November? Already?

 How did it get to be November already? And the countdown to the holidays? Time does fly when you're having fun, I guess.

And I've had fun.

Yesterday, Rebecah French had a little love.

This little hill is supposed to be worked in cross stitch and, you may notice, there are flowers growing on it. I have a feeling that Rebecah probably worked all the cross stitches first, then embroidered over them. Instead, we're working the outlines of the vines and flowers and cross stitching around them. To work the reproduction, though, it would have been hard to determine where to place the flowers, unless, maybe, you traced the designs on tissue, basted it on top of the cross stitch, and worked through both. I'm not sure which makes more sense to do, so I'm following the directions as written.

Today I'm working on Carmen's Etui, and I am loving this project. I think I may spend most of my stitching hours this week on this:

Filament silk is a little pesky to work with because it will snag on air, much less the slightest rough spot on your hands--but, oh, the sheen! I wish the picture showed it better. I just want to stroke it. I am avoiding that, because as sure as I touch it, it will find the one rough spot I haven't sugar scrubbed off. I am exercising restraint, but the temptation is great.

And, now, on to another topic. For many years, when blogs were the thing to do, people tried to write every day in the month of November. I have done it myself. Last year didn't make it--I think I wrote four posts the whole month. This year, I think I'm going to take a deep breath and dive in. If I blog, I have to stitch to have something to talk about, and I have a lot I want to stitch.

So on with November!