Sunday, February 5, 2012

Super Bowl Stitching Sunday

I think I'm ready. The food is cooked - slow cooker pulled pork for pre-game lunch and Taco Chicken Chili for game time. The snacks are ready - guacamole and chips. The computer and iPad are at the ready for keeping an eye on my eagle nests. And most importantly, the Christmas banner is ready for lots of stitching attention this afternoon and evening.

Our fourth kit for the I and S pears on the Christmas banner arrived this week. Amy has worked her magic again with the stitch and thread selections for these two pears. I absolutely love the colors that Melissa Shirley used for the I pear and Amy chose the perfect threads to carry out Melissa's vision for it. This pear works up fairly quickly. It was a treat to start with something as simple as basketweave.


The background may be simple but the leaves require some careful following of the stitch diagrams. After some initial frustration with myself for not being able to follow the diagrams, I finally settled into the blackwork pattern that Amy has chosen for the leaves. Amy has given us a really great tip for  couching the outline around each of the leaves. I'm looking forward to working that technique later today.


It's been an interesting week at the Decorah and Norfolk eagle nests. The Decorah eagles have been actively courting each other and working on their nest. Dad brought Mom a rabbit this week and she quickly pulled all the fur off the rabbit before eating it. Now there is a lot of soft rabbit fur lining the nest bowl - a perfect place to lay this season's eggs. At the Norfolk nest this week, it's a different situation.  Those of us who watch this nest have come to realize that Dad Norfolk is quite the player! He has had at least three females at the nest over the last few weeks. The most recent female was ousted by the second female on Thursday evening. I guess Dad is going to let the ladies duke it out to see who will be the next Mom Norfolk. The Bachelor has nothing on Dad! Watching this nest is true reality TV!


I downloaded the UStream app to my iPad and now I can watch the Decorah nest on it. Last night I found out about another browser app - Photon - that will allow me to watch Flash video - the Norfolk nest cam. I love this app because there are so many videos you can't watch on an iPad because of Apple not supporting Flash. The Photo browser app is a great way to get around that.

I leave you with a little bit of springtime in my yard here in early February -


Have a fun Super Bowl Sunday!

7 comments:

  1. Hi Melinda,
    The banner is really coming along. It looks great. Enjoy your day of eagle watching and football.
    Linda

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  2. May I please come over? Your Super Bowl party sounds a lot more fun than mine! The banner looks good. I still have to bite my lip when I think about not having it. Looking forward to Helowise in March and the Thanksgiving House in April. Trying to control myself until then. Have a wonderful Sunday!

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  3. Hi,

    Are you referring to the photon app that's $4.99? It sounds great, just wanted to make sure it was the same app. Thanks for the info and love your blog!

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  4. Hi, girls! Thanks for stopping by today. Steph - come on over, I have plenty of food! Bring your stitching, too! I have Helowise in my stash to stitch as well. She will probably not see the light of day until the banner is finished. I know you and Linda are going to enjoy the Thanksgiving House. I'll probably be regretting that I didn't sign up for that but there are some other things that I really want to stitch once the banner is finished.

    Hi, Cindy - Yes, the Photon app is $4.99. I think it's worth it and it gets consistently good reviews. It took me a few minutes to figure it out but I did. If you buy the app and want to view a video that is in the Flash format, click on the lightening bolt in the upper right corner after you pull up the web page that has the video and you will be able to view the video. The quality of the video drops just a little but I don't think it is objectionable.

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  5. Steph - That is a camellia. I wish I could tell you it's name. Almost all of my camellias are blooming right now.

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  6. I wish I could have come. It would have been fun! Thanks for the info on the flower. They don't grow around here, so I had no idea what it was. Hope you made some progress on the banner during the game. Check my blog tomorrow to see what I did. Have a good week.

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