Weeping Willow

 I may have mentioned before--maybe a thousand times or so--that I don't do random.

Right now, I'm doing random.

The leaves on the willow tree should be random. Catherine's model doesn't have as many leaves, but apparently I feel the need to have a whole lot of leaves on mine. 

At least the bottom branches have leafed out and I just have the top branches to do. Then I can go back to counting.

Come to think of it, sometimes my counting becomes a little random, too.

SABLE and then some

 I had already passed the point of Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy some time ago.

And I made it worse.

What can I say? I can avoid anything except stitching temptations.

First, a beautiful silk and metal embroidery from Deborah Wilding. It has silk embroidery! It has metal threads! It has jewels and beads! It's shiny and glitzy and makes my heart go pitty-pat!

I absolutely have to finish my Zina pieces before I start this because I only have two 10" hoops and I need one for this. There's just something about a new shiny toy that makes you want to dive right in.

And then . . . while I was working on RST, I kept thinking that there are times when I just need a project that I can stitch without doing anything more than counting or filling in a shape--like crewel or needlepoint or plain cross stitch. And wouldn't you just know it, a Facebook Friend was downsizing her stash and offering kits for three schoolgirl samplers. And, again, I succumbed.

And finally, the Western Reserve Sampler Guild offered a class with Needlework Press. I hope to kit this up when I go to Sassy Jack's in a couple of weeks.

It is now time for me to thread my needle and get to work. The laundry is done, Dearly Beloved is cooking dinner tonight, and I can spend the rest of the day stitching. I know, it's a hard life, but someone has to do it.

Why I Don't Stitch in Class

It's because I screw up.

Apparently I can't stitch and pay attention to the teacher at the same time without either miscounting or missing some vital instruction that will make or break the project.

I also cannot measure and cut accurately when there are other people around. Actually, there are times when I cannot measure and cut accurately when there is no one besides me around, but at home I have Mylar and Skirtex and interfacing and comic board in my stash so I can replace whatever I mess up.

So . . . when I take a class I take lots of notes and lots of pictures and the rest of the time I sit in my corner and try to be quiet.

That's what I did at the last trip to Salty Yarns.

BDE and I trooped up the Eastern Shore for three classes with Jackie du Plessis, and this is what we took:

 This is an amazing sewing bag inspired by the 17th century sampler that belongs to Crystal, who also comes to a lot of Jackie's classes. (We're trying to talk Jackie into reproducing the entire sampler because it is to die for.)

And I lied. I did stitch in class. I started a little bit to prove I could remember how to do a stitch that isn't a Queen stitch. I could do a Smyrna cross.

I am not exaggerating to say that I have been waiting for this since before Covid--at least six years. It was supposed to be a class at Christmas in Williamsburg, then Covid hit and that event was cancelled. And finally, it is in my hot little hands.

BDE is already working on this one. The band sampler that fits in the little drawer is a perfect thing to stitch during meetings or while watching TV or just before bedtime, and she is zooming right along. And, yes, it was in my pile of 18 projects and I may get back to it very soon.

And this is where I took loads and loads of notes and pictures and otherwise stayed in my corner and out of trouble. Jackie showed us how to put all the interior structure together and wanted us do it. There were people in class who stayed up to the wee hours to get theirs done.

I knew better. When I messed up trying to stitch a very simple motif that makes one of the handles--or, as BDE said when she looked at my mistake, "You're hosed."--I knew I had reached my limit.

So what am I working on today?

A different Jackie project for a class that I'm auditing at Sassy Jack's in May. I want to get to a certain point before the class so I can put it together after the class. 

It occurred to me that maybe I should just take a year to do all my Jackie projects. Maybe I should take two years.

So many stitches . . . so much fun . . . good thing I'm retired!

Long Time, No See

 I have been remiss in both stitching and blogging, but I think I'm back!

In the last three weeks, I have rested my hands and wrists because they were starting to give me problems again. BDE and I went to Salty Yarns for three classes with Jackie du Plessis. 

And I finished RST 1779.

TA DA!!!!!! Hot off the scroll bars!!!!

reproduction by Gentle Pursuits

worked on 40 count Wichelt linen with AVAS 

all Queen stitch, all the time (except for the date and attribution)

close-up of the last few flowers

what may be my favorite motif (because it was the last one)

And what have I done since I finished this? Actually, the minute it was pressed and photographed, I started running around* like a puppy with the zoomies, pulling out projects from bins and piles and tote bags and saying, "I want to stitch you, and I want to stitch you, and I want to stitch YOU!"

*(When I say I was running around, I mean I actually heaved my large and lovely self out of the wing chair and lurched and tottered around until I had a scary stack of stuff on my worktable.)

I had 18 projects stacked up in a precarious pile. This does not include the dozen Christmas ornaments I originally planned to stitch before the holidays or the stuff in one of the finishing baskets.  Before RST came into my life, I had sorta thought that I would do an ornament a month in 2025, and I'd see the bottom of at least one of the finishing baskets by the end of the year.

And I had also signed up for five online classes that all started in the first quarter of the year.

With RST, none of that happened. The problem is that when I have obligation stitching or something on a deadline, I feel guilty if I work on anything else. It probably goes back to that first-born girl child business of eating all your veggies before you can have dessert or doing all of your homework before you can play.

This isn't to say I'll never stitch another model for anyone, but there will be limits and parameters, and I won't take anything on if I have plans I want to accomplish. I'm getting older and the stash isn't getting smaller and I have to be realistic about how much I can do.

And those 18 projects?

No, I'm not going to work on all of them immediately. I want to get back to Carmen. I'd like to finish the two letter cases from the classes Zina Kazban taught, along with Liz Tapper's goldwork motif. And I want to do some finishing. And I'm going to bounce from one to another as the mood strikes--that creative flow thing, you know.

And, hopefully you'll see more blogging and hear less whinging and whining.

Creative Flow

 I may have mentioned this before. If I did, I'm sorry, but I'm going to mention it again.

I ran across an article a month or so ago in which the author (whose name I have totally forgotten, and I apologize for not giving credit where credit is due) talked about creative flow. Basically, she recommended having multiple projects in the works at any given time so if you get stuck on one, you can easily move to another. Thus you keep creativity flowing, and you may find that you get unstuck more rapidly than you would have if you had just kept on plugging away.

Sadly, RST 1779 has dammed up my creative flow.

This is the point I reached when I realized I absolutely could not stitch another Queen stitch. Not even if my life depended on it.

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you'll notice that I do finish things, but I am anything but a monogamous stitcher. About the only thing I've ever succeeded at being monogamous at is being married to Dearly Beloved, and neither one of us is sure if that's just not a case of inertia.

So, I'm going to work on other projects for a bit. I'll circle around to RST again in the fairly near future--for one thing, I'm so close to a finish it's ridiculous--but I need a vacation from her.

And I am never, ever going to stitch anything with a deadline again.

Slow but Steady

 I'm making slow but steady progress on the last of the geometric motifs.

Painfully slow . . .

And in other news, I've finally figured out how to respond to comments on the blog itself--so if you've commented, you should see a response here within a couple of days. One more  tiny bit of technology I've managed to learn.

Who says old dogs can't learn new tricks?

Pretty Thing

 I have something else to stitch once RST 1779 is history.

Look what came in the mail!

Amy Mitten's Needleworkers Reticule arrived! This is actually all BDE's fault because she saw it first and told me I had to get it. She is going to do it, too. We've decided this might be a good SAL for the two of us.

Along with the two classes we're taking at Salty Yarns next week. (Actually, I'm taking three classes.)

Like daughter, like mother, I guess. Interesting when the roles start to reverse . . . 

Eating my veggies and dishpan hands

 I decided to eat my veggies and do those two big geometric designs that were fully filled in.

That whopper of a design--which we have been calling the conjoined twins motif--took way more time to fill in that I anticipated. I was beginning to think that the gremlins were pulling stitches out after I went to bed. But it's done--and I can move on to some smaller geometrics and the last pretty floral designs.

My time was also taken up by washing dishes. For the second time in our marriage, we have had to endure a dishwasher that was out of order. For a week. O.M.G.

Now, I don't mind washing my fine china by hand, but the everyday stuff . . . it's a big enough pain having to figure out what to eat three meals a day, When you add washing dishes three times a day on top of it, well, domesticity loses all allure. And, yes, we did resort to paper plates when it was practical, but there are some things that really need solid dishes. 

And working with silk with dishpan hands . . . I think I have used up half a tub of CeraVe hand cream in the last week.

However, we now have a working dishwasher again. Happy Days, especially since we have ribs in the crock pot and a large bowl of marinated veggies and plans to bake cornbread for dinner tonight. By the time I scrubbed all those pots and pans out, I'd have to finish the other half of the tub of CeraVe!