Cats

 Two houses, one heated.

But I'll sit on the roof in the drizzle and cold.

This is why we call him Nit.

And someone is thrilled with his new house.  He had a very late dinner, retired to the house, and only left it for breakfast.  There are clear exit flaps front and back but I removed the front for now.  Since we inserted it in a shelter, he can't use the rear "emergency" exit.  Does anyone believe he would be challenged?  LOL!  As you can see, Petey is a brute and fills his house.

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Bud of a different kind

 The last heated house came today and because these brats are so filthy, I made covers from an old percale sheet.  The fleece covers that were included hold the cat hair and in order to remove for cleaning, the power plug must be pulled through it.  Mark has a safe extension cord in the back and I have no plan to crawl in and unplug to remove for washing.  It took a while to measure and cut but I made a sort of pillow case with a slit for the cord, can be slipped off and on with no cord involvement.  Yay!  Quick and easy hair removal on the smooth fabric.  So the crabass is pleased!

That large opossum is probably a female because the little ones came to visit the following night.  They ran as soon as I appeared at the door.   Last night I was on the phone with Carole and heard a racket, it was a huge raccoon that knocked Petey's dishes away from him, scattering the cat food across the deck.  I had to dig pieces out of the spaces between the decking or the opossum would be.  

This brought back memories of the sweetest little raccoon ever, and deserves posting again. Every day we were visited and the face on this sweetie was irresistible.  Petite and friendly, we named him Bud.  One year, Bud came to get his daily baloney and bread, turned to look behind, and then gave the go ahead to a litter of six tiny furballs.  From then on, Bud became Budette, we were honored to be trusted with yearly visits of her offspring.  She's the second from the left.

The normal life span in the wild is 2 to 3 years, much longer if kept.  My gal Bud was with us for five years.  Every day, she would come to our back door and look in, I would talk to her while she was dining on the deck after gently taking the food from my hand.  Raccoons are not gentle, docile critters, but she was so different from the very beginning.  Most days, she would go into the cat box beneath the plywood and take a nap after dinner until it was dark.  We wrapped 4x4 pieces of plywood with plastic and leaned them to create a dry place for food and shelter when attempting to civilize the brats.   

One year, I could see the change in her face and fur, told Mark she was failing. Bud became slower and the look in those sweet eyes told me she was nearing her end.  One morning, I prepared the cat dishes and as I opened the back door, I saw her little leg sticking out of the box she napped in.  She came to be close to me during her final hours and I am still emotional about it.

This was her last litter.

My sweet little girl a few months before she died.

Bud (a.k.a Budman), the oldest of my cat rescues, can't be seen until next Tuesday with a home visit.  The surgery if it's decided to take the risk, will be at the doctor's farm which is about 40 minutes from here. 

That's all I got.  I removed the side border flowers and will worry about them later.  It took quite a while!  I think the next step will be the figures and if they don't show well, I'll try two threads for the second half of the cross.  Thanks for your help, I appreciate it.

Hope your day went well.

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Settle down crab

 WTH?  I have never had anger and temper to this degree.  Not all the time, just when I get frustrated.  You know ... impatient.  Well ....intolerant.  Maybe .... drained.   Possibly .... overloaded.  Well, yeah, all the time.

Elizabeth continues on a much slower path, still hoping for improvement in my condition.  But as I usually call on you for help, once again, I have two questions.  The first is not related to stitching, but the sampler itself.  I am not one to research or have interest in the maker or their ancestry.  Diane was nice enough to let me know that Elizabeth married David Fisher on December 28, 1814, so I'm sharing that info.  I don't believe I ever came across the stitcher designating/dedicating the sampler "to" someone.  In this case, Mrs. Rhoda Hutchinson in New Jersey.  Not really important, I just find it curious. 

The second question is one I asked before.  When looking at this piece from a distance, I cannot see the Ecru or the 712 I substituted.  This is bugging me because the border appears to be just a wandering vine with missing flowers.  Adam and his girl won't be noticed either.  So I've tested over ten various light threads with a touch of color thinking that may help.  Nothing.  In fact, although a noticeable difference in skein, hardly a wink on the linen.  The last one 3823, will replace a few test flowers before I decide.  Backstitching didn't help and made the lighter buds look different than the others.  If 3823 doesn't stop me from throwing something, I plan to use 437 shown in the bottom photo.  Do you think replacing the light flowers would be a mistake?  My opinion (since I change colors all the time) is that it would change the overall look but be fine.  Mark said to just use the darker color from the start.  I guess he's tired of ducking.

Oops.  One more.  The chart said to fill in Adam & Eve's hair, ram, and serpent with black.  Stem?  Satin?  Quarters and halfs as needed?  Anything I want?  That's the way I like it.

Been waiting for the vet to return my calls, thinking of calling another mobile vet if I still don't have a reply tomorrow morning.  Bud will be very upset regardless of who it is.

Have a good day folks.  Sorry to be asking your advice again.

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Score!!

 Hello people!  Ever since I caught a glimpse of Ewe  & Eye Christmas Sampler from our favorite Serial Starter, I've been searching.  Today, score!  Ebay offered several charts for $9.95 including shipping.  Stitching Bits and Bobs have a huge variety of their charts including this one and Christmas Spot, but $8 to ship two little charts always stops me.  Not knowing for sure if they are in stock (you never know for sure) I decided to just grab the Ebay offer before it sells.  I am so sorry I sold all those sweet designs with houses.

Problem with this guy.  Every year we have to deal with critters taking over the houses and you would think my nasty disposition along with being nowhere near petite would have him running.  Nope.  He went into the house.  We rocked the box, banged on the wooden shelter, he was not leaving.  I had to offer stew!  That did it.  But how do we keep him out?  He started scratching the styrofoam and you can see the white bits on the deck.  Maybe this is the same one from last year.

Have a good evening!!

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You were right

Thank you!  Rust was the preferred color, and it is absolutely the right choice.  I didn't release the spool huggers from the rolled top area but when I did, oh my.  The blue would have been very distracting and overpower the softer colors but really didn't see that until viewing the entire piece.

With the outer border being the same, this rust will be perfect.

I've been stitching with breaks this afternoon, but struggling.  By bedtime, this entire bottle of drops will be used.

I am using a larger needle, easier for me to hold, but this floss is nothing like before.  And I offered hundreds of my excess old DMC, never imagined it would be preferred.  This example of separating and then breaking off is after two pulls to remove.  Time after time this happened and the 500 is doing the same.  In my decades of stitching exclusively with DMC, and the tremendous amount of frogging, this may have happened twice when tugging hard.  With the new floss, nine out of ten times!  My eyes were not this bad when I began Elizabeth, no frogging, so I don't know if the rust shreds.

Carole is having breathing difficulty again and is calling Cleveland Monday, could be taking her soon.  Rules may still be one person per patient, and depending on how I feel I may stay home anyway.  Mark is very concerned knowing that I cannot take the vaccine and doesn't mind taking her himself.

This is an old photo of the Nit, but maybe how some are feeling today.

Or maybe curling up with another feels better.

Enjoy the first weekend of the new year.  And that's the last reference to 2021.  Do you tire of hearing about it?  It's just a number reminding us of how quickly we're aging.

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Another month closer to summer

 Does that make a nasty crabass smile?  Not even that.  But I have hope that eventually, it will.

So here we are.  Made it to the new year.  I don't belong to the gregarious groups that enjoy celebrating and hosting great parties for the new year.  Good thing or I'd really be ticked.  It's almost midnight and the cats are in the garage condos, my single Advil is not doing much, and stitching is extremely frustrating.  I need to make a change, hoping to get your opinion.

The thread is too similar to the linen.  I am removing more stitches than placing, always one thread off.  The DMC never shred like this before but since I moved to a higher count linen, maybe that's why.  The friction being pulled through a smaller hole must weaken it?  Who cares why.  It shreds!

I have one more full row and New Jersey in the last before changing to the dark green for Adam ......

There isn't much beneath that (blue box) of the problem thread but I must change the color.  Because of all the dark green in that area, I think continuing with it would be too much.  Do you agree?  My other options are the blue in the alpha and single border encasing the body, or the 400 that I am using in the outermost single border. 

Their bodies and the border flowers in the very light thread do not show in this photo and I plan to use an even lighter thread for contrast.  So what should it be.... blue? ..... or rust?   

Help!!!

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