Just Shoot Me

Sunday night, my left foot slipped on something wet on the kitchen floor and I went down on my right knee and fractured my knee cap. The same one I broke three years ago.

If it wasn't for the pain, this would be hilarious.

I can't get into see the orthopedic surgeon until Monday and I seriously don't know if I will last until then. They put an immobilizer on my leg in the ER and that has really helped with the pain but it is still awful. If I keep my right leg straight, I can ease myself into a chair or my bed. (Plus I'm using a walker to get around and avoid putting any weight on my leg.) But to swing my leg up into the bed causes pain like you can't imagine. Last night I did just that and then laid in bed for five minutes waiting for the pain to subside. If someone is around, they can lift up my leg by the ankle and raise it until it's on the bed which is tolerable. But if no one is around to do that, I'm screwed. Of all the times not to have a personal assistant. Or a butler. Or even a husband.

Last time I did this, and no, I still can't believe I did it again, I was admitted to the hospital and they did surgery and after that I was pain free. This is different because it's still hurting three days later.

I'm off to see what other shows are saved on the DVR to watch. Unless someone wants to come over and pick up my leg and put it on the bed for me. I'll give you a dollar.

On the bright side, looks like I will have lots of time to make stuff. Including a sampler that reads "I can't believe I broke my fucking knee again."

FFF: Gingerbread House Ornament

Is anyone else as shocked and appalled and stunned and amazed as I am that I actually have something to post for Finished for Friday?

I saw the tutorial for this cute little gingerbread house ornament while browsing the Sew Mama Sew blog the other night and decided to make one. The window is wonky. . . shucks, all my stitching is wonky and my little felt circles are wonky but I don't care. I like how it turned out and I am now ready to eat candy canes and put up the Xmas tree.

At first I couldn't find the right ribbon in my box of ribbon-scraps-that-I-am-saving-because-you-never-know-when-some-day-you-just-might-need-one. I wanted red ribbon and all the pieces were either red & too wide or just the right width but not red. Fortunately, this little bit of gingham turned up in my other box of ribbon-scraps-that-I-am-saving-because-you-never-know-when-some-day-you-just-might-need-one. Some days it pays to be a hoarder.

You can find the tutorial to make your own gingerbread house ornament here.

To see other finishes for this week, please visit this post at Lit and Laundry.

Needlework Links

Jeez louise. For two hours now, I have been trying to put together a post full of links but my computer is sooooo slow. I have run countless scans and nothing is showing up so I don't know what is going on. I've reached the point of boredom. So here are some needlework links.
More to come later. Much later.

Over at Wooden Sails, there's a nice cross stitch freebie based on an antique fraktur . . . fraktur? Let me Google that. According to Wikipedia, a fraktur is "both a style of lettering and a highly artistic and elaborate illuminated folk art created by the Pennsylvania Dutch (also known as Pennsylvania Deitsch or Pennsylvanian German). Most Fraktur were created between 1740 and 1860." Interesting.

I love this free Fall pattern from Bird In The Hand. And, if you look in the right sidebar, you will see even more stitchery freebies.

Remember the Brutus and the Catalicious Quilt BOM over at Red Brolly? Well, the July block is out. (Can you tell I copy & pasted this bit from an entry that I forgot to post last month?) And, so is the block for August.

If I wasn't in the middle of this post, I'd go make this embroidered In Bloom pillow from Lark Crafts right now [link via One Pretty Thing]

You have to check out Funoldhag. Carol calls herself a quiltaholic and I know she's an embroiderer and gardener as well. Plus she is 81 yrs old. She recently shared some vintage transfer patterns of baskets.

Now I'm debating hitting the hay or embroidering something.

Links To Some Felt Stuff You Can Make

I was going to do a post of links for today but I'm tired and the dog is tired and we need to go to bed. So I'm going to break them up into separate posts and hopefully get them all up this weekend. Here are the felt projects.

Felt strawberries and more free patterns from Lit'l Brown Bird [link via How About Orange]

Free patterns from bread and buttons including felt strawberries and a Go Fish game that includes embroidery patterns (If I ever go back to teaching preschool, I will be making this.)

Felt Travel Sewing Kitty and Bits & Pieces Felt Ornaments from Sew 4 Home There are more projects under the tab at the top.

Happy Whale Pin from Sew Lovely Embroidery

Next time, I'll have some links to embroidery and cross stitch freebies. Happy Friday!

Wanna See My Yo-Yo

Wanna see my yo-yo?

The left half looks ok. The right half gets an OMG. By the way, that's the only one that survived my yo-yo making marathon back in early June. The others, like the "WTF is that?"one below, all had to be put out of their misery.

Some of them were even scarier than this. And, I swear alcohol was not a factor. Well, the yo-yo might have been really sloshed but I was totally sober. Which makes it all even more frightening.

Obviously, I need to work on my pulling-the-thread-really-tight skills.

An Embroidery Contest At Checkout Girl

When was the last time I linked to a contest? 1957?

There's a poetry/embroidery contest going on over at Checkout Girl. The embroidery has to be done by hand and include a poem or part of a poem. The prizes sound great: hoops, linen, floss and more. Melinda from Checkout Girl will be judging the entries along with Corinne from So September. All the details on the Embroidereading Contest are in this post.

After you read about the contest, go see this ring bearer pillow from Checkout Girl and also her Felty Shih Tzus. How freaking cute are they? [Link via Needlework News]

Back to work on a post full of links that I hope to have up by October Thursday.

The Stackable Cats And Me

First off, let me say THANK YOU for all of your comments about my dog, Maggie. They really meant a lot to me and made me feel better. Other than losing some weight, Maggie is still doing well. Please keep thinking good thoughts for her. Thanks!

Once upon a time, like nearly a year ago, I cross stitched a free pattern from Mochimochi Land called Stackable Cats. Then I put it away somewhere for months and months. Last week, I decided to finish it. (If you've just joined us, in my world, that means I attach some backing fabric to it and it either becomes an ornament or a small pillow.) So I did just that and stuffed it so full of stuffing that it looked like a sausage. I did a craptastic job sewing the opening closed, but other than that, I was really happy with my little sausage slash pillow. I planned to blog about it so I went to grab the link to the free chart from Mochimochi Land and noticed that the cats in the pattern had whiskers and mine did not.

Oops.

I know I could have added the whiskers after the fact (or just left them off and modified the title to Stackable Critters or something) but I don't do well adding facial features to anything that has already been stuffed). Instead, I opened up my little sausage pillow, pulled out all of the stuffing and ripped out the stitches on three sides so I could back stitch the whiskers. Then I sewed it all back together and once again had my little Stackable Cats pillow.


But here's the funny part. Before I stuffed it the second time, my sister saw it and said "Oh, is that an eyeglasses case for me?" just as I was contemplating that I could turn it into a small case instead of a small pillow. We both decided it would make a better case if it had a zipper across the top. Since I still don't do zippers (or use a sewing machine yet), once again it became the little sausage it was meant to be.


As you can see if you've clicked over to the original free chart, I changed it somewhat. I have no idea why I left off the birds or ball of yarn. Like I said, I stitched this about a year ago and maybe I was just feeling anti-yarn and anti-bird that day. And, I didn't use the suggested colors either. I think I was missing the orange one and felt brown kitties would be just as nice.

I totally love this design and I can see myself making another one into a case for my sister's glasses. Except there won't be any zippers involved. But that's why they invented Velcro. This is a freebie x-stitch chart and you can find it here, but if you're a knitter, check out the adorable patterns for the Stackable Cats and the Pile-able Pups. So cute!