Oh, so glittery

Which you can't really see in the photograph.

 The stitching on the first of the golden accessories is finished!

I realized that I can't stitch metal thread stuff under artificial light very well, especially not fiddly metal thread stuff, so I decided to wait for a sunny morning at home--which means a week-end.  My plan is to work on bedazzling the second piece tomorrow, then the third and final one next Saturday.

And then I'll need to do the finish-finishing, but I'm trying to avoid thinking about that.

It is probably a good thing that Dearly Beloved slept later than I did this morning, because I had to talk myself through the stitch used for the silver thread. As in talking out loud. As in "over, under, pull up tight, through, under, and down". As in the steps I needed to work the knotted stitch. However, after overing, undering pulling up tight, etc, I got the stitch in my head and I really, really like it. I'm not sure where I can use it in the future, but I really want to.

Meanwhile, in the evenings after work, I've been working hundreds of tent stitches over one to fill in the leaves on Rebekah's big flower.

Please notice the stripes in the middle of the leaf. If they went horizontally, I'd decide that it was supposed to be shading on the vein. But they're not, they are obviously vertical. Why?

And it's not just this one sampler. There are other samplers front the same area with vertical stripes in the middle of their leaves. It does make you wonder what in the world the little girls who stitched this type of motif were representing. Or was this the teacher's idea? And if it was, once again, why? It boggles the mind.

And if that's the only thing that happens today that boggles my mind, it will be a nice day.