Wild Rose – First Stage

I spent most of New Years Day (and much of the night) working on this embroidery project and watching a Stargate marathon on my DVD player. Both were quite enjoyable.

Wild Rose is an embroidery project using a technique that is sometimes called “needle painting”. This is a combination of long/short stitches with split stitch to create something that can be quite realistic. This is for a friend in my parish, and it was to have been a Christmas present. Well, that didn’t happen, but it shouldn’t take me much longer to finish it. Since it is too cold for me to bike, it isn’t too cold for me to stitch

With the spinning classes and training sessions I don’t have as much free time on my hands for stitching, but I am finding a new enjoyment of it – perhaps due to the very reason that I don’t have much time to work on it. So I am making the most of what time I have! I also hope to start making progress on the Epigination I am supposed to be working on as well.

Cycling Adventure Blog

Here is the home of my new blog that will focus on my introduction to cycling and, once I’ve completed the learning process, my efforts to become a distance/endurance cyclist. It seems best to keep this separate from my needlework – which I hope to get back to as early as tomorrow afternoon!

Name that Bicycle

Here is my very first bicycle – a Trek 7.6 WSD. I am very happy with it, and it has even survived two practice sessions as I start the adventure of learning how to ride at mumble-mumble years old. I am looking for a good name for my steed, so if you have any suggestions please let me know!

I am also starting a separate blog to journal about my cycling adventures and will post a ink here when I am ready. I’ve decided I want to keep that separate from this – seems easier that way

My blog is worth…

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

Wheww

I took the plunge!

I can’t believe that I have done this, but I ordered a new bicycle today through a local bike shop. You can see it here, it is the Trek 7.6 FX WSD (women specific design).  I am excited about this, even if I won’t be able to do much riding before March. I got a great price on it and I have a great instructor to help me get up to speed.

My anti-diabetes campaign has given me little time for needlework these days. I am working with a personal trainer and attending 3 spin-cycling classes a week and am making great progress. After years of a very sedentary lifestyle, I’ve a lot of work to get into proper shape for some serious road cycling this coming summer – and to hopefully push back the diabetes specter. Even if this doesn’t work, in the end, I will know that I have done everything in my power to prevent it. Sure the cycling is part of it, but it is also for joy and a way to explore the world without being separated from it by metal and high speed.

I may start another blog for cycling as this progresses, or just do that here. Time will tell

Life rewound

Life is interesting at all times, though perhaps more exciting from time to time. Currently am fighting asthma due to the change of seasons, and, perhaps, a tiny dose of the flu. Or cold. Or allergies. Whatever, I don’t feel good. Indeed, I stayed home from the Liturgy for the Entrance of the Theotokos today – which isn’t like me. There are other health issues as well, but I won’t go into them here

Far more interesting than my little health challenges is my bicycle research I have given up on the Pure Lowstep as it doesn’t have many gears. Rather I need something with sufficient gears for the hills and the Trek Pure won’t help with that.

The Trek 7300 WSD just might do that however, and here it is! Thankfully my spin class instructor has agreed to go shopping with me in March to help me get the best bicycle for me. It isn’t that I do not trust the store staff, the LBS is fantastic – but I would prefer input from someone who isn’t working for the store.

Pure….love

Isn’t this a beautiful bike? It is the Trek Pure Lowstep, and you will note that the pedal has a forward design so that all your foot has to do to touch the ground is just to step down without leaving the seat. This is a “flatfoot” Townie bike and can be used on different terrains. Ahhhhh, it feels good and I will be purchasing this in early March. It is a little late in the year for a new bike, but I haven’t forgotten the bike lesson from a few months ago. Before I wound up in the walking cast (unrelated incident).

Remember that I did not learn how to ride as a child, so I am a ** year old novice. Is there something BEFORE a novice? If there is, then I am that. So what to do throughout the winter to gain endurance and to lose weight? I am a member of a wonderful fitness club with great personal trainers, and they have these “easy” little classes called Spin-Cycling. This is, basically, a very intensive class in indoor cycling, and as long as I am patient and don’t push myself further than I should, it will take care of my endurance problem.

At least it gets me exercising

Epigonation and Blackwork (updated)

It is about time to start work on my next liturgical embroidery project. There is something special about doing liturgical embroidery. It is, in a way, more satisfying than other projects.  I do, in the end, prefer to do projects for others anyway, projects intended for my walls seem to rarely get completed.

The above Blackwork Cross will not be on the first Epigonation, but on the second, I have volunteered to stitch two of them, one on a red wool fabric, and the second on a beautiful white Scottish linen (which will have the above cross in the center). My design for the red woolen Epigonation is hand-drawn and will be done in surface embroidery, so I doubt that I will be able to post a decent picture here before it is done. It is my hope to have the red one completed by Nativity, and the white one for Pascha. It just depends on so many other things, but that is my hope.

The design for the red Epigonation will be quite different – basically a cross with vines and flowers. I will post a photo of that when it is far enough along. You can see the framed project in the photo here, it was for a good friend.

A Finish!

I tend to like large, complex projects, so I do not complete many projects in a given year. It is, however, very nice when I do This is Night Flight, a design by Amy Bear, and somewhat modified by me… I do not know when I will be able to afford to frame it, so thought that I should go ahead and post it!

The perfect picture – almost

I went to East Tennessee this weekend to visit my family. It was a good visit, and for the first time in my life I listened to an audio fiction book on the trip. I think I like that, and it was a story that I know well so that helped to follow it as I drove.

On the way back I took the following photo with my new camera…. it is almost perfect… This was taken at the top of a mountain, and looking over the mist-enshrouded mountains and trees one can almost imagine a hardy band of travelers, from the Lord of the Rings perhaps, or some other epic tale making their way through the fog.