The Big Rip

Earlier in the week, I mentioned that if I buckled down and stitched, I could get the rest of the mini-sampler finished before Sunday passed.

If you look at the picture with that posting, and compare it with this picture, you will notice that a motif to the upper right of the big urn in the middle is mostly missing. That is because it was completely missing, and I'm in the process of restitching it.

Shortly after writing that blog post, I realized that I had been unable to count to five when I placed the motif and it was in the wrong place. I tried to talk myself into leaving it. I was unable to persuade myself. I even walked away and and folded laundry and walked back and still noticed that it was going to be out of balance if I left it.

So I ripped.

If you think cross stitch over one takes forever, ripping out cross stitch over one takes forever and a day.

Needless to say, I didn't feel like working on this for a bit.

So, I thought, I've wanted to get back to the goldwork spot sampler, and I only have a few motifs left to do and it will be finished, so why don't I pull that out?

So I did.

I have to admit, I wasn't at all pleased with the way my plaited braid looked when I did it. I decided to leave it anyway, hoping that when I went back it would look better than I thought.

It didn't.

It looked worse.

So I cut that out.

OK, now there are two projects that have had stitches that were laboriously created sitting there with less than they had before.

But I still felt like stitching.

Oh, HO, I thought. What about the crewel piece that I've been poking at for a couple of years? Originally I was going to present it to Mother in hopes it would help the ugly green chair she had in her apartment. Then Mother needed to move to full care and the ugly green chair went to live with The Saint, where, I understand, The Saint's BFF has announced the chair is going to have a facelift. But the piece is started, and it would be nice to have it finished.

So I dug around in the workbasket and pulled out that project.

And then I remembered.

There was a leaf. I didn't like the way the designer had worked the shading, so I did something different. And I didn't like what I did.  I decided I actually liked what the designer did better than what I did. But I didn't rip it out at the time.

So, on Sunday evening, I cut out the stitches on the leaf.

At this point, I plopped down in the wing chair with my book and ignored the workbasket. I was afraid I'd see something else that needed to be ripped and removed, and I just didn't believe I could cope with another one.

Days like that make me wonder why I stitch . . .