, I wouldn't even remember anything we did if I'm still this tired!

All Good Gifts

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This picture is from several months ago, when I received wonderful blog candy from Karin. How could she have known blue was my favorite color?? (Perhaps she is just marginally observant of the many hinting comments I had left on her blog for a while, LOL!!) Aren't these beads fabulous?? I plan to make a necklace (and maybe earrings), but I want to use at least one for a scissors fob as well. The needlecase is just wonderful; look at all that work!

What a coincidence, then, that one of my TWBB Christmas Ornament Exchange ornaments went to Karin! This is Teresa Wentzler's Intermediate Whitework Ornament. Of course, I couldn't do it in all white. =) It was kitted for me by DF Jill. Since Karin likes "sparklie", I put it over gold lame' to show off the drawn thread areas. I also tried something new with the twisted cord by adding beads while I was twisting, to add even more "sparklie". I'm not entirely satisfied with how it came out; the beads are a little too random. I'd like them to be more even. I also wish I'd hung it diamond-shaped rather than square. But overall, I was happy with it and it was rather hard to put it in the mail.

I didn't think I would have time to make many gifts for Christmas (in 2007 I made scarves for my three nieces). However, I did manage a few. I made one of the famous scarves for my mom, since she coveted the ones I'd made for my nieces. I also made one for DF Larissa (ditto on the covet =). Since I gave DF Jill a "big" present for her birthday (tickets to the "So You Think You Can Dance" tour...oh, yes, I need to post those pictures sometime!), she commanded that I was not supposed to give her a Christmas present. Well, I at least wanted to give her something "small"...and since she loves koalas, when I saw this guy on Ravelry, I couldn't help myself. I made some major changes to the pattern; mainly knitting in the round and using worsted weight yarn rather than fingering. I also totally changed the ear construction. When I find where I wrote it all down, I'll add the details to my Ravelry listing.

Jill, in return, was way too generous and gave me a Heart's Content kit that I had (unbeknownst to her) been lusting after for quite a while...featuring my favorite critter...AND the scissors to go with it! I couldn't resist starting on him on New Year's Day (once the last scarf had been given away!)

I had to postpone more work on Mr. Squirrel, though, because I had decided I wanted to stitch something for DF Jean's birthday. I got some grace days because we celebrated a little late. I'm afraid she only got the finished needlwork, without it being made into anything (originally it was supposed to be a needleroll). I finished at 11:30 the night before her party! Fortunately, she liked it and told me she had a great frame for it. Sorry for the sub-standard picture...I barely had time to throw it on the scanner before I ran out the door to work the morning of the party! This is "has lost her sheep" from bearly a bird designs. I thought that phrase was a bit of a downer (especially for someone that loves sheep as much as Jean), so I changed the words.

So at least three of us in blog land are cuddled up with our favorite critters to start the year!

JiffNotes
Gifts to and from me.... Sadly, I can't find a picture of the blog candy I sent to Erin...I'm sure I took one...OR of the ornament I gave my niece!! So what's your favorite cuddly critter?

It's Nerd to Me, Apparently

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Your result for The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test...

Modern, Cool Nerd

61 % Nerd, 61% Geek, 22% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.


You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Take The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test at HelloQuizzy

JiffNotes
For the record, I say that the difference between a nerd and a geek is that the geek can tell when people's eyes are glazing over and knows when to shut up about her obsessive interests.

Paper dreams

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You can call it my "New Year Cleaning" of the blog...I keep finding these old posts that never got finished and published! These pictures are from almost a year ago, when Michael and I wallpapered a wall in our bedroom. Originally, I had this really cool idea of creating a patchwork of fabric baffles (covered wood frames) with lots of different textures to cover what was going to be a cinder block wall in our bedroom. When it turned out it was going to be sheetrock, we sort of halfheartedly looked for textured/fabric wallpapers we would like...since, with our degree of laziness, we knew the fabric frames would take forever. Imagine our surprise when we found out that they made wallpaper with woven paper--and even real bamboo slats! We decided to go with some texture, but not the crazy bamboo, and picked this. It's actually woven paper, so the texture is really neat.

I tried in vain to find someone who knew how to apply grasscloth wallpaper. We knew from past experience with contractors that we'd probably only be happy if we did it ourselves. No problem! I thought. My oldest sister is a wallpapering wizard! She lives in a house whose interior is completely Victorian, and has wallpapered even her ceiling with William Morris-inspired paper, pieced into cool knotwork and such. She can help!

I had her over for lunch. She took one look at the wallpaper, after I explained that we had to use a clay-based paste, and said, "Oh, why did you pick this stuff!"

"Why," I asked, "have you worked with it before? Is it horrible?"

"No, I've never used it. It just looks tricky, and I'd be afraid to do it."

"Why would you be afraid?"

"Because you guys are really picky and I don't know if I could get it right. I think you should just try it."

Great. Our crazy wallpaper choice has scared off my domain expert. Well, we decided to try it ourselves, since it was clear we wouldn't get anyone else to do it. After an extensive search for the clay-based paste, we picked a warm day and got busy!
The preparation...oh my, I just saw that although we swathed the bed and floor in plastic, I left the needlework completely unprotected on the walls!

"Action" shot of the super-thick paste going on...

"Booking" the wallpaper so we don't get smeared with paste while carrying it over to the wall.

He's still smiling.... My sister told me that the one who was the least picky should actually apply the wallpaper; otherwise, it would take all day. You can see who's most laid back. =)

Only trust the architect in the family to cut on a straight line...

Two down, two to go!

Annnd, you can tell by the light that it took a while to finish!! I was the chief smoother and bubble-eliminator. I only fouled up a few times when I pushed paste out from seams. But considering that I had NEVER done wallpaper before and had NO IDEA what I was doing, I think I did pretty good. Those spots still await some kind of paint/pencil/crayon over, since it's impossible to clean the paste off the grasscloth. We have a test swatch so we can experiment with different methods. Yeah, we'll get around to that eventually.... =)

JiffNotes
We wallpapered...and we're still married!!

Fabulous!

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Kathy very kindly gave me this award!

I have known Kathy for...10 years, is it?? I think we met at Spirit of Cross Stitch in 1998, but I could have the year wrong. She knew I was looking for "Companions" by Teresa Wentzler, and she happened to find it in the stash exchange (she was wayyyy ahead of me in the line!) and grabbed it for me. And someday I will actually finish it, LOL!!

As I understand it, I am supposed to list five addictions and five other fabulous blogs. Hmmm...I am having a little trouble coming up with addictions. That's so strong of a word! My "addictions," what I would call things that I seek to do in exclusion of anything else, I hope, tend to be temporary in nature. For instance, I may not be able to "put down" a good book, but then that book is done. So I guess I'm listing things that have made me at least temporarily set aside anything else...

1. Puzzle games
2. a TV series on DVD (sadly)
3. a really good book
4. Needlework
5. Chocolate

I would say 4 and 5 are more "enduring" addictions, LOL!

I hate singling blogs out, because you're all fabulous =), but I also love getting awards and suspect that others do, too. So, please peruse my sidebar for all the fabulous blogs I follow, but here is who gets the award this time around (I'm trying for people who don't have the award yet and who I've not awarded recently):

1. Yuko - I just recently found her blog, and as I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Japan in 2003, I love seeing her pictures of her country as well as her fabulous unique craft style.


2. Afford Your Passions - That is her current blog, but please visit her new space starting February 1...she's having a giveaway celebration! I expect the new blog to be just as fabulous as the old. =) She always has many pretty needlework finishes!


3. Annette's Acre - More fabulous needlework eye candy.


4. In THIS Life - Aimee raises some fabulous children, does some fabulous dyeing, crochets some fabulous stuff and otherwise posts thoughtful stuff. We may not always agree, but she always makes me think!


5. mainley stitching - Barbara's continual stream of lovely eye candy and fabulous storytelling make her blog worth reading any day. And, it's just nice to be able to tag her with an award before anyone else, LOL!

Whew! It's always so difficult to narrow things down!!

JiffNotes
Speaking of fabulous, how fabulous was the season premiere of LOST??!?

Swish Your Bushy Tail!

In honor of Squirrel Appreciation Day (yes, really), I give you my neeeearly finished goal on Ye Shall Prosper. I really need to get back to it.

Signs of the Apocalypse

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[Editor's note: This post has been languishing for a while! It wanted more pictures, but I'm kicking it out of the queue!]

Number One, I wore a Do-Rag. It was, indeed So Real™.
Seriously, I did! Of course, you might not have recognized it as such... Yep, that's the above-pictured Do-Rag, with yarn and fun fur painstakingly threaded through every other hole. It "only" took DF Jill and I about 3 hours to make them.

What? Oh, yeah, this was at A Stitcher's Gathering. Now, given that Teresa and Jean have all blogged most splendidly about this topic (yes, it was almost three months ago and I'm just now blogging about it...what's your point??), there's not much left for me to say. Except...

Number Two, I came home with something finished. From a class I took. The last time this happened, it was a punchneedle piece, and that barely counted. It was, after all, punchneedle. But this... ...a bona fide scissors fob? Shocking. Of course, it's not actually fobinated, so maybe you don't need to listen for hoofbeats just yet. This is the practice piece for Rae's Celtic tri-fold necessaire.

There were no tragic Kinnearing attempts this year, but just to show you that I'm still the same art-challenged gal, I'll show you what happened in Catherine Jordan's class. We were going to be painting. Now, I knew that before I went, and I already wished that Michael was going to be there so he could pinch-paint for me. By the way, I really wish I'd taken a picture of Catherine's Jamestown map. As fabulous as her designs are, the photos on her site are horrible. She combines dimensional stitching with painting with super-diluted acrylic paint on linen to achieve some really fantastic results. Here's our class piece:
So we were supposed to paint some water, and some land. Here's what Jill did: A nice Caribbean scene. And here's what Debbie, who got there late after nearly being rear-ended did: Fabulous, despite her being traumatized. A lot to work with there, once she stitches in the grass, etc.

And now, I give you: The Swamp. Notice how there's not enough water for my ship to float in? Or that my poor whale will be bobbing in a murky bog? Notice the extra ring around the ring? In my defense, every time Catherine walked past me, she said, "Don't be afraid to use lots of water." Since I was keeping my eyes on my own work, I had no comparison for what was happening to my poor linen. And lo, the waters used to be separated by land, water from water, but with too much water on the brush and not enough skill in the painter, they converged on the land and rendered it a boggy disaster. *sigh*

Things went better in Sherri Jones's class, and she was delightful as usual. I've even finished the front of the class piece (another fob):


All in all, it was another fabulous weekend, and I'm more glad than I can say that we were in Hilton Head at a terribly nice resort instead of in Louisville again. Even though I did really miss Lynn's. (Ignore the scaffolding outside the window as you ruminate on "terribly nice resort".)

And, as always, the end came way too soon.

JiffNotes
This post was brought to you by the letter "W"...as in WAY past time it should have been posted. Like I said, I was intending to have more pics...like of the kits themselves, but I decided it was time to knock this post out!

Reading...

And just to prove that I'm trying to catch up on reading blogs even though I'm not taking the time to post just now...if you have ever flirted with tatting (or, like I have, had a brief, passionate relationship that got pushed aside by other passionate crafty relationships but that you hope to renew one day), go visit Tatting Tales, where she is giving away a most wonderful handcrafted shuttle. Or, you know, just because her blog has lovely eye candy and no shockingly long run-on sentences and is in other ways completely unlike mine.

Tatting Tales ~ All things Tatting (It's an obsession): Ceramic Tatting Shuttle Giveaway