Long Time, No See

 I realized last night that we're a third of the way through October and I haven't blogged at all. There are reasons.

Unfortunately, the big one is that Mother has been in the hospital. As usual, The Saint has been doing all the heavy lifting, but we're hoping she will be released back to The Home today--depending on today's lab results. She is two months away from her 99th birthday, so each day is a gift.

And I had both Covid and flu shots in the same arm on the same day. I understand this year's flu shot for those of us over 65 is a little more powerful because this year's strain of flu is more virulent. All I know is that for the first time in several years, I was foggy for a couple of days afterwards.

Then, apparently A. Carter turned me into a monogamous stitcher. I think I mentioned before that I was thinking about working the side borders down to the next big chunk of grass, then stitching grass, then doing the bottom border. I did that, but didn't feel like any of it merited a blog post since stitching big swaths of grass is about as boring as, well, watching grass grow.

Finally I got past all that and now have the first big urn on the bottom finished.

I've been trying to figure out what that figure on the base of the urn could possibly be. My first thought was a crab.

The design kept nagging at me until I remembered that one of my great-aunts had a tea set with a rose pattern in gold. If you kind of squint at it, you could "see" a rose with leaves coming out the top and one side and a stem at the bottom.

Or you can squint and see a crab.

Happy Colors!

 I've finished the next section of A. Carter, and I am officially halfway through.

And, oh, the colors! They are so happy--and really pop! against the darker background.

I'm thinking about finishing the side borders, then stitching the six rows of green across the bottom of the sampler. This is REALLY eating one's veggies before getting to dessert, since the bottom panel of the sampler has two giant urns with equally large flowers, plus a beautiful rose in the center. Those would be so much fun to end the sampler with, as opposed to stitch after stitch of green, green, green.

I'm not so crazy about block stitching.

Can you tell?

Faux Fall

Mother Nature is pulling her usual tricks on us here in the Sunny South. We've had chilly weather--lows in the upper 40's for a couple of nights--and Mother packed away the humidity. Temporarily. It's going to reach the high 80's by the end of next week.

Thus, we have not turned the heat on, and the house has been a little chilly, especially overnight.

Last night, I made sure to have a blanket on the bed and pulled the comforter up as well. I thought this would be sufficient.

Have you ever had the experience where you're just uncomfortable enough to be unable to sleep, but too comfortable to get up and do anything about it?

I needed another blanket. The blankets are in a closet that isn't 10 feet from the bed. But, I thought, Dearly Beloved will be coming to bed eventually, and I can get him to pull another blanket down off the upper shelf.

What you need to know is that Dearly Beloved is a night owl. He doesn't come to bed until sometime between 1 and 2, and that's A.M. So I tossed and turned and shivered until he finally wandered upstairs and I could request the blanket. Yes, I could have gotten up, but, like I said, I was just comfortable enough to avoid it.

And while I'm on the subject of Fall, The Great British Baking Show is back.

Let me say that I absolutely adore this program. It is one of the very few that I don't stitch during.

But I do not like Nigella. She spends too much time criticizing and not enough encouraging, and all in a quite condescending tone of voice. And she just never shuts up. I will continue to watch, and I will hold onto the hope that she will get over herself by the end of the season.

I can always mute her.

But this is a stitching blog, so here is the small amount of stitching I've been able to do in the past week. It's just pitiful, but at least I did a little in the last couple of days.

I love the little lady with her hands on her hips and her furled umbrella. I like the urn and the birds perched on top of the flowers growing out of it. And the house is small and the pattern is easy to stitch. Why I haven't stitched very much this week is a mystery to me, because this is quite an enjoyable sampler.

I do have to say that I'm not quite sure why the lady has red eyes, but maybe she's suffering from seasonal allergies.

It is Fall, after all.

BO-RRRRRRRING

Oh, Lord, grass is boring to stitch!

I decided that it might be a good idea to have something to stitch on during our EGA Region's stitch-in that I didn't have to count or think about too much since the conversations tend to get lively. So I got the scaffolding of the house set up and the bare bones of the borders set in and started stitching grass.

I'm still stitching grass.

There's only so much grass you can plant in two hours, apparently.

So I'm going to find something binge-worthy on TV and try to finish the lawn today.

And also, I'm going to ignore the six rows of grass at the bottom of the sampler until later.

Before I turn the scroll bars

 I finished the top fourth of A. Carter last night.

I'm in a bit of a stitching slump at the moment, as in everything I've touched on my more complicated projects has been a problem. So, I've decided to stay with plain old cross stitch until my brain and fingers re-engage. It really helps that this is a very pretty little sampler.

One of my stitching buddies calls the small projects she works on between the ginormous things she usually tackles "palate cleansers."

So, like a lovely sorbet between courses, I'm going to work on the next section of A. Carter until I'm ready for more intense things.

Margriet Hogue

Margriet Hogue left us yesterday.

I have been stitching Margriet's reproduction samplers for about thirty years. I've been lucky enough to take classes from her, the first with the Carolina Sampler Guild decades ago, followed by sessions at Jeannine's Sampler Symposiums and events at Winterthur.

Her designs have challenged me, sometimes frustrated me, and always increased my skills, as well as deepening my fascination with Tudor and Stewart needlework.

It was always a joy to see a new pattern appear on her website. While I know that time has ended, I will treasure the projects I have stitched and have yet to do. 

I will miss her. 

A Little Buggy

 The last few days have flown by and my days have been a little discombobulated.

Thursday was one of those days when no stitching was accomplished. This domestic diva stuff is necessary but not as enjoyable as being a Stitching Fool.

Friday. I had my first class with Sara Rickards and her Sunburst crewel design. I would show you pictures of what I did in class if I hadn't ripped every stitch out afterwards. Don't ask--I didn't sleep well the night before and could not seem to make any two stitches the same size or shape nor could I follow directions. My plan is to review the taped instructions tomorrow morning and redo what I should have been able to just whip out.

Then yesterday, the Delaware Valley Historic Sampler Guild had a class with Jackie du Plessis, which I, of course, took via Zoom. Jackie reproduced a Berlin woodwork sampler, and the wool thread she put in the kit is absolutely luscious! Once I get the linen on the scroll frame and do a stitch or two, I'll show and tell.

I do wish Jackie hadn't said something along the lines of doing a motif an evening . . . which would mean I could finish this in a month . . . famous last words.

Which leads me to something else: If I'm in and out of the blog for a bit, I have a piece that I need to start working on which I cannot share for awhile. It's going to take some time to stitch, and that's all I can say.

Anyway, I have been doing some stitching in the evening on A. Carter 1833.

I think this child was a budding entomologist. She (or possibly he?) stitched bugs all over the place.

Butterflies I'm all down with, but what's with the beetles? They're not even ladybugs, just little brown beetles.

Crawling everywhere on the top of this sampler.

I guess it's better to see beetles stitched on a sampler than have real-life beetles wandering around the house, but still . . . 

Yuck!