Belly-flop!

Brrrr - it turned freezing as soon as I came back from Sweden.  From being in the 80s, I hear, we went down to below 32 in just a few days.
Spring did a belly-flop this weekend.  The ground was covered with a thin layer of snow on Sunday morning and the outdoor birds were complaining loudly and repeatedly about the lack of seed in the bird-feeders.  My hyacinths looked accusingly up at me - almost double-bent in the chilly air.  Even the daffodils looked less than amused.  The snow melted away pretty quickly though and the spring bubs stretched back out again.

Note the seriously impatient clematis and peony plants in the last garden pic below...  Boy, I thought that I had issues with patience..  ;-)

This last pic show "the big birds" haning out in my kitchen.  See the blue stuff on the right in the door-way?  That is a drape, hung there specifically to keep the little monsters out... they like to hang in the kitchen, isnce the sliding glass door makes this room so bright and since there is a hot air vent right below them.  They are so cute that it is hard to get really mad.  And they know it!  Oh, and yes, my ironing and sewing machine stations are placed smack on the kitchen table....  I guess that I ought to feel bad about that...  :-(

Well, what better excuse to stay in and stitch than freezing weather?  I got time to stitch up a storm this weekend!  I started off on Friday evening with finishing up as much as I can on the PS Birth Sampler.  Now the baby boy needs his full name to be decided and we are ready to get this sampler on the road!

Saturday got interrupted with taking care of the fuzz-balls.  I was left as the single parrot parent on Saturday, since DH had to work (I keep forgetting - I think that I am married, but I am not sure if we actually live together anymore...)  and to be nice to him and the birds I had fun leaning over the bath-tub for a couple of hours.  I have probably mentioned it in the past - 6 large bird cages take time to clean...
Anyway, it's definitely worth it - as you can see below, Rocky and Hugin are quite pleased.  Rocky is munching away on a large chunk of apple.  I remember that I thought that it was absolutely fascinating the first time I saw a bird eat like this! 

Rocky and Hugin have had 19 babies together and they are out only mating couple (thank goodness!!!).  Rocky (Rock) is the female and is quite a little overachiever, laying up to 10 eggs per clutch.  There is not a chance in the world that she can sit on all 10, so generally about 4 of the eggs hatch.  That keeps mom and dad quite busy as it is...  The first time Rocky sat on her eggs, she was so devoted that she refused to come out of her nest-box to eat.  Hugin  did actually have to go in to the box, chase her out and guard the entrance until she had eaten some food and drunk a bit of water.  She was really skinny when the eggs finally hatched and I am sure that she would not have survived without him taking care of her.
After the babies hatch, she is generally not too interested in family time anymore.  See, she loves DH and probably wishes that she could have married him instead of Hugin.  She does not even bother trying to keep it a secret.  :-)  She will sit and kiss DH on the forehead and tell him "Hi baby!" for hours.  Luckily neither Hugin nor I are the jealous type! 
Hugin is a great dad!  It is pretty cool to see how birds are taught how to fly in your own living-room.  He will line up all the babies beside him on the top of a cage, look them all over to make sure that he has the undivided attention of all babies and then he will fly over to another cage or object close to where he started from.  Then he turns around and all the babies fly after, one by one.  Then he makes sure that they are all lined up, paying attention, and it is off back to the point of origin.  It is quite a sight and he has the patience of a saint.  And I must say that the concentration and discipline of the babies are simply awesome!

Well, after bathing birdcages for a while, I thought that it would only be logical to finish up the final stitches on Just Nan's "Birdcage"/  I had some beading, back-stitch and charting to do, so I opted to do that at home instead of at work.  I switched out the text on the outside back for my initials and a large egg.  I like the egg, but I am not certain about the letters just yet.  (They are taken from the PS Birth Sampler book btw.)  After that, I read that finishing instructions about three times and fell asleep...  Snore!

I did also finish up a small stitch for Littelest Sister.  I always used to call her my little piglet, since she is very blond, has a beautiful rosy complexion and has the cutest little button nose (oh, how I wish that I had gotten that nose...)!  I think that it is only fitting that I could be called a chicken, so this design is  dedicated to her as a symbol of the two of us.  If you surf the on-line stitch stores as often as I am, you probably know that this little square is only the part of this design.  I am sorry that I can't show all of it to you, but LS, "Herr Slusk", follows my blog regularly.  I promise to show you as soon as I have handed it over to her.

I was a tad tired on Sunday, but managed to start on a brand new kit; the LH 1818 Quaker Pocket, which is an old kit from The Goode Huswife.  This was the very first kit that I bough by contacting the desiner directly.  I got two kits - one to sticth for my Mom and one for me.  I have been thinking that I'd better stitch on these ni parallel, or I have a feeling that only one will be done...  Supposedly, the pre-finished pockets that came with these kits werer accidentally made with the wrong count linen, so I feel a bit like I am living on the edge...  It will be very pretty when it is done and I think that it will stitch up a lot quicker than I originally thought.

So, since I can't stick to just one new beginning, I started on yet another kit tonight.  I have the opportunity to take the Hare Pyns finishing class with Sherri Jones of Patrick's Woods through the QCSG in October.  I took this class at CON back in 2007 and never even opened the kit.  I even missed the class!  I do have a good excuse; I took Forget-Me-Nots-in-Stitches "A Victorian Melon Bag" that year too and the classes were scheduled during the same time slot.  Well, Sherri's class was jam packed and there were only three students in Lauren Sauer's  class, so it was an easy pick of which class-room to sit in!  I think that Lauren is the sweetest person, by the way!  Oh, and Sherri is also a lovely lady.

Anyway, I have told myself that I am not registring for the finishing class unless the stitching is done.  Basta!  It is a lovely design, but the vast majority of the stitching is over-one I think, so nothing that I will whip up over a weekend...  ;-)  Here is the beginning of the needle book.  Herringbone stitch and over-one..... 

Before I say Good Night, I guess I'd better post a picture of the Melon Bag!  It was a fun prooject and the first one that I ran amok and redesigned a big part to be more personal.  I will have to go back and change out all the rings that the drawstring goes through.  The keep snagging the string and it drives me batty!!!!
The secon pic shows my monogram - that was the panel that I redesigned.

So, Good Night all friends - talk with you soon!