magic pizza (GiGi, TUSAL, IHSW, Maynia reports and a finish!)

you cannot imagine the series of events that started last Friday after I made myself pizza using the neatest kit Italians could put together. it was so delicious I couldn’t restrain myself from eating it all by myself.. shame on me, I know, but it was seriously good. like gift-from-the-gods good. how can you pass on a gift from the gods?! sacrilege, right?! 😀

anyways I had my belly full, a lot to digest, so I let my body take care of the hard work. I picked threads and started my first Maynia start (Pen Pals #2).

then it started. I don’t know if it was the boatload of pizza, but it seemed like I had accumulated an excess of overly productive energy in my system which had to be discharged as soon as possible.

what happened at the point was weird, tiring as hell and oddly gratifying at the same time. I woke up in the early hours of the day (like 4 AM) and couldn’t get back to sleep, I was wide awake from the moment I had opened my eyes. so I started some major cleaning & tidying up works that I had postponed ad infinitum. and the tarantula work went on and on, I couldn’t stop! I couldn’t help it! I just couldn’t sit down until it was ALL DONE, once and for all.

I never did drugs or taken prescriptions that have weird effects on your mood/behaviour but from what I’ve been through I seemed to be under the influence of methamphetamine or stuff like that! 😀

just so you can get a picture, here is the list of things I did on Saturday alone, from 5 AM to 7:30 PM, non-stop:

• swept the floor
• dusted the bookshelves
• dusted the cat tree
• dusted the other cabinets
• washed the floor thoroughly
• dusted and cleaned the window frames with alcohol
• fixed a new mosquito net on the one of the windows
• fed Taras fresh kibbles and wet food
• washed his water fountain
• managed to break the pump
• drove to the shop to buy a replacement
• held a small iguana guy at the shop who was being super friendly
• bought chocolate chip cookies provision
• gave Pablita a warm bath and disinfected her wounds
• changed the newspapers/paper towels in her playpen
• loaded and unloaded 4 times the washing machine and hang the stuff to dry in the sun outside
• sorted out some of my summer clothes in the portion of the wardrobe I’m using
• finally attacked the monster pile of stuff my armchair had become
• emptied my wicker WIP basket and started sorting out stuff there as well
• took what was left of the armchair cover and washed it together with a pair of soon to be needed flip-flops
• washed and disinfected the little box outside, as well as the scoop, the broom/ scoop thingie and litter catching mat
• took out the trash
• put new litter in the box and took it upstairs
• sorted out stash, books and stuff I had piled up on the armchair and put them back where they belonged if not needed anymore
• managed to find one of those wicked little devil beasts ALIVE in one of my baskets
• almost passed out
• oh, and before going to bed the night before I had changed sheets & bed cover and moved on to their summer, fresh versions
• got rid of unneeded hair in several places
• took a steaming hot bath during which I looked like a Native American, or a lobster, you choose
• washed and dried my hair and finally decided to get them cut some time next week, perhaps

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

on Sunday I still had fuel to:

• go through some of my stash
• organise it a bit better
• tidy up my WIP basket
• gather all the loose random skeins of Anchor, Madeira and DMC I had in several baggies
• collect all the DMC Gold Concept stitch bows I was supposed to use on projects that are not going to see any work done for a while (like Santa Bunny and the SODAs – all apart from solid Alice of course)
• extract my Gold Concept binders from the deeps of my stash
• put all the bows back
• and while I was at it, I took out only the ones needed for Margaret Sherry’s Cute Kitty from The World of Cross Stitch magazine.

I also thought, since I already had the ladder out I could take the opportunity and cut the linen for it; and once I had done that I figured I could zigzag the edges for all my Maynia projects, and once I had done that I told myself well, now that the sewing machine’s out, why not attaching the linen band to those spare scroll bars you came across yesterday?

can you see what I did there? I tricked myself into starting something, one step after the other while all the time I was telling myself that I wasn’t going to actually start it just yet. only prepare for it. and truly believed myself for a really long while! boy I am a pro at this! 😀

earlier in the morning I had even cut the working copies of the chart I had made days go, glued them together to form a whole card (it’s a spread on 2 pages), put the bows in the carrying roll, etc.

and that’s how I absentmindedly found myself with another COMPLETELY ACCIDENTAL start. 😀 and because some of these DMC threads were bought for me by Grandma many years ago, it rightfully enters the GiGi SAL update!

not to mention, I came across this design through Jo’s Easter Blog Hop!

one of the hoppers (Carla Eldridge, but I can’t find her blog right now, silly me!) this year showed it as her Easter/springtime finish and I crushed on it completely. it’s an adorable, chubby Taras holding flowers for goodness’ sake! COME ON! 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍

it was published in 2012 (issue #188) and quite serendipitously (again!) I managed to purchase a brand-new copy immediately after seeing it in Carla’s post.

I’m stitching this with all the prescribed DMC threads (I still have to buy two because I didn’t have them in my stash, classic) on white Zweigart linen (#100) in 40ct. where it’ll measure 12,7 x 11,6 cm (5 x 4.5”).

here are a few info from the magazine’s Factbox about this project:

• stitching time: approximately 50 hours
• type of stitches: cross stitch, fractionals, half cross stitch, French knots
• level: intermediate
• design area: 18 x 16,5 cm (6 1/2 x 7”) when stitched on the prescribed 28ct. white evenweave
• thread and fabric cost: approximately £25 (now I cannot estimate if I spent more or less considering I had everything in my stash and it’s very hard to calculate the price of threads I didn’t purchase or piece of linen I bought in a much larger size and used on several other projects lately)

I never had the chance to give you this type of info beforehand with my other projects for I haven’t stitched anything from a magazine in a really long while. and I so missed this do as you’re told approach to a project.

I love making projects my own, you all know that, but from time to time I feel the need to break the routine with something more easy breezy, where the only thing I have to care about is the actual execution of the project, not all the other aspects involved in it.

I had been craving for this kind of stitching for months now, I thought the SODAs would have fallen into this category but, alas, no luck there.

my start as of Sunday night before dinner, lots of wonderful greys in here.

where I stopped after dinner. so far no stitching has been going on today but I plan on catching up on a couple of floss tube channels while happily stitching away after dinner.

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so now that you have seen my entry for GiGi, we have Maynia to briefly discuss. I decided to postpone my Maynia starts for the second half of the month, from the 15th to the 31st, but this far I managed to start only two: Chubby Taras and this teeny tiny one: Pen Pals #2 (Valentine’s Day) by TFPS

I’m working a few cm to the right of the first Pen Pals I stitched right at the end of April, again with my own choice of Nina’s Threads 1 over 1 on that lovely Vaupel & Heilenbeck linen band I mentioned last month. I have done more on it since this snap and would have finished the entire stamp frame if I didn’t have that crazy Saturday I told you about.

next is my TUSAL update, which is brought to you by my man, the Plummer, Super Mario!! 😍 PIZZA SO NICE! 😆

when I bought those chocolate chip cookies provisions I stumbled upon this overly cute double pack of banana yoghurt with smarties on top! I’m such a kid!

well, I ate one of those yoghurts Saturday (the only thing I had that day actually, and it was terribly yummy), then I washed the tiny plastic bowl and recycled it into an ORT jar for the month, check this out!

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last but not least we have the pièce de résistance: last Friday morning I finished Charlotte’s Web from Story Time Sampler, so.. I’m officially ALL CAUGHT UP ON THIS SAL!!

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

this is the very first time this ever happens to me, you guys, we are getting some booze ASAP and get an epic party started!! it’s unfreakingbelievable!! I am stitching along on something with a lot of other people, and I did all I accomplished all I supposed to so far. YES! HELL YES!!

do you think she’ll drink and stitch? that would be fun to watch!

I also found out that there’s a minor (well, minor to me compared to the monster slug experience) boo boo in my middle row of frames: they are all 2 stitches higher then the top and bottom row of frames.

to be perfectly honest I don’t think it’s much visible once the stories get stitched in, plus it allowed me to add a picket fence on Charlotte, give the girl a left shoulder, a full face, .. all in all I would say it’s not worth cursing. things could be worse. the Band-Aid could have failed, which it didn’t. the lower banner could have failed, which it didn’t. I could have ran out of fabric at the bottom, which I didn’t. I could be very pissed off with all the hiccups in this project so far, and I’m not. I love it to bits!

– – –

you would think on Monday I would have rested.. no way.

• I washed and mopped the terrace floor so well you could have eaten on it
• thoroughly washed all the pot water trays (you still don’t know about my gardening project, I know, I promise to write a proper post about it soon)
• and then I spent several hours under the sun attaching a transparent net to the railing because.. someone moved there! 😀

I’ll let you know in my next post tomorrow. all I’m going to say is Esio Trot. those in the know will figure it out. 😛

– – –

all in all that pizza might or might not be responsible for all the pain and squeaking and contracting and stiffening that I have going on, but it was well worth it. my stitching spot looks FANTASTIC, my work/bedroom looks normal again, I can actually find stuff which is a wonderful feeling I wasn’t used to anymore, I have clothes in my wardrobe, where they’re supposed to be for heaven’s sake!

I’ll end this rant here but I’m adding the 6th picture clue:

have a wonderful day and stay tuned for more crazy tales from the tail & I.

by the way, I haven’t posted any kitty pictures recently, have I? here, with my apologies.

– – –

happy xxx,

chiara