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.