123123

I had to write a blog today because of the 123123 thing with the date. If you've been on a desert island--or extremely busy with holiday stuff, you may have missed that today's date, 12/31/23 comes out as 123123.

I do not know why that has amused me so much, but it has. Apparently I need to get a life.

Anyway, today I am going to bake mini-cheesecakes for our very low-key Ring-In-The-New-Year festivities, I am going to iron and sew linen to scroll bars because I don't enjoy stitching in hand, and I'm going to work on this:

I'm making the detached elements for the first frieze on the first side of Harmony that I have worked. Most of the area was stitched in January and February of 2022. After two years, I think it's time to get back to this project.

I thought about naming Harmony as the focus project for the year, or trying to finish it completely in 2024--I even worked out a schedule--but then I decided I want to enjoy the journey. No deadlines, no pressure, just the joy of stitching.

After the last couple of years, I am really looking forward to that!

What Day is This?

 Where am I? Who am I? What day is this? What date is this?

I don't think I've ever been so discombobulated as I have been this year. It started last week, when I thought Thursday was Friday, Christmas Eve was Saturday, and Christmas was Sunday--which threw this week off completely. We had our small family get-together on Saturday, which then made Friday feel like Christmas Eve and Saturday was Christmas. Do you see the problem, or have I totally lost it?

I haven't known which day it was all week--didn't help that apparently both Dearly Beloved and I came down with a mercifully brief tummy bug early in the week. I think I spent the actual Christmas in my bathrobe--or was it the day after?

Back in my working days, I always tried to save enough vacation days to take the week after Christmas off. I generally planned to work on some special project, even when I didn't actually work on said project. I don't miss working one bit, but I do miss some of the structure.

Anyway, there has been very little stitching. I did finish the band on Catherine Theron's Flowers & Berries sampler that sent it into time out.

I decided to leave the spiral trellis stitches all one color rather than changing them midway. That seemed to be the general consensus of those I asked.  I did have one friend who asked if I could leave it, knowing that I did it wrong and this would be a constant reminder that I had made a mistake. Something about the tone of her voice rubbed me the wrong way and brought out the rebellion in my soul. Why, yes, I do believe I will leave it. I am the boss of me, and there was probably something unconscious that suggested I'd be happier with solid color berries.

Of course, that was after Dearly Beloved looked at the photocopy of the original finished sampler and asked why I would want googly eyes on mine. That is the remark I would remember every time I looked at the work if I had changed it.

Other than that, I have barely had a needle in my hand. Mostly, I have been trying to organize the stash. 

And that led me to an appalling realization about the number of ancient UFO's in it. Most of them are workshop or class pieces, some of them are decades old. 

Hence my one New Year's resolution. I am not starting anything new on New Year's Day.

I am not going to do a Blessings Sampler, I am not going to pull threads and fabric for a new project. I am not going to pull out one of the kits I bought over the last several months--or last several years. I am going to work on a UFO or a WIP.

And I'm going to try to finish up some of these ancient and not-so-ancient projects in 2024. Note that I am not stating that I will start no new projects. I know myself too well to try that, plus I have three stitching events I'm planning to attend in the first four months of the year. Also, I know if I said I wasn't going to add to the stash, my favorite designers would immediately offer designs that I could not pass up, even if I had some will power when it comes to stitching.

So, if you're still with me after this long and rambling post that I'm writing at 4:30 a.m. because I don't know what time it is, along with what day it is--you may see some ancient and aged projects in the next twelve months.

If I get done what I'd love to get done, I either need to become an octopus or give up sleeping entirely and stitch 24/7.

Merry Christmas!

Peace and Joy to you!

 

Good and not so good

I added the leaf to my sample page for this term of the Deep Dive into Stumpwork course, and I'm even happier with it than I was before.

 You can even see the shadow behind it!

But then there was the hand. Oh, dear, the hand.

It looks like an arthritic skeleton.

I think I know what I did wrong. I got carried away with wrapping the wire to make the fingers, so they're way longer than they need to be. I think I could have started wrapping the palm earlier to make the fingers shorter.

I'm not so sure about the arthritis, though. 

Anyway, my sampler has a disembodied hand attached, and I have ideas on improvement, but I think I'm moving on. Actually, today I pulled Harmony out and started working the detached elements for the first panel. That is going a little better than the hand.

It wouldn't take much to do better than the hand. That hand is pitiful.

Leafing Out

Of all the teeny, tiny, fiddly things I have made with a needle, this may be the teeniest, tiniest, fiddliest of them all.

I made a leaf in needlelace yesterday.

It will be added to my stumpwork class sampler as soon as I get the next teeny, tiny fiddly thing done. Today I am going to make a hand with embroidery floss and wire.

Meanwhile, Dearly Beloved has discovered that I have absconded with a number of his tools. I needed a screw driver to tighten the screw on my embroidery hoop, and last night I needed pliers* to pull the needle through the stitches to weave all twenty thread tails through the back of the leaf.

That may be the fiddliest thing I will ever do.

*Somewhere I have a hemostat that I can use instead of pliers, but it has gone AWOL since the Big Move. I'm sure it will turn up. Eventually.

A Most Outstanding Mail Day

 I was going to spread out my Stalking the Mail Carrier posts through December, but today was such an excellent mail day, I couldn't wait.

Two packages, three kits, oh my oh my!

I had told a friend that I absolutely was not going to order these kits, even though if you bought both, you got a discount. I have enough, I said. I don't need anything else in my life.

I lied.

Lemon Pepper Studio creates unique raised embroidery designs,  and I fell in love with the first garden design. Then there was a second. And then there was a Christmas discount. And there will be more in the series.

I succumbed.

They arrived in pretty little boxes, with a notecard thanking the buyer for buying from a small business and a Happy Stitching card.

Don't you almost hate to break the seal? The packaging on so many of the projects you can order these days is so carefully done, and makes the anticipation that much greater. But then you fold back the tissue paper and see what's inside!

And a close-up of one of the kits--even a hoop! And a little bead container! And all the threads and materials and everything else to make the project!!!

And then there was another package . . . the kit for the class based on Trevelayan Miscellany that I took online Saturday. It wandered around the country for awhile before landing in my mailbox, but it's here!

Look at those luscious colors of Appleton wool--and there's an extensive instruction book--and the design is already transferred to lovely linen twill. 

This is a project from Relics in Situ. If you're at all interested in historical embroidery, you may want to visit their website and sign up for their lectures. I learn something every time I take one of their online courses--like the shading done ion the 1600's was block shading rather than the long and short color blending I learned from the multitude of Elsa Williams kits I've stitched. (I have to say, I prefer the way Elsa Williams designed over block shading, but at least I now know what would be historically accurate to the 1600's.)

No, I am not leaping into any of these projects, as tempted as I am. I have a list of thing I want to do to finish out 2023, and, so far, I'm sticking to it.

But I am so very tempted. SO very tempted!

Progress Report

 Hallelujah, I finished all the motifs for the first term of the Deep Dive into Whitework online course I've been taking.

The blue outlines will be washed out at the end of the course. We have a break between now and the beginning of Term Two, so I'm going to do my best to get both Term Three projects for Stumpwork and Goldwork done before the next whitework term begins.

And the next-to-last ornament that I think I can get done before Christmas is stitched and assembled.

This is Barbara Jackson's Christmas Bells are Ringing ornament for 2023. I had a little bit of trouble getting the fabric mounted around the form, but it's on. Corners are hard to get smooth, at least they are if you're a klutz.

So this was my quick, fly-by, catch-up post. See you when I catch my breath again--it's been a busy weekend--but then, this time of year always is!