Wild Hair

I started on the next motif on my goldwork class. I think it's having a bad hair day.

It is quite possible that I was more than a little distracted by the Men's gymnastics team finals since my bricking is a little wonky. It is also quite possible that I can't stitch in a straight line, which has me somewhat concerned since the next motifs involve diaper patterns.

Carmen is going to get some attention this afternoon once my back unkinks, then there will be more spiral trellis stitches in my future tonight. Or maybe not, since they're going to show the show jumping event in equitation, and there may be more fencing before that.

I'm about as athletic as a potato, but I do love watching the Olympics, especially the more obscure events. 

One of these days, I'll tell you about Dearly Beloved and the Big Kid fencing in front of our house.

Spiraling

 I really am going to talk about stitching, but I have to take you on a trip down memory lane to get there.

I was a child in the 50's--I know, ancient history. At that time, foul language (aka "technical terms") or cuss words were simply not heard or allowed in polite society. When my father needed to express distress, he usually said "dagnabbit" or "dadgummit." My paternal grandmother would say "Heavens to Betsy" or, if the situation was especially dire, "Merciful Heavens." Mother never said anything--she would just huff quietly.

But my maternal grandmother, who was perpetually angry about something or another, would mutter under her breath, "Oh, the dibble."

The what?

I asked Mother once what a dibble was. She told me to look for it in the dictionary. It wasn't there.

Anyway, one summer The Saint, my two older cousins, and I were all at Grandma's for a week. I have no earthly idea why we would all be there at the same time. Grandma didn't particularly like children and really didn't want to spend time with any, but there we were.

It had been one of those days when "Oh, the dibble" had been uttered more than usual and we had been sent outside. The subject of dibbles came up. We were all confused and bemused by the term. My cousin Wylie, who was very quiet, but who had ears like a fox, said he was going to try to find out. He went back inside, where he apparently startled Grandma into a dibble fit and she had sent him back outside immediately.

"She isn't saying dibble," he reported  "She's saying, 'Oh, the devil.'"

Well, calling the name of Old Scratch was just about as bad as any cuss word we could imagine, and to realize our strict and stern Calvinist Presbyterian grandmother was invoking his name was more than we could comprehend. I do recall we were all on our best behavior the rest of the week.

And what does this have to do with my needlework?

There are 34 spiral trellis stitches on this half of the stitching book. I thought, maybe I could frame up the other piece of linen and do the accessory bits before I tackled the 34 spiral trellis stitches for the other side. Then I looked at the charts.

And almost every single additional part of this project also has at least one, if not more, spiral trellis stitches included.

I have only one thing to say about that.

Oh, the dibble!

Olympic Stitching

 Maybe I should have titled this Olympic Non-stitching. It is very hard to stitch when your eyes are glued to the screen. I can knit without looking at my knitting (unless it's a complicated lace or cable pattern) but I cannot stitch without watching where my needle is.

I managed to finish one of the small dividing bands and work the final one on this page of Carmen.

So, that's four pages down and twelve (I think) to go.

Carmen is a very big girl.

Going for the Gold

 Except for the body and the antennae, my butterfly is stitched.

Most of it was done while I was watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics this afternoon. I had a brief and fleeting thought that perhaps I should try to stitch a motif for each day of the Olympics, but I stomped that idea flat. 

Stitching plans never work for me, as we all know.

Anyway, I had four threaded needles going, plus all the strands of gold passing thread which then had to be plunged to the back and sewn down. By the time I finished doing all that, I felt like I had competed in the Olympics.

I may look for something really simple to stitch tonight, something definitely non-Olympic.

Thread a Needle Day

 Apparently this is National Thread a Needle Day.

I have threaded up several needles, because I have finished the first wing of my butterfly and plunged all the metal threads to the back. It's not quite what I envisioned, but it's close.

I want to go back and look at the original version to see exactly how the couching on the upper wing is supposed to be done before I start it. I am not sure if I'll tackle that today--my fingers are sore from pulling all those metal ends back. Some of them really wanted to stay on the surface and required persuasion to move.

Last night I added more spiral trellis stitches to No Place Like Home.

Once the rest of the spiral trellis stitches for this side are done, I'd really love to put this on a frame and do the back of the book--but spiral trellis is the only stitch I can't do in a frame comfortably.  I have to do it in hand. I do not want to spend the time to frame up only to take the piece off to do the trellises on the front piece. So, I shall persevere.

However, I'm also thinking about working on the next dividing band on Carmen.

Lots of needles threaded today . . . 

Achy and breakey

 I threw my back out again. All of my arthritic joints joined in to sympathize.

A flotilla of mosquitos somehow got into the house and feasted. On me.

My stitching mojo went somewhere else for a few days, probably to get away from me.

Things are beginning to look back up.

Looking like Quasimodo, I lurched into the doctor's office for my annual physical. We discussed possible treatment plans for my back (surgery--last resort; shot in my back--after my wrist, would prefer not; physical therapy--let's go that route, so we're seeing what the insurance will cover, of course) and the staff vampire drew blood (my numbers are all, surprisingly, really good, so I was happy with that) and it turns out that my blood pressure is that of someone 20 years younger. I am very surprised by the last.

Anyway, I have a clean bill of health at least for the next few months. 

And my mojo came back a little.

I finally finished the second big band and the first of the next three small dividing bands on Carmen.

And I pulled out the materials for Term 3 of the Deep Dive into Goldwork class from last year. We were in the middle of packing and moving when Term 3 started, and I wasn't sure I had sufficient functioning brain cells until recently to dive back into it.

This mess is the beginning of a butterfly, worked in Italian shading. All those raw ends will be plunged to the back of the work and sewn down.  It's fiddly but I hope that what I'm doing will result in a quite lovely motif. Maybe. Fingers crossed.

But at the moment, I have to go with Dearly Beloved to buy another bookcase. I believe the assembly of the first bookcase is what led to my back problems.

Sigh . . . 

Domestic Affairs

 I had hoped to have this band on Carmen finished by now.

Dearly Beloved has had other plans.

At the moment, he is planning to assemble two bookcases, which requires me to stand nearby, ready to hand things to him as needed. We have also taken my car in for inspection and servicing, which I could have done on my own--I would have enjoyed some peace and quiet in the waiting room for a couple of hours. Then there is the trip to the grocery store tomorrow. I like to make a list and grab what I need and go home. He likes to sightsee, up one aisle and down the next. (As there are no babies in our lives, I'm not sure why that includes the baby supply aisle, but apparently you never know when you might see something you need there.)

Anyway, I have my annual physical on Friday. I do not want to see what my blood pressure is unless I get some time to stitch between now and then.

Counting to Three

I had hoped to finish this band on Carmen today, but I stayed up way later than usual last night, then slept way later than usual this morning. Apparently this resulted in the inability to count to three because I spent as much time frogging as I did stitching today. There was some forward progress and here it is:

The day was not a total loss, stitching-wise. I had a meeting of the Kindred Spirits Sampler Guild this afternoon, and Christy and Erin of Relics in Situ presented a program on embroidered book covers from the 16th and 17th centuries.

You may have picked up that Tudor and Stuart embroidery is my jam, and I was gobsmacked by some of the photos they showed in their talk. I mean, goldwork and silk shading and raised embroidery and just amazing designs. I didn't drool on the computer but it was close. 

If you ever get a chance to hear one of their lectures, take it. They have access to stuff a lot of us will never see, and it's well worth the time.

Saturday Stitches

 Actually, there haven't been many stitches today. There were other things going on today, so I stitched early this morning, then a little more this evening, and spent the rest of the day in other pursuits.

Here's the little bit on Carmen:

And this is my evening project, now that the stitching for House on the Hill is complete:

Catherine Theron's No Place Like Home Stitching Book

I seem to have started a "home" collection in my evening stitching.

This project was started at Jeannine's Sampler Symposium twelve years ago, so it's another project that's been aging in my stash for awhile. I know why I didn't work on it right after the workshop; I was stitching a pilot for one of the guilds that had a strict deadline. Then I had a project I was leading for my local EGA chapter that had to be done. And at that point, it had vanished into the stash.

I imagine it will take awhile--I may have Carmen finished before this--and it has about umpty-leven spiral trellis stitches in the borders for front and back, and probably more for the bits that will live inside the book. It's a very good thing I don't mind doing spiral trellis stitches since Catherine loves including them in her designs. However, they're the only stitches I absolutely have to work in hand, simply because I need to have my left thumb holding the thread down as I pull it through. I will be much happier to have this on a scroll frame or stretcher bars once the trellises are all done.

Rain and more rain

We have had rain and more rain, along with thunder, lightning, and flash flood warnings today. I am actually not complaining--we've had hardly a drop of rain in over a month, and everything is baking.

Besides, I like storms, as long as I don't have to go anywhere. When I was a wee tiny child, I used to sit with my grandfather on his front porch, watching it rain. We would sit out there as long as it lasted--or until my grandmother would screech through the screen door that we were going to be struck by lightning and die. 

Amazing how long it would take us to meander in.

Anyway, since I had nowhere I had to be, and could watch the downpour through the sliding glass doors, I stitched all day.

And I have the second border for this section of  Carmen completed.

Now I can go back to the fun stuff. I'm already looking forward to starting the next band.

A Better Day

Carmen decided to behave herself today--well, the leaves and stems still don't have any rhyme or reason for their placement, but I reconciled myself to that--and one side of the border for this section is done.

 Luckily the flowers are easy to do--the stitching has an almost Zen quality--and I have most of the vine (which doesn't vine or twine or wind about, thank goodness!) for the other border stitched.

So, we'll see what happens tomorrow!

Bad Words

The air has turned blue around my frame stand today.

Quite frankly, if I could get my hands on dear, sweet, little Carmen, I would wring her dear, sweet, little neck.

I worked on part of the border today, just to get it out of the way. Carmen seemed to work the border randomly--there's no rhyme or reason to the spacing or placement of the stems and leaves--every single one has a different number of threads between them. 

And I did something I rarely, if ever do. I dragged the thread from one to another instead of weaving through the back of the stem, just to make some of the counting easier.

Carmen has been placed in time-out for the rest of the day. Hopefully she will behave better tomorrow.

One band after another

Apparently I needed to have a tired and cranky day, but then I actually slept fairly well last night (exhaustion finally kicked in) so today has been much better.

Or it's Tuesday rather than Monday.

Anyway, today I have stitched. I stitched while listening to a couple of flosstubes and I stitched while attending our EGA Region's virtual stitch-in. And this is what I've done so far today:

 Carmen has another motif almost finished, which started me thinking. I'm enjoying these filling motifs, but I'm also going to have to tackle the borders along the sides before I go much further. Maybe I should work on the outer borders for a bit--get them out of the way--then work on the center band again. Sort of like eating your carrots before you can have dessert. I will think on it a little more, but I believe that's what I'll do.

And I only have to fill in three more flowers for the second band for House on the Hill and then it will be ready for assembly. Having an easy project to do during stitch-ins and Zoom meetings seems to be working out really well. I do have to admit I was hoping this one would last a little longer, but it just means that I need to see what's in my pile of projects that I can move to before the next Zoom thing.

I think I will go back to Carmen for a little longer today. BDE is coming over for tacos tonight, which Dearly Beloved is going to fix, so I can stitch the rest of the day.

MUCH better than Monday!

Monday, Monday

 Is it possible to have a Monday when you're retired?

I've been spinning my wheels all day, with nothing to show for it. No, I'll take that back. I rearranged a cabinet so I could finally unpack a set of china that has been boxed up since the Big Move. (I have a lovely Limoges luncheon set that I treasure, even though it's rarely used. I'm not sure Dearly Beloved and I quite live up to it when we're eating PB&Js and carrot sticks.)

Anyway, I've picked things up and put them down and moved things around and misplaced my magnifiers and found them again and thought about balancing my checkbook and deciding against that since it's a Monday.

I would have just given up and  been a lump, but this lovely thing arrived in today's mail.

Nope, not going to start it right away, but I am going to read over the directions and stroke the silk and think about it for awhile.

And hope Monday turns out to be a fairly short day.

Stitching In

BDE and I went to our local chapter's once-a-month Sunday stitch-in today, and this is what I did.

I'm filling in the flowers on one of the bands for House on the Hill.

This is perfect stitch-in stitching. It's an easy satin stitch fill-in that I can do while participating in wide-ranging conversations about needlework (of course), and coyotes (why not?) and which people are morning people and which are not.

It has occurred to me that I need to keep a piece like this going at all times for things like stitch-ins and evenings when my hands need to stitch but my brain needs to take a mini-vacation. 

That would be pretty much every evening, come to think of it.

Falling

 No stitching today. at least, not exactly. I fell into a book.

I ordered this some time ago, and it's taken awhile to arrive, so it was a lovely surprise to find it on my doorstep this afternoon.

It doesn't just cover filling stitches, but also includes a great section on everything you ever need to know about stitching hardanger. It has directions for both right and left handed stitchers, and even provides pictures of how things are supposed to look--as well as how they shouldn't, which helps when you're trying to get your tension right. I expect it will help me with the online hardanger class I'm taking.

And I also discovered when I was catching up with the class questions and answers for the Hummingbird class that the deadline has been extended to the end of September. I also unearthed the materials for the online goldwork class I couldn't finish last year because of the Big Move.

This is turning into a very busy summer!

Dragging

I had intentions, big intentions. I was going to rise and shine yesterday and today and stitch all day.

Had I been able to stitch all day for two days, I would have had more accomplished than this.

However, for the last two nights, I have slept only five or so hours. Wednesday night I stared at the ceiling for a couple of hours, only to have Dearly Beloved's extra-loud alarm clock nearly give me a heart attack just as I dozed off again. Adrenaline will make you rise, although the shining is another matter entirely.

Last night, same thing, five hours of sleep, then wide awake. This time I decided to get up and stitch or read or do something. I read and I stitched and I stared into space, all in slow motion. I was planning to take a nap, but BDE called to see if she could get a ride to pick up her car after a repair job. So I took her to the car place and then home, and now I'm sort of awake again. Awake, but not necessarily functioning on all six cylinders.

We'll see how tonight goes. This is getting old.

Happy Fourth of July!

 May we continue to have the independence our ancestors fought for!

(I don't do a lot of seasonal stitching, but I did remember this little pillow, designed by Barbara Rakosnik of Periwinkle Promises. She did several series of small pillows based on the months of the year. I miss her designs, although Lord knows I stitched a bunch of them when she was active.)

Filling in

I started filling in the empty spaces on this band of Carmen.

 That blue really makes everything pop!

Right now, I think I'm going to stick with Carmen for my Fourth of July stitching.  Quite frankly, it's going to be too hot to do much of anything else!

Happy Day

 Carmen has been sitting on the stand for weeks and weeks. Yesterday, I whipped off the fancy dishtowel that keeps the dust off, threaded up a needle, and stitched on her for awhile.

I restitched the leaves that I had to rip out and finished the rest of the leaves. It may not look like much, but it's filament silk on 45 count linen, so it takes me a wee bit longer to make visible progress.

But it made me so happy to work on this again!! Who knew a few stitches could do so much for ones attitude?

Happy Half Year!

 I am in a state of disbelief because the year is half over. And I have very little to show for it.

I'm not going to beat myself up over that. Who would have thought I would develop killer tendonitis and a possible hairline fracture in my wrist? I suppose I should build in a contingency plan for injury or decrepitude.

Better yet, maybe I should stop making plans. Have you heard this before? Like every couple of months?

Maybe my plan is to work on whatever pleases me at the moment, whether I meet any arbitrary goals or not. I really do need to recover from years of dealing with deadlines and schedules.

Meanwhile, I have added the outlines of flowers to the basket bands for House on the Hill.

I also read over the directions for the first class of an EGA online course that came out while I couldn't stitch. I have a month before the video classes for Hummingbird in Silk and Gold go kaput, so I believe I may want to at least watch them before they leave.

I frogged the mistake on Carmen--did I mention that I found the two threads that I was off when I had to stop working on her?

I cut out more little squares of linen for the online Hardanger class I'm taking through EGA's Cyberstitchers.

I decided I would definitely go with the practice netting for the online whitework class. Maybe. Of course, the Dazor is in position so I could work on the conservation netting. And I don't have a deadline when it absolutely has to be done. I think I'll continue to debate with myself over this.

I've cleaned off my work table again.

And the new issue of Inspirations has arrived.

I have choices for the Half Year. I need to be an octopus.