I Got a Medal!

 Okay, so it's not exactly an Olympics medal, but hey, I got this in the mail last week:

This is what the virtual walking challenge company sends folks when they finish, and it's pretty nifty.

I should be getting two more -- one for London and one for Paris, but shipping has been a bit on the slow side.  These have been fun to do, and last week I set a new one-day record of 6 miles (not done all at one stretch, though).  The walks motivate me to get outside early every morning to get my miles in before the heat rises above 75.

Here is a pic from the Chamna Natural Preserve, where I walked three miles before it got too hot:

There were burned trees from the fire earlier this year:

And here's a walk I did along the Columbia Riverfront Trail -- this was part of that 6-mile day:

This is one of my favorite places to take a stroll.

Truman likes to cool off now and then along the way.

There are plenty of benches for rest stops.

We encountered a rambunctious, bold squirrel who skittered over to the path and stood right in front of us, no doubt looking for a handout, until it noticed Truman in his stroller and freaked out:

I've been averaging a little over 3 miles per day, and when I make an effort to keep up a steady pace, I've been averaging a little over 3 mph.  I finished the Paris virtual walk challenge of 37.2 miles in 11 days.

After nonstop challenges for three weeks straight, I took a whole day off -- and then the next day signed up for another one -- England Coast to Coast for 91 miles along Hadrian's Wall.  Whee!

I got some good mileage in for that over this past weekend.  There was an art fair and a vintage/antique fair at local parks, and I hit up both of them on different days, and got extra steps in by parking a mile away from the venues.

At the art fair I picked up a few more decorative doodads for the yard and fence, including windchimes from this vendor:

At this vendor, I bought a dachshund garden stake.

I passed on the large Bigfoot, though.

Here is another item I found -- intended for hanging jewelry off of, but I found a better use for it:

Here's the garden stake:

I didn't take pics at the antique fair, though I did pick up another windchime there for the patio.

So that was my week -- walking, walking, and more walking.  

Well, and a little art, too, as usual.  The sketch group is still going strong, meeting twice a week via Zoom.  On Wednesday, we chose a photo of figs which was mostly out-of-focus, and I decided the easiest way to handle that was to draw and paint it using the Adobe Fresco program.  Turned out quite nicely:

On Friday we chose a photo of the Great Wall of China, which I painted in watercolor.  I ran out of time before finishing the foreground, but decided to just l leave it that way, at least for now.

In dog news, Pippin is feeling much better after two weeks of rest and meds.  

Finally, what I'm sure you've all been waiting for -- the progress on my Good Omens Series 2 promo photo needlepoint project.   For anyone who missed the earlier post about this, here is the photo that I used an online program to turn into a needlepoint chart:

And here is two weeks worth of work, around four hours a day on average:

I've made it to the top of the umbrella!  Whee!  Approximately 5,400 stitches completed, and around 29,000 stitches left to go.  Yay.

That's it for now.  See you next time!

34,340 Needlework Stitches

Not much happened this past week other than lots and lots of stitching.  More on that anon.  First, a quick look at the non-stitching stuff I did.

Zoom Sketch Group Piece #1

Zoom Sketch Group Piece #2

A riverfront walk where we caught the American Empress paddlewheeler coming to the dock.

Another walk on a different day, along a different river.

That was about as exciting as things got, as I spent most of my time staying home to keep an eye on Pippin.  His back pain is slowly improving, as is his mobility, but he needs to be kept penned up except when going outside, on leash, for brief relief breaks.  He can't risk being active too soon -- I don't want a repeat of our May visit to the neurologist.

So I stick close to home as much as possible to make sure he's comfortable.  And to keep myself amused, I started working on that needlework project mentioned here back on July 5.

You may recall (or more likely, you forgot all about it) that I planned to execute the new Good Omens Series 2 promo pic in cross-stitch.  I found an online site that created a pattern from the photo, and set to work.

After just two hours, I remembered why I preferred needlepoint to cross-stitch.  Because it's so much easier!!!  Argh.  It was not enjoyable.  It did not make me happy in any way.  I had managed to do about one square inch and had struggled mightily.  Bah.  Phooey!  Cross-stitch sucks.  Needlepoint rules!

I learned needlepoint as a wee child, and have done lots and lots of it off and on over the decades.  Why had I not chosen it for this picture in the first place?  The pattern works the same for either technique.  Well, I'll tell you why.  This is the photo:

As you can see, it has an awful lot of stuff in it, with oodles of colors and complex details.  My brilliant idea (okay, at the time it seemed brilliant) was to eliminate the background, and just stitch the two figures and the umbrella.  You can do that with cross-stitch, because you're working on a solid piece of cloth.  It doesn't require a background.  It would still look fine, and not be as complicated, and take a lot less time.

At least, it would if you liked cross-stitch and had a lot of experience with it.  

Which I did not.

Argh.

How was I supposed to know?  It looked deceptively simple -- one stitch in one direction, one stitch back over the first...but it was sheer torture.  The teensy tiny miniscule holes in the cloth which indicate the teensy tiny squares were easy to find for the first stitches, but got increasingly hard to locate once the first threads were in place and well, I'm not going to go into the painful details, just take my word for it -- it's hard.  And annoying.  

What can I say -- one could persevere in the face of adversity, I suppose.  One could grit one's teeth and put one's nose to the grindstone and refuse to be easily deterred, one could not throw in the towel at the first little setback and buck up, for heaven's sake!  

One did not do those things.  Screw this, I said by way of encouraging self-talk.  Just do it in needlepoint already.

Sigh.

The cross-stitch pattern had 7,062 stitches.  No background.

The needlepoint pattern, which had to have the background because it is worked on open mesh canvas, had 34,340 stitches.

Oh, dear.  

Here is Page 1 of the needlepoint pattern:

Just for kicks and giggles, let's zoom in on one small section of this pattern:

See those lovely symbols?  Each of those symbols indicates a different color of DMC embroidery floss, thusly:

Needlepoint involves a lot of counting, and a lot of double-checking that you're on the right square with the right color.  The pink highlighted areas on the big pattern piece show where I've already stitched, so I won't lose track of where I'm supposed to be.  Yay.

Here is the top of my coffee table:

It's not terribly well organized, but tomorrow I should be getting a package that includes a storage container for the SIXTY colors of floss that will make it easier to find the right color, or so I dearly hope.  Anything to make it faster would be nice, because this is as far I've got in the past six days, working around five hours a day:

You might notice the bright green binding tape on the top and left side of the canvas -- that indicates the length (12 inches) and height (14 inches) of the whole picture.  Remember that photo up above showing Page 1 of the pattern?

THERE ARE NINE PAGES.

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But you know, at least I'm happier doing good old needlepoint instead of cross-stitch -- that's the important thing, yes?  

Yes????

Well, do check back next week to see if that's true, and in the meantime, have a great time out there and get plenty of fresh air and don't do anything crazy like I'm doing, okay?

Yes!

Ups and Downs

 The Hounds and I took a road trip last week to see friends in Seattle.  The place we stayed, a daylight apartment, was ever so lovely, with a big fenced yard, and it was conveniently located.

Our space was the lower unit with the open door:

Not huge, but fine for me and the dogs, and nicely appointed.

There was a patio with seating, a garden, and a lot of space for dachshunds to roam around.

The Hounds spent a lot of time at our friend Tina's home, where they got to hang out with her three pooches:

In addition to seeing quite a few old friends, we also visited several of our favorite parks, including Golden Gardens on Puget Sound:

Our favorite place in Seattle is the Montlake Fill (AKA the Union Bay Natural Area), which we visited twice -- this was my regular birding patch for many years.

There were dragonflies out and about -- this Eight-Spotted Skimmer posed long enough for a photo:

An Osprey pair has a nest nearby and has been raising youngsters.  This is one the adults:

Truman enjoyed rolling in the long grass:

Pied-billed Grebes are a fave of mine, and I was delighted to see several out and about.  We do get them in the Tri-Cities but typically they stay too far out on the water for decent views, unlike this lovely bird at the Fill:

Truly a wonderful oasis of nature in the heart of the city:

While we were admiring the grebes, another birder kindly pointed out a dowitcher feeding in the shallow water nearby:

We were, however, able to spot this bird all on our own:

In addition to visits with friends, trips to parks, a little book shopping, and an actual party (BBQ!), I also got together for several sketch outings with the Zoom group, only in person.  Here is a tree from one of the parks (ink and watercolor):

This drawing of an arch from the Utah canyonlands is actually from the previous week (pencil):

This pair of shoes was done in a virtual zoom session again, even though I was still in Seattle, and there's a reason for that.

The reason why I didn't go join my friends in person that day -- the last day of my trip -- was because of poor Pippin, who is the "down" part of the post title.  On the last day, he started showing back discomfort, and by midday it was clear he was having another disc issue.  So I stayed put to keep him quiet and as comfortable as possible until heading back to Richland.

The vet is hopeful that he can recover with pain meds and very strict bed rest, which means keeping him in a space so small he can't jump up, and just barely turn round.  It may be weeks before we know if this will take care of the flare-up.  

So, that was not a happy ending to an otherwise enjoyable trip.  Dang.

Tune in next week, with your fingers duly crossed, to see how the little guy is doing.

Until then, please have a better week than I will probably have!