Crown Me

Once again, I walked out of the first day of a Betsy Morgan class with a completed small:

It's a thimble holder--I need to find a regal thimble--to go in the Edinburgh Etui. There are things I have thought about redoing (as always), but I'm so thrilled I finally got a hedebo button loop that is actually good--not just acceptable, but good--that I will probably just look at it and ignore the rest.

Of course this means that the other things I've stitched with hedebo button loops now need to have their loops reworked, but I'm going to think about that another day.

We also received absolutely delightful goodies in our class favor bag:

Obviously, all have a Scottish flair to coordinate with our Edinburgh theme. We have really talented people involved in  bringing this workshop about and this is just one example.

I was so excited to spend a whole day stitching that I came home and stitched some more.

Another finished tree for "Can't See the Forest" and two more started.

Dearly Beloved really didn't have to say that the two newer trees looked like they had come through a forest fire.

One down, five to go

I have planted a tree.

And it has bloomed.

I have five more to stitch for the side panels. And critters. I should get to it.

Dirt

Last night I stitched dirt.

I could be nicer and say that I stitched the forest floor, but basically, it's really dirt.

The original plan was to stitch dirt and plant a tree in it. However, just as I started on the second row of dirt stitching, I discovered that, within a couple of inches of starting the first row, there was a big, tangled, globby glob of thread on the back--the kind of glob that happens when you should have put down the needle and stepped away from the scroll bars.

The imp on one shoulder whispered in my ear, "Hey, no one will ever know it's there unless you open your big mouth and tell the world."

I was tempted.

The the angel on the other shoulder whacked me on that ear, put her hands on her hips, and stated, "Now listen here, Miss Prissy. At best, you'll be able to see the shadow of the thread through the linen. At worst, it will make a lump on the side of the piece when it's put together. Either way, you'll always know it's there and it will drive you crazier than you already are."

So I grumbled and muttered and used foul language and ripped back and untangled the tangle and unglobbed the glob and restitched the dirt.

Tonight I plan to plant a tree.

Little Boxes

I've started the prework for another Betsy Morgan class.

This is not the Betsy Morgan class I'm taking this coming week-end. This is the Betsy Morgan class I will be taking in June. It appears that I am fond of Betsy Morgan classes.  I almost dread to see what she is going to show us for future projects because I will likely want them, too.

However, this evening may not see any stitching accomplished. Our Fearless Leader, head of our department, is abandoning us to take another position in the company. She took us all out to lunch today at the restaurant we tend to prefer, mainly because of their guacamole. After the guac and chips and enchiladas and beans and rice, I have been in a carb coma all afternoon. We had a chef's salad  tonight for dinner--but I'm still ready to go facedown into the keyboard.  And that's after taking a walk after work to get the blood circulating. I think all it did was relax me that much more.

I foresee an early night.

Fire and Ice

The mail carrier brought a surprise today.

(What am I saying--I knew it was going to show up at some point because I signed up for the class awhile back--I just didn't know when it would show up.)

Here are the supplies for Dorothy Lesher's "Fire and Ice."

There are lots of sparkly threads and beads and silks--all sorts of fun things.

For some reason, the people in this family are entranced by dragons, and both Baby Girl and I have several dragons designs in our respective stashes to stitch.

However, this is going to have to be a week-end project. Even with cyborg eyes, additional magnification, a white towel in my lap, and enough light to land a 747 (according to my late mother-in-law, the interior designer who preferred low, indirect lighting), I don't stitch well on black Congress Cloth in the evenings. Hopefully, we'll have enough sunny Saturdays so I can make progress.

The Fidgets

I have been suffering from the fidgets all day. I have not been able to sit down and focus on anything, no matter what.

I got several more threads stitched into the sky on The Shepherdess before that lost my interest.

You will notice there is only a little bit more to do and the sky will be finished. Could I persevere? Nope!

I was in and out of the stash several times, looking to see what struck my fancy. Nothing grabbed me.

I sewed the linen to scroll bars so I could get the prework done for my next Salty Yarns excursion. And that was the extent of that.

My current book didn't hold my interest. There was nothing I wanted to watch on TV.  I went for two walks to see if that would get rid of the fidgets.

I even ironed Dearly Beloved's shirts for the week instead of waiting until the last minute to do one just before he had to put it on to go to work. They're all done. That's when he asked me if I felt OK.

I feel fine. I just have the fidgets. And I hope they go away soon.

A Patch of Blue

Just a little blue sky--total of my stitching for today . . .

It was a gray, drizzly, chilly day and I slept late. I love sleeping late on gray, drizzly, chilly days. Usually I have to get up and go to work, so I took advantage.

Then we ran errands. all of which took longer than anticipated.

And then I came home and sorted laundry and just sort of puttered around. I had thought about working on Fair Maiden since I have replaced the Mylar I needed, but that seemed to require more brain cells than I had functioning this afternoon, so I did a little of this and a little of that and suddenly it was dinner time and cleaning up time and I hadn't threaded a needle all day.

So I threaded a needle (several times) and started the sky. And maybe I'll finish it tonight, or maybe I'll just be lazy.

I'm tending toward lazy.