A bump in the road on the way to normal

The day after my last post, March 5th, my mom was approved to move into an independent living community, so I called a mover to see about getting on his schedule. I thought it would probably be around the end of March, so imagine my surprise when he said he could do it on the 10th--which left me four days to pack up an entire apartment entirely on my own! I got it done with about half of Saturday to spare, then the move and unpacking took the next two days, and then the next day I spent cleaning the old apartment, so pretty much an entire week was spent with no time to do anything but the most necessary chores at home and then fall into bed by 8:30pm because most mornings I was awake for the day by about 3am, thinking of all the stuff I had to get done that day. Did I mention that I was also going to my friend's house next door twice a day to take care of her cats while she was out of town? So yeah, this has been a pretty awful month, with almost no stitching time until the last week or so.

Last week I had to spend a few hours at the hospital while my mom had an outpatient procedure done, so I took Harvest Tiny Town with me and set up in the cafeteria:

After a latte and a muffin, I passed the time stitching, and I got enough done that I was able to then finish it up last Thursday:

It was stitched on PTP Chalice Newcastle linen, and the Harvest Frill is also included in the piece. It joins three other Tiny Towns that I will be sending to my finisher later today or tomorrow, to be finished into drums:

Thursday was also the first day of a show that two local EGA chapters put on in Green Bay. I had planned to go on Friday, but then learned that we would be getting a few inches of snow that day, so I decided to go Thursday evening even though I was really tired. I am very glad I decided to drag myself up there, because aside from seeing all of the beautiful work done by the members, I found a load of gorgeous Just Nan designs on the rummage tables, all for just $18:

It turns out that Enchanted Hearts was the very first class project Nan designed in 1994, and it's very cool because the stitcher has included all of the printouts from a message board where participants were "meeting" and the instructor was posting tips for stitching each band every day for a couple of weeks. I ended up starting the sampler on Saturday morning, and by last night I was already into band 9 of 14:

I am very happy that the original stitcher didn't use the embellishment pack, because it comes with this sweet little bit of lace that will be used for band 14:

It was so nice to finally spend a weekend in my craft room, working on this sampler, with college basketball on in the background and just feeling the serenity that comes with my stitching. Although, on a side note, my Fighting Illini will now be playing my husband's Iowa State Cyclones in the Sweet 16 this Thursday; we've weathered a lot together in our soon-to-be 33 years of marriage, but this could get ugly... :D

Another wonderful thing that happened last week was that Amber from Rensel Studio emailed to let me know that the pieces I sent to them back in February 2023 were finally done--that is always a very exciting email to receive! They will most likely arrive later this week or early next week, but here are the photos that Amber sent:

Mirabilia's Lady of Mystery conversion

Nora Corbett's Luce Mia

Nora Corbett's Victorian Christmas Eve

Amy Bruecken's A Little Batty

I am beyond thrilled with the work they've done on these, and can't wait to see them in person soon; such a long wait, but totally worth it.

Hope everyone has a great stitchy week!