vacationing

Hi!

We are in Telluride for a few more days. I spent yesterday morning in ER with my DIL who has had a bad case of altitude sickness. poor thing!! I was kicking myself for not grabbing my needlepoint as I rushed out the door!! It was the first time ever that I had nothing to do while I was there. they put her on oxygen for a few hours, and gave her some strong meds. she had severe nausea, and was feeling just a little better by last night.

5in of fresh powder!! the boys are loving it!!

Our grandson, Tripp is adorable! I am enjoying him immensely!! He loved for me to shake the tree branches and have the new snow fall off. Chuckled!!

I will try to get a post or two up, but no promises!!
Kathy

STIRHA'S SETUP

I decided to make Stirha's setup mobile, by attaching my table clamp to a stool. The stool can be placed up high, so Gus cannot get to my threads, or on the floor where I can sit on an ottoman. I also can easily take it outside. Since we have a pool, I have to watch Gus when he is outside, and he loves the outdoors when the weather is nice. I never would have thought to attach the clamp to anything but a table--- necessity is the mother of invention!

STRIPPING

Well, now that I have everyone's attention!!

I wanted to share my tip on stripping Lorikeet. The first strand or two are difficult to pull without creating a huge tangled knot. Amy's tip on pulling the first strand only few inches, then straightening the remaining plies works well, but some stitchers still seem to end up with knots. Once you have a knot in Lorikeet, it's very time consuming and frustrating to figure out how to separate your strands.

Credit to Amy Bunger"s Halloweenies Home Study, of Amy's Golden Strand for the "tip" above; used with permission. Amy's stitch guide tips are proprietary, but this is one example of how much I appreciate the educational experience of working Amy's stitch guides!



So here's what I do:

You can see in the picture that I have pulled one strand to the left, with the remaining strands in the center, and the right. There is no knot in this skein, even though the central threads appear tangled. Instead of grabbing those center strands that are already tangled, grab the remaining strands just to the right of the mess, and straighten from there. Once you have the one strand "released" from the rest, then you can go back and straighten those central plies if necessary. If you grab in the middle of those central strands, you might end up with a knot, because the plies can overlap.

I actually do this holding the strands from above, and pull down on the remainder, but direction is probably irrelevant. Do not try to pull two strands at once; it won't work!

hope this helps!
Kathy