In my part of the world we say you are a fool if your passion for a pursuit overcomes all practical sense. I am a stitching fool, and I stitch foolishness.

Saturday, October 3, 2020

Temptation

 I am being tempted to stray from my original stitching plans.

This flew in from Australia today:

I'd been going back and forth about getting this ever since it was published in Factoria, one of Inspirations' Passion for Needlework books. It is just the kind of prissy thing that appeals to the prissy person deep inside me. Then, they announced that the kit would be discontinued so they'd have room in inventory for the kits for the new book coming out.

The things I regret are the things I don't get. So I got it. 

I have not allowed myself to start it. I've been doing something else, and it's not the gold work I was going to practice. 

I've been listening to discussions as part of Winterthur's virtual textile symposium, and I discovered that I can stitch and listen without losing the train of the discussions as long as I am working on something relatively mindless. And Nun Stitch is about as mindless as it gets, so I pulled out a tiny Catherine Theron needle book that I started outlining awhile back, and I've been happily listening and Nun-ing ever since.

Not the most interesting thing to look at in its present state, but as long as I've come this far, I think I'm going to finish the second needle page.

As long as I'm talking about listening to the Winterthur programming, I should probably mention that there are both an exhibit at Winterthur and one of the lectures from the symposium featuring Erica Wilson. And I should also mention that when I really got into stash-building, some of her crewel and embroidery kits made their way into my stash. And they have been aging to perfection for lo, these many years. Seeing them in the online exhibit brought them to mind, and I may fall down that rabbit hole at any moment now.

I really need to retire.

2 comments:

  1. Holy whitework. That piece by Erica Wilson blew my mind. I've been kind of deep diving into whitework right now working on Barbara Kershaw's Fandango and a Terri Bay piece. If this piece is in the exhibit, which I haven't had time to look at yet, I'll be happy if there's lots of close-up. Still wondering the count of the fabric.

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  2. Good for you on whipping out the nun stitching while listening to the discussion.

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