hildy89: (Barfy the Cat-Owl)
So my biggest needlework project in forever, Ink Circles' "Book of Ink Circles" aka Celtic Mystery SAL aka BoINK, is finished. Since reordering a few colors (and flailing a little over mismatched overdyes), I've been steadily working on it for the last week. Then the Olympics started and I needed something to work on while watching swimming heats, gymnastics, and current favorite volleyball. Fabric is 28 ct Platinum Jobelan and the colors are all Vikki Clayton's Hand Dyed Fibers silks.

Finished Book of Ink Circles photos )

Silver!

Aug. 17th, 2008 03:16 pm
hildy89: (floss)
So I've fallen off a little on my Stitching Olympics. I mostly blame being so tired after work.

Last night I finished Ink Circles' Quackworth 2007 during the women's marathon. It felt more like a middle distance race than a real marathon, but oh well, I'm not complaining.

Again I'm using HDF Bitterness on a 32ct Belfast cream linen.

Quackworth 2007 )

Gymnastics

Aug. 12th, 2008 01:00 am
hildy89: (olympic rings)
For awhile there tonight, I was twelve years old again.

(Yes, I know that dates me, I don't care.)

I so wanted to be an Olympic gymnast when I was younger. I took lessons at the Y and even moved up to the intermediate level, but I was never flexible or strong enough. So I lived vicariously through other gymnastics media. Some girls read Seventeen and Tiger Beat, I read International Gymnast. While I knew about Olga and Nadia, I watched Mary Lou and Tracee and Julianne and Peter and Mitch and Bart. That generation of gymnasts were my heroes.

So when I was watching the US men tonight, I had nervous chills, because I remembered another daredevil team that dreamed big against the Chinese and Japanese teams. The Russians weren't there, but it didn't seem to matter. Jonathan Horton's composure reminded me of Peter Vidmar's rock solidness and Spring's high bar routine reminded me of another high flyer. Remember when the Gaylord flip was new and risky? Now they're doing flips and twisting release moves that I couldn't even imagine. And I thought pairs skating made me nervous...

So thanks for the memories. It was really fun while it lasted. (Now work on those pommel horse routines, okay?)
hildy89: (cross stitch)
Here are my Stitching Olympics galleries.

*blinks* Wow. After stitching steadily throughout the weekend coverage, I finished one page of Quackworth already! (Ok, it's only two pages long, but still...) I'm going to finish this *a lot* faster than I'd planned.

Stitching Olympics progress )
hildy89: (guts)
Oh great. I appear to have a cold. Hopefully I'll be feeling better tomorrow.

The Olympics have started. The opening ceremonies were mind blowing. I've been wallowing in the coverage, jumping around all the channels. Besides the usual gymnastics and swimming, they've also given me plenty of volleyball. I'd blame reading "Crimson Hero", but I recall watching the US team at really odd hours in 1984. I've even learned to like beach volleyball, which I've always looked on as the popular cousin you don't like visiting.

The saddest thing I heard during the gymnastics was about the state of Romanian gymnastics: "Little girls don't dream of being Nadia anymore." Punctuated by showing a Romanian gymnast falling off the balance beam... *sighs* It makes me want to dig up old gymnastics videos on youtube or something.

The Stitching Olympics are off to a flying start. I've already finished one page of Quackworth, which stunned me.

Olympics

Jul. 31st, 2008 03:13 pm
hildy89: (olympic rings)
Teaching Company is at it again. In time for the 2008 Olympics, they've released a pair of specially commissioned lectures on Ancient Origins of the Olympic Games.
hildy89: (floss)
This is mostly for my benefit in case I lose all my notes. Feel free to ignore or mock.

Stitching Olympics planning )
hildy89: (Barfy the Cat-Owl)
I finished the latest part of the Book of Ink Circles. Maybe it was 4th of July, but I kept quoting a certain sequence in "1776". See if you agree:

We're waiting for the egg to hatch... )

With the Olympics coming, [livejournal.com profile] cross_stitch is starting their Stitching Olympics. Basically you set goals for yourself at various gold/silver/bronze level for different types of projects. If you finish, you win! I'm debating which projects to include. Once I have fabric, I want to do Ink Circles "Quackworth" and I really want to finish my fox tote bag I started years ago. I just can't figure out who to use for the third one. "Garden Verses" is huge. I'd need nearly another four years to finish that one. I need to look through the old projects. I know I'll be visiting Scarlet Thread for one piece of fabric.
hildy89: (wimbledon court)
It must be time for tennis. Wimbledon starts today. With Henman gone, I have no idea who I'll wind up rooting for. At least I'll have something else besides baseball. I picked the only good game to attend. The Rangers won the other two games against the Nationals. The starting pitchers did fine; it was the offense that let them down as usual.

And is nothing sacred? First I said goodbye to skating's beloved 6.0 and now they won't even let me have a perfect 10. The gymnastics code of points has undergone an overhaul so that the new 10 is 17. I watched part of last night's US Olympic gymnastics trials. Chellsie Memmel impressed me as much as the more popular Johnson and Liukin. They select two girls that night and then the rest have to go through a selection camp. That's asking for injuries or worse. I remember when they selected everyone at Trials. I also watched the last five minutes of the diving trials, where a 30-year-old diver made her third Olympics and everyone was amazed.
hildy89: (fox in winter by coi)
Laura Branigan is dead from a brain aneurysm. She was 47.

The Olympics are over. Now we can wait for athletes to hit the slopes and ice in Torino. Bejing sounds like they're excited for the next Summer Games if they're ahead of schedule preparations are any indication.
hildy89: (we're all mad here)
The modern pentathlon's equestrian event appears to be like the short program in skating. Or the balance beam in gymnastics. You can't necessarily win the competition in that one event, but you really can lose it there. Obscure sport wibbling )
hildy89: (Default)
All things considered, it wasn't a bad birthday. I have tokens of 'steem from friends and relatives. I have a Borders gift card I need to spend. I had a late dinner with a good friend where I could relax a little. I don't know why this birthday has made me so down. Feeling more alone than usual, I guess.

I'm still irritated with the DVR. Sometimes the sound records properly and sometimes I get gobbledygook. With the soaps, at least they have reairings later at night. But when it messed up my Bravo Olympic coverage of the modern pentathlon for both men and women, I was quite utterly miffed. This is a sport I've been fascinated with for awhile, but had never seen actual coverage of. Five sports in one day And now I have no commentary, no pearls of wisdom, no "this is really good, watch this!" alerts. Color me snarky, but the Russian men's winner, you pick up the flag for the victory strut after you finish the race.

Oh, for the writers on my flist, [livejournal.com profile] 500_a_day has opened. Write 500 words a day to keep up your writing momentum. I've promised to post twice this week as part of my goals. Since [livejournal.com profile] gooberfishbowl will be Fearless Leader next week for CVS with the WorldCon exodus, I won't have anywhere to hide.
hildy89: (sidonia)
CVS meeting last night. I completely muffed two critiques. I really need to reorganize this apartment if I'm losing things like this. [livejournal.com profile] ariadnesthread, though, gave me a beautiful black and white knitted shawl as an early birthday present. It felt warm and snuggly especially in the cold Barnes & Noble. I always have to remember a sweater for the meetings these days. I went to a second dinner afterwards with [livejournal.com profile] iced_spice to just natter and chatter.

I DVRed the Olympics from last night except the sound was wonky, so I watched swimming and gymnastics on mute, which was fine, as long as there wasn't some controversy or "huh" moment. It's not the girls were really moving to the music on the floor exercise. But at least I could fast forward past the beach volleyball.

My parents apparently escaped Charley without nary a flicker or a problem. Apparently the bad stuff was north of them. They said they had had worse thunderstorms pass through before Charley.

DHL should be coming sometime today to snag the other monitor. Knock on wood, but there hasn't been a trace of my previous computer woes.
hildy89: (sidonia)
In spite of having the best lottery number in years, I was still put on the Media West waiting list. Boo hiss.

In the practicing random acts of nostalgia: [livejournal.com profile] katemonkey has started a review blog Insert Girl's Name Here, reviewing the Sunfire romances. Remember these? Each featured one particular heroine torn between two men during some historical period. She has also started a LJ feed at [livejournal.com profile] sunfire_books.

The Olympics seriously rocked last night. I can't hear myself for the screaming )
hildy89: (Default)
I managed to stay relatively unspoiled for today's Olympics coverage. Gymnastics, swimming and fencing! )

I had a fandom collides moment while catching up with the last two weeks of Another World when Elizabeth Gracen popped up as herself discussing the Miss America competition, long before she swung a sword in HL. Odd though that they focused on that pretty girl from the crowd who wanted to go to college and the writers kinda missed the big Miss America connection with the college scholarships. Admittedly this was Miss America circa 1988, but I think they were still awarding scholarships back then, yes?
hildy89: (good and evil by teh_indy)
Again from the library. I just spent a long hour on the phone with Dell Computers. First I needed to extend the warranty on the desktop, since it would nearly be expired by the time I decided to do anything about the monitor issues. Then I dealt with tech support. Now I've heard the horror stories. I've heard the stories of tech support by way of New Delhi or Bangalor. And yes, that much was true. My situation was sadly worsened by my own clumsiness. I was nearing the end of my first call and I nearly had a replacement monitor out of the call when I dropped the phone which disconnected me. I called back and nearly had to go through the entire plugging and checking stuff as before. Theoretically I should have a new monitor in a few days. Hopefully that will solve things. Hopefully.

Olympics was draining last night. I knew the US men leading was too good to be true. Oddly I'm quite pleased for the Japanese team and thrilled for our American boys. I still can't tell the difference between the Hamm twins. I had to memorize the bib numbers. I'm noticing the skills I miss from the old days, like the Thomas flair on the pommel horse. I think it was Nemov who used to do the trailing flair down the length of the horse and it was so cool to watch. I am annoyed about the "boycotted year" thing though. The US men in 1984 had to beat the Japanese and Chinese men in those Olympics. That gold was no gimme. I also kept thinking "Has it really been 20 years?" I was still thinking of my own Olympic dreams back then. I remember Mary Lou Retton storming down the vaulting track to launch herself into history.
hildy89: (underwater archaeology)
I hope my computer lets me posts this. The problems I've been having with my "white outs" have been increasing with regularity. I cannot find the problem. Several people have suggested virtual memory issues, but I can almost have nothing open and the screen still turns white sometimes for long stretches. I can't shut the computer down, I can't do anything! I've virus and spyware scanned it and defragged the hard drive once. Help!

It took only one day of Olympic coverage for someone to spoil the evening NBC coverage, prompting the usual counter cries of "don't spoil" and "it's news". I might not have minded if it hadn't been the Michael Phelps race. I could use filters but I don't always remember to login. Fun while that community lasted.

But that frustration was nothing compared to my reaction to the men's gymnastics last night. I swear the US men's team is cursed. Every Olympics something seems to happen to derail their chances. Why I loathe the Code of Points )
hildy89: (underwater archaeology)
GIP! I decided to turn this into my underwater archaeology icon. Very apt choice, after watching a program on National Geographic's "Mysteries of the Deep", which featured two wrecks. The first one was a classical Greek ship off the coast of Turkey at Tektaş Burnu. That one fascinated me because the team was led by George Bass from Texas A&M's Institute of Nautical Archaeology. The other ship was the 17th century Swedish warship called the Kronan lost in the Baltic. Because of the Baltic's lack of shipworms, the divers brought up some glorious pieces of ornate woodwork.

Good wishes to my parents and other Floridians who are facing Charley who turned into a Category 4 Hurricane. I looked at the radar on the Weather.com just now and there isn't much of the state showing right now.

I thought of my PotC fans and the Slayers campaigners while reading Crossgen's "El Cazador", their gorgeous pirate comic. A pity the company is filing bankruptcy, so they won't at least release a trade.

The Olympics start tonight, so I'll probably be curled up in front of the tv, watching the opening ceremonies. After that, who knows what events I'll catch. I tend to watch less of the Summer Games than the winter ones.

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