A special day?

Not special because of the quantity of stitching . . . 

 I have totally lost the name of this piece--however, it's the focus project for the goldwork special interest group sponsored by the Dayton Chapter of EGA.  I am not happy--I crunched the gold purl when I was sewing the beads around the center. As I don't have any additional purl in this size, I couldn't replace it. I am going on the "if it can't be seen from the back of a galloping horse, don't worry" philosophy and moving on.

And I moved on to the border for the attribution at the bottom of Ann Kemp. I decided that I wanted to get all the borders and letters out of the way, and then go back to the fun stuff.

And why has there been so little stitching to show for a Sunday with an extra hour?

Today is Dearly Beloved's natal anniversary. If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you will remember that Dearly Beloved does not like birthday celebrations. He does not like being reminded that he is a year older. He wants no fuss.

So there has been no fuss but we have been doing what he wanted to do today, which means I have been holding things and handing him tools and being a general go-fer for one of his projects. We will have Chinese take-out later.

After all, you should do something special when a person makes it to three-quarters of a century.

(I think that was one of the things I'm not supposed to mention. OOOPS!)

Finally! A Finish!!

 Last stitch has been placed in the Cherished Letter Case, an adaptation of a French embroidery from the late 1700's. This came from an online class offered by Zina Kazban at the beginning of the year.

It is very sparkly, which the camera didn't pick up, and I'm quite pleased with it. And it checked off one of my October goals, even though it was checked off in November.

Actually, most of my October goals are going to move into November. I had a week in which I did not thread a needle. I did have a good excuse for last weekend--Best Daughter Ever and I went to Williamsburg. Colonial Williamsburg was offering special Fall Getaway rates at their hotels, BDE wanted to have a break, I wanted to go to DeWitt Wallace (the art museum) and so we went.

I did take stitching with me (of course) but I never took it out of the tote bag. However, the textile gallery at the museum had some gorgeous, gobsmacking, amazing 17th century English embroideries (including a casket) so I did look at embroidery.

And then we came home, and the skies turned gray and the temps dropped and the rain fell, and I went into one of my winter funks. Aside from Christmas, I do not care for winter. I don't do cold well, I was built for spring and summer. So I was grumpy and cranky for a few days and binged on TV and ate chocolate.

Of course, it was a very good mail week, with lots of needlework goodies showing up in my mailbox. And you may see them during the coming few days. This is November, when traditionally bloggers blog everyday. I am likely the last of a dying breed, but I'm going to make a valiant effort to keep up the tradition this year, and I need content!!

So we'll see how it goes.

A little of this, a little of that

 I have been puttering among my needlework projects.

I've done a little of this, a little of that, but hardly enough to talk about.

I did finish my homework for my Elizabethan Rose class. Not only have I finished it, I finished it two weeks before the next class. That is not typical behavior so don't expect it to continue.

I did a tiny bit more on Carmen. It felt like I did a lot more but I have realized that getting anything done on Carmen is going to take time.

I rolled the scrolls on Ann Kemp and started working on the bottom half. Actually, I'm going to try to finish the borders and do the attribution along the bottom. This requires stitching letters again. I would rather get the letters out of the way and then work on the fun stuff.

And I figured out where the directions for filling in the little tree motifs were in the instructions for the Queen Sampler and got a start on doing that.

As usual, I am bouncing from one project to another like a BB in a boxcar. And if you know what a BB and a boxcar are, you may just be dating yourself. I realized I must be amongst the elderly when I saw a question on FB--the stitcher was getting ready to put a drum together and the directions said you could use BBs as weights. She had no idea what they were. 

Like I said in an earlier post, I've become an elder.

Aged and Decrepit

 I finally feel really, really old.

I rolled over in bed Monday night and threw my back out.

How ridiculous is that?

Anyway, I have been foggy and out of it for a good bit of the last few days--muscle relaxers will do that to you--but at least I should have been doing something like flipping a mattress or changing a tire to cause my suffering. But rolling over? Good grief!!

Obviously, there has been very little stitching going on in this part of the world.

I got part of the endless border on Carmen stitched:

There are wings on the bug and the Elizabethan version of rosebuds on the Elizabethan Rose:

And, finally, I pulled Catherine Theron's No Place Like Home project out of the basket and did a few stitches on the needlebook  that will go inside the sewing case:

Not much to show for a week. 

However, I did get my annual mammogram and all is well. And that is a good thing.

Sampler Weekend

 September might have been the month to work on samplers, but I'm oozing over into October with my stitching. And this weekend was the perfect time, since I have three different sampler guilds that meet online, all on one weekend.

Yesterday was the Mayflower group. It's a delightful group, and the program highlighted the stitching journey of one of the members. While it was going on, I was filling in buds and blooms on Ann Kemp.

You may have to look really closely to see all the blooms and buds--the shade of white is all but ghosting in the photo. It's a little more obvious in the actual piece.

However, it is October, so I suppose ghostly threads are appropriate.

Today, I just left the Kindred Spirits Guild, and will soon enter the Sampler Guild of the Rockies meeting. I started a new band on Darlene O'Steen's Queen Sampler, and this is how far I got during Kindred Spirits.

I'm a little ahead of the assignment for this month, but since I can't fill in the spiral trellis grapes until I take the sampler off the scroll rods, I figure that's OK.

And, yes, I do belong to a fair number of sampler guilds. When we moved, I had to leave my beloved Carolina Sampler Guild behind. There isn't a sampler guild in this area, so I may have overcompensated by joining as many as I could find online. However, each group offers something different--and it's all needlework so I'm getting my fix. Sometimes several times over in the course of a few days.

I'm not going to mention the EGA chapters I have also joined since we moved . . . let's just say that I can now get inspiration from three different EGA regions and leave it at that.

Dearly Beloved mutters about addictions. I have no idea what he's talking about.

Twigs and Vines

Today was gray and gloomy. My hands wanted to stitch, but my brain didn't want to have to think too hard, so I spent the day cross-stitching the rest of the vines and twigs and branches.

I say I didn't want to think too hard, but getting all the twigs and branches in the right place may have taken more brain power than I had. There was some reverse stitching. I know Jean Lea said never backward, always forward, but on occasion you have to go backward to go forward.

 Now I have to fill in all the little flowers and buds that bloom on all the vines and twigs.

This may take awhile.

Fa-la-la and Tra-la-la!

 I have a finish!!

Christmas Sparkles

2025 Christmas Ornament

Tricia Nguyễn, Thistle Threads

I spent the day finishing this.

There was angst.

There are little foil doodads that the beads are mounted on. You have to punch a hole with an awl--it also requires a mallet so you can get enough pressure on the awl to make a hole. (I was using my wooden meat tenderizer hammer because Dearly Beloved was out hunting and gathering. I didn't want to rummage in his tools without supervision because I don't want him rummaging in my tools with supervision.) The hole was tiny, so I was trying to just slightly enlarge it with my stiletto.

And I broke off the tip of my stiletto.  Which I use a lot, so I had to find a source for a replacement and order the replacement.

So, the hole was going to be tiny. It was so tiny that my size 28 tapestry needle would not fit through it.. I decided maybe a beading needle should work.

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you'll remember that beads and I are not compatible, so I have a limited number of beading-related items.

That means the only beading needles I could find are a size 13.

Have you ever seen the size of the eye on a size 13 beading needle? I have the needle. I have magnification. I still don't think I've actually seen the eye--it's that small. So I had to thread the needle by feel rather than sight.

OK, beads and trims added, and I needed to press the fabric I wanted to use for the back of the ornament.

My iron decided it didn't want to heat above "barely warm enough to notice."

I now have a new iron.

Finally, fabric pressed, back and front sewn together, really neat metallic trim attached around the ornament. . . 

And I have to stow away all the leftover stuff from stitching the design and assembling the ornament.

Maybe it's the clean-up after completing a project that keeps me from having more finishes.

I did stay in bed

I had a bad headache on Monday, so my poor pitiful self just went back to bed. Then I didn't sleep much Monday night, so I dragged most of the day Tuesday. However, today I am all but back to normal--whatever normal is for me--and there has been some stitching.

If you look closely, you'll see a little pink blob. Look quick, because it is going to come back out in short order.

I don't like the way it looks. It is tight and cramped and awkward. So I will remove it, probably first thing tomorrow morning since I don't trust myself with sharp, pointy scissors at the moment.

I am, however, very happy with all the shiny gold stuff.

I am also happy with Ann Kemp.

More sprigs and vines, but I'm getting close to having a page done in short order. I stitched most of the new stuff last night during the Tudor Rose Sampler Guild meeting. It's a delightful group of people and they offer some phenomenal programs. I'm always delighted when the first Tuesday of the month rolls around.

Actually, since Ann Kemp is currently so satisfying, I believe I will work on this for the rest of the day.
 

Maybe I should have stayed in bed

 This is all I have to show for today's stitching. There would have been more if I could have read the chart accurately!!!! 

I ripped more than I stitched.  I am just slightly aggravated with myself.

I had also planned to trace the project for a Stitch Along and get a layer of padding stitched down for the goldwork involved in the design. However, after my experience with stitching, I decided maybe I should do something else that did not involve needlework--so I read a murder mystery.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Icky-Poo

 This has not been the most productive stitching day I've ever had.

I did not sleep well last night, so I woke up achey and cranky this morning. My arthritic joints were united in their unhappiness so I took a pill and went back to bed for a bit--which meant I got a very late start to the day. Don't even ask how late the start was--let's just say I could barely say "Good Morning" legally.

Anyway, I decided that perhaps I shouldn't work on anything complicated or challenging, so good ole Ann Kemp came out to play.

There is a bird on each side now, and I filled in more of the flowers.  I need to add more greenery and flowers on the right side so I can turn the scroll bars and move down a bit.

And then I went rummaging in the stash, looking for something else entirely, and I ran across this:

From the 1998 session of Christmas in Williamsburg, Merry Cox's Americana Sewing Case floated to the top of its bin.

Well, 2026 is the 250th anniversary of the United States, and, as worried as I am about the state of the country, I do believe that there are enough people of good will to help it survive. Therefore, I plan to celebrate. So this is now going into my 2026 plans.

And, yes, I'm already planning what I'll stitch in 2026.

I should probably get what I plan to stitch the rest of 2025 out of the way first.

A tisket, a tasket

 I have a tree

and a basket.

The tree is this year's ornament from Tricia Nguyen. The pattern is a freebie on the Thistle Threads website, and you can also find the first two years' trees there as well.

This one started out looking like a bunch of spiders, but now that the other stitches have filled in, it looks lacy--mainly because the tree is all stitched in eyelets. I still have to work the pot the tree sits in, my initials, and the date. Then it's embellished with beads and a trim called gilt folien.

You have to punch a hole in each of the trims. I have a terrible feeling about punching holes in anything because I am a well-known klutz. If I'm successful, it will look really neat. If I'm not--well, I probably have some other kind of shiny bits I can use.

And then there is the second hanging basket on Ann Kemp. I need to stitch the bird heading towards the basket for this side, then work more on the random vines and branches and leaves and flowers.

I could, though, get the prework for the Monday night SAL done ahead of time. This will require pulling out the Lightbox and tracing the design and wrapping the hoop and sewing on the first bits of padding.

I think I'll do that tomorrow morning and just cross stitch some more on Ann Kemp tonight. That's about what I'm capable of at the moment--last night was a short night and today has been a very long day.

Dearly Beloved is watching Bonnie & Clyde on TCM for the 487th time. Maybe I'll go upstairs and get away from the gunfire and listening to Estelle Parsons screech. No wonder the real Blanche Barrow was irritated by her portrayal in the movie!

I finished my homework

 Well, I finished the mandatory part--although we aren't getting graded and can't fail, at least I'm keeping up.

We can move on to do the other side of the frame if we have time. I'm going to try to make time over the weekend.

But this afternoon I think I will sing a fa-la-la or two and work on a Christmas ornament. Somebody said Christmas is less than ninety days away, which means it will get here faster than we think it will.

But this year has passed much faster than I thought it would, so Christmas will be here day after tomorrow.

And now it's October

 I decided to make a list of goals for October. Then I decided I should make a list of reasonably attainable goals and a list of pie-in-the-sky goals.

The reasonably attainable goals:

• It appears that I am going to spend some of October reading serious books instead of murder mysteries. EGA offers a number of lectures through the national organization, various regions, and individual chapters. Two of the lecturers I listened to in the last several weeks have also written books. I had to buy the books because both lecturers were so very fascinating. So now I'm going to read and learn more. 
• I want to stay current with the class I'm taking from Zina Kazban, the Elizabethan Rose.
• I'd like to get two pages of Carmen's charts completely stitched.
• I want to finish-finish at least one of the projects in one of the finishing baskets
• I want to finish the border on the Cherished Lettercase--Good Grief, that is ALL I have to do!
• I want to stay current with the two SALs I have going, The Queen Sampler (actually, I'm already a little ahead) and the goldwork piece that the Dayton EGA chapter is doing in the goldwork  Special Interest Group (SIG)
• And I want to stitch and finish-finish Tricia Nguyen's 2025 ornament

And now for the pie-in-the-sky goals, in addition to the ones above:

• I'd like to get a total of four pages of Carmen done
• I would REALLY like to get another two projects in the finishing basket assembled.
• I want to get a page of Ann Kemp stitched
• I'd like to get another couple of ornaments stitched.
• I'd like to finish the Hummingbird in silk and gold.
• And I'd really, really, REALLY like to start and catch up with Tricia's Nuremberg pincushions

I told you it was a pie-in-the-sky list of things to do.

And, actually, what it means is that "SQUIRREL!!!" and I'll dive down another rabbit hole.

September is over????

I had grand plans at the beginning of September, a whole list of things I wanted to work on and a couple of projects I hoped to finish.

As usual, my plans were more expansive than apparently my abilities are. Actually, if I could stop puttering and start stitching, I might be able to be more productive. Please do not ask me what I'm doing while I'm puttering--there are days when I'm busy with something all day but cannot tell you what those things are. It appears that I move things from one pile to another and call it reorganizing.

I was talking to someone over the weekend and she said her mother used to stitch from 4 a.m. - 10 a.m. Then she would do whatever she needed to do that day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and then stitch again from 5 p.m. - 8 p.m. 8 p.m. was her bedtime.

I do not get up at 4 a.m. voluntarily for anything other than going on a trip, but maybe making stitching a priority would help.  I may experiment with a schedule--that horrid word I swore I would not follow once I retired--in October.

Meanwhile, this is what I've been able to get done:

Part of my homework on Elizabethan Rose:

 

I need to add some more layers to the stem and do more gold on the other side of the frame.

I replaced what I messed up on Ann Kemp and added some more:

I had the thought that if I got a good bit of the basket stitched, it might give me a good reference point for all the twines and vines.

And I started the 2025 Christmas ornament from Tricia Nguyen of Thistle Threads:

At the moment, it looks like ranks of spiders marching in a Christmas tree formation. I hope that will change when I get the other stitches filled in, but it's a little creepy right now--more Halloween than Christmas.

I'm not a big Halloween stitcher anyway--I deck the halls for Christmas to a fare-thee-well, but other than avoiding those big bags of candy, I sorta forget about Halloween. It may be because orange is one of my least favorite colors, so why stitch with it? Christmas, however, is all sparkly and bright, and I do like my sparkles.

Wouldn't it be boring if we all did the same stuff?

One step forward, two steps back

 I had a class today on the Elizabethan Rose, and we worked on couching gold threads on the frame, and started attaching silk gimp to the stem of the flower.

There will be a lot more gold stitched on the frame before our next class, and we'll add more rows to the stem.

And here is Ann Kemp.

I have not mixed up before-and-after pictures. This is how Ann looked after I discovered that I had miscounted the first stem I stitched. The very first stem. The one that all the other stems were counted from. 

When I mentioned that I have a black thumb when it comes to gardening, I really didn't mean my stitched gardening as well.

Foliage

 I've been stitching foliage the last couple of days. This is the only way I will have foliage since I have a black thumb. I would love to grow flowers and have a vegetable garden, but apparently I do not have the gift. Dearly Beloved does, so he gets that activity in the division of labor.

However, I now have stripey leaves on the Elizabethan Rose project I'm taking from Zina Kazban.

They will have all sorts of embellishment before it's all over, but this is the start.

And there is foliage on Ann Kemp's sampler:

So now I'm adding flowers to those branches and leaves. 

I really wish I knew more about Ann Kemp. She has some motifs on her sampler that are textbook perfect, like her pinkes and the apple baskets. But then she has a wild group of vines and leaves and flowers that twine and twist and flourish all around the handle of the basket. I'd love to know what her embroidery teacher thought about this--did she encourage her or did she shake her head and sigh? I guess we'll never know.

I am enjoying stitching after a couple of days of feeling like a zombie. I never felt ill--but I really was sleepy, as in sitting up straight with a needle in my hand, sound asleep. This is my usual reaction to the Covid shot, but I think having the flu shot on top of it multiplied the effects. Anyway, now I can sit up straight with a needle in my hand and actually stitch. 

Progress Report

 Well, I got one more band on The Queen Sampler all but stitched. The grapes are supposed to be filled with spiral trellis stitch. I have to work spiral trellis in hand so I can keep tension on the knot--mainly because I haven't figured out quite how to do that when I have the fabric on a scroll frame. So, I guess when the rest of the sampler is stitched, I'll take it off the scroll frame and fill in those stitches.

Actually, I kind of like the lacy look of this band . . . 

Hmmm . . . 

Not much else has happened in the last few days.

I spent half an hour one morning earlier this week looking for my clip-on magnifiers so I could stitch. They were clipped to my glasses. I was wearing my glasses.

I decided that wasn't going to be a good stitching day.

Then I got both flu and Covid shots yesterday. As my father used to say when he didn't feel quite right,  I was about half a bubble off plumb the rest of the day.

Today I'm up and I've taken my walk, and you would think I would be mostly alert--but I'm seriously thinking about going back to bed. I am retired, after all. I can do what I want when I want to do it, within reason.

Another hmmmmm . . . . . 

More or Less

 I said that my work on The Queen Sampler was going to be more or less reversible.

Lately, I think it may be less rather than more. I have found that there isn't a really good chart showing how to work a diagonal double running stitch (which all my other sources call a long-arm cross stitch) when it travels from upper left to lower right. Darlene has charts, but they don't match the configuration of this particular application--like the diagrams showing the diagonal moving from lower left to upper right are worked over six threads, but the ones showing the opposite are worked over four. Hmmmm . . . 

And I pulled every single stitch dictionary I own off my shelf and googled. I pulled out the graph paper and tried to figure it out myself. I stitched and ripped until I was worried about the linen holding up--all for the two center lines on the vine. I finally decided life is too short to worry about my backside and got it filled in somehow, but not completely reversibly.

However, the front looks okay. I'm actually ahead of where I need to be for this month's assignment.

And, as I keep reminding myself, Perfection gets in the way of Good Enough.

Wee bit of stitching

 When you have a stitching blog and you don't stitch for several days, you don't have much to blog about.

However, I finally found my mojo last night and stitched a basket of apples, or bowl of flowers, or whatever this motif is that is found on so many traditional schoolgirl samplers.

However, please notice that this one features something different. It's a hanging basket. There's a chain from the border below the verse and the top of the basket. I've never seen this motif treated quite this way before. 

Little Ann Kemp is still having fun with her sampler! Which means that I am, too.

And there was much rejoicing!

I told myself yesterday that I was not going to stop until I had all the lettering on Carmen done.

My body had other ideas, and told me I had to cease and desist if I ever wanted to straighten up again. So I went to bed and unkinked my back and finished the lettering today.

 I wish I knew what the inscription at the bottom says--it's something about Joaquin and Austria and the house of Dona Carmen Canoba, but that's all I got. Despite what the school counselors told us when we filled out our schedules, years of Latin do not help you with Romance languages, other than a word here or there.

I'm definitely going to work with more brightly color silks for a bit. I need something to liven up my life!

Deadly Dull and Boring

Just more letters today--but I'm over the halfway point!

I'm going to try to finish the letters tomorrow, and then move on to something less alphabet-y and more colorful.

After all, you have to choke down the cauliflower before you get the creme brûlée.

Numbers and Letters, Oh My!

I do not like stitching letters. Or numbers. But that is what I've done today.

The verse on Ann Kemp is finally complete. I didn't think that was ever going to happen.

 And I'm working on the letters and numbers on Carmen's central cartouche. I had to stop tonight because my eyes were tired of stitching off-white letters on off-white fabric--46 count fabric at that. It will be beautiful when it's done. And I really hope it's done in the next day or so.

I have a friend who loves, loves, LOVES stitching Bristol samplers. She keeps telling me that letters are just motifs and if I treat them that way, I'll enjoy doing them.

Nope. I can delude myself about a lot of things when it comes to needlework, but this isn't one of them.

And then I heard someone talking about the reason she always works her samplers from the bottom up. The fun stuff is the bottom, so if you start there, you start with the fun stuff. Then you have the boring stuff like alphabets at the top.

If I stitched from bottom up, the top would never be done.

This is most definitely a first world problem, but the fact remains, I strongly dislike stitching alphabets.

Silks and precious metals

 I have projects that involve silks and metal threads that I want to work on, too.

Can we say wretched excess? Can we say "biting off more than we can chew?"

So, what else is new . . .story of my stitching life . . . 

Of course, I want to finish the Cherished Lettercase. That you've seen, probably more than you want.

Then I started a new class with Zina today, her Elizabethan Rose. This is what I stitched in class.

As I have previously noted, I don't stitch well in class, but I did get most of a stripey leaf and the body of the beetle done. There are a lot of stripey leaves to stitch plus the beginning of the frame before class three weeks from now.

The first class for Tricia Nguyen's Pincushions of Nuremberg was posted. Look at those luscious silks! I gotta find a scroll frame and get the linen mounted for that so I can stick a needle in it.

I belong to the Dayton chapter of EGA, and they sponsor a Special Interest Group in goldwork. This design showed up in Inspirations magazine's last issue, and a bunch of us wanted to stitch it--so it's going to be our ongoing project (along with others) for awhile. I need to transfer the design to the fabric, get it mounted, and do the padding before our next meeting.

And then there's my hummingbird that I was working on about this time last year. I got all the silk done but haven't gilded the bird. I'd like to have that finished since I signed up for another class with the designer, scheduled to start in October. I suppose I should add the hummingbird to my list.

Okay, we just went all the way from ridiculously optimistic to Fantasy Land. Stop me before I add anything else!

Samplers in September

 One of my stitching buddies told me I needed to have before and after pictures for my September samplers.

So here they are:

Carmen has a central cartouche filled with letters, numbers, and words. I would love to have all of them stitched by the end of September. I also wanted to have them all stitched by the end of July. And then by the end of August. We'll see if September is the charm--it will be the third time I've made the attempt, after all.

Darlene O'Steen's Queen Sampler is this year's (and next year's as well) SAL. To stay current, I have to fill in the center of the vine. Being contrary, I've done some other stuff but haven't done any more stitches in the vine. I need to do that in the next couple of weeks before our next SAL meeting.

A Fancy Basket Ann Kemp 1815 is my almost-all-cross-stitch project for those times when I need to stitch but need to do nothing more than count. Progress on this will be determined by how much easy stitching I need.

And I may need a good bit. September is shaping up to be a silk/silk-&-metal thread month as well as a sampler month. I'll show you that tomorrow.

Sweet September

It always seems like the new year should start with September. 

So far, mine has not been promising. I have six new mosquito bites. The printer isn't talking to the laptop and we can't figure out why. We fed it two new ink cartridges and installed them correctly, but apparently that threw something else off. (BDE says that printers are possessed by demons and we should get an exorcist.) I haven't been able to thread a needle today due to various and sundry domestic issues. Dearly Beloved has been stomping around in a snit for some unknown reason--I think he needs a nap.

Actually, maybe I need one, too.

Anyway, I got to the very last bit of Cherished and hit a wall yesterday. I just could not make myself stitch the final border. But here is where it is at the moment.

As it is Sampler September, I seriously considered started a new sampler. However, at the moment, I have three I'm actively working on plus probably a dozen more UFO's. I don't think I need to start yet another one.

So, I believe I will continue to work on Carmen and The Queen Sampler and Ann Kemp in September.

And have an exorcist remove the demons from the printer. 

Little bitty sparkly bits

 I spent yesterday cutting long strands of sparkly metal into little bits of sparkly metal and then sewing them back together.

I stitched the stems and branches for the sunflowers on each side of the birds. Then I added the spangles at the tips of the branches.

The camera picks up some of the sparkles but only in a few places. This thing glitters!

Today I'm going to add more little bits of metal--this time in two colors, Woo-HOO!--all the way around. Then there are some unique motifs to add in metal thread--then finally a silk border. It is quite possible that I will have a finish in the near future if--Oh! SQUIRREL!!!

(I would really like to have a finish . . . I need to free up a 10" hoop before next Wednesday when I start another online class with Zina.)

And, on the computer front . . . can we say "User Error?" I suggested just turning the laptop off and waiting 24 hours, then restarting it. What do you know--it worked just fine.

This is only a test

 

Obviously I haven't stitched enough in the last couple of days to warrant a blog post, but I wanted to check to see if I could.

Dearly Beloved met me at the bottom of the steps this morning to announce that the computer was all screwed up and nothing was working. He has been poking at things all day and nothing is working, nothing, nada, nope, no, no, no.

I have finally wrested the computer from him and everything that I use still seems to be functioning.

I have no idea what he's done or did or is planning to do. If I go completely dark, you'll know he somehow uninstalled the entire operating system or catapulted the laptop into the stratosphere. Or he may just pout for a couple of days and then find that everything actually is doing what it should be.

Sigh . . . 

For My Sins

I must have done something horrible in a previous life.

I had a Zoom meeting this morning--Western Reserve Sampler Guild, absolutely lovely group of people who have fantastic programs--and I thought this would be a great time to start working on the panel in the middle of Carmen. 

Nine rows of letters.

This is how much I have done.

The thread is just slightly darker than the fabric.

It's 46 count fabric.

We all know that lettering, especially alphabets, is not my favorite thing to stitch. I must have been a terrible person then to have this kind of punishment now.

Victory!

I may have finally overcome my dread of Montenegrin Stitch.

 Montenegrin--especially diagonal Montenegrin stitch--has always been one of those stitches that I have to work in a quiet room, all alone. And then, afterwards, I have to lie down in a darkened room with a cold compress on my head to recover.

I think I was scarred in a long-ago class when the teacher tried to talk us through the transitions from linear Montenegrin to diagonal Montenegrin. She did not provide diagrams. Give me a picture and I can do just about anything. Talk at me and I go blank. Needless to say, I did not work on that section of the project in class, and the teacher was not pleased that I was doing my own thing in the corner of the room. She also didn't like the direction in which I cross my cross stitches or the way I do Queen stitches. In short, I was not a model student.

Finally, though, I was able to do Montenegrin stitches but it took sitting with Darlene O'Steen's "Proper Stitch" and Amy Mitten's "Autopsy of the Montenegrin Stitch" to get me through them.

But today, something clicked, and I just zipped along. My vine is outlined.

Of course, I still need to fill in the center of the vine with two rows of what Darlene calls double backstitch and diagonal double backstitch. 

I think I'll move on to something else for a bit.

Back in the Saddle Again

 I have been in a major stitching slump lately, in case you haven't noticed. I was trying to keep my wrist in the brace and elevated and rested because it has flared up again, then I started wondering what I would do with myself if I had to stop stitching entirely--and if that won't throw a stitching fool into a major funk, what will?

Then I realized that the few times I did stitch, my wrist actually felt better--less stiff, less sore unless I moved a certain way or tried to pick something up with my left hand.

But I was still in a slump.

It occurred to me that I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the projects in my current batch--notice I did not say rotation. Then again, I would likely be overwhelmed by any of my projects. I tend to be drawn to things that are large--or complicated to stitch--or big--or both. I mean, even my smalls aren't small in terms of complicated finishing or stitching or both.

I needed something smaller and simpler in my life.

As it happens, several weeks ago I ran across one of the samplers that Country Sampler was offering as part of its Threads of History sampler club.  Background: I don't usually fall in love with what seems to be considered the "traditional" schoolgirl sampler with rows and rows of alphabets and a big house. I like the quirky and different, and "A Fancy Basket: Ann Kemp 1815" is quirky. Rather than a house, it has a big honkin' basket smack dab in the middle. Little Ann did her best to get all her verse inside the border, but when it didn't fit, she just stitched her words right over the top of the edging. She did manage some symmetry but it's not the focal point.

Anyway, I ordered it. (I also signed up for the rest of the year in the Threads of History club but we're not going to discuss that at the moment.)

Sampler arrived. And it's relatively small. The colors aren't in the palette I generally gravitate to. It isn't complicated.

And I love it.

And I started working on it yesterday:

And now I'm ready to tackle some of the other things in the pile by my chair.

And don't hold me to this, but I may try an actual rotation again.

Hearts & Flowers

 I decided that maybe my mojo would come back if I mixed up the projects I work on for a bit.

So the Cherished Needlecase was set up on the stand, and I have been stitching palettes or spangles or whatever you want to call those little shiny disks to the silk:

Oh, how I wish the camera would pick up the glitter!

I have more metal to add to this section. I need to cut some little pieces of green smooth purl, which means I need to pull out my metal scissors and a metric ruler so I get them cut correctly.

And I discovered the story that the black dog pinged. It was a story written by Stephen Crane in the 1800's. I kept thinking it was something older than current fiction--thought it might be a mystery from the 1920's or '30's--maybe even something by Edgar Allan Poe from the 1800's--pulled an anthology of mysteries and ghost stories from the 1800's off the shelf (we have a very eclectic library in this household)--and there it was. The black dog was a harbinger of death in the Crane story, as apparently it was in many folk tales from a number of countries.

This still doesn't explain the spots on Carmen's dog.