and adding an Eagle

Holly Doyne Posted on by

There was this fox pattern. Published in January by Cottage Garden Samplings that became an instant success in the cross-stitch world. I admit to being suckered by the cute face, pointed ears, and lovely patterning.

Since then, I have also stitched the Swans (Feb), the Jackrabbit (March), the Raccoon (April), the Ferret (May). That means that I have two of the winter patterns stitched with a place on that fabric left for Dec. I also have the second panel completed.

June’s entry was this incredibly cute bear. I have the pattern skinned, the floss pulled, and the fabric on hand. July is an Eagle, which I also have. Ok-  so far so good. Then there was a sneak peak of August, which is an Owl. This leaves me in a dilemma. I can’t see stitching a bear followed by two birds. I like things balanced. That is not balanced.  Plus, the Bear has cat tails and ferns. The birds both have trees. Again, the issued order would look weird in my opinion.

So here I am, stitching the Eagle first, the Bear will be in the middle and the panel with finish with the Owl.

 

So far, 1300 stitches, not too fussy, on (trust me) a green fabric 16 ct from BeStitchMe.

Mostly stitching

Holly Doyne Posted on by

Well, in reality, minimal cleanup and mostly stitching. I was able to unload enough off my desk to be able to use the surface. I found the patterns that I needed to have scanned (and Noah did that for me). The on-line retreat that offered Zoom as an alternative to Facebook didn’t have anyone other than me who really didn’t want to play Facebook.

So I stitched. A lot.

leaving me at 80% stitched on Gemini (Zodiac Girl by Nora Corbett) with about 270 real stitches and all the rest is beads.

The beads will wait…

Otherwise, I really don’t have any burning desire to go anywhere or do anything. Negative test is fine, but I really don’t trust most who are out and about. The fog is still rolling in every night so that there is almost a watercolor impression of trees gradually becoming more visible as the day wears on. We haven’t seen the Bay in days, the marine layer is staying low.

I need to get back to sewing, which, unfortunately requires a bunch of organizing.

Second thought? Audiobooks and stitching sound much better!

negative, negative, negative

Holly Doyne Posted on by

nothing like getting an answer back a lot later than one would want. Test taken on the 23rd didn’t arrive at the lab till the 24th (today) and the results were posted extremely late in the evening.

Not sure I would be this sanguine had the result been in the opposite direction since it would have then forced a trip to the SFVA to pick up meds…

Local Testing

Holly Doyne Posted on by

After months of insanity, my city has finally set up a consistent test sit that operates every day. Regular hours, on a bus route, and actually some available parking. Amazing really that someone with some brains set it up. 

The reason that I say “insanity” from before? There was a different location and set of times each day of the week. Kind of like the traditional floating poker or craps game where the purpose was to avoid discovery or capture. Now, if what you are doing is providing a public service, this particular approach is stupid and defeats the purpose.

Of course, you can’t walk up. You have to first register on line. I asked the woman sitting at the registration desk how they handled people who didn’t have a smart phone.

Blank look.

So I have a PCR test incubating. 

Otherwise, computer games and stitching may keep me at least moderately sane,

and the marine layer never cleared….

Superspreader events

Holly Doyne Posted on by

I hadn’t heard about the number of cases of COVID linked to the first of the two cross-stitch retreat weekends in Ohio. But then I am not on Facebook and it is hardly something that organizers would want to advertise. Or maybe, if they were smart they would use it to remind people who are ill to stay home…

Well, as of yesterday morning, the same thing is apparently occurring following my weekend. So far, two of the other four at my table have tested positive as well as several other individuals as reported on FB. To say I am not thrilled is putting it mildly. Having been so careful, I really don’t want to have been sabotaged by individuals who showed up while ill. And before anyone tries to talk about asymptomatic cases…. there were more than a handful of women who spent their weekend coughing and sneezing. The sound of coughing travels….

As of early afternoon today, the count (as best as one of my table mates could figure) was 35. And that only includes those who posted to the Facebook group + my one table mate who doesn’t deal with Facebook. 

No symptoms here, but going to wander over to one of the testing sites tomorrow just to be on the safe side. This particular site, run by Berkeley, also has Paxlovid on hand. Do I want to add more meds? Not particularly but if I test positive, it is a better plan than spending time in the hospital. I’m almost five months from my second booster so I figure what little immunity I managed to generate has probably waned.

Argh!

Coffee Espresso beans and Coffee Bird (Heart in Hand on 18 ct Toffee by VintageFiberarts with the called for Classic Colorworks threads)

and a good portion of the day playing computer games while sulking…. 

ten degrees warmer

Holly Doyne Posted on by

basic physics says that warm air rises. All of us have been told this over and over again. In reality, it is something that you can easily believe if you live in a house with more than one floor.

I can literally feel the temperature increase as I go up the stairs toward my craft room with the ambient air around me transitioning from warm to hot as I turn the corner and climb those last four steps. 

Upstairs, the only room that is even mildly cool is the bathroom. It faces east and is overshadowed by trees. George is talking about cutting back some of the trees; probably a good idea since the branches are against the house and lying on the roof. Still, shade is important. The upstairs bedroom faces north, it has drapes. Normally you would think it would be cooler, but there was the small matter of shut window and door. The study? East and south facing windows and bright sun flooding the room. Hot comes to mind.

Then there is my craft room. Actually the largest of the three main rooms. From my desk I can look west across the SF bay or turn around and admire the redwoods along the southern edge of our property. I love the views and enjoy having a lot of light. Neither curtain rods nor drapes grace these windows. No one can see in, so I have never seen the point in obstructing the view. Last spring and summer I was working 2-3 long clinic days a week and it just wasn’t all that hot so I missed the full experience. 

This year? Not so much… According to WeatherUnderground which uses OAK as its reference point – it hit 97*F. Various other apps reported 93-95 locally. Even by mid-evening, reading the thermostats in the house, it was 78*F downstairs, 88*F upstairs in one room and 92*F in another. Tomorrow is predicted to be not as warm and even cooler for the rest of the week. The kids in El Sobrante reported 101*F in their backyard with the temp decreasing to 95*F by early evening. Nothing like having a home on a sunny hill and not being all that close to the Bay.

Fun?  Not so much.

Meanwhile, I managed to stitch some on the Tiny Modernist Zodiac. I am now down to the 800 stitches on the frame. I could do it in one day, but it is all these scattered 1-4 stitch little suckers which are just no joy….

I made significant progress on Aires (it is boring to look at right now as it is huge color blocks) so I thought I would finish with a pix of the three critters which form the spring panel of A Year in the Woods (Cottage Garden Samplings.)

and will get the next panel started toward the end of the week.

not much happening

Holly Doyne Posted on by

I took today as an extremely quiet day. Didn’t go anywhere. Didn’t do much of anything other than hide out in my craft room.

I finished Pisces (picture to follow) and started Aires, the next in the Forbidden Fiber Co series. They are great for mindless stitching as pretty much blocks of color.

Everyone else seems to be doing fine and there is a lovely absence of deer in the garden.

Six Airports, one day

Holly Doyne Posted on by

and less waiting than you would think. Obviously, an exhausting day.

It started out fine. Up not so early as I saw no point in hauling all my stuff to the Convention Center from the La Quinta for an hour of stitching. Checking out was easy, as was calling a Lyft. No traffic really on the way to the airport so that went smoothly as well. Few at the check-in counter so that was easy as well.

Security? The good part was chatting with the woman ahead of me in line. Just headed home to Chicago after being in Cincinnati for two weeks along with a number of other team members. What was she doing? Conducting AP exams. As it turns out, a school district can’t just offer AP courses, they have to have certified teachers and the exams for those teachers are after the school year finished. Who knew? She was the examiner for Ancient Chinese. The most popular language? Spanish. of course. Additional languages on this run included German and French.

Wait for the plane? No problem except that it was 30 minutes later – and the dominos are starting to fall. Turns out, my flight is one of those point-to-point-to-point type of arrangements. It actually originated in Washington DC and will end in Las Vegas. Explains the weird .ics file I pulled from Southwest.  Anyway, the boarding process went alright, the flight to Chicago Midway was fine.

All but 11 passengers on this Boeing 737-700 disembarked. The boarding process went alright except this is a -700 plane. The overhead compartments aren’t all that large which means the 22″ rollers don’t fit except along the plane axis rather than stacking them in narrow side up which increases the number of suitcases by at least one per compartment, There is someone who sticks in a pink roller that is obviously too long to fit and takes a seat. Fast forward to everyone on board. A cabin attendant comes by shutting all the compartments. First attempt at this one doesn’t close. So…. she forces it. The door breaks.

And there we are. Broken door, eight suitcases in the double compartment and no way to take off. (I did mention that this escapade started 30 minutes late…) They call maintenance. Competent middle age guy shows up and takes one look before informing the cabin attendants that there are two choices:

  1. empty the compartment and tape it shut.
  2. fix it now – estimated time = 3 hours.

 

They managed to re-home those suitcases, and we finally took off, short two overhead storage bins taped closed and clearly labeled.

Now, I never take tight connections if I can avoid it. But I had had slightly more than an hour layover in Kansas City. Short flight, quiet flight. Everyone seemed pretty subdued. Plus, the other two cabin attendants were not speaking to the one who had screwed up. As we taxi toward the terminal, I checked my boarding card for my next flight. Gate 34. We come in at Gate 39. I can see down the left side. All the jetways are pulled back and there are no planes. Great – I have missed my flight.

Stupidly, I disembark and check at the desk where they hand me two more boarding cards and a voucher. Fine. But how am I being routed? Phoenix -> Las Vegas where I change planes. There are no more flights direct from here that have available seats. The late night flight? Cancelled. What flight am I taking out of here? The same plane I just left! Boarding #? C29…..

One other thing to note about this particular plane configuration – I can easily stuff my backpack under the seat in front of me if I am seated in the middle or window seat. Not so with an aisle seat. As I am boarding and looking at a full plane, a young man in SW logo clothing gets up from 3C and offers me his seat saying he will grab a jump seat in the cockpit. If I had been thinking, I would have offered to change seats with the passenger in the middle and avoid the challenge of finding a location for my backpack. Problem solved by one of the cabin attendants checking the overhead bins before pulling out someone’s jacket and hat taking up space and placing my bag under them. (Jacket and hat in the overhead? Seriously? On a full flight? Rude.) Then there was the issue of the passenger sitting in the exit row with a pet…. Ok, so SW didn’t specifically say
“No Pets” in the exit row but I think that is pretty obvious. Worse, they had passed the animal off to another friend not in the row during the briefing….And, no, surprise, they were not happy about being forced to change seats rather than pass the pet over to a friend.

All excitement finished, we took off. The window seat passenger in my row, with her well behaved miniature schnauzer,  got off in Phoenix as did the guy next to me. Disembarkation went well as did boarding with another extremely full flight. There had been only one other passenger on my original flight who was also Oakland bound. We found each other at the Kansas City Airport as we were the last two passengers to board. My excuse for taking this journey was heading home – she was headed to her son and daughter-in-laws to help out with the grand baby, now a week old.

We had a plane change in Las Vegas.  In case you aren’t familiar with that particular airport – there are slot machines all over the place. I am not impressed but at least I didn’t have to go far to find my new gate. Smooth flight to Oakland, disembarkation went well. My bag showed up on the carousel and I took BART home. Of note to my fellow Bay Area transit using friends – the schedule on the website is not correct….

George bailed me out of BART and I was glad to get home.

If you are still reading (grin) the list of airports is

Cincinnati
Chicago Midway
Kansas City
Phoenix
Las Vegas
Oakland

and yes, I managed a bit of stitching but the lighting was poor and I found reading was easier.

 

The StitchyBus

Holly Doyne Posted on by

I showed you a picture of the StitchyBus last year – but just in case – here it is again.

Our transportation

 

I am mentioning the bus  because of this year’s charity. Each year Keepsake’s has had a fundraising raffle to support a local community charity. This year’s charity is a local bookshop on wheels, The Cincy Book Bus. Yes, it is a bookshop housed in a 1962 VW Truck – this newspaper story is a fairly quick read.  100% of the profits go into purchasing books. New books. In a community where 90% of the school children are eligible for subsidized lunches, new books (rather than used) are precious.

There was a raffle (and no, thank goodness, I didn’t win anything), and an auction in which I didn’t participate. A significant amount of money was raised, all of which will go to purchase more books for donation.

Meanwhile, I finished stitching the Ferret. I didn’t start the Bear, that will wait till I get home.

The gift exchange happened – first the gifts

then a display of contents after the exchange. It isn’t simple. I think it has turned into an elaborate competition and I wound up feeling relieved that I didn’t play.

the anime crew was having a wonderful time upstairs –

and someone finally managed to pin a tail on one of the staff (who took it with remarkable grace, but refused to auction off the tail).

Again, I skipped the late night stitching as sleep seemed important. Especially with a flight in the morning…

StitchCon 2022

Holly Doyne Posted on by

Again this morning, I was the only pedestrian on the walk between my hotel and the convention center. Oh wait! I forgot about the jogger. Can’t forget about the oblivious guy with headphones crossing the freeway entrances against the light. But then, he didn’t get hit by the turning cars, so I guess it is ok?

I spent most of the day stitching with a few forays into wandering around. 

and I will be able to finish the Ferret tomorrow

 

sin there are just a few stitches left on the last flower (daisy??)

and just under a hundred stitches of the tiny flower variety. 

see those little five stitch suckers? There are 20 of them scattered here and there across the open spaces. They are a pain. I do have a few done, but the rest will finish this pattern.

I am electing not to stay up for the late night (2300-0200) stitching.

Oh! and the Ohio Anime Convention is today and tomorrow (second link here) upstairs from our meeting room… I may wander upstairs tomorrow with my phone/camera since some of the costumes are amazing.  What that particular bit of excitement did was turn the parking lots into a total disaster. This is really the midwest. Everyone drives a car. So there is the hotel next door . Plus the attendees for StitchCon and the local supporting members. And that is before you even get to hotel and convention center staff….

No one walks here

Holly Doyne Posted on by

I will have to say that I didn’t miss the noise from the cicadas who blasted my eardrums last year on my walk from the hotel to the Sharonville Convention Center. They were ugly, noisy and literally all over the place. From the grounds to the bushes to the road to the new programs – literally all that you could hear.

This year, instead, we have heat. The high today was 34*C. But back to the walk. To get to my stitching retreat (cross-stitch folks, the replacement handcraft from knitting since the pandemic. After all, I live in California now. Exactly how many wool sweaters, socks, and shawls do you think I need? Anyway – it is 2.9 km (1.4 miles) according to Google.

StitchCon is a Thurs afternoon-Sunday noon stitching retreat hosted by Keepsakes – the local needleworks store. I was here last year and had a good time and jumped at the opportunity to return. So, for all of you who asked – that is why I am in Cincinnati. Even with yesterday’s flight challenges, it just might have been an easier trip out than Amtrak was last year (complete with delays, bus bridge, and running for the train in Indianapolis followed by a middle of the night Lyft ride and checkin. Even with yet another time zone change, I am less tired.

Of note – out of ~ 300 attendees there are seven of us masked. And yes, I counted. Starting with noontime registration and ending with various announcements at 1900, I made good progress on The Ferret – starting here

and finishing here –

completing the ferret’s body and tale, more greenery and the cottage. Down to the last 1200 stitches (1350 completed today) I just have leaves, one more huge yellow flower and a bunch of those annoying five stitch scattered mini-flower things…

Oh – on my walk over? The ONLY people I saw out of cats were the construction workers on lunch break from the re-do of the interstate access roads. They most sensibly were under the freeway bridge. On the way back? There was soccer practice at the local school district’s sports complex.

Midway there

Holly Doyne Posted on by

It was insanely early at Oakland Airport. Not that I was any less insane than the other people stumbling around in their attempt to drop off luggage, clear security and board flights prior to 0530 in the morning. (I have the best husband. He drove me to the airport rather than send me by Lyft – this being a couple of hours too early for BART). In fact, he was back home well before I survived all the hurdles between me and the gate. And, since I am flying east with the accompanying loss of three hours, leaving early made sense.

You can’t fly directly to Cincinnati on Southwest. There is always going to be a plane change involved. The only decisions (besides time of day) is where to change planes and how long to allow between flights. There are airports I would prefer to avoid (anything north during snow season) and time (an hour at the absolute minimum). And before anyone reminds me that there are direct flights – those flights, by the time you add on all the fees, are significantly more expensive. I do have the time….

In today’s example, my best choice was Midway – as in Chicago’s Midway Airport. International at that since you can fly directly to Toronto… and Cacun, and Cabo… but mostly it seems to be a lot of flights on Southwest Airlines

As I think about it, the last time I was here? June of last year on my way home after deciding that Amtrak in coach for two days (Chicago-Emmeryville) was an experience I could do without.  We were late on arrival to MDW. I wasn’t that concerned, since I had allowed plenty of time between flights. Turning on my phone, it turned out that my departing flight was going to be a minimum of 45 minutes late. More than enough time to stop by the USO (located inside security instead of before security).

Both flights were packed full, replete with people who didn’t seem to be able to either board or exit the plane promptly. I used Lyft to get to my hotel where more fun began. USAA, in spite of my placing a travel notice, didn’t want to run through my room charge. Ok-  secondary card worked.

Then I went up to my room.

Nope, no how, no way. I don’t know what the previous room occupants had been doing, but there were still dresser drawers out, a bare mattress/box springs, an abandoned paint & roller pan along with a noticeable lack of the usual electronics one expects in a hotel room.

Back down to the front desk. Sorry – looks like that room isn’t ready – in fact it appears to be partway through some significant repairs. The check-in person says ” are you sure?”

OOOkkkk. Yes I am sure. I am assigned another room. It is fine, but not the same category that I booked. I will be fine without the extra space & the microwave. But I decided that it would be much smarter to talk to management in the morning about an adjustment to my room charge….

I did mention that this was about 1800?

So – two plane flights, a most excellent transfer on Lyft and progress on Pisces

which went from this

to this.

there are a lot of stitches in that fish…..

No deer today

Holly Doyne Posted on by

The garden has been empty all day. Well, not completely empty – there are my various flamingo ornaments and the lemon tree has what appears to be a bumper crop of lemons.

But no deer.

Every day so far for the past week, we have had various visitors. It is to the point where I can usually ignore the various does and occasional bucks.

But I miss this little one.

 

who is still pretty wobbly

On the cross stitch front – I have made progress on The Ferret which will be the last one on this strip at 65% complete. There is his whole tail, a cottage and another complete stem & flower to go.

Leshy

Holly Doyne Posted on by

there are various witches out of different fairy tales. In the past, I have stitched a couple of them from the WitchStitcher and started the third in her series right before the Danube cruise.

I started this one from the bottom and am working my way up. The two side columns turn into trees, so (obviously) I have a couple thousand stitches of black left to go once I finish the rest of the figure.

I have swapped out all of the DMC for ForbiddenFiberCo but the 310. The fabric is 16 ct something or other….

Leo Rising

Holly Doyne Posted on by

which I haven’t mentioned since 27 May, although I obviously have been making progress. As soon as I get the rest of the big top done, I will be moving down to the first level of lions….

The young visitor

Holly Doyne Posted on by

Look who showed up with mom late this afternoon…

having had a regular parade of deer on the patio this week, I hadn’t been paying much attention till George pointed out this little cutie. 

Obviously old enough to go day tripping, but still not all that stable on its legs. 

have been running a few errands – and take Pisces along for a stitching project since it is completely paper based. And came with its own project bag. Kit, that is what I meant – came as a complete kit.

Aquarius was finished on the river boat. I have Taurus & Aries on hand. Series -you get the idea….

 

sleep day home

Holly Doyne Posted on by

If I had any sense, I would have stayed awake on Monday after getting home. But no, I was so wiped that I went to sleep early. Which meant, of course that I was wide awake at 2230. Which was morning as far as my body was concerned. The brain? not so much – it was looking for coffee…

Since George was asleep, I slipped upstairs and listened to an audio book while stitching because organizing, cleaning or doing any of the dozen projects waiting for me was just beyond my capabilities.

It meant that listening to the CDC’s live webinar at 0600 wasn’t a problem.

Not much else to say. I need a nap..

Flying home

Holly Doyne Posted on by

It is almost, but not quite like the song – it is a long day’s journey – but into more day rather than night.

We checked in easily enough, figured out that we needed to hike upstairs to the Z concourse, passport control out of the EU and find me coffee…

Which obviously was the most important point of the morning..right? Anyway, boarding the plane was more than a bit of chaos, apparently verifying everyone had a negative test at check-in wasn’t enough. There were a couple of poor abused staff doing the same thing at the gate. Surviving the boarding process, we managed to get on the plane early and clamber up again to the top deck.

lunch was pretty, and I promptly took a nap for the first portion of the flight.

when (10+ hours later from our 1100 departure) we approached SFO, it was from the north, along the pacific coast. I had looked out the window and though – Oh, Golden Gate – before grabbing for my phone and figuring the Bay Bridge is cooler….

As it turned out, it would have been smarter to take BART than the Lyft we chose, Not the driver’s fault, the traffic entering and surround San Francisco was insane.

George managed to stay awake. I fell asleep till 2300…. then AWAKE!

and back to Fraport

Holly Doyne Posted on by

leaving Miltenburg.

by the we time we stopped in Aschaffenburg (which wasn’t all that far) the rain had stopped. Lunch was at lovely vineyard.

Our lovely and relaxing day came to an abrupt end at the point we went to get our COVID tests done for tomorrow’s flight. I will provide the following warning (which is not clear in any of their documentation and is posted in size 12 font on the side of ONE of the check in locations). Once you have checked in, you can’t change any documentation.

George had pre-booked the tests before we even left for the trip. He didn’t have my passport at the time, so just gave them his name. You see what is coming? Wifi doesn’t extend to that portion of the airport (we were in the passover bridge from the long distance translation to Terminals 1-2).  His phone wasn’t cooperating, so every time he tried to log in- the system didn’t let him in. Changing his password only helped until a time out or change was attempted. So there we were, he could get tested (pre-paid) twice, but I wasn’t in the system.

Frustration isn’t fun. I finally called it quits on updating anything, went to the front and registered me on one of their computers as a walk-in, paid the fee, and got tested. Since I didn’t have internet access to do this on my phone (why add another 10$ charge to my account just to access dialing/internet for one task?) I only have hard copy of my test.

So what?

We are both negative and will head home in the morning….

also? Chocolate helps a lot!

 

 

 

and all I have left to complete on Aquarius is the bottom portion of the container. Would be my second finish of the trip.

and a quiet day

Holly Doyne Posted on by

While George and Jo (his cousin) went off to explore the town (~10k population) and the surrounding Odenwald, I decided to stay put, relax and take an extra nap.