Puttering and ruminating

Today was my birthday.

I puttered around in the stash, I stitched a bit. I have legs and faces on the sheep appearing in Sheep May Safely Graze. You can't really see the white stitches on the white background and won't be able to until I get some more grass planted. I put several strands of gold into the background of Eve in the Garden. It doesn't look much different from the last time I published a picture. And I filled in some more sawtooth areas on the border of Rebekah French, which looks just like the filled sawtooth areas I published the other day. So I will not make you suffer from my lousy photography skills in this entry.

I felt I should do something significant, even though it's not a milestone date. And while there's nothing to take a picture of, I feel as though I made a breakthrough.

I've been trying to decide how to stitch my casket from the Cabinet of Curiosities class for years. Years and years. I could not get the design I wanted to put on the body of the casket coordinated with anything for the slopes and friezes--yes, I invested in the double casket. I had just about decided to use those designs with the flat top casket, and do something completely different for the double, even though the designs I wanted to use were ones that had meaning to me and I felt they deserved an over-the-top extravaganza of stitching.

And suddenly this afternoon, it came together. I was flipping through the slope designs provided in the class, and thinking a little, and inspiration struck, and I have my design. In my head, not on paper or linen, but I know where I'm going to go with it.

I think I scared Dearly Beloved when I was dancing around the living room.

So I'm adding casket stitching to the things I want to stitch in the coming year until the next birthday. I still want to work on samplers and smalls and goldwork and finish-finishing and my newly-resurrected interest in crewel, but there will be casket designing and stitching mixed in as well.

I made another important decision today, too, a birthday present to myself. Rather than allowing myself to pick up a needle only after I've done my chores, I'm going to plan on at least two hours of needlework every evening. I do believe this will make me happier and consequently healthier in the coming year.

Besides, would I rather be remembered as the stitcher with a smile on her face or the cranky old biddy with a spotless house?