Exciting Day for MacSoph and Me

Today turned into a very exciting day for MacSoph and me: our new web program came out of beta and into general release, new today.

In a scant couple of weeks I start my Elizabeth class and I expect my Elizabeth class will run until it is time for my windup to E-Week, so MacSoph and I won't be moving Queendom Website anytime soon, but the program is here and it is ours now, and MacSoph and I can learn and practice lots, and then one day we will indeed move Queendom Website.

I considered staying with iWeb on a third party server indefinitely, until Apple's OS no longer supported it,  but I confess I love the look of my new website. It is a lot like my old one, but with some new twists and graphics and a bit of a face lift, and it should work more easily for most people. It is a more powerful program and I love the flexibility. It is just more difficult and we have to study, MacSoph and I.

Exciting! Geeky, I know, but exciting nonetheless.

And to it add the new versions of PhotoShop and Illustrator.

So this weekend I plan to stitch and study, stitch and study, and maybe go to the movies with DH. Maybe.

Gay Ann

Decisions Decisions Needlework Style

I finished making the Elizabeth kits for my upcoming class at Shining Needle Society. Finally, yesterday I put the last strand of silk in the last baggie. I still have to pick up and assemble the instructions and pack and send the last of the kits, but for the most part it all ended about 4:00 pm yesterday afternoon.

Over the course of making these kits for my class at Shining Needle Society:
I counted more than 23,000 beads into small baggies.
To these I added strands of pearls and tiny seed beads which I measured.
I counted and labeled more than 10,000 strands of silk.
To these I added more than 1400 spools of metallic threads.

Kit Hell is over for a while; Mail Jail won't last past the end of this week and a bit of freedom is in sight! 

What am I going to do with actual free time? 

That's easy: stitch, of course.

Right now I have five designs I've started; they're in various stages. I know for many people, five is not a great number, but for me it is a lot. I usually work on a maximum of three at a time, usually one big one and two smallsters. But right now the number is five, and it will soon be six and perhaps even seven.

So what are they?

One is a heart. Small and I am so close to finished with this heart that it's shameful I don't sit down and take the last stitch.

One is an ornament, a pretty ornament, but barely started. Still, how difficult can one ornament be. Never mind. Bloody difficult if it feels like being. Let's hope this one is benevolent and benign.

One is a medium-sized experimental design of a garden view. Three good stitching sessions and I'd finish it for certain. I'm glad to be near the end of this one. I've struggled with each and every stitch.

One is a fantasy. It's very large and I've not had time to concentrate on it. It's in the beginning stages, the very beginning stages and that is when a piece takes the most energy and concentration. I need a good block of time to sit down and get to know it. Anybody know where I can steal two weeks of guilt-free time to sit and stitch on this one? No? No, I don't know either. I'll limp along till mid-summer.

One is a friend for another piece of mine. This one's almost finished. Two good stitching sessions and I'd see the end of this one. It was a dream to stitch and I'll miss it. Am I the only person sad to see the end of an enjoyable piece? 

In addition to the above I have promised a sampler constructed from the bits and pieces of my Six Samplers website game. Although I've asked for advice from my general classroom at Shining Needle Society, I know exactly what I want to do. If time permits, I'll try to make more than one of these small samplers recycled from the large samplers. I love doing it, a bit like working jigsaw puzzles.

All of this is fine, except that my friend Natalie threw a monkey wrench into my stitching plans: she gave me an idea for a sampler that begs to be designed and stitched right now! I mean, right right now! I mean, steal the next week, don't move, don't finish the Elizabeth kits, don't leave the house, sit and work on this design!

So what am I to do? Sigh. Double sigh.

Happiness is being able to contemplate such problems!

Freedom is almost here. At least for a short while.

Gay Ann