February

Out with the old....

And in with the new...

Who knew I had so many stitches for Valentine's? I was pleasantly surprised when I went digging to switch out my little basket here!

They might have to stay in there for quite some time though because I really have nothing for spring time smalls. Not sure how that happened either (I don't hate rabbits?!? Or spring flowers?!?) but I might have to buckle down and get some finishing done if I want to keep up with this basket this year. :)

I am perpetually out of sync with the seasons with my projects though.

Case in point I *just* finished this little guy I started last Thanksgiving. 

Well, I'm all set for NEXT Thanksgiving, I guess.  It really was delusional of me to think I would get it done for last year, seeing as I started it just a few days before the holiday. This is only the second biscornu I've done, which is a shame because they are super easy to do.

(Designer is Barbara Ana, which you could probably guess because she has a distinctive look.)

Getting anything done the last few weeks has been difficult as there has been a literal plague hitting my house. We got a bad batch of cat food (I believe) and ALL FOUR CATS were violently ill in turn for days at a time. It was disgusting but, thankfully, they all seem to have come through it okay. (I think it helped that I mix two foods together so they didn't eat a full portion of whatever one was tainted.)

Then we went to see Fleetwood Mac, which was amazing - until I came down with the flu about 48 hours later. Dirty, dirty public places! UGH! I should have covered myself in Purell every time I touched a handrail. My bad. :(

I promptly gave it to the husband, of course, but at least he was about 4 days behind me so we didn't both have a high fever at the SAME time. That would have been real bad with both of us flat-out in bed at the same time. Heh. 

Man though, when does the nagging cough end? It's been almost two weeks now and I'm still sipping the prescription cough medicine like it's a crack pipe. *cough*cough*cough* So annoying. 

On the upside, you can't catch the flu twice............right? God, PLEASE TELL ME you can't catch it twice. :(

Survived.

The Blizzard of 2013, that is. :)

We ended up getting 2 feet of snow in this part of CT, more in the drifts. Came down at the rate of 6 inches at one point, which was.............interesting. But the power held and we, along with our neighbors, didn't seem to suffer any mishaps from the wind gusts, so that's good. 

(And so far it seems like most of the bloggers in these parts that I follow came through it well, so yay for that too!)

 My mittens, I'm happy to say, came in quite handy for all that shoveling. Warm & toasty were my hands  - even after a couple hours of being outside. Double thick knits for the win! :) 

The white pair got a little fuzzed on the thumbs (from the shovel handle freezing to them) and the green yarn near the top of the hand seems to have bled a teeny teeny bit but I'm okay with that. I like putting my hand knits to work for me vs. sticking them in a drawer somewhere as a keepsake.

I'd like to say I had a lot of time for handcrafts during the storm and while the roads were shut down by the governor  but the tendonitis in my left hand has been brutally painful off/on lately so I spent most of the down time reading. :(

(I really do need to find someone local-ish who does the surgery to fix this *SOON*. Grrr.)

HOWEVER, I did finish a couple smalls earlier in the week when my hand was ok. (And by 'ok' I mean, still painful but not intolerably so. Because it has never once NOT hurt in some capacity since last August or so.)  I decided to 'reward' myself for finishing a big WIP the week previous with a couple smalls. 

Honestly, I almost like small pieces better than large ones these days, which is the complete opposite of how I felt when I started doing cross stitch back in 1990 or so. I think my attention span, over all, has just, ummmmmm, diminished over the years because I only finish 1 out of 3 movies I start nowadays too. (Man, I just can NOT get through a movie at home any more!! I can't even count on one hand the number of movies I have started - and then abandoned 30 minutes in - in just the last 2-3 months.)

 Happy Chirp Chirp Day, The Trilogy

 Sampler Pear IV, Santas & Samplers (free)

Added in the buttons and date.

Does this last one count as a Valentine finish? If so, it's the only one I got to this year.

Plans to finish it up as an actual pear are in the works!

Does anybody else love the heck out of these vintage Valentine's cards? I keep seeing them pop up on Pinterest and I love them so. :)

This one seems to be (if the internets are correct) circa 1950's. 

How about one with fried eggs?

Ahhh, nothing says love like......eggs in a pan. 

Happy Valentine's!