Starry, Starry Night

I finally managed to stitch this year's Stitch for a Cause project.

I should have managed to get it stitched in a few hours--basically an evening--but there have been distractions.

They were:

The shopping

We still have a few gift cards to pick up, but the other shopping has been accomplished. Why is it so difficult to find a long-sleeved, not flannel, nightgown for an 88-year-old lady? It also can't be nylon because that can get hot, but it can be a knit. And it shouldn't be something a floozy would wear.

I'm keeping the receipt in case the nightgown found is not to specifications.

The social life

There have been Christmas/holiday parties this week. Actually, three of them were scheduled on the same evening. And, of course, the one that was a command performance was the one I had the least interest in attending.

I went anyway. Command performance.

The tree

It's still a work in progress.  It has lights and at least 200 ornaments--and I am not overstating that number, Dearly Beloved has counted--but this tree turned out to be much larger and thicker than it appeared to be on the lot.

What happens is that either Dearly Beloved or I will find ourselves gazing at the tree when a spot that needs more ornamentifying appears. This means that I must heave myself out of the wing chair, totter to the corner of the couch where the last big box of ornaments is sitting, rummage around in it for something of the appropriate size and weight, and then totter over to the tree to hang the ornament. If the spot is higher than I can reach, Dearly Beloved must heave himself out of his spot on the couch and hang the ornament. Then we flop back down in our respective seats and gaze at the tree some more.

The bead incident

Starry, Starry night has a few beads sewn on--you may not be able to see from the photo, but they adorn the corners.

The beads came in a tube with a little stopper. When I got to the point where I needed to sew on the beads, I had to wrestle the stopper off the tube so I could put the beads in a beading tray.

When the stopper finally popped out, so did half the beads in the tube.

Technical terms were used.

The beads were (mostly) corralled, but in attempting to shake a few more into the beading tray, the tube squished and more beads erupted.

And the stopper rolled off the table and hid itself somewhere on the floor or in the basket by my chair or, who knows, possibly in the Christmas tree stand. Nothing would surprise me.

More technical terms were used.

I managed to sew the beads on without piercing myself with the beading needle (there was a Christmas miracle for sure) but spent the rest of my evening looking for an empty bead container for the rest of the beads.

Anyway, tonight the last stitch was stitched and I just have to find the fabric I thought of using for the background and put it together.

And hopefully, there will still be a place on the tree where it can fit.