Wednesday's Weariness

It's not really that bad today. I just liked the alliteration. Ok. Maybe it was a little bad today...

The Peoria Miniature Show has officially been canceled. That means I won't be running around like a headless chicken trying to have FH and a friend run my booth while I coordinate the actual show, but of course this means the closest show will be in Indianapolis this year. Bittersweet news. :-/

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Today I let FH try driving himself to work. I wished later that I hadn't because it became very necessary to get Castor to the vet asap this afternoon. His appetite had vanished and getting him to drink water was impossible. He had lost another 3/10 of a pound in the last five days and just did not look good. In fact my instincts were telling me something was "Not Right." The vet was able to work us in and FH came racing back to drive us.

We are rechecking blood and whatnot. They gave us some special wet food that even dying cats with no appetite will gorge on. The doctor fed him with a syringe, but when she took the lid off the can to show me about how much to mix with water Castor stuck his head in and started eating like there was no tomorrow!

Needless to say my trip to the post office did not happen today. I will get there tomorrow, come Hades or high water! Maia, Alice, and a couple other folks are going to be expecting mail soon. More on that another day. ;-)

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After we got Castor home I had to drive (yes, I'm back to driving... he did too much today) back to work so he could finish up something before his vacation (first in 4 years!) started tomorrow. I wisely thought to grab my stitching bag when I dropped Castor off and had something to play with for the two or three hours we spent at the office. It was supposed to be a 30 minute trip. Yeah right.

So here's what I was fiddling with. It's supposed to be a Halloweeny/witchy table cloth with a spider web in the middle and cats, bats, and jack o'lanterns around it. As you can see I'm futzing with the web right now. For those interested, I'm stitching on 28-count punch needle fabric. I couldn't afford the proper count linen and I thought I would give this a try. It's actually quite soft, but it's impossible to do any "creative back stitching" since there are no threads to work around like on linen. I'm avoiding that problem by working the back stitch over two instead of one. It makes life much easier, and it was suggested int eh directions so I don't feel like I'm cheating too much.

The chart is from the September/October 2003 American Miniaturist. I'm wondering now if the magazine was supposed to print the entire chart and not just one quarter of the design. The artist made it asymmetrical which doesn't lend itself well (in my opinion) to only printing a fraction of a chart. I've had to wing it on part of it and I'm not sure I'm pleased with the result.

The sections closest to the coin were done free hand, with really now pattern to speak of. All we were given in the chart was the center circle and the bottom-right portion of the web with the cats, bats, etc.

So I'm not sure not if I want to start over and make a symmetrical web myself and then go around the with the original motifs or what... Any ideas?

I love the picture of the finished sample in the magazine. It was quite peculiar though. When I first saw it a voice in my head shouted "MINE!" Later I came back to the magazine and bookmarked the page so I could make it for a witch's house. Of course you all know the witch's house has evolved into "Ezzie's house."

I'm starting to wonder if Casey was right to warn me against actually sculpting a witch. Who knows what trouble I could find myself in, or what headaches would await me... ;-)

As far as Ezzie's house goes, I have to wait for FH to be healed enough to help me cut a 8'x4' sheet of plywood down to be 27"x21". I need a base to start constructing the basement addition with the "hidden" hat vault and the hill that will be in front of the basement area. Then I will know how tall the basement walls will be and be able to figure out the necessary bashing to get the Orchid the way I want.

Of course as I type this I wonder how well a commercial cork board would work as a base for the whole thing. I would have to find one that's the right size... Hmm... Something to ponder.

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Tomorrow I take FH to the neurologist to see just how bad the damage is and if we need to see a neurosurgeon for cortisone injections. This way if we do need a surgeon, we get sent to one she trusts which makes us feel better about the whole mess. [This is the same neurologist I went to for my stuff and we like her a lot.]

Then the local mini group has our 4th of July party. I'm making a dessert and a pasta salad to take. I'm not sure if FH will feel like going or not, but if he does there will be several non-mini-ing husbands there to talk to. ;-)