It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

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Daylight Saving Time began this morning, and just to prove that that lost hour of sleep hasn't totally destroyed the weekend (and that it's sooo worth the extra sunlight in the evening), I'm going to do something I haven't managed to do for months...WRITE A BLOG POST!!

You don't want to hear the knitty-gritty of why I've been missing for months...a (not) thrilling pastiche of being out of town, home demolition/reconstruction, video games, and work woes (so what's new?). No, you are here for pictures of needlework! And possibly fun things I've been doing! Well, today you're ONLY going to get needlework pictures, but buckle up, because I promise that will be enough.

One of the trips was to take a class with my EGA chapter. I joined the duClay chapter in Florida a few years ago, but I've only been down once to a retreat. There was finally a class that fit with my schedule, so I booked a plane ticket! Since my birthday was the day after I would have flown back, I managed to finagle a birthday trip to Disney World out of it (my argument to Michael was that I would be more than halfway to Disney anyway, so he drove down to Jacksonville and picked me up after class!)

So, my first finish of 2018 was my chapter nametag, which should have been finished eons ago.

I finished it as a mini-flatfold, a technique I made up after reading the (most excellent) tutorial written by Vonna on how to make a proper flatfold. However, I thought a proper flatfold would be too bulky for something so small that I also wanted to wear around my neck, so I figured out how to do it with just two pieces of mat board. If anyone is interested, I can share what I did.

I stayed with my DF Teresa, who is an amazing hostess. The class was great! Here I'll show you our prestitching (the thread keep) partially assembled (as we learned to do in class):

It was very interesting to finish; the eyelets were made by first enlarging the hole in the linen with an awl so that it would be big enough to put some thread strands though and tie in a half-hitch.

I'd share more pictures, but the ones on duClay's blog are much better, so please visit there! The blog is maintained by Jackie, who does lovely stitching and knitting. And she is the one to thank for the rest of this post! A couple people asked if I had stopped blogging, and I was saying that I needed to get back to it, but I had just missed the Olympics when Jackie said, "Well, you HAVE to do March Madness!" Holy Shamoley, I had completely forgotten about March Madness*!!!

At first I thought I was going to have to miss it this year, since I wasn't going to get home until March 4th. But then I realized...with the class piece, the "emergency" stitching project I brought just in case there was a free moment somewhere, and the two knitting projects I had started for Loopy Academy Senior Year and had along...this just might work!

So, on March 1st, after stumbling home from a great day at Hollywood Studios, I pulled out my class piece and did a little more work joining the two sides of the thread keep together.

The next day, following a day at the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival and a night waiting in line for Flight of Passage in Pandora at Animal Kingdom, I pulled out the "emergency stitching project", which is a hardanger piece. Please enjoy this very blurry picture of it.

March 3rd saw us on a special safari at Animal Kingdom, followed by a night viewing the new fireworks show at Magic Kingdom. Every color in this brioche cowl was in that fireworks show, plus some!

March 4th we had to head home, so I got some good knitting time in the car on a cotton vest.

Unfortunately, I have since had to unravel the whole thing and start over, since I gave up on my knitterly denial and realized it was going to come out big enough for Michael instead of me. I'm thinking he wouldn't really want to wear a hot pink mesh vest....

We got home at about 10:30 pm and had to go to work the next day, so I was too exhausted on March 5th to do anything at all. Well, that, and the Sparkly Compote of Decree was being difficult. You see, I knew in advance that due to the upheaval of construction, I wouldn't be able to get to (i.e., "find") all of my WIPs. So, I was just going to draw until I got a project I could actually find. Here's how many draws that took:

*sigh*
After many trips up and down (and up and down) a few sets of stairs, I found one! Castles by the Sea, by Teresa Wentzler (a class piece from a long ago retreat!) The picture on the right is what it will look like when it's finished, although I am making up my own verse.

March 7th found me stitching on Convents Herbal Garden by Chatelaine (or, as it was known when I started it, "Mystery 2"!):

When I found the piece for March 8th, which was Shakespeare's Garden...

...lo and behold, in the same box was the very first piece I drew out of the SCOD and couldn't find! So instead of drawing for the 9th, I stitched that one. This is another Teresa Wentzler piece from a retreat, called "Sewing Seeds of Love". You can see a small picture of the finished piece on her site (I gave away the charts for the other two designers' pieces at some point).

That almost brings me up to today! Yesterday (Saturday), we went to the Botanical Garden to see the thousands of tulips and orchids that are in bloom right now, and I couldn't face downloading all of those pictures.... So, you'll have to wait to see what I stitched on yesterday. Who knows, my instagram feed might get some madness showing up, too. Stay tuned for more March Madness! And let me know if you join in with me!

JiffNotes

Hooray for Daylight Saving Time and not coming home from work when it's dark! Please excuse the sizing of the pictures in this post...one of the "upheaval" things was getting a new computer, which is awesome, but my old image software no longer works on it and I'm definitely in the "making do" stage right now! *For those of you not familiar with March Madness...in the United States, college basketball playoffs begin in March, and there are so many crazy games, they coined the term "March Madness". Back when I used to run Theme-a-licious...and actually every March since...I would do my own "mad" stitching March by picking a different project every day! Nowadays the project I stitch on each day is "chosen" by the Sparkly Compote of Decree.