Last Slow Sunday Stitching for May and Catch Up

 Time surely flies, I can't believe the long gap between my post for the month of May, there should have been a Mother's day post but something happened while trying to post and it was lost, sadly this is not the first time that has happened and I'm sure it won't be the last.

So here is a bit of catch up for the month of May, in the early weeks of the month the weather was true Spring weather with cool mornings, dry air and lots of sunshine.  For Mother's Day my son and daughter in law took me out to lunch and to Washington Oaks state park because I wanted to see the gardens there. 

I was thrilled because for once I didn't miss the rose garden in full bloom, usually when I visit a botanical or park with gardens I miss the blooming roses. Not this time.

The day was perfect for the visit, bright sunshine and cool breezes it lies along the intercoastal waterway where people can fish from the shore, there were a few boats on the water.

There were some statues, lovely interesting trees, lots of native plants a few fountains and lots of flowers.
 

Throughout the month I have been having some medical tests done by my cardiologist, I will be having more throughout June. I'm looking forward to the end of the testing, happily none have been invasive and I have been in and out in about 20 to 30 minutes.

My slow stitching has been progressing and yesterday I finally completed the stitching on the March goddess, Hecate, I haven't washed off the stitch and wash product but here she is with the hand embroidery done.

The design is not my own this is a pattern from Urban Threads, despite all my doubts she turned out nicely and I do like the results. Here is the link to Urban Threads where you can find a variety of hand embroidery patterns https://www.urbanthreads.com/

I also completed the April Goddess, the inspiration for this goddess is the little reproduction statue of the Minoan Snake goddess shown in the first photo.

And the hand embroidered Snake goddess for my personal Goddess a Month challenge for April. I completed this about a week ago.

I am linking my post to Kathy's Quilts here: https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2021/05/slow-sunday-stitching_02080809229.html

The weather has turned quite hot with the start of the Memorial Day weekend summer begins.  I wish you all a safe and happy weekend and let us not forget what this weekend is about.

May's First Slow Sunday Stitching

 The weather is sure heating up here in Florida, and even though it's spring weather wise we have moved into summer; the weather now will just stay hot and hotter as the days move forward with no real relief until mid to late October, for me it's the one drawback of living in Florida, as I grow older not having to deal with the cold weather and snow makes it bearable.

On April 22nd I saw the cardiologist to find out whether I need to be concerned with the blocked abdominal arteries, no fast answers as to whether they will affect my heart but I have a laundry list of test I will be having over the next 2 months and then my follow up appointment on my birthday in July.  On the 4th I have to go for routine bloodwork for my primary doctor, then in July I am set for the mammogram and a bone density test. 

In the meantime I am having a few more days when I nearly feel my old self, a few pain free days and if it wasn't for the constant nausea I would forget I was ever ill on those days, but that nausea is such a strong reminder.

Yesterday I finally made it outside to transplant some plants into larger pots I got a later start in the day then I had planned and sadly it's quite late in the season and I'm not very hopeful but the optimist in me has to try.

I have been getting in more time to stitch and made some progress on the March and April goddesses I am working on. This is the bottom of the Minoan Snake goddess I was working on for April, she is nearly completed but I haven't taken any other progress photos.

The March goddess is slowly coming to the end and I am finally liking the look of it, does anyone else kind plod along stitching when you find you don't care for the piece or maybe it's just me.

Anyway her facial features have been stitched and two hands are done, and that's about it. At the rate I am going on this one she may not be done till November. No I am making an effort to complete her in the next week or two.  Today is Sunday so I am linking my post to Kathy's  Quilts   https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2021/05/slow-sunday-stitching.html

Happy May Day!

 

New Moon and TUSAL Time

 Well her it is the New Moon for April and it's that time once again for the TUSAL(Totally Useless Stitch A Long) report. Here are my Orts for April so far.  The current project I am stitching is for my personal Goddess a Month project. This is the goddess for March I need to finish.  The pattern is from Urban Threads, I wasn't too crazy with the pattern I designed and truth to tell I not so crazy about this pattern either.  Originally I was going to alter the pattern to elongate the figures as they look squash to me, but as I am stitching further I am liking the pattern more. 

Not sure what a TUSAL is you can click the link to It's Daffy Cat's blog https://itsdaffycat.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-totally-useless-stitch-long.html

UPDATE: I'm late posting this I thought I had it posted but it was still in draft mode. Ugh! one of those days.

Happy Easter

 

It’s been a crazy few weeks since the first day of Spring and I haven’t had much time to post here, I have taken advantage of the days when I wasn’t feeling ill and spending time in the sunshine, getting in some reading time and working on my goddess of the month hand embroidery project.

This month I also joined in the Susannah Conway April Love 2021 photo challenge and thought I would share my post for today. The prompt is vintage:

Day 4: Vintage, The Rider Tarot deck my first deck of tarot cads. I purchased these in 1971 when I was a girl of 16. If you look close enough you can see my hand written notes on the cards as I taught myself to read the cards. Over the years I bought new decks and have quite a growing collection of Tarot and Oracle cards. When I give a reading for an old friend they always ask me to use my trusty old Rider Deck. 

Here is the link for the challenge if you are interested in the prompts and participating https://www.susannahconway.com/april-2/

 I am enjoying this challenge quite a bit, seeing what other participants are posting is interesting and quite revealing too, the post for notebook disclosed many of us with multiple notebooks, avid journal keepers, and others like me that are quite addicted to notebooks, not to mention those creating notebooks of their own. I think notebooks was my favorite prompt so far.

The Goddess of the month for March is slow going and I hope to have her done soon here is my progress so far, I think the problem is I am not too fond of the pattern, I made my own Hecate pattern that one wasn’t so great so I purchased the pattern I am using for Hecate, from Urban Threads, I was going to elongate the image before printing it but forgot. I usually like the patterns from Urban Threads but for me this one just doesn’t grab me. Oh well it doesn’t matter I’m stitching her. I used DMC Diamant Grande for the triple moon, and DMC retired floss for the hair and the torch flames. All other floss is DMC stitched on 100% cotton white tone on tone fabric with spirals.

I will be linking this post to https://kathysquilts.blogspot.com/2021/04/slow-sunday-stitching.html for some Slow Easter Sunday stitching.

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter!

 

It's April!

 

Gosh is it really April? This last week with the temps pushing the mid 90's it's felt like August, then the temps dropped yesterday when the rain started now it feels like Spring.

One of the first signs of Spring's arrival in my yard is the lovely Dandy Lion err dandelion which grows to beastly heights here in my Florida garden. 

Hand embroider was slow going through March I just had days when I didn't feel like picking up a needle, so I put the March goddess aside to get in a bit of crocheting and added a few rows to a project I began last March. 

The shell stitch afghan was put aside in the summer months in favor of other projects, this is being done in Lion Brand Wool Ease yarn  in Athena colorway.  I put it away after crocheting a few rows, I think I may be allergic to the yarn.  My eyes get quite itchy and watery when I am working with the yarn, it may just be coincidence and be seasonal allergies, except during the winter when I had another afghan I made with Wool ease tossed over me my eyes would get very irritated.  I've had reactions to angora wool before so I'm not sure, the wool content is only 20% in the yarn so I have my doubts. The next time I pick it up to crochet and my eyes get irritated I may have my answer. Though who knows maybe the acrylic content is irritating me. 

Progress on the March goddess, Hecate, is slow here is where I am as of today. I'm sure I'm dragging on because I don't particularly like the pattern, and the pattern I designed I liked even less so I bought the pattern you see here from Urban Threads.  I had planned to alter the pattern a little by elongating the goddess but I forgot all about it.  Since it's part of my Goddess a Month project I'll finish it and who knows once it's done I may like it. 

I'm still putting the finishing touches on the April goddess design and hope to have her started by the weekend.

I hope Spring is settling in where you are unless you are south of the equator then enjoy the cooling weathers of Autumn.

It's Spring!