Bad Words

The air has turned blue around my frame stand today.

Quite frankly, if I could get my hands on dear, sweet, little Carmen, I would wring her dear, sweet, little neck.

I worked on part of the border today, just to get it out of the way. Carmen seemed to work the border randomly--there's no rhyme or reason to the spacing or placement of the stems and leaves--every single one has a different number of threads between them. 

And I did something I rarely, if ever do. I dragged the thread from one to another instead of weaving through the back of the stem, just to make some of the counting easier.

Carmen has been placed in time-out for the rest of the day. Hopefully she will behave better tomorrow.

One band after another

Apparently I needed to have a tired and cranky day, but then I actually slept fairly well last night (exhaustion finally kicked in) so today has been much better.

Or it's Tuesday rather than Monday.

Anyway, today I have stitched. I stitched while listening to a couple of flosstubes and I stitched while attending our EGA Region's virtual stitch-in. And this is what I've done so far today:

 Carmen has another motif almost finished, which started me thinking. I'm enjoying these filling motifs, but I'm also going to have to tackle the borders along the sides before I go much further. Maybe I should work on the outer borders for a bit--get them out of the way--then work on the center band again. Sort of like eating your carrots before you can have dessert. I will think on it a little more, but I believe that's what I'll do.

And I only have to fill in three more flowers for the second band for House on the Hill and then it will be ready for assembly. Having an easy project to do during stitch-ins and Zoom meetings seems to be working out really well. I do have to admit I was hoping this one would last a little longer, but it just means that I need to see what's in my pile of projects that I can move to before the next Zoom thing.

I think I will go back to Carmen for a little longer today. BDE is coming over for tacos tonight, which Dearly Beloved is going to fix, so I can stitch the rest of the day.

MUCH better than Monday!

Monday, Monday

 Is it possible to have a Monday when you're retired?

I've been spinning my wheels all day, with nothing to show for it. No, I'll take that back. I rearranged a cabinet so I could finally unpack a set of china that has been boxed up since the Big Move. (I have a lovely Limoges luncheon set that I treasure, even though it's rarely used. I'm not sure Dearly Beloved and I quite live up to it when we're eating PB&Js and carrot sticks.)

Anyway, I've picked things up and put them down and moved things around and misplaced my magnifiers and found them again and thought about balancing my checkbook and deciding against that since it's a Monday.

I would have just given up and  been a lump, but this lovely thing arrived in today's mail.

Nope, not going to start it right away, but I am going to read over the directions and stroke the silk and think about it for awhile.

And hope Monday turns out to be a fairly short day.

Stitching In

BDE and I went to our local chapter's once-a-month Sunday stitch-in today, and this is what I did.

I'm filling in the flowers on one of the bands for House on the Hill.

This is perfect stitch-in stitching. It's an easy satin stitch fill-in that I can do while participating in wide-ranging conversations about needlework (of course), and coyotes (why not?) and which people are morning people and which are not.

It has occurred to me that I need to keep a piece like this going at all times for things like stitch-ins and evenings when my hands need to stitch but my brain needs to take a mini-vacation. 

That would be pretty much every evening, come to think of it.

Falling

 No stitching today. at least, not exactly. I fell into a book.

I ordered this some time ago, and it's taken awhile to arrive, so it was a lovely surprise to find it on my doorstep this afternoon.

It doesn't just cover filling stitches, but also includes a great section on everything you ever need to know about stitching hardanger. It has directions for both right and left handed stitchers, and even provides pictures of how things are supposed to look--as well as how they shouldn't, which helps when you're trying to get your tension right. I expect it will help me with the online hardanger class I'm taking.

And I also discovered when I was catching up with the class questions and answers for the Hummingbird class that the deadline has been extended to the end of September. I also unearthed the materials for the online goldwork class I couldn't finish last year because of the Big Move.

This is turning into a very busy summer!

Dragging

I had intentions, big intentions. I was going to rise and shine yesterday and today and stitch all day.

Had I been able to stitch all day for two days, I would have had more accomplished than this.

However, for the last two nights, I have slept only five or so hours. Wednesday night I stared at the ceiling for a couple of hours, only to have Dearly Beloved's extra-loud alarm clock nearly give me a heart attack just as I dozed off again. Adrenaline will make you rise, although the shining is another matter entirely.

Last night, same thing, five hours of sleep, then wide awake. This time I decided to get up and stitch or read or do something. I read and I stitched and I stared into space, all in slow motion. I was planning to take a nap, but BDE called to see if she could get a ride to pick up her car after a repair job. So I took her to the car place and then home, and now I'm sort of awake again. Awake, but not necessarily functioning on all six cylinders.

We'll see how tonight goes. This is getting old.

Happy Fourth of July!

 May we continue to have the independence our ancestors fought for!

(I don't do a lot of seasonal stitching, but I did remember this little pillow, designed by Barbara Rakosnik of Periwinkle Promises. She did several series of small pillows based on the months of the year. I miss her designs, although Lord knows I stitched a bunch of them when she was active.)