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.

Big Black Dog

 My stitching mojo wandered off this week, but I did get the big black dog on Carmen stitched.

There has been some discussion about the markings on the dog. I thought they might be the way the stitcher highlighted some areas, or gave the dogger some spots. Someone else who lives in this household has started calling the dog "that mangey mutt." I have no other comment to make about that.

I do want to mention whatever it is that is extending from the dog's mouth. His tongue or is he blowing a raspberry? Or is this a devil dog spitting flames into the universe? Inquiring minds want to know.

And while I'm asking questions, does anyone remember a mystery/suspense book that involves a black dog? It's not the Hound of the Baskervilles--I looked that up and it describes the dog as being "luminous" but not black. Maybe an Agatha Christie? BDE says there's a legend in Irish lore that describes a black dog as showing up either as a portent of death or a minion of Satan, but that's not it. At least, I don't think it is.

Something else to wonder about in the middle of the night, along with wondering why in the world I have lost all desire to stitch for awhile. I have plenty of projects, have even added more to the stash, but at the moment, I don't feel like doing any of them.

Let's hope it's just the Dog Days of Summer.

Maybe that's why I only worked on a black dog for the past week.

Shiny, oh so shiny!

 I decided to work on Carmen again--she hasn't seen any love in several weeks. And, oh, how I wish the sheen of the filament silk came through online!

I've started working on the big center section of the sampler. I think I'll work across the top part, then start the lettering that fits in the middle of the center section. I'll work the borders as I go

I used to be one of those stitchers who did all the border before I got to the insides, then I realized I had a lot of samplers that had about half a border done and nothing else. Obviously that order of work didn't result in a lovely finished project--so now I do borders as I go.

But now I believe I will rest my eyes--46 count linen is very different from the 36 count linen I'm using for the Queen Sampler and I'm having to adjust.

World Embroidery Day

Here it is, World Embroidery Day, and I haven't threaded a needle . . . yet.

But I have been looking through the massive book, Tennessee Samplers: Female Education and Domestic Arts, 1800 - 1900.

If you're a sampler lover, you may just want to invest in this one. If you want to read the histories of the girls who made the samplers, you would enjoy it. If you want to support the study of samplers and help to make it a relevant research subject for historians, you should most definitely buy a copy.

Plus, it's pure eye candy. There are amazing, clear photographs of the samplers discovered over the past twenty years.

But, I hate to admit, the thing that absolutely entranced me were some of the photos of the reverse side of the samplers.

Some of those little girls were messy stitchers.

 If you look closely--wow! Threads going every which way and ends sticking out all over the place and yet the fronts of the samplers look absolutely lovely.

I tend to be obsessive about having a neat back on my work, but, you know, maybe I could cut myself a little bit of slack once in awhile.

One Goal Met!

I have finished the first month's assignment on the Queen Sampler.

Today I absolutely have to clear off my worktable, which has become the repository for all sorts of odds and ends. I want to actually work at the table today instead of stacking things on it I can't decide what to do with. 

Mainly, I feel the need to do some finish-finishing before I start anything else. I keep thinking the elves are going to show up in the middle of the night and put all this stuff together, but that does not seem to be happening.

It's probably too hot for elves. After all, they live at the North Pole, right?

 

Pitiful, Just Pitiful

 Have you ever had one of those weeks when you have lots of ideas about what you want to do and then you don't get any of it done?

Welcome to my world.

This pitiful bit of stitching is all I've been able to accomplish this whole week. I mean, this is pitiful!

I have to say, though, there are more stitches on this than you would think since I decided to use reversible cross stitch, as Darlene O'Steen intended for her Queen Sampler.

I am beginning to regret some of my life choices.

Other Stuff

Yesterday I worked on other things while participating in a couple of Zoom meetings.

During our EGA Region's monthly stitch-in, I worked on Darlene O'Steen's Queen sampler:

 I decided to stitch it reversibly.

I had forgotten just how long it takes to work an alphabet reversibly, but now I'm committed. I may be committed by the time I finish working the sampler reversibly.

Then, during the EGA Special Interest Group in surface embroidery, I pulled out my long-neglected crewel piece, one of the vintage Elsa Williams kits in my stash.

Yes, I'm working my way through all the green stuff first.

Part of it has to do with working things in the back first, then working forward, but that's not the main reason. Green is not my most favorite color, and there's a lot of it in this design. It's a tree, of course there's a lot of green, but I was afraid if I didn't get all the leaves done, I'd never, ever come back to the piece once I stitched the pretty, colorful flowers and buds and butterfly.

So, I am trudging through the green.

So many leaves.

So much green.

Sigh . . .

Back to Stitching

I did not mean to go dark for a week. 

We bought a car.

This entailed a whole lot more time and energy than I was interested in spending. I am not a car person. Anyway, I think we're going to like it, even through it may be smarter than we are. And I hope it will be the last car I buy in this lifetime.

There was some stitching this week.

The humongous and complicated band is done. The very sweet and much less complicated floral band below it is also done. The next section has a lot of spot motifs and an alphabet and more border. I think I'm going to enjoy working on it, but I may take a day or so off to work on something else, just to shake things up a little and to keep the creative flow flowing.

I also started a new project, Darlene O'Steen's Queen Sampler. The Mayflower Sampler Guild is doing this as a SAL. However, I started it last night and there isn't enough to show at this point.

Then the mail came today and brought me the kit for the next class with Zina Kasben. 

Everything is so pretty when it comes out of the mailing box that you just don't want to mess it up by opening everything.

But then you do and there are all kinds of goodies inside, also beautifully packaged.

And Zina also sends a little gift, beautifully handstitched. Can you believe it's a button?

Such incredibly fine work!!

Anyway, I have to wait until September to start, which means I could potentially get the two classes I started earlier this year finished before I start this.

I believe I had better stitch tonight.

War Stories

First of all, obligatory stitching since this is a stitching blog:

 Soooooooo close to finishing this band and turning the scroll bars!

And now for more stories:

The first message in my email yesterday morning arrived from an English friend who sent a photo of her husband, attired in his boxers and dead-heading the flowers in their garden. Their garden has a head-high wall around it, so he believes no one can see him. However, all the houses around theirs have more than one floor, so someone could look down into their garden from the houses on either side. After all, my friend said, she can easily see her neighbors' gardens from her bedroom window, and all the houses in their area have the same type of head-high wall around their back gardens.

Her garden is absolutely glorious, by the way.

Then I had an email from another friend whose husband also promenades outside to check things when there's heavy rain, also in his boxers.

And then there was the call from another long-time friend, who was laughing so hysterically she could hardly speak. Her husband used to charge outside in his boxers to pick up the morning newspaper (in the days when you actually received a physical newspaper that was thrown somewhere in the vicinity of the front of your house in the early hours of the morning). One morning, while she was away helping her daughter with a new baby, he went strolling out as usual--and the door closed and locked behind him. 

Well the next door neighbor had a key to their house. The next door neighbor was a retired professor of English Literature. She had never married and was pushing ninety. This does not mean that she had never seen a man in boxer shorts, but the stereotype would indicate that perhaps she hadn't. Anyway, after circling his house to see if there was any way to get in--there wasn't--he went next door.

The neighbor invited him in while she got the key, asked him if he'd like a towel or blanket or something to cover himself more . . . 

And then swatted him on the behind when he went out the door.

This is just a sampling of the tales I heard yesterday. I find it interesting that all the gentlemen in the tales were in their 70's.

Is there something deep in the recesses of the male genome that precipitates outdoor boxer-wearing behavior at this age? Or do they just go feral?

Just a little on a Monday

 I started on the fill-in on the current band on Carmen.

I don't think I'm going to get in my three hours today. We had an abbreviated night  and my eyes keep crossing.

My area of North Carolina got about 7 inches of rain in just a couple of hours last night--nothing like the tragedy in Texas, but enough to cause flash flooding and weather alerts. Our corner of the building is close to a "wet-weather creek" which means that there is a trickle of water at the bottom of a ditch unless we have wet weather. Then we have a creek. Last night we had a torrent or water rushing over the banks of the ditch and covering the little footbridge that extends over the creek.

Now, how do I know about this? Dearly Beloved was going to go out on the covered part of the deck to see if there was water coming up our sidewalk. I noticed he put his raincoat on as he went outside but figured he was just going to make sure he didn't get wet since, after all, he was already ready for bed. Wearing his usual t-shirt and boxers.

What I didn't realize was that he decided to reconnoiter the parking lot and the creek. So here he is, wandering around the neighborhood in a raincoat and his boxers. Does this sound like a flasher to anyone else?

The man needs a keeper.

And, in answer to the brownie question--No, I didn't bake brownies. To make the mint glaze, I would need to find a box of thin mint wafers, which may no longer be made. They're like a York Peppermint Patty but about a fourth the thickness. To glaze the brownies, you spread those wafers on top of the brownies when they come out of the oven, The chocolate coating melts and they become spreadable.

I have tried doing this with Andes Mints, but they're too thick to melt quickly enough.

And besides, we really don't need to eat a whole pan of brownies, possibly at one sitting. They're that good.

Day of Rest

I took today off and read a book and watched Brenda and Laura on Flosstube. I also watched the rain come down--we're in the area getting storms spun off by Tropical Storm Chantal, and it has been pouring most of the afternoon and evening.

However, I did want to come online to mention that the peppermint extract seemed to work. I did not have any new mosquito bites this morning.

Of course, Dearly Beloved mentioned that he thought it would be a wonderful idea if I baked the brownies with the mint icing that I used to make at Christmas when we had ravenous children in the house who would eat them. He said he had no idea why he suddenly had a hankering for them.

 

Framework Finished

At long last, the framework for this band is done!!

I still have the flowers to do, but I'll work on that tomorrow.

Hopefully, I will be stitching earlier tomorrow than I was today. I got a late start.

I was late getting up because I have been the victim of a vicious attack. Apparently, there is a mosquito in the house. She has been waiting until I go to bed, and then she gets me, because every morning I wake up with a new welt. And the collection  I've accumulated itches.

I can avoid scratching when I'm awake. It isn't easy, but I can do it. However, when I'm asleep, if something itches, I scratch. And, as we all know who have suffered from mosquito bites, the more you scratch the more you itch.

And that mans the itching has been waking me up.

Why is it that pangs and pains are always worse when it's the middle of the night?

Anyway, I've dabbed antihistamine cream on the bites, which helps for a limited period of time. Then I read that a mild oral antihistamine could also help with the itch. So I took a Benadryl before I went to bed last night.

I didn't itch. I also didn't wake up until half the day was over.

Tonight I'm going to dab myself with peppermint extract. Apparently mosquitoes don't like that flavor. Hopefully it will work.

Or I can just say I was having Christmas in July.

Going Fourth

 We've had our traditional viewing of an old History Channel documentary, The Revolution, today, which I believe that we're now going to follow up with Les Mis. Somehow that seems fitting this year.

And I did my three hours on Carmen--with plenty of breaks. That got me to this point:

Hopefully I can finish this partial bit and that will leave me only one more section of framework. Then I can add the flowers and be done with this band.

Meanwhile, my friend Susan found out what Tomato Blood is. It's regular Heinz catsup with a special label for Halloween since a lot of people use catsup to look like blood on their Halloween costumes. Now I can't figure out if it was on sale because they're doing an early Halloween special--or because they found a couple of cases left over from Halloween in the warehouse.

Needless to say, I do not plan to purchase any.

On the Third

 I got the last large framework on Carmen stitched today--that just leaves two partial frames and a corner to set up before I add the flowers.

Hmmmm, somehow that came out upside down, but since it's symmetrical, that shouldn't make any difference. 

I was thinking as I stitched today. I believe I'm going to try to work on Carmen for three to four hours every day, and then, if my wrist allows, move on to something else after resting my hands for a bit. I've wanted to work on the Cherished Letter Case and go back to Queen Catherine's Sweet Bag and do some  finish-finishing--and there's still No Place Like Home to complete. 

I could almost set up a rotation, but if you've been following my blog for any length of time, you'll remember that I don't do well with scheduled stitching. That's why I'm not sure if I can stick to mornings with Carmen, but I do want to get her off the scroll frame by the end of the year. Three hours a day would be about ninety hours a month and that should mean an end is in sight.

Queen Catherine has another reason to get back in my hands. This arrived today.

More goodies to go with the book/box, the fob, and the sweet bag. So very pretty ...

And, in another area of my life, today was grocery day. As usual, I was looking at the store's weekly specials to see if there was anything we wanted to add to the list. I ran across a product I have not seen before. Apparently Heinz catsup was on sale this week, and one of the products they listed as "Tomato Blood."

Tomato Blood?

What the blankety-blank-blank is tomato blood?

As Dearly Beloved does the hunting and gathering portion of our life, I was in hopes that he would investigate and report back. (He does the grocery shopping because I don't enjoy touring each and every aisle of the store so that I can look at everything on every shelf. He does.)

He forgot to look.

Does anyone reading this know what tomato blood could be?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Trudging Along

I got a little more done on Carmen.

 I had hoped to get the last full framework done, but I have realized that this band is going to take more time than any of the others. Yes, it is satin stitch, but when it's satin over two threads, and there are a lot of those stitches, it's going to take the time it takes. Add to that is the count of the linen--46 count--and the shade of the thread--which is a pale neutral on a pale neutral background--and it's just going to be a drawn-out process.

That's my rationalization and I'm sticking to it.

Someone suggested just skipping this band and coming back to it later. I'm afraid I would never go back. I'd just have a sampler with a big blank in it, It was also suggested that I do something else for awhile. I did something else for awhile--just about a whole year--and it didn't make things any easier. I just need to get it done, and then lie down with a cold compress on my head.

It was also brought to my attention that the year is half over. I didn't need to know that.

So, onward and upward!

Thinking and more thinking

 I spent three hours on the phone this morning dealing with various and sundry financial things. There are times when you have to do that--today was one of those times. After that, I needed to sit in the corner and rock and drool for a bit. When I recovered, the only thing I was capable of stitching was tent stitch over one on No Place Like Home.

I still have more to do, but at least I don't have to work around numbers.

And I spent some time thinking about stitching in general and blogging about stitching.

What I concluded is that I want to continue stitching and blogging, but I have to figure out how I want to do both. If I don't stitch I don't blog. At the same time, when I'm working on only one project at a time, the blog can become very boring

I came to no conclusions, so I thought I would ask for suggestions. And I may try a few things to see if any of them work.

(Please keep in mind that I have decided I need to finish some things because the number of projects I want to stitch keeps increasing while the number of finishes seems to be decreasing. Sigh . . . )

Slowly, slowly, slo-o-o-owly

 I'm stitching a bit, very slowly and with lots of breaks.

It's making a little bit crazy. But at least I'm stitching.

Here's where we are on Carmen:

That bit at the bottom of the motif on the right is going to have to come out because I can't count. What can I say, it's been a Monday all day.

This band has been a problem for awhile. I stopped on it when I discovered I was a horizontal thread off and couldn't find it. It's one of the bigger bands, and it's one of the least interesting to stitch, IMHO. And now I have to rip.

I'd be tempted to put it in time out, but I'm afraid I might never go back. So I will persevere, painful though it may be, in more ways than one.

The current alternative project is also moving slowly, mainly because it's tent stitch over one and there's a lot of it.

This is the bottom of one of the pockets on No Place Like Home. This isn't the most interesting thing to stitch, either, but it has to be done.

I think I need to just put my head down and get all of this done so I can get back to the more enjoyable bits and pieces of these projects. I have too many UFO's and WIPs because I got bored or frustrated or both, but I still want the finished projects.

So, along with patience, I need to learn perseverance in my old age.

Super Duper Mail Day

It was a joy to go to the mailbox today.

The Queen's Needlework Tool Kit--the most recent entry in Amy Mitten's Queen's Attire series--landed in my mailbox this morning.

The kit is packed with simply delicious goodies--velvet and brocade and metal threads and little bits and pieces of lovely stuff. I feel simply regal looking through the contents of the package.

And the current issue of Inspirations arrived.

I would really, really love to stitch my way from cover to cover in this issue.

Actually, I would really, really love to stitch, but my wrist is still acting up. I am on anti-inflammatories and hopefully that will help because I am starting to climb the walls. And Dearly Beloved has started tiptoeing around me. 

I must be patient, I must be patient, I MUST BE PATIENT!!!

It's not a pretty picture around here.

 

Rounding a Corner

I decided I'm going to start having Sampler Sundays again, mainly because Carmen has been glaring at me for months and months.

After spending some time readjusting to working on 46 count linen--the last couple of projects I've worked on have used 32 count, and believe me, there is an adjustment these aged eyes need to make--I filled in a corner on the band I was last working on.

 I'm still off one horizontal thread somewhere. I cannot find it. It is a mystery. However, I've decided I no longer care about perfection--at least on this band--and I am moving on. I will compensate as best I can. And if anyone can spot the oopsie--well, at this point, I no longer want to know.

This means, of course, that I will have forty-leven people pointing out exactly where I went wrong.