I'm LAUGHING....

...because it's Nikki's turn now! Mwahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Cheerio and pip pip, London! Don't let the door hit you on the way out and mind the gap and all that!

As of November 13, 2012.

- Lauren

We are the WORST bloggers! (But the best secret keepers...)

OOPS! It's been over two months and no post. We're sure many of you are emotionally damaged as a result, because really, what's possibly more important to you than our blog? Our apologies. BUT!...there was a partially good reason for this.

We had a secret....

It was this!

Awesome Aunt's mom turned 100 (That's not a typo, people.) in September. Nikki and I, as well as my husband (see also: Nikki's brother), flew to Indiana to take part in the celebration. The invitations said no gifts. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....hilarious! If you turn 100, you FREAKING GET GIFTS! It's the LAW. So we made her Chatelaine's Workshop 4. (For our stitchy friends, this marks our first Chatelaine completion! Woot!)

We did not post as we went because we also wanted Awesome Aunt to be surprised. Mission accomplished. We had a grand time with fabulous food (not to mention adult beverages....the little people were home with grandparents!!!!) and even fabulous-er people!

I've also resumed my love/hate relationship with London. There is visible progress, so it's more love than hate at this moment.

Butterfly has come very far. I just have to figure out how to print the portion of the pattern with my flower on it, stitch it, and then that goes back to Nikki.

I even busted out Mirabilia's "Holiday Queen" not too long ago, during a hate slump with London.

Hope everyone had a spooktacular Halloween and that the Great Pumpkin was good to you. I've been very busy helping my children with their candy supply and guarding against their possible over-sugaring by eating "some" of their haul. 'Cause I'm a good mom like that. Nikki started this process prior to Halloween by eating what she purchased to hand out. She is not only concerned about HER children, but ALL the children of her neighborhood. That's right. We are givers. We CARE.

For all of our Mid-Atlantic/New England readers, we seriously do care and hope you weathered Sandy safely. Best wishes to everyone in those areas.

That's it from me for now. Not sure when we may post next. I told Nikki I'd be posting this and then it was her turn soon. She laughed at me. RUDE.

Happy fall, y'all!

-Lauren

Arc de Triomphe

First building. DONE!

Close up of the rice stitches on the frieze

Completed work so far

~Nikki

La Tour Eiffel

Just a quick update to share pics of tower number one.

I'm now blind, and possibly brain dead from the backstitching.

~Nikki

Groundhog Day

No, it's not February.
Anyone else have this issue sometimes?...
Get up, clean, change diapers, fetch 1,000 snacks for kiddies, run errands, stitch a bit while little one naps, make dinner, scold dog who's trying to eat said dinner off counter, hang out with the hubs, sleep, lather, rinse, repeat.


GIFSoup

It's not that I don't enjoy my life. I have a fantastic husband and (mostly) adorable children. I have friends and past times I love. Nikki entertains me with texts peppered with vulgarity most days. That's fun too.
It's just that I sometimes feel I have nothing interesting to say. Unless you're super excited about how I used a vacuum hose attachment to clean out the fireplace. Or if you're totally fascinated by how I executed a chiffonade of basil. It makes ME happy but it's not exactly an Oprah exclusive.

So basically this is a giant excuse note for why I haven't blogged. Mea. Freaking. Culpa. (Nikki will be joining in on this sentiment later.)

Also, be forewarned...I am an Olympics junkie. AND an all things British junkie. You should know this from previous posts. It's a perfect summer Olympics storm. Just sayin'...big blog gap just waiting to happen.

But for now I have some pics for our stitchery junkie friends.

I went nuts on Paris trying to get my half of Part I done. Awesome Aunt came to visit and I wanted to get it totally finished to send it back with her. She did take it back but I couldn't quite get my part done. There's still my flower beds to complete. But other than that, Pay-ree is looking good if I do say so myself.

3 o'clock Specialty Stitch Diamond

6 o'clock Specialty Stitch Diamond

Paris overall as of July 9, 2012

I also have been Butterfly-ing. I am so in love with this. Gloriana's Deep Blue Sea is possibly the greatest silk known to humankind. So gorgeous. Again, iPhone camera sucks. SO gorgeous in person.

Butterfly Mandala (aka: Crack) as of July 19, 2012 

London, alas, will have to wait. (Much to my mother's chagrin....I have been scolded for not working on it by her once this week.) Once I get my part of Butterfly done and mailed off I will only have London left in the co-piece category. I will have no choice but to get on it....switching threads every five stitches....for yet another taupe....ARGH. It will get done...one day.

Take it away, Nikki!...

Hello my peoples! (This is what Tenacious A is call everyone now, her "peoples") I kind of like it, in a 'my kid may grow up to be a megalomaniac dictator' way.

Much like my partner in crime up there I too have been very very lacking in the blogging department. And mostly for the same reasons. We're done with school now, but the kids still have practices and such so we can't go away for that long and miss too much. The older girls would live in the basement if I let them and threw food down occasionally. It's been so blasted HOT here I can't even shove them outside without risking heat stroke, and that's at 9 a.m.

What I'm basically getting at is this has all come together to be a really excellent way for me to be lazy and procrastinate on just about everything.

What have I been doing. Hmmmm...not a whole lot of anything interesting. I mean, I guess it's been interesting for me, but probably not for you.

Old Dog is KILLING ME. Slowly but surely. I had three days in a row of nothing to clean up. It was glorious. But I knew it meant I was going to be punished. And I was.

Mr. PotRoast is out of town for work this week. He picked a good week. Old Dog has had me up between 4:45 and 6 every morning. And the mess. Ooooooooohhhhh MY. The mess.  Today took the cake though. I was up at 5:30. Cleaned up the mess and decided to steam clean a bit later when she wasn't walking around so much. Couple hours later I steam clean. Pop a bagel in the toaster, spread on some cream cheesy goodness. Turn around. Pee. And it's been walked in.  Let me tell you how excited I was.

I was this excited.



And I am scared, Jessie Spano. I'm scared that I'm going to have to this again tomorrow. Like Groundhog Day.

OMG! I think our blog just got meta!!!

But you know what sucks? Unlike Jessie I don't have any energy pills. Just coffee and chocolate chips that I 'appropriated' from being made into cookies. Oops. 

Now that everyone's had their mind blown, let's get back to what you peoples really care about. I know it's not dog pee. 

I've kind of been stitching. I kicked butt on MTM. Finished the left hand corner and it's gorgeous. The blues are kind of addictive.

I just got Paris back the other day and have finished the right hand corner.

AND, just a little bit ago I started on the first tower! I'm going to be freaking blind by the time I'm done however.

A bit of the arch and one leg

Not much else at the moment. Sampler is still in time out. Bad sampler. I'm trying to pretend like I'm not taking the GRE in less than a month. And I'm counting down the hours until Mr. PotRoast returns because I am over doing his jobs and mine.

Peace out, peoples. Have a good one!

Lauren & Nikki

Lost mojo? I founds it!

Hola blogging land. I've been bad, but that happens when you're doing a stitchy blog and haven't been doing a lot of stitching. I mean, this happens to most people in their given hobby/interest I assume. It's how I've always been with stitching. The last time however, I didn't stitch for almost three years (calm down AK, there were extenuating circumstances like finishing my degree and having another kid-concurrently) And it's not like I haven't been stitching, I just haven't been stitching with the same fervor as I typically do. Part of it was that I didn't really have anything I HAD to work on. My part on London was done, same with Butterfly, Sampler...you know what, let's just not talk about that right now. So I really didn't have anything in my face that needed to be done.  I worked here and there on that Sherlock/British biscornu I had started last month and am close to finishing, but other than that...not much to report in the stitching department.

Until...

Lauren sent me the best package EVER! I got MTM back! Which was awesome because I haven't seen her since March. But even more awesome was that my favoritest sister in law in the world also sent me pastries from the scrummy French bakery in her town.

So I gots to work again. MTM...so pretty. I've been rocking that out like it's my job the past few days.

I've also finished a little piece I had made waaaaaaaay back in 2001! I think it was one of the first things I stitched over two!

The Sherlock biscornu is close to being done, I need to get a move on, and realize next time that a 81x81 piece is not going to get done in a couple of weeks. Little patterns from now on for these things!

Butterfly finally got the top hibiscus done and sent on to Lauren.

I also used my new machine and finally made curtains for the Dancing Diva. I've only had the fabric for around two years so I'm pretty proud of myself.

Now...should we discuss Sampler? Sigh. I suppose we should. See...Lauren and I agree, we love Sampler for many many reasons. Simplicity, the color palette, easy to read chart, etc. However, she's boring right now. I don't know why. I don't know if we've flipped some Chatelaine switch in our brains and anything that doesn't require tactical skills and pre planning worthy of a WWII campaign isn't happening right now or what, but we're just not feeling it.  Despite this I have attempted to work on Sampler here and there.  The last we posted I had finished the second peacock. I should have stopped there.  Because everything I did after that...had to be frogged.

I mean, frogging sucks regardless. But to have to frog something you weren't too keen on working on in the first place? That's like doubly offensive.  It's not too much. Maybe an hour and a half of work but still...ARGH!! I was off by three stitches vertically. THREE!! How does that happen?!?!?! One, I get, but three! Clearly my brain was not present. When I discovered the mistake I called Lauren immediately and told her Sampler was getting out of my face for an indefinite amount of time or bad things were going to happen. She understood.  I haven't even technically frogged it yet. I just took it off the snaps, and put it in the bag. And then I said



Let's move on to more pleasant things. Tenacious A has been rocking out with the potty training! FINALLY!!! We're almost there.  So very very close, and I feel secure she won't be ten and in pull ups still.  She also got into pre-school for the fall!! The best thing about this pre-school, IT'S FREE!!! So, come September I'll get three hours, four days a week in an empty house. There are no words.

Miss M, my oldest, is two days away from finishing elementary school. :( How?  How did this happen? I think I'm less prepared for her to start middle school than she is. Every time I say something she just shrugs her shoulders and gives me that 'What's the big deal' look.

The Dancing Diva got to cash in her birthday present from March and go see the Bolshoi Ballet at the Kennedy Center recently.  It was a pretty cool day just the two of us, even if we did get a wee bit turned around a couple of times on the way there and back. Her dance recital is in two weeks so we'll be in full on class/dress rehearsal/'Mommy! I can't find my tights!' mode shortly. We took the tour at the KC before the show and here are a couple of pics.

Opera House ceiling

Giant Waterford chandelier

Dancing Diva on the river terrace

I'll do better with this whole blogging thing. Promise. Being back on the stitching train is sure to help.

Kirk out.

~Nikki

Lost: Mojo

People. Where did my mojo go? Not the Austin Powers kind of mojo. Stitching mojo. I losted it!
I'd been doing an hour or two here or there, but mostly I was finding other things to do. (Not blogging, obviously. I've been absent there for the most part too. I haven't been feeling very funny! Mostly cranky and snarky. I reserve my cranky snarkiness for texts to Nikki. She likes it. And she said I could throw her under the bus and point out her lack of blogginess too. That's what a good sister-in-law is for, dudes.)

In my defense, there has been a bit of mass chaos around here. My daughter had pneumonia for a while. That was fun. (That was written in sarcastic font.) I've been sewing gifts for some dear friends who are moving away. : * (  Ummmmm....I've had some very important literary tasks to finish. I mean, I couldn't leave Carter and Sadie Kane hanging, could I??? What else...OH, there was Masterpiece Mystery: Sherlock to watch. Benedict Cumberbatch required my undivided attention. (I did, however, get over an hour of stitching done while watching the Masterpiece presentation called Birdsong. Pewwwwww! That was a stinker. Too bad. I've had a crush on Eddie Redmayne since the Pillars of the Earth mini-series. But I digress.) See? It was most definitely lost.

I will show you what I actually HAVE managed to do.

The diamonds (and by diamonds I mean that partially finished singular diamond) on Paris have been a refreshing change. And you should notice quite a bit of progress from the last picture.

I also got a corner done on MTM. I love those colors! (They are so pretty in real life! Darn you iPhone camera! Not nearly good enough. Don't you think I need an iPhone 4s? I mean, Siri could remind me to stitch, and the camera is better, and....and....RIGHT?)

I'm getting back to stitchy manic spells, slowly but surely.

Also, for those of you following the story from the last blog post about my friend Gabby and her family, here is an update on Troy's current condition. I'm happy to share that while not out of critical status yet, things are progressing! Thanks to all of you who have been supportive in thoughts and kind words, as well as financially.

http://lateyoungfamily.blogspot.com/2012/06/thank-you.html

Mr. Mathlete is watching US vs. Canada soccer tonight. I betcha I get some stitching done this evening!

- Lauren

Because I'm Not Opposed to Whoring Out Our Blog for a Good Cause

Here's a story about how bad things happen to good people. A man and his wife (who is also a nurse for the county department of health) co-own a construction company prior to the economic downturn. I think you know how that ended.
Fast forward a few years and now the man needs a liver transplant. The good news is that they got the call this weekend. The bad news is this. It. Is. Not. Cheap. Never mind the emotional and mental toll this process takes. The procedure is at a hospital a few hours away. She can't work during the recovery period, expected to be at least a month.

This couple are the fabulous mother and stepfather of my awesome friend Gabby.

Some of you know Gabby. Some of you have checked out her super creative craftiness when we've given her blog a shout out.

She is not just my online/co-crafty friend. She is my real life friend. Our daughters are in school together. Our sons wreak havoc together. We escape the stay-at-home-mom realm with girls' night outs. She makes me crafty stuff, "just because." She has watched my children so I could go to eleventy hundred doctor appointments.

Gabby and her family need your help.

Bad things happen to good people. But good people can happen to bad things. 

If you care to, please check out their story and consider giving a donation. It is tax deductible through this website.

http://www.helphopelive.com/find-a-patient/profile/index.cfm/patient/66945FF6-9240-72C3-0E62C3ABFE8A34CD

Every dollar counts. If you are unable to help financially, prayers, good thoughts, and positive comments on their website guestbook don't cost a thing and are greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

- Lauren

Stitchy Sisters in the morning!!! (Or afternoon)

Please to be reading the title in a singsong voice ala 'Troy and Abed in the Morning' from 'Community'.

Since we've been a bit remiss in blogging lately this is your lucky day! This is SUPERBLOGDOPPLER5000!!! Now with 3-D technology and smell-o-vision! (Not really, we don't have that kind of money. But you can pretend.) And now, co-written for extra bloggy goodness...

Lauren:So....to kick off this blog in the style of a talk show (blessedly without people yelling overtop of each other, but sadly without hot male guests), I'd like to introduce...meeeeeee!

Nikki:But we can't promise that a chair won't get thrown, the little people get belligerent sometimes.

Lauren:This is true. We should probably clarify that the children would be the chair throwers and not us throwing chairs at children. Dogs maybe. Specifically Miles. The dog with eleventy hundred lives. And zero brain cells.

Nikki:Oh Miles...

Lauren:In Miles escapades the past couple of weeks, the score is Gate being left open by the landscapers: 0, Miles: 1 and Little dog next door: 1 and Miles's nose: 0. So it's a draw.

Nikki:You forgot about 70lbs of Great Dane mix cowering from a fly in the house. Paint an accurate picture of the special for our readers, please.

Lauren:Oh, yes!!! Cowering and quaking in my lap because there's a fly...not even a horsefly or dragonfly...a regular old housefly!!! Oh look, here's his royal moron-ness now. Miles, how do you do it? How do you stay in the character of a total buffoon day in and day out? Do you subscribe to the school of method acting or are you just particularly suited to the role?

Miles: *chews on something that is not a dog toy and gets on the bed with no sense of shame.*

Nikki:You have to admit you collect the crazies. They find you somehow. Also, can I add that HOLY DAMN I put too much horseradish on my sandwich. Wow! Should have tried that a couple of weeks ago when I had a sinus infection, maybe it would have helped.

Lauren:Oh, damn! I don't know. I think the Percocet/Benadryl combo was pretty genius. (*Do not try this at home, kids.)

Nikki:No no no no! You're thinking of the two Lime a Rita (not bad, btw) benadryl combo from my allergy attack last week when I woke up three hours later and didn't know where the children were. (No worries, Mr. PotRoast was at home and had put them to bed. He rocks.)

Lauren:Duh! Silly me! I do get your benders confused. (*She really doesn't need a program, promise.) Question: If I had a salad for lunch, does that mean I can have extra Ginger Lemon Creme cookies?

Nikki:Answer: DUH! We've been over this before.

Lauren:Yesssssss! I should be stitching. AK might show up for a Paris inspection.

Interruption due to technical copy/paste difficulties (I told you we weren't fancy.) Now, back to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Lauren: oh look!

Nikki: Oh hi!

Lauren: Dude! Here's why I love Sarah Jessica Parker. She's hosting a fundraiser.

For Obama. She said, "It should be fabulous." EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Maybe I should have been more excited about the chance to win dinner with George Clooney, but I want to hang out with SJP! I didn't mean this for the blog. I just had to share as it was in my e-mail when I opened it up.

 Nikki: I'll probably incur your wrath, but I've never cared for her.

  LOL-too late!!!

  :)

 Lauren: WHUCK?!

 Nikki: She annoys me

 Lauren: DUUUUDE! SHUN!

 Nikki: Sorry.

 Lauren: FINE! When I win I won't take you.

 Nikki: FINE!

 Lauren: I will take George Clooney.

 Nikki: FINE! See if I care!

 Lauren: Now all bets on my Billie Piper snarkiness are OFF!

 Nikki: OH MY DAMNS!!! It's ON like Donkey Kong!!!

Lauren: Please to be inserting donkey kong video here...

Lauren: Why does Living Social think I need pole dancing classes? Like every other week. OR Boudoir photo shoots?

 Nikki: Or vajazalling?

 Lauren: YES! Let's discuss vajazalling.

 Nikki: Although in a way they are all kind of connected. Google thought I wanted Russian mail order brides once.

Lauren: Well, you do, don't you?

 Nikki: I don't know if they have to be from Russia.

Lauren: True. Back to vajazzling. Is there a way to insert a poll? We should see if we're the only people who believe paying for Swarovski crystals to be glued onto one's lady bits is nuts! (Pun totally intended.)

Nikki: *snort- You said 'Insert a poll'

Lauren: LOL! That's what she said!

Nikki: I'm not sure how to do a poll on blogger, but I encourage everyone to leave their opinions in the comment section and mayhaps we can revisit this topic at a later date with some quantifiable data to back up our hypothesis.

Lauren: Yes. That sounds good. So people....vajazalling....thoughts? (Carol's comments are likely to be epic. Also, her comment is likely to be the only one.)

Nikki: I disagree. And I double dog dare others to weigh in on this super important matter. Because I think it's ridonkulous.

Lauren: It IS an important issue. Much along the lines of nuclear waste and world peace. Also, only losers don't take a double dog dare. Gasp! Maybe we should send Katie Couric or Oprah an invite to our blog. I feel certain they would want to be in on this ground breaking discussion.

 Nikki: You know it. We are on the front lines.

Lauren: On to stitching news?

 Nikki: sigh-I suppose...Lauren doesn't want to talk about lady bits any more, I apologize if you're disappointed.

Lauren: LOL! I want you to know I just broke a nail. Blogging is DANGEROUS.

Nikki: I don't think we have worker's comp.

Lauren: SCHMIDT!

Nikki: So...stitching...I'm done with London THANK GOD! (no offense to your mom) But that piece deserves every bad thing said about it. It's gorgeous, don't get me wrong. I love looking at it, but it's a pain.

30 Hours. Suck it St. Paul's!

 Lauren: I know. You flicked off St.Paul's while watching Sherlock. That says it all.

 Nikki: I totally DID! Screw you St. Paul's!

 Lauren: But it's gorgeous.

Nikki: I know. But that doesn't take away from it's pain in the assness.

Lauren: No. No it doesn't. And in sampler news?

Nikki: Oh sampler...you're boring me to tears right now. So sad! I've only done about two hours on sampler since my last update, I'm just not very motivated to do anything on her. But I did make sure the second peacock was finished, that was seriously bugging me.

Two Peacocks- I feel better

Lauren: Yes. You and your symmetry complex. MTM...

 Nikki: Yes!! Let's talk MTM since we FINALLY have all the fibers for it!

 Lauren: YES! I picked up the last two (kind of since apparently we will need 4 cards of the PH01 metallic...DOH!) fibers from my LNS. It only took the Waterlilies folks a bajillion weeks to ship one of them. Did my first two over-one butterflies. So pretty! I heart them. (Except that I have to do them again on the other corner.) And I've been PH01-ing but still have some more to go. Not much longer until it heads back to Nikki.

Nikki: and it is prettiness!!! 

Lauren: In gay Pear-reeeeeeee....

 Nikki: oui oui

 Lauren: The over one madness for the fleur-de-lis roundabout is DOOOOONE!!!!! (Imagine me saying that like Oprah.) I've done some more filling in of the center. Paris is slow going. The over-one work took many hours with little to show. Le sigh.

Lauren: Godzilla is awake. Doesn't he know that I'm blogging and had plans to stitch???

Nikki: Godzilla!!!!! I told you the little people were going to get belligerent!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Just a quick post to wish all our mommy readers a very Happy Mother's Day today (if you're in the US).  If you're not in the US, then Happy Belated or Early Mother's Day depending on your country, and if you don't have one then that's crap and you can totally borrow ours!

The lovely ladies from RFML made up this awesome chart that I felt was worthy of sharing. Enjoy!

Hope your day is everything you want it to be. For me personally, I did NOT get woken up at 6 am with lukewarm coffee and an Eggo French Toast stick that was still frozen inside, so that was genius. I also did not have to clean up Old Dog's pee. Win-Win!

~Nikki

So...THIS happened

We've been waiting on the kit for Butterfly to arrive for...I don't know, FOREVER. I think it was ordered during the Reagan administration. It finally arrived on Saturday. I immediately began stitching

well, after I did this of course



 and by Wednesday we had this.

Seriously! Pics don't do it justice. And this piece is soooooo addictive! I would keep going, but Lauren would hurt me.

She's been put away for now. And I've brought London back out. For a bit.