In the past week, I have completed five 4.5" square crazy blocks for swapping at the guild retreat (Technique taught by Mary Lee G at guild on the 9th of October. I have yet to master working with small pieces so my scraps are a little on the large side.):


the October Crazy Quilt Journal block (I do much better using a foundation and a larger blocks size; these are 6" square finished):


and the Take a Stitch Tuesday Stitch # 134 (Fern stitch). I played a little with adding beads to the "spine" of the fern :


I have read through lesson two in Pillowpalooza and am preparing the homework assignment for that class for posting this weekend.

I also started the color filling on "Bride" in the Roll Your Own mandala series (One color (very light blue- if you squint you can just make it out) complete and the second nearly a quarter complete) :


the beading on my October Bead Journal Project ("Bat Bird"?):


and the quilting on my guild retreat challenge block (An attempt at stitching "in the ditch". Missed that ditch in a lot of places! Only the binding to go.) :



I am a little more sleep deprived than usual, given the need to be up and ready for the washing machine repairman on Monday (a blocked drain filter) and the house cleaner today. And it won't get any better in the next few days as we have the early shifts on both Thursday and Friday at the local public radio telephone banks (need to be there at 6 AM! AAACK), and there is Legacy Weekend at the University with a football game viewed from the President's Box on Saturday (which means Saturday will be both adrenalin filled/ stressed out and off limits for stitching most of the day). So, even though this coming weekend is International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, it looks like I will only have Sunday for unimpeded stitchery.

I think I am going to give up on trying to catch up. Trying is jst adding more stress to the mix, and stress makes me avoid stitchery in favor of just about ANYTHING else!.